Nietzsche and Assertiveness

[Anonymous No.7184285]

Today I began my interesting journey into /philosophy/

Picked up a copy of Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche at my uni library and was fascinated by how interesting his writing is. Something about how above-all-else writing seems to intrigue me - it's sort of like Ayn Rand mixed with Dostoevsky, if you feel me.

I do have some questions, though, which came about from this:

>Am I the only one who finds taking notes while reading the text easier to understand?
>Are there any other notable books/writers (not necessarily philosophy-related) that are similar to Nietzsche and Rand? I really like that style
>Am I making a mistake by not reading Greek philosophers first? I understand some references while the others I find on google

[Anonymous No.7184310]

>>7184285
Am I being baited?

[Anonymous No.7184314]

>>7184310
that's mean anon

[Anonymous No.7184320]

>>7184310
No? Did I say something bait-worthy?

[Anonymous No.7184333]

>>7184320
>it's sort of like Ayn Rand mixed with Dostoevsk

[Anonymous No.7184335]

>>7184320

Yup, bait. :^)

[Anonymous No.7184337]

What are the best epub versions around to read his stuff?

[Anonymous No.7184340]

>>7184310
Don't assume that users unfamiliar with /lit/ culture are b8rs

[Anonymous No.7184343]

>>7184320
you come across as really plebeian

are you /high school/ by any chance

ignore the patricians though, at least you're reading. just read whatever interests you, you don't have to start with the greeks necessarily, but do read them.

[Anonymous No.7184350]

>>7184343
>uni library

[Twiggy !zf/ZW7mGp6 No.7184351]

https://youtu.be/2fTnEB_r_6Q

[Anonymous No.7184354]

You'd probably like Heraclitus, Augustine, Aurelius, Machiavelli, the Upanishads, and Confucius. Also, there's always more Nietzsche to read!

[Anonymous No.7184370]

>>7184285
How do you write notes?

[Anonymous No.7184397]

>>7184333

I should probably explain. It's Rand larger-than-life descriptions plus Dosto's beautiful writing.
>>7184370
I go part by part summarizing each part trying to grasp is beliefs and thoughts

[Anonymous No.7184863]

OP's comparison isnt that frivolous. FN himself liked the label "aristocratic radicalism" (Brandes).
Schopenhauer has similar intensity. FN modeled his style a lot after him, like the guideline that the text should be easily translatable to latin without losing its meaning. but what schopenhauer did even better than nietzsche is hiding his ego, even the most onesided polemic still sounds like a natural event described by a detached observer.

[Anonymous No.7184871]

>>7184863
>OP's comparison isnt that frivolous. FN himself liked the label "aristocratic radicalism" (Brandes).

Except Nietzsche is very anti-capitalist and mocks those who dedicate their lives to acquiring capital.

[Anonymous No.7184877]

>>7184871
yeah, and dostoyevsky was the opposite of an atheist. op is obviously comparing them on a more meta level.

[Anonymous No.7184890]

>>7184285
>>7184871
Oh, and for OP:

1) Yeah, you should always be taking notes when reading philosophy; both internal annotations and external notebooks.
2) Depends which specific stylistic traits you're looking for.
3) Well, yes and no. Nietzsche certainly requires familiarity with his predecessors, but on the other hand it's not *that* difficult to look up references as they come up and read their primary texts later. I started my philosophy studies with Nietzsche as well. Keep in mind, however, it's very common for those without the knowledge of the history of philosophy (and plenty who do!) to misread Nietzsche. For example, he's not against all morality as many of those inattentive and mistaken readers will gather from the text, just Kantian-style capital-Morality.

[Anonymous No.7184896]

>>7184877
>yeah, and dostoyevsky was the opposite of an atheist.

Well, at least Nietzsche is similar to Dost. in their psychological insights, whereas with Rand there's nothing similar between the two at all. But OP explained what he meant later anyway.

[Anonymous No.7184908]

>>7184890
he was definitley moral anti-realist.
it's just not verifiable to the last detail whether he was also an anticognitivist although i think it's the most plausible interpretation.

[Anonymous No.7184917]

>>7184908
Oh definitely. I personally read him as a fictionalist. I was just pointing out the common error, often by people unfamiliar with philosophy, to read him as a moral nihilist who rejects morality altogether. An understandable mistake, of course, but fundamentally wrong and intensely detrimental to understanding N.'s project as a whole.

I am, however, sympathetic to realist readings of N. because his rhetoric and thought often suggest a sort of 'privileged perspecivism'---that is, while there are no matters of truth only interpretations, it can be taken as there are 'better' interpretations as a matter-of-fact.

[Anonymous No.7184918]

>>7184397
Isn't that rather time consuming?

[Anonymous No.7184920]

>he's not against all morality

[Anonymous No.7184922]

>>7184917
yeah, sort of "it's not truth but we can still agree on it"

[Anonymous No.7184924]

>he's anti capitalist

[Anonymous No.7184926]

>he's anti capitalist part deux

[Anonymous No.7184933]

>he doesn't like fruits

[Anonymous No.7184935]

>>7184920
He's clearly ranting about slave morality here.

>>7184924
>>7184926
http://www.kritike.org/journal/issue_10/kilivris_december2011.pdf

>>7184918
Yes, but philosophy ought to be read very carefully, always on alert with mental faculties actively working towards the greatest level of understanding of the text and philosopher. Notetaking aids in this.

[Anonymous No.7184942]

>>7184920
If he is, there's no evidence of it here.

1. He is speaking about how morality acts generally, but this doesn't mean he has a problem with specific moralities.

2. To him, morality is indispensable for those who are not strong enough to be benevolent without it. Who's nature is not monstrous enough to gain respect without the cloak of morality. Nietzsche's message here is nothing other than bittersweet.

3. A person can be with or without morality, but to some morality is indispensable and that's what he talks about, "to the extent that morality is indispensable". Pay attention to the direction of the causal arrows.

>>7184924
>>7184926
I'm not going to say that he is an anti-capitalist but the will to power is very much different to the will towards say accumulation which is the very spirit of capitalism. One is constantly creative and destructive, the other focuses on preserving, hoarding and to an extent is reliant on others.

[Anonymous No.7184963]

>>7184942
Better said than I on the first post, though I gotta comment on:

>3. A person can be with or without morality,

Here the distinction between morality in a general sense and Morality in a more Kantian, absolutist, life-denying way (as I was talking about earlier) is important. Yes, a person can definitely be without the latter type, but for morality taken in the general sense of having values, distinction of 'good' and 'bad,' etc. people are 'with' morality by the very nature of expression of the Will to Power.

[Anonymous No.7184986]

i think what nietzsche meant was that the majority of society never goes deeper than "why should we obey morals"? superficial clothes of moralism out of fear.

and for every bit of writing that could be interpreted as procapitalist there are dozens of aphorisms that point towards the opposite("those who dont have 2/3 of the day to themselves are slaves", "superrich people are boring but have a fixed idea so they keep accumulating"), his disdain for rich capitalists and modern work life resembles schopenhauer's.
btw his antisocialism didnt mean, that he was pro-capitalism. he blamed capitalists for creating their own resistance movement.

btw just posting quotes, without own interpretation, as if there's only one possible way to infer something from them, is pretty pleb-tier.
>>7184920
>>7184924
>>7184926

[Anonymous No.7185007]

>>7184963
I think I agree with this.

[Anonymous No.7185042]

>he's not against all morality part deux

That one dude who thinks only capitalist work...
I got bad new for you, in your communist utopia you will have to work there too.

Not only that but those part you are quoting are not aphorism but whole paragraph. You are reducing them to one line to push your agenda.

>posting whole text is wrong, You should take one line out of his context and add your own interpretation(agenda) to it, otherwise you are pleb.

Ok.....

[Anonymous No.7185064]

>>7185042
Capitalism is more than an economic system buddy, it's an entire ideology and world-view in itself, which nietzsche clearly doesn't share.

[Anonymous No.7185072]

>>7185064
not that's communism

>communism is more than an economic system buddy, it's an entire ideology and world-view in itself, which nietzsche clearly doesn't share.

[Anonymous No.7185073]

>>7185072
They both are, it's not exclusionary.

[Anonymous No.7185093]

>>7185042

>I got bad new for you, in your communist utopia you will have to work there too.
is this youtube comment section?

moral realism is not the only possible moralism in the zoo of meta-ethics. and his prose is sometimes too ambiguous to pin him down on one position in this regard. i'm not reducing anything, it's you who blends out context. nietzsche attacked certain moral realists like plato and french moralists of 18th century and regularly contrasts himself as "immoralist" against them half-seriously.

http://nietzsche.holtof.com/reader/browse-daybreak-quotes-22-date.html
>103 There are two kinds of deniers of morality. 'To deny morality' this can mean, first: to deny that the moral motives which men claim have inspired their actions really have done so it is thus the assertion that morality consists of words and is among the coarser or more subtle deceptions (especially self-deceptions) which men practise, and is perhaps so especially in precisely the case of those most famed for virtue. Then it can mean: to deny that moral judgments are based on truths. Here it is admitted that they really are motives of action, but that in this way it is errors which, as the basis of all moral judgment, impel men to their moral actions. This is my point of view: though I should be the last to deny that in very many cases there is some ground for suspicion that the other point of view that is to say, the point of view of La Rochefoucauld and others who think like him may also be justified and in any event of great general application. Thus I deny morality as I deny alchemy, that is, I deny their premises: but I do not deny that there have been alchemists who believed in these premises and acted in accordance with them. I also deny immorality: not that countless people feel themselves to be immoral, but there is any true reason so to feel. It goes without saying that I do not deny unless I am a fool that many actions called immoral ought to be avoided and resisted, or that many called moral ought to be done and encouraged but I think the one should be encouraged and the other avoided for other reasons than hitherto. We have to learn to think differently in order at last, perhaps very late on, to attain even more: to feel differently.

[Anonymous No.7185101]

>>7185093
How about you stop reading really bad translations.

[Anonymous No.7185108]

>>7185101
thx, but i'm reading german originals. and the translation wasnt a garbled version either.
btw why dont you just post longer excerpts, maybe whole pdfs. you win discussions automatically with this method.

[Anonymous No.7185131]

>>7185108
umm my pic was backing up your quote. Except my pic is not a very bad translation, you can actually understand where he is getting to instead of making up your own interpretation. Do you even understand what you post?

There's a difference between morality the ideal and morality the feeling.

Morality the ideal is bullshit, just like alchemy, but ppl will still kill for morality.

Just like you can prove a morality wrong, but it won't go away.

[Anonymous No.7185150]

>>7185131
thats what is commonly meant by moral realism. notice, how i mentioned it in beginning my post. yet you somehow still disagree with "my own interpretation".
i have no patience with shallow plebs like you.

[Anonymous No.7185161]

more about nietzsche's ambiguity from a less disreputable source than myself:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche-moral-political/
>To describe Nietzsche as a moral anti-realist is so far only to ascribe to him a metaphysical view: namely, that there are no objective facts about what is morally right and wrong. It is a somewhat vexed interpretive question whether we should also ascribe to Nietzsche a particular view about the semantics of moral judgment, a topic about which no philosopher prior to the 20th century had a worked–out view. For example, while it seems clear (from the passages quoted above) that Nietzsche has distinct views on the central metaphysical question about value, it seems equally apparent that there are inadequate textual resources for ascribing to him a satisfying answer to the semantic question. Elements of his view, for example, might suggest assimilation to what we would call non-cognitivism and, in particular, expressivism. For example, in describing master and Christian morality as “opposite forms in the optics of value [Werthe],” Nietzsche goes on to assert that, as opposite “optical” forms, they “are…immune to reasons and refutations. One cannot refute Christianity; one cannot refute a disease of the eye…. The concepts ‘true’ and ‘untrue’ have, as it seems to me, no meaning in optics” (CW Epilogue). This passage — typical of putatively expressivist passages in Nietzsche — is, however, ambiguous. For the passage could mean that “true” and “false” are meaningless not because evaluative judgments are essentially non-cognitive, but rather because competing evaluative views are immune to the effects of reasoning. There may be rational grounds for thinking one view better than another, perhaps for thinking one true and the other false, but since reasoning has so little impact in this context, it is “meaningless” (in the sense of pointless) to raise issues of truth and falsity.

[Anonymous No.7185166]

>there no moral facts, there are only moral judgements

[Anonymous No.7185196]

>>7185150
Nobody mentioned anything about moral realism except you for... Well I don't know why..

Nietzsche talks about morality as a biological mechanism. And that was my point too. Are you taking once again, 5 words of what I said and ignoring the whole, to come up with your own interpretation of what I said?

>>7185161
It's not an ambiguous passage.... see >>7184920

He has a ton of those, I read similar things from the gay science, the case of wagner, genealogy, ecce homo.

[Anonymous No.7185218]

>>7185196
>well I don't know why
you in a nutshell
oblivious to main concepts of philosophy and the main discussion itt, yet as soon as you see an opportunity you spam nietzsche threads everyday with your fucking "dont believe kaufmann!" and "ludovici!". on and on. "coming up with own interpretations", "pushing agenda", "get a better translation". bullshit bingo.

if i google "morality as a biological mechanism" i get 3 results, one of them is you. the other two are
>Personhood For Chimp? - d2jsp Topic - d2jsp Forums
>Development of conscience - HolisticEducator.Com
srsly, i'm not interested in anything you have to say

[Anonymous No.7185228]

>>7185218
wow youre mad.

"a question which interests me quite differently, upon which
the “salvation of mankind” depends more than any theological
curiosity: the question of nutrition. For everyday use, one may
formulate it thus: “How precisely must you nourish yourself in order
to attain the maximum of strength, of virtu in the Renaissance style, of
moraline-free virtue?” "

How come I can keep backing up my bullshit tho... It's like it's not bullshit!

[Anonymous No.7185240]

>>7185228
I think the other anon is being a bit uncharitable---it's clear what you mean by "morality [is] a biological mechanism"---but on the other hand, I'm not quite sure who or what you're arguing against and what point you're trying to make. Everyone in this thread already agrees Nietzsche is an anti-realist. From your earlier greentexts it seemed like you were trying to claim N. is rallying against morality in all its forms, but now that does not appear to be quite right. What are you trying to say?

[Anonymous No.7185289]

>>7184285
>it's sort of like Ayn Rand mixed with Dostoevsky, if you feel me.

What a troll...

[Anonymous No.7185315]

Not OP. Rand and Nietzsche make a lot of the same statements. It's undeniable.
I swear 90% of people here don't know anything about the topic they are making a post about; they just repeat what they read on /lit/ here once. They have no opinion of their own, because they don't actually read.

[Anonymous No.7185318]

>>7185315
Well, if you pick two random authors, they will for
sure display similarities:it doesn't mean they think the same way.