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P&S Moderators: JackARoe | Cheshire_Kat
What's so outstanding about Nietzsche?
- Thread starter fridgebuzz
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azzazza !?
Bluelighter
hihi i wouldn't call Kierkegaard life affirming really. his personal life may well be the most depressing love story a philosopher can meet. and deep down that is reflected in his philosophy, especially the relation with his father who was an extremely strict catholic. Kierkegaards work on anxiety is what left the deepest mark on philosophy after him, most notably Heideggers Being and Time. While Kierkegaard does not speak directly of death, the entirety of 'The concept of Anxiety' is riddled with it, which is considered to be his most central work. Briefly, he distinguishes fear from anxiety (never done before him), saying fear has a certain (ontic) object, you are afraid of something that is well defined or at least knowable. anxiety on the other hand is something more general and without object. one is grabbed by anxiety and one does not have a hold over it, so it cannot really be put at bay or defended against by means of rationalisation. therefor it can be seen as the root of the human tension between the demand for perfection by the mind (especially in ethics, as this is acts as the warden against guilt and shame), vs. the inability to reach/sustain such ethical perfection because of the bodily needs of oneself (it needs for itself; what is called the conatus essendi, the struggle for life/pleasure). thus; while the mind is free of substance (of an ontological nature) the body is already defined by itself in an already limited fashion (ontic, or the category of 'res extensa'/ 'already extended 'things'). (cartesian dualism, infinity vs finity et al.). And this tension causes anxiety, which could be interpreted as the fear before God, in catholic terms. or in buddhist terms: the mind may not exist (it can be empty), but the body already does. thus, the boeddha says: all existence is suffering.
but to come back to Nietsche, the guy is incredibly poetic in his speach. which makes him all the more difficult to pinpoint. I haven't read that much Nietsche (even though i own the Gesamtausgabe (collection of all his works), but personally i find 'Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik' (the birth of the tragedy from the spirit of music) his most interesting work. he was very young when he wrote that, and it is considered to be his first significant work. To me, it reads like a poetical-philosophical interpretation of the structure of self-consciousness and perhaps more importantly self-conscience; which is 'explained' or perhaps rather 'highlighted' through the metaphor of the ancient Greek Tragedy. here it already relates to the tension of anxiety i described above when we translate: the greek word 'tragoidia' ('tragedy') means: "he-goat-song"; a reference to what was called saters, ie. the little devils that accompanied Dionysos, God of wine and intoxication, before the catholics arrived on the scene. The greek tragedy was a form of catharsis, in that while the play depicted human suffering, the audience itself sits at a distance from it; and while the drama is ment to connect and depict real life suffering found in every human life, and the public does identify with it, the suffering is as such not felt as displeasing. it is the suffering of 'another'. And this is what we do too when we view suffering, even though we may be compassionate, at some point a limit is reached when this suffering of the other is pitted against ones own needs. To deal with this what is ultimately an 'ethical crime', the Greeks invented the tragedy (or: 'it was born'), which acted as a bit of a counterfeit double of this 'crime', enclosing it in an infinite recursion wherein the original sin is lost in something that is to the mind trying to think it akin to the spinning of the head in a state of wild intoxication. this extreme in christianity is depicted in the figure of Jesus Christ, who sacrifices his own life for the suffering of all others, taking up this lapse or tension between pure ethical demand and individual struggle for life; and as such saving us from original sin. This is the demand of a 'pure' ethic: one that stands ethically before the one Other that is all others, and does so without any fault at all: it is inhuman, for it requires to give your self until you drop dead before even thinking about taking one drop of pleasure for yourself. in other words, it is what a human is when he has already died. in catholic speak: so thats why you lost paradise and became a part of original sin. You became human. ("again? darn." the buddhist replied.)
(excuse me for typos and other textual weirdness, im just lazywriting today. fingers crossed its somewhat readable
)
but to come back to Nietsche, the guy is incredibly poetic in his speach. which makes him all the more difficult to pinpoint. I haven't read that much Nietsche (even though i own the Gesamtausgabe (collection of all his works), but personally i find 'Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik' (the birth of the tragedy from the spirit of music) his most interesting work. he was very young when he wrote that, and it is considered to be his first significant work. To me, it reads like a poetical-philosophical interpretation of the structure of self-consciousness and perhaps more importantly self-conscience; which is 'explained' or perhaps rather 'highlighted' through the metaphor of the ancient Greek Tragedy. here it already relates to the tension of anxiety i described above when we translate: the greek word 'tragoidia' ('tragedy') means: "he-goat-song"; a reference to what was called saters, ie. the little devils that accompanied Dionysos, God of wine and intoxication, before the catholics arrived on the scene. The greek tragedy was a form of catharsis, in that while the play depicted human suffering, the audience itself sits at a distance from it; and while the drama is ment to connect and depict real life suffering found in every human life, and the public does identify with it, the suffering is as such not felt as displeasing. it is the suffering of 'another'. And this is what we do too when we view suffering, even though we may be compassionate, at some point a limit is reached when this suffering of the other is pitted against ones own needs. To deal with this what is ultimately an 'ethical crime', the Greeks invented the tragedy (or: 'it was born'), which acted as a bit of a counterfeit double of this 'crime', enclosing it in an infinite recursion wherein the original sin is lost in something that is to the mind trying to think it akin to the spinning of the head in a state of wild intoxication. this extreme in christianity is depicted in the figure of Jesus Christ, who sacrifices his own life for the suffering of all others, taking up this lapse or tension between pure ethical demand and individual struggle for life; and as such saving us from original sin. This is the demand of a 'pure' ethic: one that stands ethically before the one Other that is all others, and does so without any fault at all: it is inhuman, for it requires to give your self until you drop dead before even thinking about taking one drop of pleasure for yourself. in other words, it is what a human is when he has already died. in catholic speak: so thats why you lost paradise and became a part of original sin. You became human. ("again? darn." the buddhist replied.)
(excuse me for typos and other textual weirdness, im just lazywriting today. fingers crossed its somewhat readable
)
Last edited:
Engage
Bluelighter
No one laughed at my joke.
azzazza !?
Bluelighter
^we way too sewious for such lighthearted frolicing *exaggerated display of fainting*