You seriously can’t go by what people say about people during that era who were involved in any political activity. Documents get faked, lies get told, lies get told about the lies, and it just becomes no more than rumor and childish gossip.
The writings that are attributed to him display someone under serious stress. No one at this point can count on any rumors concerning the cause. His sister supposedly changed some of his writings to be more anti-Jewish, but it is just as likely to be the other way around. You can’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you directly see (unless it is on TV, then maybe 10%). Rewriting history has become the art of the age, shifting blame. Hitler was complaining about that same thing at the time.
Languages started with signs (cp. semiotic), the transition of semiotic signs to the first lingusitic signs was the beginning of the language in that sense we can use the word „language“ very generally. The sound started later. Sound is not necessary for language, but an advantage, as all human languages indicate. Primitive animals do not need any sound for their language, they use a very primitive language, a chemical language.
Excuse me, but you did NOT answer my question. All what you said is known!
In addition: Whether Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche was in Paraguay or not, whether she or her brother were antisemitic or not, and other whether … or not … - all that has nothing to do with my question.
Are you assuming I know something about Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche no one else knows? How could that be?
As for unanswered questions, you haven’t answered mine, either. As a matter of fact, we don’t seem to even be on the same page! When I say language is sound, it’s because, to me, that’s how it began. I imagine a small group of hominids walking along when one turns to another and sees the second is about to be attacked from the rear. The first yells out a warning–possibly jumping up and down while yelling. Tone of voice and inflection are also a part of language–a part of communicating, which is the purpose of language, isn’t it?
Karl Jaspers attempted a psychological study of Nietzsche using Nietzsche’s letters to friends written in the months leading up to his collapse. There were no contemporary psychiatric records, even medical records were spotty. But could even a celebrated psychiatrist such as Jaspers reach any definitive conclusions based only on correspondence?
It’s accepted that Nietzsche used drugs–including chloral hydrate and morphine. Could that have caused his bi-polarism–if he suffered from bi-polar disorder? I think it’s safe to say that he was mad, which is not to say his madness detracted from his creativity. His madness may have heightened his creativity–or vice versa.
My questions hint at this when I ask, “Will Nietzsche’s philosophy, assuming it can be defined, endure for 500 or more years? Will it have changed the way the world thinks in that time?”
But it did NOT begin with sound, it began with soundless signs, with chemical signs (cp. my posts here and here and here).
One of my fields of study has been linguistics (degree: Magister) and language acquisition and language development - both are not the same (!) - was the theme of my diploma thesis. Sound is one of the high leveled kinds of language, thus it was NOT the beginnig kind of language.
Language (in general!) did NOT begin with hominids, but with primitive living beings!
If we want to talk about language seriously, we have to define the word “language” in order to prevent misunderstandings and unnecessary disputes. Language in general is very much more than human language, but human language is the greatest one. All the so called “progress” of human beings is based on the language of human beings. It’s just the human language which led to the difference between the ancestors of the human beings and the human beings. That was the beginning of human language, the larynge sank which caused a very complex phonetic sound, the brain grew in an exponential degree. So one can say that the phonetical sound was important for human beings (=> their language development) and for their very young childs (=> their language acquisition) and also has been being important for very young childs (=> their language acquisition). But phonetical sound was NOT important for the general language, because in the beginning of general language there were only chemical signs - at that time there was NO possibility for any development of sound.
Yes I can, Lisbeth.
Nietzsche’s philosophy will perhaps endure for 500 or more years, but perhaps there will be NO human being then.
Assuming there will be some human beings at that time it probably will have changed.
Remember: Your questions refer to the future, so I can merely answer with probability.
but semiotics does relate within the context of the debated panpsychism, and animal communication as exemplified by human attachment to animals, give further credence to this idea. So we are really not that far afield.
Yes, your answers can only be based on probability because that’s how I phrased my main, but secondary, questions. My basic question is how much of the current interest in Nietzsche, as a philosopher, is the result of his basic philosophy (nihilism ? existentialism ? ), how much is due to the difficulty in understanding the man and his words, and how much is the Romanticising of his madness and ultimate death? What’s most important, the man or his philosophy?
Any other discussion is tangential and superfluous to my main question(s).
