The Gay Science #11 (III.114-III.124)

GWF Hegel is one of the most difficult philosophers in the western canon, but today we’ attempt to demystify him. In this episode, we’ll break down Hegel’s phenomenology, the dialectic, and the Hegelian understanding of desire. Our concrete entrypoint into the thought of Hegel is his famous chapter, The Master-Slave Dialectic. Deleuze argued that Nietzsche’s work constitutes a rejection of Hegel: his master and slave morality can be read as a direct rebuke to Hegel’s interpretation of this very same power relation. In order to prepare for our reading of Deleuze, we’re going to first tangle with Hegel on his own terms, and understand the very different way in which he approaches the questions of consciousness, morality and perspective. In researching this episode, Nathan Widder’s lectures on Hegel and Deleuze were very helpful, as was Justin Burke’s.

5 Dec 20231h 18min

Today we continue with our inquiry into rhetoric and dialectic, with Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig, like Nietzsche, saw himself as a modern-day Sophist, and part of his work was the rescue of the Sophistic school from the ill repute visited upon them by the Socratics. Perhaps more expansively, Pirsig devotes his philosophical work to the question, “What is quality?”, drawing on the Greek concept of arete, or excellence. His philosophical ideas do not come to us through a dispassionate treatise, however, but through an autobiographical novel. Pirsig was treated with electroshock therapy, leaving him with a new personality, and the feeling that the person he once was is dead: he merely happens to carry the blurry memories of another man. While on a motorcycle trip with his son, Pirsig struggles to unify the dichotomy between classical and romantic, between substance and form, between the two personalities within himself, and between himself and his son. This work remains one of the most important philosophical contributions to American literature in the 20th century, and hopefully today I can show all of you why this work of “pop philosophy” is one of my favorite books, and one to which I regularly return.

28 Nov 20231h 25min

In my second conversation with William, we discuss the possibilities for language-learning models, the coming of artificial general intelligence, why the writers may be striking against creative destruction in the economy, and the legitimacy of A.I. art and writing.

25 Nov 20231h 14min

This episode concerns the autobiographical essays in Ecce Homo, which Kaufmann has called, Nietzsche’s Apology. Similarly to Socrates, Nietzsche gives a defense of himself and his career: a defense against being “mistaken”, or “misunderstood”. Like Socrates, who came with a special mission for Athens, Nietzsche comes with the greatest demand ever made of mankind. Central to our analysis is the physiologism of Nietzsche, and the rejection of idealism in favor of brute reality. The physiological is reinterpreted as the root cause of the psychological, and Nietzsche uses his life as the basis and the chief example of how the body determines who one is fated to become. Nietzsche expresses a profound gratitude even for his illness: that which allowed him to gain a subtler eye, to overcome pity, to recognize pathologies.

21 Nov 20231h 14min

Socrates was a famous opponent of the Sophists, the teachers of rhetoric instead of truth - and yet, in his legal defense, he employs the techniques of rhetoric and displays a mastery of oratory. In a society that distrusted irony and regarded it as a form of dishonesty, Socrates uses the art of persuasion in a manner that is anti-persuasive: a brilliant irony that few of his judges would have understood, and resented if they had. While Nietzsche’s later period is characterized by savage criticism of Socrates, Nietzsche describes Socrates as a heroic conqueror of death, in his lectures at Basel. Today we’re going to dissect the rhetoric, the irony, and the deeper significance of Socrates’ famous defense at his trial: the act of commitment to virtue in spite of the consequences, in defiance of the conventions of society and the sentiments of the majority. Episode art: Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David

14 Nov 20231h 13min

In this episode, I attempt to give a fresh biographical account of Nietzsche's life, by examining his life in light of his Three Metamorphoses of the Spirit, found in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In the course of this biography, using Nietzsche as our concrete example, we discuss the abstract meaning of the Camel, the Lion & the Child, and where I see these transformations appearing in the course of Nietzsche's life and thought. We've covered Nietzsche's biography in many previous episodes, often focusing in on a particular time or event in Nietzsche's life: Nietzsche's wandering throughout Europe (episode 2), the headstone he bought for his father (episode 4), the departure of academia and break with his friends (episode 24), the complex relationship with Wagner (episodes 36-37). Rather than examining any one part of his biography in granular detail, we're going to try and take in the entire picture, and see to what degree we can say that the Camel, the Lion & the Child are stages in Nietzsche's own story. Central to this analysis is Nietzsche's great struggle with the "problem of life", as put forward by Christianity, Schopenhauer, and the Socratics. Their solutions always incline towards a rejection of our nature and the submission of life to reason, virtue, or asceticism. Nietzsche's long quest is to discover an affirmation of life and desire, in contrast to the need to 'redeem' life from suffering. This mirrors his long struggle with an illness that tormented him throughout his life. Nietzsche's project culminates not in a condemnation of life on these grounds, but in his embrace of a life of agony.

7 Nov 20231h 24min

A Merry All Hallow’s Eve to Ye All! There will be a regular episode this Friday, but I can’t resist the opportunity to release an episode on the day of Halloween. Mynaa and I discuss a Persian novel concerning Nietzschean existential horror! Sadegh Hedayat grew up in the Iran of the Shah, and was influenced by western writers such as Kafka & Hesse. The urban legends surrounding this text in Iran were oft-repeated from parents to children: "Don't read this book; those who read it commit suicide."  The Blind Owl is the story of an unnamed narrator who is haunted by an elusive, metaphysical scene that he witnesses by happenstance. The narrative is unreliable, and the recursive loops of his madness are woven into the repetitive phrases and descriptions; the characters are all copies of one another; the events of the novel are, in effect, the same narrative repeated ad nauseum. Central to the plot is the long illness and drug abuse of the narrator, and an endless downward spiral of insanity. Hedayat's writing often reflects existential horror, and could be compared to H.P. Lovecraft. Mynaa even suggested that certain passages resemble those in Ecce Homo. We do a review with minimal spoilers for the first fifteen minutes or so, then what follows is a very spoilery review where we analyze, speculate, and ramble about the imagery of this mysterious novel.

31 Okt 20232h 2min

Welcome to all free spirits, wanderers, madmen and godless anti-metaphysicians! It is high time to drink from the waters of Lethe, and forget all that came before in this podcast. Today, we embark on a new phase of our voyage of inquiry, concerning Nietzsche's views on the origins of self-consciousness. We'll consider his remarks on memory and forgetfulness, found in his early essay Use and Abuse of History for Life, in the second essay of Genealogy of Morality, as well as some passages in Human, All Too Human & Wanderer and His Shadow. The expansion of self-consciousness is linked with punishment, revenge, debt, and the demands of civilization upon mankind. Episode art: Gustave Dore - The River of Lethe

24 Okt 20231h 15min