Zarathushtra

Originally posted by vistesd
(Thanks to both of you for getting me back into this line of thought....)

Whatever Nietzsche's faults, his boundless optimism is a big plus.

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]I hereby draw the silly conclusion that Nietzsche's version of Zarathustra was his idea of a God.

Hmmm…. I’m not so sure that’s entirely silly—daring, perhaps… It certainly would be a deep symbolic reading of it. It’s been too long—I’m going to have to break the book out to keep up with you here.

N did say something like: “If there were gods, how could I stand not to be one?”[/b]

N did say something like: “If there were gods, how could I stand not to be one?”

I like Nietzsche more and more. I will definitely read more about him, after having read "Thus spake Zarathustra" (strange spelling on spoke there, but it's what it says on my bookcover).

It seems that I can learn alot about Nietzsche's mindset, just by reading this book. Probably more about N than about Z.

Originally posted by stocken
I like Nietzsche more and more. I will definitely read more about him, after having read "Thus spake Zarathustra" (strange spelling on spoke there, but it's what it says on my bookcover)..

"Spake" is old(ish) English.

My favourite is Twilight of the Idols. Genealogy of Morals is also very, very good.

Originally posted by vistesd
(Thanks to both of you for getting me back into this line of thought....)

Thanks to both of you for giving me new perspective on these matters.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
"Spake" is old(ish) English.

My favourite is Twilight of the Idols. Genealogy of Morals is also very, very good.

I must be getting tired because I have absolutely no clue as to what "Twilight of the Idols" means. 🙂

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Whatever Nietzsche's faults, his boundless optimism is a big plus.

Whatever Nietzsche's faults, his boundless optimism is a big plus.

Yes, and his optimism was far from pollyanna-ish.

I can’t remember the exact terms, but N distinguished between two kinds of nihilism: one that was sort of chronic and decadent and destructive; and the other that was just a kind of weariness in the course of the journey, that signaled a need for rest from the creative endeavor. There was no existential stasis for him, so this could represent a period of “decline” before resuming the journey.

He was not so much interested in philosophy as an academic pursuit as in something one can use to answer, for oneself, the question of “how to live.” He was like Epicurus in this. For N, the true philosopher was an artist of one’s own life. Therefore, I am less interested in finding the “real Nietzsche,” than I am in seeing how he is helpful to me. Thus, I am unashamed to “spin” my own interpretations, as well as mixing the ones I find among the Nietzsche scholars.

Note: I still think the film “Groundhog Day” is a wonderful comic presentation of Nietzsche’s philosophy: the eternal recurrence; panic and confusion in the face of it; the descent into nihilism (and a dangerous fluctuation between nihilism and inflation); the embracing of amor fati and the path of the ubermensch. (I do think N would’ve found the ending of the film decadent and nauseous&hellip😉

Originally posted by vistesd
Well, Nietzsche is subject to a wide range of interpretation. My own spin is that it represents an ideal toward which we can strive, but in the sense of a limit that we never reach...

An asymptotical limit of growth? Interesting, I tended to think of a frontier point in the evolution of man, but I like your take on the issue. Interesting thread.

Bosse: In my view N shared Kant's view that we can never see things for what they are since we are limited to their phenomena and the extrapolations that we make on them. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle has an interesting relation with Kant's views.

Originally posted by Palynka
Bosse: In my view N shared Kant's view that we can never see things for what they are since we are limited to their phenomena and the extrapolations that we make on them. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle has an interesting relation with Kant's views.

I agree about that. However Nietszche managed to make a virtue out of indeterminacy and error.

Originally posted by Palynka
Bosse: In my view N shared Kant's view that we can never see things for what they are since we are limited to their phenomena and the extrapolations that we make on them.

Isn't there something fundamentally self-contradicting about this view?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Isn't there something fundamentally self-contradicting about this view?

Please explain.

Originally posted by Palynka
Please explain.

Please continue in the thread with the proper name... 🙂

Originally posted by Palynka
Please explain.

If, as Kant says, we cannot know the noumenon but only the phenomenon, then it follows that we cannot know ourselves (as a class) - only how we appear to ourselves. In particular, it follows that we cannot know that we cannot know the noumenon - which is precisely what Kant claims to know.

As a Professor of mine put it, "I know it is truly so that I cannot know it is truly so".

EDIT: stocken - I'm keeping the discussion in this thread because it isn't a discussion of Nietzsche per se; but more a discussion on Kant. It's still a bit out of place in a discussion on Zarathushtra, perhaps.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
If, as Kant says, we cannot know the noumenon but only the phenomenon, then it follows that we cannot know ourselves (as a class) - only how we appear to ourselves. In particular, it follows that we cannot know that we cannot know the noumenon - which is precisely what Kant claims to know.

As a Professor of mine put it, "I know it is truly so that ...[text shortened]... discussion on Kant. It's still a bit out of place in a discussion on Zarathushtra, perhaps.

That is incorrect because phylosophical ideas are not noumenon, they are not "things in themsleves".

I see no contradiction in it. Noumenon is applied to physical realities that create phenomena. Or at least, that's how I have been applying it...

If so, I see no contradiction there.

Originally posted by Palynka
That is incorrect because phylosophical ideas are not noumenon, they are not "things in themsleves".

I see no contradiction in it. Noumenon is applied to physical realities that create phenomena. Or at least, that's how I have been applying it...

If so, I see no contradiction there.

The noumenon here is not a philosophical idea - but the human being himself/herself.

Kant's view (including the Categories) is an explanation of how a human being really functions. Therefore, Kant's view is a description of (one aspect of) the noumenon of the human being - something his view claims he cannot know.