Nietzsche's application of nihilism.

[Received]

I thought the Sartrean idea of Nausea was based in the ontological realization of the nothingness that hides behind all things (due, if I remember correctly, to their contingency). I suppose that can relate to meaning.

I don't think Kierkegaard slipped into the unknown; he simply named the unknown God. His notion of the self as a balance between two polarities -- infinity and finitude, necessity and possibility, etc. -- was solved, he thought, through the self-assertion (freedom, spirit) involved with actualizing the Eternal (meaning) for each particular person. He probably called it God because he may have considered it odd that this particular meaning could be a solution -- a perfect solution, rooting out all despair, making one authentically happy, or as happy as he could be -- arbitrarily, or through man's indirect creation. Whatever the case is, I find no pragmatic difference between his understanding of absolute meaning, and the understanding of meaning espoused by those such as Nietzsche, who advocated creating one's own values (which starts with esteeming), or Sartre (who considered freedom to be the ultimate value, poor chap). No, I don't think Kierkegaard is flawed or fearful; he just found Christianity fitting. Not shockingly, virtually all religious conversions in the Western sense correlate with a concrete sense of meaning, purpose, and well-being related to this. God is, for them, their meaning -- here, now, in the instant, or in the relation between eternity and temporality.

Put another way, the leap of faith is religous only in an extrinsic sense in relation to religious language. To be religious means to leap for one's meaning, which Kierkegaard equated with the Logos (Christ), not believing certain tenets of Christian ideology -- though for Kierkegaard this ultimately was entailed with living a life dedicated to one's meaning.

 

[Nooj]

Apologies for getting off-topic, but I didn't want to create a thread solely for just this question: Is Zarathustra in Nietzsche's TSZ an example of an ubermensch?

 

[ehehe]

Apologies for getting off-topic, but I didn't want to create a thread solely for just this question: Is Zarathustra in Nietzsche's TSZ an example of an ubermensch?

I think it would be a mistake to say that anyone is the Overman. It is a continual process of self-overcoming.

Some would argue that Zarathustra "becomes" the Overman, and some would argue that there are purposefully no real examples of the Overman in Nietzsche's writings. Regardless, TSZ wasn't meant to teach by example.

p.s. I find this whole thread comically lacking in Schopenhauer references !!

 

[funyun]

Double post.

 

[funyun]

Apologies for getting off-topic, but I didn't want to create a thread solely for just this question: Is Zarathustra in Nietzsche's TSZ an example of an ubermensch?

Hard to say. I think Zarathustra is more like an embodiment of Nietzsche's slap-in-the-face-to-the-ignorant than a real human with a complex intellect. I don't think the concept of the ubermensch can be applied to anything less than something as complex as a real tangible individual, and I don't think it can meaningfully be applied to an abstraction such as Zarathustra in Also Sprach Zarathustra.

 

[ExistencePrecedesEssence]

Zarathustra is the ideal man, according to Nietzsche. He called the novel the greatest relaying of his ideas. It covers most of the things applied to his philosophies, especially the descent of Zarathustra to the town below. The beginning of the novel is supposed to represent man's climb to the superman and his decent, which takes place many years later, is an attempt to represent the superman's attempt at showing the rest of the world his ascending and how it is accessible to all. That's what I got out of it. at least.

 

[Azna]

I recently had an argument with someone concerning Nietzsche's nihilistic ideology in the pursuit of the grand scheme. Now, many classify Nietzsche as one of the fathers of modern nihilism. But Nietzsche only used his nihilism in pursuit of defeating the morality and ethicalities that control us now. So in prospect; Nietzsche was not calling for nihilism so much as we was calling for a revolution through nihilism to help usher in order once again.

Does anyone have any thoughts? Im greatly interested in this. Nihilistic action has been mentioned to me a lot the past couple of days, i would like someone to help me understand Nietzsche's nihilism, along with the thesis/anti-thesis of philosophy against nihilism.

The impression that I got from reading Nietzshe is that he believed religion to be the crutch of fools.

But, since he also believed that women were incapable of intelligence...

 

[Received]

We should also remember that Nietzsche was pretty fragmented in thought. He contradicts himself at times; early Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human) went so far in one instance to speak of how religion can highlight nobility in certain personalities. Even in his late sane life he praised (severely praised) Jesus. Nonetheless, for him, the only Christian who ever lived was the one who died on the cross; religion, for him, meant a muffling of selfhood, self-overcoming.