1844-1900
Theology, acquainted with Greek philosophy
Twilight of the Idols, 1889
Problem of Socrates.
Decadent: in decline, decay. “Doing a bad thing carefully.”
An unexamined life is not worth living. Only Knowledge alone makes life worth living
Importance things in life: goodness, happiness, depends on reasons, arguments → bizarre equations.
Maybe something wrong with this? What drives Socrates from this demands with reasons and knowledge? What are the motives?
Hume: Common life
Plato: Turns away from appearance, material life to know the true being
Artist: playful presentation, loving life for the work
Philosophers: Not joy, serious, engaged in serious business, striving to know the truth. Invent nothing, contemplate what is, what is true, “being qua being”
One must be all means stretch out one’s fingers and make the attempt to grasp this amazing finesse, that the value of life cannot be estimated. (269)
Life is not a closed books, but evolving still.
God is Dead
God of the philosophers
Atheism
Denis Diderot: “It is … very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley; but to believe or not to believe in god, is not important at all”
Nietzsche: “God is dead”. Means optimism, faith in science, the redemptive power of knowledge is “dead”, that is, unconvicing, hard to take seriously.
Nihilism: The highest values are devaluing themselves
How do we have duty on truth?
Doesn’t need reasons to be atheism?
For N, believing god is passing into the past, and have no feature. Science has devitalise god.
So to die the superior value of truth. Value of Truth is problematic.
From Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Contrast between Nobility and goodness noble spirits vs. good nobility > good noble people: maintain nobility, might considered by other as setback not become “a churl” (churlish, misanthropic, a hater of humanity)
Morality as Anti-Nature
Critiques in Christianity,
- Anti-nature because anti-difference, when nature is all difference
- Anti-nature because it values people all the same, when in nature, by nature, we are amazingly different.
Security with “herd mentality”
Regards as sign of decline, docile (democracy, or John Stuart Mill‘s instution)
Obstacles that are good for us: Becomes who we are
Herd = human society
- like sheep: unhappy on our own. Watch each other carefully, follow into our line
- all herd: All animals all nervously watch each others
Peace is overrated, as defeats kind of challenges to grow for leaders
herd = security (survival values, of Europe at this time?)
Everything modern people thinks good is bad, things judges to be evil could turn out to be good in the future.
Decadent: arts and philosophy
⇒ artists wants to play with empiricists, doesn’t care about the truth (philosophers’ motive)
Arguments against morality: One rule for everything
Judge everything by one rules: Morality reduces human to singularity
Object to Kant’s Morals, but not John Stuart Mill‘s Utilitarianism
Respect for others is imposed on us ⇒ refused to embrace
Morals compromise creativity, and value more creativity more than morals (beyond good and evil)
What I Owe the Ancients
The Birth of Tragedy, 1872
Greek tragic drama
- Aeschylus, Oresteia
- Sophocles, Oedipus the King
- Euripides, Bacchae
Why do we enjoy tragedies? Why do we enjoy watching people suffer?
“All becoming and growing - all that guarantees a future - involves pain.” (282)
“Art is worth more than truth.”
Shares’ Plato‘s view of democracy. Values life of creativity, to invent new values.
Acknowledges death, suffering, tragedy. Not defects, or overcome by science.
Knowledge can demoralise people (Knowledge is good)
Knowledge is a very thing that it is good. Knowledge is not the path to virtue and happiness
Science tells us no good in itself, no purposes in itself. Values are selected by us, not stumbled upon.
Life has no values, since we cannot see all that life has to offer. It is a place for adventure.
Creating values is science not do, but art can ⇒ art is more important than truth.