Man is something to be surpassed — Jack Cummins
It is not that I am opposed to his philosophy and the idea of the 'overman' but I am thinking that it is a rather elastic idea, open to being stretched in many directions. — Jack Cummins
However, the actual translation of his ideas is potentially problematic, especially the idea of going beyond good and evil. What would this mean? It could be used to justify almost anything. — Jack Cummins
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, — “But these impulses may be from below, not from above.” I replied, “They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil’s child, I will live then from the Devil.” No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. — Emerson
Was Nietzsche intending a literal goal of the posthuman condition as enhancement of the human condition, or was he pointing for greater freedom of thought? This ambiguity seems to arise in thinking of his concept of the superman. As a poetic philosopher was he inventing the concept of superman as symbolic for the evolution of the consciousness of human beings?
3h — Jack Cummins
↪Jack Cummins Beyond good and evil could be rephrased, salva veritate, as beyond hedonism — Agent Smith
Was Nietzsche intending a literal goal of the posthuman condition as enhancement of the human condition, or was he pointing for greater freedom of thought? — Jack Cummins
In my interpretation, Nietzsche is correct in stating that it is the instincts and, consequently, the prevailance of the emotions, that delay the process of Man's transcendence. — Gus Lamarch
But, of course, it can go the other way with people being cut off from emotions and Nietzsche himself did experience difficulties in his personal life. So, trying to take the idea forward it may be about not being swayed by the emotions and instincts, but the quest for transcendence is complicated. We cannot be machines and there is a danger that in the twentieth first century, with the interface between mind and machine people may end up going in that direction and become cut off from sensory pleasures. — Jack Cummins
Quite the opposite , for Nietzsche our highest intellectual achievements are servants of our drives and instincts.
“Assuming that our world of desires and passions is the only thing “given” as real, that we cannot get down or up to any “reality” except the reality of our drives (since thinking is only a relation between these drives) – aren't we allowed to make the attempt and pose the question as to whether something like this “given” isn't enough to render the so-called mechanistic (and thus material) world comprehensible as well?
Assuming, finally, that we succeeded in explaining our entire life of drives as the organization and outgrowth of one basic form of will (namely, of the will to power, which is my claim); assuming we could trace all organic functions back to this will to power and find that it even solved the problem of procreation and nutrition (which is a single problem); then we will have earned the right to clearly designate all efficacious force as: will to power. The world seen from inside, the world determined and described with respect to its “intelligible character” – would be just this “will to power” and nothing else.” — Joshs
He is incisively attacking any and all primitive characteristics of humanity that - in his perception - make it impossible for the species to transcend the animal kingdom. — Gus Lamarch
the idea of 'superman' or 'the last man' symbolizing the highest possible, the outcome of history and civilisation as a culmination of human potential. — Jack Cummins
“ one must ask whether Nietzsche really thinks that
our animal origins are “shameful,” and whether humans are really “higher” than the primates. For when we compare the probity and rigor (as well as the surprising cohesiveness) of Nietzsche’s naturalism with his more traditional and anthropocentric remarks about apes, the
latter seem conceptually insubstantial and incoherent. As we have seen, Nietzsche’s naturalism questions the very speciesism that he himself occasionally falls back upon. But precisely because the tension between these two elements is so obvious and explicit, we should be
careful not to draw hasty conclusions about the consistency of Nietzsche’s thought. It seems unlikely that a thinker as nuanced—and as sensitive to the art of writing—as Nietzsche would have so quickly forgotten his own insights. Rather, when Nietzsche exhumes the traditional anthropocentric assumptions about primates, he is more probably exploiting his readers’ popular prejudices for rhetorical effect, while at the same time retaining an ironic distance from such conceits.”(Peter Groff, Who is Zarathustra’s Ape?) — Joshs
Humanity's instinctive and emotional base must be used as the initial purposeful engine of the journey to the Übermensch, however, after all its load has been used, it must be discarded completely by this new "Being".
In short, "Humanity" is only "Humanity" because it is a medium between an irrational animal and the theoretical Übermensch.
An Übermensch who lets himself be carried away by emotions is anything but an Übermensch. — Gus Lamarch
No. No.Was Nietzsche intending a literal goal of the posthuman condition as enhancement of the human condition, or was he pointing for greater freedom of thought? — Jack Cummins
No. Cultivation, not "evolution". (See Aristotle's Megalopsychia aka "great-souled man").As a poetic philosopher was he inventing the concept of superman as symbolic for the evolution of the consciousness of human beings?
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