the authentic [illusory] self?

[randall patrick]

From William Hubben's Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Kafka:


"Much of Nietzsche's thinking is a monologue, a persistent contradiction within himself, which ends at last in the exclusive self-reflections of Ecce Homo, written shortly before his outbreak of insanity. 'I have become more a battlefield than a man,' he said. His thinking is one great protest against the logical construction of a philsophical system, an explosive trend that had begun with Kierkegaard's rebellion against a 'system about being which cannot possibly exists.' He has his own tragic share of tensions between reason and instinct, emotion and logic, tradition and irreverence so characteristic of his time, that were to foreshadow the breakdown of Europe's civilization.....Any noble thought arising in him is mmediately attacked by rebellious, brilliant or cynical counter arguments and suspicion. He knows he can never find his true self; it must remain elusive, tragically hidden".



If more of us would recognize our excursions into philosophy reveal more the "battlefield than the man" there would, in my view, be a lot less actual battlefields with a lot less actual bleeding corpses strewn up and down them. But most, of course, continue to take their existential leap to philosophy in order to discover and embrace that which they become convinced is analogous to Wisdom.

How else to explain the [at times] heated arguments various "schools of philosophy" repeatedly engage in. Not only to "prove" one or another rendition of, say, What Nietzsche Really Meant but also to nail down once and for all how close or how far "what Nietzsche really meant" was from the most rational manner in which the wise man can, in fact, deduce it.

Yet did not Nietzsche [contradictions and all] encourage this by not more fully acknowledging the extent to which his own philosophy was subject to its own "rebellious, brilliant and cynical counter arguments"? He wanted it, by and large, both ways. He wanted to deconstruct all of the old logo-centric, binary, metaphyscial intellectual contraptions but, in turn, he wanted to then introduce his own. A ferocious sense of either/or pervades much of his psychological fulmination. And yet, paradoxically, the manner in which he crafted and expressed his chief arguments [God is dead, the Uberman, the Will to Power, the herd, the creatively constructed and reconstructed existential "self" etc.] does not seem all that far removed from the manner in which those he criticized orchestrated and conveyed their own rendition of the crucial distinction made between the authentic and the inauthentic lifestyle.

But what if---philosophically---there is no distinction?


RP

[jeffl]

Quote by: randall patrick If more of us would recognize our excursions into philosophy reveal more the "battlefield than the man" there would, in my view, be a lot less actual battlefields with a lot less actual bleeding corpses strewn up and down them.

I disagree. As long as one see within himself the 'battlefield,' more than his own truth, he should probably keep quiet.

But most, of course, continue to take their existential leap to philosophy in order to discover and embrace that which they become convinced is analogous to Wisdom.

As it should be; most will come away from anything with nothing more than an icon. That's the way it is; that's how people are. Those who get past the icon to the truth of the matter are few; and so have a responsability to the rest.

How else to explain the [at times] heated arguments various "schools of philosophy" repeatedly engage in. Not only to "prove" one or another rendition of, say, What Nietzsche Really Meant but also to nail down once and for all how close or how far "what Nietzsche really meant" was from the most rational manner in which the wise man can, in fact, deduce it.

Nietzsche is dead!

Yet did not Nietzsche [contradictions and all] encourage this by not more fully acknowledging the extent to which his own philosophy was subject to its own "rebellious, brilliant and cynical counter arguments"?

How much more fully than loosing his sanity can one demonstrate the battlefield?

He wanted it, by and large, both ways. He wanted to deconstruct all of the old logo-centric, binary, metaphyscial intellectual contraptions but, in turn, he wanted to then introduce his own. A ferocious sense of either/or pervades much of his psychological fulmination. And yet, paradoxically, the manner in which he crafted and expressed his chief arguments [God is dead, the Uberman, the Will to Power, the herd, the creatively constructed and reconstructed existential "self" etc.] does not seem all that far removed from the manner in which those he criticized orchestrated and conveyed their own rendition of the crucial distinction made between the authentic and the inauthentic lifestyle. But what if---philosophically---there is no distinction? RP

Ofcourse there's a distinction. The authentic is true, and the inauthentic is not; the authentic has meaning of its own, it lives; the inauthentic means nothing in and of itself, but receives its meaning through justice. In the list you provide, the only potentially authentic thing i see is 'the creatively constructed and reconstructed existential 'self;' sounds like 'thinking.'

[jeffl]

Quote by: randall patrick From William Hubben's Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Kafka: "Much of Nietzsche's thinking is a monologue,...'I have become more a battlefield than a man,' he said.".P

Consider the Mahabharat; the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Consider the fact that Nietzsche was a plagerist (something about a captain's log?). Consider the source of the Arian concept out of context.

Nietzsche really blew it.