Nietzsche reading tips

[GePap]

Yes: you have to try hard to do worse in the future.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
Yes: you have to try hard to do worse in the future.

Hows this? "warmed over Schopenhauer"

[GePap]

Bad, yes, but not nearly as bad as eloks.

I mean, the best I could think of is saying kieregaard is:

The depressed and obtuse rantings of a nordic loser devoid of the barest immitation of intelliegence.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I agree with you about Plato, though he will always remain fundamental to Western philosophy. So one should still read Plato.

Someone smart once said that all modern philosophy is merely footnotes to Plato .

[Elok]

Gah, I was trying to rub the proper use of superlatives in your face. I'll have to be even less subtle next time.
I'm not entirely sure how that summary was bad. Actually it wasn't a summary so much a set of steps that might help you understand the man's thought processes, and about the best such instructions you can practically follow without a time machine or a syringe full of syphilis/neural carcinogens/whatever made him so nuts.

[GePap]

Nietzsche makes dozens of incrwdably improtant points about the construction of morality, as i said elsewhere the nature of punishemnt, the will to power, so forth and so on.

There are plenty of philosophers whom i do not like, but I recognize their ability and their contributions. Nietzsche is incredibly important to modern philosophy, or at least the philosophers of the 20th century believed, and I am more inclined to see their ideas on the subject to be more substantiated than, well, yours.

[Elok]

Perhaps a better question to ask would be:
Did Nietzsche's philosophy, which he seems to have followed himself, improve his life or those of others in any way? Was he happier or more productive for his ideas? And if so, how, since he quite clearly spent most of his life about two inches shy of full-blown insanity, and his writing gets closer and closer to that insanity the more "genius" it exhibits IYO? I mean, Ecce Homo wasn't long after Geneology of Morals and he was just about off his rocker when he wrote it. Even people who like Nietzsche admit that much.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Did Nietzsche's philosophy, which he seems to have followed himself, improve his life or those of others in any way?

It caused people to question traditional morality and that, I advance, improved life .

[Elok]

No, turning thirteen causes people to question traditional morality. Nietzsche just gave it a pretentious seal of approval.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes, they question traditional morality so much and then become the sheep they 'rebelled' against when they turn 30 .

[Maniac]

Agathon:

Idealism = the doctrine that there is no external reality, only our ideas.

Ah, well personally I would say the opposite. That there is an external reality, but that our ideas are somewhat flawed. I of course have no proof at all for that assumption.

Either: (a) All our beliefs are do not represent reality correctly including the beliefs which explain the possibility of relativism, in which case it destroys its own support.

or: (b) Some of our beliefs (i.e. the ones that explain relativism) are non-relative, in which case one cannot hold that all belief is relative.

If you want to argue that we have no reason to think that our beliefs do represent reality accurately then at least a prima facie case is made by the fact that the alternative belief involves contradiction.

It's option (a) I choose. I admit I do not have 100% proof that everything is probably relative. However based on the limited and probably imperfect research data of psychology, physics, etcetera, based on the scientific methodology, I think the most probable conclusion is that all our beliefs and concepts are probably relative.
Sure, I cannot give a full 100% waterproof evidence. But doesn't that count for all sciences: not making full proof theories, but making the most probably assumptions based on the - probably inaccurate - data we have?

Alva:

Maniac, you're local library should be swamped with biographies, translations, germans + french + english versions, summaries, books about him and (semi) historical novels.

59 to be precise according to the internet catalogue. Though half is German , which I am terrible at, or triple versions of the same book.

S. Kroeze:

Though I agree with you in principle about reading the original texts in the original languages, there are quite a few practical problems.
First, though I am fluent in Dutch, English and French, my vocabulary of German is very limited. This is of course a big problem since many of the European philosophers wrote in German.
Also there’s the issue of time. I don’t get where you and others such as elijah seem to find the time to read all those books! Of course, the fact that I mostly read science fiction and only from time to time a philosopher may have something to do with it… But still, due to time I have to make choices, and am more or less forced to be satisfied with reading summaries.

Do not forget I.Kant!

What I know of him indeed sounds interesting to further explore.

Do not forget J.Locke!

Though I would probably agree with his empiricism, I would probably completely start to disagree when he begins about his ideas on society and politics. But actually that’s true for about any philosopher…

How is life?

Busy busy busy. I have “tweede zit”. But fortunately my last exam is the 15th. After that I hope to have at least two weeks free before university starts again, hopefully time enough to read some Nietzsche.
Anyway, how are you doing? The only time I read you around here is when you’re bashing some neocon. ( )

[GePap]

Originally posted by Elok
Perhaps a better question to ask would be:
Did Nietzsche's philosophy, which he seems to have followed himself, improve his life or those of others in any way? Was he happier or more productive for his ideas? And if so, how, since he quite clearly spent most of his life about two inches shy of full-blown insanity, and his writing gets closer and closer to that insanity the more "genius" it exhibits IYO? I mean, Ecce Homo wasn't long after Geneology of Morals and he was just about off his rocker when he wrote it. Even people who like Nietzsche admit that much.

What exactly doesNietzshce physical state throught his life, and mental state at the end of it have anything to do with the validity of thought? The two things are at best tangentally connected. As for being prodcutive, well, how many world famous tracts of philosophy did he come out with? In the life of ideas he was extremely successful, which was the life he had the most aility ot flourish on, given his health issues.

In essence, up to this point you arguement against Niezsche is based on a strawman, that his phisicla state and final mental state matter: they don't. What matters is what he did in life, and what he wrote down. I have yet to hear you tackle his ideas, only his weak frame.

[St Leo]

I suggest Greg Egan's Luminous short story collection as an alternative. The world view he propounds is basically mine.

[Elok]

Philosophy is a way of thought, and thought an important aspect of living. He lived by his philosophy. His life frigging sucked, and not just because of health problems. I think they're connected. Nietzsche was an antisocial goon, and his big grand philosophy of ranting social constructs earned him squat other than misery. His claim to fame is the rejection of conventional morality, but like I said, any zitface teenager can say the same. Anyone can reject things he doesn't like. Talent is shown by creating viable alternatives, which he never technically does. Most of his propositions are obtuse daydreams that can't be applied to life. If you actually tried to implement any one of his ideological wet dreams, the result would be the ruin of human civilization, which he seems to find desirable. Look at other philosophers, on the other hand; Socrates, a very worthwhile school of critical thinking, Plato, well, a police state, but a properly spelled-out police state, Voltaire's Candide "cultivating his garden"...Nietzsche spends so much time railing against this and that as to fail utterly to tells us what he does like. Are we supposed to be improving the world via process of elimination?

[GePap]

Nietzsche did live his philosophy, which as I said before, is a philosophy that values creation above everything else: since to create something most be desryed, yes, it will be destructive.

Have you read his latter works or only Zarathustra? He goes into great detail about how he thinks the morality of the day came about, what it means, and why he disapproves of it: it is not only rantings, not by any fair assessment..what you wrote was much closer to a rant than his works.

As for viable alternatives: what is viable? What is desireable? You don;t get very far using loaded words in trying to critizice a work.