Beyond Good and Evil #2: Involuntary, Unconscious Memoir (I.6-I.16)

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We continue our exegesis of Beyond Good and Evil, and cover the bulk of On the Prejudices of Philosophers. This section involves Nietzsche’s analysis of various philosophers for whom he has admiration or which exercised a great influence on the philosophical world, but he approaches them with the method of treating their philosophy as an involuntary, unconscious memoir. Philosophy is reconsidered as akin to mystic inspiration, or a confession of the author.
Episode art: Gerald Moira -The Silent Voice (1898)
#nietzsche #philosophy #historyofphilosophy #philosophypodcast #thenietzschepodcast #idealism #germanidealism #kant #schopenhauer #epicurus #spinoza #descartes

[@robertmyerson8024]

I love your talks man. Wish I had like minded people like you in my life to talk to.... Thanks for doing what you do...

[@uberboyo]

Wait? Why is this playing over the loud speakers in my local gym instead of music?

[@nathanluz1218]

I love this podcast too

[@ChocoGaming]

My gym also loves playing this podcast on the speakers. Most of us prefer it to music anyways

[@ErnestRamaj]

You're kidding, right? I love this guy though, he's very clear.

[@EatWithBadlands]

I had a dream last night that a guy peed on me in the bathroom. I was mad but after I walked out of the bathroom every woman was hitting on me. What is Jung trying to tell me with this dream?

[@mindfever6285]

​@@EatWithBadlandshaha

[@TopMuffinz85]

Your videos are extremely well made and I could listen to them again and again and still learn something new. A mark of great work. Keep it up man

[@Primetiime32]

Thank you for your lectures . You’re the man

[@virtue_signal_]

The voice is like butter...

[@GreenTeaViewer]

We are not worthy!

[@subkulturebeats]

I watched this video yesterday after it dropped. I really like the way you address these topics without a political bias. Your lectures come off as more well rounded and not trying to use the text to further your personal world view. This is where every other KZbin channel gets it wrong. Most videos I’ve seen either misinterpret Nietzsche or try to offer philosophy as this commodified bite size digestible life advice.

[@gingerbreadzak]

00:29 🤔 Nietzsche suggests that great philosophies are often personal confessions of their authors and driven by moral or immoral intentions. 01:38 🧠 Nietzsche argues that various human drives inspire philosophy, and each drive seeks to represent itself as the ultimate purpose of existence. 05:57 🤯 Nietzsche challenges the idea that the pursuit of knowledge is dispassionate, suggesting that it is instrumental, serving other fundamental drives. 09:02 💼 Nietzsche differentiates between scholars with a drive for knowledge and philosophers whose morality reflects their innermost drives. 16:24 📜 Nietzsche discusses how philosophers can psychologize other philosophers, revealing possible immoral motivations behind their philosophies. 19:10 🍑 Nietzsche humorously suggests that in every philosophy, there is a point where the philosopher's convictions are unveiled, which can sometimes be seen as showing their "ass," or revealing their true motivations. 21:51 🤔 Nietzsche emphasizes that philosophers, like all individuals, have personal agendas and biases, revealing the human aspect behind their pursuit of truth. 23:02 🌿 Nietzsche challenges the Stoic idea of living according to Nature, highlighting that nature is vast, indifferent, and full of contradictions. He suggests that living according to life is more accurate because it involves distinguishing oneself from others and asserting one's individuality. 31:09 💭 Nietzsche discusses how philosophy creates the world in its own image, attributing a significant power to philosophical thought in shaping cultural perspectives and even religions. 36:10 🤔 Nietzsche critiques extreme skepticism, suggesting that those who reject all certainties and reality itself might be driven by nihilism rather than a sincere pursuit of truth. 41:36 🔄 Nietzsche acknowledges that some thinkers, in their pursuit of truth, challenge the credibility of their own bodies and question appearances. He suggests that they might be seeking to reclaim ancient ideas, such as the Immortal Soul or the old God, to live more vigorously and cheerfully. 43:42 🌎 Nietzsche points out the historical belief that the Earth stands still, highlighting how perspective shapes our understanding of the world. 44:40 🤔 Nietzsche emphasizes that our perspective is not merely a rational choice but an honest perception, suggesting a problem with his own pursuit of understanding perspective. 45:07 💭 Nietzsche hints at the possibility of finding motivation and valuing similar to religious concepts in modernity, departing from a strictly rational philosophy. 46:02 🔍 Nietzsche contrasts his approach with Kant's by highlighting the difference in their goals and motivations regarding philosophy. 46:58 🧐 Nietzsche values instincts over evaluating ideas against each other, emphasizing the importance of comparing people's instincts. 47:57 🤨 Nietzsche questions the skeptical anti-realists' mistrust of modern ideas and their desire to get away from modernity rather than return to tradition. 49:05 🙌 Nietzsche believes modernity's unquestioned dogmas are worse than the dogmas of the past and that modernity should be transcended. 50:57 🚀 Nietzsche appreciates those who want to get away from modernity for their strength, flight, courage, and artistic power rather than those who seek to return to tradition. 51:37 🧪 Nietzsche challenges Kant's idea of synthetic knowledge a priori and suggests replacing it with the question of why belief in such judgments is necessary. 56:57 🌟 Nietzsche criticizes atomism and the search for an indivisible, eternal substance in nature, which he finds problematic in both science and metaphysics. 58:03 🧪 Nietzsche calls for relentless warfare against atomistic needs, comparing it to metaphysical needs, and denounces the belief in the soul as something indestructible, eternal, and indivisible. 01:05:01 🧠 Nietzsche explores the idea that self-identity contains mutually exclusive elements, challenging essentialist and static concepts of the self. 01:06:22 🌍 Nietzsche suggests that as psychologists abandon old superstitions, they may condemn themselves to invent new concepts due to the radical shift in their worldview. 01:08:25 💪 Nietzsche challenges the idea of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct, emphasizing that life itself is driven by the Will to Power, which involves more than mere preservation. 01:12:45 🤔 Nietzsche highlights how physics is an interpretation, not a world explanation, and notes that only a few minds are beginning to grasp this idea. 01:13:52 🎨 Nietzsche admires Plato's ability to create an abstract world of forms as a means to overcome the sensory world of desires, seeing it as a noble form of thinking. 01:22:42 🤯 Nietzsche questions the absurdity of self-causation, suggesting that sense organs cannot be illusions, challenging idealistic philosophies. 01:26:10 🤔 Nietzsche questions the certainty of sense organs as the work of our organs, avoiding dogmatic assertions about the objective world. 01:26:39 🔄 Nietzsche challenges conventional logic, especially the law of non-contradiction, by showing the inclusivity of opposites, undermining traditional logical systems. 01:27:21 🌍 Nietzsche suggests that we are embodied beings, emphasizing the primacy of sensation, physiology, and instinct, in contrast to the intellect. 01:30:09 ❓ Nietzsche questions the certainty of "I think, therefore I am," highlighting the challenges in distinguishing thinking from other mental processes and the limitations of intuition. 01:32:39 🚫 Nietzsche criticizes the dogmatic pursuit of absolute knowledge and immediate certainties, emphasizing the need for philosophical inquiry and skepticism. 01:41:52 🧐 Nietzsche encourages us to question why we insist on clinging to certain truths and highlights the limitations of claiming absolute certainty.

[@bluesbunny121]

Good guy Nietzsche, explaining to us the purpose of philosophers while doing the same himself through Beyond Good and Evil and Zarathustra :) "My greatest fear is not to be canonized" seems like reverse psychology, before the term was even invented.

[@AGamer1177]

"The ass arrives, beautiful and most bare." I would immediately imagine the scene where Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey (ass) before the Crucifiction. I imagine Nietzsche doing this to lampoon philosophers in such a manner.

[@sudabdjadjgasdajdk3120]

Philosophy is way too free to be truthful is what I get from these lectures so far.

[@dagon99]

Wonderful background art btw

[@brendan501]

Great analysis through most of this. I might read one aspect differently. “In place of the "immediate certainty" in which the people may believe in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series of metaphysical questions presented to him, veritable conscience questions of the intellect, to wit: "Whence did I get the notion of 'thinking'? Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak of an 'ego,' and even of an 'ego' as cause, and finally of an 'ego' as cause of thought?" He who ventures to answer these metaphysical questions at once by an appeal to a sort of INTUITIVE perception, like the person who says, "I think, and know that this, at least, is true, actual, and certain"--will encounter a smile and two notes of interrogation in a philosopher nowadays. "Sir," the philosopher will perhaps give him to understand, "it is improbable that you are not mistaken, but why should it be the truth?" There are a couple ways, I think, to interpret that last line that weren’t quite touched on in the video. While I think it is accurate that the line implies the philosopher encouraging the person appealing to intuition to question why they feel a need to find a ground for their perceptions in truth, I think it also hints at the attitude of the philosopher herself. Namely, an attitude that can simultaneously see that a certain way of reasoning is most probably structured out of some error, and yet what does this philosopher necessarily care about whether or not a structure is built out of error? In that sense, I think this line can be read as the sort of mindset that can simultaneously criticize Plato, for example, for insisting his claims are a “truth” and yet still find value in the claims of Plato themselves. While the philosopher will in some sense reject the truth-claim aspect of Plato’s idea, he’ll also kind of call into question his own critical attitude. A paraphrase of the sentence that might capture this: It is very likely that YOU are mistaken in your reasoning, but why should either you (the asserted) OR I (the critic) insist on truth? Those “two notes of interrogation” may be pointing in the direction of both the asserter and the critic. The person being addressed stands to gain through the insight that they don’t need to insist on truth in order to function but the philosopher also stands to gain by allowing the error of the other, so to speak. Just because someone else is insisting on the truth aspect of a claim doesn’t mean I have to reject the idea if I’m willing to explore it as a creative error, if you will.

[@alexanderleuchte5132]

14:43 Ted Kaczynski claimed that what really drives the scientist is his need to go through "the power process" which he satisfies by pursuing his research as a "surrogate activity"

[@taylorplummer9185]

Interesting that Ted said that considering his experience with MK Ultra

[@alexanderleuchte5132]

@@taylorplummer9185 I even think i remember him writing somewhere that this can be one reason for scientists to sell out and let themselfes be instrumentalized for questionable or despicable goals or simply loose track of reasonable motivations and end up f.e. doing kind of pointless animal experiments or experiments on humans for the govenment. But i'm not 100% sure. If you have studied Physics it is better to get a job in the weapons industry than to flip burgers and not just because of the pay, you want to apply your science

[@nickstebbens]

Energy is fundamental and self-identical; soul is the soul of energy, Energy is the soul of soul - our Sun is both product and producer of Energy; Energy is the substance of Will

[@nickstebbens]

ad* priori

[@nicolaswhitehouse3894]

24:30 Yes Nietzsche has a French view of nature. Which is a preference of artificial constraints/culture over nature in arts. What the French describes as « naturelle » is a nature that is rigorously dominated and controlled by men beforehand, the very contrary of the German view of nature.

[@christopherellis2663]

1:44:41 thinking leads to delusion rather than certainty

[@giovannimartin3239]

And this delusion, if life affirming, can be quite useful.

[@tristanhurley9071]

This is where Nietzsche begins to realise he has been chasing his own tail.

[@untimelyreflections]

Aren’t we all brother

[@tristanhurley9071]

@@untimelyreflections 😀

[@joshc5727]

what about the state of meditation, as an example of non thinking. 'You' still exist as a thing, consciousness still exists but for deep meditators they would say the 'self' does not.

[@ummon995]

BGE 1.13 Can anybody add more detail about what Nietzsche says about "Spinoza's inconsistency"? I understand that life is not the cardinal drive in the organism (according to Nietzsche). Did Spinoza? Was the inconsistency in Spinoza's concept of God?

[@RichardBrent90111]

Such amazing free educational content!!! ♥︎ Thank you so much!!!

[@socialswine3656]

35:48 Tagging this so I can return to it. Struggling with section 10

[@kinjemann9597]

1:22:00 section 15

[@richardevans6669]

😊

[@zerotwo7319]

If the emergent properties of nature were already amoral, simple rules from mindless, uninformed agents is what produces order and complexity... the only real barrier is language? More precisely an explanation?

[@nickstebbens]

What does it mean to ask what the 'nature' of something is? What does Nature do in regards to its environ - namely, Earth? The violence elucidated upon here was of internal difference withinside nature... and what else but precisely that which is necessary and innate could be principle? Is inherent necessity not inherently necessary of principality? these aren't trick questions, though they're designed to appear as such - you could find examples of lifeforms that don't need light to exist - at least, not directly, but just about all of them require the warmth provided to Earth to exist...

[@nickstebbens]

I see Nature as the *worldly* God of this world, and Mother Earth as Father Nature's consort, and Sol, *our* Sun, as the heavenly God on high whose consort is likewise primarily unworldly, though that's not to say neither have their worldly forms... and though indeed the Sun is *the* Light of *this* world.... Light and Love, Witness and Truth, Moral and Story, Nature and Life, War and Honor, Darkness and Chaos, Glory and Order, Knowledge and Doubt, Nomenclature and Nurture, Death and Decay, Focus and Curiosity - these are the principalities of my Soular system as I see them

[@nickstebbens]

what is the {former} of {latter}?: {latter}

[@nickstebbens]

whom would so arrogate to master Nature without having mastered their own?

[@plv.d.4079]

Cogito ergo me podendam esse😅

[@kinjemann9597]

1:08:30 section 14

[@ArmwrestlingJoe]

40:00