No worries. I often make similar typing mistakes.

John Dewey thought it possible to make moral judgments on what I think would be called an "objective" basis without bringing God into play. I find it hard to believe that any "crisis" exists, myself, though I don't doubt some do. — Ciceronianus the White

Does Dewey discuss Nietzsche or nihilism much? Does Dewey claim that life can have meaning and purpose?

I haven't read anything of Dewey's which specifically addresses Nietzsche or nihilism, which isn't to say he never did so. He was probably accused of nihilism by those who equate it with the failure to accept an anthropomorphic version of God and fixed ideals, and the acceptance of naturalism and humanism. He thought life had meaning and purpose, that being tour growth and education, broadly defined

Why should growth and education give meaning and purpose? The idea seems silly to me. Did Dewey attempt to defend such a proposition in any of his works?

Why should growth and education give meaning and purpose? The idea seems silly to me. Did Dewey attempt to defend such a proposition in any of his works? — Ron Cram

Dewey thought that the traditional philosophical questions were misguided and misleading. So, as far as I know, he never addressed a question like "What is the meaning of life?" or "What is the purpose of life?" As a result, it's not easy to say what his answer to those questions might be, nor is it easy to summarize his position

But I think it's fair to say that he felt it evident that life necessarily involves change, and that as we live we grapple with circumstances and consequently learn from our encounters with others and the rest of the world. We attempt to resolve problems and conditions that disturb us. In the course of doing so, we become more knowledgeable about life and living. Life is education, according to Dewey, and education is growth. As we learn, we become more than we were. Dewey emphasized the method of achieving desirable ends and didn't insist that certain ends are now and always good or desirable. He thought means and ends a continuum.

I think he came to the conclusion that growth and education was necessarily social and not merely individual, involved an appreciation of art and science, and that ideally life should be lived to in such a manner as to promote the growth of all in knowledge and sympathy by instilling creative and intelligent methods of interacting with the rest of the world and assuring all people have the opportunity to learn and use their abilities. Well, that's a stab at it, I suppose. One must read him.

I was browsing the Internet about Dewey, Nietzsche and nihilism and came across this, regarding the author's journey from Nietzsche to Dewey, which you might find interesting :http://www.johndeweysociety.org/dewey-studies/files/2018/02/4_DS_1.2.pdf

Thank you for the link to the paper. I've only glanced at the paper so far, but it looks like interesting reading. I'm behind on my reading but I WILL read this.

Right now I'm trying to concentrate on Newton and Hume's attack on Newton's law of cause and effect.

...a moment of decision: continue to wax nostalgic for some other-wordly paradise so as to better secure the triumph of nihilism, or affirm instead the joyful immanence of this world, freed from the stifling and deadening (non-)sensibilities of Platonism. A very welcome crisis. — StreetlightX

How can one "affirm the joyful immanence of this world" without acknowledging the transcendent?

Not a rhetorical question. I'm curious to hear more about it.

I think Nietzsche was a proto-existentialist and that he would deny that there is any knowledge in the ground of our being. He expected some kind of synthesis of raw creativity and compassion in a kind of humanity that will transcend us.

How can one "affirm the joyful immanence of this world" without acknowledging the transcendent? — Mariner

Nietzsche's problem was that the appeal to the transcendent - at least in its classical guise (e.g. Plato and Institutional Christianity) - always came at the price of the denigration of the worldly. Thus for Plato, the body is figured as a 'prison of the soul' (and Nietzsche in turn calls out 'the despisers of the body') , or, you get this lovely tidbit form James 4:4 : "Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." (compare Nietzsche: "Remain true to the earth, my brethren ... Let it [your love and knowledge] not fly away from the earthly and beat against eternal walls with its wings!").

Two small examples, but representative of how the transcendent in Nietzsche's understanding is always pitched against the worldly, and ladens the world with what he variously calls guilt, gravity, and sadness (with Nietzsche in turn affirming the value of innocence, lightness, and joy). Unsurprisingly then, the appeal to the tranacendent is always coupled with a nostalgic, guilt-inducing story of a 'fallen humanity' in need of some eschatological, redemptive moment - one that just so happens to mire all of humanity in sin. But of course this story is nothing but a self-poisoning chalice: the introduction of the transcendent induces the very toxic effects it pretends to aim to cure. See also: Nietzsche's The History of an Error.

Thanks for both replies, but the problem is still not addressed (perhaps not even recognized). Immanence is a meaningless concept without the concept of transcendence. I'm sure both of you know that, but this creates a problem for any project involving both (a) the affirmation of the immanent and (b) discarding the transcendent.

Your replies, with all due respect (and I have plenty of respect for both of you guys as thinkers), amount to hand-waving. @frank talks about a synthesis of creativity and compassion in a kind of humanity that will.... transcend us. And @StreetlightX claims that, in Nietzsche's understanding (a caveat that also applies to frank's answer, I suppose), the transcendent is always pitched against the worldly, and ladens the world in guilt, fravity, etc... so, StreetlightX restates the seed of the problem (how can one affirm the immanent without acknowledging the transcendent?), in other words, but makes no headway in dealing with it. Sure, Nietzsche affirms the joy of the immanent; and sure, he denigrates the transcendent. But the question is, can one do this consistently, considering the very meaning of these concepts?

How can Nietzsche (or anyone) demarcate "the immanent" without a clear acknowledgment of the transcendent (which is, after all, the boundary of the concept of immanence)? And how can any "joyful affirmation" of immanence not include a joyful affirmation of the transcendence that demarcates the immanent? In other words, how can Nietzsche know and love the immanence which he is talking about without knowing (and loving!) the transcendent?

Nietzsche's project involves the rejection of old-fashioned theology. I suppose we can agree on that. But shouldn't we also be agreeing that it involves the creation of a new theology, taken in Plato's sense (i.e. the proper way of talking about the gods)? Isn't Nietzsche's entire ouevre dedicated to that? Isn't he basically saying that we should talk about the gods in a different way? This is a necessary condition for any joyful affirmation of immanence.

Summing up, I don't think Nietzsche's ideas involve a rejection of any and all theology, a theology-less world, but rather the acceptance of a new theology. An affirmation of both the immanent and the transcendent -- but with the affirmation of the transcendent taking place in a new way. (frank is talking about that... but perhaps without realizing that it is a theology).

P.S. The two small examples of the "self-poisoning chalice" are very far from representative of the entire tradition of Christianity. And I'd bet they would also be very far from representative from any major religious tradition. Not even Buddhism, which gets a reputation (bad or good depending on the onlooker) for being world-denying, could sustain a society without world-affirming aspects. In the specific case of Christianity, it is quite easy to find quotes (from the OT, from the gospels -- in Jesus' words! --, from the rest of the NT, from the Fathers, from the saints) affirming the world rather than denying it. I realize that a critique of Nietzsche's opinion about Christianity is off-topic, but that could not pass without comment.

P.P.S. That P.S. is not intended to mean that Nietzsche was wholly misguided about Christianity -- particularly about 19th century's Christianity. Kierkegaard had much the same criticisms, in a different style. They were right about that Christianity, but Christianity always were, and still is, more than just that.

This kind of reproach to Nietzsche is a common and consequential one - one finds it in Arendt and Heidegger, to name two figures off the top of my head - but I think it's ultimately misguided. As I understand it, the 'trick' is in recognizing that immanence and transcendence are not simply two poles on an equal plane along which one can be orientated. They differ in kind. The difference is that the affirmation of immanence is not the affirmation of something given, a concept, idea, or set of values; instead, I understand the affirmation of immanence to boil down to the imperative of creation: the much vaunted 'creation of (new) values'.

This phrase, found everywhere in Nietzsche, is often (mis)read as though what Nietzsche simply called for were alternative values, values other than the currently(?) existing ones - as though, once found, we could rest on those new, appropriately forged laurels. But the accent instead needs to be placed on the act of creation itself, the perpetual engagement and renewal of value-creation as an art unto itself. Eternal return. This is where the difference-in-kind between transcendence and immanence lies: immanence is not an affirmation of an alternative set of 'worldly' values, as though one could pick and choose between two gift-boxes in the shop: the affirmation of immanence means the affirmation of action, of doing, of acting in the world without an external standard which would 'judge' it from without or in advance.

Understood in this way, immanence needs no reference to the 'transcendent' which would 'demarcate it', because action and creation are never 'demarcated' by anything otherworldly. Creation is not the kind of thing that can be 'demarcated', which amounts to a category error, or a grammatical mistake. Immanence is not a 'concept' in the way transcendence is, although it bestows a name onto a certain way of approaching the world. One so named, there is indeed the danger of reifying immanence into kind of principle unto-itself - a new religion - but this is just the danger of names or all philosophy in general (one doesn't ask: how can you affirm your Streetlightness when you need non-Streetlighness to demarcate your Streetlightness? But I don't act or write by reference to my 'non-personality'. The very idea is a post-facto fabrication).

This is how one can understand Nietzsche's affirmation of life as a work of art or, elsewhere, as a work of experimentation: it's in the 'doing' that one finds joy, and not the 'talking' (especially about 'Gods in the proper way'; note that experiments, in their nature, are not the kind of thing that can be 'demarcated'). Hence also Nietzsche's revulsion at dialectics: "With dialectics, the rabble rises to the top" (Twilight of Idols). Anyway, long story short is that the kind of critique you make only works if immanence is modelled on the form of transcendence: but this is exactly what is meant to be undone. The very talk of 'demarcation' itself treats immanence as something it is meant to contest.

If you have institutional access, see if you can find Jeffrey Bell's essay "Philosophizing the Double-Bind" where he shows that despite the surface similarities of Plato and Nietzsche across a whole range of points - and there are many - their respective commitments to Being and Becoming make them irreconcilable at the very level of form, and not merely 'content'.

I don't really know what it means to affirm joyful immanence. The affirmation I saw Nietzsche refer to was not about anything particularly joyful. I think it was partly psychology in the way the Eternal Return was. Just try out the experience of accepting the world and yourself entirely as they are. In the process, discover the way you're running away from it, denying and rejecting your own life.

In some ways Christianity was a kind of insanity, but it's something we freely created. God crashed. It's not a metaphysical statement. It's a about something that is happening to us as our eyes turn away from a paradise in the sky to the life in front of us and the power we have always had to live life the way an artist creates.

Early Christianity saw the universe as sort of breathing in and out. Everything comes into being in a massive exhalation that just naturally becomes a returning inhalation. Could you explain where transcendence is in that scenario? (That scenario is not too far afield from what Nietzsche was on about.)

Nietzsche seems to be a favorite on this forum, but the professors I've had have informed me that among professional philosophers, Nietzsche just isn't studied much. He's too aphoristic and doesn't really make solid arguments. His poetic and nebulous style appeals to many aesthetically, but there's not much substance behind it.

@StreetlightX, it wasn't a reproach, or a critique. It was more of an analysis, or an inquiry. Indeed, inasmuch as I know what Nietzsche is criticizing (and as I know that it is not, as he thought it was, "Christianity"), I mostly agree with him.

To the extent that Nietzsche is emphasizing action over discourse, he is not as much of a contrarian as he perhaps supposed he was. It was Aristotle who emphasized that eudaimonia is a function of action ("contemplative action" is the expression he used), rather than of discourse (logos).

That said, even though action is greater than discourse, that does not mean that discourse is irrelevant (indeed, discourse is a kind of action, isn't it?).

In re: Immanence vs. transcendence, what you and Nietzsche present is a defense of the "recompactation" of the two: of the mythical worldview, in which both were united in myth (and ritual, which was inseparable from myth; action inseparable from discourse). That is truly a worthwhile enterprise at the individual, imaginative level. But it does not eliminate transcendence (or immanence). They are both present in the action, at a compact level. And the wish that the awareness of these poles should be sublimated by the individual is the quintessential wish to "turn the clock back". (To attribute this awareness to a supposed Christian poisoning is also, of course, quite false; the opposition between mythos and logos is not a Christian invention).

I was intrigued by this:

note that experiments, in their nature, are not the kind of thing that can be 'demarcated — StreetlightX

Can you explain further? I have no difficulty in demarcating experiments from non-experiments.

Anyway, the great value in Nietzsche is indeed in his actions: his style of philosophizing, "poetic and nebulous", is his greatest contribution to what was a stale and moribund philosophical landscape. (Actually, our current philosophical landscape could use a hefty dose of Nietzsche).

***

Early Christianity saw the universe as sort of breathing in and out. Everything comes into being in a massive exhalation that just naturally becomes a returning inhalation. Could you explain where transcendence is in that scenario? — frank

This worldview is not specifically "early Christian", though there are early Christian representatives of it. The transcendence in it is in the metaphorical separation between the air and the breather. An "exhalation" is something that "goes out" of some lungs, in literal speech; transcendence is the lungs, the source, of the exhalation. The cyclical aspect of the metaphor ("coming out and going back") does not detract from the identification of some being (which is emphatically not the everyday beings which we meet in our ordinary lives), which is exhaling and inhaling, and which is, well, transcendent to our routine experience.

Going back to Nietzsche, when he underlines, to use StreetlightX's words, "the perpetual engagement and renewal of value-creation as an art unto itself", he is reallocating transcendence in the individual spark of value-creation. And he is quite right (IMO) when he does that. Curiously, it is not that far from the Aristotelian notion of "immortalizing oneself", or from the Christian notion of "becoming divine" (theosis). It could only be considered as a stark deviation from these other notions if the emphasis were put on the content of the "created values" rather than on the act of creation itself. To that extent, I think that StreetlightX's defense of Nietzsche's worldview (a defense with which I have great sympathy) is, ironically, one that brings him closer to a longstanding philosophical (and theological) tradition.

Haven't been able to find an online available version of "Philosophizing the Double-Bind". Pity.

This worldview is not specifically "early Christian", though there are early Christian representatives of it. — Mariner

I don't think we can lay out specifically what early Christianity was. It was a well of potential. If you see an essence to it, you're looking in a mirror. You're seeing what's most important to you. And I think this is the existentialist's point about any examination of our origins.

The cyclical aspect of the metaphor ("coming out and going back") does not detract from the identification of some being (which is emphatically not the everyday beings which we meet in our ordinary lives), which is exhaling and inhaling, and which is, well, transcendent to our routine experience. — Mariner

That's theism in a nutshell. The mystic says that there's a way to understand that those lungs are not separate from you. Nietzsche would be closer to the latter. I see you mentioned theosis. :)

There are people who deeply hate humanity. They think the greatest good would be extinction. That hatred generates an image of the transcendent more forcefully than the logic of our language does. Emotion is always the superior myth maker.

Within the context of Christianity, the best way to show the difference in kind is consider fallen Earth.

In transcedent account, fallen Earth is considered completely overcome. Reality has stepped to a transcedent level. Not merely ending or replacement of the fallen, such as a immoral state our world being replaced, but rather the complete undoing of the fallen. Almost like it never happened in the first place. More or less, the overcoming of sin.

Nietzsche's point is this is an illusion. Since life and values are talking immanent, there can only be existence. There can be no stepping to a transcedent level. We can pose whatever afterlife we want, whatever deity we want, it will will only be more existence. Fallen Earth cannot be overcome. Evil states may be destroyed or replaced, but they will never gain the "overcomed" status. Only Earth (Reality) has meaning and thus will always be the case, no matter how much is destroyed or what changes.

You're right that this has similarity to some aspects of Christianity. It can be seen as an extension of the Christian rejection of sacrifice to achieve meaning. Just as the Christian argues no amount of property, money or sacrifice will return you to meaning, Nietzsche is extending it to the entirety of sacrifice.

Not even the sacrifice of the Son of God can return as to meaning. If are to think in those terms, we are no better (in the context of Nietzsche's critique) than the man who thinks paying the temple the most money will save him. We are no better than the man who thinks going out and killing another will save him.

In any of those cases, we envision that the sacrifice of something or someone else will return us to meaning, will make it as if our failings had never been, taking us up into the transcendent realm.

Meaning is infinite in an immanent context. There can be no transcedent answer. If I sin, nothing can undo what I've done, the people I've harmed, the difference it made to what happens in the world. God could sacrifice 10000 sons and I would have had the same terrible impact. Sacrifice does absolutely nothing with respect to undoing the meaning of my sin. All it can do is tick a bureaucractic requirement of God (or man, if we talk about having the most money, status, etc., which supposedly required to have meaning).

Meaning can only be given in life and affirmation. I'm stuck with sins past (as it was my life). The best that can be done is live without sinning into the future (as it would be my life). I am never without meaning. There is nothing to be "saved" in a transcedent sense. I could be "saved" from a terrible life, one full of suffering or unpleasantness, but this would just be a change in my living circumstances.

Thus, God is dead.

(Or if you prefer, God was never alive or acting because God is beyond such things, an infinite of meaning we cannot be separated from, even in our darkest hours).

he mystic says that there's a way to understand that those lungs are not separate from you. — frank

The lungs are not separate from me, I am not separate from other beings, they are not separate from the lungs, the breath that was being exhaled centuries ago is not separate from me or from the breath that will be exhaled in another aeon, etc. etc. etc.

The consubstantiality of being (if we want to be technical rather than poetical; not necessarily a good thing).

In other words, @TheWillowOfDarkness, God is indeed dead if he is construed to be separate from anything. Which is how [Western] Christians, by and large, construed God in the 19th century (and some centuries before -- not all, though). Nietzsche's critique is dead on :D when it is aimed at the right target.

The lungs are not separate from me, I am not separate from other beings, they are not separate from the lungs, the breath that was being exhaled centuries ago is not separate from me or from the breath that will be exhaled in another aeon, etc. etc. etc.

The consubstantiality of being (if we want to be technical rather than poetical; not necessarily a good thing). — Mariner

You have to read Schopenhauer before you read Nietzsche.

Ah, Schopenhauer, the World as Will and Representation... not the only work of his that I have read, but the only major work. What would you say it contributes to this discussion? (If you want my opinion, it was mostly a misreading of Buddhist ideas. Then again I'm not a big fan of Schopenhauer -- perhaps for lack of reading other works).

God is indeed dead if he is construed to be separate from anything. Which is how [Western] Christians, by and large, construed God in the 19th century (and some centuries before -- not all, though). Nietzsche's critique is dead on :D when it is aimed at the right target. — Mariner

In what sense is God dead?

Depends what you mean. If you that it's God who is a way to meaning is dead, sure. Nietzsche's account doesn't have a problem with any sort of being acting in the world. A being who enacts power upon the world, who makes judgements upon people, puts them in different places in their future lives is entirely possible.

Such a being though, is entirely worldly. They aren't granting an infinite of meaning, rather just more states of living in certain places. "Being saved" changes from a question of gaining a certain kind of greater value or special meaning than others, to a mere description of gaining a certain sort of material life.

Nietzsche is not just aming at some sort of distant God. He's talking any sort of God which is posed to be a transcedent rescue to meaningless. If a belief holds the position, "God saved me from meaningless, from worthlessness, by putting me in a realm above and beyond my Earthly life," it's hit by Nietzsche's critique. This hits far more than a 19th century conception of God. In the case of Christianity, it hits most because they don't usually consider God to be only a worldly being granting more (if different) worldly life.

Can you explain further? I have no difficulty in demarcating experiments from non-experiments. — Mariner

Nah, not demarcating experiments from non-experiments: I meant that experiments are themselves an exploration of 'demarcations', or limits that are not laid down in advance. To experiment is to (attempt to) stumble upon the new, to create by means of an undertaking that does not rely on demarcations laid out before the undertaking of said experiments. And here it's particularly clear that to affirm exprimentation doesn't require one to affirm 'non-experimentation': to say this is to confuse the concept of experimentation for the practice of it. The same can and should be said for the the affirmation of immanence, which again, needs no reference to the transcendent.

Again, I was responding to this line of inquiry: "How can Nietzsche (or anyone) demarcate "the immanent" without a clear acknowledgment of the transcendent?"; The issue is that the very question of demarcation misunderstands what is at stake in affirming immanence. To affirm is not to demarcate.

Other than this, I'm afirad I don't really recognize your redescription of what I said in terms of 'mythos and logos' - words I did not use. And finally, it's not just a question of valorizing action over discourse, but of the kind of thing action is compared to the kind of thing discourse is. If a difference in kind between the two is not recognized, then the point is unfortunately missed.

I was browsing the Internet about Dewey, Nietzsche and nihilism and came across this, regarding the author's journey from Nietzsche to Dewey, which you might find interesting :http://www.johndeweysociety.org/dewey-studies/files/2018/02/4_DS_1.2.pdf — Ciceronianus the White

Good read.