What he is rejecting is the notion of a thinking substance. The soul is not something we have. In his refinement of the soul-hypothesis Nietzsche posits a “soul of subjective multiplicity”. This solves the problem of the seeming mystery of a thought that comes when it wishes rather than when I wish. It is not that the thought has some kind of independent existence and comes to me from elsewhere, but simply that there is not something within me, an “I” or “ego” or “little ‘one’” that is the agent of my thoughts. This is not a denial of agency, it is a denial of something within me, some substance or soul-atom that is the agent. — Fooloso4

Yes, the self is a community of competing drives, and
they are loosely united by one overarching drive or will to power, that dominates at any given time. A thinking substance must go the way of all substantive things. Agency organizes particulars according to relational patterns whose origins and purposes it does not have mastery over in the sense of the carrying through ofna prior self-knowing.

But every purpose and use is just a sign that the will to power has achieved mastery over something less powerful, and has impressed upon it its own idea [Sinn] of a use function; and the whole history of a ‘thing', an organ, a tradition can to this extent be a continuous chain of signs, continually revealing new interpretations and adaptations, the causes of which need not be connected even amongst themselves, but rather sometimes just follow and replace one another at random. The ‘development' of a thing, a tradition, an organ is therefore certainly not its progressus towards a goal, still less is it a logical progressus, taking the shortest route with least expenditure of energy and cost, – instead it is a succession of more or less profound, more or less mutually independent processes of subjugation exacted on the thing, added to this the resistances encountered every time, the attempted transformations for the purpose of defense and reaction, and the results, too, of successful countermeasures. The form is fluid, the ‘meaning' [Sinn] even more so . . . It is no different inside any individual organism: every time the whole grows appreciably, the ‘meaning' [Sinn] of the individual organs shifts, – sometimes the partial destruction of organs, the reduction in their number (for example, by the destruction of intermediary parts) can be a sign of increasing vigour and perfection.

Thanks. I'm not sure I really understand the question, maybe because I'm not super familiar with Heidegger.

In general, I think pronouncements about the "end of metaphysics," have always been a bit much. We had a period in the 20th century where it was popular to embrace the death of metaphysics, itself a position that made many metaphysical assertions, but as the generation that bought into the "death of metaphysics," and the "linguistic turn," retires, it sort of seems like we are in the beginnings of a "ontological turn," where metaphysics is embraced again.

Whether Heidegger was right or wrong to describe Nietzsche as producing the last metaphysic is a question here. Is the ground of personal being wrestled with here or are conditions not so easy to approach? — Paine

What Heidegger meant was that Nietzsche was the last to follow in Descartes’ s footsteps in treating the world as picture , as objects represented by and placed in front of a subject. Any philosophy which uses concepts like paradigm, worldview , point of view or perspective is, in Heidegger’s thinking, a metaphysics of world as picture.

This objectifying of whatever is, is accomplished in a setting-before, a representing, that aims at bringing
each particular being before it in such a way that man who calculates can be sure, and that means be certain, of
that being…What it is to be is for the first time defined as the objectiveness of representing, and truth is first, defined as the certainty of representing, in the metaphysics of Descartes. The title of Descartes’s principal work reads: Meditationes de prima philosophia [Meditations’ on First Philosophy]. Prote philosophia is the designation coined by’ Aristotle for what is later called metaphysics. The whole of modern metaphysics taken together, Nietzsche included, maintains itself within the interpretation of ‘what it is to be and of truth that was prepared by Descartes.

Cartesian desert-based approaches , which are assumed to arise from the deliberately willed actions of an autonomous, morally responsible subject, are harsher and more ‘blameful' in their views of justice than deterministic , non-desert based modernist approaches and postmodern accounts, which rest on shaping influences (bodily-affective and social) outside of an agent's control. — Joshs

I'm seeing more clealy where the :100: :smile: came from. :wink:

Well, I don’t think following Habermas’s Kantian modernist path is the answer. — Joshs

Habermas insists that his theory breaks with Kantian philosophy of the subject. And, if we leave aside Habermas’s insistence on the primacy of implicit rationality, solidarity, and consensus, we should admit that he could successfully advance our understanding of contemporary social realities. In his conceptual framework, lifeworld has become an inexplicable and resourceful background and shared horizon of social agents; it is the store of knowledge and the source of symbolically mediated legitimate orders regulating a field of interpersonal relationships. ” Personality serves as a term for art for acquired competencies and renders subject capable of speech and action, to participate in processes of mutual understanding in each given context and to maintain his own identity in the shifting contexts of interaction. Individuals and groups are ‘members’ of a lifeworld only in a metaphorical sense” (‘The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity’, p 343). This conceptualization of the self is quite close to Deleuze and Guattari’s apprehension of a conscious individual as an assemblage of the mechanical, bodily, affective, perceptive, and cognitive capacities embedded within the socio-technical terrain. ‘The shifting contexts of interaction’ animate intersubjective events of communicative actions so that social actors exercise their cognitive, normative, and personal faculties. Further, each act of communicative practice sustains the universal structures of the lifeworld and the concrete forms of life. While the reproduction of lifeworld has become “less and less guaranteed by traditional and customary means, highly abstract ego-identities condition the risk-filled direction of the self’s identification.” (p 345)

For Nietzsche the self is a community, divided within itself, made of competing drives. We dont decide to will what we will . We find ourselves willing. — Joshs

This Nietzschean insight has undoubtedly determined some aspects of postmodernist thought.
Thus, in 'Difference and Repetition', Deleuze completely follows Nietzsche:” What the self has become equal to is the unequal in itself…The I which is fractured and the self which is divided find a common descendant in the man without name, without qualities, without self or I” (D&R, p 90). Yet, Deleuze also insists that in fact and principle the drives and impulses comprising the self are not simply fractured but are always assembled or arranged. Clarifying the nature of this synthesis has always been the primary task for Nietzsche and his followers. ‘The Genealogy of Morality’ can be read as the inquiry into the conditions of
moral ranking of impulses so that the mechanisms of morality maintain the integrity of self. In ‘Anti-Oedipus’, Deleuze and Guattari have offered the different theory of self, but, later, Deleuze
admitted the need to further develop the notion of an assemblage of non-personal individuations.
Identity politics affirms that there are highly conditioned and intensified processes of autonomous will formation. The self is an assemblage of multi-levelled societal and individualizing processes and components.

, if we leave aside Habermas’s insistence on the primacy of implicit rationality, solidarity, and consensus, we should admit that he could successfully advance our understanding of contemporary social realities — Number2018

If we leave aside his focus on rational communication and consensus, aren’t we ignoring the central features of his philosophical outlook? It seems to me that Habermas’s notion of communicative action is anathema to Deleuze.

“…philosophers have very little time for discussion. Every philosopher runs away when he or she hears someone say,
"Let's discuss this." Discussions are fine for roundtable talks, but philosophy throws its numbered dice on another table. The best one can say about discussions is that they take things no farther, since the participants never talk about the same thing. Of what concern is it to philosophy that someone has such a view, and thinks this or that, if the problems at stake are not stated? And when they are stated, it is no longer a matter of discussing but rather one of creating concepts for the undiscussible problem posed. Communication always comes too early or too late, and when it comes to creating, conversation is always superfluous. Sometimes philosophy is turned into the idea of a perpetual discussion, as "communicative rationality," or as universal democratic conversation."

Nothing is less exact, and when philosophers criticize each other it is on the basis of problems and on a plane that is different from theirs and that melt down the old concepts in the way a cannon can be melted down to make new weapons. It never takes place on the same plane. To criticize is only to establish that a concept vanishes when it is thrust into a new milieu, losing some of its components, or acquiring others that transform it. But those who criticize without creating, those who are content to defend the vanished concept without being able to give it the forces it needs to return to life, are the plague of philosophy. All these debaters and communicators are inspired by ressentiment. They speak only of themselves when they set empty generalizations against one another. Philosophy has a horror of discussions… ( What is Philosophy)

Which text are you quoting?

Which text are you quoting? — Paine

The Age of the World Picture. You can find it in The Question of Technology.

More important than which interpretation is right is which reading is more promising from a psychological and ethical point of view. — Joshs

Surely whether some reading is promising or not is relative to the psychological, social, ethical, economical context of each particular reading, no? So we're stuck in relativity. Or do you propose a way around it or out of it?

Enactivist writers such as Evan Thompson and Francisco Varela emphasize the beneficial ethical implications of the decentering of the Cartesian subject. They assert that a thoroughgoing understanding of the groundlessness of personhood reveals the mutual co-determination of subject and world. This realization can in turn lead, through the use of contemplative practice of mindfulness, to the awareness of universal empathy, compassion and benevolence.

‘In Buddhism, we have a case study showing that when groundlessness is embraced and followed through to its ultimate conclusions,

the outcome is an unconditional sense of intrinsic goodness that manifests itself in the world as spontaneous compassion.” — Joshs

In other words, the notion of "Buddha nature". The notion of "Buddha nature" is not universally Buddhist, though. Early Buddhism and Theravada reject it.

This is why the Buddha never advocated attributing an innate nature of any kind to the mind — good, bad, or Buddha. The idea of innate natures slipped into the Buddhist tradition in later centuries, when the principle of freedom was forgotten. Past bad kamma was seen as so totally deterministic that there seemed no way around it unless you assumed either an innate Buddha in the mind that could overpower it, or an external Buddha who would save you from it. But when you understand the principle of freedom — that past kamma doesn't totally shape the present, and that present kamma can always be free to choose the skillful alternative — you realize that the idea of innate natures is unnecessary: excess baggage on the path.

And it bogs you down. If you assume that the mind is basically bad, you won't feel capable of following the path, and will tend to look for outside help to do the work for you. If you assume that the mind is basically good, you'll feel capable but will easily get complacent. This stands in the way of the heedfulness needed to get you on the path, and to keep you there when the path creates states of relative peace and ease that seem so trustworthy and real. If you assume a Buddha nature, you not only risk complacency but you also entangle yourself in metaphysical thorn patches: If something with an awakened nature can suffer, what good is it? How could something innately awakened become defiled? If your original Buddha nature became deluded, what's to prevent it from becoming deluded after it's re-awakened?

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/freedomfrombuddhanature.html

They assert that a thoroughgoing understanding of the groundlessness of personhood reveals the mutual co-determination of subject and world. This realization can in turn lead, through the use of contemplative practice of mindfulness, to the awareness of universal empathy, compassion and benevolence.

It's not at all difficult to understand the co-determination of subject and world, the interconnectedness, the mutuality. But it doesn't have the rosy implications Varela and so many Western Buddhists think it has. It's not only the pleasant, warm "interbeing" of Thich Nhat Hanh. It's also the ugly inter-eating that goes on at all times and all levels. Presuming to have empathy, compassion, or benevolence for those one eats is perverse.

For those who benefit from the hidden dependencies of modern life, a corollary need is a sense of reassurance that interconnectedness is reliable and benign — or, if not yet benign, that feasible reforms can make it that way. They want to hear that they can safely place their trust in the principle of interconnectedness without fear that it will turn on them or let them down. When Buddhist Romanticism speaks to these needs, it opens the gate to areas of Dharma that can help many people find the solace they're looking for. In doing so, it augments the work of psychotherapy, which may explain why so many psychotherapists have embraced Dharma practice for their own needs and for their patients, and why some have become Dharma teachers themselves.

However, Buddhist Romanticism also helps close the gate to areas of the Dharma that would challenge people in their hope for an ultimate happiness based on interconnectedness. Traditional Dharma calls for renunciation and sacrifice, on the grounds that all interconnectedness is essentially unstable, and any happiness based on this instability is an invitation to suffering. True happiness has to go beyond interdependence and interconnectedness to the unconditioned. In response, the Romantic argument brands these teachings as dualistic: either inessential to the religious experience or inadequate expressions of it. Thus, it concludes, they can safely be ignored. In this way, the gate closes off radical areas of the Dharma designed to address levels of suffering remaining even when a sense of wholeness has been mastered.

The Roots of Buddhist Romanticism
by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/rootsofbuddhistromanticism.html

Agreed recently, more broadly, albeit tangentially , recently read an anecdote about whether phenomenology was more determinative, in regard to reduction of variables blocking smooth transitions, that the question of who was of more consequence in that realm, William James or Husserl?

The uncertainty is formidable, however recent searc of correspondence discovered that James was less awed by Husserl then the other way around, even against Sartre’s opinion to the contrary, who attended Husserl’s lectures .

Understanding each from their own perspectives however, can allow you to gain a certain appreciation for that perspective, even if it is drastically different than your own, such that one becomes inspired in the opposite direction. — Vaskane

Is it really possible to understand someone from their perspective and be free of one's own interpretative values and frameworks? How would one go about that?

:up:

Ha! I try never to be sarcastic. Your response was helpful and resonated.