Pfff… the arrogance here… to assume it is self evident that favoring some nazi ideas over American ones is unethical.
Nietzsche promoted much of what the nazis used… he predicted the whole thing as an inevitable result of the death of god… it filled him with joyful fantasies and speculations.
Yeah lets reject his thoughts. He wasnt one of us.
Pfff… the arrogance here… to assume it is self evident that everyone is American.
Okay, one plate of Lentil soup and an icecream later…
So ThreeTimes,
Hang on, I’ve an itch on the side of my nose…
That’s better.
Right where was I…?
Are yes, discounting Heidegger for actions of self preservation.
Hmm. Did I take my vitamin pill this morning…? Back in a tick.
Nietzsche was openly opposed to anti-semitism, and he wrote about the risks and consequences of growing government power and oppression in Germany. he also spoke strongly against socialism and nationalism.
Nietzsche may have seen government’s and other such social organizations as inevitable or necessary, and he may have even seen that they play a crutial long-term historical role; but that is a far cry from saying that he implicitly (or explicitly for that matter) approved, sanctioned or spoke favorably about such actions as were eventually taken by the Nazis.
he was a peaceful agreeable person, by all accounts. his philosophy was not a glorification or justification for genocide, mass murder, racism or war. to read it as such is to take a VERY narrow and superficial interpretation of Nietzsche’s texts.
thus spake the aristocracy?
-Imp
Sorry. No seriously. Okay. Let’s see.
So, you discounted Heidegger after trudging for hours and hours through a whole bunch of complex, grammar-torturing, translated texts, and I discounted him after reading a few books on linguistics that cited some of his general theories, and a little blurb from a biography. Alpha+Omega discounted him after observing he was a goofy bastard.
So in utilitarian terms, given that we all reached the same conclusions via different methodologies, A+E wins outright, I come a close second, and you crossed the finish line just after the last spectator had gone home for tea.
[size=150]I [/size]
[size=150]Utility[/size]
as always imp, thanks for the valuable commentary, you really add to the discussions around here.
er… hm? ill admit i didnt follow that logic very well.
if i read some Heidegger and then, assessing the content of what he wrote, decided he was full of shit, theres nothing wrong with that, nor impractical. its just an example of what i was saying all along: that i try to judge things based on THE THING ITSELF and not other unrelated extraneous variables.
it sounds like you reject him for similar reasons. good for you. as for a&e, im sure he would love Heidegger, if only he would give him a chance. then again, judging someone’s philosophy based on that person’s appearance is certainly utilitarian only if your personal paradigm or valuing-system is geared to respond to superficial characteristics alone, at the expense of more meaningful evidence. if thats the case, which im sure it is for a&e, then yes he is acting pragmatically in his immediate rejection of Heidegger based on Heidegger’s appearing as a goofy bastard, which i would agree that he appears to be.
however, such a paradigm or valuing-evaluative system is pretty inherently flawed and is bound to lead to perpetual errors in judgment. if these errors result in real-life harms or detrimental physical, mental or emotional effects, then that system itself isnt very pragmatic or utilitarian, after all.
936 (Nov. 1887-March 1888)
Aristocracy. Herd-animal ideals—now culminating as the highest value standard of “society”: attempt to give them a cosmic, even a metaphysical value.— Against them I defend aristocracy.
A society that preserves a regard and delicatesse for freedom must feel itself to be an exception and must confront a power from which it distinguishes itself, toward which it is hostile, and on which it looks down.
The more I relinquish my rights and level myself down, the more I come under the dominion of the average and finally of the majority. The presupposition inherent in an aristocratic society for preserving a high degree of freedom among its members is the extreme tension that arises from the presence of an antagonistic drive in all its members: the will to dominate—
If you would do away with firm opposition and differences in rank, you will also abolish all strong love, lofty attitudes, and the feeling of individuality.
Toward a true psychology of the society based on freedom and equality— What diminishes?
The will to self-responsibility, sign of the decline of autonomy; efficiency in defense and attack, also in the most spiritual things: the power of commanding; the sense of reverence, subservience, ability to keep silent; great passion, the great task, tragedy, cheerfulness. [1]
-Imp
Hey ThreeTimes,
Perhaps I should have specified “time invested vs. end product” as well as utility.
Ever heard of a bird-courtship ritual called a ‘lek’…?
In the process of lekking a whole bunch of females watch a whole bunch of males dance on their various patches of ground.
Usually what happens is one female spends ages choosing, finally plumps for one male, and then suddenly, a whole slew of other females, having expended much less time, all choose the same male. Lucky guy. Sometimes they choose the pre-chosen male even when there are actually objectively ‘better’ males nearby. Which would seem to make their haste detrimental to their overall fitness.
Except for two factors. One: The quickly-fertilized bird can lay more clutches in a season, and: Two: A penalty shared is a penalty negated.
Basically, if I or A+E reject Heidegger, or anything else, for superficial reasons of varying degree, and in doing so save time, even if our criteria is flawed, and does lead to detriment, we still win if, and this is an important if, we can be sure that the majority of those around us will make the same superficial choice and incur the same penalty.
thanks, glad to see my comment helped.
nice example. i would make two observations. 1) from an evolutionary perspective, shared penalties are still penalties if they are detrimental to survival, and 2) as i already pointed out that i base my critiques of Heidegger on content and careful review, and not superficially, your point seems to fail from my perspective, because others are not making the same choice as i am. or rather, i am not making the same choice as you and a&e, therefore it seems that there is an insufficient amount of sharing involved in the detrimental effects here.
No, because individual members of a species compete not with the enviroment, but with each other. Survival is not the point, reproduction is the point. If everyone has one leg, then having one leg is not a penalty.
Yes, but if your decision making criteria is a minority one, and mine a majority one, then I can always be sure of either a shared benefit (no relative benefit or penalty) or a shared penalty (no relative penalty), whereas you might actually recieve an actual benefit - if your criteria does enable you to make a objectively better choice whilst the mass around you makes a poor one (minus of course the penalty evoked by the extra time investment involved) - but if your criteria for some reason should fail and you make a bad decision, then you are guarrenteed of a real penalty relative to your fellows, plus the penalty of the extra time involved. A double whammy.
It pays sometimes to be shallow.
I’d absolutely agree with 3x and others that philosophers have to be judged first on their (written) work and not their lives (many of which don’t make for pretty viewing)
The only thing we can definitely say about Heidegger in his life is that he took the soft option It certainly wasn’t a question of survival it was a question of the easy way out. One might be able to argue that his ramblings were of sufficient quality for it to be worth it in the broader historical context for “the sake of philosophy” (I personally doubt it but its a line of thought…)
Many like Walter Benjamin and Martin Husserl (H’s teacher to whom he dedicated issue one of Being and Time) did not and suffered the consequences.
(from the wiki on Husserl - usual health warnings apply of course!)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Husserl
Husserl who wrote some pretty difficult and complex philosophy (and certainly never seems to have read even a bit of Nietzsche (!) ) comes out as the braver for me especially in his rejection of the easy move to the States…
…"
(from the Stanford plato.stanford.edu/entries/husserl/)
Walter Benjamin (of course) never had a chance as the Nazi’s rose to power
In moral terms Heidegger was no arstocrat/overman/knight of faith or what ever.
On the other hand if we were to judge philosophers solely on their conduct the reading list would be slim!
Stones and throwing and being without sin etc etc…
kpx
So it’s not based on what he said, which is pretty much in line with your post oddly enough, but on how he lived that you judge Nietzsche as a philosopher? Fair enough, I guess, for if truth is a woman, then, well, you know…
But I think you have to also look at the cards that were dealt the man, and how he played those cards. He, by which I mean his philosophy, too, could have easily become a decadent. He himself sort of toots his own horn (and I forget exactly where) and says that in the time he was the most ill, his healthy instincts guided him back to physical health and his philosophy towards being life affirming . So he knew that this sort of criticism was going to be leveled against him, and he addressed it, somewhat.
Ad hom is not an invalid method of arguing against some idea for Nietzsche. He lays this fact out pretty clearly in Beyond Good And Evil, and I have in mind particularly the sections in The Prejudices of Philosophers where he talks of instincts determining philosophical stances. Also, the whole suppose truth is a woman piece sort of does speak to this issue. You know, suppose truth is a woman, meaning suppose it must be won by a certain kind of man. Right?
Actually, I don’t feel comfortable saying that about ad homs, for I’m not so sure that N dismisses philosophical ideas whenever they originate from a decadent because they are untruthful, so much as he dismisses them because they are worthless.
well, natural selection works because an environment applies selection pressures on reproductive activity, which then determines which individuals will or will not “make it”. even if everyone has one leg, it may still be an advantage to have two legs. assuming that two-legged individuals would be able to better compete, there is still a selection pressure favoring mutations that give rise to a second leg, even when all individuals currently have only one leg.
individuals compete with each other, yes, but it is the environment which exerts selection pressure over time. part of this environment is certainly other individuals of your species, but part of it is not. so i guess the analogy here would be: assuming we all are operating on the same “flawed” or imperfect/shallow mental schema with regard to Heidegger, there is still nonetheless a selection pressure such that at the point when an individual deviates from this uniformity and takes a deeper more complete look at Heidegger’s works, he will therefore gain more accurate knowledge than everyone else (this is assuming that the gaining of this knowledge would somehow benefit his “reproduction” here… its a pretty imperfect analogy, granted).
that depends if the time investment required for a deeper/more accurate look at Heidegger causes detrimental effects upon other areas of reproduction (comprehension, in this case, i guess would be the closest analogy). if the additional time required causes no such detrimental effects, then its a no-loss scenario.
but i do agree, sometimes it does pay to be shallow. its certainly easier. its just depends on whether or not your environment requires deep or shallow knowledge in order for you to function well enough to reproduce. since there is no evolution of selection occuring in this type of situation, the analogy is pretty useless. however, if the standard of measurement is sufficient comprehension in order to grasp Heidegger for some particular reason (internal goal or desire or need), then yes, shallow is probably good as long as that sufficiency is reached.
but, because we can metacognize and introspect about ourselves to a large extent, we can create for ourselves an added value of larger and more accurate comprehension than just a necessary minimum required to place Heidegger within a category and call it done. i guess it all depends on why youre doing philosophy in the first place. i am motivated to do philosophy because i have a strong desire to learn and grow/change in a positive direction (i define positive direction as “reality-oriented” or “truthful”)… because i have this desire, i tend to put a premium on deeper and more accurate levels of knowledge than are just required to form a cursory opinion for the sake of justifying an emotional or mental schema. if other people have a lower threshold of usefulness and are only operating based on heuristics of cognitive/mental/emotional homogeneity or stability, then most likely such deeper more honest/serious looks into Heidegger would be unwise and detrimental to that individual…
yea…anyways…im having trouble remembering how this all ties into the OP again…? 
:-"
I think an OP of “Heidegger is a goofy bastard” may allow some flexibility… 
Hmm. Well, not really. The enviroment effects an organism’s survival sure, which indirectly effects its reproductive potential. Many nerds know, simple longevity is no guarrentee of reproductive access to one of those strange women things they see in magazines.
Sexual selection however does directly effect reproductive potential.
Go on, tell me that in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, I dare you. 
In assuming more is better, you must also figure in the cost of ‘more’. Another leg costs energy (food) to first build, then maintain and repair. It also costs in terms of neural nets to coordinate. You must also remember that there is a reason the species in question only developed one leg originally. Evolution is all about ‘enough’ rather than ‘better’. Redundancy kills just as quickly as lack in some cases.
But again, sexual selection operates not on survival fitness, but on a special kind of signalling aesthetics - the peacocks tail etc. - and a mutant with two legs, however speedy, would be treated as a mutant. Given a selection of similarly pretty girls, would you choose the one with three legs…? However extra-stable she may be over rough terrain…?
I wasn’t really stating that a quick discounting of Heidigger increases your sperm count, only that in terms of utility and effort/reward equations, a quick and ‘correct’ decison is better than a slow and ‘correct’ decision. Neural processing and memory, in both learning (and later unlearning) Heideggers ramblings should also be figured in.
(I too, like to flog dead horses. 
)
one might think with the recent death of the gloved one, you would have said
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqxo1SKB0z8[/youtube]
-Imp
Actually, you may be right, I was looking at old footage from Michael’s concerts and it appears there was a connection between him, Neitzche and Heidegger.
What a find.
I agree with the general assertion that it is superficial of someone to reject someone else on the grounds of morality…
… not quite.