If you don't get Nietzsche, there's an entire universe of approaches to literary criticism that will be off limits to you. I would recommend Heidegger or Deleuze's book-length reading of Nietzsche but I'm guessing you wouldn't be thrilled with those writers either.

Personally I do think the current paradigm could do with a lot more scientific method — alieninstinct

And perhaps those who embrace something called "scientific method' could do with a bit of postmodern
clarification of the conditions of possibility of empiricism. I highly recommend Joseph Rouse's work on philosophy of science.

Like I said in my previous posts, I think there is much that is valuable in 'postmodern' thinking, I don't even think agreeing with people like Foucault or Derrida is necessarily inconsistent with advocating a scientific method and I don't think of this method as restricted to the positivist hypothetico-deductive method or naive philosophical realism. I was talking more about the habits of English departments rather than 'postmodern' thinking itself.

Not liking and not getting are two different things. Just FYI.

I know. I was trying to be provocative.

To what end?

How does one determine if someone understands an author? And understand how? There are many different readings of Nietzsche. I don't claim that there is a right one. I prefer to say that for me there are more or less interesting ones.The Nietzsche I find most radical and interesting is the one that I read alongside Deleuze, Heidegger and Foucault. In other words, there is a certain general consensus on a particular reading of him. So the test I use to see if from my perspective someone is understanding a particular reading of Nietzsche is , reagrdless of whether they agree with it or not, whether they can simply summarize coherently what that position is.

So for Nietzsche the fundamental questions would consist of what he has to say about the relation between truth and values, the notion of self, ego, volition, and freedom of the will, etc.

There is, of course, an entire field of philosophy devoted to the very question of what it means to understand a text. Theories about the death of the author, birth of the reader, intentionalists versus anti-intentionalists, the author function, the author as a modern construct, ecriture, etc etc. So we could debate endlessly what it means to "really" understand Nietzsche.

I'm content to have read some of his body of work, have found it contradictory, have found that he revels in contradiction, and that it's therefore not my cup of tea. As have most professional contemporary philosophers.

I have found that he revels in contradiction, and that it's therefore not my cup of tea. As have most professional contemporary philosophers. — NKBJ

Daniel Dennett respects Nietzsche, as does Rorty, Heidegger, Alva Noe, Evan Thompson, Deleuze, Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Jean-Luc Nancy, Lyotard, Freud, most constructivists and constructionists , postmodernists and postructuralists, many pragmatists and hermeneuticists, enactivist approaches in cogntive science and philosophy of mind, and recent theories of perception .

That seems to cover a lot of ground in recent philosophy.
So when you say most professional contemporary philosophers are not admirers of his approach, you mean Modernists, Realists, Kantians and Neo-Kantians. In other words , everyone on the more conservative side of a political divide. Not to mention the conservative side of a divide within philosophy of science, anthropology , theories of consciousness and philosophy of mind.Given the recent explosion of interest in enactive approaches in consciousness studies, I think the trends are favoring Nietzsche.

Which book? I'm currently reading The Gay Science, and it's dense and addresses complex issues in an absence of one- or two-liner aphorisms. I get what you're saying about the aphorisms, but they're a small portion of a very well-written legacy and have only lost value due to misinterpretation, ever-changing bias and the commoditization of existence. Much of the material you're referring to was extracted from his personal journals by his sister and other family after his death, and I'm sure they didn't know quite what to do with it.

He also wasn't a conventional philosopher by any means. He appeared more often as a common man in contrast to the self-aggrandizing and pedantic rhetoric of his contemporaries.

And I do realize the irony in my saying that others were self-aggrandizing--but Nietzsche was psychologically undressed in a way that others around him were not.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

I realize Nietzsche is your personal pet philosopher. I don't think there's much I could say to sway you from your PPP, and there's not much you could say to convince me that he's much good at all.

He also wasn't a conventional philosopher by any means. He appeared more often as a common man in contrast to the self-aggrandizing and pedantic rhetoric of his contemporaries. — whollyrolling

No,is certainly not conventional. He espoused a "philosophy of contradiction" that is absurd, or, at best, just illogical. I don't see any reason to follow him down that rabbit hole. And maybe you're one to promote the "value of contradiction," which is also, IMHO, just absurd.



As I said before, there's just way too much good, logical, coherent philosophy in the world for me, or anyone, to be wasting time with someone who is opaque and contradictory. We all have only so much time on this planet, and if you really want to make a case for the relevance of some philosopher, it really has to be on more solid ground than "if you read all his work then you'll understand" and especially more solid ground than:

I would recommend Heidegger or Deleuze's book-length reading of Nietzsche but I'm guessing you wouldn't be thrilled with those writers either. — Joshs

If I have to read a whole host of secondary literature to understand Nietzsche, that's just proof that he's no good at all. (It's also epistemologically suspect, in that if you need to read Heidegger to understand Nietzche, I wonder whom Heidegger read to understand him?)

Long story short: Ain't nobody got time for that.

Logic: it's inherently illogical to try and make a logical argument against logic. — NKBJ

It would be inherently illogical to argue against logic in general, for it has clearly proven it's usefulness in too many tasks to begin to list.

It's not at all illogical to use logic to explore the boundaries of what logic may be able to accomplish.

You can tweak rules of logic, maybe, but you can't just do away with it altogether and maintain sense. — NKBJ

There is no law of nature which requires all of reality to make sense. It's entirely possible that we are only able to see the components of reality which make sense to US, a tiny half insane semi-suicidal creature on one little planet in one of billions of galaxies etc.

A dog would describe the Internet as a square shiny thing covered with blinking lights. A pretty good description from the perspective of a dog's observation, but also a thoroughly inept explanation of a level of abstraction which is simply beyond the ability of even the very smartest dog.

We might be wary of any attempt to impose our own severe limitations upon all of reality, a realm we currently can't confidently define in even the most basic manner.

The establishment is always by definition slow to catch on. — Joshs

Indeed. Because once one is in the establishment one has something to lose, and thus can't take the risks that are often necessary. You know, if I'm a philosophy professor with 3 kids about to enter college, I don't have much choice but to color pretty carefully within the lines of the academic group consensus.

In my view, trying to turn activities like philosophy and religion in to a business is generally not such a great plan.

There is no law of nature which requires all of reality to make sense. It's entirely possible that we are only able to see the components of reality which make sense to US, a tiny half insane semi-suicidal creature on one little planet in one of billions of galaxies etc. — Jake

What could be our grounds for positing that there are things, or that there could be a "nature" to some things, that don't make sense to us, though? How could we know this?

What could be our grounds for positing that there are things, or that there could be a "nature" to some things, that don't make sense to us, though? How could we know this? — Terrapin Station

Knowing this is a tall order that I can't deliver on.

However, it's entirely reasonable to note that every species ever born on this planet has had a limited ability to see beyond it's niche. To argue that we live outside of this very long established all pervasive pattern is basically wild (self serving) speculation in my view.

Are we smarter than other species? Yes, proven.

Are we smart enough to grasp everything in all of reality? A completely different issue.

There is no law of nature which requires all of reality to make sense. It's entirely possible that we are only able to see the components of reality which make sense to US, a tiny half insane semi-suicidal creature on one little planet in one of billions of galaxies etc.

A dog would describe the Internet as a square shiny thing covered with blinking lights. A pretty good description from the perspective of a dog's observation, but also a thoroughly inept explanation of a level of abstraction which is simply beyond the ability of even the very smartest dog.

We might be wary of any attempt to impose our own severe limitations upon all of reality, a realm we currently can't confidently define in even the most basic manner. — Jake

If we cannot understand those parts of reality, it makes no sense to try and talk about them. Or, to quote Wittgenstein:

"What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent."

If we cannot understand those parts of reality, it makes no sense to try and talk about them. — NKBJ

Ah, but we can explore the ways in which we are ignorant, insane and otherwise limited, and we can talk about that.

I'd definitely say that it's possible that there are things (and/or that things have a nature) that we can't really understand.

I don't see how we could ever plausibly posit such things, though, or claim to know such things.

It's also possible that there is nothing that we can't really understand.

Ah, but we can explore the ways in which we are ignorant, insane and otherwise limited, and we can talk about that. — Jake

In that vein, we can only speak of those things, of which we are knowledgeable enough to recognize our ignorance, and only to that extent.

As for the insane bit: if we allow for insanity, it's all just a jumbled mess and there's no point to any of it.

As one example, logic is obviously made of thought. Thought is an element of nature, and like all elements of nature it has certain properties and characteristics, which both give it powers and create the boundaries of it's ability.

Thought operates by dividing the single unified reality in to conceptual parts. This is an extremely useful power for it allows us to rearrange reality in our minds, to be creative. But it is this same process of division which makes us insane, because it creates the experience of reality as being divided between "me" and "everything else", a perception that gives rise to fear, and thus most human problems.

Logic is just a tool, not a god.

Logic is just a tool, not a god. — Jake

Yeah, but it's THE tool. You literally can't make sense without it.

As for the insane bit: if we allow for insanity, it's all just a jumbled mess and there's no point to any of it. — NKBJ

We have thousands of hydrogen bombs aimed down our own throat, an ever present self extinction threat which we typically find too boring to discuss. I'm unable to offer you a better example of insanity.

I show up at your house for the philosophy club meeting. I have a loaded gun in my mouth. You are very concerned, but I roll my eyes and blow off your "hysteria" and continually change the subject to all kinds of trivial topics.

I am insane. Looney tunes. Ready for the psyche ward. I am humanity.

Yeah, but it's THE tool. You literally can't make sense without it. — NKBJ

No, it's not THE tool. It's a tool. A useful tool without question. You seem to be assuming that making sense is the only valid operation. So you should watch this excellent (very entertaining!) video called....

Stop Making Sense

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzFfV-02-Ts

It's also possible that there is nothing that we can't really understand. — Terrapin Station

Yes, possible. Not very likely in my view, but this is clearly debatable.

From personal experience, whenever I have brought up ''post-modernist'' thinkers (e.g. Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, etc.) there has always been a look of caution if not outright trepidation in the eyes of my philosophy professors. — philosophy

Nietzsche and Heidegger post-modernists?
_ _ _

Literary departments don't study philosophy, they use the views and methods of philosophers. In Philosophy departments one studies philosophy and the writing of philosophers.

It's a huge difference.

As I said (was it here or on another thread), this makes the viewpoint totally different and especially the students may have only a superficial understanding of the philosophy and especially lack the ability to put one philosopher or school in an broader context. Of course one obvious reason for postmodernism to thrive in the literary departments is the close relationship of postmodernist thinking to literary studies. If we talk about Heidegger or Nietzsche, their philosophy goes far beyond just these studies.

No, it's not THE tool. It's a tool. A useful tool without question. You seem to be assuming that making sense is the only valid operation. So you should watch this excellent (very entertaining!) video called. — Jake

You can go down that rabbit hole if you choose to. I have no interest in it. That which is nonsensible is simply not of interest to me. But don't say I didn't warn you if you get lost or stuck or just plain bored on your fantastical spelunking adventure.

Yes, possible. Not very likely in my view, but this is clearly debatable. — Jake

I'm of the view that there's no way to determine likelihood for these sorts of things.

I think what people are usually referring to by "likelihood" is just how close something is to what they already believe.

I'm of the view that there's no way to determine likelihood for these sorts of things. — Terrapin Station

Every single one of the millions of species which have existed on Earth for millions of years have been of limited ability.

This doesn't conclusively prove anything, agreed. But it does give some weight to one side of the question.

You can go down that rabbit hole if you choose to. I have no interest in it. That which is nonsensible is simply not of interest to me. — NKBJ

As personal choice I have no complaint. I'm objecting only to any effort to turn a personal choice in to a universal maxim.

But don't say I didn't warn you if you get lost or stuck or just plain bored on your fantastical spelunking adventure. — NKBJ

Thought is the source of boredom. These are the kinds of things one may never learn if one turns thought in to god.