@Joshs

Hi! I hope you don't mind if I moved this over here. I'll need to chew on this a while.

I think this is one aspect of the will to power, the drive to assimilate , dominate and achieve mastery over oneself and one’s surroundings. But will to power also implies a constant re-directing of the drive to dominate.

Nietzsche says the essence of life , as will to power , is its “spontaneous, aggressive, expansive, re-interpreting, re-directing and formative forces”.


What does he mean by re-interpeting and re-directing?
“That overpowering and dominating consist of re-interpretation, adjustment, in the process of which their former ‘meaning' [Sinn] and ‘purpose' must necessarily be obscured or completely obliterated.”

“No matter how perfectly you have understood the usefulness of any physiological organ (or legal institution, social custom, political usage, art form or religious rite), you have not yet thereby grasped how it emerged…the whole history of a ‘thing', an organ, a tradition can to this extent be a continuous chain of signs, continually revealing new interpretations and adaptations, the causes of which need not be connected even amongst themselves, but rather sometimes just follow and replace one another at random.

The ‘development' of a thing, a tradition, an organ is therefore certainly not its progressus towards a goal, still less is it a logical progressus, taking the shortest route with least expenditure of energy and cost, – instead it is a succession of more or less profound, more or less mutually independent processes of subjugation exacted on the thing, added to this the resistances encountered every time, the attempted transformations for the purpose of defence and reaction, and the results, too, of successful countermeasures. The form is fluid, the ‘meaning' [Sinn] even more so . . . It is no different inside any individual organism: every time the whole grows appreciably, the ‘meaning' [Sinn] of the individual organs shifts…”

So will to power is a dominating impetus that exhausts itself in assimilating the world to a valuative meaning, thus jumping from one meaning to another without there being a logical connection between the two. It is not about mere preservation or survival but expansion. And the dominant valuative interpretation will to power imposes becomes obscured or obliterated as it expands its dominance.

So if will to power is transforming the world in accord with our needs , it is at the same time having the valuative basis of our needs constantly be obliterated , re-directed, and redefined in ways that don’t allow us to claim some sort of thematic continuity in what we want. This is self-actualization as continual self-obliteration and re-invention — Joshs

So if will to power is transforming the world in accord with our needs , it is at the same time having the valuative basis of our needs constantly be obliterated , re-directed, and redefined in ways that don’t allow us to claim some sort of thematic continuity in what we want. This is self-actualization as continual self-obliteration and re-invention — Joshs

This doesn't really make any sense. Maybe postmodernism just isn't for me?

Poatmodernism is, I was led to believe, a reaction against the enlightenment zeit geist; probably not in toto but in part, to be precise a specific interpretation of truth as universal and non-negotiable.

Nietzsche, what he did was inform us of God's demise; religion was just another way absolute truth manifested itself.

Enlightenment, post-Deus?

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. — Daniel Bonevac

What does postmodernism make of Nietzsche? — Tate

As far as I can tell, purveyors of p0m0 reduce N to his "there are no facts, only interpretations" (which, ontologically generalized out-of-context, entails(?) some sort of pan-aestheticism after N's so-called "the death of metaphysics" and "psychosocial deflation of morality"). For p0m0, it seems only caricatures – subjective interpretations – of N (or any text) are deemed "significant" :eyes:

Do they morph him to something out of context?

Yes. They deny (without philological scruple) 'authorial intent', so N is every reader's "N", that is, whatever each reader (milieu?) can make of "N". In practice, p0m0 readings "transvaluate" him (any text) into a rorschach-like "signifier" :mask:

Or does it end up being more faithful than faithful to the ground breaking philosopher/proto-psychologist?

:clap: :lol:

pan-aestheticism — 180 Proof

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. — John Keats (Ode to a Grecian urn)

Muchas gracias 3017amen (banned)!
:chin:

there are no facts, only interpretations — 180 Proof

I was close then.

As far as I can tell, purveyors of p0m0 reduce N to his "there are no facts, only interpretations" (which, ontologically generalized out-of-context, entails(?) some sort of pan-aestheticism after N's so-called "the death of metaphysics" and "psychologistic reduction of morality"). For p0m0, it seems only caricatures –subjective interpretations – of N (or any text) are deemed "significant" :eyes: — 180 Proof

Not caricatures, characterizations, which is all any interpreter can come up with. The key questions, as far as I’m concerned , do not have to do with capturing the ‘real’ Nietzsche, any more than we can capture the real Plato. Of course we can do our best , but readings will always vary by era and social context.
To me that two key questions are: 1)What is the most daring and interesting reading of Nietzsche , the one that pushes him to his radical edge? 2) Whether or not we think this most radical reading is consistent with the author’s text, can we at least understand it’s assertions on its own terms?

I dont get the impresssion that you succeed at #2, which does t put you in an ideal position to judge whether postmodern readings of Nietzsche , like those of Foucault, Deleuze, Rouse, Derrida and Heidegger, are simply reductive caricatures or in fact reveal what makes him so different from contemporaries like Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer.

To me that two key questions are: 1)What is the most daring and interesting reading of Nietzsche , the one that pushes him to his radical edge? 2) Whether or not we think this most radical reading is consistent with the author’s text, can we at least understand it’s assertions on its own terms? — Joshs

If the most daring and (to your mind) interesting readings of Nietzsche do not have to be consistent with Nietzsche's text, then are they still readings of Nietzsche and not misreadings? If the assertions are to be understood on their own terms, and these assertions are not consistent with Nietzsche's text, then is what sense, if any, are they still assertions about Nietzsche's text?

or in fact reveal what makes him so different from contemporaries like Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer. — Joshs

Schopenhauer wasn't his contemporary. He was about two generations back, and people who are familiar with both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche note how similar they are in spite of apparently being unaware of one another.

I'd just say that if you knowingly get creative with Nietzsche, you're not in a position to dismiss other interpretations. You'll just have to respect everyone else's view. Do you agree?

Schopenhauer wasn't his contemporary. He was about two generations back, and people who are familiar with both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche note how similar they are in spite of apparently being unaware of one another. — Tate

I meant that the ideas were contemporary , not that the writers were born in the same era. I consider Heidegger’s ideas contemporary even though he was born in 1889.
It is vital to postmodern readings of Nietzsche to recognize the critical distance between his thinking and Kierkegaard’s. Existentialist readings of Nietzsche, on the other hand, see the two as compatible. I would be very disappointed if I became conscience that Nietzsche wasn’t saying anything remarkably different than Kierkegaard. My favorite thing about Nietzsche is how he slams a hammer into the religiosity that Kierkegaard struggles to keep alive.

I'd just say that if you knowingly get creative with Nietzsche, you're not in a position to dismiss other interpretations. You'll just have to respect everyone else's view. Do you agree? — Tate

My point was everybody gets creative with philosophers they are charged with interpreting, but only some admit it. Others may buy into some form of realism that tries to lock in a ‘true for all’ reading of a set of philosophical ideas, and dont even have framework within which it makes sense to point out the cultural relativism implicit in understanding ideas.
So knowingly or not, we must respect others readings.( I would say the same about divergent theoretical viewpoints within the social sciences) But that doesnt mean we dont have a preference for one reading over another, and that there aren’t important ethical and psychological implications of one preference vs another.

If the most daring and (to your mind) interesting readings of Nietzsche do not have to be consistent with Nietzsche's text, then are they still readings of Nietzsche and not misreadings? If the assertions are to be understood on their own terms, and these assertions are not consistent with Nietzsche's text, then is what sense, if any, are they still assertions about Nietzsche's text? — Fooloso4

I didn’t mean to suggest that a reading of an author shouldn’t strive to be as consistent as humanly possible with their text. My point was that even the most scholarly rigorous reading of an author , one which seeks nothing other than to capture without distortion the author’s original intent, will be oriented by implicit cultural presuppositions , much like the attempt to capture the original way that Bach sounded. There are numerous intellectual cultures operating simultaneously today, which is why there are such diametrically opposed readings of Nietzsche.

My point was that even the most scholarly rigorous reading of an author , one which seeks nothing other than to capture without distortion the author’s original intent, will be oriented by implicit cultural presuppositions ... — Joshs

A "scholarly rigorous reading" and "the most daring and interesting reading of Nietzsche , the one that pushes him to his radical edge" are two different things. Being historically situated is not a choice, but what you take to be the most interesting reading is a deliberate choice.

My favorite thing about Nietzsche is how he slams a hammer into the religiosity that Kierkegaard struggles to keep alive. — Joshs

Kierkegaard's point was that Christianity is a dead religion. I think you've gone way too long not understanding Kierkegaard and how he was saying the same thing Nietzsche was vis-a-vis amor fati.

Could you say something about the postmodern Nietzsche? Like what does Derrida say about him? If that seems unutterably lazy on my part, sorry :grimace:

A "scholarly rigorous reading" and "the most daring and interesting reading of Nietzsche , the one that pushes him to his radical edge" are two different things. Being historically situated is not a choice, but what you take to be the most interesting reading is a deliberate choice. — Fooloso4

They are not necessarily two different things. In this context, a reading is daring and interesting not because it entertains as fiction , but on the contrary , because it resists the easiest, most conventional interpretation in favor of one that pushes and dares the interpreter. When referred to pushing Nietzsche to his radical edge , I meant, of the many Nietzsches one could choose to adopt as the ‘true’ Nietzsche, all of which can be linked to solid evidence from his work, one should choose the most radical. We see this happen all the time in interpretive scholarship. Dreyfus’ reading of Heidegger and Husserl has been dumped in favor of more radical approaches, Hacker’s Wittgenstein has been replaced for many by Cavell’s and Conant’s, etc.

Kierkegaard's point was that Christianity is a dead religion. I think you've gone way too long not understanding Kierkegaard and how he was saying the same thing Nietzsche was vis-a-vis amor fati — Tate

I read Kierkegaard through people like Caputo , Sheehan and Critchley, who may have abandoned Christianity but certainly not God and faith in the coherence of the concept of moral good(which amount to the same thing). Is this your view of Kierkegaard?

who may have abandoned Christianity but certainly not God and faith in the coherence of the concept of moral good(which amount to the same thing). Is this your view of Kierkegaard? — Joshs

He doesn't use the concepts of God and faith in a conventional way. Those things are in the background to me. It's what he was saying that's amazing, and in some ways not just compatible, but the same as Nietzsche's view.

But if their presence in the background bothers you, I can see why you'd be turned off by him. It doesn't bother me. Since Nietzsche believed truth is always metaphorical and mythological, I doubt it would have bothered him either. He wasn't really the champion of atheism some make him out to be.

... of the many Nietzsches one could choose to adopt as the ‘true’ Nietzsche, all of which can be linked to solid evidence from his work, one should choose the most radical. — Joshs

Why?

My preference, and it comes down to a matter of preference, is for the interpretation that helps us understand the text, attending to the details and connecting them, illuminating the whole of the text or texts of the author.

An appropriately "radical" one would be one that gets to the roots, not one that pushes it to the edge.

We see this happen all the time in interpretive scholarship. Dreyfus’ reading of Heidegger and Husserl has been dumped in favor of more radical approaches, Hacker’s Wittgenstein has been replaced for many by Cavell’s and Conant’s, etc. — Joshs

This can become a matter of an uncritical preference for the new and novel. Cavell's and Conant's work is no longer new. It seems likely that some will see this as good reason to dump them in favor of something less conventional. An interpretation may benefit from the work of earlier interpreters, but there is the danger of interpreters focusing on earlier interpretations moving further away from the text itself with each iteration.

Dreyfus’ reading of Heidegger and Husserl has been dumped in favor of more radical approaches, Hacker’s Wittgenstein has been replaced for many by Cavell’s and Conant’s, etc. — Joshs

So there's no one Heidegger, but there's one Dreyfus's Heidegger, to be dumped. There's no one Wittgenstein, but there's one Hacker's Wittgenstein, to be replaced. Can Dreyfus and Hacker not be interpreted in daring and radical ways?

A couple of strong themes in Nietzsche work against the arbitrary quality of narratives suggested here.

The genealogy of morals may not make them necessary in a proof by means of universal law but does claim the logic of reproduction. The children reflect the parents. You come from a place.

The use of the idea of perspective to differentiate expressions is not an abandonment of objective criteria. One could object that it is too much of the opposite of that. The locations have a relationship to each other that becomes more determined than the ones who call out from those places. As a philologist, Nietzsche sees the words as prior to the speaker unless proven otherwise.

:fire:

An appropriately "radical" one [reading] would be one that gets to the roots, not one that pushes it to the edge. — Fooloso4

:100:

No doubt. And you're entitled to your subjective interpretation (i.e. "characterization") of my own. In p0m0, after all, everybody's esteem gets stroked with a "gold star for attendance". :smirk:

:up:

N is every reader's "N", that is, whatever each reader (milieu?) can make of "N". In practice, p0m0 readings "transvaluate" him (any text) into a rorschach-like "signifier" :mask: — 180 Proof

To be fair, Nietzsche’s self-obscurantist style doesn’t help him much.

Nietzsche’s self-obscurantist style — schopenhauer1

You need to read better translations or Freddy's lyrical German prose. Artie's writings are less lyrical German composed in a Humean style but, IMO, they possess no greater clarity or expressive power than Freddy''s; however, they have the advantage of being more explicitly, or closely, reasoned than Freddy's aphoristic & essayistic works. If you don't read German, very good English translations are indepensible.

Yet, Cioran, written in aphorisms and French and Romanian mostly clear and clever. Both considered existential in some way. Why is Cioran more interesting and funny to me? Nietzsche has some good zingers but meh. Ubermensch seems silly to me and ripe for misinterpretation because he made it obscurantist. It’s not as clear as clear Pepsi.

Like I said, you need to read better translations. Also, you seem to have an affinity for Artie's bourgeois world-weary Nein-sagen, schop1, and antipathy for Freddy's bohemian Ja-sagen approbation of the tragicomedy of life and nature. As for Emil Cioran, he's the stand-up comedian of philosophical cynicism – a twentieth century Diogenes in many ways – who is even funnier than Freddy. I prefer his (& Clément Rosset's) pessimistic bon mots to Artie's renunciative grousing.

Nice. Even Nietzsche’s rant against rationality suffers from it being encoded as an authored text. A demand for a singular univocal reading. So irrationality must erase even that.

After PoMo and its multiplicity we can presumably move on to the complete liberation of primal screaming. :up:

we can presumably move on to the complete liberation of primal screaming. :up: — apokrisis

Isn't that how we ended up with Trump?

:clap:

Isn't that how we ended up with Trump? — Tom Storm

Yep. The first p0m0 president; maybe not the last.

Isn't that how we ended up with Trump? — Tom Storm

I like to think that Trump is all about showing that society’s losers can be its winners. The rational social order can be inverted so that all those annoying eggheads with their complicated syntax can be revealed as society’s true fools.

This was also the pragmatist game. Commonsense should win out over fanciful abstractions. Rationality shut by itself in a room does seem to wind up speaking elaborate and unworldly nonsense. Think logical atomism. So there is a target to be had.

But Trumpism swings past the pragmatic correction to put the power in the hands of sophistry. It employs reason as a way to justify whatever needs justifying. It is rational discourse makes the pragmatic evidence fit a conspiracy theory.

So it says it is fine to undermine any proper standards of pragmatic discourse - that always delicate balance of theory and test. You don’t have to win that game. You can lose and yet claim to have won.

Losers outweigh winners anyway. So losing is now winning. Any lie can be believed, or claim to be believed, as it pragmatically achieves its social/economic/political purpose.

Can we blame PoMo for eroding the pragmatic standards of philosophical discourse. Damn tooting!

It replaced “all interpretations are allowable as abductive hypotheses” with “all interpretations are legitimate as actual theories.”

At least conspiracy theories attempt to claim strong evidence standards. For PoMo, subjective feels are all that are required.

(This is of course a caricature. When actual PoMo texts aspire to rational discourse, the standard socialised mistake they make is to discover the dialectic at the centre of every metaphysical debate and huff, well if two opposites can both be true, then nothing can actually be considered the stable truth.

AP and PoMo both can’t deal with the dialectical unity of opposites. One is repulsed by the acceptance of a contradiction and rejects it as being rational. The other turns it into the free play of paradox. Contradiction becomes embraced so warmly as to be unversalised as multiplicity.)

Getting back to Trump, isn’t his genius that he doesn’t even make an effort to fill in the blanks of his sophist arguments. He just puts the idea that needs justification out into the public sphere and demands folk find the justification.

That’s a true CEO for you. Put out the bullshit vision statement and let the eager underlings fall all over themselves getting it to stack up.

(I guess I’m saying that is how I feel about having to make sense of any PoMo text too. Some kind of hazy but grandiose vision statement gets made, on no particular evidence or well constructed basis. You just have a lot of verbiage about how this can also be inverted to become its diametric opposite, and so … well you fill in the blanks for me, dear reader. How is thesis and antithesis resolved to synthesis here. Find your own sense of what I could have meant.)

Getting back to Trump, isn’t his genius that he doesn’t even make an effort to fill in the blanks of his sophist arguments. He just puts the idea that needs justification out into the public sphere and demands folk find the justification. — apokrisis

Agree. He's like an empty vessel that has been filled with the hemorrhaging resentments and dissatisfactions of American cultural life.

(This is of course a caricature. When actual PoMo texts aspire to rational discourse, the standard socialised mistake they make is to discover the dialectic at the centre of every metaphysical debate and huff, well if two opposites can both be true, then nothing can actually be considered the stable truth. — apokrisis

:fire:

My preference, and it comes down to a matter of preference, is for the interpretation that helps us understand the text, attending to the details and connecting them, illuminating the whole of the text or texts of the author.

An appropriately "radical" one would be one that gets to the roots, not one that pushes it to the edge. — Fooloso4

When we interpret a text, or model the origins of the universe, are we attempting to represent or to construct truth? If both , how does the fact-value entanglement situate the knower and the known?

I follow McDowell, Brandom and Sellars beyond realism and anti-realism. And I also follow Joseph Rouse in viewing the investigation of the meaning of a text or the origin of a universe not as the recovery of what was but as. a moving further and further away from
what was in order to understand it better and better.

In other words, getting closer and closer to the ‘roots’ involves ensconcing the past within more and more intricate schemes of relation that express what is relevant to current concerns and goals.

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.