So I've been trying to read Schopenhauer as a prelude to Nietzsche — Albero

Contrary to some of the advice offered here I would suggest that if you are interested in reading Nietzsche then start with Nietzsche. If you read Schopenhauer as a prelude to Nietzsche then there are others to be read as a prelude to Schopenhauer. An endless downward spiral.

The first Schopenhauer, our own @schopenhauer1, illustrates the problem, although his intent may lie elsewhere.

It is not that wisdom is the state of human excellence, but that someone who has achieved human excellence is wise. It might be possible, for example, to be wise but in poor health.

You still don't get it. Time for me to move on.

The ideal of the saint is not strictly about Christianity. It's more in line with some kind of esoteric mysticism. — Tate

Thanks for the reference. What characterizes the saint is the absence of ego:

In him the ego has melted away ...(Part 5)

but I do not see the connection with esoteric mysticism.

There are some interesting comparisons with the saint is Z.

(Emphasis added):

So the first danger in whose shadow Schopenhauer lived was—isolation. (Part 3)

I can now give an answer to the question whether it be possible to approach the great ideal of Schopenhauer's man "by any ordinary activity of our own." In the first place, the new duties are certainly not those of a hermit; they imply rather a vastcommunity, held together not by external forms but by a fundamental idea, namely that of culture; though only so far as it can put a single task before each of us—to bring the philosopher, the artist and the saint, within and without us, to the light, and to strive thereby for the completion of Nature. (Part 5)

The saint in Z identifies himself as a hermit. His duty is only to himself.There is no mention of artists or philosophers or culture. Perhaps what changed is Nietzsche's ideas about the value of the melting away of the ego. In the later works the self is of central importance.

the Saint is a person who has experienced some sort of ego death and has blended with all life. — Tate

Can you provide a textual reference?

So "is" means equal to. Unless it doesn't. — Real Gone Cat

Right.

I'm sorry, but that's incoherent. — Real Gone Cat

The sum of 2+2 is equal to the sum of 3+1. This much we agree on. But sum totals are not the only thing at issue.

If I have 3 dollars and you have 1 dollar that is not equal to me having 2 dollars and you having 2 dollars. In that case we do not each have an equal amount of dollars. In that case 3+1 is not 2+2.

This is so basic I am surprised you do not understand it. Most children would immediately recognize that one person having more and the other less is not an equal amount.

I have been giving this some thought. Our debate has nothing to do with the word "is", it's with the word "plus". — Real Gone Cat

Well, it started with "is", but in order to see why I would say the 3+1 is not 2+2 I raised the question of what a number is. As abstract entities 3+1 and 2+2 might be regarded as the same since both equal 4, but when we shift to the "material world" other things come into consideration.

given your rejection of "is" meaning "equal to") — Real Gone Cat

No, just the opposite. What I said, several times and from the beginning is that:

"is" as used here is short for "is equal to". — Fooloso4

Is means equal to.

Hope you're not too angry. — Real Gone Cat

Not at all.

Your joke kind of points to what I am getting at.

Could it include pebble counting? — Real Gone Cat

It is more far reaching. A count it related to the idea of giving an account as well as the question of what is to count, that is, not what it is to count but what counts. There is also a connection with logos in its original sense of gathering together. There is also the question of the 'one' and the 'one and the many', which plays out in various ways in Plato and Aristotle.

Aristotle says that two is the first number. One is not a number, it is the unit (the one) of the count. We count "ones". This is why the question of how many must address the question of how many of what. We can still see this in that when we say that there is a number of things we don't mean one thing.

Plato says that the Forms are each one. Each is distinct and unique.

Still a comfort blanket, — Amity

What motivates the saint to live a life in praise of his god?

Now I love God: human beings I do not love. Human beings are too imperfect a thing for me. Love for human beings would kill me. (4)

It has something to do with the desire for perfection. I think you may be right, to the extent that the imperfection of man can be troubling.

In other words, he is concerned with the question of how our life in the world is to be justified as worthwhile in light of the prevalent reality of suffering. — Tate

With regard to the question of justification we should look back to Paul:

... they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:24)

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:1).

The claim is that we suffer because of sin, but Jesus freed us from sin.

In the Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche says:

... the existence of the world is justified only as an æsthetic phenomenon. (5)

This should be understood in light of his claim that one should make of the the self a work of art. See, for example, The Gay Science 107.

OK but you didn't address my question:
This made me think of our 'Plato's Phaedo' discussion.

The repetition and singing as incantation; myths and magic.

Why the difference between the lines, even if it seems they are saying the same thing? — Amity

The purpose of the incantations in the Phaedo is to charm away the fear of death. The saint is praising his god.

What I noticed here was the change from God to god. — Amity

I take this to be about the difference between God as universal and the god who is his god. But I don't know that the saint sees them as different. It may be an expression of closeness, of unity.

How do you hear it? — Amity

As a deep felt celebration of his life and god.

do you consider “wisdom” to be a synonym of “virtue” — Hello Human

No. If you go over what I have said, this should be clear.

Could you elaborate on the difference between addressing an audience in textual interpretation and not addressing an audience in modeling the origin of the universe? — Joshs

I meant the text itself addressing an audience.

But aren’t the author’s original aims also interpreted via one’s current goals and aims? This is called the hermeneutic circle, which Heidegger discusses in Being and Time. — Joshs

Gadamer talks about the fusion of horizons.

What should not be overlooked is the influence of Heidegger on scholars like Leo Strauss and Jacob Klein. Their reading of Plato stands in stark contrast to the prevailing interpretations at that time.

So, is this internal self-talk - or a writer's technique to help the reader better know the characters? — Amity

I take it to be a rhetorical device. When, for example, Z says: "Why did I speak of love? I bring mankind a gift." he is not simply asking a question but answering it.

I think this is a book which you can read over and over and still find something new or revealing. — Amity

Yes, it is deep. Always more to be discovered or uncovered.

The royal 'we'? Those 'above' in the spiritual realm. Or the saint and his natural companions. — Amity

Z says he brings mankind a gift. But there is a tension here because the saint distances himself from mankind. The saint says: "They are mistrustful of hermits and do not believe that we come to give gifts."

What's the link between the 'clue' and the title? — Amity

What Z has to teach is for all, but, as is the case with the saint, for none. Put differently, who does "us" refer to? Whose ears? If not for certain ears and no one can hear or understand what Nietzsche has come to teach then although addressed to all it is for none.

We guard our property. — Amity

Given the context, our property seems to refer to our beliefs.

... it would deny the saint his comfort blanket... — Amity

That is not how I hear this:

With singing, weeping, laughing and growling I praise the god who is my god.

I'm still not exactly sure what 'the gift of the overman' is? — Amity

Good question. It should become clearer as you read on. As with many things in Nietzsche there is a reversal of Christian teachings. See, for example, 1 Corinthians 12 on the gifts of the holy spirit.

Husserl and Klein want to take math back to pebble counting. And you have apparently joined in. — Real Gone Cat

You clearly have not understood them or more likely did not even take the time to read the review.

Instead of snide remarks that make you feel superior because you can like any competent school child, look up who Husserl and Klein are and the importance of their contributions.

This is a philosophy forum. Ontology is of central concern. Adding is not.

So you want to take math back to pebble counting. — Real Gone Cat

Nope.

It is a matter of ontology.

Okay, let's try a thought experiment. If you hold a donut and someone hands you another donut, do you have 1+1 or 2 donuts? — Real Gone Cat

Can you count? Maybe you do need pebbles or some other manipulative.

Okay, let's try a thought experiment. If you hold a donut and someone hands you a dollar do you have 1+1 or 2?

You're using "is" to refer to the partitioning of sets. — Real Gone Cat

Do we need to go over this again? I am using "is" as it is typically used, short for is equal to.

"2+2 and 3+1 are different because they break up the number 4 in two distinct ways". — Real Gone Cat

That is one way of looking at it, but you are still treating numbers as abstractions, as symbolic entities. If I have 3 of something and you have 1 this is not breaking up the number, it is breaking up whatever it is we are counting.

This might help you see what is at issue: It is a review of Klein and Husserl's work on mathematics: https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-origin-of-the-logic-of-symbolic-mathematics-edmund-husserl-and-jacob-klein/

It begins:

This much needed book should go a long way both toward correcting the under-appreciation of Jacob Klein's brilliant work on the nature and historical origin of modern symbolic mathematics, and toward eliciting due attention to the significance of that work for our interpretation of the modern scientific view of the world.

A bit further on:

Specifically at issue is Husserl's expressed concern over the loss of an "original intuition" to ground symbolic mathematical science, and the consequent breakdown of meaning in that science. For the Husserl of Crisis, the history of this breakdown consists of two stages. First is the geometrical idealization of the world via what he terms "Galilean science" (taken as a kind of collective noun). Second is the formalization of that science by means of symbolic algebra, which latter surreptitiously substitutes symbolic mathematical abstractions for the directly intuited realities of the real world ("life-world"). In the face of such loss of meaning, which fundamentally determines (and threatens) modern western civilization in the modern scientific age, the urgent task of philosophy is to bring to light or to "desediment" (so Hopkins) the historically accreted, and by now almost entirely occluded, original meaning constituents of the concepts of modern mathematical science, so as to recover and reactivate the authentic sense of these concepts./quote]

Without qualifying the "is" — Real Gone Cat

At the risk of sounding like Bill Clinton, the question is what is is. It is the OP that stated 2+2 is 4. What I said in my first response was:

"is" as used here is short for "is equal to". — Fooloso4

and in the next:

This is commonly understood to mean two plus two equals four and not two plus two is the same thing as four. 3+1 "is" 4 in the sense of equals 4 but not that 3+1 and 2+2 are the same thing. We could do without "is": 2+2=4, 3+1=4, 2+2=3+1. — Fooloso4

Now it's some great revelation that 2+2 is NOT 4 ? — Real Gone Cat

It is not a revelation, it is a clarification on what it means to say that 2+2 is 4. The OP contrasts mathematics and "the material world". But this is to treat numbers or arithmetic (Greek ἀριθμός - arithmós, meaning number) as an abstraction. While there are certainly advantages to this, we should not lose sight of the fact that a number still retains its original meaning, that is, it tells us how many of something. And what that something is is not first or foremost abstract units.

In math, we call what you're referring to partitions. — Real Gone Cat

You seem to have no idea what I am referring to. Let me try one more time. If I ask how many, in order to answer you will have to know how many of what. You have to know what it is that is being counted. If you are to count how many apples, the oranges do not count. If you are counting pieces of fruit the fruit flies do not count.

Once again, the division the OP makes is problematic. Our concern is not simply with numbers as abstractions, but with the question of how many of something. Knowing that 2+2=4 is of limited interest unless we are talking about 2+2 of something or other, that is, we are still within the material world. You cannot make an apple pie with oranges. Although two plus two equal four, two apples plus two apples do not equal four oranges

When we interpret a text, or model the origins of the universe, are we attempting to represent or to construct truth? — Joshs

I do not think that interpreting a text is like modeling the origins of the universe. The former addresses the audience the latter does not. I do not regard interpretation of a text as either representing or constructing truth, but rather as opening up what is there to be found. But, of course, what is found is often what the interpreter, either deliberately or not, puts there. This may be of value or not, and whether it is the one or the other depends, at least in part, on what one wants from the text.

There is a sense in which we are always at a distance from the text. Such a vantage point does not in itself help us to understand it better. From a distance some things may come into focus but others may no longer be seen.

So too, current concerns and goals can get in the way of understanding the concerns and goals of the author. In my opinion an author who is at a distance from us in time and place may have something to teach us that our contemporaries cannot. The fact that they saw things differently can be of value.

Z asks the saint 'Why...? — Amity

There is here a series of questions that begins almost as soon as they meet. The first question "why' question:

“Why,” asked the saint, “did I go into the woods and the wilderness in the first place? Was it not because I loved mankind all too much?

Z replied:

“Why did I speak of love? I bring mankind a gift.”

Neither is asking the question to the other, for how would they know?

Because the saint loves mankind too much he turns away from man. He can't bear what man is. It seems as if what he loves is the ideal of man. Because he loves mankind Z turns toward man with a gift.

The saint does not want to give anything to man but rather wants something taken away. I think this refers to salvation from sin, the three metamorphoses of the spirit (page 16), and the burden of the camel.

The saint ask Z what he brings "us". Z says he has nothing to give the saint but leaves quickly before he takes something away (page 5). This might be a clue to the second part of the book's title:
A Book for All and None".

He also says:

They are mistrustful of hermits and do not believe that we come to give gifts.
To them our footsteps sound too lonely in the lanes. And if at night lying in their beds they hear a man walking outside, long before the sun rises, they probably ask themselves: where is the thief going? (4-5).

If Z were to tell the saint the news that God is dead would be to stea something from him. Why would Z give the gift of the overman to mankind but not to the saint? I think it has something to do with what he says right before he asks what Z has brought us:

I make songs and sing them, and when I make songs I laugh, weep and growl: thus I praise God.
With singing, weeping, laughing and growling I praise the god who is my god.

There is for the saint no burden to be carried or to be alleviated from. The god who is his god is not one Z wants to take away. To take it away would be to leave him empty.

And here we have an Enlightenment theme:

The saint says:

"Go not to men, but stay in the forest! Go rather to the animals! Why not be like me—a bear amongst bears, a bird amongst birds?" — Tate

That is not the Enlightenment theme. The Enlightenment did not advocate turning our back on mankind. It was a turning away from God to man

God is dead means several different tbut related hings for Nietzsche. — Fooloso4

I will mention one: the death of God on the cross. But unlike the "good news" of Christianity, the resurrection, there is only the "news" that God is dead. But this too is good news.

The saint might be a symbol for clergymen in general. — Tate

More generally, those who by turning to something higher they call God, turn away from man. The saint's love/hatred of man means he wants nothing to do with the clergy or even the monastery.

they aren't aware of what's been happening in the world, that is, that the Enlightenment has come and gone. — Tate

There were many who in Nietzsche's time and in ours who are well aware of the Enlightenment who stil hold to a belief in God.

If you only refer to the Cambridge book pages, I have difficulty finding the quotes in the Cambridge pdf.
Could we stick to one or the other; or do both? — Amity

The problem is different members use different translations.

Prologue 2, page 5

means the section of the prologue that is numbered 2, which is page 5 of the Cambridge translation.

He's gone into the forest to escape men because he loved them too well. Was he gay? — Tate

Zarathustra answered: “I love mankind."
“Why,” asked the saint, “did I go into the woods and the wilderness in the first place? Was it not because I loved mankind all too much?
Now I love God:human beings I do not love. Human beings are too
imperfect a thing for me. Love for human beings would kill me.”

As the footnote indicates:
“Ich liebe die Menschen” means literally “I love human beings."

The theme of going up and coming down recurs. — Tate

And, as we will see with the tightrope walker, crossing.

Shall we move on? — Tate

More of from what? The disagreement you posit and attribute to me?

God is dead means several different tbut related hings for Nietzsche.

Like the son/Sun of 'God', Jesus the man, he is part of a Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit ? — Amity

Another spoiler: In Christianity God must become man. For Nietzsche man must become a god.

I don't see where that question is coming from. The death of God is an historical event. It's not a doctrine Nietzsche is pushing. — Tate

An event the (good) news of which the people had either not heard or did not believe.

Quotations are from the Cambridge edition.

“Could it be possible! This old saint in his woods has not yet heard the news that
God is dead!” – [Prologue 2, page 5]

When Zarathustra had spoken these words he looked again at the people and fell silent. “There they stand,” he said to his heart, “they laugh, they do not understand me, I am not the mouth for these ears.
Must one first smash their ears so that they learn to hear with their eyes? Must one rattle like kettle drums and penitence preachers? Or do they believe only a stutterer? (Prologue 5, page 9)

The stutterer likely refers to Paul. The need to smash their ears suggests that they do not believe God is dead.

I'm sure you don't think Zarathustra comes down the mountain to teach atheism. — Tate

He comes to teach the overman.

The death of God is an historical event. — Tate

What is the role of religion without God?

Plato's “I went down yesterday to the Piraeus..." — Amity

Good point! Going up and down, high and low, the theme reverberates in both Plato and Nietzsche.

Are you asking me? Or saying that it's not dependent? — Tate

I am asking you and anyone else who might be reading.

There's obviously a distinction between high and low. It's a division. — Tate

The question is whether man is a divided being and not a unity of some sort. Of what sort of unity
will be something taken up by Nietzsche.

Why Zarathustra? Or perhaps the better question is, why the return of Zarathustra?
— Fooloso4

What are your thoughts? — Tate

I will leave the question open for now. It is a guiding question. One might expect, given the death of God, that religion would be rejected.

like any other world-weary hermit and seeker of peace and enlightenment. — Amity

He is, however, different than the hermit saint he meets. Both profess to love mankind, but the saint loves mankind "too much" and thus turns away from man to God.

a mutually dependent relationship between the source of life and light — Tate

In what way is the sun dependent on that on which it shines?

... his own being, divided by high and low: the eagle and the snake. — Tate

Not divided but both high and low.

The point is: Zarathustra, the creator of an ancient religion, has withdrawn from the world, become full, and now wants to shine his light upon mankind. So he goes down the mountain. — Tate

Why Zarathustra? Or perhaps the better question is, why the return of Zarathustra?

then 2+2 is not 4 either. — Real Gone Cat

You are catching on. The sum of 2+2 is (equal to ) 4.

If 2+2 is 4 because they have the same numeric value, then 2+2 is 3+1. — Real Gone Cat

Here we get into the question of number theory. The most important contemporary work on this is Jacob Klein's "Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origins of Algebra". Numbers are often treated as abstract entities, but for the Greeks a number tells us how many. It is always a number of something, of some unit, the unit of the count.

Klein worked with Husserl on this. It is not simply a historical study of an outmoded way of thinking about numbers. The claim is that something is lost when we treat numbers symbolically.

When you shift from thinking about numbers as abstract entities to counting then it becomes clear why 2+2 and 3+1 are not the same. Any child who learns math using manipulatives knows this. If I have 3 units, donuts or dollars and you have 1, that is not the same as each of us having 2. If I have 10 dollars and you have 10 cents, we each have 10 of something but not the same thing. The numerical value is the same but 10 dollars is not 10 cents.

Why is he talking to the sun? — Tate

You great star! What would your happiness be if you had not those for whom you shine?
For ten years you have come up here to my cave: you would have tired of your light and of this route without me, my eagle and my snake ...
Like you, I must go down as the human beings say, to whom I want to descend.

Some things here to note: the connection between sun and man, Z likening himself to the sun - bringing illumination to those for whom he shines, separating himself from and once again joining man, going up and going down.

But he is also unlike the sun:

... Zarathustra wants to become human again.

Your thoughts so far? — Amity

You asked:

Is it necessary to read the Intro first? — Amity

It is not necessary, but depending on who wrote it, it might be helpful or not. I have not read Pippin's introduction but have read other things by him. I think he is a reliable source, which is not to say that his is the final word. I think you cited him in the Hegel discussion group.

I just took a quick look at his introduction to TSZ:

Nietzsche himself provides no preface or introduction, although the section on TSZ in
his late book, Ecce Homo, and especially its last section, “Why I am a Destiny,” are invaluable guides to what he might have been up to.

I see that in his recommendations for further reading, under contemporary commentaries he begins with:

Laurence Lampert’s Nietzsche’s Teaching: An Interpretation of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” (Yale
University Press,1986, establishes the need for a new teaching, the nature of the teaching, and the foundational role it plays in the history of philosophy. Lampert’s Nietzsche and Modern Times: A Study of Bacon, Descartes, and Nietzsche (Yale University Press, 1993), much broader in scope, goes
further in the direction of specifying the ecological, earth-affirming properties of Nietzsche’s teaching via Zarathustra.

I have read and recommend both. (See, I am not against secondary sources) You might recognize his name from his commentaries on Plato.

... if you kept all 4 donuts, that would be different from sharing them out 3 for you and 1 for me. — Real Gone Cat

You have completely missed the point. It is not about the math. It is about the word 'is'. The sum of 2+2 is 4, the sum of 3+1 is 4, but 2+2 is not 3+1.

It might be seen as a bit of a cheat and not everyone approves of using secondary sources.
For various reasons. Fooloso4 can reel them off! — Amity

To clarify, I do not think that using secondary sources is a cheat. They can be helpful. The problem, as I see it, is using only secondary sources. It is as if one were to read the tour guide without touring the places described.

I can't access that website. Which translator is it? — Tate

That's odd. Translated by Adrian Del Caro, edited by Del Caro and Robert Pippin