Nietzsche and the like (1 Viewer)

[Farnarcle]

I was just wondering if anybody had read anything on Nietzsche, Plato or Kant lately that they would reccommend.

Preferably, something simple to start with, of course.

 

[GJ_JOE]

are you doing philosophy of the enlightenment or something like that?

i recently had to read a chapter of Kant entitled 'freedom to reason' ...it was interesting but Diderot's explanation ('the innocent and the corrupt') was more interesting to me

i have to read Nietzsche's 'genealogy of morals' for next week...

 

[Farnarcle]

No, I do visual arts, and we've been treading into a bit of philosophy, so I just thought that I could read a bit more into it.

 

[Zarathustra]

I recommend reading anything of Nietzsche's. If you read

• The basic writings of Nietzsche
• The portable Nietzsche
• The Will to Power

you will have read all of his major writings.
btw What about the said philosophers, Nietzsche in particular, interests you????? Popular Nietzche quotes

 

[+:: $i[Q]u3 ::+]

i've read a bit out of Nietzche's - the gay science - (death of god and the revaluation).. it's a bit heavy but interesting.

oh hang on.. lol.. u want stuff ON them, or stuff they'd written?? lol oops... =P

 

[+:: $i[Q]u3 ::+]

www.utm.edu/research/iep
try that =) (good luck~!)

 

[Farnarcle]

I was actually lookingfor their actual writings. I was thinking of starting with Plato and working my way to the present. I dunno, what interests me, maybe I just like finding how other people think. Maybe it something more subconcious, like wanting to know how to live and think my life as full asn best as possible.

 

[AsyLum]

cant go past the antichrist as a beginning

 

[karl]

I've read 'The Rebel' by Camus. He discusses Nietzsche at some length, on the topic of nihilism. It's not the focus of the essay though, just discussed.

 

[+:: $i[Q]u3 ::+]

try plato's euthyphro... it's about what it means to be morally right and what place God has in morality.

 

[Zarathustra]

Try Bertrand Russell's 'The History of Western Philosophy ,' it (as the name suggests) goes through all the major philosophers from the pre-Socratic to himself. It was written during WWII so he is very biased against the Germans, (Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Marx)
Also try Boorstin's less extensive but more accessible. The Seekers: The Story of Man's Continuing Quest to Understand His World

 

[RUB!X]

sun-tzu the art of war...

 

[Zarathustra]

Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching...

 

[AsyLum]

Originally posted by Zarathustra
It was written during WWII so he is very biased against the Germans, (Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Marx)

LoL when isn't betrand biased against others in his publications ?

 

[neo o]

god is dead.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

and we have killed him..

What impresses me most about Nietzsche is how frighteningly prescient some of his writings were. For instance, an aphorism such as the following anticipates the enormity of totalitarianism by at least fifty years;

The better established the state is, the fainter is humanity (1873 Note, published in 'The Portable Nietzsche')

Additionally, his writings of changing value-systems, (The world revolves inaudibly-Thus Spoke Zarathustra) moral relativism, and subjectivity were of great influence to philosophers such as Foucault, which is presumably why Nietzsche has been dubbed 'The first postmodernist'., I think the following quote demonstrates this aspect nicely;

What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms and anthropomorphisms- in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical and obligatory to a people; truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are ('On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense' pp.46-7)

I'd second the 'Portable Nietzsche' recommendation. Cheap, with Zarathustra, Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist and Nietzsche contra Wagner published in their entirety, as well as another 150 pages of excerpts from other works, notes (Including that would eventually become posthumously compiled as 'The Will The Power') etc:. Well worth it.

For Plato, 'The Republic' is quite good, and a vital text in Classical philosophy. Also the first literary utopia...