"Fiat philosophia!": a cry in the wilderness.

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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I’m a Lampertian Nietzschean, which means I mostly subscribe to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche as interpreted by Laurence Lampert (I coined the term “Lampertian” myself). That philosophy teaches that there are great differences in value between different human beings, and that the highest human beings are philosophers like Homer, Plato, Bacon, and Nietzsche, who are the real directors of the course of human history. Right now we’re still in the Baconian age, the age of the subjugation of nature. The worst aspect of this subjugation is the subjugation of human nature through the circumvention of one of the two basic human types, which we may call the Master type as opposed to the Herd type.

This is not to blame Bacon, though. Back in his day, he steered Western man in the direction of our technological present precisely for the sake of philosophy: for back then, philosophy was in danger of religious zealotry, and science and religion are natural enemies (compare Nietzsche’s phrase “God’s hellish fear of science”, from The Antichrist). But Bacon’s holy war for science has by now become too successful: for now philosophy, then in danger of becoming the handmaid of religion, is in danger of becoming science’s handmaid; whereas it should rule both science and religion. And as Nietzsche says, “a master race is either on top or it is destroyed”; philosophy cannot truly be a handmaid, a true handmaid cannot be philosophy. And as philo-sophy is by nature ama-teuristic, the uneasy question arises: Is the professionalisation that is one of the key distinguishing features of contemporary “philosophy” (see the Wikipedia article on contemporary philosophy) not a reason, if not the reason, for the apparent absence of any genuine philosophers (i.e., world-historical figures like the four mentioned) in that “philosophy”? To speak with the Argument of William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Bacon and his successors (Descartes for example) “planted” (i.e., set or sowed with seeds or plants) “the perilous path” that was (natural) philosophy, i.e., turned it from a desert into an oasis; but this was only beneficial to philosophy for a while: to wit, only

[size=95][t]ill the villain [i.e., the mere scientific man] left the paths of ease,
To walk in perilous paths [i.e., said new oasis], and drive
The just man [i.e., the genuine philosopher] into barren climes.

Now the sneaking serpent walks
In mild humility.
And the just man rages in the wilds
Where lions roam.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden’d air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep. [Blake, ibid.][/size]

I personally associate Rintrah with the Hindu gods Indra and Rudra, gods of thunder and fire. And Rudra is Nataraja, the Lord of Dance…

[size=95]After [Nietzsche’s] Zarathustra sings the first “Dancing Song,” he goes on to sing the “Tomb Song” which parallels the second dance of Siva.
[…]
In his most destructive aspect Rudra (Siva) becomes Bhairava, the fearful destroyer, who takes pleasure in destruction. […] This is not the universal destruction and recreation of heavens and earths as in the first dance. Then what does Siva destroy? […] Nietzsche’s dance in “The Tomb Song” is a battle for his heart and the divine loves of his youth [among which philosophy]. It is a battle for the freedom of dance itself. [Claudia Crawford, “Nietzsche’s Dionysian arts”.]

I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher would wish more to be than a good dancer. The dance namely is his ideal, also his art, lastly also his only piety, his “divine service”… [Nietzsche, The Joyous Science, section 381, my translation.][/size]

P.S.: Having used the phrase “master race” above, I want to make clear that the highest human beings are not limited to one race; among them are, for instance, the Jews Maimonides and Spinoza. Still, “one has a right to philosophy—taking the word in the grand sense—only by virtue of one’s origin; one’s ancestors, one’s ‘blood’ are the decisive thing here too. Many generations must have worked to prepare for the philosopher[.]” (Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, section 213.)

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Having not read Lampert, I do not necessarily agree with the categorization while recognizing none the less the likelihood of a correct sequencing of a categorization similar in structure to the intent, but differing in aspects as well as interrelations and depth.

Essentially I am saying I don’t recognize Bacon as THAT important of a philosopher as being one of only four to go by. He didn’t invent the scientific methods, just had great impulse to them, and was a excellent and impassioned advocate for it. Hobbes was similar, as was a great many other thinkers oriented towards a materialistic mode of politics and R&D Development. He doesn’t even represent the pinnacle in my outlook… the tyrants of Syracuse would better fit the mode.

Nietzsche had too much of Byron in him in terms of Romanticism, too much of Max Stirner in terms of independence, too much of too many thinkers to be authentic. He’s a maker for a age in history, but is thoroughly illegitimate in taking from others without quoting to be taken as a original thinker.

Homer… well, it’s deeply questionable whether or not homer was a person or a tradition. The Epic cycles show evidence of bein modeled around it as much as carrying accurate information Homer didn’t maintain… which invented which is hard to say, especially given the amount of scholarship that went into them in antiquity and the widely divergent views on the matter between the various schools of though. Plato… well, Plato deserves to outrank them all. He wasn’t trying like Nietzsche to be the originator of all thought he discussed, but certainly made some contributions to philosophy (you gotta admit to a few here). However, we produce very few Plato… and they are not read anymore… nor really is Plato even anymore.

Why not include Herodotus in this? He traveled the ancient world, learning every myth, creed, belief and system available, and presented it in a very modern manner- getting rid of the useless ritual and magical belief and presenting it in very rational terms. Or Ibn Khaldun, the first modern historian and first sociologist who lived in Northern Africa. Or Tai’ Tung, who used a very exacting explanation of warfare that directly influence Taoism and Sun Tzu. Or for that matter Confucius or Marcus Aurelius?

It’s a very artificial and bland division your proposing . I see potential in divisions, but not in a linear-historical order… and most certainly not ending with Byron-Nietzsche synthesis as the final stage. Too much of Nietzsche was smuggled from earlier epochs from authors most decidedly NOT Nietzsche, such as Tertullian’s Catholic concept of Eternal Occurrence. I mean, come on, really? He’s representative of sentiment and revolutionary-theological fervor… is symbolic of it in the present age, and has a historical importance, but isn’t really technically even a mediocre philosopher, as a mediocre philosopher comes up with new ideas. His only ‘original’ ideas were misinterpretations of texts.

None the less, your logic doesn’t escape me, and it has a underlining legitimacy and is right in and of itself, independent of your supports for it. As does your quote… your quote of yourself in your signature does more to defend your point than anything else. We have produced a academic system that encourages sloth and reading what’s presented to you to prove to others that your worthy of being them in terms of thinking. This is dandy when it’s neurosurgeons doing this- but a bit demented and sickening when solitary free thinkers voluntarily do this to themselves. I don’t think this is what Socrates had in mind when he first started taking students… years of submission for a piece of paper so they can in return pervert generations of youth without the risk of exposure to a new idea.

But that’s most people reading this. They don’t care- they are going for their undergrad work in philosophy instead of seeking philosophy. Huge gulf separating the two. One is a slave to the system, the other is the legitimacy of the source of the system, but is and must- be it of their own free will or refusal to accept them in as equals- if not more rightfully superior- must remain outcast and aloof.

We have the modern print and social media. Times are changing. I refuse to accept a internet doctor for neurosurgery though… but what we have currently for philosophy simply isn’t working.

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Also what is at fault is a historical mindset. If someone asks you after you tell them your a philosopher- what is the first things to come out of their mouths?

I haven’t read philosophy
I took a few classes
do you know ______ or _______ works?

Never noting you yourself in a civil conception as a person they are meeting on the streets can be one. We must make reference back to authorities, and authorities who are dead, and guarded by teachers in college, and philosophy is explaining them.

It why I tell them to not worry about them, and start off with their own mind… just listen to it in reference to Why questions and Why situations.

You can have a voice in your head asking why, or responding to why. You can visualize a why imaginatively, or geometrically, or in reference to memory of hardship or paradox or lost or happiness. You can ask why to hurting your unnybone, etc. Every why is a little different. Learn these differences, and try to spot times in your memory when you consistently NOT ask why. What does the why questions relate to.

If you master this, move on to the how questions, and their interrelations in the same as Why, and how Why and How directly interrelate in terms of grammar and asking and answering a question.

This is something anyone can do in those otherwise bland moments of life. It requires no other authority than yourself. I don’t need to guide you or teach you. It’s all in you. It may differ from another’s conclusions, but it’s more important as it shows a self mastery and contemplation of your personal philosophy. Once you do this, you are a authority unto yourself to approach other thinkers, as you yourself are one. Just be honest with yourself, and learn how to test yourself if your correct or not. When at a lost, be daring and inventive. Damn me or anyone else who will tell you otherwise later on, continue on with philosophy on your own terms.

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Then again, as you say, you haven’t read Lampert.

The list is not meant to be exhaustive—not in the least. But I do think that the four mentioned each iniated a new era, whereas the ones in between them didn’t.

On Homer as such a philosopher, see Benardete’s The Bow and the Lyre.

You’re wrong: see Lampert’s How Philosophy Became Socratic, which is from last year.

Because unlike Homer, he did not initiate a new era. He was rather to Homer what Descartes was to Bacon.

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I don’t really understand what you mean by handmaid. I also don’t see any conflict between philosophy and science.
In fact, my view is that philosophy and science are 2 faces of the same coin or if you want, two processes of the same continuum.
In essence, I hold the naturalistic view.

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Hmmm… Bacon instead of descartes? How do you figure?

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For one thing, Bacon came before Descartes. And:

“As the argument of this book proceeds, […] Descartes will be seen to take up Bacon’s campaign for precisely Bacon’s reason[.]” (Lampert, Nietzsche and Modern Times: A Study of Bacon, Descartes, and Nietzsche, page 57.)

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So Descartes is to Bacon what Plato is to Socrates, kind of?

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There was Hobbes in between the two.

Yeah, this is more of a typology than a accurate casual explanation of who initiated what era. There are precursors to every philosophy in the era immediately before it’s explosion. Wittgenstein is a good example, many microbursts every two centuries stretching all the way back to the twelve, with plenty of lesser philosophers diddling between.

The typology, have you come to a solid (or even not so solid) conclusion as to what parts of the brain each philosopher represents, and how they stimulate others on a sociological-biological-rhetorical platform? This would be important in relation to the point your trying to push- as it would underline the mechanics.

I think Bacon lucked out with the expansion of the industrial revolution in England PRIOR to him, the expansion in literature and international trade and travel, and of course, Hobbes linking his old boss up to Europeans scientist. Hobbes likely deserves any title from that era more than Bacon. Galileo more even then (and Hobbes would by no means oppose this), and thinkers like Jerome Cardan and Machiavelli more… as the last two have had much, much more of a impact on modern thought than Hobbes and Bacon combined. Machiavelli and Cardan practically formed the modern conception of experimental science, mathematic and engineering, politics, diplomacy, and warfare… Nietzsche wouldn’t be possible without them, but would easily be possible without Bacon.

I think this typology needs better balanced out. I don’t have to read Lampert to know who these philosophers are, and their history- the basic idea is not totally without validity, but it’s very, very awkward, and doesn’t sound right. Too much simplification that results in a massive overreach and overlook. It’s far to easy to look at the sequencing of Bacon first then Hobbes to make the mistake that it was Bacon who initiated the era. Voltaire loved the experimental philosophy of Bacon, but come on… who do you think he took more from? Leibniz made his era… no one else did the mass mailings like he did, connecting and influencing everything like a philosophical octopus. He comes later, it is true- but does he truly have a precedent? I will answer you, NO. Descartes and Bacon and even Hobbes wasn’t as well connected or aggressive in their thought as he was, nor attempted anything as boldly original.

Time for the drawling boards. We’ve made the Jungian mistake of a quaternity expressing the all encompassing features of a holistic universe. Bad mandala.

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Yeah, kind of, I guess. Note by the way that by “Plato” I also meant Plato’s Socrates. So perhaps we should say, “Homer, Socrates/Plato, Bacon/Descartes, and Nietzsche”.

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Chronologically, yes. With regard to the Baconian-Cartesian project, no.

Says who?

“The point your trying to push”—your language is remarkably lacking in respect.

I suspect that the Master type corresponds to the N types of Jungian typology, whereas the Herd type correspond to the S types. For more on this, see roughly the second half of this post: http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?p=2166248#p2166248.

Your showing off of what you seem to have learned in school only serves to make a fool out of you.

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Hey Sawelios, could you post some more about the master race concept?

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Don’t you mean the master type?

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I just spat my coffee on myself…

  1. Are you claiming to have invented the suffix “ian”, such that you “coined the term” Lampertian?? That’s soo ridiculous.

  2. “Lampertian Nietzschean” is an oxymoron. Even calling yourself a “Nietzschean” is bizarre phrase considering his emphasis on free-thinking, free-spirited, non-sheep-like readers.

Apologies, but I cannot continue to read another word after your first sentence.

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Well, as Nietzsche says, coffee darkens the mind (Ecce Homo, “Why I Am So Clever”, 1)…

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Yes, he said lots of things that are quite false. But, are you claiming to have invented the suffix “ian”? And what does he say about fundamentally religious sheep?

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Don’t worry, I’m asking in the extramoral sense.

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If you’re not gonna read beyond the first sentence, why even comment? Obviously he just means that lampertian is not a commonly used term and that he applies it to himself and, to the extent of his knowledge, by himself.

How much Nietzsche have you read? I ask because saying that the emphasis of Nietzsche’s philosophy was free sthinking is a terrible simplification. He didn’t use a machine gun or a broadsword, he used a sniper rifle and a scalpel. People call themselves Nietzschean when they read Nietzsche and find themselves agreeing with almost everything.

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Well, I used Nietzsche’s comment about master races metaphorically, comparing philosophy to a master race. But the comment itself is from a passage in which Nietzsche says that the Aryan race is a master race, and implies that the Semitic race is not.

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Still no love for Hume. I don’t understand it.

Glad you saw fit to make mention of Spinoza, though. As far as the progression from Bacon to Descartes, moving forward, I think one ought not overlook Spinoza. So, good call.