Returning to the blogospheric discussion
I’ve been kept pretty busy in real life of late. Not that I haven’t wanted to blog about things (for example, exents surrounding the discovery of Fomalhaut b – a historical milestone in the seach for extrasolar planets), I really haven’t found the time or the energy.
During the last couple of weeks, I’ve been flattered by people participating in discussion while nothing new has been posted. I think this blog may be reaching the critical point where the growing size of the archives generates more traffic than do new posts, but I’ll keep adding all the same. Did I ever spend time in bed on Saturday!
And speaking for flattery, long-time reader, recent participant in discussion, Dereck, has dedicated a post! I feel I should return the favour and there is an idea I’ve had for a post for a little while that seems appropriate.
My little Penguin Classics copy of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra has an introduction by R.J. Hollingdale, where there are a few words that to some extent I think ring true of the direction I’m taking this blog and to some of the sentiment in Dereck’s Greatest Week post.
“It is clear that the rhetorical-oratorical is something Nietzsche was impelled to, gave way to and thus got rid of in Zarathustra: the eruption of words, metaphors, figures and word-play suggests an eruption of feeling… Thus Spoke Zarathustra is (to anticipate our conclusion somewhat) the resolution of a long-sustained intellectual crisis. Let the word ‘intellectual’ not mislead: unlike most people, even most philosophers, Nietzsche lived with his intellectual problems as with realities, he experienced a similar emotional commitment to them as other men experience to their wife and children.”
Citing several quotes, Hollingdale goes on to say about Nietzsche;
“In a man who thinks like this, the dichotomy between thinking and feeling, intellect and passion, has really disappeared. He feels his thoughts. He can fall in love with an idea. An idea can make him ill.”
I think perhaps that Hollingdale may have exaggerated the breakdown of this dichotomy. Whatever Nietzsche’s emotional investment, however much he may have employed the rhetorical-oratorical, the underlying concepts don’t seem to have been compromised. Zarathustra, to anyone who cares to investigate, wasn’t purely governed by Nietzsche’s emotion.
Conversely, I have doubts as to the supposed emotional detachment of ‘other philosophers’. In discussion with the philosophically minded (including a couple of academics) of an early-enlightenment leaning, I’ve found the use of Kantian logic (for example anything from The Critique of Pure Reason – which incidentally delivers a devastating assault on The Ontological Argument for God) to precipitate anything between mild frustration and total meltdown. Maybe my anecdotal evidence is skewed?
I’ve witnessed similar meltdowns on the blogosphere as well, specifically amongst those waving the flag of High Reason, some of which I am still supremely perplexed about. The waving of the flag of High Reason seems every bit as rhetorical as Nietzsche’s wilder flights of fancy. The removal of “I” from writing being to appear impartial more than to be impartial and all that.
While emotion can play a different role depending on the topic (say natural science versus a study of aesthetics), it would be fatuous to say that it doesn’t play a role. What gets you out of bed to engage in the inquiry in the first place? Dawkins himself frequently recommends the natural sciences as a profound aesthetic experience, and he’s spot on at least as far as my own subjective tastes are concerned.
It’s when our reasoning becomes compromised by, rather than initiated or facilitated by our emotions that it becomes a problem. When we ignore logical fallacies, or abandon deductive reasoning lest it obliterate our cherished ideas (see inductivist arguments for racial or gender superiority for example – not my cherished ideas, but ideas cherished by some all the same – also see creationism!)
If I had to pick a flaw of Nietzsche’s, it would be his elevation of Wagnarian music (and Wagnarian themes) to a position where he didn’t subject them to the same destructive critique as he did Christendom. Clearly, he had an emotional investment. Perhaps if he had the advantage of hindsight, the appalling and pathetic truths of Wagnarian-like fantasy made ideology, or the millionth replay of Ride of The Valkyries, he’d have done differently.
Having a break from blogging as I’ve had repeatedly this year, gives you the (rather unavoidable) opportunity to reflect on why you keep blogging. As distracted as I have been, I do have a passion for a range of topics one can ponder.
I can state my positions on issues scientific with unbiased reasons for believing them, but my reasons for stating them at all will always, ultimately be emotional; curiosity primarily.
The actual core philosophical business aside (i.e. the reasoning), we are left with mode of delivery. I’m not entirely sure that Nietzsche’s rhetorical-oratorical present in Zarathustra (in contrast to the more precise nature of his later works) was as much a problem as Hollingdale made out.
I suspect that if one can get past the rhetoric, decipher the metaphor, parley with the wordplay and get to what Nietzsche was on about, then they can achieve a greater understanding of his ideas than if he had just come straight out with it. One has to work, one has to engage their mind in building an understanding as did Nietzsche.
Obviously there are benefits to being precise and concise, but I don’t think these approaches have a monopoly on good prose. A bit of waffle, carefully constructed waffle, can have a complimentary, enhancing effect. Pointed waffle (as oxymoronic as it may sound.)
That, and it can make an otherwise dry and dusty read, that much more enjoyable. And let’s face it, you won’t get much thought about a topic written, if nobody reads it!
So if you’ve been wondering what I’ve been thinking while I’ve been away, or if you haven’t, well that’s it. It’ll be informing the way I write things around here from now on (if it hasn’t already.)
~ Bruce
The thinking/feeling dichotomy is one I’ve studied quite a bit. I don’t think that N truly abolished this distinction (almost nobody in the West has), though I think he came pretty close. In various books he mentions how ‘the body’ is the source of one’s greatest wisdom, and how instinct is thoroughly imbued with intellect and cunning. He is also at pains to discuss how the body (i.e. feeling) has historically been slandered in favour of the soul (i.e. thinking).
As for Wagner – N’s views on him varied thoughout his works, from early enthusiasm (though were both friends, and both devotees of Schopenhauer) to an ironical/critical perspective in the later works. In the end, I got the sense in my reading of N that he probably preferred other musical works, and that Wagner had the status of a ‘problem’, something to be unravelled , traversed and ultimately overcome, similar to Christ, Socrates, or Schopenhauer.
I don’t think that N truly abolished this distinction (almost nobody in the West has), though I think he came pretty close.
I agree. As I said before, I think Hollingdale overstates how N has done away with the distinction. But then maybe he was being rhetorical-oratorical.
He is also at pains to discuss how the body (i.e. feeling) has historically been slandered in favour of the soul (i.e. thinking).
There is a long line of dualist tradition in philosophy to overcome, no?
In the end, I got the sense in my reading of N that he probably preferred other musical works, and that Wagner had the status of a ‘problem’, something to be unravelled , traversed and ultimately overcome, similar to Christ, Socrates, or Schopenhauer.
That would seem to be the logical outcome, although I confess I haven’t picked up on it. I’m planning on re-reading through a number of N’s works this summer, so I’ll keep an eye out for it.
P.S. Good to see you around the blogosphere again!
You have been tagged cheers
@ Bruce – Mentioning me in a post largely about Nietzsche is a pretty cool way to return the thanks (and thank you). I’ve only mentioned a few times in my whole blog, and I don’t know if you saw one of those few mentions, but I am quite fond of “Mr. Nietzsche.” In fact, it was an interpretation of Nietzsche that led me to my ambitions that I recently proclaimed happily about, at the top of which you found my dedication to you. Nice little circle here.
As to Nietzsche in the context you’ve mentioned him here in your post, while I’ve got more than I should say in a comment box, I’ll say this, initially:
We’re talking about the potential of a dichotomy between thinking and feeling in Zarathustra.
These are your words, but they resemble Nietzsche’s because he said that Zarathustra was his most important work. At the same time, enigmas like Zarathustra require, for the rest of us, interpretors. The interpretation that makes the most sense to me might suggest that Nietzsche’s use of reason was through and through wholly present and that what we see as feeling, especially in Zarathustra, was a requirement he saw as necessary because of how he was informed by his faculty of reason.
What am I saying?
I’m saying that the apparent mesh of thinking and feeling might have been intentional. And if so, what does that say about his thinking?
Good post Bruce.
That Dereck has quite a blog, Bruce! Have you checked it out? I did, and was rather amazed…
I have checked it out in as far as I can so far (got most of the way through the about page and a couple of posts including the linked to). Some of the embedded flash (or something) is killing my browser though!