A new book about Nietzsche: tethering philosophy to the mess of daily experience
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Discussions celebrating one's own and mutual ignorance, with people shooting whatever cheap shots pop up about a great thinker, writer, and soul, make me cringe to be part of HN.
There is a morbid interest in seeing how internet discussions, viewed as a whole, behave like a physiological process—perhaps a digestive organ, turning waste of one kind into waste of another.
grabs popcorn
This piece presents an exceptionally shallow introduction and survey of Nietzsche's body of thought. If you get into reading Nietzsche with the intent of learning how to live better you're going to have an impossible time.
If you're interested in reading Nietzsche I'd recommend first reading more philosophy and history (the things Nietzsche studied) in order to get some context for the things he says. It's pretty much impossible to understand what he's talking about unless you have that knowledge since his works are (in large part) a critical analysis of the nature and evolution of the modes of human thought and behavior.
Would be interested to hear your thoughts on:
1. What is/are the cultural sensibilities of HN?
2. Which ideas are antithetical to them?
My guess is that whatever your answer to item 1 above, you'll be downvoted and hated by those who disagree (I think HN spans a vast array of viewpoints personally), so maybe it's best not to answer. It is a sincere question tho.
I won't post an excerpt here because it will just get me banned.
Always seemed to me that critical thinking is partly about sorting the good shit from the bad; to put it another way, this is why it's important to not trust authority just because it's authority. Evaluate each thing on its own merits (as best as your capabilities the situation allows) and go from there.
I take issue with Nietzsche's skepticism and derision of democracy but I'm willing to entertain his arguments and perspective. Carl Jung put forth a theory in his Psychological Types that Nietzsche's particular views on democracy were a reaction to his particular historical circumstances which makes sense to me.
I believe many people here have differentiated opinions. There wouldn't be a ban because you e.g. quote the bible, although it has some really misogynistic lines, especially if you want to challenge opinions in an intellectually challenging way. Many people are open for discussions - I mean, 80% of HN's value stems from being a platform where you can procrastinate easily.
http://nietzsche.holtof.com/reader/friedrich-nietzsche/beyon...
There are three obvious problems with this: (1) the historical story is only partially true; (2) it is not at all difficult to rework pre-modern beliefs within a modern and secular framework; (3) this whole argument depends on a very particular view of what 'moral philosophy' is and can be.
IMO the best introduction to Nietzsche is Christopher Janaway's 'Beyond Selflessness', though it concentrates on the Genealogy of Morality. It's also worth reading Walter Kaufmann's 'Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist' - the book that originally rehabilitated Nietzsche's image in the English-speaking world in the 1950s. Before that, Nietzsche was either ignored, or thought of as proto-fascistic (Nietzsche's sister, who controlled Nietzsche's papers after he fell into insanity, famously had an important role in this. Hitler helped her open a Nietzsche archive).
I don't know that I agree with you here. Are you arguing we can root morality in objectivity?
The Chinese government was able to pull a ton of people out of poverty and into the middle class with a system of governance that most Westerners find, on balance, to be too costly to individual civil rights for the benefits it produces. Whatever side of the debate you are on you have to acknowledge that there are very real differences in foundational moral principals. While I don’t doubt that some moral principals can be derived from psychology, all things being equal, the problem is that our most fundamental moral disagreements are always very complicated and always involve placing valence on multiple projected outcomes.
I don’t understand how people so easily dismiss Nietzche’s central philosophical claims when a good chunk of modern philosophy and indeed the terrible history of the first half of the 20th century has largely vindicated him.
It’s not like it even matters as a point of debate though, as we will see who is right very soon.
Look around: objective morality indeed! We are generating the worst negative externalities we have ever generated as a species and we placate ourselves because we have democratized the blame.
If this is a moral generation then I would like to know whoever was immoral. We’re about to destroy each other at scales unheard of, but because it’s through the environment and not through war we have rendered ourselves inculpable.
At least pre-Modern Aristolean morality forced people to think of their obligations to their community.
What you are really saying, I'm guessing, is that humans have certain altruistic or moral capacities, and that there are certain game-theoretic principles that suggest how we might act in our collective self-interest.
Note that both of those things depend on false conditions: we are adapted to an environment which is not our present one; highly idealised game-theoretic situations tell us little about the complex realities of politics, history, economics, etc.
And what is valuable is not what is in our evolutionary advantage hundreds of thousands of years ago, or what is game-theoretically in our collective self-interest. And again, neither of these things can possibly ground an 'objective' basis to morality. You are confusing the descriptive sense of morality (as a feature of animal systems) with its normative sense.
We are basically talking about different things although we use the same words (descriptive vs normative sense). It's basically defining words (like "ought" in the context of objectivity) and drawing conclusions. Calling my line of thinking "silly" shows me that there is a chance that I didn't specify the semantics in a way that they make sense for you in that context.
Parent asked
> Are you arguing we can root morality in objectivity?
And I hinted at the possibility that you could use certain scientific insights to build a framework which uses a certain kind of objectivity (which depends on your definition of objectivity - here I use it for scientific thinking).
If this fits someone who is scientific-minded (it certainly isn't enough for me to be a sound framework, so I agree with you that making descriptive facts a foundation for ones' morality is definitely lacking in some important qualities), this line of thinking can be used by that individual to say "I think morality has roots in objectivity".
I'm not stating my opinion here, it's more about arguments that could be used by individuals who want to have this kind of framework for themselves. I definitely see the limits in this (like you), but I was just trying to answer the question from a different angle.
Basically I was talking about people who could say things like "There is no god, we haven't seen him and the meaning of life is to reproduce" - scientific-minded people who elevate descriptive aspects so they become the foundation of their belief system. For them, there certainly can be morality in objectivity with those aspects (psychology, game theory) - although you and I don't have to agree with that because it may look one-dimensional to us.
edit: I found that perspective interesting because there are people who call themselves scientific-minded who dismiss the possibility that morality has roots in objectivity, so I found it worthwhile to show this angle.
The other point is that I don't think there is some kind of special philosophical condition of coherence characteristic of pre-modern, or specifically Aristotelian, philosophy, which has now been irretrievably lost. MacIntyre only thinks that because he is an Aristoelian.
I personally think the search for an 'objective' basis for morality is philosophically wrongheaded, and that the belief that morality either is objective or entirely meaningless is complete nonsense.
Hans Sluga, Politics and the Search for the Common Good
Both are very sceptical of the attempt to formulate a general theory of how the world should be in the abstract. They have a different take on political theory.
Geuss also recently wrote a brilliant series of intellectual portraits of ten or so figures from the history of moral/political thought, which is extraordinarily incisive, but also very accessible. It's called Changing the Subject: Philosophy from Socrates to Adorno.
I've argued this before but my personal opinion was Nietzsche was primarily concerned with challenging orthodoxy. He felt that people submit to moral authority without really considering why a particular set of principles are favored or from where that authority comes. As such he often played the devil's advocate trying his level best to show that the out-of-favor principles had some real advantages.
He often laments that people will misunderstand him and I think this is what he meant. He was working at a higher level of abstraction and knew people would focus on his examples rather than his higher meaning. I don't think he was aligned with the Dionysian as much as he was trying to defend it well enough to show that the Apollonian was no more objectively valid.
He's been one of the most influential philosophers in the 20th century, both through Heidegger's influence -- especially in France, and through neo-Marxist (Frankfurt school) engagement with him. Finally there's Freud and his school of psychoanalysis, who took a lot of inspiration from N.
That doesn't really play to his advantage either.
That doesn't really play to his
advantage either.
The parts of Freudian psychoanalysis that have not passed the test of time (e.g. Oedipus complex, sexual differentiation, theory of homosexuality) clearly don't come via Nietzsche, whereas Freud's approach to memory and its malleability by our desires and hopes, which is most clearly from N, is not only alive and kicking, but as far as I can tell, now (in suitably modernised form) the dominant understanding of memory in contemporary psychology.
It's like saying that homeopathy principles are sound because vaccines are also based on `things that make you sick`.
I'd rather suggest you try to get a copy of `the black book of psychoanalysis` as I completely subscribe to the views developed in it and it'd be more on the point than any tldr; I might give you. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/25/books.france
Guardian article adds nothing to my claims about popularity and influence.
The Guardian article is to tease you into getting the book.
I'm not terribly interested in reading about P.A.: it's dead branch of psychology, and has been dead for a long time. There are plenty of books / articles describing the shortcomings of P.A. some of which I've read.
You're saying that because he's respected by some academics, he is objectively worthy of respect. But that's contingent on those very same academics being worthy of respect. And I'm not sure that they are, personally.
This is a major problem in academia and other areas. The academics end up being judged by fellow academics, and any claim to merit becomes completely circular. That's how you end up with things like Brutalist architecture -- it's because the architects are seeking approval from fellow architects; and not the people who have to live in, and around, what they build.
Even worse, those academics who "suck up" to other academics end up having the favour returned to them. He scratches your back, you scratch his, then he scratches yours again... You end up with citation rings.
See Taleb's Skin In The Game.
worthy of respect.
Often, the tragedy and the greatness are deeply connected.
This is, I think, the motivation behind formulating the idea of the Will to Power.
The question, if you can chose: What is better, to be a great person, one that makes a lasting (hopefully positive) mark on the world, or to be a happy nobody, instantly forgotten when you die?
Everyone is entitled to their own answer to that question.
The closest current analogy to Nietzsche would be Jordan Peterson, I think. Their problem definitions are very similar (ie to fight nihilsm), but it seems to me that Nietzsche's proposed path is more heroic, but also harder.
In fact, I would wager the majority of engineering/math/physics/etc happens after the proof of concept phase.
While Peterson’s most basic premise to “fight against nihilism”, is respectable I don’t think he is philosophically well-equipped enough to have the same lasting effect as Nietzsche—if you listen to his arguments it’s clear that he’s quite ignorant of a whole swath of philosophical developments that have occurred in the past few decades. His arguments are not sophisticated. Someone with a basic education in the humanities can craft them just as easily. His whining about the death of individuality is also shallow—he doesn’t even realize the very shape of the concept of induiviudality itself has changed over time. He’s praying for the ressurection if old concepts, which is a method the ignores the particularités and needs of our own historical situation. Part of this could be a result of his trying to reach a wide audience, part of it could be his lack of capability, idk. At any rate, even though Nietzsche has an aphorism about writing for your readers it’s clear he himself didn’t do so, and his reknown partly stems from the uniqueness of his style, which is impeccable. In this regard Peterson doesn’t hold a candle to Nietzsche. Of course he may still be remembered, given he’s speaking for a different era, but idk, lacking argumentative or stylistic ingenuity typically doesn’t net you a spot in the hall of fame.
That said, I also see Peterson as clearly adding much less than Nietzsche (if anything at all) on pure philosophy. He is a psychologist, first and foremost, that happens to draw on some concepts from philosophy and biology (developed by others) for the purpose of providing a path for people (mostly young men) that have lost the sense of purpose.
In this confrontation with the inner emptiness, he seems to grapple with the same problem as Nietzsche, but with a more practical approach.
Indeed, as a clinical psychologist, his task is precisely to formulate it in a way that can reach people.
For those who have never had any serious struggles with the problem (nihilism, lack of purpose), he probably looks like a quack.
My fates long since by Thetis were disclosed,
And each alternate, life or fame, proposed:
Here if I stay, before the Trojan town,
Short is my date, but deathless my renown;
If I return, I quit immortal praise
For years on years, and long-extended days.
Convinced, though late, I find my fond mistake,
And warn the Greeks the wiser choice to make;
To quit these shores, their native seats enjoy,
Nor hope the fall of heaven-defended Troy.Excerpt above taken from this translation: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Iliad_of_Homer_(Pope)
Jane Austen made greater contributions to the Western dialectic but we tend to dismiss her as a 'mere' novelist. I submit that we'll have grown up as a society when we start to recognize that Austen, with her emotional maturity and capacity to give her characters real, palpable depth, was the far greater figure.
"Although my philosophy/guides/writings may not work for me, they may work for others."
Is that dismissal based on an serious engagement with his work? I'd be interested in seeing an argument why one should not let N be a guide. It would be nice (and unexpected) if that argument was informed by an actual reading of N's main works.
Do you really want Nietzsche to be your guide in this subject? Of course not, geez. I didn't think the GP 'suggested a dismissal' of N, but of him as a one's guide to Better Living, which sounded very reasonable to me. And anyone familiar with N's writing can hopefully imagine many reasons why one might think that. It's sheer bluff to sound as if it's an unexpected or unreasonable question.
(I had written a page in answer, e.g. starting 'Did he ever even have a girlfriend?', and started rounding up amusing and acute quotes from Chesterton and Santayana[0], but decided against including any of that. I'm a huge Nietzsche fan so answering properly would take a while; I decided your remark wasn't worth it. Sorry.)
[0] Chesterton's Heretics and Orthodoxy contain good (and funny) critiques of Nietzsche, as do many of his other works, e.g. Varied/Twelve Types and GBS. Santayana's wonderful Egotism in German Philosophy has chapters on Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.
>led the kind of maladjusted life that contemporary therapies and self-help books are designed to rehabilitate
>... suffered the dramatic breakdown that would debilitate him until his death 11 years later
> troubled relationship with food throughout his life, ricocheting from one extreme diet to the next
isn't really selling my on the Nietzsche lifestyle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master–slave_morality
I realized that due to my life experiences, I see the world through the slave morality. Basically that there is a lot of subjectivity when it comes to good and evil, that the world isn't so black and white. For example land developers might see growth as a completely noble endeavor, whereas environmentalists might see the sin of destroying mother nature. I'm pretty solidly in that second group about a great many things.
So just to throw an idea out there - I wonder if today's conservatives follow the master morality, whereas today's liberals follow the slave morality. Note that this wasn't always true - for example republicans used to be the party of Lincoln (liberators of slaves) and southern democrats used to be slave masters. But I'm asking about today. Is this completely off base or is it an insight that could be used to find some common ground?
"Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-su...
Do you know another source for this column?
He was a weird person, just like the article portraits him to be. He might have been unstable mentally, to say the least.
Not sure if he was in a position to tell others how to live.
He kinda reminds me of Weininger; I mentally group them together as "awkward philosophers with some insane ideas masquerading as deep thoughts" even though he was technically a philologist.
it's widely accepted that he was very unstable. the last days in turin avant gard movie even focus on that.
ref: https://academyofideas.com/2017/02/nietzsche-psychology-beco...
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. How do you know you have the key?
Eh, that might be a bit more euphemistic than I meant to be, but the point is there.
No doubt about it. He was clearly going mad as he got older. The cause of the madness is debatable, but a commonly accepted theory is that he contracted Syphilis from a prostitute early in life, and it killed him in the end.
That said, I don't think his madness nullifies his ideas, or even discredits them. I haven't studied him in depth, but the works of his that I have read have elements of genius embedded in them. Some are boring and observational, but some are deep and profound.
Regarding Nietzsche as a wanna-be Schopenhauer, this is not a fair representation at all IMHO. He was certainly influenced and had a lot of respect for Schope, but he contributed a ton of unique material and took some views very different from Schope. There is a lot of nuance in his criticism of Schope's nihilism that I think reflect his devotion to study and understanding, and respect for past thinkers, not just a pale imitation.
I'm stunned at your brilliance that you were able to reduce him to this comment. Thanks.
Besides, much of Nietzsche's late work was indeed rambling, the guy was severely depressed, even mad at the end. It doesn't discredit his entire work, but that fact must be kept in mind dealing with it. His (even crazier) sister publicized some of his works that never were intended by him to reach public. But they did, and then Nazis happened. So, the issue is also that it's an another interpretation of Nietzsche's work.