... in essence what is Nietzsche hoping his readers will gain from ER? — Tom Storm

I don't think that he hopes that there is anything in essence the reader will gain. In the section of TSZ entitled "Reading and Writing" he says:

He who knoweth the reader, doeth nothing more for the reader.

He leaves his readers to their own devices. There are different kinds of readers. What they get is up to them.

Zarathustra is another name for Zoroaster. In Zoroastrianism there is a constant battle between the forces of good and evil that will come to an end with the victory of the force of good over evil. In Christianity there is also the final victory of good over evil with the kingdom of God or Heaven on earth.

There is an ancient opposing idea, the eternal return.

Rather than being opposite poles there is a continual overcoming and reversal of what is held to be good or evil throughout history. There is no fixed nature, including no fixed human nature. In the Uses and Abuses of History for Life Nietzsche says:

...first nature was at one time or another once a second nature and that every victorious second nature becomes a first nature.

A cycle but not, as the dwarf would have it, a circle.

In the section of The Gay Science entitled “What I Owe the Ancients” Nietzsche says:

For only in the Dionysian mysteries, in the psychology of the Dionysian condition, does the fundamental fact of the Hellenic instinct express itself—its “will to life.” What did the Hellene procure in these mysteries? Eternal life, the eternal recurrence of life; the future promised and made sacred in the past; the triumphant yes to life beyond death and change; true life as collective survival through reproduction, through the mysteries of sexuality. (90)

...

And thus I touch again upon the spot from which I first set out—The Birth of Tragedy was my first revaluation of all values: thus I take my stand again upon the ground from which grows my willing, my being able—I, the final follower of the philosopher Dionysus—I, the teacher of the eternal recurrence . . . (91)

Dionysus, the god who philosophizes. What is the significance of this? According to Socrates the gods are wise. The philosopher desires wisdom but remains ignorant. He questions but does not have answers to his questions. There is no final word as to why things are as they or to what will be. The same holds true of a god who philosophizes. We all, men and gods, remain ignorant.

In an endnote to his introduction to Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols Tracy Strong points out:

15. Nietzsche in fact projected a major work to be called “The Eternal Return of the Same,” the divisions of which would be examinations of various aspects of embodiment (Einverleibung). WKG V2 p. 392.

In TSZ the battle between good and evil occurs on the human scale. The question of whether it occurs on the cosmological scale raises the question of the connection between what is human and life itself. In Dionysus' teaching, a teaching that has returned once again, the modern objective scientific separation of knower and known does not hold. The cosmology of eternal return is not about something that is apart from us. But it is not limited to us. Quite the opposite, it is about the infinite unknown.

I will leave it there. I am going to return to the eternal return.

Warning others away from the risk of creativity ? — green flag

Not at all.

But are you not just as concerned about such a role itself being boring ? — green flag

Some might find it boring, I do not.

Could not a bot be assigned to this task ? — green flag

Not very well, but that may change. But even if it could, for me careful reading and interpretation is a way of thinking, and requires creativity to do well.

Here's Emerson's version of idle talk and its opposite. — green flag

Why are you reading Emerson? Do you equate interpretation with idle talk?

This is one of those books that looks good on a shelf but is not to be believed and acted upon, for that would not be respectable, not nearly as respectable as the safely dead and famous name. — green flag

I hope it does not come as a shock to you but Emerson is safely dead and his too is a famous name.

I will need a bit more time to answer this. For now I will say that I think there is more to it than a test. I don't think he would have introduced this ancient belief simply as the backdrop for a test.

is it not somehow questionable to kneel and crawl before those who themselves refused to kneel and crawl ? — green flag

It is not only questionable, it is not something I would do or recommend.

The strong poet does violence to his precursors, and it's fight for his life as a distinct voice. We must do as they do and for just that reason avoid saying as they say. — green flag

Why must we do as they do? How many distinct voices are there that are worth hearing in place of the philosophers, and here again I use the term philosophy in Nietzsche's sense of an exclusive club with very few members. By avoiding saying as they say we do not thereby have something of worth to say in their stead.

We hide behind the authorial avatar. — green flag

Perhaps some do, but reading need not passive. It is a way of thinking. A way of engaging with an author. An opportunity to be guided by and learn from them.

A frankly violent and shameless interpretation has the virtue of honesty. — green flag

.

I don't think so. As I see it, we would benefit more from being honest with ourselves and admit that there are those who have far more interesting and important things to say than we do. But perhaps I am wrong and there will be books and seminars and classes devoted to studying green flag.

It's not the gossip about the matter ... — green flag

Gossip? Is this an example of frankly violent and shameless interpretation?

From time to time I think about starting a thread, but keeping it short while ranging over a wide terrain is difficult.

An interesting quote from Wittgenstein; not quite sure what the implications there are. — Janus

Quite a few but this thread is not the place to get into it, but has to do with thinking and seeing and saying.

The figurative style of “The vision and the riddle” allows us to avoid literal and direct approaches to the problem of time. — Number2018

As a work of literature we enter this world and from within this world attend to what we find in it, as what is literal within this world. The dwarf says all that is straight lies, that all truth is crooked, and concludes that time is a circle. Is this the crooked truth? Does it become a lie if we attempt to straighten it out? But straight and circle are not the only alternatives. The fact that the dwarf says this, and not Nietzsche and not Z. should be taken literally because it prompts us to identify the dwarf and the problem of the spirit of gravity. What is at issue is not the question of time in abstraction but Z.'s struggle with life in time.

But he does not assert a comprehensive unity, an eternity with an ontological status of a transcendent external Reality, or a universal and unequivocal model of truth or time. — Number2018

Nietzsche, like Plato, wears a mask. Just as Plato never speaks in the dialogue, Nietzsche does not appear in TSZ. What he might have believed about the eternal return is something he keeps from us. But if we take the infinity of roads literally it does not seem possible that anyone can know that there is an eternal return because we cannot traverse an infinite distance in the finite time of our existence.

Here, Zarathustra-Nietzsche utilizes various arguments in favor of the
Eternal Return of the same. — Number2018

From the moment, the gateway, we have a limited view of the past and no view of the future. This is why Z. calls it an abyss. But there is an argument which has been made independently of Nietzsche and the eternal return that in an infinite amount of time everything that can happen has happened. I don't know if Nietzsche accepts this but Z. accepted something like it, and is deeply troubled. Nietzsche on the other hand, as @Paine quoted him says:

there is nothing more awesome than infinity. — ibid. 124

Yet, he immediately contests this fragment as a mirage — Number2018

He says:

Where was now the dwarf? And the gateway? And the spider? And all the whispering? Had I dreamt? Had I awakened? ‘Twixt rugged rocks did I suddenly stand alone, dreary in the dreariest moonlight.

Rather than contest, he questions himself and what he had seen and what he is now seeing. Was the discussion of eternal return a dream he had awakened from or was it seeing the man the dream that he has awakened? We are told that after biting off the head of the snake the man is transfigured. Is this part of Z's own transfiguration? Had he awakened to laughter, to levity?

O my brethren, I heard a laughter which was no human laughter,—and now gnaweth a thirst at me, a longing that is never allayed.

My longing for that laughter gnaweth at me: oh, how can I still endure to live! And how could I endure to die at present!—

Something ultimately new appears ... — Number2018

This too is part of the riddle. How can there be something new if everything has happened before? I discuss this and some of the other things you touched on above.

A specific example:

Christianity and Latin terminology stood between us and Plato and Aristotle. But that need no longer be the case. We can now stand closer to them than we could in the past. We can understand their terms in a way that is much closer to their use than was possible ever since they were translated into Latin. We can strip away Christian imposition.

In simplest terms, we need to look beyond ourselves. We can and do change our perspective. We can broaden it. We can change the direction we are looking in. We can consider concerns that are not our own and may find compelling reasons to make them our own.

In doing so we still do not see things as an author's contemporaries might, but we may come to understand an author better than his contemporaries did. Philosophers, using the term in a way, as Nietzsche did, that is reserved for only a few, do not simply think within their time but against it. Do we have a better understanding of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein and Heidegger than we did a hundred years ago or just a different understanding? Are we not able to answer the question because we are delimited and informed within an intersubjective matrix?

I feel sorry for the Trump faithful. They must be suffering from whiplash. First he tells them he is going to be arrested and is ready to put on a show for the cameras and prepares them to protest, and now, less than a week later tells them the case is going to be dropped. Of course neither scenario is backed by facts. But then again, in Trump world facts don't matter because there are always "alternative facts".

At his rally yesterday he said he was an example of why the "weaponization of law enforcement" was the biggest problem the U.S. faces — and told the crowd: "They're coming after you." (Axios)

Translation: whoever is against me is the enemy we must fight against. Now someone might want to dismiss this as mere words without consequence, but as comforting as that may be it is dangerously disingenuous.

If our philosophical framework is postmodernist , we are likely to recognize Nietzsche’s work as postmodern, but if we don’t grasp postmodern concepts, we will
never see these ideas in his work no matter how closely we try to hew to the author’s own terms. — Joshs

If the only tool in the toolbox is a hammer ...

Although I accept the idea that we are historically situated, I do not think it necessary to impose postmodernist theories on Nietzsche. But if your claim is that he is postmodern then the framework and concepts of his work itself, in its own situatedness, should be essential and sufficient in our attempt to understand him, but essential.

The reader’s perspective isn’t superior to the author’s , but it is inextricable from how an author’s work comes across to us. — Joshs

I see this as the condition and starting point, not the jumping off point. How an author comes across to me, my perspective, is not fixed, it can change as I learn from him, and must change if I am to learn from him.

In any discussion of a philosopher’s work, what is just as important as what they ‘actually’ said is what we would like them to mean. — Joshs

Here we see a fundamental hermeneutical difference. On the one hand, the attempt to understand an author on his own terms, on the other, the attempt to find one's own interests in an author. The former requires a kind of humility and the idea that certain authors are worthy of being read because they have something to teach us that is not easy to understand. The latter, the superiority of the reader. But not every reader is superior to the writer, and if one picks carefully, very few if any are.

My own experience of thinking seems to show me that thought without language is not a shapeless and indistinct mass. — Janus

Spatial thinking supports this. From geometry, to rearranging the furniture, to packing the car, to getting from one place to another.

I once read somewhere that a geometrical figure, with the words "Look at this", serves as a proof for certain Indian mathematicians.

(Wittgenstein, Zettel 461)

Didn't see anything that inspired me to comment. — frank

I suppose that being shown that you are wrong about his "theory of truth", being a Kantian, and the eternal return does not inspire comment.

A significant part of the problem is, as you should be aware, given that you quoted it:

They won't remember what you said, they won't remember what you did, but they'll never forget the way you made them feel.

Although you were addressing me, it was others who said your response as "contemptuous" and commented o your behavior. I was willing to give you the opportunity to explain, but more of the same.

It was only after dismissively suggesting more than once that I read Nietzsche that you mentioned that you were "waiting for a gunshot wound to the chest". Without mentioning that you work in an ER, this can mean something quite different. More along the lines of, I need that like I need a hole in my head.

The fact is, despite your claim:

I also explained to you that I work in an emergency room and I was waiting for a trauma at the time I was discussing Nietzsche with you. I explained that this is why I was brief. So maybe you could see your way clear to cutting me some slack. — frank

you did not explain that you work in an ER at any point and did not explain that this is why you were so brief, in the prior exchanges. A simple explanation would have gone a long way.

When you then go on to say:

engage in a friendly way, great. If all you want to do is launch an assault, save it. I'm not interested in that kind of discussion. — frank

I think that those reading along would think you should have been talking to and listening to yourself.

Next:

I have to say, I think it's sad that when asked on a philosophy forum what Nietzsche's eternal return means to you, you have nothing to say. — frank

I had already said quite a bit in the post I started the thread with. In addition, the fact that I had not yet posted something that I spent a good part of the day working on does not mean I have nothing to say. Contrary to your plea that you be cut some slack, you accuse me of having nothing to say. Is that your idea of engaging in a friendly way?

Now I find that you studied Nietzsche for years without understanding that he was a Kantian. — frank

It is because I have studied him for years that I know he is not a Kantian. To raise the problem of the concept of a thing in itself does not make one a Kantian. He is not a Kantian for the simple reason that he rejects the concept of noumenon. That we do not know the world as it is in distinction from how we are does not mean that he accepts the notion of a noumenal world.

No one has ever claimed that the "thing in itself" is a metaphor. No one. Ever. — frank

The point is, the claim that the concept of eternal return is metaphorical, like the concepts of original entities (which are not for Nietzsche things in themselves), does not mean that there is no eternal return in the same way it does not mean that there are no objects.

This is not contrary to my point. — frank

Your point is, as you said:

Seen in the light of his ideas about the nature of truth, it seems unlikely. — frank

Accordingly, the natural world seen in light of his ideas about the nature of truth, seems unlikely.

The Eternal Return is not cosmology. — frank

This begs the question of whether it is cosmological. Repeating it does not make it true.

Argue for it in the light of his Kantian views. Make it fit. — frank

Trying to make it fit your erroneous Kantian assumptions is part of the problem. It creates an unrecognizable distortion.

Scientists will insist methodologically that the natural world is quite apart from the "human world." This is the distinction surrounding the question of whether Nietzsche meant you to take the Eternal Return as a feature of a scientific view (cosmology) or not. — frank

There is a difference between a cosmological view and a scientific cosmological view. The idea of eternal return is an ancient cosmological opinion. It is simply wrong to assume that if Nietzsche held a cosmological view it would be "as a feature of a scientific view".

With regard to a scientific view, cosmology is highly speculative. There are in contemporary cosmology cyclical models

In the face of this, it seems fair for me to ask if Heidegger and Deleuze are asking for more "land' than Nietzsche was willing to put on the market. — Paine

It seems to me that Nietzsche is a skeptic in the Socratic sense of knowledge of ignorance. The metaphor of the ship, having left terra firma, and an infinite horizon, echoes the metaphor of the problem of navigating the ship in the Phaedo. The eternal return too is a matter of life and death, of the unknown, of the abyss.

I think I understand what you are getting at when @Joshs you say "more land". I take it to mean they talk as if we are still on terra firma, that things are more settled than they are, and that treating all this as a theoretical problem is to have, so to speak, missed the boat.

Thanks. An interesting essay, with lots to unpack. I will limit my comments to the problem of the eternal return.

Beginning with the title he has already made two distinctions: between truth and lies, and between the moral and nonmoral sense. All play a role in the question of the eternal return as discussed above, and make it clear why the gnomic "truths are metaphors" is at best inadequate and at worst misleading. But having furnished the essay, (which was like having to extract a tooth) we can move beyond that.

From the essay:

we possess nothing but metaphors for things — metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities… — frank

Original entities and what we say about them, our metaphors, are two different things. The entities are not metaphors.

...whereas nature is acquainted with no forms and no concepts, and likewise with no species, but only with an X which remains inaccessible and undefinable for us." — frank

Here we get to the center of the problem. What you say about eternal return as metaphor:

It's probably not cosmological though — frank

must then be said of the natural world. But Nietzsche does not deny the natural world, only that we do not have epistemological access to it as a "thing in itself". Put differently, the natural world is the human world.

The cosmological question of the eternal return remains open. We know something of the concept (metaphor) but whether or not Nietzsche believed that all that is recurs has not been settled. In either case, like the natural world, it is not something apart from the human world.

The dwarf is the spirit of gravity. It calls Z. a "stone of wisdom. Hurling himself high but sentenced by himself to fall down.

What is the spirit of gravity? In the chapter "The Spirit of Gravity" he says:

Man is difficult to discover, and unto himself most difficult of all; often lieth the spirit concerning the soul. So causeth the spirit of gravity.

He, however, hath discovered himself who saith: This is my good and evil: therewith hath he silenced the mole and the dwarf, who say: "Good for all, evil for all.

"One must learn to love oneself—thus do I teach—with a wholesome and healthy love: that one may endure to be with oneself, and not go roving about.

In TSZ. the dwarf is first said to be half mole. Z. is at odds with himself. He travels antithetical paths. He strives for what is high but like a mole digs down into himself. He says to himself:

… being at two in such a way truly makes one lonelier than being at one!

He begins the riddle and vision by saying:

I tell the riddle that I saw – the vision of the loneliest one.

He sees something:

the like of which I had never seen before. A young shepherd I saw; writhing, choking, twitching, his face distorted, with a thick black snake hanging from his mouth.

My hand tore at the snake and tore – in vain! It could not tear the snake from his throat. Then it cried out of me: “Bite down! Bite down!
Bite off the head! Bite down!” –

Z. interrupts his story:

Now guess me this riddle that I saw back then, now interpret me this vision of the loneliest one!
For it was a vision and a foreseeing: what did I see then as a parable? And who is it that must some day come? Who is the shepherd into whose throat the snake crawled this way? Who
is the human being into whose throat everything that is heaviest, blackest will crawl?

The shepherd bites the head off.

No longer shepherd, no longer human – a transformed, illuminated, laughing being! Never yet on earth had I heard a human being laugh as he laughed!

He overcomes the spirit of gravity. Transformed by the spirit of levity.

If all that is has been before then how is it that he had never heard a human being laugh as he laughed? He asks if he is dreaming, but wouldn’t it be that even our dreams have been dreamt before?

When his thoughts of eternal return became quieter and quieter he heard the howl of a dog. He asks if he had ever heard a howl like this.

Where now was the dwarf? And the gateway? And the spider? And all the whispering? Was I dreaming? Was I waking? I stood all of a sudden among wild cliffs, alone, desolate, in the most desolate moonlight.

His thoughts race back to his childhood when he heard such a howl. Childhood is an important theme. The first chapter of the first part of Z. is titled “The Three Metamorphoses”. It too is about transformation. The last transformation is into a child.

Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea.

Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: ITS OWN will, willeth now the spirit; HIS OWN world winneth the world’s outcast.

Perhaps Z. forgot that he saw before what he sees now. If the child is innocence such forgetting cannot be a willful forgetting. And yet this may be what is necessary. Every Yea of the spirit in time becomes a Nay. Every creation of new values become old values to be overcome. This cycle repeats again and again. It is deeply troubling to think that what one holds to be of utmost, absolute, permanent, unchanging value is not.

The positive side of this is the idea that one need not carry the burden of imposed values, One can be free of the dwarf and mole who says: "Good for all, evil for all”.

The moment is the gateway of the eternal return. Whether or not this moment has occurred countless times does not matter because it is in this moment that one must decide:

But courage is the best slayer, courage that attacks; it slays even death,
for it says: “Was that life? Well then! One More Time!”

We are always at the moment:

where do human beings not stand at the abyss?

The choice is always there to be made. Do I choose this life? We cannot choose what has been but at this moment we can choose what will be. To choose wisely is to choose as if we are condemned to make the same choice over and over again. Has the choice already been made? It does not matter, for at this moment we can make a choice as to how we wish to live.

He does not have a theory of truth. He rejected fixed, unchanging truths. He does not put a high value on truth in all cases . Truth should serve life and so in some cases, as with Plato, lies are preferable. In On the Use and Disadvantages of History for Life he lists three truths that are deadly:

... the doctrine of the sovereign becoming, of the fluidity of all ideas, types, and styles, of the lack of all cardinal differences between man and animal.

In The Will to Power he says:

Belief that there is no truth at all, the nihilistic belief, is a great relaxation for one who, as a warrior of knowledge, is ceaselessly fighting ugly truths. For truth is ugly.

(325)

This is not intended to represent the scope of the problem.

What may surprise some is that Leo Strauss sent some of his best students to study with Kojeve. They are very different but found common ground.

Sometimes names are used to give weight and authority to arguments that won't stand on their own

So I guess you were asking of Nietzsche's theory of truth undermines itself. — frank

I am asking for evidence that his "theory of truth" is that truths are metaphors and how we can make sense of that.

Nietzsche is on Wittgenstein's ladder and I think he was aware of that. — frank

This is a misunderstanding of both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein.

If all you want to do is launch an assault, save it. — frank

It is common philosophical practice to ask for an account and a defense of that account. That is not an assault.

I can't imagine how someone would fit that into the rest of Nietzsche's works — frank

There is an extensive literature on this.

In order not to repeat myself over and over, I will say it one more time and move on. Being or "beingess" is not an attribute of what is. Something must be in order to have attributes.

I need help understanding how attributes gathering members into a super-ordinating set is irrelevant to investigation of being or, for that matter, to any other generalizable attribute. — ucarr

What are the attributes of everything that is that they have in common?

I guess my question would be: do you actually want to discuss this with me? — frank

In my world responding to what you said is discussing it with you.

When you make claims, as above, are you not straying from what Heidegger is investigating? — ucarr

I don't think so. You introduced attributes, I don't think they have a place.

If not, then I think you need to explain why the use of set theory is not an appropriate tool of interpretation for endeavoring to understand Heidegger. — ucarr

I already did.

A one word answer. Doesn't seem like too much to say while on your phone at work. But it does explain why you think it is not likely to be a cosmological claim. I will point out two problems:

First, it fails to distinguish between claims that are or are not metaphorical. Or perhaps you think he held all claims to be metaphorical.

Second, unless all claims are metaphorical and his texts can be cited to support this claim (which is of course metaphorical), what he says about the eternal return does not indicate that he means it to be understood metaphorically.

Third, it closes off an existential interpretation because the claim is metaphorical.

Fourth, what is metaphorical has some meaning. Saying that the truth is metaphorical does not say what it means. Or perhaps you think the truth for Nietzsche is always indeterminate and open to numerous or innumerable meanings.

Proceeding from the premise that anything – beings included – can be a member of a set — ucarr

The point is that this is not what Heidegger is investigating.

You first.

I think you'll be very gratified if you look into it. — frank

Thanks for the advice, but I am not looking for suggestions about something I have been doing for many years

I am not going to press you on this. If you do not want to or are not prepared or are not able to answer I will leave it there. But you left a window open to the possibility that when you are not at work typing on your phone you might provide a substantive response.

Perhaps it will address Nietzsche's themes of the relation between knowledge, truth, and life, objective truths,"deadly truths", truth and history, and so on.

But I see now that before I have finished writing this you might have closed the window and plan to keep further comments to yourself.

Digging in to discover Nietzsche's theory of truth was fascinating for me. — frank

What I find disappointing is your unwillingness to discuss what you discovered.

I have been saying the same thing for years. I have said so on this forum long before you became a member three days ago. It is a general comment about how to read texts. It is not about you. There is not one correct or "superior" way to read a text or texts. As I said, much depends on what we want to do.

No doubt reading Heidegger opened the door to reading Aristotle in a way that had been occluded by Scholasticism. Reading Heidegger to get at Plato, however, is not as helpful. But in order to see that we must read Plato. Plato's concerns do not align with Heidegger's.

We can gain perspective, when possible, for example, when reading Aristotle's discussion of previous philosophers, if we know what they said apart from what Aristotle says.

As previously commented, it is difficult to determine when Heidegger is explicating Nietzsche and when he is making use of him for his own purposes.

There is, however, value in reading philosophy as a dialectic between philosophers.

On the other hand, there is a practice that is all too common even within academia, of relying on the opinions of someone else instead of a careful and detailed reading of an author. Misrepresentations and misunderstanding have been perpetuated from generation to generation in this way.

We figure out how well we understand philosophers in the first place by discussing them. — green flag

Sure, but discussing a philosopher and bringing in other philosophers is not the same.

You seem to suggest that philosophy not be done -- or only done elsewhere in order to be shown off as a completed product here. — green flag

That may be how it seems to you, but it is quite far from what I am saying. We never have "perfect clarity". If we think we do that is a good sign that we don't.

Comparisons can be interesting and informative, but a poor understanding of one philosopher is not improved by comparison with a poor understanding of another. But much depends on what one wants to do. If one wants to discuss ideas, it may not matter whether this is or is not what a particular philosopher means.

I am deeply suspicious of the practice of appealing to other philosophers we may not understand in order to understand this or that philosopher.

How can "beings" as signifier have meaning if it doesn't signify common attributes of things, thereby gathering these things together into a set? — ucarr

I do not think it helpful to look at this in terms of sets and axioms. The question is: what does it mean to be? Being is not an common attribute of things that are. It is tautological to say that what all things that are have in common is that they are.

What are his ideas about the nature of truth that makes this seem unlikely?

Interesting comparison. For Nietzsche eternity is not an opposing idea. Whether or not the eternal return is cosmology is an open question. A question that keeps returning.

the first appearance of the idea in Nietzsche’s work: — Jamal

The Riddle and the Vision restates the problem using the same imagery of the the spider and the moonlight. In both there is the moment, followed by acceptance.

So here at least it’s a thought experiment to test one’s attitude to life. — Jamal

Describing it as a thought experiment is too detached. It is without the struggle:

Courage also slays dizziness at the abyss; and where do human beings not stand at the abyss? Is seeing itself not – seeing the abyss?

Courage is the best slayer; courage slays even pity. But pity is the deepest abyss, and as deeply as human beings look into life, so deeply too they look into suffering.

We can find attempts to answer the question of the ground of all that is by all the major philosophers. — Joshs

The problem is we cannot find a single agreed upon definition of what metaphysics is.

Value exists because we value things.