There is no logical rhyme or reason for the order of my essays -- in essence, they belong to 'Chaos Theory'.
But there is method to my madness; order to my chaos. You just have to be a little bit patient while I get there.
I predict that the 37 blogsites that I now have listed in my table of contents will be close to the finished table of contents. Only I would like to cap it off at around '40 floors' of 'Hegel's Hotel'. Maybe 45.
Putting aside any judgment of the quality of my philosophy work, character-wise, I am the anti-thesis of Immanuel Kant -- more like Schopenhauer (without the nastiness), Nietzsche (without the extremism), Perls (without the existential courage). Hegel, is my main philosophical mentor, followed behind by Nietzsche, Perls, Korzybski, Freud, Spinoza, Fromm, Rand, Jung, Adler, Locke, Bacon, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Russell, and more...
Perhaps one of the philosophers I am hardest on, in some ways, I am most like him -- Plato, the idealist, and a worshipper of the Idol of The Cave. Not in the Baconian sense but in the DGB sense that I will use it here, and in all following contexts that I may later mention it: someone who gets lost inside his own private, narcissitic world -- he or she is to a greater or lesser extent a worshipper of 'The Idol of The Cave'.
Somewhere near the top of the list, you have to put Dylan in there as well...It was Dylan who indirectly got me caught up in all of this 'idol' stuff...But be he a good or bad idol, Dylan's songwriting-poetry is worth quoting in its own right...
Paraphrased and/or quoted from my good or bad memory...off the top of my head...are a few of his tunes that have stood out for me...
....................................................................
'Crawl out your window, babe,
Use your arms and legs, it won't hurt you,
You can go back to him any time you want to...'
-- Bob Dyan, Crawl Out Your Window
....................................................................
I can't understand,
You let go of my hand,
And left me here facing the wall.
I'd sure like to know,
Why you did go,
But I can't get close to you at all.
Though we kissed through the wild blazing nighttime,
You said you would never forget...
But now morning is clear,
It's like I ain't here,
You just act like we never have met.
-- Bob Dylan, I Don't Believe You
........................................................................
It ain't no use to sit and wonder why babe,
If'n you don't know by now,
And it ain't no use to wonder why babe,
It don't matter anyhow.
When the rooster crows at the break of dawn,
Look out your window and I'll be gone,
You're the reason I'll be travelin' on,
But don't think twice, it's alright.
-- Bob Dylan, Don't Think Twice, It's Alright
.....................................................................
Yes, if only I could feel you lyin right beside me,
And if only I could feel your heart a softly poundin',
I'd lie in my bed once again.
-- Bob Dylan, Tomorrow is a Long Time
..........................................................................
Yes, Bob Dylan is one of my favorite idols, a modern day Nietzsche of sorts...
And randomly, chaotically if you will, it was something on Facebook that I noticed about a month ago that got my creative, philosophical juices flowing in a new direction.
On Facebook, I noticed a Dylan t-shirt being advertised that said: 'Kill Your Idols'.
I clicked the Dylan icon that sent me to a Dylan blogsite where numerous fans were offering there own personal comments regarding the content of what was being said on the t-shirt. I said that the phrase could be partly connected to Nietzsche's 'Twilight of the Idols'. Someone else significantly before me, had written that the message had a connection to Francis Bacon's 'Four Idols' or 'False Idols'. That comment triggered some vague memories of Francis Bacon's philosophy on my part, which in turn, triggered a need for me to do further research...
My research sufficiently completed, the result has been an evolving smorgasboard of about 10 aphorisms and/or essays on 'idols' this month culminating likely in the next one I plan to write before week-end called:
'Gods, Myths, Archetypes, Idols, and Self-Energy-Centres -- A DGB Post-Hegelian Perspective on The Health, Pathology, and Self-Contradiction of Religion'
That may be the last time you see the title in its entirety; the next time you see it -- and the essay -- the title is likely to be smaller.
And I do not know what my fixation with religion is because I am not a very religious person. Still, something is driving me to complete what I am about to complete here...a very strange, convoluted, philosophical-psychological-romantic-spiritual-post-Spinozian, post-Hegelian, post-Freudian, post-Jungian, view of religion.
We shall see how it turns out.
Either my recipe might work for you -- or it might not work for you. If you like it, keep it. If you don't, then throw it out and find or stay with what you like better, what works for you better. I am partly a pragmatist too.
-- dgb, August 26th, 2008.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Six Things I Have Learned -- Or Am Learning -- About Writing on The Internet
Here are some of the lessons I am learning more and more as I write on the internet:
1. Write boldly;
2. Write clearly;
3. Short paragraphs for easier reading;
4. Be entertaining as well as educational (or you will lose your readers to thousands if not millions of competing websites and blogsites out there);
5. Reference your work decently (without making it look like a dictionary), particularly for the scholars and scholars-to-be out there, to give your work the credibility and respect it deserves, and to let your audience know that you know what you are talking about, that you have researched your subject-matter more or less thoroughly, and that if there is more that you need to learn, then you will be honest with your audience and tell them this too...that you need to research your topic more thoroughly...There will always be gaps in your knowledge...This whole learning and teaching process is a case of filling in more and more of your gaps in knowledge as you move along...particularly, in the area(s) that you want to, and/or are professing to be, good at.
6. Obviously, be accountable for your work. Sign it.
1. Write boldly;
2. Write clearly;
3. Short paragraphs for easier reading;
4. Be entertaining as well as educational (or you will lose your readers to thousands if not millions of competing websites and blogsites out there);
5. Reference your work decently (without making it look like a dictionary), particularly for the scholars and scholars-to-be out there, to give your work the credibility and respect it deserves, and to let your audience know that you know what you are talking about, that you have researched your subject-matter more or less thoroughly, and that if there is more that you need to learn, then you will be honest with your audience and tell them this too...that you need to research your topic more thoroughly...There will always be gaps in your knowledge...This whole learning and teaching process is a case of filling in more and more of your gaps in knowledge as you move along...particularly, in the area(s) that you want to, and/or are professing to be, good at.
6. Obviously, be accountable for your work. Sign it.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
More Thoughts on Idols
Love your idols,
Hate your idols,
Be your idols,
Be better than your idols,
Incorporate your idols,
Negotiate with your idols,
Integrate your idols,
Or divorce your idols,
Leave them behind you,
And don't look back.
-- dgb, Aug 24th, 2008.
Hate your idols,
Be your idols,
Be better than your idols,
Incorporate your idols,
Negotiate with your idols,
Integrate your idols,
Or divorce your idols,
Leave them behind you,
And don't look back.
-- dgb, Aug 24th, 2008.
What is wrong with this world?
Try this: Narcissistic bias interfering with good ethics, integrity, character, compassion and passion for people - as well as the objective search for truth.
Narcissism is necessary, indeed imperative, for self-assertiveness and self-survival - not to mention at least 50 per cent of the pursuit of happiness.
However, narcissism needs to be balanced by altruism and a genuine empathy, caring, compassion, and passion for people
What separates the really great leaders and people of the world from the sociopathic leaders is the difference between leaders who genuinely care about people (Winston Churchill, Eisenhauer, Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa...), vs. those who ruthlessly don't (Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung...).
Anyting else I write is superfulous.
Sometimes less is better.
This is one of those occasions.
dgb, Aug. 17th, 2008.
Narcissism is necessary, indeed imperative, for self-assertiveness and self-survival - not to mention at least 50 per cent of the pursuit of happiness.
However, narcissism needs to be balanced by altruism and a genuine empathy, caring, compassion, and passion for people
What separates the really great leaders and people of the world from the sociopathic leaders is the difference between leaders who genuinely care about people (Winston Churchill, Eisenhauer, Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa...), vs. those who ruthlessly don't (Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung...).
Anyting else I write is superfulous.
Sometimes less is better.
This is one of those occasions.
dgb, Aug. 17th, 2008.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
DGB Rational-Empiricism and The Multi-Dialectical Cycle
Ethical idealism should be part of a cyclical pattern of: 1. reason -- a combination of sensory experience and sound interpretive logic; 2. humanism -- self and social compassion; 3. existentialism -- self and social responsibility/accountability; 4. realism -- a combination of what really exists and what is practical to implement; and 5. action -- meaning action taken to dialectically bridge the gap between ethical idealism and realism. This is what I call (in long form): 'DGB Multi-Dialectic-Rational-Empirical-Idealistic-Realistic-Humanistic-Existential Philosophy'. Try saying that twice in a row real fast.
-- DGB, Sept. 24th, 2007, modified Aug. 23rd, 2008.
-- DGB, Sept. 24th, 2007, modified Aug. 23rd, 2008.
Monday, August 11, 2008
On Ethics vs. Narcissism
Step outside the realm of the ethical — or at least partly — and you have sufficient room for an even greater human tragedy — whether you choose to call it an ancient Greek tragedy as expounded on later by Nietzsche with a strong Hegelian influence or you choose to believe that these are all simply different archetype examples of what is an inherent division or contradiction in the human psyche — specifically the ethical vs. the unethical, the moral vs. immoral, the narcissistic vs. the anti-narcissistic… Of course, all of this is relative to how conservative vs. liberal our ethics are...and how big or small our self-debated transgression is.
When talking about human behavior, every extreme is possibly -- and everything in between. Regardless, of where the focus and/or range is, the moral imperative — or shall I say the moral dilemma — becomes simply this: to transgress or not to transgress; to be selfish or to restrain ourselves on the grounds that our behavior could either hurt somebody else, particularly someone I care deeply about, and/or in the end, it could hurt me more than the adventure into 'pleasure-with-a-possible-side-effect' is worth…
To finish with a Shakespearean flourish — that is the question.
There is no template answer.
As Kierkegaard would say: either/or.
It’s your life, your decision, your accountability — both to yourself and others. Self-assertiveness, passion, and compassion for others are all important.
Choose with a brave heart.
Don't run away from passion -- but don't let it run away with you either. Otherwise, you may self-destruct and be left trying to pick up the pieces afterwards. Passion and reason need to be dialectically connected to each other, which can be hard to maintain when you are in the throes of passion and/or narcissistic pleasure.
Romantic philosophy criticised enlightenment philosophy for 'philosophizing and living above the neck'. However, unbridled romantic philosophy -- like unbridled narcissism -- can lead us to the brink of self-destruction if we let it take complete control over us. Both our heart and our brain are important. Our heart needs to be dialectically connected to our brain and visa versa. Once again we are talking about the need for 'dialectical/homeostatic balance'.
Thus, live your life assertively, passionately, and compassionately -- both for yourself and others.
With balance.
Extremism can tempt us if we are looking for more excitement, to be provocative -- or the opposite -- to hold ourselves and/or others 'in their proper, righteous place'. But over time extremism -- the polar opposite of entropy, boring routine, and monotony -- is usually a 'false idol'. Both polarities have their respective 'side-effects'.
Who said choices are easy?
Our choices make or break us.
Moment to moment, day to day, they define and describe us.
Be bold -- but don't let your choices take you over the brink.
Just ask John Edwards. (The celebrities get the extra media scrutiny and attention.) However, moral transgressions, in my books, are much worse when a politician -- who we usually hold to higher expectations than the normal, average person -- lays the 'righteous, how could you?' card out on the table against another politician -- like Bill Clinton -- and then hypocritically turns around and commits the same moral transgression himself. Hypocrisy dripping where once, not too long ago, there was this squeeky clean image -- thy name is John Edwards.
If there is taxpayer's money involved, then the politician's career should be over. My guess is that John Edwards career as a politician -- or at least as a potential presidential candidate -- is over. We shall see.
– david gordon bain, Aug. 11th, modified Aug. 13th, 2008.
When talking about human behavior, every extreme is possibly -- and everything in between. Regardless, of where the focus and/or range is, the moral imperative — or shall I say the moral dilemma — becomes simply this: to transgress or not to transgress; to be selfish or to restrain ourselves on the grounds that our behavior could either hurt somebody else, particularly someone I care deeply about, and/or in the end, it could hurt me more than the adventure into 'pleasure-with-a-possible-side-effect' is worth…
To finish with a Shakespearean flourish — that is the question.
There is no template answer.
As Kierkegaard would say: either/or.
It’s your life, your decision, your accountability — both to yourself and others. Self-assertiveness, passion, and compassion for others are all important.
Choose with a brave heart.
Don't run away from passion -- but don't let it run away with you either. Otherwise, you may self-destruct and be left trying to pick up the pieces afterwards. Passion and reason need to be dialectically connected to each other, which can be hard to maintain when you are in the throes of passion and/or narcissistic pleasure.
Romantic philosophy criticised enlightenment philosophy for 'philosophizing and living above the neck'. However, unbridled romantic philosophy -- like unbridled narcissism -- can lead us to the brink of self-destruction if we let it take complete control over us. Both our heart and our brain are important. Our heart needs to be dialectically connected to our brain and visa versa. Once again we are talking about the need for 'dialectical/homeostatic balance'.
Thus, live your life assertively, passionately, and compassionately -- both for yourself and others.
With balance.
Extremism can tempt us if we are looking for more excitement, to be provocative -- or the opposite -- to hold ourselves and/or others 'in their proper, righteous place'. But over time extremism -- the polar opposite of entropy, boring routine, and monotony -- is usually a 'false idol'. Both polarities have their respective 'side-effects'.
Who said choices are easy?
Our choices make or break us.
Moment to moment, day to day, they define and describe us.
Be bold -- but don't let your choices take you over the brink.
Just ask John Edwards. (The celebrities get the extra media scrutiny and attention.) However, moral transgressions, in my books, are much worse when a politician -- who we usually hold to higher expectations than the normal, average person -- lays the 'righteous, how could you?' card out on the table against another politician -- like Bill Clinton -- and then hypocritically turns around and commits the same moral transgression himself. Hypocrisy dripping where once, not too long ago, there was this squeeky clean image -- thy name is John Edwards.
If there is taxpayer's money involved, then the politician's career should be over. My guess is that John Edwards career as a politician -- or at least as a potential presidential candidate -- is over. We shall see.
– david gordon bain, Aug. 11th, modified Aug. 13th, 2008.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
On The Contradiction Between Monogamy and Infidelity
Many, if not most, of us try, or pretend, to live a myth, an ideology, of 'monogomy' in our long term love relationships when significant biological and/or psychological underlying forces in our nature work to sabotage and defy this culturally and/or self-bestowed myth.
Of course, there is a good reason for this myth -- a cultural and/or self-wish to maintain the long-term relationship and/or family stability.
Infidelity tends to throw family stability -- to the wolves. over the abyss, and into chaos.
How do we get around this very common conflict in our human nature and behavior. That is a very important problem for the 21st century as it has created family chaos for much of the last part of the 20th century without any apparent remedies and/or resolutions except in the divorce courts.
I leave this conflict-issue with philosophers younger and/or braver than me to tackle. Because I'm moving on to the next issue.
-- dgb, Aug. 10th, 2008.
Of course, there is a good reason for this myth -- a cultural and/or self-wish to maintain the long-term relationship and/or family stability.
Infidelity tends to throw family stability -- to the wolves. over the abyss, and into chaos.
How do we get around this very common conflict in our human nature and behavior. That is a very important problem for the 21st century as it has created family chaos for much of the last part of the 20th century without any apparent remedies and/or resolutions except in the divorce courts.
I leave this conflict-issue with philosophers younger and/or braver than me to tackle. Because I'm moving on to the next issue.
-- dgb, Aug. 10th, 2008.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
On My Idols
I have many idols -- too many to list at one sitting but here's a good cross-section of them: Hegel, Nietzsche, Dylan, Perls, Freud, Spinoza, Anaxamander, Heraclitus, the Han Philosophers, Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Fromm, Marx, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, Diderot, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Voltaire, Locke, Hume, Kierkegaard, Foucault, Derrida, Sartre, Bertrand Russell, Schelling, Kant, Aristotle...
And in a separate category, my dad for his visionary idealism and passion for what he believes in, his political and business commentary, as well as his ability to get things done -- his 'existentialism' if you will; and my mom for her compassion, generosity, openness, and kindness towards people -- her 'humanism' if you will.
These are over-simplified generalizations to be sure, but together my dad and my mom create the kind of 'post-Hegelian synthesis' that I am trying to blend together here in DGB Philosophy. All of the other intellects, philosophers, song-writers, poets, writers, passionate egotists, constructionists, deconstructionists, and integrationists...provide 'food' for the philosophical content of what I just now see as the main integrative philosophical structure of Hegel's Hotel as laid down to me by my dad and mom.
Any philosophy entails a multi-integrative-dialectical network of individual, family, psychological, political, economic, and social forces. -- dgb, Aug. 3rd, 2008.
And in a separate category, my dad for his visionary idealism and passion for what he believes in, his political and business commentary, as well as his ability to get things done -- his 'existentialism' if you will; and my mom for her compassion, generosity, openness, and kindness towards people -- her 'humanism' if you will.
These are over-simplified generalizations to be sure, but together my dad and my mom create the kind of 'post-Hegelian synthesis' that I am trying to blend together here in DGB Philosophy. All of the other intellects, philosophers, song-writers, poets, writers, passionate egotists, constructionists, deconstructionists, and integrationists...provide 'food' for the philosophical content of what I just now see as the main integrative philosophical structure of Hegel's Hotel as laid down to me by my dad and mom.
Any philosophy entails a multi-integrative-dialectical network of individual, family, psychological, political, economic, and social forces. -- dgb, Aug. 3rd, 2008.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
On Idols
Embrace your 'life-enhancing' idols, identify with them, expand on them, build from them, but identify also their weaknesses, modify them, compensate for them -- and always strive to be better than your idols at what they did/do best, and at what you are striving to do best. Evolve from them -- and be/become better.
At the same time, beware of false idols, bad idols, pathological idols, sociopathic idols... With these idols, clear the rose-petals out of your eyes -- quickly -- and dump them equally quickly before they dump you...and/or harm befalls you...you land in jail, in a hospital, or in the morgue. Don't chase false idols -- regardless of how much 'charisma' they may have. The world is full of false idols. View them as 'Trojan Viruses'-- dgb, Aug 2nd, 2008, modified Aug 3rd, 2008.
...............................................................................
These comments are modifications of comments on 'idols' that have been made before me ('Idols of the Tribe, Idols of the Den, Idols of the Marketplace, Idols of the Theatre' -- Francis Bacon (1561-1626); 'Twilight of the Idols', 1888, Nietzsche; 'Kill your idols before they kill you.' -- Allen Ginsberg (or so I am told), 'Don't follow leaders.' -- Bob Dylan (Subterranean Homesick Blues); 'Kill your idols.' -- Bob Dylan t-shirt...
...........................................................................
Baconian Philosophy
(Francis) Bacon did not propose an actual philosophy, but rather a method of developing philosophy. He wrote that, whilst philosophy at the time used the deductive syllogism to interpret nature, the philosopher should instead proceed through inductive reasoning from fact to axiom to law. Before beginning this induction, the inquirer is to free his mind from certain false notions or tendencies which distort the truth. These are called "Idols"[12] (idola), and are of four kinds: "Idols of the Tribe" (idola tribus), which are common to the race; "Idols of the Den" (idola specus), which are peculiar to the individual; "Idols of the Marketplace" (idola fori), coming from the misuse of language; and "Idols of the Theatre" (idola theatri), which result from an abuse of authority. The end of induction is the discovery of forms, the ways in which natural phenomena occur, the causes from which they proceed.
Derived through use of his methods, Bacon explicates his somewhat fragmentary ethical system in the seventh and eighth books of his De augmentis scientiarum (1623). He distinguishes between duty to the community, an ethical matter, and duty to God, a religious matter. Bacon claimed that any [1] moral action is the action of the human will, which is governed by belief and spurred on by the passions; [2] good habit is what aids men in directing their will toward the good; [3]no universal rules can be made, as both situations and men's characters differ.
Regarding faith, in De augmentis, he writes that "the more discordant, therefore, and incredible, the divine mystery is, the more honour is shown to God in believing it, and the nobler is the victory of faith." He writes in "The Essays: Of Atheism" that "a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion."
Bacon contrasted the new approach of the development of science with that of the Middle Ages. He said:
"Men have sought to make a world from their own conception and to draw from their own minds all the material which they employed, but if, instead of doing so, they had consulted experience and observation, they would have the facts and not opinions to reason about, and might have ultimately arrived at the knowledge of the laws which govern the material world."
.....................................................................................
At the same time, beware of false idols, bad idols, pathological idols, sociopathic idols... With these idols, clear the rose-petals out of your eyes -- quickly -- and dump them equally quickly before they dump you...and/or harm befalls you...you land in jail, in a hospital, or in the morgue. Don't chase false idols -- regardless of how much 'charisma' they may have. The world is full of false idols. View them as 'Trojan Viruses'-- dgb, Aug 2nd, 2008, modified Aug 3rd, 2008.
...............................................................................
These comments are modifications of comments on 'idols' that have been made before me ('Idols of the Tribe, Idols of the Den, Idols of the Marketplace, Idols of the Theatre' -- Francis Bacon (1561-1626); 'Twilight of the Idols', 1888, Nietzsche; 'Kill your idols before they kill you.' -- Allen Ginsberg (or so I am told), 'Don't follow leaders.' -- Bob Dylan (Subterranean Homesick Blues); 'Kill your idols.' -- Bob Dylan t-shirt...
...........................................................................
Baconian Philosophy
(Francis) Bacon did not propose an actual philosophy, but rather a method of developing philosophy. He wrote that, whilst philosophy at the time used the deductive syllogism to interpret nature, the philosopher should instead proceed through inductive reasoning from fact to axiom to law. Before beginning this induction, the inquirer is to free his mind from certain false notions or tendencies which distort the truth. These are called "Idols"[12] (idola), and are of four kinds: "Idols of the Tribe" (idola tribus), which are common to the race; "Idols of the Den" (idola specus), which are peculiar to the individual; "Idols of the Marketplace" (idola fori), coming from the misuse of language; and "Idols of the Theatre" (idola theatri), which result from an abuse of authority. The end of induction is the discovery of forms, the ways in which natural phenomena occur, the causes from which they proceed.
Derived through use of his methods, Bacon explicates his somewhat fragmentary ethical system in the seventh and eighth books of his De augmentis scientiarum (1623). He distinguishes between duty to the community, an ethical matter, and duty to God, a religious matter. Bacon claimed that any [1] moral action is the action of the human will, which is governed by belief and spurred on by the passions; [2] good habit is what aids men in directing their will toward the good; [3]no universal rules can be made, as both situations and men's characters differ.
Regarding faith, in De augmentis, he writes that "the more discordant, therefore, and incredible, the divine mystery is, the more honour is shown to God in believing it, and the nobler is the victory of faith." He writes in "The Essays: Of Atheism" that "a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion."
Bacon contrasted the new approach of the development of science with that of the Middle Ages. He said:
"Men have sought to make a world from their own conception and to draw from their own minds all the material which they employed, but if, instead of doing so, they had consulted experience and observation, they would have the facts and not opinions to reason about, and might have ultimately arrived at the knowledge of the laws which govern the material world."
.....................................................................................
On Nietzsche -- and His Dionysian (Anti-Christian) Philosophy
From Wikipedia...
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy, and science, using a distinctive German language style and displaying a fondness for aphorism. Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism and postmodernism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth raise considerable problems of interpretation, generating an extensive secondary literature in both continental and analytic philosophy. Some of his major ideas include interpreting tragedy as an affirmation of life, an eternal recurrence (which numerous commentators have re-interpreted), a rejection of Platonism, and a repudiation of (especially 19th-century) Christianity.
.....................................................................................
I do not pretend to be a Nietzschean scholar -- far from it. One day I would like to say that I have read all of his books -- if time, energy, and health afford me such a luxury -- but right now I can only say that I have read snippets of parts of his different books, and various interpretations of his philosophy as a whole, as well as its evolutionary develoment (from The Birth of Tragedy, 1872, to let us say, Ecce Homo, his second last work, written between October 15th and November 4th, 1888; his last work, Nietzsche contra Wagner, must have been written in either November and/or December, 1888, because Nietzsche physically and mentally collapsed on January 3rd, 1889, and did not write anything lucid afterwards until he died in 1900. Source: Walter Kaufman, introduction to 'On The Geneology of Morals' and 'Ecce Homo', 1967).
.................................................................................
So this is a 'hit and run' evaluation of Nietzsche and his Dionysian Philosophy but at the same time it is both a comparison and a contrast of DGB Philosophy to Nietzschean Philosophy.
Philosophically, I prefer the thesis that Nietzsche presented at the beginning of his professional career to the one he presented later in his philosophical career. Case in point: I prefer Nietzsche's thesis and philosophy within 'The Birth of Tragedy' (BT) to anything he wrote latter such as what I am reading now in 'Ecce Homo' (EH).
...............................................................................
Why? It is precisely what Nietzsche most hated about his earliest work (BT) that I most like about it -- specifically, that it was Hegelian, or at least post-Hegelian, in its thesis/anti-thesis/synthesis style of presentation.
The difference between the early Nietzsche vs. the later Nietzsche is this: homeostatic balance vs. existential extremism.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy, and science, using a distinctive German language style and displaying a fondness for aphorism. Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism and postmodernism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth raise considerable problems of interpretation, generating an extensive secondary literature in both continental and analytic philosophy. Some of his major ideas include interpreting tragedy as an affirmation of life, an eternal recurrence (which numerous commentators have re-interpreted), a rejection of Platonism, and a repudiation of (especially 19th-century) Christianity.
.....................................................................................
I do not pretend to be a Nietzschean scholar -- far from it. One day I would like to say that I have read all of his books -- if time, energy, and health afford me such a luxury -- but right now I can only say that I have read snippets of parts of his different books, and various interpretations of his philosophy as a whole, as well as its evolutionary develoment (from The Birth of Tragedy, 1872, to let us say, Ecce Homo, his second last work, written between October 15th and November 4th, 1888; his last work, Nietzsche contra Wagner, must have been written in either November and/or December, 1888, because Nietzsche physically and mentally collapsed on January 3rd, 1889, and did not write anything lucid afterwards until he died in 1900. Source: Walter Kaufman, introduction to 'On The Geneology of Morals' and 'Ecce Homo', 1967).
.................................................................................
So this is a 'hit and run' evaluation of Nietzsche and his Dionysian Philosophy but at the same time it is both a comparison and a contrast of DGB Philosophy to Nietzschean Philosophy.
Philosophically, I prefer the thesis that Nietzsche presented at the beginning of his professional career to the one he presented later in his philosophical career. Case in point: I prefer Nietzsche's thesis and philosophy within 'The Birth of Tragedy' (BT) to anything he wrote latter such as what I am reading now in 'Ecce Homo' (EH).
...............................................................................
Why? It is precisely what Nietzsche most hated about his earliest work (BT) that I most like about it -- specifically, that it was Hegelian, or at least post-Hegelian, in its thesis/anti-thesis/synthesis style of presentation.
The difference between the early Nietzsche vs. the later Nietzsche is this: homeostatic balance vs. existential extremism.
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