Nietzsche - the most important philosopher - discuss

[Existentialist1844]

Okay, the only opinion that matters is mine. Without intellectualizing the topic, I just think FN was a bad motherfucker. Over the last couple years, I have steered away from philosophy. I guess I was too busy with other things, and even more busy with my current endeavors. However, I find Nietzsche to be very inspirational. I like reading his quotes. They give me inspiration. If some people think he sucks, so be it. I don't read Nietzsche and critique every last word. I have read most of his works, and have a so-so understanding of them. I am not as well versed as others on this forum. Meh, I enjoy reading his quotes, etc.

“He who has a why can endure any how”

"I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage."

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

[colubridae]

"I believe That which does not kill you makes you - weirder."

The Joker

[Animavore]

I think you'll find he said 'stranger'

[Epictetus]

I think you'll find that Nietzsche had much sage advice for those who subscribe to the death wish that lay at the very heart of the Christian religion, with its repudiation of life in this world:

"Life is only suffering," they say. See to it, then, that the life that is only suffering ceases to be. See to it that you cease to be."

And elsewhere:

“I want to speak to the despisers of the body. I would not have them learn and teach differently. But merely say farewell to their own bodies--and thus become silent.”

Who has ears to hear, let him hear...

[Animavore]

I got Human, All Too Human and although I'm only a chapter into the book it's fast becoming my favourite Nietzschean discourse.

Disreputable words. Away with those tedious, worn-out words "optimism" and "pessimism."29 Every day there is less and less cause to use them; only babblers still cannot do without them. For why in the world should anyone want to be an optimist if he does not have to defend a God who must have created the best of all possible worlds, given that he himself is goodness and perfection? What thinking person still needs the hypothesis of a god?
Nor is there cause for a pessimistic confession, if one does not have an interest in irritating the advocates of God, the theologians or the theologizing philosophers, and energetically asserting the opposite claim, namely that evil reigns, that unpleasure is greater than pleasure, that the world is a botched job, the manifestation of an evil will to life. But who worries about theologians these days (except the theologians)?
All theology and its opposition aside, it is self-evident that the world is not good and not evil, let alone the best or the worst, and that these concepts "good" and "evil" make sense only in reference to men. Perhaps even there, as they are generally used, they are not justified: we must in every case dispense with both the reviling and the glorifying view of the world.

Nietzsche here offers a remedy for those atheists of a gloomy nature (Schopenhaur is the "pessimist" here but John Gray could do well to take a lesson) or those religious people who wonder why God allows such suffering? The God believing optimist tries to find nothing but good in the world, even out of a disaster like Haiti. Others see this as evidence or no or an unjust God. Nietzsche says, of course, that there is no God and "goodness" and "justice" are human constructs which don't apply to the world beyond us (and maybe not even to ourselves).
Once you accept this you put yourself beyond good and evil; it doesn't matter if you say the glass is "half-full" or "half-empty", it doesn't make any differnce to your state of being any more than it make a difference to the amount of liquid in the glass.


Fuck yeah

[leo-rcc]

it doesn't matter if you say the glass is "half-full" or "half-empty", it doesn't make any differnce to your state of being any more than it make a difference to the amount of liquid in the glass.

The glass is 50% larger than it needs to be.

[the PC apeman]

The glass is 50% larger than it needs to be.

A glass 50% larger than a full glass but containing the same amount of fluid would be 2/3 rather than 1/2 full.

Sorry, it's one of my pet peeves. You may now sneer at my silly pedantry.

[Svartalf]

All I can say about Nietsche is that, even a a Socrates megafan, I find his thought much better than Plato or Aristotle ever managed to spew out... It's a shame that the laconic form he chose for Also Sprache Zarathustra ended up doing him more disservice than the actual content deserves, and that many people never go beyond that (truth to tell, things like Birth of Tragedy are boring as hell and not philosophically too interesting, but Beyond Good and Evil IS worth a non prejudiced study)

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Optimist - The glass is half full
Pessimist - The glass is half empty
Economist - We are spending twice as much on glasses as we need to.

[Robert_S]

Optimist - The glass is half full
Pessimist - The glass is half empty
Economist - We are spending twice as much on glasses as we need to.

Jesus: Turn the water into wine and miraculously get 5,000 people drunk off it.

Well, if he ever comes back here and pulls off something like that, I'll repent.

[leo-rcc]

You may now sneer at my silly pedantry.

No, you are indeed correct.

[buschmaster]

...

[Animavore]

The infuriating thing about an individual way of living. People are always angry at anyone who chooses very individual standards for his life; because of the extraordinary treatment which that man grants to himself, they feel degraded, like ordinary beings.





and that's why i love him

[hiyymer]

Call him the greatest philosopher of all time. Seriously how great is that? Cardboard is more important.

[Hermit]

Call him the greatest philosopher of all time. Seriously how great is that? Cardboard is more important.

Well, yes, true, but to be regarded as the greatest among philosophers is not too shabby.

I think Nietzsche is not particularly great at all. His appeal stems chiefly from his aphorisms. Pithy and short pronouncements appeal to people who are too stupid or lazy to engage in sustained trains of thought. That would be the majority of humankind, including the majority of humankind that professes to be interested in philosophy.