The Overman: a syllogism.

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

“[T]his type of man [the Overman] that he [Zarathustra] conceives, conceives reality as it is: it is strong enough for it—, it is not estranged or removed from it, it is reality itself and exemplifies all that is terrible and questionable in it”.
[Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, Why I Am a Destiny, 5.]

Premise A: The Overman is reality itself.

“[T]here is only one world, and this is false, cruel, contradictory, seductive, without meaning— A world thus constituted is the real world. We have need of lies in order to conquer this reality, this “truth,” that is, in order to live— That lies are necessary in order to live is itself part of the terrifying and questionable character of existence.”
[Nietzsche, The Will to Power, section 853.]

[u]Premise B: Reality is false, cruel, contradictory, seductive, without meaning.

Conclusion (C): The Overman is false, cruel, contradictory, seductive, without meaning.[/u]

Something to consider: If the Overman is the man who conceives reality as it is, and is thereby reality itself, Zarathustra, who has conceived of this type of man, has thereby conceived of reality itself and is, therefore, himself an Overman (but has he conceived of this type as it is? Or is he still estranged or removed from it?). And Nietzsche, in so far as he has conceived of Zarathustra…

2

Remember that Zarathustra (in Stephen Metcalf’s words) is ‘the avatar of the Overman’. He is the sum of the best aspects of the overman. But such a character can only exist in a dream. The moment he steps into reality he becomes the Overman, he becomes false, cruel, contradictory, seductive and without meaning. But that’s in addition to being Zarathustra, not in place of it.

3

This is still a mental evaluation of some utopian projection that does not satisfy, by way of any rational justification, any real, human problem with existential angst. Aldous Huxley once noted that it was the idolators of utopia, either as in this world or projected into some afterworld, that do most harm to others. They are the problem, not the solution. N. rejected the afterworld solution, but swallowed the this world one hook, line and sinker.

4

You mean he believed a “utopia” could be realised in this world? I don’t think so: Nietzsche despised idealism. The Overman is not an ideal that will hopefully one day become reality;

“[S]uccess in individual cases is constantly encountered in the most widely different places and cultures; here we really do find a higher type: which is, in relation to mankind as a whole, a kind of overman [Ãœbermensch]. Such fortunate accidents of great success have always been possible and will perhaps always be possible. And even whole families, tribes, or peoples may occasionally represent such a bull’s-eye.”
[The Antichristian, section 4.]

The Overman also exemplifies the fact that this world has no place for utopias…

5

Would it make sense if I said, that it is impossible to be a overman but it isn’t impossible in striving to be a strong man?

6

No, because that has nothing to do with Nietzsche.

7

Contradictory. N.'s obsession with an overman ,an ideal, laments the fact that such has not yet evolved into this world reality. It’s like distress over the fact that the second coming hasn’t come!

8

An overman stands over a hot piece of ass and then humps in.

That’s the real overman, who’s manly enough to be go over another like that.

Fake overmen are virgins who waste time on books and sophistication.

They all go extinct and they do not experience true life.

Ierrellus, that sounded mostly strait.

There are women everywhere.
That’s reason enough to see how good and satisfying life can be.
Now that the christian morality got less strict in the free nations, and now that we have things like condoms and other forms of birth control, life is like the absolute of potential utopia.

Neitzche wasn’t strait enough.
That’s why he had an eventuality towards a warped view.

9

The Overman is not an ideal. There have been many Overmen, according to Nietzsche, as section 3 of The Antichristian explicitly tells us. However, there has never* yet been an Overmankind:

“Even in the past this higher type has appeared often: but as a fortunate accident, as an exception, never as something willed.”
[AC 3.]

As the passage from section 4 that I quoted tells us, whole peoples have been Overmen (we may think of the pre-Socratic Greeks here).

You may be referring to the end of Zarathustra’s speech Of the Priests:

“Never yet hath there been a Superman. Naked have I seen both of them, the greatest man and the smallest man: All-too-similar are they still to each other. Verily, even the greatest found I - all-too-human!”

This “greatest” man is not the best man beyond good and evil, but the best man as opposed as the most “evil”:

Ye highest men who have come within my ken! This is my doubt of you, and my secret laughter: I suspect ye would call my Superman - a devil!
Ah, I became tired of those highest and best ones: from their “height” did I long to be up, out, and away to the Superman!"
[ibid., Of Manly Prudence.]

Nietzsche himself quotes from this passage in Ecce Homo:

"Zarathustra leaves no doubt at this point: he says that it was his insight precisely into the good, the “best,” that made him shudder at man in general; that it was from this aversion that he grew wings "to soar off into distant futures,“—he does not conceal the fact that his type of man [note the ambiguity!], a relatively superhuman type, is superhuman precisely in its relation to the good—that the good and the just would call his overman devil…”
[EH Destiny, 5.]

*“never” in the temporalinear sense.

10

How modern of you, how typical of these times, that you would think of sex as the experience of true life par excellence!

I suspect you are not thinking about the Overman at all, but about the ideal of modern man - the bonobo!

:laughing:

Sex is a means to procreation. Sexual pleasure is a means to sex as a means. Strip away the purpose of sex, and you strip away the depths of sexual pleasure. You get a superficial porn culture, like “ours”.

Sex can only be the experience of true life par excellence in the mystery of the procreative act.

11

I must express my amusement some more.

It is funny to see you want to belong to the “big boys”, Dan (posting in Satyr’s thread and all). How ironic that you’re unaware of being the perfect example of what Satyr says about machismo.

You glorify stupidity in my thread (“waste time on books and sophistication”). And you display pride at probably not going extinct (though each time you think you score with a condom on you really shoot in the net…). Let me show you what you are feeling proud of here:

“The more similar, the more ordinary people, have always had and are still having the advantage; the more select, more refined, more unique, and difficult to comprehend, are liable to stand alone; they succumb to accidents in their isolation, and seldom propagate themselves.”
[Beyond Good and Evil, section 268.]

Face it, Dan: you are proud of your mediocrity!

:laughing:

12

Back to business. The following passage shows that Nietzsche did not conceive of the Overman as an ideal:

“Not to make men “better,” not to preach morality to them in any form, as if “morality in itself,” or any ideal kind of man, were given; but to create conditions that require stronger men who for their part need, and consequently will have, a morality (more clearly: a physical-spiritual discipline) that makes them strong!”
[The Will to Power, section 981.]

Thus Nietzsche did not envision “any ideal kind of man”; what he envisioned was creating “ideal” (i.e., harsh) conditions for men:

“Away from God and gods did this will allure me; what would there be to create if there were - gods!
But to man doth it ever impel me anew, my fervent creative will; thus impelleth it the hammer to the stone.
Ah, ye men, within the stone slumbereth an image for me, the image of my visions! Ah, that it should slumber in the hardest, ugliest stone!
Now rageth my hammer ruthlessly against its prison. From the stone fly the fragments: what’s that to me?
I will complete it: for a shadow came unto me - the stillest and lightest of all things once came unto me!
The beauty of the superman came unto me as a shadow. Ah, my brethren! Of what account now are - the gods to me!”
[Zarathustra, In the Happy Isles.]

13

Sauwelios, now you’re sounding as if you’re either asexual or gay.
That’s hardly hetero.

Would you have prefered that your parents spent their time in huts far out of town writing philosophical books and essays, instead of getting it on and making your brain exist?

It was a heterosexual success which made all other mental and philosophical successes in your life possible.

14

Interesting! =D>

I’m not sure where to go with the syllogism – I’m not sure we always ought to expect Nietzsche’s thought to fit into logical containers – but the question of the Overman and his relation to reality is an interesting one.

We are still in a time such that it is possible to wonder about self-overcoming: are there any yet living who understand this? A terrible and black question – how to overcome oneself? How to become light? But this already would mean: to become light – with a sharpened edge! :astonished:

15

He would have created a better image of himself if he got to hump a good woman instead of trying to carve a rock into an image of himself.

16

Self-overcoming is for the genetic engineers, body-building athletes and deeply considering scholars whom devout much time to study and learning.

Self-overcoming is simply addition to one’s self. If it is to be a succession it must be constructive and positive, helpful and benificial, otherwise it is decadent.

17

‘Cruel’, ‘false’ and ‘without meaning’ reek too much of value judgements. Existence is, that is all that can be said definitively. It is experienced differently by different people. For some it has meaning, for some it doesn’t.
I would say it is as it is experienced.
The Greeks transformed experience from meaningless into meaningful. You could say they did so by deceiving themselves. Likewise could you say they opened their eyes.

18

Meaning and purpose is result.
All things bare result, and thus are of meaning and of purpose,
But if humans do not understand or agree with that natural process
They say it is either meaningless or no-good.

19

I don’t want to be interpreted to “want to belong to the ‘big boys,’” but doesn’t this offer an explanation as to how Zarathustra “conceives” of the Overman without becoming the Overman? That is, isn’t Zarathustra, as Nietzsche, contemplating circumstances in which man can approach reality as it is, rather than contemplating, as it is, the actual Overman? The Overman is labeled the meaning of the Earth who has truly accepted Eternal Return and is self-overcoming, but is the Overman actually described and understood by Zarathustra or Nietzsche? The way I understand the writing, it seems familiar in form to the way a Christian might illustrate God’s character or a Marxist might portray an ideal communist state; in terms of negatives, because ignorance itself is a part of the underlying thoughts.

20

I would say “without being an Overman”. But yes, excellent.