Nietzsche - the most important philosopher - discuss

[LaMont Cranston]

Surendra, For somebody who thinks he has a finely-tuned woo detector, you come out with more unsubstantiated statements that are in the finest traditions of wibble than anybody I've run into on any of these fora.

Let's consider what you said about happiness slipping through your fingers like dust. Has it crossed your rigid mind that unhappiness is made of exactly the same stuff? Yes, dude, we have the capacity to be both happy and unhappy, and some people find ways to be happier or unhappier than others. Do we have at least some control over that, or must we live miserable existances because some rigid thinkers say it is so?

You've already demonstrated that you don't understand what wealthy is about? Hint: It's not about how much money you have. Many people, particularly rigid thinkers, can have a lot of money, but they aren't rich because they choose to live and think poor. It's exactly like that with being happy or unhappy.

As for "to go up against intellectuals and pretend to "win,"" gee, is that who I'm "going up against here?" Just who are these intellectuals? You? I think the Dawk is a brilliant man, a prototype intellectual. I also think he's a fit thrower, irrational, thin-skinned, disloyal and a lot of other things. Let me say it again...I know of few things that are more over-rated than being a so-called intellectual, and, in my experience, there are at least as many whores in academia as walking the streets of our cities.

We also might consider, in your terms, what it might mean to "win" on any of these fora. If you or I "win," what have we done, won over the hearts and minds of our fellow human beings to the side of belief or non-belief. You still don't get it that I could give a shit about doing that. However, if that happens to be one of your goals, how is it working out for you? (Not very well from what I can tell.)

Yes, Surendra, that sweet, young thing that piscator was kind enough to cyber-introduce us to is a picture of loveliness. Somehow, I seriously doubt that I am the only one to appreciate her beauty. Perhaps even Freddie would have thought she has a great ass...

[LaMont Cranston]

Surendra, One more thing...

There is a difference between ogling and appreciating beauty when they see it. It's kind of like the difference between being a rigid thinker and actually being rational. See you soon...

[Comte de Saint-Germain]

For a moment, let's forget about the brilliance of FN and consider your priorities. I know very little about your life, but at this time and place, do you want to dedicate years of study so you can carry on at cocktail parties or other gatherings? Purely from a practical point of view, does it appear that what you might get out of those years of study will be worth the time spent...especially when you undoubtedly have many other possibilities available to you?

The love of knowledge and attaining knowledge are, for many of us, far from useless. In fact, the love of knowledge and the attainment of same can be interesting, noble, life-enhancing, pleasurable, wonderful, useful and a lot of other things...

So you praise the study of knowledge for its own sake but question the use of studying FN? Frankly you haven't really said very much in this thread - other than the fact that you don't like Nietzsche very much. I was hoping for something a little more detailed than personal preference.

The point is that you are not going to get more. That said, this has been one of the most pathetic attacks against Nietzsche I have sofar seen. "I though cocain/LSD/&c. was more interesting" coming from someone who previously asserted that he seriously studied the history of philosophical ideas. He would disqualify himself in attacking the most simple of target.
His incredible poor offence, complete lack of defence, and an apparent inability to form any cogent argument - or any argument for that matter - should not imply that my position can only resist this sort of an attack.

[Comte de Saint-Germain]

Yes, Surendra, that sweet, young thing that piscator was kind enough to cyber-introduce us to is a picture of loveliness. Somehow, I seriously doubt that I am the only one to appreciate her beauty. Perhaps even Freddie would have thought she has a great ass...

Perhaps not, but you're the only one boring us with your nagging about it.

[LaMont Cranston]

Comte, Your boredom is predicated by yourself...

[Comte de Saint-Germain]

Comte, Your boredom is predicated by yourself...

Yeah, because hearing an old guy go on about the good days when he did some coke and flirting with women that would only date him for his money - if you have any - isn't boring at all. It's fascinating. Anyway, I'm off to smoke marijuana.

[Surendra Darathy]

Surendra, One more thing...

There is a difference between ogling and appreciating beauty when they see it.

Oh, don't I know! In one case, the spoon stays bent, and in another, someone has figured out a way to straighten it. My half a crown to your sixpence says you were ogling. Don't forget to tell the old trout about how hard you got for fifteen seconds before your hypertension killed it.

What do you mean, they? Was a sentence that?

[LaMont Cranston]

Surendra, Let's get this straight. It does seem as if things are coming to a head. In life, there can be a difference between something being hard and something being difficult. Rigid thinkers, no matter how much of a self-proclaimed intellectual they'd wish they were, won't finger that out. Hey, Dude, get a grip on it; let's see if you have a grasp of the situation. We know that you're a guy who excels at "holding his own." We get it that, for you, gives new meaning to the words "he's got the whole world in his hands." it is quite revealing that you've exposed yourself, but, you probably do that a lot, to be the kind of guy who is much more hot and bothered about the engorgement of an old guy than being able to appreciate the backside beauty of that sweet, young thing...

[Bruce Burleson]

Nietzsche has balls. I don't understand why all atheists don't love him. What freedom he exhibits! Genghis Khan loved him, even though he had been dead over 600 years when N. was born. It's the same spirit - a thread that runs through our history and surfaces from time to time. Rule in the midst of your enemies!

[Surendra Darathy]

Rule in the midst of your enemies!

Any three-year-old can do that, narcissistically, from the safety of his playpen.

Or better yet, what came later: "We have met the enemy and he is us." Imagine that! A possum outdoing the greatest thinker of the last 3000 years!

[Hermit]

Nietzsche gave christianity a good kick in the balls. That does not make him the most important philosopher. Conversely, he was not a mere wind bag either, but his aphoristic and poetic style of writing is not conducive to offering a closely argued point of view.

Sure, I have no problem in saying that in the long haul Friedrich Nietzsche is of more significance than Otto Weininger, but I don't think it is even useful to pose the question as to who might be regarded to be the most important philosopher. It makes as much sense as requiring you to name one piece of music / novel / movie / companion / cheese/ et cetera to take with you if you were banished to an uninhabited island. Yes, you may have a favourite at the time you are asked to decide, but why should you be required to decide that, say, Hume's epistemological treatise is more significant than Marx's social and economic analysis, that your partner is more important than your mother, The Glass Bead Game is superior to Animal Farm, Apocalypse Now is more entertaining than The Truth about Cats and Dogs...?

Love him or loathe him, Nietzsche was a major philosopher - as were dozens of others. Don't expect a league table, though. There is some sort of hierarchy, but it's an extremely fuzzy one.

[Animavore]

I'm listening to an audiobook on Nietzsche now read, ironically, by Charlton Heston.

[FedUpWithFaith]

Nietzsche gave christianity a good kick in the balls. That does not make him the most important philosopher. Conversely, he was not a mere wind bag either, but his aphoristic and poetic style of writing is not conducive to offering a closely argued point of view.

Sure, I have no problem in saying that in the long haul Friedrich Nietzsche is of more significance than Otto Weininger, but I don't think it is even useful to pose the question as to who might be regarded to be the most important philosopher. It makes as much sense as requiring you to name one piece of music / novel / movie / companion / cheese/ et cetera to take with you if you were banished to an uninhabited island. Yes, you may have a favourite at the time you are asked to decide, but why should you be required to decide that, say, Hume's epistemological treatise is more significant than Marx's social and economic analysis, that your partner is more important than your mother, The Glass Bead Game is superior to Animal Farm, Apocalypse Now is more entertaining than The Truth about Cats and Dogs...?

Love him or loathe him, Nietzsche was a major philosopher - as were dozens of others. Don't expect a league table, though. There is some sort of hierarchy, but it's an extremely fuzzy one.

Well said.

I think very highly of FN, but to assert that anything is "greatest" in any sort of objective sense when the human being is largely , if not primarily, subjective, seems like folly.

Even if you could argue objectively for the relative greatness of some philosopher it would be myopic based on the context of your times. How can you predict the fate of humanity and measure importance by an ever-changing sea?

We live at a time of amazing change and challenge and this will likely accelerate for some time to come. I don't know if 200 years from now we'll be attaining new heights of progress, ruled by robots, or vanquished by man-made climate change or some natural disaster. I don't know whose voices will speak most brilliantly to that age, be it a new interpretation of FN, Plato, or perhaps someone who worked in obscurity in our age.

If Comte can objectively prove why FN will hold the keys to their plight, whatever it is, over all philosophers of the past 3000 years, then I'm prepared to concede the argument to him.

[Comte de Saint-Germain]

Nietzsche gave christianity a good kick in the balls. That does not make him the most important philosopher.

Misrepresentation of the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. He did not 'merely' give Christianity a 'good' kick in the balls. He provided a completely new and devastating critique of Christianity that serves as a model for a new style of criticism, next a long list of other accomplishments.

Conversely, he was not a mere wind bag either, but his aphoristic and poetic style of writing is not conducive to offering a closely argued point of view.

Not all his books are aphoristic or, for that matter, 'poetic'. Have you read his works in German? The poetry never takes precedence over substance.

Sure, I have no problem in saying that in the long haul Friedrich Nietzsche is of more significance than Otto Weininger, but I don't think it is even useful to pose the question as to who might be regarded to be the most important philosopher.

Then he is the most significant philosopher?

It makes as much sense as requiring you to name one piece of music / novel / movie / companion / cheese/ et cetera to take with you if you were banished to an uninhabited island.

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Mahler, the list goes on of composers that are superior to most other composers or 'songwriters'. Similarly, there are superior novels, films and cheeses, &c. The idea that simply because things are relative that they are also equal is something I reject.

Yes, you may have a favourite at the time you are asked to decide, but why should you be required to decide that, say, Hume's epistemological treatise is more significant than Marx's social and economic analysis, that your partner is more important than your mother, The Glass Bead Game is superior to Animal Farm, Apocalypse Now is more entertaining than The Truth about Cats and Dogs...?

It's quite possible to enter criteria, even if it is difficult to compare things for a layman. I know enough philosophy to compare philosophers.

Love him or loathe him, Nietzsche was a major philosopher - as were dozens of others. Don't expect a league table, though. There is some sort of hierarchy, but it's an extremely fuzzy one.

Not that fuzzy to me..

If Comte can objectively prove why FN will hold the keys to their plight, whatever it is, over all philosophers of the past 3000 years, then I'm prepared to concede the argument to him.

Laughable. If you can throw me with using only one hand, standing on only one leg, I shall concede you are better in Judo than I am? Why should I concede such silly limitations?

One of the most important mathematicians of all time are Newton and Einstein. They paved the way. Sure, someone else could have done it, but they DID. In three thousand years, we will still recognise Newton and Einstein as pioneers. We won't recognise Charles Darwin, whose contribution to evolutionary theory is a modern fiction. It is possible that Friedrich Nietzsche will become less important over time, but that will be true for all past philosophers. I daresay no past philosopher has made a greater contribution than Friedrich Nietzsche. I am not saying that Nietzsche will for always be the most important philosopher. That is obviously reserved for myself..

[FedUpWithFaith]

If Comte can objectively prove why FN will hold the keys to their plight, whatever it is, over all philosophers of the past 3000 years, then I'm prepared to concede the argument to him.

Laughable. If you can throw me with using only one hand, standing on only one leg, I shall concede you are better in Judo than I am? Why should I concede such silly limitations?

One of the most important mathematicians of all time are Newton and Einstein. They paved the way. Sure, someone else could have done it, but they DID. In three thousand years, we will still recognise Newton and Einstein as pioneers. We won't recognise Charles Darwin, whose contribution to evolutionary theory is a modern fiction. It is possible that Friedrich Nietzsche will become less important over time, but that will be true for all past philosophers. I daresay no past philosopher has made a greater contribution than Friedrich Nietzsche. I am not saying that Nietzsche will for always be the most important philosopher. That is obviously reserved for myself..

I think you missed my point, especially since you only chose to respond to my last sentence. You say that FN is the most "significant" or "important" philosopher in the last 3000 years. And you have indeed backed up your assertion of why you find him important objectively and subjectively, though far from comprehensively. Setting the subjective aside, which I hope we can agree is not relevant unless you can demonstrate, somehow objectively, why all those "in the know" should share your subjective valuation, let us try to concentrate of the objective. I italicized "try to" because I have little doubt that you will see this breaks down to folly as well, heavily dependent on the subjective values of individual humans as well as the zeitgeist of the times. That's the point you missed.

There are many objective means by which we find something important. Being first to discover a new solution to a major problem or a new way of thinking is good. But there are many philosophers with more firsts than FN. The Greeks come to mind. FN is more indebted to those who came before than all philosophy is to him. I'm sure you're probably aware of the controversy concerning Max Stirner. Though I don't believe the accusations that FN plagarized him, it's clear that many of the ideas for which FN is given credit originated earlier with Stirner. It also begs the question of how we rank the relative importance of the solution or way of thinking to all others. Do you have an objective way of doing that?

Utility and influence are other objective(?) criteria that you would also need to address to answer my last question. Both Newton and Einstein provided objective math solutions to problems that both have immense theoretical and practical usefulness in their time, today, and tomorrow. It would be interesting to hear you argue which one is more important given that the objectivity of their discoveries is unquestionably more objective than Nietzsche's. And to reiterate my original point, it could very well turn out that those most fundamental secrets of the universe and/or man's greatest technical achievements could come to turn on the foundation of mathematics of some 19th century mathematician rendering that relatively obscure contribution far more important than either Newton's or Einstein's. But that can only be known by the context of a future you can never grasp. So your claim's of the greatness of any human are completely dependent on your temporal context. Nowhere is this more evident than in the art world where artists constantly rise and fall in "greatness" depending on their influence on current artists and/or art historians.

After utility you can argue influence. There are two main types of influence. One is the influence on other philosophers and the other is influence on society. I could argue the former is rather irrelevant since you yourself acknowledge the flimsy nature of such an enterprise. All the philosophy since FN, to 2200AD let's say, where for sake of argument FN's influence reached its zenith, could be viewed as junk or lackluster by the most influential philosophers living in 2201. As for society, I really have a hard time estimating FN's importance. I see FN as distilling ideas that were percolating in his time (though he was very prescient) rather than inventing new ones. The ideas found in FN's work that have really impacted society can arguably can be found elsewhere in works of art and literature (e.g., Dostoevsky) which FN neither originated or influenced, some before, some during, and some after his time. It is through those works that society at large has really changed, not FN's.