Philosophy

by Sharon Kaye

  ‘Is there anything I should do tonight, just in case?’

  But thinking about it makes you tired and before long you are in a deep sleep…

  You wake up in the morning to your phone ringing.

  ‘Hello?’ you sputter.

  It’s your boss. Today is your birthday and, although you were scheduled to work a long shift, your boss has found a way to give you the day off instead.

  ‘Take it free and clear, as a gift.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘No “buts!”’ your boss chimes merrily. ‘Everything is taken care of. Only one thing is required of you.’ Here, your boss’s voice turns serious. ‘Make the most of this day. I mean really seize it. You must live this day like it was the last day of your life.’

  You hang up the phone, suspicious. Have you been exposed to some fatal radiation that will kill you by midnight?

  ‘Suppose that were true… How would I spend this day?’ … …

  You better love your life

  ‘I love my life!’ Can you honestly say that? How many people do you think can?

  When pressed, most people will admit that, although they do not absolutely love their life right now, they fully intend to love it just as soon as ____________. Fill this blank with something like one of the following:

  • ‘just as soon as I finish school’

  • ‘just as soon as I find a better job’

  • ‘just as soon as I meet the right person’

  • ‘just as soon as I can afford a house’

  • ‘just as soon as I have a family of my own’

  • ‘just as soon as my children are older’

  • ‘just as soon as I lose some weight’

  • ‘just as soon as my divorce is final’

  and so on…

  When you’re young, you’re completely convinced by the illusion of a light at the end of the tunnel. Somewhere in middle age, however, it will dawn on you that every ‘just as soon as’ is replaced by another, and that there really is no end to them in this life. This thought often inspires people to believe fervently in an afterlife where somehow, finally, you get a life that you can really love.

  The thought experiment at the opening of this chapter, where you find yourself living the same day over again, was originally proposed by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). Nietzsche viewed the ‘just as soon as’ mentality as the most significant problem of Western civilization. He asks us to suppose we are condemned to repeat our lives the same way over and over again for ever – an eternal recurrence. This should inspire you to do whatever it takes to be sure you love every moment.

  The will to power

  Nietzsche was a bold and daring cultural critic. The son of a Lutheran pastor, he launched his career with a scathing criticism of Christianity. Christianity invented the ‘just as soon as’ mentality discussed above by teaching that this life is just a transitory struggle on the way to heaven. But Christianity invented and perpetuates many other problematic attitudes as well, in his view.

  In particular, the chief virtues according to Christianity, as demonstrated by its messiah, Jesus Christ, are humility and sacrifice. But these are slavish qualities, worthy only of servile, inferior beings, according to Nietzsche.

  People tend to think of morality as something so sacred that it cannot be questioned. But Nietzsche argues that, if you trace the emergence of moral concepts through Western civilization, you’ll see that they are just human constructs, born of the ongoing struggle between individuals and groups for the only thing that really matters – power.

  When Nietzsche examines reality to see what it is truly made of, he finds nothing but power. All of nature – everything that exists – is striving to impose itself on the world. Every rock, tree, bird and bee wants to spread itself out, to dominate its environment. Human beings are no different, and exerting ourselves always means confronting and overcoming others. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are all pushing to seize the highest possible position in life – an instinctual urge Nietzsche calls the ‘will to power’.

  Nietzsche asks: are you going to try to suppress this urge, or are you going to make the most of it?

  Master–slave morality

  The history of morality is the history of a power struggle between masters – the strong ones who have succeeded in imposing their will – and slaves – the weak ones who have been imposed upon. Christians started out as slaves but slowly turned the tables on their masters by cloaking their ambition in the language of love.

  Nietzsche despises Christianity, Judaism and, by extension, all modern religions, for their covert and hypocritical agenda. He writes: ‘After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.’

  Nietzsche instead admires the master morality – which he calls ‘noble’ and identifies with prehistoric man – because at least it is honest and courageous. The masters rape, pillage and plunder without apology, creating their own value along the way.

  While Nietzsche has no qualms about bashing traditional morality and religion, there is a method in his madness. He is determined to help his readers break free of the sour malaise in which he feels modern society is drowning.

  In order to arise, slave morality always requires first an opposing world, a world outside itself. Psychologically speaking, it needs external stimuli in order to act at all – its action is basically reaction. The reverse is the case with the noble method of valuing: it acts and grows spontaneously. It seeks its opposite only to affirm its own self even more thankfully, with even more rejoicing – its negative concept of ‘low’, ‘common’, ‘bad’ is merely a pale contrasting image after the fact in relation to its positive basic concept, thoroughly intoxicated with life and passion, ‘We are noble, good, beautiful, and happy!’

  Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/nietzsche/genealogy1.htm)

  Zarathustra

  Perhaps because his ideas were so controversial, or perhaps because his own way of thinking was so unconventional, Nietzsche conveyed much of his philosophy through fiction. His most important character, Zarathustra, is based on the Iranian prophet by the same name (also known as Zoroaster).

  Zarathustra, who is clearly a projection of Nietzsche himself, left his home to seek wisdom in the mountains. After ten years, he returned to society to share with the people the shocking truth he learned: that ‘God is dead’.

  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?

  Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125 (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/nietzsche-madman.asp.)

  In asserting that God is dead, Nietzsche does not mean to be taken literally – that God was once alive. On the contrary, God never existed, in Nietzsche’s view; he was always just a story the masters told to keep the slaves from rebelling. But there was a time when the story of God enlivened the people, inspiring them to achieve great things. And this is what has died. The story doesn’t work any more. It’s just a tired old tale that creates timid, uninteresting people who do nothing but ‘follow the herd’ like sheep.

  Through the figure of Zarathustra, Nietzsche argues, not that we adopt the master morality, but that we transcend the master–slave dichotomy altogether. He implores us to evolve ‘beyond good and evil’.

  Spotlight

  Seen on a washroom wall:

  God is dead. – Nietzsche

  Nietzsche is dead. – God

  Übermensch

  Just as ape-like creatures evolved into humanity, humanity is capable of evolving into a more advanc
ed form of existence – godlike beings, whom Nietzsche calls the Übermenschen. The Übermensch (named from a German word that roughly translates as ‘over-man’) is the ultimate realization of the will to power. He is neither slave nor master, because he is completely self-sufficient.

  Since no one has yet achieved this level of existence, we can’t be sure exactly what it would be like. Nevertheless, Nietzsche suggests that the pagan culture of ancient Greece provides a good clue.

  The ancient Greeks developed their religious and moral concepts through tragedy – dramatic performances about human suffering that were regularly staged for the public. According to Nietzsche’s analysis, the best tragedies always revolved around two opposed forces: the Apollonian and the Dionysian.

  Named after Apollo, the sun god, the Apollonian force is rational and law-like. It seeks to preserve and protect by maintaining strict order. The Dionysian force, in contrast, named after Dionysus, the god of wine, is dangerous, cruel and wild. It seeks to unleash chaos at every turn. Greek tragedy shows how both forces have an important role to play and are required for a balanced, healthy existence.

  Problems began for Western civilization when Socrates, whom Nietzsche regards as a menace rather than a hero, promoted the Apollonian force over the Dionysian force. This rationalistic trend was reinforced by Christianity, which strove to tame and deny all ecstatic instincts. The result is a highly repressed society. The solution, and the path to humanity’s next evolution, is to reintroduce the Dionysian force, both on an individual and a societal level.

  The divine ecstasy of the Übermensch must be distinguished from the utilitarian happiness of John Stuart Mill, whom Nietzsche called ‘the flathead’. ‘Man does not strive for happiness,’ Nietzsche writes, ‘only the Englishman does that.’ Mill seeks to maximize pleasure and minimize pain – a trivial and unworthy aspiration from Nietzsche’s perspective. The Übermensch, in contrast, lives deeply, richly and significantly without shying away from pain, because, as Nietzsche famously remarks, ‘that which does not kill us makes us stronger’. The Übermensch is an uncontainable force of nature, who rejects all value systems while living life to the hilt.

  Nihilism/perspectivalism

  Nietzsche openly identified himself as a nihilist (from the Latin word for ‘nothing’). By this, he means that there is no objective meaning in the world. Every belief is false because there is no true reason for anything.

  But without God, the universe is meaningless. Life is meaningless. We’re meaningless. [Long pause] I have a sudden and overpowering urge to get laid.

  Woody Allen

  Needless to say, nihilism is a rare position to find among philosophers. Why write books, why even get up in the morning, if there is no point to anything? Yet Nietzsche did get up in the morning and continued to write books even through a debilitating illness that caused a mental breakdown leading to his early death at age 55. How did he make sense of the meaninglessness he felt he had discovered?

  Once again casting his gaze over the history of Western civilization, Nietzsche observes that nihilism is the logical conclusion of all of its striving. He predicts that, just as individuals eventually realize their ‘just as soon as’ mentality to be futile, so, too, society itself will realize that all its goals are illusory.

  Nihilism as a psychological state will have to be reached, first, when we have sought a ‘meaning’ in all events that is not there: so the seeker eventually becomes discouraged. Nihilism, then, is the recognition of the long waste of strength, the agony of the ‘in vain’, insecurity, the lack of any opportunity to recover and to regain composure – being ashamed in front of oneself, as if one had deceived oneself all too long. This meaning could have been: the ‘fulfilment’ of some highest ethical canon in all events, the moral world order; or the growth of love and harmony in the intercourse of beings; or the gradual approximation of a state of universal happiness; or even the development towards a state of universal annihilation – any goal at least constitutes some meaning. What all these notions have in common is that something is to be achieved through the process – and now one realizes that becoming aims at nothing and achieves nothing.

  Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, Book 1 (http://www.yuga.com/Cgi/Pag.dll?Pag=107)

  One goal leads to another and another in an aimless series rather than progressive improvement. All of our apparent achievements (one thinks, for instance, of the latest mobile phone) are really just superficial distractions from a hollow lack of substance at the centre.

  While it may be upsetting to come to this realization, it is also liberating. It forces one to realize that one is free to make one’s own meaning. Rather than giving up in the face of nothingness, Nietzsche transforms his nihilism into perspectivalism, arguing that, while there is no absolute truth, everyone can develop their own interpretation of the world. His emphasis on the radical freedom of interpretation has made him an important influence on the art world.

  Case study: Heidegger and phenomenology

  The twentieth-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) was profoundly influenced by Nietzsche. He argues that the history of Western philosophy was bound to produce a nihilist because it set off on the wrong foot from the very beginning.

  Philosophers have always been engaged in metaphysical investigations, asking about the nature of reality. As we have seen in this book: Plato asks whether the material world exists; Aquinas and Anselm ask whether God exists; Descartes asks whether the soul exists; Hobbes asks whether freedom exists; Hume asks whether causality exists; and so on, up to Nietzsche, who concluded that nothing but the will to power exists. Philosophers are always asking whether things that seem to exist really do exist and, if so, whether it can be proven.

  The problem, according to Heidegger, is that they all take it for granted that we understand what existence is. They fail to ask what it means for something to be real in the first place. This is the fundamental question that must be answered before any others can even be asked. What is it to be? We cannot investigate the being of particular beings until we investigate the being of being itself.

  So Heidegger sets out to investigate the being of being – a very esoteric enterprise! In fact, the very idea of the ‘being of being’ is so odd that it is scarcely intelligible. Yet Heidegger writes that ‘Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy’, and his magnum opus, Being and Time (1927), has been called the most influential single philosophical work of the twentieth century.

  The method of Heidegger’s investigation is called hermeneutical phenomenology. Phenomenology refers to the study of the structure of consciousness. Like his teacher Edmund Husserl, who was the founder of phenomenology, Heidegger believes that subjective experience gives us the greatest clue to the truth about reality.

  For example, we cannot understand a hammer by looking at it as a separate object but only by using it and thereby, in a way, merging our being with its being. The attempt to maintain a subject–object distinction leads to many of the misunderstandings that have corrupted the history of philosophy.

  Rather than rejecting this history, however, Heidegger believes we must reinterpret it. This is why his phenomenology is hermeneutic: by studying historical texts and thinking about their traditional conceptions of the world in new ways we gain valuable insights.

  The main insight Heidegger hits upon in Being and Time is the concept of Dasein, which means ‘being there’ and refers to the experience of being that is peculiar to humanity. It is a form of consciousness that must deal with such issues as personhood, caring about things, the passage of time, and death.

  Despite the enthusiastic reception of Being and Time, Heidegger claimed his effort to discover the meaning of being to be a failure, and he never finished his planned sequel to the book. To make matters worse, in later years he seems to take back, or at least modify, much of what he originally wrote.

  Of course, it’s not all unusual for anyone, much less philosophers, to revise the
ir point of view over the course of a lifetime. Nevertheless, Heidegger may win the prize for being the most impossible-to-understand philosopher of all time.

  Spotlight

  Although his teacher Edmund Husserl and his lover Hannah Arendt were Jews, Heidegger became a member of the Nazi party and never, to his dying day in 1976, expressed regret about it.

  Continental philosophy

  Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger, along with Sartre, whom we will meet in Chapter 13, are considered the founders of continental philosophy. The term ‘continental philosophy’ was coined in the last quarter of the twentieth century to distinguish thought stemming from the continent of Europe from analytic philosophy, which is characteristic of Great Britain.

  While continental philosophy includes a variety of original thinkers, the following themes dominate among them:

  • a preference for literary and poetic forms of expression over ordinary language

  • the rejection of a single, objective or scientific point of view

  • the effort to situate concepts within their cultural, historical or political context

  • an emphasis on the freedom of the individual

  • concern with the methods and aims of philosophy as a discipline.

  Continental philosophy is best understood in contrast to analytic philosophy, and so we turn to it next.

  Key ideas

  Analytic philosophy: Thought characteristic of Great Britain

  Apollonian force: The rational and orderly theme in Greek tragedy