GENIUS FORUMS

After reading about 1/2 of his works it seems like he is directly attacking QRS frequently.

When he is attacking Jesus specifically and Buddha for being nihilistic in The Anti-Christ, from section 8:

One has already stood truth on its head when the conscious advocate of denial and nothingness counts as the representative of 'truth'.

Just wondering since QRS is championing his 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' as genius.

Nietzsche's critiques of Christianity and Buddhism are not considered his strongest work, when looked at in a pure technical, theological or scriptural way. Actually he makes a few real goofs in his Antichrist.

But Nietzsche's overall intent is a critique of the psychology not of Jesus or Buddha the person or the original idea (if any) but of the icons and various ideas that have been created through various tradition, scripture and belief. The poisons grown out of these philosophies after going through more than one decadent and nihilist episode. Nietzsche is a reformer, a philosophical Luther.

One important thing you have to consider is that Nietzsche as human is closer to us, more real, more bloody, more complete in his writing, more detailed in his footprint. So it's easy to come up with error or imperfections during an analysis. With distant religious icons it's way more complex; we have to go through ages of interpretations, rewrites, selecting, additions and translations, resulting in teachings that can be interpreted in so many ways. So one ends up attacking a selections of fruits, or a multi-headed monster.

Compare Nietzsche's critique with for example Hakuin's attack on 'false zen'.

I don't think I'm picking at fruit here. I searched and found another nice point in The Anti-Christ section 20:

In my condemnation of Christianity I surely hope I do no injustice to a related religion with an even larger number of believers: I allude to Buddhism. Both are to be reckoned among the nihilistic religions--they are both decadence religions--but they are separated from each other in a very remarkable way.

I'm interested in QRS's take on this as they champion Thus Spake Zarathustra as a book of genius.

I think that while Zarathustra lives in a similar way as QRS, he is doing something fundamentally different. He is trying to find creators and masters, not teaching that everyone should follow him into the wilderness (away from society) and live in nihilism. In this Nietzsche is using Zarathustra to correct Jesus' flaws! Zarathustra, basically the character of Nietzsche himself, is a man of deep understanding who is trying to find people who can resume his cause as he is an "untimely man".

I won't claim to completely understand the book right now. It was the first Nietzsche I read and I haven't read it a second time yet.

WhorlyWhelk,

How do you define "nihilism".?

you're contradicting yourself. You claim Zarathustra is trying to fix 'Jesus' flaws' whatever those are, but then say that nihilism is living outside of society, which Nietzsche and Zarathustra did. To find creators and masters??? Yes masters of philosophy and life, not masters of society.

Whorlywhelk writes:

I think that while Zarathustra lives in a similar way as QRS, he is doing something fundamentally different.

How did Zarathustra live? What do you mean by how Zarathustra lived?

And what do you mean by how Dan lives, or how Kevin lives, or how David lives? What is this "how" of each their living and the how of Zarathustra's in order to compare?

What do you mean, besides the persona of a wise man? Only that? the persona? So, what's the persona of a wise man? How does this compare to how he lives?

This could either be an interesting or an idiotic thread. And perhaps the original question should be "Dan, Kevin, and David against Nietzsche." If I were any one of them, I'd start adopting some good clean offense at "QRS." Especially some good, clean Nietzschean offense at collective persona over individual personality . . . . If Nietzsche was about anything, he was about the Individual. And for that Individual, no fear of passions or suffering, but rather even love of same, for

Whether we learn to pit our pride, our scorn, our will power against [suffering] . . . . or whether we withdraw from pain into that Oriental Nothing--called Nirvana--into mute, rigid, deaf resignation, self-forgetting, self-extinction: out of such long and dangerous exercises of self-mastery one emerges as a different person, with a few more question marks--above all with the will henceforth to question further, more deeply, severely, harshly, evilly and quietly than one had questioned heretofore. The trust in life is gone: life itself has become a problem . . . . The attraction of everything problematic, the delight in an X, is so great in such more spiritual, more spiritualized men that this delight flares up again and again like a bright blaze over all the distress of what is problematic, over all danger of uncertainty . . . .
[and]
I doubt that such pain makes us "better"; but I know that it makes us more profound.

Preface, La Gaya Scienza

Myself, I have always found Nietzsche and these guys odd bedfellows in the particulars, but understandable enough from the persona point of view. The setting-off of oneself and adaptation of the persona of a "sage" or of an "Individual" against the grain - a serious philosopher, etc. - well, that's understandable enough, in a comicbook-hero sort of corollary. Greatness is what is wanted here, perhaps less than the particulars of it.


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Interesting post,PYE.I was right on board until the last line.

Can't say I'm particularly interested in finding Greatness in others,here or anywhere else.Morsals of wisdom here and there will suffice.

Not much else to add other than one of my favourite Nieztsche mutterings.

Human, All Too Human
292

Onwards. And so onwards along the path of wisdom, with a hearty tread, a hearty confidence! However you may be, be your own source of experience! Throw off your discontent about your nature; forgive yourself your own self, for you have in it a ladder with a hundred rungs, on which you can climb to knowledge. The age into which you feel yourself thrown with sorrow calls you blessed because of this stroke of fortune; it calls to you so that you may share in experiences that men of a later time will perhaps have to forego. Do not disdain having once been religious; investigate thoroughly how you once had a genuine access to art. Do not these very experiences help you to pursue with greater understanding enormous stretches of earlier humanity? Have not many of the most splendid fruits of older culture grown up on that very ground that sometimes displeases you, on the ground of impure thinking? One must have loved religion and art like one's mother or wet-nurse-otherwise one cannot become wise. But one must be able to look beyond them, outgrow them; if one stays under their spell, one does not understand them. Likewise, you must be familiar with history and the delicate game with the two scales: "on the one hand-on the other hand." Stroll backwards, treading in the footprints in which humanity made its great and sorrowful passage through the desert of the past; then you have been instructed most surely about the places where all later humanity cannot or may not go again. And by wanting with all your strength to detect in advance how the knot of the future will be tied, your own life takes on the value of a tool and means to knowledge. You have it in your power to merge everything you have lived through-attempts, false starts, errors, delusions, passions, your love and your hope-into your goal, with nothing left over: you are to become an inevitable chain of culture-rings, and on the basis of this inevitability, to deduce the inevitable course of culture in general. When your sight has become good enough to see the bottom in the dark well of your being and knowing, you may also see in its mirror the distant constellations of future cultures. Do you think this kind of life with this kind of goal is too arduous, too bereft of all comforts? Then you have not yet learned that no honey is sweeter than that of knowledge, and that the hanging clouds of sadness must serve you as an udder, from which you will squeeze the milk to refresh yourself. Only when you are older will you perceive properly how you listened to the voice of nature, that nature which rules the whole world through pleasure. The same life that comes to a peak in old age also comes to a peak in wisdom, in that gentle sunshine of continual spiritual joyfulness; you encounter both old age and wisdom on one ridge of life-that is how nature wanted it. Then it is time, and no cause for anger that the fog of death is approaching. Towards the light-your last movement; a joyful shout of knowledge-your last sound.

Freidrich Nieztsche.

Pye wrote:

Greatness is what is wanted here, perhaps less than the particulars of it.

Ataraxia writes:

Can't say I'm particularly interested in finding Greatness in others,here or anywhere else.

Hi Ataraxia, yes I can see now how I worded my own sentence ambiguously.

What I meant was that: greatness is what is wanted here by these fellows, hence in some measure, what unifies David's list of "genius-philosophers" to admire. More than the particulars of each what-they-say, it is each what-they-did, as self-declared, self-directed lovers of truth, unremitting, brilliant, alone, and overlapping in some of the insights presented here. More the persona thing I mentioned, because the particulars often veer.

I happen to approve of such a project, a conscious pursuit of human greatness, a self-idealizing, self-moulding, self-exploring, self-pushing, engagement in one's experience of living. I think ourselves-as-project is nobility, and to know is a nobly aspired state, to know anything, as your nietzsche-excerpt announces, encourages. to know ourselves.

Yes, I am on board with a project of human greatness/human excellence. I may not choose the precise thoughts that David or Kevin or Dan or anyone else here who feels a sense of greatness in them. But I would promote it anywhere. I would prefer living in a world with people who are to the fullest extent of their skins, in passion and grace, yes, I am most sympathetic to the sentiment and conscious effort here.


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Dan Rowden wrote:WhorlyWhelk,

How do you define "nihilism".?

I should say passive nihilism, non-action.

Pye,

This could either be an interesting or an idiotic thread. And perhaps the original question should be "Dan, Kevin, and David against Nietzsche." If I were any one of them, I'd start adopting some good clean offense at "QRS." Especially some good, clean Nietzschean offense at collective persona over individual personality . . . .

I don't like the term, neither does Dan or Kevin. I've objected to it in the past, to no avail. I have more or less given up.

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WhorlyWhelk,

Nietzsche: In my condemnation of Christianity I surely hope I do no injustice to a related religion with an even larger number of believers: I allude to Buddhism. Both are to be reckoned among the nihilistic religions--they are both decadence religions--but they are separated from each other in a very remarkable way.

WW: I'm interested in QRS's take on this as they champion Thus Spake Zarathustra as a book of genius.

I think that while Zarathustra lives in a similar way as wisdom, he is doing something fundamentally different. He is trying to find creators and masters, not teaching that everyone should follow him into the wilderness (away from society) and live in nihilism. In this Nietzsche is using Zarathustra to correct Jesus' flaws! Zarathustra, basically the character of Nietzsche himself, is a man of deep understanding who is trying to find people who can resume his cause as he is an "untimely man".

I can only repeat what I've said in the past. A sage doesn't deny life itself, but only an aspect of life - namely, illusion.

If abandoning an aspect of life is deemed to be "nihilism", then everyone is a nihilist of one sort or another. The average person, for example, denies and abandons truth, preferring instead to remain immersed in illusion. He is a nihilist with respect to truth.

So the real issue is not whether we should become nihilists or not, but rather what exactly we should be nihilistic towards. A sage is simply someone who is nihilistic towards illusions.

As for Nietzsche, he spoke of the need to become "Supermen", to become creators. What he is referring to here is the need to transcend all that is mediocre and ignorant in humanity, to abandon all received values, to become one with cause and effect and shape the future consciously.

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In light of all his other writings and ideas I think you have a misinterpretation of exactly what his Overhuman is.

Nietzsche breaks with metaphysics, denies absolute truth, denies the value of truth, suggests that truth should be measured by it's ability to promote life (growth of power) rather than decadence, promotes whole-heartedly embracing life, defends his Dionysus (passion, emotion, irrational element), and realizes the use of suffering and the stupidity and tragedy in trying to eliminate it.

It seems to me that you guys believe in absolute truth and use metaphysics to arrive at it, believe that truth is the only thing that should be valued, believe anything other than the will to truth to be decadence rather than the will to power, deny passion and emotion, champion rationality, and want to eliminate suffering.

WhorlyWhelk wrote: Nietzsche .... suggests that truth should be measured by it's ability to promote life (growth of power) rather than decadence, promotes whole-heartedly embracing life, defends his Dionysus (passion, emotion, irrational element), and realizes the use of suffering and the stupidity and tragedy in trying to eliminate it.

That suggestion is a serious mis-take of his writings, Whorly. What to do with the countless times Nietzsche writes about truth being a 'cutting into life' and that being over-consciousness becomes 'disabling' in a world where unconscious lies are the main currency?

Nietzsche tried to make clear that humanity so far has been served greatly by its passions and immense suffering, when growth and power are the measuring sticks. This as opposed to looking down upon it. But its greatest leaders and thinkers always brought some degree of control to the table, a degree of mastering or 'commanding' as Nietzsche preferred to say. Being in command is not elimination or suppression, it's a form of transfiguration. The decadence way is to subvert this process and invoke the inevitable sunset by deceit and nihilism. Rewriting history, rewriting language and thereby disabling the future.

Nietzsche throws light on the Dionysian to save the Apollonian from its own cannibalistic shadow.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:What to do with the countless times Nietzsche writes about truth being a 'cutting into life' and that being over-consciousness becomes 'disabling' in a world where unconscious lies are the main currency?

What do you think of Nietzsche's perspectivism? He clearly values truth but doesn't place it on the alter. He doesn't even believe that his truths are are necessarily true for others.

"There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths."
"There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth."

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Nietzsche tried to make clear that humanity so far has been served greatly by its passions and immense suffering, when growth and power are the measuring sticks.

For Nietzsche life is will to power. Growth and power are his measuring sticks and suffering and happiness go hand in hand with both of them. Nietzsche wants to save humanity from becoming too rational. That's why he brings his Dionysus, his Anti-Christ, the intoxicated and irrational element that is required in life.

"We have art in order not to die of the truth."
"For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication."

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:This as opposed to looking down upon it.

What do you think the measuring sticks should be? Nietzsche doesn't want life to stagnate. Perhaps you should try reading some Dostoevsky. Even the guy looking down needs something to look down upon.



"And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh. "

WhorlyWhelk,

In light of all his other writings and ideas I think you have a misinterpretation of exactly what his Overhuman is.

Nietzsche breaks with metaphysics, denies absolute truth, denies the value of truth, suggests that truth should be measured by it's ability to promote life (growth of power) rather than decadence, promotes whole-heartedly embracing life, defends his Dionysus (passion, emotion, irrational element), and realizes the use of suffering and the stupidity and tragedy in trying to eliminate it.

That is a common misinterpretation of Nietzsche, one that is coloured by postmodernism.

It needs to be recognized that Nietzsche spent most of his life as a solitary thinker investigating truth. He rarely, if at all, engaged in Dionysian behaviour. If he really believed that we should be immersing ourselves in irrational Dionysian mayhem, then he would have stopped writing intellectual works and dived into it himself. But he didn't. He had deeper matters in mind.

Nietzsche was largely an experimental thinker, an iconoclast who loved challenging conventional thinking and traditional values. Most of his books were iconoclastic in nature. The only time that he really went beyond iconoclasm and openly affirmed the truth in a sustained manner was in Zarathustra, which is why I rate it as his wisest work. Before and after that work, he was content to play the lesser role of attacking the conventional thinking of his day.

His attacks on metaphysics and truth need to be understood in this context. They were primarily aimed at academic philosophy. He disliked the way that academics exercised their reason in a sterilized vacuum, divorced from the blood and guts of the real world. Even to this day, academics are heavily inflicted with this disease. They could certainly do with a strong dose of Dionysian spirit to break apart their timid and contrived thinking. But for a genuine thinker who has already opened himself to reality, such a corrective isn't needed.

It seems to me that you guys believe in absolute truth and use metaphysics to arrive at it, believe that truth is the only thing that should be valued, believe anything other than the will to truth to be decadence rather than the will to power, deny passion and emotion, champion rationality, and want to eliminate suffering.

I want to see people become utterly passionate about truth and wisdom. I want to see them do everything they can to break down the prison walls of their false self and become the infinite being that they are. It is the ultimate form of will to power.

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WhorlyWhelk,

What do you think of Nietzsche's perspectivism? He clearly values truth but doesn't place it on the alter. He doesn't even believe that his truths are are necessarily true for others.

"There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths."
"There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth."

Note that he is putting forth an absolute truth here, which he believes to be true for all people.

You should never take anything Nietzsche says on face value. If you do that, you're only going to fall into a mire of contradictory thinking. Nietzsche was far too clever and ironical to be read at face value, he always hid his true meaning in between his lines. He liked to lay traps for people.

For Nietzsche life is will to power. Growth and power are his measuring sticks and suffering and happiness go hand in hand with both of them. Nietzsche wants to save humanity from becoming too rational. That's why he brings his Dionysus, his Anti-Christ, the intoxicated and irrational element that is required in life.

Again, he wanted to save humanity from becoming too academic. He was in fact extremely rational, but in a non-academic way.

"We have art in order not to die of the truth."
"For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication."

Okay, he wasn't all that rational. He was very attached to art. So much so that it caused him to become spellbound by the insane, Nazi-like philosophy of Wagner for a time.

It's interesting that the spirit of irrational Dionysian mayhem was behind most of what went on during World War 2.

"And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh. "

Ah, so he wasn't completely against truth. Only the sterile ones.

Obviously, he is speaking against academia again. The greatest truths always produce the most laughter because they involve laughing at life and death itself. Philosophy is the greatest form of humour.

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David,

It needs to be recognized that Nietzsche spent most of his life as a solitary thinker investigating truth. He rarely, if at all, engaged in Dionysian behaviour. If he really believed that we should be immersing ourselves in irrational Dionysian mayhem, then he would have stopped writing intellectual works and dived into it himself. But he didn't. He had deeper matters in mind.

Note that he wanted a balance between Apollonian and Dionysian.

"And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh."

I bet Nietzsche danced and laughed lots and enjoyed his life thoroughly and without abandoning philosophy. His whole purpose was really an attempt to reconcile living with philosophy. Remember the last chapter of Zarathustra? Zarathustra didn't sit down to teach the men the basic metaphysics of Ultimate Reality, he got them to laugh and enjoy life which was to overcome their previous condition in which they came to him. He counts this as more important than truth itself to Zarathustra.

Nietzsche was largely an experimental thinker, an iconoclast who loved challenging conventional thinking and traditional values. Most of his books were iconoclastic in nature. The only time that he really went beyond iconoclasm and openly affirmed the truth in a sustained manner was in Zarathustra, which is why I rate it as his wisest work. Before and after that work, he was content to play the lesser role of attacking the conventional thinking of his day.

The real problem with this view is that Zarathustra is the hardest book to interpret and get meaning from and especially without acknowledging the context set by his other books. It is also convenient that you can cast off his criticisms of ideas that you are fond of in all his other books by favoring the ambiguous one. I agree that Zarathustra is probably his best work, but for other reason.

His attacks on metaphysics and truth need to be understood in this context. They were primarily aimed at academic philosophy.

If so he would have attacked academic philosophy (which he did also) but he explicitly attacked metaphysics and absolute truth and discarded both. We can't overlook this. The will to power is his non-metaphysical explanation for what he sees in life and guide to how to live.

He disliked the way that academics exercised their reason in a sterilized vacuum, divorced from the blood and guts of the real world.

Divorced from emotion...?

I want to see people become utterly passionate about truth and wisdom. I want to see them do everything they can to break down the prison walls of their false self and become the infinite being that they are. It is the ultimate form of will to power.

No this is the will to truth and asceticism! The will to power is to expand, grow, conquer, and compete against the rest of life -- to suffer and face danger and to overcome, the will to overcome fatalism and the emptiness of life and to fully embrace life and enjoy life (the eternal recurrence was the measurement of enjoyment of life).

David,

WW: What do you think of Nietzsche's perspectivism? He clearly values truth but doesn't place it on the alter. He doesn't even believe that his truths are are necessarily true for others.

"There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths."
"There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth."

DQ: Note that he is putting forth an absolute truth here, which he believes to be true for all people.

I don't agree with this common idea that saying "there is no absolute truth" is a contradiction. It seems directly built in to this statement that it itself cannot be absolutely true. It is only because the reader has some notion of "absolute truth" or "infallible truth" that he mistakes this phrase as a claim to that absolute truth and therein a contradiction.

The second quote shows that Nietzsche doesn't assert that what is true for HIM is true for anyone else, his Perspectivism. Furthermore, truth for him is not a matter of deductive argument based on concepts and dictionaries. Recall that if a "truth" doesn't make him laugh it had might as well not be a truth -- truth is clearly a means for him, not an end and this statement that seems like a contradiction probably made him laugh immensely as he imagined all the people who would be arguing that it was a contradiction and missing the whole point.

Okay, he wasn't all that rational. He was very attached to art. So much so that it caused him to become spellbound by the insane, Nazi-like philosophy of Wagner for a time.

Isn't nature/life art? Isn't it like a piece of the most wonderful music ever combined with the most wonderful forms? Yes Nietzsche was attached to life, unlike you who would throw it away for "truth", something that you think transcends life itself though it is clearly embedded deeply within it, and thus he wanted to preserve Dionysus. Life is fundamentally irrational to Nietzsche. Something other than rationality is required for living. In fact, rationality developed later and only as a tool to aid in human survival.

To back up the music metaphor of life refer to where Nietzsche criticizes science:
"A ‘scientific’ interpretation of the world, as you understand it, might therefore still be one of the most stupid of all possible interpretations of the world, meaning that it would be one of the poorest in meaning…. But an essentially mechanical world would be an essentially meaningless world. Assuming that one estimated the value of a piece of music according to how much of it could be counted, calculated, and expressed in formulas: how absurd would such a ‘scientific’ estimation of music be!” What would one have comprehended, understood, grasped of it? Nothing, really nothing of what is ‘music’ in it!"

It's interesting that the spirit of irrational Dionysian mayhem was behind most of what went on during World War 2.

Are you trying to rouse someone's emotions by mentioning that something caused war? You must have totally missed the point of Nietzsche then. War is just a natural thing that happens when conflicting wills to power duke it out, and is a requirement for LIFE, which is why he spends so much time arguing against Christianity, modernity, and Buddhism which all seek to end it. If you still think war is bad you should read Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground which gives some better insight on the topic than Nietzsche does IMO.

WhorlyWhelk,

DQ: It needs to be recognized that Nietzsche spent most of his life as a solitary thinker investigating truth. He rarely, if at all, engaged in Dionysian behaviour. If he really believed that we should be immersing ourselves in irrational Dionysian mayhem, then he would have stopped writing intellectual works and dived into it himself. But he didn't. He had deeper matters in mind.

WW: Note that he wanted a balance between Apollonian and Dionysian.

I dare say his goal was the abandonment of both.

I bet Nietzsche danced and laughed lots and enjoyed his life thoroughly and without abandoning philosophy.

He lived a very ascetic, disciplined life. Those who knew him laughed contemptuously at him because of his eccentric, solitary ways.

His whole purpose was really an attempt to reconcile living with philosophy.

Agreed. All philosophy worth its salt is concerned with this.

Remember the last chapter of Zarathustra? Zarathustra didn't sit down to teach the men the basic metaphysics of Ultimate Reality, he got them to laugh and enjoy life which was to overcome their previous condition in which they came to him. He counts this as more important than truth itself to Zarathustra.

This was his iconoclasm coming into play. He lived in an overly-serious, overly-academic era in which the prevailing belief was that human academic thought was going to resolve all problems. He laughed at such folly, and so he should. I would have done the same.

However, we live in a very different era, one in which irrationality, hedonism and emotionalism is praised to the skies, while reason and logic are almost universally derided. So I think that if Nietzsche was alive today, he would take a very tack. He would be speaking against irrationality, hedonism and emotionalism just as strongly as he praised them back then. And he would praise reason and logic just as strongly as I do now. Because that's what his iconoclastic bent of mind would have compelled him to do.

I consider myself to be just as much an iconoclast as Nietzsche was, which is why I currently praise reason and logic as much as I do.

DQ: Nietzsche was largely an experimental thinker, an iconoclast who loved challenging conventional thinking and traditional values. Most of his books were iconoclastic in nature. The only time that he really went beyond iconoclasm and openly affirmed the truth in a sustained manner was in Zarathustra, which is why I rate it as his wisest work. Before and after that work, he was content to play the lesser role of attacking the conventional thinking of his day.

WW: The real problem with this view is that Zarathustra is the hardest book to interpret and get meaning from and especially without acknowledging the context set by his other books. It is also convenient that you can cast off his criticisms of ideas that you are fond of in all his other books by favoring the ambiguous one. I agree that Zarathustra is probably his best work, but for other reason.

I don't find Zarathustra ambiguous at all. His writing is very clear here. It contains some very deep wisdom.

Why do you rate it?

DQ: His attacks on metaphysics and truth need to be understood in this context. They were primarily aimed at academic philosophy.

WW: If so he would have attacked academic philosophy (which he did also) but he explicitly attacked metaphysics and absolute truth and discarded both. We can't overlook this.

But he didn't discard absolute truth, not really. His challenging of absolute truth was always done in the spirit of truth. His main intent was to provoke people into confronting their own attachment to truth, as he saw that people always seemed to accept the ideal as a matter of course. So once again, it was his iconoclasm coming into play.

At root, it is impossible for anyone to abandon the concept of absolute truth altogether. For the very attempt to abandon it necessarily requires one to affirm it at the same time. For example:

"There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths."
"There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth."

DQ: Note that he is putting forth an absolute truth here, which he believes to be true for all people.

WW: I don't agree with this common idea that saying "there is no absolute truth" is a contradiction. It seems directly built in to this statement that it itself cannot be absolutely true.

If it is not absolutely true - meaning that if it is not true for absolutely everybody - then it becomes a meaningless philosophical statement.

The contradiction lies in the fact that it attempts to affirm a reality for all people, in all times and places, while at the same time denying that this can ever be done.

It is only because the reader has some notion of "absolute truth" or "infallible truth" that he mistakes this phrase as a claim to that absolute truth and therein a contradiction.

Sorry, that doesn't work, because the person making the statement is trying to affirm a reality that applies to absolutely everyone in all times and places, which means that he is indeed affirming the principle of absolute truth.

Basically, he is trying to have his cake and eat it. He is saying, "No one's truths are universal .....except my own."

The second quote shows that Nietzsche doesn't assert that what is true for HIM is true for anyone else, his Perspectivism. Furthermore, truth for him is not a matter of deductive argument based on concepts and dictionaries. Recall that if a "truth" doesn't make him laugh it had might as well not be a truth -- truth is clearly a means for him, not an end and this statement that seems like a contradiction probably made him laugh immensely as he imagined all the people who would be arguing that it was a contradiction and missing the whole point.

If he was really like this, then I would have no respect to him. The way you paint him makes him sound like a low-grade hippy without a conscience.

DQ: Okay, he wasn't all that rational. He was very attached to art. So much so that it caused him to become spellbound by the insane, Nazi-like philosophy of Wagner for a time.

WW: Isn't nature/life art? Isn't it like a piece of the most wonderful music ever combined with the most wonderful forms?

Absolutely. Nature is an infinitely greater piece of art than even the best human artworks. So it makes you wonder why Nietzsche would put so much stock in human artworks.

Yes Nietzsche was attached to life, unlike you who would throw it away for "truth", something that you think transcends life itself though it is clearly embedded deeply within it, and thus he wanted to preserve Dionysus. Life is fundamentally irrational to Nietzsche. Something other than rationality is required for living. In fact, rationality developed later and only as a tool to aid in human survival.

That's right, reason is just a tool. I agree that there is far more to life than reason. However, I disagree that Nietzsche, in understanding this, valued irrationality. If a person truly valued irrationality, then he would no longer have a basis for attacking anything. Nietzcshe's iconoclasm would instantly fall into a heap.

To back up the music metaphor of life refer to where Nietzsche criticizes science:
"A ‘scientific’ interpretation of the world, as you understand it, might therefore still be one of the most stupid of all possible interpretations of the world, meaning that it would be one of the poorest in meaning…. But an essentially mechanical world would be an essentially meaningless world. Assuming that one estimated the value of a piece of music according to how much of it could be counted, calculated, and expressed in formulas: how absurd would such a ‘scientific’ estimation of music be!” What would one have comprehended, understood, grasped of it? Nothing, really nothing of what is ‘music’ in it!"

That sounds pretty rational to me.

DQ: It's interesting that the spirit of irrational Dionysian mayhem was behind most of what went on during World War 2.

WW: Are you trying to rouse someone's emotions by mentioning that something caused war? You must have totally missed the point of Nietzsche then. War is just a natural thing that happens when conflicting wills to power duke it out, and is a requirement for LIFE, which is why he spends so much time arguing against Christianity, modernity, and Buddhism which all seek to end it.

What do you make of Nietzsche's renouncing of politics, nationalism and war in later years, after he had split from Wagner, regarding these things as petty and small-minded?

If you still think war is bad you should read Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground which gives some better insight on the topic than Nietzsche does IMO.

I already have. It's a good work, perhaps my favourite from Dostoevsky. I thought it was very funny! I like Dostoevsky, even though find him quite naive in many ways.

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Whorly,

After reading about 1/2 of his works it seems like he is directly attacking QRS frequently.

A philosopher disagrees with another philosopher. Big fucking deal.

Go read the other half of his works, and then, using the insights you gained from his writings, figure out for yourself why it doesn't matter that David Quinn, Dan Rowden, and Kevin Solway all have different views than Friedrich Nietzsche (and each other!) and yet somehow... magically... they are all philosophers.

Trevor wrote:

A philosopher disagrees with another philosopher. Big fucking deal.

Go read the other half of his works, and then, using the insights you gained from his writings, figure out for yourself why it doesn't matter that David Quinn, Dan Rowden, and Kevin Solway all have different views than Friedrich Nietzsche (and each other!) and yet somehow... magically... they are all philosophers.

Your statement is somewhat confusing Trevor. The four men you mention are indeed philosophers, who have as their bases the same fundamental truth. Each brings his own personality to the work, and therefore there will be "different views" as to the way truth is expressed. But since there is only one truth, those differences will be superficial, not fundamental. Was this the point you were driving at?

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Sue: you are close enough to the truth that I don't need to disagree.

WhorlyWhelk is being contrary, so I'm treating him as one should treat someone who insists on being contrary. That is to say, I treat him without the respect that I would give one who is interested in truth.

Trevor,

You know that having "contrary" thoughts coming at you is an everyday occurrence for a thinker. And it is what this forum uses as fuel to keep it going. Also, tousling around various ideas is a way to train your mind not to settle on any idea too easily, or hastily.

WW may not be interested in discovering the truth about life now, but you never know, in a few years time it may become the most important goal in WW's life. When a person does value truth only, they look for, and find it everywhere in all things; but when a person doesn't value truth, they must endlessly grasp from one thing to another - with the truth remaining out of their reach.

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Indeed, Sue. As soon as he fixates on truth, and stops thinking that the claim to enlightenment is arrogance, and hopefully stops believing that Quinn, Rowden, and Solway are clones of one another, I will treat him differently.

Well, Trevor, in my opinion one should respect others doubts, otherwise one ends up being arrogant himself; as if someone’s disrespect can harm truth; but play on ones ego, yes.

And why that angry face, mate? :)