How can one be right and wrong at the same time?

If you disagree with his philosophy that is fine -- Bertrand Russell thought that Nietzsche was repugnant, as I'm sure do most religious moral philosophers. But please, do your argument enough credit to take on his argument as presented in his text.

Look, I hate Heidegger -- he was a flag waving Nazi, he led a burning of Jewish books, and he never retracted his Naziism even after their crimes were made known. But his written philosophy is not antisemitic, at least not in any obvious way, any moreso than Richard Wagner's operas were antisemitic even though Wagner himself had made open statements about ridding Germany of Jews.

So separate the philosophy from the man when you're analyzing the arguments. Maybe the man informs the arguments, but with the exception of Will to Power every bit of Nietzsche's philosophy as he wanted the world to see it is there in written form.

To dismiss the writings of Sartre because of his temporary idolization of Castro, of Nietzsche because of his breakdown at the end of his life, of Plato because of his friendship with the Thirty Tyrants, or of Heidegger because of his Nazi party membership would seem to deprive us all of major monuments to human thinking.

Even though people say that Nietzsche was not contructing a systematic philosophy as Hegel, or Spinozo may have attempted, he was still going to great lengths

Even Nietzsche's correct presumption that humanity is irrational primarily instead of rational is not exactly correct

Aedes;102470 wrote:

Though the line is not always so clear. Heidegger wasn't a politically expedient member of the Nazi party. He was a full blown Nazi, he barred Jews from the University he headed, he sanctioned a public burning of Jewish books, and he was friends with Julius Streicher who edited the most violent of the anti-Jewish propaganda publications in Germany (and who was executed at Nuremberg). It makes one want to look at his writing differently to see how the two were related, especially given that most German philosophers at the time renounced Naziism and fled.

And Streicher had a Jewish girlfriend, and was too corrupt and incompetent to hold office under the Nazis who were often very corrupt and incompetent... Does Heidegger lie when he helps to explain Kant in a more understandable fashion... I suppose I could look, but he had planned a book on Nietzshe, and that might be interesting...

---------- Post added 11-08-2009 at 02:45 PM ----------

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He was not attempting to construct a systematic philosophy, because he was primarily a metaphilosopher (at least in terms of his priority, which was ethics).

How could he really be a ethicist having no sense what ever of the value and reason for ethics... He liked to run down Socrates, but he was just as much in the dark on the subject...His philosophy reminds me of a display I once saw of an artifact found in an archeological dig... There was a big sign asking: What is it??? It was a product of art, of European origin, interesting out of contexts, but like nothing, and having no discernable use... That is most of morality to Nietzsche because of his own psychology, and because he did not know enough to realize that the strength of individuals is the strength of their communities... He ran down the masses because their morality led to their victimization... That is a small part of the problem, because having morality they could some day have justice, but no man having no morality ever can recognize justice...

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Of course it's correct. A human dying of thirst will drink his own piss even though he knows it's poisonous. Humans will be impulsive and self-destructive against their rational judgement all the time. We may be rational, but rationality is subordinate to irrational forces -- the animal that we are whether or not we're exercising reason.

We are reaching the point of recycling sewage for human use

all that occurs in the body happens in a medium of water, so people will survive longer drinking their urine sometimes than not doing so....

reason is like a small voice that will not be silenced

and that eventually gains a hearing

The age of reason accomplished its marvels because people believed in reason...

Aedes;102601 wrote:

That is a different scenario -- that is a scenario in which our rational faculties are not conquered by our animal needs.

Really???

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Incorrect. Urine is WAY too concentrated in a dehydrated person to actually hydrate them. In someone with normal kidneys, your urine can be concentrated up to 1200 mOsm/L which is 4 times the normal osmolality of blood, so you will actually lose free water by taking in that kind of solute load.

I wouldn't recommend it for dehydrated person either, but what kind would have the foresight to drink it when not dehydrated at the moment disaster strikes???If something really bad happens to me, I will have to ring urine out of my shorts to truly enjoy it...

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That doesn't make us fundamentally rational, because we have a lot of other voices that won't be silenced either.

I never said we were fundamentally rational, but we cannot share any other part of us except through the mediums of art and music... Forms are primarily rational, and all with rules of behavior and what not, and no matter how irrational we all are in our private selves, to gain our wishes or satisfy our needs we must present a rational course to others...

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In some humans, not all...

No, it accomplished them because people used reason, not because they "believed" in it. But the Titanic, the Somme, and Hiroshima were just as much an end product of the age of reason as were calculus and the light bulb. Could it be that rational inventions are employed irrationally? If so, that only proves that rationality is a subordinate force.

I never suggested rationality was other than a subordinate force; and for that reason those people who have presented ethics in a rational fashion miss the mark

We are not good because of what we know, but because of what we feel...

Nietzsche is a vortext. He wore many faces from aphorism to aphorism. He's such a romantic, oscillating between Byron (strong influence) and Blake (a curious parallel). He's also a continuation of Bacon (knowledge is power).

He didn't have any new values to offer, not that I could find. But he had good taste, I think, in the values he endorsed. His attack on resentment is strangely similar to the Christian ideal of forgiveness. His portrait of Christ in The Antichrist is moving and sublime.

He's one of the most interesting philosophers to contemplate. This is a man who would dance naked alone in his hotel room. A man with tendencies toward megalomania. It's as if he was a prophet who delighted in critical analysis, for the savage joy in mocking all that had a lower emotional tone than the music in his soul.

Ok, well we may be in agreement then. And what Nietzsche and Freud (and many others) have suggested, to their significant credit, is that moral decisionmaking is not entirely rational -- in Nietzsche's case there is cultural heredity, in Freud's case there are unconscious forces at work, and it's spawned whole fields of study in psychology and cognitive science.

Right. And systematic philosophical ethics thinks too highly of reason to recognize that.

No society could found itself on an impressive mess like Nietzsche. He is a poet for the few, and must be carefully sifted through.

One sentence is sublime, and the next embarrassing. A bit of a rock star, Nietzsche. A bit of a joker. Passionate, youngish, bold, at times ridiculous. Not in the least to be taken dogmatically.

But his relevance is undeniable. The beginning of Beyond Good and Evil is almost essential reading for the mind that wants to expand its possibilities. He searches into the motives of philosophers, and of humanity in general. Whether one likes his answers or not, he is asking the right questions.