I have a gullible tendency to take bad advice from great men. (When reading Godement's Algebra, I foolishly took his advice to forget all the mathematics I already knew, and take everything literally. Such a bad idea!)

In What is Called Thinking? (1954, English translation 1968), Part I, end of Lecture VI, Heidegger writes:

Is he joking? I may not have ten to fifteen years! How does anyone get started reading philosophy? What can be made of this advice?

I have a gullible tendency to take bad advice from great men. (When reading Godement's Algebra, I foolishly took his advice to forget all the mathematics I already knew, and take everything literally. Such a bad idea!)

In What is Called Thinking? (1954, English translation 1968), Part I, end of Lecture VI, Heidegger writes:

Is he joking? I may not have ten to fifteen years! How does anyone get started reading philosophy? What can be made of this advice?

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

What is Called Thinking is, to my mind, a very important book; certainly it is one of Heidegger's most readable and gives us some inkling of the power of his lectures felt by his own students.

In several of the essays in the book, Heidegger spends a great deal of time discussing how to read Nietzsche; he is convinced that Nietzsche's thinking is vitally important if we are to be able to rethink the major themes of western philosophy, or be able to think at all.

In earlier paragraphs, Heidegger discusses the richness of the Platonic dialogue from which so much can be drawn if one actively and meditatively reads, and then he asks us to do the same with Zarathustra (and other works by Nietzsche). Part in jest, but also part in serious earnest, he suggests reading The Philosopher (to borrow Aquinas's epithet), perhaps because his style (the writings are, after all, lecture notes) necessarily demands close and careful reading, especially in his discussion of being in Metaphysics.

In the context of his view of the challenge to thinking in modern age which permeates his series of lectures---indeed gives rise to them--- and of the consequent added difficulties in reading Nietzsche (or doing philosophy for that matter), one might agree with his advice to his students to postpone reading Nietzsche until they are prepared to read him.

In the context of his view of the challenge to thinking in modern age which permeates his series of lectures---indeed gives rise to them--- and of the consequent added difficulties in reading Nietzsche (or doing philosophy for that matter), one might agree with his advice to his students to postpone reading Nietzsche until they are prepared to read him.

I always thought it hilarious when Hannah Arendt, the lover of that despicable Nazi, said that Heidegger had taught her how to think. Well. it certainly showed. The question of whether a bad person can be a philosopher originates in a book on Heidegger.

My philosophy advisor (unofficial) once suggested that I read Bergson or Schopenhauer rather than Nietzsche. Despite my immense admiration for her, I went to the university bookstore and bought three more books by Nietzsche.

I understand her point, and Heidegger's as well. Reading Nietzsche can be a heady experience, and an unprotected and untutored mind can certainly completely miss his meaning especially by taking passages out of context. Heidegger was discussing thinking about Being, and began his lectures with a prolonged discussion of Nietzsche as a prelude, or exercise, to returning in a more productive way to the early thinkers who, he felt, had a closer connexion with Being than the modern world.

Now, that is not the part of the anatomy that I associate with reading Nietzsche.

jgweed;129029 wrote:

Reading Nietzsche can be a heady experience,

Now, that is not the part of the anatomy that I associate with reading Nietzsche.

heady  
-adjective, head⋅i⋅er, head⋅i⋅est.
1. intoxicating: a heady wine.

However that may be, jgweed did use the correct word:



Many people are intoxicated from reading Nietzsche. That, of course, does not help them think clearly about things, which, I believe, is what you were alluding to.

I have a gullible tendency to take bad advice from great men. (When reading Godement's Algebra, I foolishly took his advice to forget all the mathematics I already knew, and take everything literally. Such a bad idea!)

In What is Called Thinking? (1954, English translation 1968), Part I, end of Lecture VI, Heidegger writes:

Is he joking? I may not have ten to fifteen years! How does anyone get started reading philosophy? What can be made of this advice?

What he says makes sense if you can see Nietzsche in the light of philosophy and a his times...He was a nut, but not so far from his own time which had a current of anti rationalism.. Worst of all, he spoke with the voice of authority, and was not, at least in one respect...He shared one quality with many philosophers...He did not grasp the essential human as is shown in our manifold relationships...He saw people as stick figures poorly drawn...Where is little baby super man, or little Mrs. Superman...His vision sprung right out of his absurd family situation, which was anything but normal or natural, and it is out of our natural ralationships that we have morality... So; while the young can treasure Nietzsche out of their terrible immorality and his support of it, their behavior and his support of it are both bizarre...

His vision sprung right out of his absurd family situation, which was anything but normal or natural, and it is out of our natural ralationships that we have morality

I'm doomed, then!:eek:

As for Nietzsche: I have always been completely repelled by him, and when I do read him, it will probably be mainly out of a sense of duty, because of his profound influence (particularly on Heidegger, and via Heidegger).

I love seeing the bag names criticized sincerely, as you do here, but this is too reductive. Nietzsche is a bag of tools, not just this or that idea.

Many people, if they bother to read Nietzsche at all, pick up a copy of Zarathustra and think that THAT is Nietzsche. It is certainly one of the unique philosophical books in history, it may be in a sense, a compendium of his thinking up to that time, but it is by no stretch of the imagination an adequate view of his thinking or even of his style.

Unlike many traditional philosophers, his writing is not systematic in the sense, say, that each book covers one branch of philosophy and he is done with it; rather, it reflects a gradual unfolding of ideas and themes that reflects Nietzsche's own journey in thinking, and it is not always the most direct path that he follows. Far from being the bearer of certainty, Nietzsche, at least from my reading, is the opposite; not only does he challenge many of the philosophical assumptions from Plato to Hegel, but he also challenges his readers to think through the issues for themselves:think dangerously, he seems to say.

He was like Jesus, a man who talked as one who knows...

I've found more recent translations of Nietzsche to be helpful as well. He's hard enough to read as it is! However, I haven't read enough of his work to dare comment here.

Many people, if they bother to read Nietzsche at all, pick up a copy of Zarathustra and think that THAT is Nietzsche.