'Nietzche' should be 'Nietsche'. It's a mistake. — mosesquine
Many atheists/pomo lovers will vote Nietzsche though — Agustino
:-O .................................................... I can't believe what I just read... I think people can't be fucked to even disagree with Descartes. They ask who is the village idiot, who is the easiest to pick on? Descartes! Great! Let's do it! They reply to him only in jest, only as a means of having an easy target against which to frame their own philosophy. Seriously - in all of philosophical history, I doubt there exists a man who has had so many terrible ideas - so many!Of the bunch I voted Descartes because he's arguably the beginning of modern philosophy, and I would say the reason for that is because of his contribution to philosophy. In many ways we are still dealing with the problems he set out. Everyone disagrees with Descartes, of course (well, most everyone) -- but it is this very requirement of disagreement which makes him the most important. — Moliere
I agree with some of Nietzsche's views--and obviously I'm an atheist and have some pomo-like views, but in my opinion Nietzsche was a horrible writer and he wasn't even a very good philosopher with respect to his methodological approach. — Terrapin Station
They ask who is the village idiot, who is the easiest to pick on? Descartes! Great! Let's do it! They reply to him only in jest, only as a means of having an easy target against which to frame their own philosophy. — Agustino
I'm surprised that you'd say he was a horrible writer. — R-13
Yes but your expressions aren't adequate. Good writing - in a literary sense, in the sense which Nietzsche's writing is good - has nothing to do with thoroughness. Nietzsche has a lot of insights, but he jumps from insight to insight and spends little to no time proving anything, or building up arguments. That doesn't mean he's a horrible writer, that means, on the contrary, that he is a great writer who is able to expound complex ideas in simple and appealing terms. His thought functions intuitively, instead of being stuck in the granny step-by-step, you're-too-quick-for-me mode.Some folks I feel are excellent writers you might think are horrible. (Or if not you, some people will think they're horrible writers.) Nietzsche writes too "continentally" for my tastes. I tend to hate that style of writing. — Terrapin Station
Good writing - in a literary sense, in the sense which Nietzsche's writing is good - has nothing to do with thoroughness. — Agustino
Nietzsche was a horrible writer and he wasn't even a very good philosopher with respect to his methodological approach. — Terrapin Station
If there are among my readers any young men or women who aspire to become leaders of thought in their generation, I hope they will avoid certain errors into which I fell in youth for want of good advice. When I wished to form an opinion upon a subject, I used to study it, weigh the arguments on different sides, and attempt to reach a balanced conclusion. I have since discovered that this is not the way to do things. A man of genius knows it all without the need of study; his opinions are pontifical and depend for their persuasiveness upon literary style rather than argument. It is necessary to be one-sided, since this facilitates the vehemence that is considered a proof of strength. It is essential to appeal to prejudices and passions of which men have begun to feel ashamed and to do this in the name of some new ineffable ethic. It is well to decry the slow and pettifogging minds which require evidence in order to reach conclusions. Above all, whatever is most ancient should be dished up as the very latest thing.
There is no novelty in this recipe for genius; it was practised by Carlyle in the time of our grandfathers, and by Nietzsche in the time of our fathers, and it has been practised in our own time by D. H. Lawrence. Lawrence is considered by his disciples to have enunciated all sorts of new wisdom about the relations of men and women; in actual fact he has gone back to advocating the domination of the male which one associates with the cave dwellers. Woman exists, in his philosophy, only as something soft and fat to rest the hero when he returns from his labours. Civilised societies have been learning to see something more than this in women; Lawrence will have nothing of civilisation. He scours the world for what is ancient and dark and loves the traces of Aztec cruelty in Mexico. Young men, who had been learning to behave, naturally read him with delight and go round practising cave-man stuff so far as the usages of polite society will permit.
One of the most important elements of success in becoming a man of genius is to learn the art of denunciation. You must always denounce in such a way that your reader thinks that it is the other fellow who is being denounced and not himself; in that case he will be impressed by your noble scorn, whereas if he thinks that it is himself that you are denouncing, he will consider that you are guilty of ill-bred peevishness. Carlyle remarked: ``The population of England is twenty millions, mostly fools.'' Everybody who read this considered himself one of the exceptions, and therefore enjoyed the remark. You must not denounce well-defined classes, such as persons with more than a certain income, inhabitants of a certain area, or believers in some definite creed; for if you do this, some readers will know that your invective is directed against them. You must denounce persons whose emotions are atrophied, persons to whom only plodding study can reveal the truth, for we all know that these are other people, and we shall therefore view with sympathy your powerful diagnosis of the evils of the age.
Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age. — Bertrand Russell
In terms of our tastes, we clearly have different tastes. But that comes merely because we value different things. So there is no question that for someone who values insights, Nietzsche is greater than Russell, and more worthy of being read. Whereas for someone who values methodology, Russell is a better read than Nietzsche.Again, you realize that this is a matter of tastes/preferences, right? In my opinion, among philosophers, Russell easily gets the top slot as a writer. In your opinion, he's a far worse author than Nietzsche. We have different tastes. There are no correct answers for this sort of thing. — Terrapin Station
So there is no question that for someone who values insights, Nietzsche is greater than Russell, — Agustino
Nope, because it's just a fact he didn't. You could value certain aspects of writing which are found in Russell over aspects of writing found in Nietzsche, but on the same criteria there is no room for disagreement, one of us has to be wrong.You don't believe that someone could feel that Russell had far greater insights than Nietzsche? — Terrapin Station
Nope, because it's just a fact he didn't — Agustino
It's not an empirically determinable matter. — John
No, it's like all judgements of aesthetics and ethics; they cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed by empirical inquiry. You need a different faculty for the task; and if you don't have it.... — John
On the other hand, through experience some things which have nothing to do with the so-called objective nature of the world may be known without any possibility of doubt. — John
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