The Scoop on Nietzsche Part #1: Introduction

Hey Guys! 

Adam here. Very thankful for the kind welcome and excited to post something that's been on my mind. Long story short: I've found academia to be a difficult place. I completed an M.A. in Analytic Philosophy several years ago having found traditional academia to be somewhat stifling. Why's that?

• Many professors, particularly in the *literary* humanities, have little way to prove (like they do in mathematics) or at least provide reasonable enough evidence (like they do in science) to substantiate many of their staked claims. Thus, there is little in the way of information or content that can dislodge certain positions and moreover little in the way to encourage people to healthily change their minds or publicly defended positions.
• Most of the academic reputation acquired in those fields are tied to the positions that professors defend. Thus, there's little incentive to modify one's position much less change it or admit that it was wrong.
• Excessive jargon is used to mask what could be said cleanly and simply. The end result is that while many answers about meaning, life, and philosophy have been supplied - the broader masses have been left to hang out to dry. Forever closed off from the purported enlightenment of the greatest western minds.

All that being said, I wanted to take a moment to write a simple, neutral, assessment about one of the philosophers who has proven enormously influential and yet, paradoxically, wildly misunderstood and little talked about among analytic philosophers - shedding the unnecessary jargon and to just explain the content and context of Nietzsche in the simplest way that I can. 

 Preface

A significant rift occurred in Western Philosophy during the  early 1900’s and broadened during the mid-20th century (though at  present, that rift is being mended due to the active attempt by both  groups to bridge that gap). So great was this rift, that both groups of  philosophers basically ignored the other and little in the way of  meaningful dialogue was had (edit: that’s putting it mildly – they  outright hunted each other down and fired each other in some  departments). 

On the one hand, European philosophers in continental  Europe followed the phenomenological writings of Heidegger (who stressed  that the proper role of philosophy is to study ‘being’ understood as a  verb and in relation to the human observer and which placed the focus of  philosophy on living as a human being) who also criticized science,  logic, rationality and who placed great significance on literature and  the literary humanities.  On the other hand, philosophers in England and  the United States followed the work of Bertrand Russell stressing that  the proper role of philosophy is to study mathematics, science, logic,  and come to understand rationality. They, of course, placed enormous  weight on the importance of science, logic, mathematics, and attempt to  get at objective truths (which we’ll come back to below). I think it’s  pretty clear to see that we probably need to do a little of both.  Importantly, this is indicative of a larger trend that has occurred (in  philosophy and elsewhere) where disciplines have come full circle in the  sense that they have “curled back on themselves” to question the very  foundations, legitimacy, and roots of their discipline in the first  place. Indeed, some have been quick to claim that the “Death of  Philosophy” has or is occurring. Whether or not that is the case remains  to be seen (and I ask, “which is more dangerous: a world with  philosophy in it or world without it?”).  

As we shall see, this very  circumstance was foreseen by Nietzsche back in 1880. The two groups differed (and still differ) sharply in their  methodologies. Continental philosophers often eschew clarity of writing  entirely and do not require a background in logic, science, or  mathematics whereas Analytic philosophers place enormous emphasis on  clarity of writing and thought (to the degree that if you can’t say it  clearly, you’re probably speaking pure gibberish) and require logic,  science, and mathematics training.  That being said, Continental  philosophers have been much more successful in marketing themselves  (they usually have a lot more flair) and understand that language does  not merely exist to pass along information but to excite and inspire.  I’m in the latter camp (Analytic in terms of my methodology and general  outlook) and I hope that the writing here helps to provide some  illumination on a thinker that has been enormously influential on me.  

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 Lest you fall quickly asleep, let’s que up some music. Here’s a familiar  tune – it was actually composed by Richard Strauss as a musical  interpretation of Nietzsche’s most famous and influential work “Thus  Spoke Zarathustra” – you’ll recognize it from the beginning of 2001: A  Space Odyssey (a deliberate decision Kubrick made given the subject  matter of the film/book): 

I’m not a dedicated Nietzsche scholar. So, it goes without saying  that my haphazard writing here should be taken with a grain of salt.   Double that admonition from the fact that most Nietzsche scholars will  admit that it’s very difficult to come to a coherent interpretation of  his work. This is due to at least the following reasons: 

(1) Nietzsche  wrote in German and there are significant translation problems in  carrying over the original intent and meaning in his work (compounded,  moreover, by the fact that he coined several terms and concepts which  did not exist yet in German and which are difficult to translate even in  German to German – characteristic of many German philosophers of that  time) and 

(2) Nietzsche was explicitly opposed to systems –  i.e. theories, so-called meta-narratives (more on this later), logical  systems, or any other “web” of belief that made the pretense (his words)  to factivity, objective truth, or logical consistency (or that required  as much as a, to borrow from analytic philosophy, theoretical  constraint – meaning a constraint/regulative norm on belief or the  constituent parts of the theory). This is triply compounded by the fact  that Nietzsche was a perspectivist (not to be confused with subjectivism  which asserts that an individual’s believing something makes it true)  which is the commitment that though there may be an “objective”  (“mind-independent” as analytic philosophers put it) reality, the best  we can get of it are fragmented incomplete pictures (rather Neo-Kantian  as it were). 

Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
TL:DR? Take a look at these chunks: Aphorisms
Concepts