I've been re-reading a bit of Aristotle, and I just got done reading his Ethics. This was the first time I had read it in about 10 years.
I roughly have the same impression as I did back then (as with all things Aristotle) - it's a great relaxing read, and along with Nietzsche he is one of my favorite / more comforting and sane ethicists.
Anyway,
I realize one of the few time Fritz seems concerned with Aristotle is when he makes fun of his ethics. That stated, is anyone else under the impression that there are some striking similarities between the conclusion of Beyond Good and Evil and the Magnanimous Man - or did I read too much into something?
I'm not going to type anything now (because I have neither authors books on hand) but I may get a bit in depth on this at a later date.
Notes:
A) Yes, I'm an amoralist - no need to talk about "ethics as a whole" or some meta discussion on this - start you're own thread if you want to do that.
B) I am interested in no other ethical/moral system than that of the two mentioned in this thread, and I am certainly not interested in how they are both wrong as compared with whomever you have a fetish about.
C) I am not interested in the ethics you espouse at all
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
Could you describe to me how Aristotle describes the magnanimous man? I haven't read a world of Aristotle but I have read a far deal of Nietzsche and frankly I have a hard time understanding what exactly he's describing when he talks about his ubermensch. I know my interpretation and rehabilitation of his ideas, but I have a hard time really understanding what he means, and Zarathustra made the overman an even more confusing subject for me :P
I'll get a bit more in depth in the week.
I think I'm actually thinking of BGE, where he starts to indroduce his conclusion at the end. It really comes to a head when he introduces Master/Slave morality. I just remember reading Nicomedian Ethics and my head immediately went to that passage.
I'm divorced from my books for a few days, I'll do specific block quotes in a few days
Neodoxy, Thus Spoke Zarathustra is actually a simplistic read (in my opinion) compared to his other works, but I suppose his writing style is what throws people off, as it does for me sometimes.
vive if you haven't looked into Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins, they have an audio lecture called Will to Power: The Philosophy of Nietzsche, it's 24 lectures averaging 30 minutes each and is pretty interesting.
My problem with Zarathustra, by and large, is that I can't tell when Nietzsche is being rhetorical, playing with/making fun of religious rhetoric itself, or actually writing something substantial.
Could you inform me as to what you beleive Nietzsche to have been describing in the concept of the ubermensch?
Nietzsche actually took influence from Jesus on Zarathustra (Solomon and Higgins go into this on their lecture "Nietzche's Top Ten") and was written to sort of be a parody of the Bible. In a way it could be all 3 at once of what you're describing.
I actually have an understanding of Nietzsche from others who were influenced/focused on Nietzsche themselves. My understanding of the Ubermensch is that man himself now is just a vessel to that state of being. Read Zarathustra as the Ubermensch, that Zarathustra knows and can rise above, that he's not subjected to, man's morality (or lack of), and by large will not allow himself to be turned into a dogmatic ideal.
It may be interesting to note that (according to Stephen Flowers) Nietzsche in his later life would refer to himself as Zarathustra as well as the Anti-Christ.
thanks for the suggestion bert, I'll get to it when I can.
I think I share Neo's sentiments on Zarathustra - it's almost literature.
I tend to view N's "big" works as the Gay Science, BGE, and Twilight/Anti - with Geneology as a type suppliment. Also Twilight / AC tend to be a bit different than The Gay Science and BGE.
Anyway I'll hopefully make some posts on Sat in relation to Ari and Nietzsche
The relationship between existentialism and libertarianism seems kind of complicated. The early existentialist works match up with it quite nicely - the later ones (Sartre) don't agree as much.
Well, Sartre was a Marxist.
No doubt.
Going back through Sartre's stuff I wouldn't mind reading the Critique and Situation essays.
In the Critique Sartre set out to give Marxism a more vigorous intellectual defense than it had received until then; he ended by concluding that Marx's notion of "class" as an objective entity was fallacious. Sartre's emphasis on the humanist values in the early works of Marx led to a dispute with a leading leftist intellectual in France in the 1960s, Louis Althusser, who claimed that the ideas of the young Marx were decisively superseded by the "scientific" system of the later Marx.
SkepticalMetal: The relationship between existentialism and libertarianism seems kind of complicated. The early existentialist works match up with it quite nicely - the later ones (Sartre) don't agree as much.
I'd say that they are completely compatible! Existentialism, or choosing your essence, is synonymous with choosing your destiny in a free market, no doubt, brutha.
Fuck Sartre. How the hell do you take existentialist premises and come to a Marxist conclusion?
I guess you could call H. L. Mencken an existentialist, right? I'd like to read his works.
Wow interesting, I just looked in the back of twilight of the Idols (penguin edition) under the index of subjects, and it states exactly the same thing I said , that the two are very similar.
Anywho, I got most of my impression from BGE: 260. In it you can kind of see how N navigates between two modes of thought (even though he creates only a dichotomy - which in itself may be a big deal) and states his case, and also argues against "utility".
As for te whole Sartre tangent:
1) be careful with the word existentialist (I may be wrong, but it is possible Sartre kind of coined the term and started labeling people "existentialist" to show a point) it's a tricky word.
2) yes the French are loopy, and more fashionable - which in and of itself ought to show a certain type of "correctness" over the "serious Germans" who people are only going to take so far before they water them down. I spend a lot of time thinking about this.
3) H.L. Mencken was influenced by Nietzsche, and did some of the first US translations of his works.
4) In relation to tangent #2, I do think it is possible for Stirner, Nietzsche, Heidegger, etc to be compatible and a "metaphysical backbone" to "non scientism-progressive" forms of leftism, this may actually include Marxism to some degree (the concerns with "laws" of history, social vs asocial behavior and the factors that determine them, and other things could work in some ways I guess).
NonAntiAnarchist: How the hell do you take existentialist premises and come to a Marxist conclusion?
How the hell do you take existentialist premises and come to a Marxist conclusion?
Because authenticity is an important concept within existentialism. And Marxism, in the social sense, deals quite extensively in critiquing the capitalist economy for alienating labor from people's true purposes.
So in other words, working for a wage is inauthentic. It is work not for the sake of producing something you want, but to earn something that can be exchanged for what you really want. Of course, Sartre was not looking at wage labor from a praxeological understanding so this conclusion is, i suppose, understandable. It is this type of thinking that leads me to understand that most social marxists think society should evolve into a collective of hobbiests. I'm not too well read on this though, so maybe I'm off base.
On the Menken/Nietzsche thing:
I quite recommend this book. While he certainly gets some things wrong in terms of what Nietzsche actually meant, I believe that what he does write about wherever he differs from Nietzsche is ultimately a good Nietzschean philosophy.
But I thought we don't have an "essence.".. For me to say working for a wage is "inauthentic," wouldn't I have to hold some conception of how man should lead his life? And yet to have preconceptions stating how man should lead his life seems to define, or give man an essence, something which seems contradictory to basic tenents of existentialism.
Warning: I only remember vague details about Existentialist thought from a philosophy class.
I want to say Benjamin Tucker and Josiah Warren did some of the first US translations of Nietzsche, and I want to say they translated Stirner as well, but of course whatever translations they did were not in wide circulation.
No this is true. But in the Marxian fiction it must be understood that wages alienate workers from their humanity. Labor is not seen as a commodity in Marxism, it is seen as an expression of individuality. So to commodify is as an intermediate good is to violate the laborer's individuality (afaik). Capitalism alienates persons from their productivity. That's why wage labor is inauthentic.
It's more so private production alienates the worker/laborer from his work/labor, thus someone owns a business or factory and hires people to make widgets, the workers make the widgets but have no ownership or influence over the widgets themselves, they are disconnected from "owning" their work.
The belief is based on that capitalism is an unnatural heirarchy, as where the worker works, those who manage the workers don't work as they do, and the privilege and income starts from the top down. The owners of the resources reap the income of the workers making widgets, of which they have no authority over. Generally those who hold this view see the manager as unnecessary and generally association or ownership by contract irrelevant and void.
Whoa, I looked up section 260 in Beyond G&E and see this:
A morality of the ruling group, however, is most alien and embarrassing to the present taste in the severity of its principle that one has duties only to one's peers; that against beings of a lower rank, against everything alien [...]
This may fit in with the idea of worker's alienation.