Why do people fawn over this book? If you like it, can you explain why with an example naming a paragraph number?
As I grew up, my opinion of philosophy turned negative. I think most of philosophy is bullshit by people who think they are much smarter than they are. But I am always open to change my mind so I tried Beyond Good and Evil as it was praised exceptionally by people I respect. And it reads like incomprehensible ramblings of a drug addict. Yes, you can interpret much into it. But if that was what Nietzsche wanted to express, why didn't he write it directly and clearly? I suspect his big accomplishment is this lack of clarity that deceives a stupid reader into reading what they want to read.
>inb4 you're too stupid and uneducated to understand it People always say this when I criticize philosophy. If you think that, go ahead and explain the greatness of even one paragraph and why it could not have been expressed with any more clarity. A philosopher who is intelligent would try to be clear and comprehensible.
>A philosopher who is intelligent would try to be clear and comprehensible.
Post a phrase that isn't "clear and comprehensible".
John Martinez
Paragraph 64: >"Die Erkenntniss um ihrer selbst willen" - das ist der letzte Fallstrick, den die Moral legt: damit verwickelt man sich noch einmal völlig in sie. >"Knowledge for its own sake"—that is the last snare laid by morality: we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more.
Jayden Nguyen
>"Knowledge for its own sake"—that is the last snare laid by morality: we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more.
He doesn't believe that "knowledge for its sake" is a transcendental value. There might be higher forms of life that remain ignorant of certain aspects so that the higher level "play of the game" doesn't degenerate into over-optimization.
Imagine playing a game where all sorts of strategies and fun abound. Then one day, someone finds the knowledge of leveraging a simple dull but effective mechanics that gives one insurmountable advantage. That knowledge turns the game into a boring shitfest where the wiser players might curse "knowledge above all" as a cosmic joke.
Hudson Sanders
>Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche Nietzsche wasn't an anglo.
Isaac Butler
Your example isn't convincing. Not just the content but also how it relates to the paragraph.
>Knowledge for its own sake I disagree with this sentiment myself. But why is it a snare laid by morality? Why is it the last snare? Why does it completely entangle people in morals? Why once more?
I can understand how the sentiment can be called a snare and how people can become entangled in it. After all, it sounds noble without reason. And people can lose themselves in trying to abide by it, they can be ensnared by it, tricked into believing without reason. The rest is unclear to me.
Juan Price
> But why is it a snare laid by morality? Because under the guise of "pure knowledge" (knwoledge that doesn't care about your petty feelings and reflects reality without weighting on its moral aspects) you are led to value knowledge as moral entity after all. So while you believe you"re "just seeing things as they are" you're acting 'knowledge is the ultimate Good". So you circle back to morality, only instead of some predetermined value system it's the very quest for knowledge that become the ultimate moral value.
So it does completely entangle people in morals, but morals hidden under the process of dealing with reality (determining what is real). For this reason it is a snare, for this reason it is all-encompassing (since it is not limited by some obvious cultural specificity like "this is the law of my fathers" -instead it parades as the law of "reality itself"). , for this reason it perverse and hard to evade.
>Why once more? My guess would be that the search for truth Nietzsche is talking about is established and hailed as a value after a prior set of values has collapsed. "We now see the errors and lies and Christiniaty, so we will build a new system grounded on SCIENCE, one that cares about facts, not feelings" says Richard Dawkins. Meanwhile he's relapsing into closeted moralism.
Contrast with Eliezer Yudkowsky which, for all his rationalistic memery, is very open about the fact that rationality is not the more important things for him - he has some higher moral values, and he engages in rationality because he thinks that's the best way to fulfill those values. In this he is honest and (ironically) old-fashioned. Ultimately Yudkowsky, Dawkins and most American Christian will share a lot of fundamental values about what is good and important.
Ryan Wright
He rejects all objective and universal truths: morality, knowledge etc. It corresponds with his notion of perspectivism.
Aiden King
>He rejects all objective and universal truths: morality, knowledge etc That's retarded. Everyone lives as if there are objective and universal truths. Examples are that you need to breathe and drink or their equivalents to stay alive. Rejecting truths shows strong cognitive dissonance which shows lack of intelligence.
Elijah Cruz
>Everyone lives as if there are objective and universal truths That's his point, you half-wit: >Viele Länder sah Zarathustra und viele Völker: so entdeckte er vieler Völker Gutes und Böses. Keine größere Macht fand Zarathustra auf Erden als Gut und Böse. >Leben könnte kein Volk, das nicht erst schätzte; will es sich aber erhalten, so darf es nicht schätzen, wie der Nachbar schätzt. >Vieles, das diesem Volke gut hieß, hieß einem andern Hohn und Schmach: also fand ich's. >Vieles fand ich hier böse genannt und dort mit purpurnen Ehren geputzt. >Nie verstand ein Nachbar den andern: stets verwunderte sich seine Seele ob des Nachbarn Wahn und Bosheit. >Eine Tafel der Güter hängt über jedem Volke. Siehe, es ist seiner Überwindungen Tafel; siehe, es ist die Stimme seines Willens zur Macht.
>shows lack of intelligence speaking from first-hand experience no doubt
Oliver Martin
Thank you for the insightful post. The key part of your post is: >My guess would be that the search for truth Nietzsche is talking about is established and hailed as a value after a prior set of values has collapsed. "We now see the errors and lies and Christiniaty, so we will build a new system grounded on SCIENCE, one that cares about facts, not feelings" This offers a plausible explanation of the paragraph's meaning.
However, I hope you can now agree that his writing is unclear. You need contextual knowledge to even be able to guess what he means. And once you guess what he means, that says nothing about its validity.
Example paragraph 49: >Das, was an der Religiosität der alten Griechen staunen macht, ist die unbändige Fülle von Dankbarkeit, welche sie ausströmt: - es ist eine sehr vornehme Art Mensch, welche so vor der Natur und vor dem Leben steht! >That which is so astonishing in the religious life of the ancient Greeks is the irrestrainable stream of GRATITUDE which it pours forth—it is a very superior kind of man who takes SUCH an attitude towards nature and life. It's just a narrated opinion, not an argument. A proper philosopher would argue why gratitude is a noble trait, not just narrate how someone is grateful and thus noble.
At this point I want to comment on the shitty translation. I think the original is better. Translating vornehm as superior is not correct. Since languages differ, an exact translation is impossible, but noble seems to be a better choice.
Jaxon Lee
Just because some people disagree on some points of what they perceive to be universal truths, that does not mean universal truths do not exist.
The point is that there are universal truths with which everyone who lives agrees. Good and evil are a fictive quality of subjective evaluation. So those are obviously not universal truths. But that does not make breathing any less necessary for survival.
>speaking from first-hand experience no doubt Poor effort of name calling because it includes the possibility of me having experienced the stupidity of others, not my own.
Mason Jenkins
>how dare a writer not assume that I'm retarded
Ayden White
The pursuit "for its own sake" is a moral statement.
Jason Phillips
Nietzsche himself tells you to read BGE before GM
Jaxon Green
I read this book by audio while working in a welding shop making utility semitrucks in 100 degree weather and managed to perfectly understand it. Compared with almost anyone I think Nietzsche is by far one of the most intelligible philosphers.
That being said a lot of nietzsche whole point isn't to give you a clear and simple system to view the world through like a kant or Plato might. Nietzsche doesnt view the world like that. To nietzsche reality and truth are either unknowable or undesirable. So nietzsche really just gives you a lot of small glimpses into his thinking and general worldview which are sometimes self contradictory and asystematic.
>a lot of small glimpses into his thinking and general worldview which are sometimes self contradictory and asystematic Then why does Nietzsche get so much praise?
Kayden Hall
>his thinking and general worldview are sometimes self contradictory and asystematic This led me to almost believe I was misinterpreting him at times in the beginning.
>And it reads like incomprehensible ramblings of a drug addict. Nietzsche is reacting against Christianity and Schopenhauerian pessimism in most of his works, which he saw as life-denying and ultimately dull. He's overly dramatic as a stylistic choice. He wants you to wake up.
>If you like it, can you explain why with an example naming a paragraph number? Nietzsche has a way of delivering devastating critiques of other philosophers in very short outbursts. For example: here is his main critique of Schopenhauer's "will to life" concept, popularized at the time by Darwin et al.: >Physiologists should think again before postulating the drive to self-preservation as the cardinal drive in an organic being. A living thing desires above all to vent its strength – life as such is will to power – : self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent consequences of it. Another example, is his general critique against the "Hinterwelters", people like Christians and idealists who posit the existence of "another" world beyond the one of everyday life: >If nothing in the world is given as real, except our passions and desires, is it not permitted to make the experiment and ask the question whether this which is given does not suffice for an understanding even of the so-called mechanical (or ‘material’) world? BGE is full of little bits of these destructive criticisms that resonate with a lot of people. You should tackle Nietzsche's work as an organic whole and read his stuff multiple times and each time it will make more sense. His work is dynamic, not systemic. It's Romanticism.
