Nietzsche Forum.

im not sure if i recall the thread you're talking about... but i'd certainly be happy to partake!

im currently reading one of Nietzsche's books 'Beyond Good and Evil'. he's a very intersting guy. albeit angry with the world and with many a gripe about philosophers and christrians and women... but, an interesting guy all the same.

usually if someone was a mysogonist i wouldnt give them a bar, but he had things to say about all sorts of other issues that i thought i'd give him a chance...

anyone else have any thoughts?

 

Are you sure? Never noticed anything like it. Sure sounds strange, an entire forum devoted to a single philosopher...

 

Nietzsche's thought is so rich and diverse you need more than one forum....

what intrigues me about his life is that he spent so much of it being kicked in the teeth with life, and despite his simultaneous love and hatred of it he never acheived happiness. he died alone and insane. maybe it is the curse of those who stand beyond our world to never be happy within it...

 

He did achieve happiness but it was short-lived

 

I do recall a few threads which were about Nietzsche, although I dont recall an actual sub-forum devoted to just this particular existentialist.

Im sure it was the Existentialism sub-forum you were refering too?

Nietzsche seems to have maintained a relative popularity among existentialists, I suspect because he is fairly easy to read (in the good sense of being straightforward) and because he asks a lot of 'leading' questions which allow the simple readers to feel as if they are partaking.

It always seemed to me that Nietzsche had a very basic grasp of spirituality (especially Christianity) and consequently a lot of his rhetorical questions were not nearly as clever as the 'uninitiated' reader might suppose.

Of course, Nietzsche was forever accused of being 'Anti-Christian' or 'Anti-God', but one forum member suggested that Nietzsche was really playing a game of 'devils advocate' with the reader. In fact, simply challenging the reader to give reason for the faith that lies within him?
The simple readers may not get past answering the 'leading question' with anything less than acceptance -yet- the more sophisticated reader is hopefully answering Nietzsche back with his OWN question.

I personally think he just was bitchy about religion in general, but the former theory is interesting to consider.
(and can still be entirely possible whether Nietzsche intended it that way or not)

Yep, Nietzsche is dead. Exististentialism is on life-support and Christianity is making a fierce comeback - yet - Nietzsche is still worth a good read once in a while.
If nothing else than to reflect on the 'glory days' of Atheism in Philosophy.

 

Well, I respect Nietzsche, but I didn't enjoy Thus Spake Zarathustra as much as I could have. I most value the ideas he expressed in The Birth Of Tragedy.

Anyway, much of what he proposed had already been formulated before.

 

"what intrigues me about his life is that he spent so much of it being kicked in the teeth with life, and despite his simultaneous love and hatred of it he never acheived happiness. he died alone and insane. maybe it is the curse of those who stand beyond our world to never be happy within it..."

Great,so this could mean im fucked. And whats worse, I've already had thoughts that some types of knowledge can be a curse. Maybe if I can find a way to apply it to something usefull...

 

wtf is a christrian?

 

is it like a religious crustacean

 

i dont think a world misanthrope like Nietchze is good or nor do i consider him a contributor of philosophical elegance!

 

Oh My Non-Dead God that was funny LOL!

Christian reader - 4:00 AM

 

Was Nietzsche an existentialist? I don't really know that much about him. Now I come to think about it, what i do know seems to point to that. I've just never heard his name used in referal to it.

There should be a thread on Kirkegard (sp?), he was the granddaddy of it all.

 

i should say so.

 

Nietzsche was first and foremost a psychologist.

 

To really know Nietzsche as both a human being and as a philosopher (and to know truly know his philosophy you need to do both), reading more than just one or two of his books from any given point in his philosophical developement is sorta important. As every Nietzschean knows, Birth of Tragedy was written during his period with Wagner and the philosophy of Schopenauer. The intellectuals hated it-but the nationalists and royalty dug it. Nietzsche's philosophy is heroic in its formulation and progression-it required of him over the course of his life to systematically cut himself off from all that he loved and was most attached to. He would destroy and malign his relationships with his family (especially his sister and mother), his surrogate father and best friend Richard Wagner, and his most admired thinker, Schopenhauer. He sacrificed his most valued relationships to communicate his ideas, and not lightly. Nietzsche would continue to be haunted by the memory those he broke away from (especially Wagner), and his sister would go on to make a mockery of him after his mental and physical collapse (it occured after he witnessed a carriage driver whipping a horse excessively and was horrified by the cruelty).

He wasn't the first to champion eternal recurrence, but his ideas on it differed significantly from Heine's, especially in the grave horror he took in it while still believing it to be the most "scientific" and mature view of the afterlife. An important contention of his was that pain is as necessary as pleasure (and they require each other's existence) and that the fact that pain hurts is not an arguement against it. Also, something isn't true because it has positive consquences, and something isn't false because it has negative consequences, and the path towards knowledge isn't a path towards comfort or security.

 

I'm sorry but what ou're saying is that somebody who goes insane can't be a genius...

I think that's a bit of a prejudice. Nietzsche probably went insane because of several facts. One is that he suffered from severe sudden headaches. A second one is that he was ill and lonely for most of his life. A third one is that he thought he wrote a book that would change the world, but nobody showed any interest in it (the interest came at the end of his life when he was already going insane). Now if that wasn't enough, his close family and friends became followers of Hitler - a man who used Nietzsches theory totally the wrong way... so he didn't only get any interest at all, he saw Germany and even his friends and family turn against his theory. That's quite a reason to become insane.

A strange story I heard was that when Nietzsche had become insane, his sister would wrap him in a tablecloth (because that just looked insane-ish) and show him to people. She actually let those people pay for it.

 

Native Americans considered the 'insane' the wisest among them.

Nietzsche was a genius.

 

I still say Nietzche is currently over-rated.

I have the same take on Soren Keirkagarrd (sp) whom I think becomes 'Trendy' every 8 years or so.

Now Blake.. hehe.. that guy really was insane.
Im not sure if he was 'Genius' but I would be far more intrigued with Blakes wackiness than Nietzshe anyday.

 

yeah, I'm not saying I'm a big fan of Nietzsche's theories... I do like parts of his theory, but there are a lot of things I don't agree with. That's a major problem with Nietzsche anyway, he never had any structure so almost any 'ism' can use the theory for their beliefs. Fascism, socialism, feminism, aristocratism...