Reconsidering Nietzsche–Six Questions. Julian Young is a well-known scholar of nineteenth- and twentieth-century German philosophy.
I put six questions to him about his new book, Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography. 1. Most books that address Nietzsche’s life and writings discuss his difficult relationship with Richard Wagner, but your book deals more systematically than others do with Nietzsche’s ideas about music, and the book’s website even includes a series of pieces composed by Nietzsche. How did Nietzsche’s ideas about music affect his philosophy? “Without music life would be an error” is a great T-shirt slogan, but its meaning is far from obvious. Music … frees me from myself, it sobers me up from myself, as though I survey the scene from a great distance … It is very strange. Nietzsche’s first book, The Birth of Tragedy, dedicated to Richard Wagner, is constructed around the duality between the “Apollonian” and the “Dionysian.”
Later on, Nietzsche realized that not all music is Dionysian. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Nietzsche & Buddhism: A Study in Nihilism & Ironic Affinities. Nietzsche and Buddhism: A Study in Nihilism and Ironic Affinities By Morrison, Robert G.
Reviewed by David R. Loy Asian Philosophy Vol. 8, No. 2 (July 1998) pp. 129-131 Copyright 1998 Journals Oxford Ltd. (UK) Comparing Nietzsche with Buddhism has become something of a cottage industry, and for good reason: there seems to be a deep resonance between them. Problems arise when one tries to fill this in. Although there are important continuities in both Buddhism and Nietzsche, of course, their internal unity and self-consistency cannot just be assumed One must address (or at least acknowledge) the inner dissembling tensions within Nietzsche, for whom a philosophy can be written to hide a philosophy.
Morrison shows that Nietzsche was interested in early Buddhism, not Mahayana, which gives his comparison the focus it needs. With these qualifications out of the way, I can say that this book is nonetheless the best work I have read on the topic. On Truth & Lies in a Nonmoral Sense. The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. --Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. - The World is Too Much With Us, William Wordsworth (1789) Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing.
That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. What is a word? The Twilight of The Idols. The error of confusing cause and effect.
There is no more dangerous error than that of mistaking the effect for the cause: I call it the real corruption of reason. Yet this error belongs among the most ancient and recent habits of mankind: it is even hallowed among us and goes by the name of “religion” or “morality.” Every single sentence which religion and morality formulate contains it; priests and legislators of moral codes are the originators of this corruption of reason. I give an example. Everybody knows the book of the famous Cornaro in which he recommends his slender diet as a recipe for a long and happy life—a virtuous one too. The Four Great Errors. The Four Great Errors German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in his work Twilight of the Idols, perhaps primarily known for the immortal maxim: "Out of life's school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
", pointed out the four great errors which we constantly use to misinterpret reality and thus create many illusions that are used to show the world in a more convenient light for us. The first error, which is also the most dangerous one, is mistaking the cause and effect, or in another words, mistaking the effect for the cause; an error that is the most recent and yet the most ancient habit of humankind, as Nietzsche says. This error is even praised by people as religion and morality, which always try to limit them with encouragement or prohibition of certain actions.
Beyond Good & Evil: Prelude to a Future Philosophy. IEP on Nietzsche.