Assessment of Nietzsche by Russell and Heidegger

[Heraclitus]

[aneeshm]

I'd just like to use this occasion to link to this wickedly wonderful little lexicon of philosophical terms:

heidegger, n. A ponderous device for boring through thick layers of substance. "It's buried so deep we'll have to use a heidegger."

[LordShiva]

Icy cod!

[Peter Triggs]

aneeshm

I don't get why (in the lexicon) Walter Kaufmann is identified as an 'existential quintifier'. Can anybody enlighten me?

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
aneeshm

I don't get why (in the lexicon) Walter Kaufmann is identified as an 'existential quintifier'. Can anybody enlighten me?

To quintify means to give a popular and oversimplifying account of a philosophical problem. So an existential quintifier would be someone who gives a popular and oversimplifying account of existential problems in general, or Nietzsche's philosophy in particular. In other words, Kaufman = a dumbed down Nietzsche.

[Nostromo]

Russell underestimates and Heidegger wildly overestimates Nietzsche's importance, IMHO. I wouldn't put much stock on what Russell or what other old school analytical philosophers has to say about classic philosophers. History of philosophy is not their thing and they're generally pretty bad at it.

[Peter Triggs]

So an existential quintifier would be someone who gives a popular and oversimplifying account of existential problems

Oh, I see. "Existential" as in "existentialism" (as opposed to, in Fregean terms, a second level function from concepts to truth values).

Is that the current view of Kaufmann's work? It's been over 40 years since I read Kaufmann and Nietzsche and I barely remember anything about it.

[Meticulous Man]

I prefer Halbstein-Hirnenbach's neorealist position

[VetLegion]

History of philosophy is not they're thing and they're generally pretty bad at it.

Russel wrote "History of Western Thought".

I think that a philosopher and a historian of philosophy is one and the same thing. There are many people with their own theories around, but only those who bothered to read and reference previous philosophers are the ones who are going to be read and referenced by the subsequent philosophers.

[Ecthy]

Heidegger old school? Anyway, I won't say a word without having heard Popper's position on the issue

*thread turns into name-dropping fest*

[VetLegion]

*drops Paris Hilton*

[OzzyKP]

I haven't read Popper myself, but people who I respect and agree with really like him. So he must be alright.

[LordShiva]

Popper pwns

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by VetLegion

History of philosophy is not they're thing and they're generally pretty bad at it.

Russel wrote "History of Western Thought".

Yes he did, but I bet that Plato, Aristotle, Descartes or Nietzsche scholars, for example, cringe when they read what he has to say about Plato, Aristotle, Descartes or Nietzsche.

I think that a philosopher and a historian of philosophy is one and the same thing. There are many people with their own theories around, but only those who bothered to read and reference previous philosophers are the ones who are going to be read and referenced by the subsequent philosophers.

Its like saying that sport commentators and athletes are one and the same thing. There are two types of research being done in philosophy departments nowadays: philosophy and history of philosophy. And they are quite different in nature. To paraphrase Quine, historians of philosophy want to know what philosophers of the past really meant, whereas philosophers seek the truth. There are historians of philosophy who never do philosophy and there are philosophers who never do history of philosophy And there are some who do both. And there are some who think that history of philosophy is an integral part of philosophy, people like Heidegger, Gadamer and Derrida for example. And there are some who think that philosophers don't really need history of philosophy, at least not when you're doing actual philosophical research: you only have to read contemporary thinkers. So much so that, a while back, American philosophers proposed that we should stop teaching the classics, like Plato, Descartes and Spinoza.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

American philosophers proposed

anti-Americanism