Author Topic: Why take him seriously?  (Read 2173 times)

Offline LostInAShaftOfSunlight

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Why take him seriously?
« on: 03/03/09 @ 07:43 »
After all this about truth, useful lies, prejudices, and seeing some of our most primitive concepts (laws, the self, willing itself) as human artifice, why should we take Nietzsche seriously?  Isn''t this all just his confession?  

How is he pitching the will to power?  As some kind of useful fiction?  
Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn.

Offline Gareth Southwell

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Re: Why take him seriously?
« Reply #1 on: 04/03/09 @ 10:11 »
There is a tension, I think, between Nietzsche''s critique of other philosophers and his own philosophy: how are others "prejudiced" and he is not? I''ve thought about this a lot, and I think the point is that, whilst other philosophers are unaware of their own prejudices, Nietzsche is. So, I don''t think he would deny that his philosophy is an expression of his own will to power - in fact, that is the very shift that he wants us to recognise: we are not looking for objectivity, but rather a higher expression of who we want to be. Objectivity plays a part in this, but in a revised sense (as a guide to want we want, as opposed to some external measure of things).

This said, there is a deep philosophical problem here: doesn''t this make Nietzsche''s position immune to criticism? Anyone who argues against him simply has a different will to power. This is a problem, but it is one that Nietzsche highlights as opposed to creates. I think a lot of his criticisms of the supposed objectivity of philosophy are fascinating, and quite strong. However, if any of them are true, then it suggests that objectivity is not something that we can presume exists. Nietzsche therefore represents a challenge to all subsequent philosophers - some of which continue to deny his relevance (a minority, I think), but most of which have accepted his challenge (in different ways).
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