The Books/Reading Thread

[Einherjar86]

What Zeph said.

I also think that to really appreciate Nietzsche, one should read Foucault's writings on him (the essay "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" is a great place to start). Late in his career, Foucault declared himself a "Nietzschean," and many of his essays that seek to explain his own theoretical methodology also explicate Nietzsche's work very well, since Foucault is borrowing a lot from him.

For instance, Foucault borrows the concept of "genealogy" from Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals. For Foucault, Nietzsche's intention wasn't to pinpoint some pristine origin for human thought and theory, but to map the different systems of human knowledge and how we formulate them. That's why On the Genealogy of Morals doesn't attempt to construct its own moral code, but to subvert the supposed "origins" of any moral system. This is the same methodology Foucault uses in History of Madness, Discipline and Punish, The Archeology of Knowledge and most of his other works.

Here's a link to Foucault's essay:

http://web.mac.com/davidrifkind/fiu/library_files/foucault.pdf

 

[Dak]

BG&E is such a complex and multifaceted work that you have to appreciate it for its insights and not for its construction of any coherent system (which is the whole point of his philosophy). The truths he puts forth are his truths, and he says that explicitly. Not your truths nor mine.

His refutations of the dogmatic philosophies of his predecessors have plenty of merit (such as the refutation of Kant I mentioned recently) and I think the key point of the book is that Philosophers are the ones who are supposed to be ahead of the curve and the ones inventing new values for society, but he's seeing the rise of science, nihilism and egalitarianism taking over this privilege and they're on they're way to fucking everything up, degenerating humanity rather than advancing it.

Yes I can appreciate his criticisms as far as they go, even if in nothing but amusement in some cases. It is quite an enjoyable read regardless of my agreement or disagreement. I think he quite embodies the desire in my favorite quote from Thoreau, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

 

[Dak]

What Zeph said.

I also think that to really appreciate Nietzsche, one should read Foucault's writings on him (the essay "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" is a great place to start). Late in his career, Foucault declared himself a "Nietzschean," and many of his essays that seek to explain his own theoretical methodology also explicate Nietzsche's work very well, since Foucault is borrowing a lot from him.

For instance, Foucault borrows the concept of "genealogy" from Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals. For Foucault, Nietzsche's intention wasn't to pinpoint some pristine origin for human thought and theory, but to map the different systems of human knowledge and how we formulate them. That's why On the Genealogy of Morals doesn't attempt to construct its own moral code, but to subvert the supposed "origins" of any moral system. This is the same methodology Foucault uses in History of Madness, Discipline and Punish, The Archeology of Knowledge and most of his other works.

Here's a link to Foucault's essay:

http://web.mac.com/davidrifkind/fiu/library_files/foucault.pdf

I understand the sentiment, but I place an extremely low emphasis on any particular individual interpretation of another's works, and to do so with Nietzsche would be particularly ironic given his position on individual "truths".

 

[Einherjar86]

Everything's an interpretation, Dak. Michel Foucault uses a variation of Nietzsche's methdological approach, and he uses it to extremely effectual degrees. You can learn a lot more about the nuances of Nietzsche's argument by reading someone like Foucault, rather than just writing him off.

 

[Dak]

Everything's an interpretation, Dak. Michel Foucault uses a variation of Nietzsche's methdological approach, and he uses it to extremely effectual degrees. You can learn a lot more about the nuances of Nietzsche's argument by reading someone like Foucault, rather than just writing him off.

I'm not saying I would write him off. I just dislike extreme emphasis being placed on any individual interpretation of anything.

I'm well acquainted with, and thusly skeptical of that practice, coming out of a fundamentalist Baptist background.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm not saying I would write him off. I just dislike extreme emphasis being placed on any individual interpretation of anything.

If someone finds a particular methodology useful for the research he or she wants to do, then it makes perfect sense to emphasize it. Every theorist eventually takes a stance; that's how we develop discourses.

All I'm saying is that reading Foucault can help you trace the nuances and sublties of Nietzsche's work, because, as Zeph mentioned, it's far more complicated than most people make it out to be. We need to read with a critical eye, but not so critical that it inhibits us from comprehending the argument.

The accusations of anti-Semitism and misogyny are also misconstrued and controversial, since Nietzsche's sister altered his texts.

 

[Dak]

The accusations of anti-Semitism and misogyny are also misconstrued and controversial, since Nietzsche's sister altered his texts.

The accusations of anti-Semitism seem quite ridiculous considering the text on Jews in Beyond Good and Evil. He gives them high praise.

 

[Einherjar86]

Yeah, no one's really sure exactly where he stood. I think he did have some... tendencies, we could say; but I also think a lot of that comes from his German heritage (Martin Luther's writing inspired a long tradition of bigotry), and that he grappled with those issues. His thought was too critical and intelligent to completely fall prey to such illogical beliefs.

 

[Dak]

Yeah, no one's really sure exactly where he stood. I think he did have some... tendencies, we could say; but I also think a lot of that comes from his German heritage (Martin Luther's writing inspired a long tradition of bigotry), and that he grappled with those issues. His thought was too critical and intelligent to completely fall prey to such illogical beliefs.

Make what you will of this:

The Jews, however, are beyond all doubt the strongest, toughest, and purest race at present living in Europe, they know how to succeed even under the worst conditions (in fact better than under favourable ones), by means of virtues of some sort, which one would like nowadays to label as vices—owing above all to a resolute faith which does not need to be ashamed before "modern ideas", they alter only, WHEN they do alter, in the same way that the Russian Empire makes its conquest—as an empire that has plenty of time and is not of yesterday—namely, according to the principle, "as slowly as possible"! A thinker who has the future of Europe at heart, will, in all his perspectives concerning the future, calculate upon the Jews, as he will calculate upon the Russians, as above all the surest and likeliest factors in the great play and battle of forces. That which is at present called a "nation" in Europe, and is really rather a RES FACTA than NATA (indeed, sometimes confusingly similar to a RES FICTA ET PICTA), is in every case something evolving, young, easily displaced, and not yet a race, much less such a race AERE PERENNUS, as the Jews are such "nations" should most carefully avoid all hot-headed rivalry and hostility! It is certain that the Jews, if they desired—or if they were driven to it, as the anti-Semites seem to wish—COULD now have the ascendancy, nay, literally the supremacy, over Europe, that they are NOT working and planning for that end is equally certain. Meanwhile, they rather wish and desire, even somewhat importunely, to be insorbed and absorbed by Europe, they long to be finally settled, authorized, and respected somewhere, and wish to put an end to the nomadic life, to the "wandering Jew",—and one should certainly take account of this impulse and tendency, and MAKE ADVANCES to it (it possibly betokens a mitigation of the Jewish instincts) for which purpose it would perhaps be useful and fair to banish the anti-Semitic bawlers out of the country. One should make advances with all prudence, and with selection, pretty much as the English nobility do It stands to reason that the more powerful and strongly types of new Germanism could enter into relation with the Jews with the least hesitation, for instance, the nobleman officer from the Prussian border it would be interesting in many ways to see whether the genius for money and patience (and especially some intellect and intellectuality—sadly lacking in the place referred to) could not in addition be annexed and trained to the hereditary art of commanding and obeying—for both of which the country in question has now a classic reputation But here it is expedient to break off my festal discourse and my sprightly Teutonomania for I have already reached my SERIOUS TOPIC, the "European problem," as I understand it, the rearing of a new ruling caste for Europe.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (2011-03-24). Beyond Good and Evil (p. 93). . Kindle Edition.

 

[Zephyrus]

He shits on everyone, not just the Jews.

 

[Dak]

He shits on everyone, not just the Jews.

I thought his disgust with the English was on another level. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

[Zephyrus]

Let me qualify that. He likes Heraclitus, Emperor Frederick II, and Napoleon.

 

[Einherjar86]

Make what you will of this:

Interesting.

I seem to recall him making some pretty explicit anti-Semitic remarks in Genealogy of Morals.

 

[Dak]

Interesting.

I seem to recall him making some pretty explicit anti-Semitic remarks in Genealogy of Morals.

I would have to read GoM to know what you are refferring to. I think it is possible to make a positive statement about characteristics of an ethnicity while still bashing parts of their culture, and on the whole not be "anti-________", or also vice versa.

 

[Zephyrus]

I found this on my father's bookshelf. He had to read it in 1967 when he was a freshman at MIT. It puts forth the cosmological and teleological arguments (a posteriori) for the existence of God as presented (with lengthy excerpts) by Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas, with critiques by Hume and Kant, then with some rejoinders by modern thinkers. A good refresher:

 

[Einherjar86]

Your dad went to MIT? Fucking sweet. I'll be across the river from there in a couple months.

 

[Zephyrus]

BU? My mother went to grad school there. Too bad you'll arrive there just when I'm gone to Iowa.

My father got a degree in Computer Engineering and made a career in software development, rode the start-up wave of the 70's and made it big in the 80's at Digital before it got bought out by HP.

 

[Einherjar86]

Finished Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance; I enjoyed it. It's a great book for those who enjoy intellectual literature, and those looking for a good story, although the segments with the first-person narrator can get a bit tedious at times. He goes on for pages and pages about the philosophy of history, technology, and artistic revolution. Fine stuff, if you're into reading about that. He also quotes a lot of Walter Benjamin, which I'll take any day.

I don't have any plans for fiction now, but I've been really digging into some essays from this collection:

The more of Foucault's work I read, the more I'm convinced that this guy new more about the movement and structure of historical change than lots of other thinkers from the twentieth century; he talks about literature, politics, social institutions (i.e. hospitals, prisons, schools, etc.) and so much else, and draws it all together convincingly well.

His essays on language, especially "Language to Infinity," "The Thought of the Outside," "Different Spaces," and "What is an Author?" are particularly riveting.

 

[Zephyrus]

Georges Dumezil, Archaic Roman Religion

 

[Einherjar86]

I just saw your post above Zeph; yeah, Boston U. In preparation for graduate study, I've been honing my analytical skills with this fucking ungainly, sometimes incomprehensible, biblical wallop of a book:

It's both thrilling and tantalizing, like kinky dream-sex wherein you're totally stimulated but continually interrupted...