Friedrich Nietzsche Genealogy of Morals (part 2) | Existentialist Philosophy & Literature

[@emile235]

"will to power key to his metaphysics"? 6m50s. I thought FMN was an "anti metaphysician"

[@GregoryBSadler]

emile235 Yep. Nietzsche is a critic of "metaphysics". And, yes, he has a metaphysics himself. Sorta like Kant, or later on Heidegger. Here's the key to not getting puzzled about this: distinguish multiple senses of "metaphysics"

[@emile235]

Thanks.

[@sunepedersen8537]

@@emile235 he believes that all things even atoms and other inanimate objects have the will to power

[@BattlefrontZero]

Holy shit! Did this guy stand in front of a camera for an hour, teaching and talking about Nietzsche? That's passion right there! lol

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yep. . . I like the works I teach. . .

[@BattlefrontZero]

Gregory B. Sadler Good on you sir! I'm writing a 7 page paper about Nietzsche right now and frantically looking for anything I can write about him lol.

[@filanfisteki5757]

+Gregory B. Sadler mttmdtwwppww,

[@mementocatharsis9372]

I start doing this to my friends and then reach the end of my knowledge and stop to study. Lol. Amazing how much information a PhD has. Absolutely astonishing actually. I'm 2 years in school and the amount of stuff I've learned is, well, a lot.

[@willthompson2809]

and put a suit on!

[@GregoryBSadler]

I'm glad to read that the videos inspired you to go out and get into Nietzsche's texts themselves. I've got quite a few additional videos on Nietzsche planned

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad the videos are helpful for you, and that you'll be studying philosophy there

[@Rclibertine]

Probably the most impressive explication of Nietzsche's ideas in the Genealogy I've found online

[@GregoryBSadler]

Thanks!

[@reanukeaves]

Thank you sir, I could watch you for hours.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well. . . you could quite literally. I've probably uploaded 200-300 hours of video at this point!

[@thedaveastator7939]

For which you have my thanks. I noticed your channel only today. I'm only 2 videos in but I will be listening to everything you have to say about Nietzsche for sure.

[@dmitryandreyev8579]

SPLENDID. Reminds me of first watching this back in late two-thousand-and-thirteen. Dmitry.

[@LupusBonay]

Thank you for your awesome lecturers. You got me so interested in Nietzsche, that i borrowed 3 of his works from the library to read. Keep up the awesome work Sir.

[@MeekErinovski]

Thanks for all the video's you've put online, they've been very useful on all the topics i've been revising. Keep up the great work.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad they've been useful for you. I've got about another 70 or so course videos to shoot in the Existentialism sequence, and then I'll move on to the next big project

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you like the videos -- plenty more coming in the future

[@swanmix10]

Thank you for the channel. You are part of a movement towards free and better education via the internet.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, that could be an aspect of the will to power. But, N is very clear that at its essence, the will to power is a will to dominate other wills, not just physical conditions

[@Feideus]

As a french student, I've never had the chance to hear such an accessible and crystal clear lesson on philosophy in my own language ! Thank you good sir, it's an absolute pleasure to explore your content :)

[@GregoryBSadler]

I'm sorry to read that you don't get profs who want to just dig in and explain over there. Glad the video was helpful for you

[@Gayduruguppakcemile]

I'm watching this in 2020. While reading Geneology of Morals for the first time, your videos help me a lot to understand better. Thank you very much!

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yeah, with Nietzsche, there is a LOT going on in every chapter. He's thinking through a lot, and he's a master rhetorician

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yes, empathy as something general would be a sign of weakness or sickness for Nietzsche. It is, we should note, possible for the noble to exercise diplomacy or fellow-feeling with each other -- but not with their lessers, not in Nietzsche's view

[@GregoryBSadler]

There's also the working of one of the key agents in this as well -- the figure of the Priest (who will morph eventually into the Philosopher and the Man of Science) -- these all interact, and the bad conscience gradually develops and becomes more cohesive over time. For the powerful, it becomes something that saps their resolve, their freedom. It also becomes something that works for the weak. That's the culture of later modern nihilism, for Nietzsche

[@222Luchi]

It is irritating when your neighbor forgets not to burn down your house. Thank you for these, my exam confidence has been boosted significantly :)

[@GregoryBSadler]

Vivisection is dissection carried out on a living animal. Nietzsche is talking about the guilty conscience -- and so, we're looking at self-analysis of one's very person, drives, instincts, through the lens of conscience.

[@jonathanmoore5619]

"We are not as far away from this as we might think"... Wise words.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Possibly the case. It's been about a decade since I shot that video, so I'm not sure what I was referring to

[@MaoRuiqi]

Sir, you are a great teacher; not by simplifying the complex, rather by making it coherent. Thereby, your student's understandings rise to the level demanded by great philosophers.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Thanks! You may just have provided me with an excellent way to articulate what it is that I do -- something I myself find very difficult

[@reef6826]

Even with these lectures I am still struggling to understand Nietzsche, but I cannot imagine how little I would understand without them.. Thank you!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad they’re helpful for you!

[@LupusBonay]

Nice, i can't wait I'm trying to incorporated what you are teaching into my own field of study. I'm currently reading beyond good and evil, love the pace when i read i'm completely absorbed in the sea of words and the way they are packaged (to use marketing terminology)

[@MeekErinovski]

Fantastic, I look forward to watching the series unfold.

[@gastoncavalleri8560]

Thank you again. I've taken a bit of a habit of following you're lectures regarding Existentialism. I'm getting ready to write a thesis about screenwriting, time and reality. I'm finding your interpretations very interesting to watch.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you're finding them useful -- interesting thesis topic, by the way

[@gastoncavalleri8560]

I just thought I'd share with you that your lectures helped me acquire a high-distinction mark for an essay I wrote about Herman Melville's 'Bartleby the Scrivener'. I applied existentialism and Marxism philosophies for the short story's interpretation. Cheers.

[@GregoryBSadler]

That's great to read!

[@gastoncavalleri8560]

Thank you. If you have any lectures dealing with Gilles Deleuze please let me know. Cheers in advance and again for what you've already provided. I'm head down in the books on Gilles, with solid intensity, for the next few weeks :)

[@jessqhm]

This was so useful! I study philosophy in college and I had to present a seminary about the genealogy of morals and your video helped me a lot. I thought it would be harder to understand because english is not my first language but the way you explained was so simple I had no problem to get it.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Very glad the videos were useful for you!

[@broquestwarsneeder7617]

Your lectures are really great, Gregory, they make it a joy to learn

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you enjoy them

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, what I shoot is only partly determined by what I'd most like to reread, think about, talk about. A good part of it is just what you mention -- need -- but what I perceive (rightly or wrongly) as the need for the people out there who will watch Philosophy videos. I do in fact have an interest in social media and education platforms that is growing, the more I work within them -- so I'll message you.

[@freetaught]

(1) I watched this last night, somewhat distractedly--my brother was talking loudly on his iphone. This video helped to clear up some of my questions from the previous video (of course, your comments helped this also. Thanks!) I like the concept of "overdetermined". I think it will be useful in terms of not over simplifying Nietzsche's geneaology, which I guess my previous comment shows I was inclined to do. Hence, my imagined distance from him.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome -- that's quite a few videos!

[@katherinegraden1001]

You are a genius! This was just a wonderfully done lecture, you have helped me so much mate, I cannot thank you enough. I find Nietzsche difficult to connect, but you have made it much easier. Cheers!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad it was useful for you

[@katherinegraden1001]

Just one question! The conscience vivisection, I am not exactly sure what that means. I just don't understand what in his essay he is referring back to there.

[@katherinegraden1001]

Does that mean a reevaluation of our conscience? or that we are inheriting a conscience that has been changed over time?

[@BUGZYLUCKS]

Great vids man. Great job... Been watchin all the Nietzsche ones and the Kant ones.

[@Sigrdrifaz]

Just to add a thanks, this has helped me review for an exam, a resource of great value that I will return to and refer people to offen.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad it was helpful for you!

[@ssevkin]

This is so helpful. Thanks. I just plowed through BGE and am now reading a second translation. I'm finally getting it (with help from various sources). At least I won't struggle so much with Genealogy, thanks to you. I'm going to contribute to your cause on your website.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad the videos are helpful for you!

[@cruffatin]

Excellent stuff, thanks a lot mate. Helping me digest some of his works and ideas ahead of my final year essay!

[@GregoryBSadler]

the second installation of the video course lectures on a classic work by one of the "masters of suspicion," Nietzsche

[@husseinebrahim362]

what about daybreak,the prejudice on morality,will to power ,case of wagner else. thank you very much for your such great lecture

[@juliosanchez8263]

Thank you for your lectures.

[@orpheusmorphius2624]

Gregory thank you so much for the breakdown on Genealogy of Morals. You have great insight!

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome - glad it was useful for you!

[@elihilman9155]

Dr Sadler, I love the way you teach these lectures, they're very clear and in-depth. In addition I enjoy the way you present Nietzsche. You present him as a tamed person. When I read his works I find them somewhat cynical and aggressive. I'm not sure whether I'm projected my own stuff or whether he actually writes cynical, sadistic, and tragic? Thanks for the excellent classes.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, that brings up an interesting issue: so, what is it to be "human" for Nietzsche? That is, in large part, precisely what is contested. Are we what we make ourselves, how we impose our will-to-power on others? Or do we take some other answer from some other source?

[@JacubanGecko]

Thank you for this series, gives a brilliant overview of Nietzsche's system in a methodical way - really useful as a revision series too (in my case)

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you found the videos useful

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, I'm not sure if I've tamed Nietzsche or not -- I tend to focus mainly on the array of concepts in the works. He is in fact deliberately provocative, and it could be that I'm muted that aspect of his style and position.

[@elihilman9155]

Nietzsche's idea of the 'inverting of the instincts' appears very similar to Freud's concepts of secondary masochism, where the sadism turns into masochism. It also resembles Freud's idea of Melancholia where he says the shadow of the object falls upon the ego.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome. Yes, I suppose I am part of something like a "movement". I need to think about that more.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome. Very nice to read!

[@obbsheistone7879]

I really enjoy your videos on this subject and thank you for making this much easier for me. Your simplifications make my overcomplications of Nietzsche's work balance out quite nicely. I will definitely check out more of your videos good sir (Nietzsche pun intended).

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@adam5588]

Great video again, keep up the great work Gregory!

[@GregoryBSadler]

I will - glad you enjoyed it

[@freetaught]

(2) My immediate application of the term was to the "human". Are we to be understood in terms of our biology, as rational creatures, as consumers, etc? I can see how pegging us as this or that, as a particular something, could cause us to draw moral and non-moral expectations--adding greater complexity to these if hypotheses show some predictive power, which I guess a lot of them do.

[@Obsidean]

Thank you so much for this. Your channel is a gem!

[@TheIbongz]

thank you... i really love your channel. and i subscribed it. Learned a lot of wisdoms today.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, I'd say it's entirely unfair in Plato's case. Rousseau certainly had some nasty tendencies to his own thought, with the "general will" business. With Nietzsche, I'd say that he looks ahead and sees some massive upheavals coming, but is not particularly forthcoming on what one ought to do in relation to them, certainly nothing programmatic

[@infinitesimotel]

What about: that the will to power is itself working with physical limitation (sphere of poeration), in order that we may transcend that (constructive) limitation (i.e. lifting weights to gain muscle) which is all the physcial restrictions of this world we experience, and that the idea of morality was intended to subvert this power and redirrect it to the priest class that exploit us, through some steady subversion over time.

[@elihilman9155]

I want to make sure I got the two main causes for the Bad Conscience:1) With civilization 'The will to Power' which was the desire to induces pain on the debtors becomes incorporated and goes against himself. Thus man ends up suffering depth and pain from his inverted instincts. 2) We are all feel kind of indebted to the old for establishing our society. The old then becomes translated into God and then we feel we can never return what we owe, resulting in a Bad Conscience. Is this correct?

[@infinitesimotel]

No probs, I see that. There must be some sort of gravity towards something. I was alluding to the Ubermensch, in the sense that they have mastery over the physical so that they can transcend it.

[@freetaught]

(3) Now we're getting existential. Now I feel we're in that space where Nietzsche, Sartre, et al, say "you must determine yourself". Anyway, good stuff. I think I'll listen to this again and get ready for 3. Cheers! :)

[@GregoryBSadler]

That while Kantian deontological ethics purports to embody morality, it really imposes a cruelty it does not account for

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad to be a helpful virtual neighbor

[@bosman4055]

thank you from this video and greetings from Poland

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Good! Glad it's useful for you

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad to read it!

[@shaygahweh]

Thank you for this video, the Genealogy is a powerful psychological tool!

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome!

[@curtismohrhardt4603]

Hey, love this series! Was wondering about translations, I saw you commented saying you have several laying around, but often read the German original, but if there was a certain translator who gets the closest to the oroginal. I've read all of Kaufmann's translations and I believe he gets it closest to poetic style, but maybe there's someone who was closer in terms of meaning accuracy. Thanks!

[@GregoryBSadler]

It all depends on what you're looking for, when it comes to that

[@leonpinguin]

Thanks for uploading.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome!

[@firehand1011]

50:00 the extreme result of the internalization of man is actually DESIRING punishment..... oh oh........

[@BualiGillani]

Wow, thank you so much. Just finished listening to this very sober, crystal clear explanation of some very dense material. Thank-you once again, you’ve helped a lot. I must confess tho every time you put your hand in your left coat pocket I couldn’t help but feel that you were going to pull out a gun 🤣🤣.

[@GregoryBSadler]

I may have been a bit rough, but I’m not a thug, you know

[@floppy_keyboard]

Did you ever get around to going more in depth of "punishment" and other concepts in this second essay, that you didn't get into in this video? If so can you link me to those video(s)? Thank you for taking the time to do that and for making these videos.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, not sure about being "tough" anymore (a long time ago, yes), but I'll take the compliment

[@FDonovan1979]

Thank you for these great videos

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, once again, trancending the merely physical is not that big of a matter for N. Transcending the human condition as historically and culturally structured by ressentiment-conditioned wills to power is much more what the notion of the Ubermench is about.

[@GROdaMAN]

You are absolutely the man!

[@GregoryBSadler]

you're welcome

[@GregoryBSadler]

"Is Aristocratic punishment simply the joy one gets when inflicting suffering upon another?" -- take the "simply" out, and the answer is yes. Nietzsche is not a reductionist, who thinks there's only one thing going on in complex phenomena.

[@infinitesimotel]

good lecture set, thanks.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Nietzsche videos? Or Existentialism videos? Or just any old Philosophy videos?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Sounds good!

[@stuarthicks2696]

Watching these GOM videos for a second time after viewing a few years ago. Great stuff. Heard Dr. Sadler on NPR the other day. I'm like I knew of this guy WAY before you guys. Don't try and hijack MY rock star dammit! :-)

[@GregoryBSadler]

It's ok - they asked me if they could use the clip - the Sartre one, right?

[@stuarthicks2696]

Yes I believe it was. Radio signal went bad as I was driving over a bridge and when I got to a point where I could drive and scan for another NPR station my girlfriend said you’re not gonna listen to PHY now are you? So it goes..:-)

[@MrRvercetti]

I’ve been pondering this trying to understand fully. Is there any relation between the “bad” in bad conscience and the “bad” in the good/bad distinction? To me bad conscience seems a sort of consequence of the good/evil or slave morality. Not of the good/bad or master morality. Im curious on your thoughts on this...

[@GregoryBSadler]

Bad conscience is something that develops in part out of slave/herd morality for N. But it's not just that - it's also something that is coming about when the strong are not able to express that strength or act upon it, as society becomes more complex.

[@jamesdyer2393]

This "measuring one person against another" and creditor/debtor master/slave model reminds me of Hegel's concept of self-consiousness opposing itself in an other individual, where each consciousness forfeits the value of its own existence in order to become the essential consciousness, like the two opposing forces......how much was Nietzche influenced by Hegel?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Not much

[@aaronsantos7411]

This was good stuff!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it

[@jrodriguezaguilu]

Very informative videos. I have a question. Based on master/slave morality framework, how would we look upon empathy? symbiosis? or diplomacy? Would these be considered expressions of slave morality? Even if they are, or at least feel, "instinctive"? The good of the whole, of the other, still may bring instinctive pleasure. Is this slave morality? Thanks for posting your videos, just subscribed to your channel.

[@timothycatlin7414]

Thank you for these videos I have a bit of trouble reading Nietzsche and I would have a lot of misinterpretations about it without these. I have a question about the idea that a society is indebted to the sacrifices of its ancestors. In the current socio political climate I hear a lot about making amends for the sins of a countries ancestors. Would Nietzsche say that it works both ways and that we can demand them, the ancestors, to be the debtor? Or would that be a bit silly? Thanks.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Nietzsche would say that the present is so far from the past - and they're both so complex - that it's silly to think that somehow one could balance things out in the present

[@SashaSoboleva]

Great videos, thanks so much! Question: Why do only the herd, the "weak" have "sickness? I take this sickness to be a void for the meaning of suffering. Do the "noble" the not-sick not have this void? Thanks so super much! Happy holidays!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you enjoy them. Well, the herd aren't the only ones to experience the kind of sickness he's talking about -- there's also the figure of the Priest. The noble aren't so troubled about the meaning of suffering, not least because they are the ones who get to impose it -- and when it's imposed on them by another noble, they can place it in the frame of things like combat, enmity, revenge. Happy Holidays to you and yours!

[@jsmith2938]

I believe it was somewhere in this book that Nietzsche went into why the medical profession was so screwed up. I could never understand it. Can you explain it?

[@GregoryBSadler]

That doesn't ring any immediate bells. Why don't you find the passage, and give me the essay/chapter number

[@jsmith2938]

Gregory B. Sadler i'll look, but it might take a while before I get back. thanks.

[@jsmith2938]

Jeff Smith I was only able to find 1 paragraph. But I had a feeling there was more. I haven't looked at this in 30 years. Go to the 3rd essay, Section 15, 1st paragraph, pg 125. I believe I have the same book as you. If you run across anything else he wrote about the medical profession, let me know, possibly in another work of his. And by the way, this is available now on audio at Audible.com. And on Amazon.com on CD. Jeff

[@JakeEatNow]

Jeff Smith Are you thinking about psychologists?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Jeff Smith "this is available. . . " do you mean the Nietzsche work (which I would expect to be available), or do you mean the sound file of the video

[@siavgoogooly]

I am not a philosophy major (An engineer) but find these Videos very useful and interesting. Initially, i didn't know you have a dog ( I am guessing). It seems you are throwing chuck to students. Please keep up the good work.

[@husseinebrahim362]

great job keep it up

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, this is from 5 years ago. But I am continually creating new videos

[@husseinebrahim362]

DR.@@GregoryBSadler wow that is interesting new.am inspired well

[@p.vaughan3963]

excellent.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Thanks!

[@aron14311]

also: Mr Sadler, did you go to UNT?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Not sure what UNT is. I did my graduate work at University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale -- you can hear about that in some of my more personal talks.

[@aron14311]

for Niet to not realize empathy, or something like what we call love, or the instinct to nurture the weak (or some such) or even the universalized love of modern monotheism seems to me a big gap in hisconception of human motives

[@kolamoose8717]

I wonder what Nietzsche would have said about Confucianism

[@MichaelJimenez416]

Does Nietzsche's work become more prescient during movember?

[@GregoryBSadler]

I doubt it.

[@used_tissue3536]

Men take steroids to become strong.....but they do not see videos like this that strengthen you beyond any temporary chemical can

[@GregoryBSadler]

Reading and reflecting on the text is more important than the video

[@used_tissue3536]

@@GregoryBSadler very true

[@xo3737]

I'm confused :( what kind of relations of power does bad conscience produce ?

[@GregoryBSadler]

You can find quite a few of these discussed in the work, and in Nietzsche's work more generally. Focus in on what has says ressentiment leads to, for a start.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yep, they're trying

[@MrExpiate]

Thank you very much for shooting these videos, clarifying and concise. Would you say that Nietzsche's ideas about value are mainly based on the creditor/debtor relation?

[@GregoryBSadler]

No. His ideas about value are not mainly based on the creditor/debtor relation. He's got a LOT of ideas about values

[@MrExpiate]

Gregory B. Sadler Thanks for the quick and insightful reply. I concede, Nietzsche does have a lot of ideas - and perspectives - about values. In the following passage in ~8 of the second essay Nietzsche outlines the creditor/debtor relation: "To resume the path of our enquiry, the feeling of guilt, of personal obligation has, as we saw, its origin in the oldest and most primitive personal relationship there is and has been-in the relationship between seller and buyer, creditor and debtor. Here for the first time one person encountered another person and measured himself against him. We have not yet found a civilization at such a low level that something of this relationship is not already perceptible. To set prices, measure values, think up equivalencies, to exchange things-that preoccupied man’s very first thinking to such a degree that in a certain sense it’s what thinking is." Here Nietzsche seems to genealogically trace guilt and debt (Shuld & Shulden) to an originary creditor/debtor relation. However he does seem to place a high premium on the procedures entailed in the relation by articulating that it is what thinking is in a certain sense. I don't think this only applies to the very first men, since societies - even secular ones - for Nietzsche still function according to the debts it owes to the past. Immediately afterwards he mentions evaluation or Werthschätzen (value estimation) as forming part of the creditor/debtor relation. In the Gay Science Nietzsche asserts that "values are necessary for life, and the practice of evaluating needs to continue, as life itself is nothing but continuous value estimation." Would you say that an axiology, based mainly on the creditor/debtor relation, would suffice as a coherent perspective? Moreover, do you know of any other ideas of Nietzsche that could be forced into juxtaposition with this one?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yep, I actually have discussed that passage in some of the videos. There are many types of values. Nietzsche does not view all value as stemming from the creditor/debtor relations, though some values do. Here's what you might do -- look at all the different places where Nietzsche discusses values, avoid the temptation to try to force them all into one structure, and then see how the different conceptions of values fit in with each other.

[@MrExpiate]

Thanks for the tip. I'll be sure to do so.

[@TatianaLovesYouAndDontForgetIt]

I think the only reason why I hate watching your videos is because I can't stop once I do, and then there goes my day. You are absolutely amazing!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, that's a good and bad reason at the same time!

[@sogolvaziri2035]

Dear Dr S, Can we label N as a social darwinist? Does he open 'one ' way to Racial supremacist?

[@GregoryBSadler]

No, I'd say that a good bit of what Nietzsche teaches is at odds with the run of the mill social Darwinists.

[@aron14311]

I don't trust "the brave souls". Did anyone think the movie Promeathus had Nietzschean themes?

[@Destructerator]

Can the brain be mechanized? We're trying.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Hahaha! Thanks!

[@John-jr1qi]

Where's Teller?

[@GregoryBSadler]

I think that joke is a few years stale. But thanks for showing up late, I guess. . . .

[@John-jr1qi]

@@GregoryBSadler You're right of course. Pretty unoriginal. Broke my own rule of not missing a good opportunity to keep your mouth shut. :(

[@infinitesimotel]

Ah OK, I see where youre coming from, I think I missed something.