ask me about Friedrich Nietzsche

[21times20]

i feel like this picture expresses my opinion of this thread more than words possibly could

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mbillie -

if i'm going to study a philosopher or painter for a bit i like to take the same drugs as them for a stretch to get into their state of mind.

so. nietzsche... suggestions?

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Nietzsche suffered from a variety of stomach illnesses; he didn't even smoke cigarettes (rare for his time/social place). He eventually contracted syphilis (it is believed from a prostitute; he was awful with women and it shows in his venomous writings about them) which led to his mental breakdown.

So I guess get syphilis, don't treat it for years and years and years, then eventually go insane? Although that aspect of his life is greatly exaggerated; his writings got more eccentric as he aged, but the disease didn't affect him until well after he had finished his last works.

Interestingly (and awesomely) it is reportedly the case that this is how he snapped... he was walking down the street in his town and saw a man beating a horse. He just lost it, it was the traumatic event that triggered a full on mental breakdown due to untreated syphilis.

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I was under the impression that he used chloral hydrate and morphine to deal with his health problems.

[4 High]

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Lukacs > Nietzsche

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Lukacs isn't even in the same league [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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You are correct, Nietzsche is several leagues below him.

[MF Doom]

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mbillie1:

just wanted to say good thread. I also read Use and Disadvantage of History for Life? whatever the hell it's called.

And while Kant's moral philosophy is a worthless hole, his epistimology was pretty awesome. 'Cardo, I sincerely hope you're not a Kantian in that sense. The categorical imperative isn't that great and it goes downhill from there.

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Have you read Critique of Judgment? It is one of the most impressive and thoughtful works in the history of philosophy, and is probably more relevant to modern times than any work from the era.

Does anyone read Foucault??

[Subfallen]

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There's a question at the end of this.
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That's all for now.

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Phil, an inaccurate and unfair treatment. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] Almost everything in your post is factually wrong, and I refer you to Kaufmann's Nietzsche for a nearly complete refutation.

For example,

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I consider Nietzche a turd of a man who didn't understand the most basic things about human emotion.

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Freud said that Nietzsche had greater self-knowledge than any man who had ever lived---or was likely to live---and that his intuitions regularly anticipated the conclusions of extensive psychoanalysis. As an example, even in N's first, ripest book, The Birth of Tragedy, he evinces impressive insight into the psychology of Hamlet:

"In this sense the Dionysian man resembles Hamlet: both have once looked truly into the essence of things, they have gained knowledge, and nausea inhibits action; for their action could not change anything in the eternal nature of things; they feel it to be ridiculous or humiliating that they should be asked to set right a world that is out of joint. Knowledge kills action; action requires the veils of illusion: that is the doctrine of Hamlet, not that cheap wisdom of Jack the Dreamer who reflects too much and, as it were, from an excess of possibilities does not get around to action. Not reflection, no---true knowledge, an insight into the horrible truth, outweighs any motive for action, both in Hamlet and in the Dionysian man.

Now no comfort avails any more; longing transcends a world after death, even the gods; existence is negated along with its glittering reflection in the gods or in an immortal beyond. Conscious of the truth he has once seen, man now sees everywhere only the horror or absurdity of existence; now he understands what is symbolic in Ophelia's fate; now he understand the wisdom of the sylvan god, Silenus: he is nauseated."

Doubtful whether anyone before him had illuminated Hamlet so extensively in so few words. (Paraphrasing Kaufmann.)

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Thomas Mann I think did justice to Nietzsche when he said, "Nietzsche wrote stylistically dazzling books---works sparkling with audacious insults to his age, venturing into more and more radical psychology, radiating a more and more glaring white light...[He]...revolutionized the whole atmosphere of his era."

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Does anyone read Foucault??

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When I'm looking for a break from Proust.

[NT!]

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Does anyone read Foucault??

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When I'm looking for a break from Proust.

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i once had an anthropology professor summarize foucault to me as follows:

(try to imagine this coming through bad teeth in an effete Moroccan accent)

"You see this book? This "The History of Sexuality"? This book should be called 'Why I Like To [censored] Little Boys by Michel Foucault.' That is what it is about. Michel Foucault likes to [censored] little boys."

[MF Doom]

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Does anyone read Foucault??

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When I'm looking for a break from Proust.

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i once had an anthropology professor summarize foucault to me as follows:

(try to imagine this coming through bad teeth in an effete Moroccan accent)

"You see this book? This "The History of Sexuality"? This book should be called 'Why I Like To [censored] Little Boys by Michel Foucault.' That is what it is about. Michel Foucault likes to [censored] little boys."

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That's a pretty bizarre reading of him.

[MikeyPatriot]

If one were to start reading Nietzche from scratch, what books should one read and in what order?