s religious the same as metaphysical? If Heidegger claimed to overcome metaphysics, could there be a post-metaphysical meaning of religion? Perhaps of a Kierkegaardian sort? — Joshs

In a general sense, metaphysics and religion overlap, in the space of philosophical theology, first principles, and the like. They're not the same subject, but they tend to be merged in many discussions, so it takes quite a bit of study to understand the distinction.

I'm not studied in Heidegger, but my sense is that he was concerned with what theologian Paul Tillich called 'matters of ultimate concern'. I don't think he was at all conventionally religious, but that his work concerned many of the deep questions which religious philosophies seek to address. (I've never studied his criticism of metaphysics in detail.)

If Heidegger claimed to overcome metaphysics, could there be a post-metaphysical meaning of religion? Perhaps of a Kierkegaardian sort? — Joshs

I like it. Kiekegaard had a very specific and cogent take on the religious. His greatest philosophical contribution was in liberating the religious existence from Hegelian phenomenology.

Thanks for answering. I can't make much sense of the answer, unfortunately, but it's too much to get into, because we'd basically have to have a conversation on every Heideggerian phrase, lol

That's an interesting perspective. It might actually help me understand Heidegger a bit.

I didn't bother to wade into the mudfight but I know heidegger's "introduction to metaphysics" he implicitly praises the "resoluteness" of a certain nascent movement and says something about how America and the USSR are "metaphysically identical". My understanding is that he only stopped supporting the Nazis when they lost.

I've read Evola. Wow.

I would characterize myself as some kind of "anti-modern" thinker, but neither along the lines of capital T tradition or whatever heidegger's project was.

One thing I definitely do not like among perennial types is the the assumption that all premodern thinking had the same aim/character. I pre-ordered Neil Price's The Viking Way

To live creatively is to break the "rules"

To live creatively is to break the "rules" — matt

Are there really rules that aren't laws, though? And even if there are, what if someone doesn't want to break (some of) them? Do they have to live inauthentically to live creatively? That would seem odd.

At any rate, so let's supposed that there are rules that aren't laws. Why wouldn't it be possible at present to break them? (In the vein of the claim that it's not possible at present to live creatively.)

Modernity—typified by the Renaissance, colonial exploration and settlement, practical science, the Industrial Revolution, and the rise in class mobility—lost its way through the hereditary powers' fear of and contempt for class mobility. So, led by spreading upper-class deception dominating the universities, philosophers floundered and illogically blamed modernity itself for their dissatisfaction with modern life. They were tricked into nostalgia for the medieval stagnancy created by Birth-Class Supremacy.

Are there really rules that aren't laws, though? And even if there are, what if someone doesn't want to break (some of) them? Do they have to live inauthentically to live creatively? That would seem odd. — Terrapin Station

It seems odd because you have it backwards, authenticity is the degree to which an individual's actions are congruent with their beliefs and desires, despite external pressures (“rules”). People make all sorts of compromises in their lives in order to be accepted. Many support shared fictions, that they know are fiction, in order to express solidarity with their ‘tribe’. Trump supporters are a recent and particularly ugly example of this.

It seems odd because you have it backwards, authenticity is the degree to which an individual's actions are congruent with their beliefs and desires, despite external pressures (“rules”). People make all sorts of compromises in their lives in order to be accepted. Many support shared fictions, that they know are fiction, in order to express solidarity with their ‘tribe’. Trump supporters are a recent and particularly ugly example of this. — praxis

In other words, let's say that it's a rule that you should help disabled people when you can.

And then let's say that Joe comes along, and Joe really likes to help disabled people when he can.

Well, per the definition presented, to live creatively is to break the rules. So if Joe isn't breaking the rules, Joe isn't living creatively. Thus, insofar as this issue goes, Joe can't live both creatively and authentically, because in order to break the rules, Joe has to act differently than his existential authenticity would have it--living authentically to Joe in this situation in entirely consistent with the rules.

In fact, someone might happen to agree with almost every rule. So they'd not be able to live both creatively and authentically, per this definition of what it is to live creatively.

In fact, someone might happen to agree with almost every rule. So they'd not be able to live both creatively and authentically, per this definition of what it is to live creatively. — Terrapin Station

If someone adhered to specific rules, like painting by numbers or something, they would certainly not be creative. Can someone authentically enjoy painting by numbers? Sure, it might be a pleasant distraction. Would the produced 'artwork' be their authentic expression? No. So in this case they'd be both uncreative and inauthentic, though they may authentically enjoy the distraction.

It seems like you're appealing to something like the normal artistic sense of "creative" there and not simply defining it as "living so that one breaks rules"

You mentioned being "creative and authentic" so I gave an example that addresses both. The person who started the topic referred to "genuine Being" in regard to the creative. I take that to mean being authentic or self-actualized.

You seem to be thinking of the subject in some kind of absolute sense where someone's life is either completely authentic or it's not.

So do you agree that "living creatively" involves breaking rules rather than following them?

In the sense that it was meant, yes, because I believe that modern society (myself included) is rather inauthentic in general.

Wittgenstein can be considered anti-modernist. Alessandra Tanesini's book Wittgenstein, a feminist interpretation, draws out the sense of loneliness and isolation that comes from modernity, not to mention the dissociation from the world around us. Tanesini critiques exclusive ideas of community drawing on her understanding of Wittgenstein, so wanting to overcome the borders set up around 'us' against 'them'. Think of Jacinda Ardern after the Christchurch attacks, "they are us!"
Heidegger too critiques modernity, eg his essay on calculative thinking, but Heidegger also has some dubious credentials.

To live creatively is to break the "rules" — matt

That is a rule.

The problem of the whole thread is that to define creativity is to negate it. As a rule, rules are derived from the known, which is the past, or tradition. and that encompasses science, technology, conservative and socialist. It encompasses anything that anyone might come up with that is understandable.

Except that I might, or you might, come up with something creative. The old masters, and the old philosophers were creative, but they are not creative now. And to be creative is to be at the cutting edge of now; to make the post that says something new. I'm surprised that in 3 pages no one has mentioned Pirsig. Dynamic and static value.

Do you believe that someone can just so happen to feel the same way that the rules have something?

I’m sure that many feel or believe that the rules have something. Creativity can’t exist without a foundation or something to work with.

As I tried to suggest with my analogy, many people enjoy painting by numbers. It can be a pleasant distraction. It doesn’t require self-reflection or anything that might take them out of their comfort zone. It’s like a gilded iron cage. No one knows how to escape it.

Thinking about this more over the past couple days I might have to refine my definition to something closer to "dancing along the edge of the rules". Not simply breaking the rules but teetering between the expected and unexpected; expressing those beautiful paradoxes.