We're in Dialectic!

Hey guys! It’s time for me to answer the questions you guys wanted me to answer, and by the way, all of them are excellent questions and I’ve had to think a lot about how I am going to answer them (the philosophical mind at work). Just as a warning, this is going to be a long post. So of these question are very complicated and need thorough answers, so bare that in mind. Not to mention I’m long winded a lot. So I apologize in advance for that. Anyway, on to your questions:

1. I’d imagine Philosophy gets some pretty weird exam questions. What’s the most nuts one you’ve ever had? Ever been asked to explain the meaning of life in 3 hours plus reading time?

Philosophy is definitely notorious as being the subject that has the strangest, and in my opinion best, exam questions of any subject. I have gotten several strange questions. The most strange exam question I’ve ever had to answer is to explain and support George Berkeley’s argument against the theory of materialism (the one that theorizes that matter exists, that there is a physical world). It was odd to say the least.

I’m really sorry, but I have to disappoint you on the last question. I have never been asked in an exam to explain the meaning of life in three hours. I have been asked to explain the meaning of life in a serious conversation, but not in a class exam. I wish had. I think that would be an amazing experience to have to answer that question. For me, there’s nothing like having to answer a difficult philosophical question. Maybe I’ll try to answer that in a blog post some time!

2. Could you explain Nietzsche?

Nietzsche is a very complicated philosopher, one who I haven’t studied all that much, but I will do my best to explain some of his major philosophical views. Ironically I just started a class on Nietzsche.

Friedrich Nietzsche, for those who don’t know, was a 19^th century German philosopher who near the end of his life suffered a major mental break down and went mad could no longer speak or write. Many suspect that this was a late symptom of syphilis. Nietzsche died when he was just 56 of pneumonia in combination with a stroke.

Nietzsche went through some transformations philosophically over his writing career. However, in general, Nietzsche was a cultural reformer in his philosophy. He thought that German culture had become corrupted and diseased and sought ways to revive German culture. He spent a great deal of time being critical of traditional views on morals and truth, Christianity, contemporary culture, philosophy and science. He displayed a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism. His has influenced philosophy in the areas of nihilism, existentialism, and postmodernism.

He also was the inspiration for Pizza Mustache John.

See, they're practically twins.

In The Birth of Tragedy, his first work, he tried to appeal to art to do his work by praising the Ancient Greek society and their use of art, at least before Socrates who Nietzsche hated. Nietzsche thought that reason and philosophical discussion used to find answers (called dialetic) which had become the model for society in model culture was the problem with society. Society no longer recognized the value of instinct and madness, from which the best art came. He thought that art was a necessary part of human existence and without good art, society had become diseased.

The Gay Science is where Nietzsche gives us the famous line, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” The full quote is this, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

This is not to say that God was alive and is now physically dead. It’s not literal. What Nietzsche means is that he thought Christians have broken so far from the original values of Christ’s message that they no longer follow God and have turned their back on Him. Essentially he is saying that in his view God is no longer a viable source of morality in modern culture. Nietzsche himself was an atheist, and not a big fan of religion, Christianity in particular. In case you couldn’t tell. He even wrote an essay called The Antichrist.

Nietzsche also believed in the concept of eternal recurrence, which is the belief that the universe and all of history has happened over and over again infinite times before and will continue to repeat infinitely in the future.

Perhaps the most famous concept Nietzsche put forward in his writings, along with the death of God, is the Übermensch from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The Übermensch, or Supermen, were the ideal humans and a goal for us to reach. According to the Standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Übermensch were people who embodied the spiritual development of a solitary, reflective, exceedingly strong-willed, sage-like, laughing and dancing voice of heroic self-mastery who, accompanied by a proud, sharp-eyed eagle and a wise snake, envisions a mode of psychologically healthier being beyond the common human condition. They would be the basis for morality in contrast to Christianity, in Nietzsche’s view, because they would be focused on this morality of life in this world for the sake of this world and not the next.

This idea, very unfortunately, was taken by Nietzsche’s sister after Nietzsche died and spread to her connections with the leaders of the Nazi Party, and they used it as the basis for heinous crimes against humanity, all in the name of the Aryan race that they thought was the same as the Übermensch. That’s why Nietzsche is often misinterpreted as an anti-Semite and a Nazi supporter. He wasn’t. They twisted his philosophy to their own evil purposes many years after Nietzsche died in 1900.

Other than that, Nietzsche was very critical of views of what morality is in modern society. Nietzsche’s final works dealt with his views on morality in great detail. Unfortunately, he died before he could finish them. His sister did eventually publish his notes, which became The Antichrist. One of his last complete works was Twilight of the Idols, in which Nietzsche reiterates and elaborates some of the criticisms of Socrates, Plato, Kant and Christianity found in earlier works, criticizes the then-contemporary German culture as being unsophisticated and too-full of beer, and shoots some disapproving arrows at key French, British, and Italian cultural figures such as Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Darwin, and Dante. In contrast to all these alleged representatives of cultural decadence, Nietzsche applauds Caesar, Napoleon, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Thucydides and the Sophists as healthier and stronger types. The phrase “to philosophize with a hammer” primarily signifies a way to test idols by tapping on them lightly; one “sounds them out” to determine whether they are hollow, or intact, etc., as physician would use a percussion hammer upon the abdomen as a diagnostic instrument (taken from the Standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

There’s a fairly detailed look at Niezsche’s philosophy. If you have any questions ask me in the comments and I will try my best to answer them. Nietzsche is definitely an interesting philosopher, and he is quickly becoming one of my favorites.

3. What kind of jobs do you expect to pursue with your degree? Are you optimistic about the job prospects?

I honestly don’t know. The nice thing about a philosophy degree is that philosophy is involved in so many different subjects that I could feasible go for whatever career I wanted. I have thought about teaching, but I don’t know if I am going to do that. First I would have to get a teaching degree and I’m not doing that right now. One of the things I love most is writing. I love created stories, worlds and characters. My dream job is to become at least a part time writer, if not a full time writer.

Optimistic? I want to be become a writer, does that answer your question? Haha

But seriously, I am really worried about getting a job, but I’m going to try my best. I think a lot of people are worried about getting a job and keeping it these days so I’m in good company. Anyone getting a liberal arts degree has an iffy amount of job prospects. I’ve decided to screw the rules and do what I love, instead of what might be more profitable on face value.

4. I’m fond of solipsism - just really thinking about it is a wonderful method of opening one’s mind to philosophical pondering, do you have such favorite philosophical ideas?

I don’t really know if I have a favorite philosophical idea in that sense. It would be too difficult to choose just one for me because I find that I like aspects of so many. I often like a philosopher’s ideas based on how interesting they are to think about rather than if I agree with them. There are also philosophers that I used to think were off their rocker, but I have warmed up to over the course of my study of them. For example, Plato. I used to not like his philosophy very much, but then I studied it more and it become so much more meaningful to me and interesting. Now he’s one of my favorite philosophers. Plus, he’s Plato. You just can’t beat him. He’s pretty much the creator of modern society (but that’s a topic for another day). Of course whether I agree with a certain philosopher’s position does factor into whether I like them, but I try to keep that bias to a minimum.

One other factor that is a major one in what philosophies I like is whether they have a point or application in the real world. For example, Descartes is a philosopher who I dislike (sorry to any Descartes fans). I don’t like Descartes because I think his process is a little pointless. In his Meditations, he starts by doubting everything exists, which in fact he doesn’t actually do, and then tries to find a basis for all truth in reality. He eventually concludes that the material must exist, which would be fine if his process didn’t lead him to the exact same conclusion that he had believed was true before the book began. Circular reasoning bugs me. It feels like a waste of time. I understand that the process is about affirming reality and truth, but it still bothers me.

Anyway, I will give you a list of some philosophers that I particularly enjoy: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Xeno, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, John Locke, Nietzsche, Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky (trying that five times fast haha), Bertrand Russell, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and while I don’t agree with him on a lot I do enjoy reading Søren Kierkegaard. That’s most of the philosophers I’ve studied by the way. haha

Looking at my list there are a wide range of philosophies represented, but most of them are empiricists if that helps answer the original question, but I also really like Platonism for the same reason you said you like solipsism, I love to think about it because I think it’s so interesting.

5. Heraclitus or Parmenides?

Heraclitus definitely, though sometimes it feels like Parmenides was on to something. A mixture of the two would probably be the best, but I think of the two Heraclitus was the more correct philosophically.

For those of you who don’t know who Heraclitus and Parmenides were, they were Ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophers. We are not very sure of anything about them and their works did not completely survive the years, but luckily others do gives us snippets of their philosophy.

Funnily enough, only one work from each survived at all, both only survived in fragments, and both works were called On Nature (translation of the Greek is up to debate of course).

Heraclitus was famous for his short words of wisdom. You remember that line in the song in Pocahontas “Just Around the Riverbend”, “You can't step in the same river twice.” That comes from Heraclitus. His philosophy was based on the idea that the world is constantly and eternally changing and in flux. Disney actually took that phrase straight from Heraclitus. So far he has been kind enough not to press charges for plagiarism.

Parmenides was the exactly the opposite philosophically. He thought that nothing in the universe ever changes and was static for eternity. His basic belief is that only one thing exists that is static and unchanging. Our world does not really exists. It’s a bit complicated and confusing.

If you want I can explain both Heraclitus and Parmenides further, but I think I have gone on for enough now. I hope you learned something from my answers. I know there was a lot in this post, so feel free to ask all the clarifying questions you want. I will answer them to the best of my ability.

DFTBA, everyone!

Matt