Untimely Reflections #30: Weltgeist - Aesthetics of Schopenhauer & Nietzsche

In this next episode on Beyond Good & Evil, we discuss the simplification of the world out of a psychological need, and the ways in which we have sought for “Being” in the soul, the ego, the will, and in the materialistic atom. All were expressions of the ”one ruling thought” of the drive doing the philosophizing. Nietzsche reconceptualizes thinking and willing as inseparable, and declares psychology to be the route to the deepest questions. We conclude with a look at the first two passages of part two, The Free Spirit, in which Nietzsche advocates a departure from solemn seriousness and martyrdom for the sake of truth, in exchange for love of uncertainty and a sense of humor. Episode art: Jean Delville - The God-Man

20 Juni 20231h 57min

My conversation with horror author John Hunt, an Amazon bestseller in his genre and veteran of the homicide division in the Canadian police. John and I cover a range of topics in this discussion, from why he loves Nietzsche, to the role of revenge and justice in his stories as well as horror and suspenseful writing more broadly. John and I gush over our mutual love of Tarantino, and his pick for his favorite among Tarantino's films may surprise you. Other topics include the best ways to show rather than tell about a character's inner turmoil, the theory of drives and how it plays out in John's stories, and what it is that makes Stephen King so damn good. I included quite a bit of banter at the end where we continued talking long after I'd planned on ending the conversation, but most of it was interesting and genuine so I left it in. John's overarching commitment in his work is to realism: in honestly portraying the brute reality as he sees it, without trying to sugarcoat or hide the truth. So glad to have had John on the show, and we can add him to a number of interesting characters with very different life paths who have joined us on Untimely Reflections. John's website: https://johnhuntfiction.ca/ John on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/John-Hunt/author/B01MUHIIOA?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true John on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnhuntfiction2537

16 Juni 20231h 29min

We continue our exegesis of Beyond Good and Evil, and cover the bulk of On the Prejudices of Philosophers. This section involves Nietzsche’s analysis of various philosophers for whom he has admiration or which exercised a great influence on the philosophical world, but he approaches them with the method of treating their philosophy as an involuntary, unconscious memoir. Episode art: An artistic representation of Epictetus, courtesy of Wikimedia Common.

13 Juni 20231h 48min

Today we begin our analysis of Beyond Good & Evil. This episode concerns the preface, which is perhaps my favorite of Nietzsche’s, and the first five sections of chapter one: On the Prejudices of Philosophers. As always I move incredibly slowly during the opening sections because of their incredible importance for understanding the entirety of the work, but promise to move more quickly as we proceed. I’m not sure how many parts this series will require; we’re going to make it up as we go along. Episode art: Giovanni di Paolo -- The Creation of the World and the Expulsion from Paradise

6 Juni 20231h 57min

Update about my life, and some musings on AI, aliens, the supernatural, and why I don’t get involved in contemporary politics.

30 Maj 20231h 19min

In this episode, I attempt to sum up the relevance of Nietzsche's political insights to the modern day, insofar as his challenge to our values becomes an entrypoint for us to begin the work of revaluating our values. In this piece, I argue that Nietzsche's goal for his readership is for them to find freedom in the unity of their beliefs and actions, and acceptance of humanity and the natural world for what they are rather than what we'd like them to be. Nietzsche invites us to a trusting acceptance of all that is necessary in the world, such that we may not live with the burden of having to morally condemn mankind, nor the human condition. He stands forever with the realism of Thucydides against Plato. Whether accept Nietzsche's prescriptive statements or not is irrelevant to whether we have taken seriously his contentions in the realm of values, and whether we can discover any motivating principles for humanity outside of the will to power. Nietzsche's challenge to us spurs us to consider what consequences such a shift in values might entail. At the end, we return to some of the concepts from the very beginning of the podcast, and examine how Nietzsche's view of politics and history is another manifestation of this same 'world acceptance' (or, 'amor fati') that is demanded by the abolition of the true world. Or, how Nietzsche characterizes his free spirits as 'tempters and attempters', those who experiment with the strange, wicked, and questionable questions. This is the path he lays out for the philosophers of the future, and as we are now in the time when the crisis of nihilism seems to be coming to a head, I assert that we ourselves are the philosophers he was speaking to. However you answer these questions of value, Nietzsche demands that we follow our own path, and adopt only those truths to which we have a right. The philosophers of the future will therefore be accustomed to solitude, and to a sense of distance from his fellow men. We are the types who enjoy "wandering in forbidden country", which is the way Nietzsche defines his understanding of philosophy in Ecce Homo. Every philosopher who takes it on themselves to be a creator and self-legislator is already their own revaluation of values. The time is noon. Thank you to everyone for supporting the podcast! Here's to a wonderful season three! A very special thank you to all of my patrons. I wish to express the deepest love and gratitude to you, and my delight that so many have connected in such a deep way with the podcast. I can't wait to explore so many fascinating topics in the future with all of you! Episode art - A Futurescape by Robert McCall (1981)

16 Maj 20231h 16min

What does eternal recurrence mean in the historical sense? Nietzsche invites us to explore that question in his raising of the Problem of Science, and the notion of conflict as central to life. Today, in the penultimate episode of the season, we'll take a look into a section from Will to Power called "The History of European Nihilism", in which Nietzsche takes on the history of Europe from the perspective of his cultural/moral analysis, and charts the history of the descent into materialism as it played out in Enlightenment Europe. In his Pre-Platonic lectures, Nietzsche suggests a parallel between the project of Greek philosophy, and the progression that played out in the centuries of the Enlightenment. The Pre-Platonic Greeks experimented with materialist philosophy, eventually culminating in the atomism of Democritus and the arrival of Socrates, the ultimate logician - soon, the values of their traditions, and their long-held superstitions came to be questionable. The values of the society were undermined, and a crisis of nihilism set it. Nietzsche believes that this played out over the course of several centuries in Europe: in the form of the Reformation, then the scientific dawning of the Enlightenment rationalism with Descartes at the forefront. He comments on many of the figures we have covered this season, such as Kant, Rousseau, Schopenhauer, and others, as manifestations of the spirit of their times, who signified shifts or turning points in the European psyche. He reimagines Kant as a sentimentalist towards the concept of duty, a twin spirit with the moralistic Rousseau, who rebelled against the self-legislating rationalism of the 17th century and instead opted to be guided by feeling. Now, in Nietzsche's 19th century, he sees the ascendance of a more honest yet more gloomy period of European thought. The animalian in man is fully uncovered and embraced, and man becomes understood as a historical creature. This has dire consequences, bringing on the dissolution of society and the disbelief in all past metaphysical and moral comforts. But, as a result, the European psyche has the opportunity to enter a period of "Active Nihilism", and overcome the previous dogmas as part of a revaluation of all values. In spite of his predictions of coming great wars, Nietzsche is hopeful that the conditions of decay will lay infinite possibilities before us for the future. Contrary to many who warn of degeneration or decadence, Nietzsche cleaves to the conviction that with decay comes new growth, and that periods of dissolution are always periods of great creativity. This is, somewhat paradoxically, one of the more hopeful passages of Nietzsche, which acquiesces both to his belief in eternal recurrence, as much to the hope for something new in the future. Episode art: George Frederic Watts - Hope

9 Maj 20231h 47min

We all know that Nietzsche said, "What does not kill me makes me stronger", but it is less often remembered that he began that aphorism with the caveat, "From the military school of life". We find, in fact, that many of Nietzsche's powerful insights on self-knowledge, self-control, and the search for truth come from this same military school of life. Nietzsche celebrates war and warriors throughout his work, most notably in passages of book one of Thus Spoke Zarathustra which often beguile first time readers coming at Nietzsche's work from a humanist or existentialist bent. How could a philosopher of intellectual freedom and independence tell his audience to "die in battle and squander a great soul"? How could he say that a war is not made just by the cause, but the cause made just by the war? Could Nietzsche actually have been pro-war? As a matter of fact, views on war that were on the whole positive were not uncommon in the 19th century, and Nietzsche is no exception to this. Of course, with Nietzsche, it goes deeper, insofar as the influence of Heraclitus and his conception of strife as a creative force inspired Nietzsche. In his view, all the world is war, and every aspect of existence is a manifestation of this unceasing conflict. This war exists on the physical level, on the social level, within our ideas, and within ourselves. Life itself is a bella omnium contra omnes, the war of all against all. With this war as the revealed character of the phenomenal world, Nietzsche argues for accepting war as a fact of life: even as its fundamental character. Episode art: Nietzsche in his military uniform, circa 1864

2 Maj 20231h 27min