I think a TV show that better encapsulates Horror Philosophy would be True Detective (at least the first season). — Maw
It's telling, to me at least, that the ending of the first season of True Detective was the way it was. It ended on a "positive" and "hopeful" note. People were sucked into the show because of its novel pessimism and cathartic nature but ultimately there was an expectation that it would end in an affirmative vindication of life. And that's exactly what it did, and this is exactly why it's ultimately shallow. Without a good reason to affirm life and existence in general, the act of affirmation becomes a bitch-slap cop-out. — darthbarracuda
Presumably they find value and fulfillment in writing about pessimism. — darthbarracuda
As I read this, some great passages in Hegel came to mind. This one in particular seems to capture "nihilism" in way that does justice to its allure. It's a Satanic/Romantic position. As someone else mentioned, a truly "nothing" position is worthless. What the less eloquent Adult Swim nihilist might want to say is something about freedom, self-posession, and transcendence of everything finite. But here's Hegel on The Irony. Sartre, Stirner, and Nietzsche all seem fused together here. Hegel just passes through, having (no doubt) tried this perspective and found it unsatisfying.In my experience of studying philosophy, it seems one of the most disliked positions has been nihilism and post modernism, even if the former isn't really that much different than regular old skepticism. — dclements
Now so far as concerns the closer connection of Fichte’s propositions with one tendency of irony, we need in this respect emphasize only the following points about this irony, namely that [first] Fichte sets up the ego as the absolute principle of all knowing, reason, and cognition, and at that the ego that remains throughout abstract and formal. Secondly, this ego is therefore in itself just simple, and, on the one hand, every particularity, every characteristic, every content is negated in it, since everything is submerged in this abstract freedom and unity, while, on the other hand, every content which is to have value for the ego is only put and recognized by the ego itself. Whatever is, is only by the instrumentality of the ego, and what exists by my instrumentality I can equally well annihilate again.
Now if we stop at these absolutely empty forms which originate from the absoluteness of the abstract ego, nothing is treated in and for itself and as valuable in itself, but only as produced by the subjectivity of the ego. But in that case the ego can remain lord and master of everything, and in no sphere of morals, law, things human and divine, profane and sacred, is there anything that would not first have to be laid down by the ego, and that therefore could not equally well be destroyed by it. Consequently everything genuinely and independently real becomes only a show, not true and genuine on its own account or through itself, but a mere appearance due to the ego in whose power and caprice and at whose free disposal it remains. To admit or cancel it depends wholly on the pleasure of the ego, already absolute in itself simply as ego. Now thirdly, the ego is a living, active individual, and its life consists in making its individuality real in its own eyes and in those of others, in expressing itself, and bringing itself into appearance. For every man, by living, tries to realize himself and does realize himself.
Now in relation to beauty and art, this acquires the meaning of living as an artist and forming one’s life artistically. But on this principle, I live as an artist when all my action and my expression in general, in connection with any content whatever, remains for me a mere show and assumes a shape which is wholly in my power. In that case I am not really in earnest either with this content or, generally, with its expression and actualization. For genuine earnestness enters only by means of a substantial interest, something of intrinsic worth like truth, ethical life, etc., – by means of a content which counts as such for me as essential, so that I only become essential myself in my own eyes in so far as I have immersed myself in such a content and have brought myself into conformity with it in all my knowing and acting. When the ego that sets up and dissolves everything out of its own caprice is the artist, to whom no content of consciousness appears as absolute and independently real but only as a self-made and destructible show, such earnestness can find no place, since validity is ascribed only to the formalism of the ego.
True, in the eyes of others the appearance which I present to them may be regarded seriously, in that they take me to be really concerned with the matter in hand, but in that case they are simply deceived, poor limited creatures, without the faculty and ability to apprehend and reach the loftiness of my standpoint. Therefore this shows me that not everyone is so free (i.e. formally free)[52] as to see in everything which otherwise has value, dignity, and sanctity for mankind just a product of his own power of caprice, whereby he is at liberty either to grant validity to such things, to determine himself and fill his life by means of them, or the reverse. Moreover this virtuosity of an ironical artistic life apprehends itself as a divine creative genius for which anything and everything is only an unsubstantial creature, to which the creator, knowing himself to be disengaged and free from everything, is not bound, because he is just as able to destroy it as to create it. In that case, he who has reached this standpoint of divine genius looks down from his high rank on all other men, for they are pronounced dull and limited, inasmuch as law, morals, etc., still count for them as fixed, essential, and obligatory. So then the individual, who lives in this way as an artist, does give himself relations to others: he lives with friends, mistresses, etc; but, by his being a genius, this relation to his own specific reality, his particular actions, as well as to what is absolute and universal, is at the same time null; his attitude to it all is ironical.
— Hegel
And it wasn't just the feeling of paralyses, it was the feeling of blackness and me sinking into my own mind and body and getting trapped in it.... The mind and body instinctively fear darkness and getting trapped by something, but combined it is the kind of terror that quickly overcomes the rational mind attempts to overcome the situation. I eventually wondered somewhere I didn't know, loss my glasses and backpack, puked my guts out (luckily while I was face down and not face up), and withing a half-hour to an hour regained consciences. — dclements
we are often faced with the nearly identical problem which is mainly maintaining our biofeedback pain/pleasure principle good enough that we do not lose our little minds. Or perhaps for some just maintain it long enough to go out with a 'bang' — dclements
Sartre, for example, treats meaning as if it's a human creation. Rather than understanding meaning or value is an infinite expressed by a state itself, Sartre treats it like it's nothing more than a human whim. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Anyways the problem I'm trying to understand here is whether you are talking about that they rejected a certain aspect of reality itself (which I guess could happen but I'm not sure why) or if trying to undermine certain aspects of the labels or system of labels we use to reference everything. If I was to hazard a guess I would say I believe they are doing the latter since if you wish to question Western ideology and Abrahamic religions, you would want to find something wrong with it and get others to believe you when you say there is a issue with it. — dclements
He's probably most vulnerable when he generalizes his personal experience to all of mankind.The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom.
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Spirit is essentially the result of its own activity; its activity is the transcending of immediate, simple, unreflected existence, — the negation of that existence, and the returning into itself.
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We have already discussed the final aim of the progression. The principles of the successive phases of Spirit that animate the Nations in a necessitated gradation, are themselves only steps in the development of the one universal Spirit, which through them elevates and completes itself to a self-comprehending totality. — Hegel
I'd translate this by "radical freedom is not unlimited power." Of course I agree. As I understand this freedom, it's just freedom from "ideal" or "moral" constraints and not from physical constraints. What I always have in mind is cacophony of political/religious rhetoric that makes demands, launches accusations, sews confusion, etc. This rhetoric is neutralized by the "free" self-consciousness I have in mind. The "magic" of the demanding/accusing other is vaporized. The game of symbol manipulation and concept warfare is seen from a "higher" place. (I just mean conceptually and emotionally.)We've been the radically free agents all along, but it simply doesn't give us the power we like to imagine. We have to deal with others, our bodily limits, the world in which we live, our ethical obligations. Radical freedom is not the ability to do anything and create a world without problem or challenge. — TheWillowOfDarkness
I'm speaking of the first person experience of viewing an argument, seeing the strengths and faults of both sides, and also possessing a sense that question itself is flawed, that the futility of the argument is masked by an unnecessary assumption. Philosophy is (among so many other things) a scrubbing away of false necessities and confused or insincere questions.The grades which Spirit seems to have left behind it, it still possesses in the depths of its present. — Hegel
Well, that is all well and good, but the problem I am still having is why you are talking to me about this 'feedback' analogy and what balancing regulatory networks has to do with anything. Are you saying that you drank yourself to near death because it provided you with the pleasure that enabled you to survive the feelings of madness until you reached a point where it no longer gave you that pleasure? That, in the absence of this regulation between pain and pleasure - subjectively - inevitably leads to our doom?This is sort of similar to comparing the human mind to a computer, however a feedback control system and a computer are similar in some ways and different in others. For one feedback can be purely analogy where as computer are almost always pure digital. — dclements
When presented with an ethical dilemma, what am I to do? No doubt I have already chosen (to have the dilemma) and must make a choice (my eventually response), but there is no meaning or significance to guide me. I cannot say: "Well, X matters, so I am obligated do Y rather than Z. In the end (speaking of his early philosophy) Sartre just goes with the cop out of: "There is only what is chosen."
Sartre gives a great account of power. No matter what reasoning I give, I am the one doing it. It's bad faith for me to say: "I must because..." for it denies my responsibility in causing events. Even if I am behaving ethically (e.g. X matters), I'm the one doing it. I choose to make that world rather than it being a necessary outcome of whatever ethic (e.g God's authority, social demands, that X matters, etc.) is expessed.
In terms of value or ethics though, it's all but empty. Sure, it's true what happens will only be my choice, but that's no better than saying, "tomorrow, something will happen." It doesn't help with anything. If I'm dealing with value or ethics, I want to know what is important , so I can make a better choice about my actions. To say, "Well, there is nothing to say on the matter, there is only what is chosen" is only to miss and ignore the point entirely. — TheWillowOfDarkness
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