Have you done that? — Amity

No.

So, N has gone beyond the original prophet? — Amity

Yes and no. It is the metamorphoses of the spirit (Holy Ghost, Hegel). I will hold off saying more until we get there.

having established a definite equivocation on the reliability of Zarathustra, — unenlightened

The saint says:

This wanderer is no stranger to me: many years ago he passed by here. Zarathustra he was called; but he is transformed.

The ancient prophet of good and evil, who overturned the religion of his time, has a new teaching, beyond good and evil. Nietzsche, that old philologist, might have been aware that the name has as its root the word for camel. In Z's first speech, "On the Three Metamorphoses", the spirit first becomes a camel.

A closer look at Zoroastrianism is likely to reveal other connections.

Amity What do you think he found up there? — unenlightened

In line with Nietzsche's play of opposites, something lost and something found.

Zarathustra wants to become human again.

(3)

This is elaborated upon later:

Indeed, humans gave themselves all of their good and evil. Indeed, they did not take it, they did not find it, it did not fall to them as a voice from heaven.
Humans first placed values into things, in order to preserve themselves – they first created meaning for things, a human meaning!
That is why they call themselves “human,” that is: the esteemer.
Esteeming is creating: hear me, you creators! Esteeming itself is the treasure and jewel of all esteemed things.

(43)

The fine tuning argument amounts to saying that if things were different they would not be as they are. It does not preclude the existence of a very different universe, a universe without us and our attempts to prove the existence of a god who has created a just so world for us.

No links, unless pointing to texts like Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Ethics and Politics count as links.

Look at the relation and distinction between nature and custom or logos and nomos.

Funny and true, but Nietzsche did not say we should all be individuals, quite the opposite. He says that most are not capable of being individuals and are properly followers.

There are at least two important themes as issue:

Modern Liberalism, aka Individualism
Jesus' claim that he is the way.

Zarathustra says,

This is my way, where is yours?

Something smells fishy here or is it just me? — Agent Smith

It's just you. These things were discussed but by other names.

Any honest regard of He of the Great Moustache must accept that his ideas, rightly or wrongly, are used by nazis and icels and other nasty folk.

It just will not do to ignore the nasty interpretation, or to pretend that it is not to be found in the corpus. — Banno

Yes, and we should not ignore that Plato said that if we are to be just then men and women should exercise naked together, but this should not lead to sex, for breeding is controlled by the overlords. Descartes told us to only will what we know so as not to sin. The result being that we all would be bunch of do nothing philosophers. Rawls said that if there is to be justice we must be ignorant. Add your favorite philosopher. Stir, do not shake.

The irony is, those who praise Nietzsche are pushing against his spirit. — Banno

What do you see as his spirit and in what way do those who praise him push against it?

But it does mean people feel the need to address it ... — Srap Tasmaner

I agree. Some associate Nietzsche with Nazism. It is important to uncover how this came about. It is through Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth who became his guardian and literary executor.

People took Wittgenstein for a behaviorist — Srap Tasmaner

I had a professor in grad school who claimed this. I argued against this in class. His attitude toward me after this was, to say the least, less than friendly.

You work hard to find an easy way out. It was you, not the prevailing interpretation of Nietzsche, that made this claim
— Fooloso4

There is actually quite a bit of academic work examining the connection between Nietzsche and eugenics. — Tate

You make my point. There is also quite a bit on Nietzsche and Nazism. That does not mean he supported such thinking and practices or that the work on it supports the connection.

I'm not all that interested in proving it to you when all you have to do is look it up. — Tate

I am asking you what Nietzsche said. You made the claim. Are you unable to back it up?

Since eugenics is anathema to us, specifically because of Nazism, we don't think of Nietzsche as favoring it. — Tate

It has nothing to do with our views on eugenics. It has to do with what Nietzsche said.

What does Nietzsche say about eugenics?

What does Nietzsche say about breeding?

What does Nietzsche say about the relationship between the overman and breeding?

The term "breeding" has different senses. "Good breeding" for example has nothing to do with "selective breeding".

The second essay of the Genealogy begins:

To breed an animal that is entitled to make promises—surely that is the essence of the paradoxical task nature has set itself where human beings are concerned? Isn't that the real problem of human beings?

This has nothing to do with selectively breeding human beings that are entitled to make promises. It is a task that nature has set itself. Animals breed. We are all the result of breeding.

How does eugenics follow from erasing the distinction between soul (psyche) and body?

Just take the point that if the prevailing interpretation of Nietzsche in the early 20th Century pointed to eugenics, then you can't say that's nonsense. — Tate

You work hard to find an easy way out. It was you, not the prevailing interpretation of Nietzsche, that made this claim. Even it this was the prevailing interpretation it does not mean it is one you should propound. You have given no evidence in support of your claim.

Based on what you have cited this is not about Nietzsche, it is about a questionable interpretation of Nietzsche that attempts to combine Nietzsche and eugenics.

Some key phrases:

making use of Nietzsche — Tate

interpretations of Nietzsche combined with the new science of eugenics — Tate

This is quite different than your claim that:

If we erase the distinction between soul (psyche) and body, the quest for the Ubermensch implies eugenics. — Tate

The question of the soul or psyche or self and body does not imply eugenics. Making use of Nietzsche in support of eugenics is not the same as the claiming that what he says implies eugenics. Even the title "Breeding Superman" indicates how far such efforts are from Nietzsche.

The book as described by the publisher:

Breeding Superman looks at several of the leading Nietzscheans and eugenicists, and challenges the long-cherished belief that British intellectuals were fundamentally uninterested in race. The result is a study of radical ideas which are conventionally written out of histories of the politics and culture of the period.

is not even about Nietzsche.

Zarathustra is handing them a set of values. — Tate

Companions the creative one seeks and not corpses, nor herds and believers. Fellow creators the creative one seeks, who will write new values on new tablets.

What exactly these new values are is a little foggy. — Tate

That is because his task is not to create new values but to create creators. This is touched upon in his first speech, "On the Three Metamorphoses" (16), and developed later with regard to the eternal return.

If we erase the distinction between soul (psyche) and body, the quest for the Ubermensch implies eugenics. — Tate

Complete nonsense!

Again, the problem I have with Foolos4 is switching between meanings of "is" in a single sentence. You shouldn't say, "3+1 is 4" AND "3+1 is not 2+2" — Real Gone Cat

The point is that it should not be taught that 2+2 "is" 4. That is the point of my seemingly contradictory or paradoxical statement. 3+1 "is" 4 is generally unproblematic when it is understood that what is meant is "is equal to", but when it is taken to mean something like "the same as" or "one and the same" confusion can arise. 3+1 is not the same as 2+2.

My second post, which was a response to you:

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

The speaker is then going to have to explain, "Oh, I meant splitting 4 things into 3 and 1 is different from 2 and 2". — Real Gone Cat

You mean like when I said?:

If we are given 4 donuts and I take 3 and give you one, you might complain that is not fair. Would you be satisfied if I defended this by saying that since 2+2 is 4 and 3+1 is 4 then 3+1 is 2+2? Or would you say, as I did above that:

3+1 "is" 4 but 3+1 "is not" 2+2 — Fooloso4

I suspect that what is really at issue can be found in remarks such as the following:

Wow. I encounter so many people on TPF who do not know basic math, it's striking. — Real Gone Cat

And:

You want to find mysticism here. — Real Gone Cat

And again to someone else:

If you still want to introduce mysticism into math — Real Gone Cat

And yet again:

Except the mystics on TPF. You're always searching for the woo. — Real Gone Cat

At least with regard to this discussion you seem to see what is not there and fail to see what "is".

unless you want to make a point to read chronologically. — schopenhauer1

Not by choice, but as an undergrad we had to take a sequence of courses that lasted all four years, beginning with the pre-Socratics through toAlthoug the 20th century using mostly primary texts.

Although the program director had written a book on the pre-Socratics, which of course we had to use, his bias was in favor of historical development - later philosophers correcting earlier mistakes. I never bought into that, but I do think there is a benefit in reading the history using primary texts. Even though such an approach, within the time constraints just touched the surface and skipped over a lot, it was a good start, but not the only or even for everyone the best approach.

In my opinion much better than Copleston's or Russell's histories of philosophy, which I have a very low opinion of. Or the approach that focuses on "problems in philosophy", that is, ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, and so on.

The problem is always being in the "prelude" state.

What I recommend, and I think most of us actually do, is to start somewhere and then move back and forth, expanding the picture, filling in gaps, and correcting the picture.

Neither.

You point to some of the influences on Schopenhauer (Plato, Platonism, mystic Judaism, and much more that you did not mention). If the advice is to first read Schopenhauer in order to read Nietzsche, which is clearly not your advice since you recommend stopping with Schopenhauer, then since, as you point out, there are other things to read that shed light on Schopenhauer, the same advice, again not yours, to read Schopenhauer as a prelude to Nietzsche, could be extended to reading other thng as a prelude to reading Schopenhauer.

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