What about Nietzsche... I don't want to discuss him at this thread, because that's not the point of it.
And my interpretation of him radically differs from mainstream — kirillov

Ok!

For me, life (in general) isn't finite. In Buddhist word's, Samsara will make another turn. — kirillov

Ok. But notice that religions that accept samsara generally posit some kind of transcendence of the transitoriness, suffering, death present in it. They do not 'affirm life' by accepting death, suffering etc but they generally try to find a 'way out'. That's why detachment is generally a common attitude you find in them (as well as compassion for other beings trapped in the prison of samsara).

And there's situations where you can't avoid/moderate pain & suffering (that's what I'm dealing with) , so Epicurus is not for me. — kirillov

Agreed. But in a purely 'secular' worldview, I would say it is the best approach. Suffering can't be eliminated or even reduced in certain circumstances and, in fact, Epicurus also suggested to find way to make it more bearable.

I find Epicurus' philosophy depressing in a way but I do think that given the assumptions of his worldview is the most rational.


FWIW, I am sorry for your situation BTW. I hope it will get better.

I know that suffering is unavoidable. As I said: "life is eternal suffering".
My goal is to affirm it, accept it. To love this life despite all the suffering it entails. — kirillov

Well, as I said, religions that accepted samasara generally tried to escape and not 'affirm' samsaric life. If we are indeed in samsara and we can't transcend it, I think that 'affirming' it inevitably will make samsara worse. We can't transform samsara in a positive state.

There is a reason why historically the 'escape' from samsara was put in term of knowing a 'higher reality' and/or recognizing that is a sort of illusion and so on rather than try to see it in a more 'affirming' way.

Ok. But notice that religions that accept samsara generally posit some kind of transcendence of the transitoriness, suffering, death present in it. They do not 'affirm life' by accepting death, suffering etc but they generally try to find a 'way out'. That's why detachment is generally a common attitude you find in them (as well as compassion for other beings trapped in the prison of samsara). — boundless

I've used Samsara as analogy, not literally.
1. Life, in general, is eternal. Not life of one particular individual, but in general.
2. Life is suffering. One's life, by pure luck, can be pretty good in absent of pain in suffering. But that's not the case overall.
3. Life cannot be escaped.

And the problem is: how one, given three premises above, affirms life as it is?
I hope I clarified the question.

Thanks.

Thanks for the clarification.

1. Life, in general, is eternal. Not life of one particular individual, but in general. — kirillov

This is a questionable premise. Scientific evidence, in fact, suggest that life 'in general' will end. But I am open to think that science might not tell us the whole story here.

So, for the sake of the discussion, let's say that you are right.

2. Life is suffering. One's life, by pure luck, can be pretty good in absent of pain in suffering. But that's not the case overall. — kirillov

Again, you are assuming that all instances of life are just like this. I believe that you reject those views that tell that there is a reasonable hope (for them) that there will be a better state.
Again, I'll grant you the validity of the premise to see where we go.

3. Life cannot be escaped. — kirillov

OK.

And the problem is: how one, given three premises above, affirms life as it is? — kirillov

OK. Honestly, I would say it depends on the ability that the 'living beings' might have to control and reduce the amount of purposeless suffering, i.e. suffering that doesn't lead to something postive.
If, however, life will be always in a situation where negative states overcome positive states and there is absolutely no hope to change that, I would say that one can't rationally affirm 'life'.

So if your three premises are right, then, no, I would not think that it would be rational to affirm life, as it is irrational to affirm a state dominated by purposeless suffering.

If, according to Nietzsche, all manifestations of life are manifestations of the 'will to power', and there is no ultimate 'right' or 'wrong' way to manifest it (someone in the classical tradition would perhaps say that the 'right' way is what fulfills the nature of the will, but Nietzsche rejects that), it is somewhat inconsistent to write books glorifying some way of living and criticizing others.

Mind you, I think that Nietzsche had pretty interesting things to say (e.g. about how resentment works and can condition our thoughts, about creativity and so on). But his extreme 'voluntarism', expressed in his mature 'amoralism' and 'will to power' etc is IMO more consistent with an empty philosophy rather than a philosophy that can teach a 'way of life'. To put it differently, the 'pars destruens' was so pervasive than no 'pars construens' seems consistent with it, not his. — boundless

Human beings are pattern-seekers. That is how we are able to function in a world which never repeats itself identically from one moment to the next. We have to have a way of anticipating what is coming next in spite of the constant flux we are presented with. Older ways of thinking in philosophy and the sciences dealt with this challenge by carving up the world on the basis of categories. There were now law-governed objects and causal relations that it was our job to properly represent. Nietzsche was among those who attempted to show the dangers of taking the changing patterns we experience in our world and freezing them into such mathematical identities and absolutes. He tried to show that we do the same thing with moral values as we do with empirical objects, and the result has been endless wars and violence over what is right and what is wrong.

Nietzsche’s argument was that trying to locate a value system with the right CONTENT could lead to nothing but nihilism. This didn’t mean that he abandoned all possibilities of distinguishing what is a better way of life from what is worse. What he did was to separate this issue from the particular content of meaning of specific value systems. Instead of focusing on arriving at a final correct content of knowledge or values, our focus should be on accelerating the process of moving through value systems. Process , not content. And speed, not depth of foundation. The best way of living is that which can enjoy the delights of creative becoming and re-invention in the most optimal fashion, which means keeping itself free from repressive attachments to content-based absolutes and foundations of all kinds. He recognized this as an enormous challenge, because we are precisely NOT volunteristic in our decisions.

Contrary to Sartre, the will is not free to choose whatever it wants to choose. We find ourselves choosing, we are driven to choose. This lack of volunteristic freedom is the result of the fact that the psyche is a society of competing drives, and the self is an amalgam of such competing forces. It’s hard to be volunteristic when the ego is a mere byproduct of a play of drives. In addition. the psyche isn’t walled off from the social sphere, but is intertwined with it. As a result, we always find ourselves immersed in larger normative cultural structures, and thus we always run the risk of becoming entrenched within norms that eventually suffocate and repress. We thrive on recognizing patterns , regularities and norms from within the flux, but Nietzsche suggested how we could allow ourselves the intense pleasure of such creative ordering while steering clear of the tendencies to ossify such assimilating activity into life and meaning-destroying certainties. And we can get better and better over time at allowing the creative future to flow into the present. This seems to me to be a promising , growth-oriented way of life. If it is empty, it is only empty of content-based prescriptions, as I think it should be.

How can life be justified in spite of all the suffering it entails? — kirillov

I have a couple of different ideas from my own thoughts and experience. However suffering is part of life so the justification would be just as much part of 'why should one keep living?' and as such some of my ideas are pointed more towards that.
First, I have quite a chaotic idea of my own. Think of a video game, you only have one life, and everything besides this game is darkness.
The only thing you have is that one game, one life. There is no reason not to play. This completely ignores any religion though.
If you return to nothingness without life, is there any reason not to live even if you suffer.
Second, is one most personal to me. I was listening to music and there was a line that went something like, 'to live as me.' It hit me in a very impactful way. The idea of living a life without living as me was horrible. (This has more to do with how to live)
It gave me such a feeling of freedom and confidence in even my own life.
Third, is something I received from a religious leader I met. He told me that God created evil so people can be good. That God created sin so people had freedom. That God gave hope so people can overcome odds.
Following this logic, you might be able to find your own answer.
Fourth is another original idea. If you consider the garden of Eden as perfection, with its eternal bliss and innocence. Then consider the state we are in now. Suffering would be our motivation towards perfection.
That's all I can say now. I hope you consider that all of these ideas have helped my life. So I would say there is some weight behind the,. That is not to say that I would stubbornly ignore any words that would counter them.

This didn’t mean that he abandoned all possibilities of distinguishing what is a better way of life from what is worse. What he did was to separate this issue from the particular content of meaning of specific value systems. — Joshs

Right. But what is the 'basis' of the 'better' or the 'worse'? Here's what, for instance, Nietzsche said in Beyond Good and Evil, 259:

259. To refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from exploitation, and put one's will on a par with that of others: this may result in a certain rough sense in good conduct among individuals when the necessary conditions are given (namely, the actual similarity of the individuals in amount of force and degree of worth, and their co-relation within one organization). As soon, however, as one wished to take this principle more generally, and if possible even as the FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF SOCIETY, it would immediately disclose what it really is--namely, a Will to the DENIAL of life, a principle of dissolution and decay. Here one must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is ESSENTIALLY appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation;--but why should one for ever use precisely these words on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped? Even the organization within which, as was previously supposed, the individuals treat each other as equal--it takes place in every healthy aristocracy--must itself, if it be a living and not a dying organization, do all that towards other bodies, which the individuals within it refrain from doing to each other it will have to be the incarnated Will to Power, it will endeavour to grow, to gain ground, attract to itself and acquire ascendancy-- not owing to any morality or immorality, but because it LIVES, and because life IS precisely Will to Power. On no point, however, is the ordinary consciousness of Europeans more unwilling to be corrected than on this matter, people now rave everywhere, even under the guise of science, about coming conditions of society in which "the exploiting character" is to be absent--that sounds to my ears as if they promised to invent a mode of life which should refrain from all organic functions. "Exploitation" does not belong to a depraved, or imperfect and primitive society it belongs to the nature of the living being as a primary organic function, it is a consequence of the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to Life--Granting that as a theory this is a novelty--as a reality it is the FUNDAMENTAL FACT of all history let us be so far honest towards ourselves!

So, it seems to me, that for Nietzsche whatever 'favours' the expression of the 'will to power', which he equated with 'life', is 'good' and whatever 'hinders' the 'will to power' is 'bad'. Right here we have Nietzsche making quite an 'absolute' statement about what is 'good' and what is 'bad'.
Morality, religion and so on were wrong for Nietzsche becauese, according to him, they hindered 'life'. Due to the fact that 'life' is often difficult, there is conflict in the world and so on, according to Nietzsche many (all?) religious figures, for instance, sought and taught a 'way to liberation' or 'salvation'. For him this is 'bad' because, in fact, they were trying to hinder the expression of life.

So, I'm not sure that Nietzsche was actually a 'relativist' in the way he is often depicted. But, at the same time, he also thought that this world is in flux and there are countless ways in which the 'life'/'will to power' can manifest. So, the creative artist is a perfect example of how the 'will to power' can manifest and hindering the artist is hindering the will to power. But also the conqueror, the social reformer and so on can be manifestations of the 'will to power' (this doesn't imply that Nietzsche was a monist or a pantheist/panentheist of some sorts, as the 'will to power' might not be a single entity. Interestingly, however, in his notebooks made a statement that suggest precisely this*).

So, in any case, if what is 'good' for the life can change radically, why, say, some 'life-denying' morality could not, in some times, be a legitimate way of the expression of life? Same goes for resentiment?

Ironically, despite his 'relativistic' fame, Nietzsche seemed pretty convinced that some expressions of human life were just 'bad'. Yet, I agree this is inconsistent with his thesis that this world is a 'radical flux' where nothing is really fixed. But if this 'radical flux' was the 'ultimate truth' in Nietzsche, then this would made a lot of his philosophical analysis (think about his analysis of 'resentment' and the historical importance that it had according to him) at least questionable if not completely empty. There is a tension present in Nietzsche philosophy. I think that this is indicates a deep inconsistency in his thinking: on one hand he wants to affirm that 'good' is what what favours the expression of life and 'bad' is what goes against life. On the other hand, however, his thesis that nothing remains the same, renders such a statement, ultimately, vacuous IMO.

And we can get better and better over time at allowing the creative future to flow into the present. This seems to me to be a promising , growth-oriented way of life. If it is empty, it is only empty of content-based prescriptions, as I think it should be. — Joshs

Where does he say this? I think that one of his 'Untimely mediation' was actually against the idea of 'progress'. And also in later years he didn't think that the future will be 'better' than the present. Could you provide some references?
In fact, it seems the idea that we 'should' seek a 'better future' goes against many things he says. For him, the will to power doesn't have a 'purpose', it is like an innocent play (see the quote below).

*Here's the quote:

That the world is divine play [göttliches Spiel] beyond good and evil―for this, my predecessors are the philosophy of Vedanta and Heraclitus. (NF 1884)

(source, e.g.: https://api.research-repository.uwa.edu.au/ws/portalfiles/portal/49665695/TH19_143_THESIS_DOCTOR_OF_PHILOSOPHY_MILNE_Andrew_William_2019.pdf)

Also, for the 'voluntaristic' part, I disagree but I admit that his voluntarism is quite strange as he questions the existence of the 'agents' that will or, as you say, see the agents as fragmentary.

In any case, he IMO was pretty clear that all geniune manifestations of 'life'/'will to power' were 'innocent', like an innocent play, and morality (whether religious, civil etc) was something that constrained the manifestion of that innocent play. Nietzsche was, of course, aware that in the world these 'plays' inevitably conflitct (both in the natural world and among humans). Conflict is inevitable but for Nietzsche this is not a bad thing. It is actually good (if it is not motivated by some kind of 'morality' or 'resentment' that constrains the will to power).

Clearly he was inspired by Heraclitus, e.g. (see here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fragments_of_Heraclitus ):

Time is a child playing draughts, the kingly power is a child's (fragment 52)

War is the father of all and the king of all; and some he has made gods and some men, some bond and some free. (fragment 53)

We must know that war is common to all and strife is justice, and that all things come into being and pass away (?) through strife. (fragment 80)

Already in 1873 in his unpublished work 'Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks' Nietzsche contrasted Heraclitus with Anaximander by saying that Anaximander thought that the conflict between extremes was an 'injustice' whereas Heraclitus viewed it as the expression of 'justice' (strife is justice).

Why I believe it is 'voluntaristic'? Because Nietzsche didn't distinguish between good ways in which life manifests itself and bad. Simply, whatever the will wills is good. The only bad thing is to hinder the manifestions of the will.

Why I believe it is 'voluntaristic'? Because Nietzsche didn't distinguish between good ways in which life manifests itself and bad. Simply, whatever the will wills is good. The only bad thing is to hinder the manifestions of the — boundless

My reading of volunterisric doesn’t depend on removing the distinction between good and bad. It has to do with a metaphysical notion of the will wherein the will is a unitary substance that is in control of what it wills, and can reflective turn back to itself as this same identical will, the view that human action is ultimately self-determined by an inner power of choice or volition. For Nietzsche the will is not a single entity capable of pure self-reflection. One doesn’t choose (volunteer) to will what one wants to will. Instead, one finds oneself willing. One is as much the slave of one’s will as the controller of it.

“The 'I' (which is not the same thing as the unitary government of our being!) is, after all, only a conceptual synthesis - thus there is no acting from 'egoism‘.

There are still harmless self-observers who believe in the existence of “immediate certainties,” such as “I think,” or the “I will” that was Schopenhauer's superstition:

… a thought comes when “it” wants, and not when “I” want. It is, therefore, a falsification of the facts to say that the subject “I” is the condition of the predicate “think.” It thinks: but to say the “it” is just that famous old “I” – well that is just an assumption or opinion, to put it mildly, and by no means an “immediate certainty.” In fact, there is already too much packed into the “it thinks”: even the “it” contains an interpretation of the process, and does not belong to the process itself.

Perhaps what you mean to argue is that for Nietzsche, like for Schopenhauer, the will is unconscious and irrational. It has no reason or purpose, and it does not choose in any moral or rational sense. What then makes Schopenhauer’s will volunteristic is that , unlike Nietzsche, he believes the will is universal and metaphysical; a singular, unified essence behind all phenomena.

Well, sort of what you say about Schopenhauer.
By 'voluntarism', I mean a position that gives prominence to the will. So, for instance, the mere ability to excercise the will is 'freedom' in a voluntaristic system. I'll try to clarify what I meant by talking about the concept of freedom.

So, the mere ability to act in concordance with the will is what 'freedom'. Morality, according to Nietzsche, hinders that ability by constraining it with rules and this is why it is so bad. As I understand him, imposing on ourselves and others 'moral rules' suffocates disables the ability to act according to the will. Rather, Nietzsche would suggest, we should accept to live without putting constraints on the will and accept the suffering that such a way of life entails (due to, say, the conflict that inevitably happens).

This is clearly a different understanding on the ancient model of freedom (that you can find both in non-Christian and Christian philosophers of that time) according to which, in the case of rational beings, only a will that knows the 'good' is truly free and finds fulfillment. Nietzsche would say that such an understanding of freedom because all modes of willing, if they are not constrained by something else, are 'good'.

If this clarification didn't help, try to read my previous response ignoring the adjective 'voluntaristic'. I don't think that it is essential to understand what I wrote.

If you liked Nietzsche I would give Dostoevsky a try. In a lot of ways they have very similar biographies and personalities. Nietzsche was a tremendous fan of Dostoevsky as well. And yet in key ways they could hardly be more different.

Notes from the Underground is a good starting point because it is quite short and less meandering than a lot of his work. Nietzsche was also a huge admirer of that work in particular, although one might suspect on this point that he wasn't totally getting what Dostoevsky was trying to lay down, since, for all their similarities, they come to radically different conclusions about ethics, suffering, happiness, and Christianity. The Brothers Karamazov is his great classic, but it's also a pretty mammoth tome.

Now, understanding the tradition Dostoevsky is coming out of is much harder. I cannot think of a good work that sums it up. It's a sort of project to digest for sure. The book Orthodox Psychotherapy is a good one though.

Another classic that looks at suffering and happiness is Boethius Consolation of Philosophy. It's a charming book that blends together the "first medicine" of Stoicism, which paves the way for the "second medicine," the Platonic ascent as informed by Aristotle, Plotinus, Saint Augustine, etc.

So, the mere ability to act in concordance with the will is what 'freedom'. Morality, according to Nietzsche, hinders that ability by constraining it with rules and this is why it is so bad. As I understand him, imposing on ourselves and others 'moral rules' suffocates disables the ability to act according to the will. Rather, Nietzsche would suggest, we should accept to live without putting constraints on the will and accept the suffering that such a way of life entails (due to, say, the conflict that inevitably happens). — boundless

We are always acting in accordance with the will, for Nietzsche. More specifically, we are always acting according to the will to power. All motivations and desires, including will to knowledge and traditional morality, are forms of will to power. The will to power can take ‘unhealthy’ forms which are antithetical to life. These don’t put constraints on the will; rather, they represent a ‘will to self-constraint’. Morality is an example of this will which turns its power against itself. Even so, in negating becoming, morality still represents a strategy for survival, albeit a ‘sick’ one.

So, in any case, if what is 'good' for the life can change radically, why, say, some 'life-denying' morality could not, in some times, be a legitimate way of the expression of life? Same goes for resentiment? — boundless

When Nietzsche uses the word ‘life’ , he doesn’t mean it in a conventional biological sense. For instance, he rejected what he interpreted as the Darwinian principle of self-preservation. A life-denying morality is indeed a strategy of self-preservation for Nietzsche, but it is not what he means by will to life. Morality is a restriction of the will to life, and therefore is not ‘good’ for life. It is only good for survival.

“Darwin absurdly overestimates the influence of 'external circumstances'; the essential thing about the life process is precisely the tremendous force which shapes, creates form from within, which utilizes and exploits 'external circumstances' ... -that the new forms created from within are not shaped with a purpose in view, but that in the struggle of the parts, it won't be long before a new form begins to relate to a partial usefulness, and then develops more and more completely according to how it is used.” “Everything that lives is exactly what shows most clearly that it does everything possible not to preserve itself but to become more ...” (Last Notebooks)

The struggle for survival is only an exception, a temporary restriction of the will to life; the great and small struggle revolves everywhere around preponderance, around growth and expansion, around power and in accordance with the will to power, which is simply the will to life. (The Gay Science)

I think that one of his 'Untimely mediation' was actually against the idea of 'progress'. And also in later years he didn't think that the future will be 'better' than the present. Could you provide some references?
In fact, it seems the idea that we 'should' seek a 'better future' goes against many things he says. For him, the will to power doesn't have a 'purpose', it is like an innocent play (see the quote below). — boundless

I agree that the will to power doesn’t have a specific contentful purpose. But Nietzsche believed in a progress of strength, consciousness, and perspective; a will to power manifesting as creative overcoming. Growth, strength, and expansion of power lead to richer perspectives, the overcoming previous limitations and a dynamic reinterpretation of the world. Rather simply determining historical ideas and cultural types as ‘good or ‘bad’ he ranked them according to a hierarchy relative to his notion of progress.

“That every heightening of man brings with it an overcoming of narrower interpretations; that every increase in strength and expansion of power opens up new perspectives and demands a belief in new horizons—this runs through my writings.”

Ok, I see thanks for the clarification. To me, however, all this means that Nietzsche believed in some 'objective' morality of some sorts. If there are 'sick' and 'heal' ways in which the will can express itself and we can know this, it seems to me that an objective or at least 'inter-subjective' basis for ethics/morality (i.e. 'how to live'). This would mean that Nietzsche wasn't a relativist after all, despite what sometimes he claimed and what how some interpreters read him.

Also it is useful to remember that not all 'objective ethical theories' consider ethics as a purely extrinsic set of rules with no relation to our 'nature'. In fact, many of them regard 'ethical rules' as a way to 'heal' the will or to express the will in a 'healthy way'.

I think that many of Nietzsche criticisms apply to ethical systems where ethics is a purely extrinsic set of rules. It is questionable if they really apply to other ethical systems.

, I appreciate you, but I've read almost all of his works. And more than that, I've come from the tradition from which Dostoevsky came.

How can life be justified in spite of all the suffering it entails? — kirillov

I don’t know - if there is no miracle coming, and life was intentionally inflicted on us, then maybe it can’t be justified. If life is a big accident, then it doesn’t have to be justified.

But I don’t know, besides God.

Do you wish you never suffered at all, and no one else did, or do you wish that you and everyone else never suffered again?

If you only wish you had suffered less, that is not the question and so not an answer. We already do suffer less, and more, as each comes and goes.

But do you wish to never have suffered at all, or do you wish to live with relief that is permanent and thorough?