Antroposophy, Nietzsche & Jung

[Phoenix86]

Hi there!! I personally love this authors:
*Antroposophy (Rudolf Steiner).
*Friedrich Nietzsche
*Carl Gustav Jung

Since this is a forum to discuss books & that sort of things, i was looking for different points of view about this guys around the world. Could get interesting, don't you think?

So basically: If you're reading this, it's because some of this names ringed a bell for you, so please tell us (or me in the worst case scenario :smallwink:)...

1) Which one ringed a bell for you?
2) Have you read any of their books? (which ones?).
3) Do you agree with them? (quote if you want to).
4) Anything interesting to say about them? (or their work?)
5) And why not? Name your favorite author (or someone related to this topics that you like).


Let's see what the world thinks of this guys... :smallsmile:

[golentan]

I know Nietzsche and Jung.

I like Jung. Even if his terminology has been coopted by people who don't understand that it doesn't imply a psychic nature to humanity.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I know Nietzsche and Jung.

I like Jung. Even if his terminology has been coopted by people who don't understand that it doesn't imply a psychic nature to humanity.Well they coopted it into four very good video games, at least.

Nietzsche also gets misused a lot too (listen to anyone mention Nietzsche's concept of the Superman, or his "God is dead" quote, and there is a 90% chance they will miss the point entirely), but both of these authors have very interesting ideas that I happen to mostly disagree with. Hey, at least they're more coherent than Kant.

[golentan]

Well they coopted it into four very good video games, at least.

Nietzsche also gets misused a lot too (listen to anyone mention Nietzsche's concept of the Superman, or his "God is dead" quote, and there is a 90% chance they will miss the point entirely), but both of these authors have very interesting ideas that I happen to mostly disagree with. Hey, at least they're more coherent than Kant.

Yeah, well. I Kant stand him.

I'm not a big fan of most philosophy. So no Nietzsche or Kant or the like tickles my fancy. I like Jung because while his work had a lot of flaws, his branch of psychology is more... Involved. You know?

[The Extinguisher]

I prefer Tiny Carl Jung, myself.

[GolemsVoice]

I've read "Thus spoke Zarathustra", mainly because the writing is so awesome. Nietzsche has some very good ideas, but also some very strange ones, so you have to pick what suits you (that is, if I understood what he wanted to say). I had a very interesting conversation with a protestant minister who loved Nietzsche.

I've heard of Jung, and I've heard of the concept of antroposophy, but I didn't read the book, and have not looked into the concept, or Jung's work.

[Blas_de_Lezo]

"Nietzsche is dead". God. :smallbiggrin:

[Faulty]

1) Which one ringed a bell for you?
2) Have you read any of their books? (which ones?).
3) Do you agree with them? (quote if you want to).
4) Anything interesting to say about them? (or their work?)
5) And why not? Name your favorite author (or someone related to this topics that you like).


Let's see what the world thinks of this guys... :smallsmile:

1) Nietzsche.
2) The Antichrist and most of Beyond Good & Evil.
3) I like his idea of eternal reccurence, not as a metaphysical truth, but as a way of living. I like his rejection of certain dichotomies as represented by the title of Beyond Good & Evil. I like his naturalism. Many other minor things that pop up are really interesting. I can appreciate his views of ontology, and the personal way in which he engages with philosophy; the idea of man as intellectual and instinctual, natural, subjective. I haven't read any pre-Nietzschean philosophy that I find convincingly deals with that. Spinoza sorta makes sense, I like his rejection of free will. I also find his idea of Dionysean and Appolonian features; Herman Hesse puts it to good use in his fiction.
4) I like his somewhat indirect connection to phenomenology. While Husserl was definitely more important for its development, Nietzsche is often seen as a pre-cursor to existential phenomenology, and I've developed an interested in phenomenology... so...

[Mx.Silver]

Hey, at least they're more coherent than Kant.
Who isn't? :smalltongue:

[GolemsVoice]

Don't be dissin' the Kant, man. That guy knew what he was talking about. :smallwink: Although he was a little extreme in his views. One day, he was asked if he would give awa somebody hiding from a murderer, and he said yes, he would do so, because not doing so would mean lying, which didn't fit with his categorcial imperative.

[Ichneumon]

But I like Kant and his absolutist categorical imperative.:smallfrown:

[Nerd-o-rama]

Oh don't get me started on Kant's moral philosophy. That just makes me angry. His natural philosophy is where all his good ideas are, and even then they're buried deep within his inability to express them.

[Faulty]

I dislike almost everything I know about Kant. Oh God.

[shadow_archmagi]

I actually didn't mind Kant so much.

[secretbison]

A lot of Kant is dry and hard to get excited about, but his Critique of Judgment is probably my favorite book on aesthetics.

Nietzsche's all right with me, because even through his ethics are elitist, they're overtly and unapologetically so. What I don't like are philosophies that try to hide their snobbery, like anthroposophy and "spiral dynamics." I particularly don't like the way anthroposophy pretends that its methods are scientific when in fact its conclusions are completely untestable. It reminds me of the creepiest practices of Scientology and Falun Gong, or the characters in Starship Troopers who believe that their moral philosophy is derived from pure reason and can be proven using nothing but mathematics.

[Dienekes]

Ehh, I like Kant as someone who got the ball rolling, so to speak.

Personally I don't agree with him, but then I'm a born liar and I do find it hard to directly counter some of his claims with actual evidence. Not that it can't be done, but that I have yet to find a convincing counter.

Nietzsche, ehh. From what I've read about him I haven't exactly liked, mostly since he draws his master slave morality from Homeric Greece. Life SUCKED in Homeric Greece for everyone but the top 1% of society. Why would anyone want to try and re-emulate that? But then again, I have not got around to reading his books so I'm probably misinterpreting it.

[secretbison]

Nietzsche, ehh. From what I've read about him I haven't exactly liked, mostly since he draws his master slave morality from Homeric Greece. Life SUCKED in Homeric Greece for everyone but the top 1% of society. Why would anyone want to try and re-emulate that? But then again, I have not got around to reading his books so I'm probably misinterpreting it.

No, you've gotten it pretty much right. Nietzsche didn't really care how the other 99% were doing, as long as the 1% were free and able to keep progressing. The general common welfare was just not something he valued, and you have to take him or leave him on the basis of that.

[Manicotti]

No, you've gotten it pretty much right. Nietzsche didn't really care how the other 99% were doing, as long as the 1% were free and able to keep progressing. The general common welfare was just not something he valued, and you have to take him or leave him on the basis of that.

That and he had a damn good sense of humor. Thus Spoke Zarathustra was at least partially a parody of basically every serious religious and philosophical work before him, and it's easy to see.

And to the other poster - yes, whenever I hear someone misuse "God is dead," or go on about how Nietzsche supported the Nazis, I want to hit him in the face with a large and pointed object.

[Dienekes]

No, you've gotten it pretty much right. Nietzsche didn't really care how the other 99% were doing, as long as the 1% were free and able to keep progressing. The general common welfare was just not something he valued, and you have to take him or leave him on the basis of that.

That... depresses me that he's become so popular then.

[thorgrim29]

But then again, there's no prerequisite for being in the top 1% other then to be willing to take your life into your own hands for Nietzsche, he just believed 99% of humanity were born followers, no matter if they are noble, common, freemen or slaves by birth.

[Drascin]

Oh don't get me started on Kant's moral philosophy. That just makes me angry. His natural philosophy is where all his good ideas are, and even then they're buried deep within his inability to express them.

I haven't really read anything by Kant, given his philosophy never entered my courses and I had more entertaining fare to read in my free time :smallwink:, but at least from the random quotes you inevitably hear around, he doesn't sound that bad. That famous quote of "Live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law" is pretty much the Vaarsuvius Version of "do to others as you would want they'd do to you", which is, overall, a pretty decent base idea to work from, as far as systems go.

But, again, I don't know a thing. It might be that it just sounds good taken out of context, after all. Damn, now I'm curious. Curse you all, I'm supposed to be studying Circuits, not reading up on philosophy :smalltongue:.

[secretbison]

Sartre took the Categorical Imperative to an even more absurd extreme. In Existentialism is a Humanism, he claimed that not only is the Categorical Imperative a good idea, it's unavoidable. Supposedly, whenever someone makes a choice, they're creating an ideal self-image, and by extension a model for how they think everyone else needs to behave. He also tried to prove, a priori, how everyone in the world feels, and claimed that people who acted as though they felt differently were deceiving themselves. Madness.

[bibliophile]

Hmm Nietzsche. While I find his Last Man to be something to be avoided, I think the rest of his work is trash.

Jung makes a fine mystic, but a poor psychologist.



By the way, I'm not sure this is in the right forum. We're discussing people's theories, not specific fictional works. Shouldn't it go in Friendly Banter?

[Dienekes]

But then again, there's no prerequisite for being in the top 1% other then to be willing to take your life into your own hands for Nietzsche, he just believed 99% of humanity were born followers, no matter if they are noble, common, freemen or slaves by birth.

And does he address the supreme advantages that learning and wealth of the rich would have on making leaders? Or does he just assume that being a leader is a passed down trait?

[secretbison]

And does he address the supreme advantages that learning and wealth of the rich would have on making leaders? Or does he just assume that being a leader is a passed down trait?

He didn't accept that nobility is hereditary. At the same time he also didn't accept that life was fair. He'd probably agree that the right kind of education helps make someone noble, but at the same time, he didn't actually care how many people became "noble," adopted master morality, and took their lives into their own hands. He only cared that there were some of them, that they could identify themselves and that others could identify them. He liked using the metaphor of predator and prey animals, and an ecosystem that loses its prey is in just as much trouble as one that loses all its predators.

To be clear, I don't believe this, I'm just trying to accurately convey what he thought.

[Faulty]

Sartre took the Categorical Imperative to an even more absurd extreme. In Existentialism is a Humanism, he claimed that not only is the Categorical Imperative a good idea, it's unavoidable. Supposedly, whenever someone makes a choice, they're creating an ideal self-image, and by extension a model for how they think everyone else needs to behave. He also tried to prove, a priori, how everyone in the world feels, and claimed that people who acted as though they felt differently were deceiving themselves. Madness.

Sartre's philosophy is rather non-sensical overall.

As far as Nietzsche's elitism: Nietzsche thought that a truly noble being would be gracious. He would take pleasure in reciprocal and gracious relationships between himself and his equals, and would treat his lessers with a level of magnanimity. There were some people Nietzsche considered less than dirt though; in a letter to his friend Overbeck he expressed the wish that all anti-semites be shot. I think Nietzsche believed that it would be possible for more than a mere 1% of individuals to be noble, and that this would require a re-evaluation of all values, which would allow culture to escape nihilism and the confines of Christian slave morality.

Stepping away from that though, Nietzsche really should not be considered on a social level. It seems like his philosophy was meant to be engaged on a personal level.

[bibliophile]

Inevitably though, unless you are a hermit, you interact with people. Then a personal philosophy has social impact.

[Tiktakkat]

Nietzsche, ehh. From what I've read about him I haven't exactly liked, mostly since he draws his master slave morality from Homeric Greece. Life SUCKED in Homeric Greece for everyone but the top 1% of society. Why would anyone want to try and re-emulate that? But then again, I have not got around to reading his books so I'm probably misinterpreting it.

Because he does not.
He describes the master and slave moralities as examples of values to be re-evaulated precisely because of their flaws.


No, you've gotten it pretty much right. Nietzsche didn't really care how the other 99% were doing, as long as the 1% were free and able to keep progressing. The general common welfare was just not something he valued, and you have to take him or leave him on the basis of that.

Not at all.
Nietzcsche was very concerned about the common welfare. Just because he recognized that the vast majority of people would never be able to lift themselves up in no way meant he did not care about them.
He simply recognized that you could achieve more by uplifting those capable of leading and making the necessary changes rather than spending endless energy on those who were content to be followers.


He didn't accept that nobility is hereditary. At the same time he also didn't accept that life was fair. He'd probably agree that the right kind of education helps make someone noble, but at the same time, he didn't actually care how many people became "noble," adopted master morality, and took their lives into their own hands. He only cared that there were some of them, that they could identify themselves and that others could identify them. He liked using the metaphor of predator and prey animals, and an ecosystem that loses its prey is in just as much trouble as one that loses all its predators.

To be clear, I don't believe this, I'm just trying to accurately convey what he thought.

What you are missing is that he declared his ideal was for men to be neither predator nor prey, but creators.
Nietzsche felt men who lived as predators, while a step above those who live as prey, were still far from living up to their true potential, and thus only a minor step above those who live as prey. Ultimately they are still choosing to live as animals rather than as men, no matter how much they might be turned into cult figures.


As far as Nietzsche's elitism: Nietzsche thought that a truly noble being would be gracious. He would take pleasure in reciprocal and gracious relationships between himself and his equals, and would treat his lessers with a level of magnanimity.

Definitely.
That is why the Overman, also referred to in context as "the Creative Child" compared to the "magnificent blonde beast" (a lion) and the "servile camel" as symbols for those with master/predator and slave/prey morality.


There were some people Nietzsche considered less than dirt though; in a letter to his friend Overbeck he expressed the wish that all anti-semites be shot.

Remember, Nietzsche wrote an entire book dedicated to putting down Richard Wagner, driven in large part because Wagner was an anti-semite.
In many ways Nietzsche loathed anti-semites so much because, as he said, so many of the "best" of them were German, and he felt that reflected poorly on all Germans, including himself.
Overall though, it is really difficult to overstate the degree to which Nietzsche absolutely loathed anti-semites.


I think Nietzsche believed that it would be possible for more than a mere 1% of individuals to be noble, and that this would require a re-evaluation of all values, which would allow culture to escape nihilism and the confines of Christian slave morality.

That is the projected essence, yes.
The core of it was that he felt all morality had decayed because people no longer understood why they were being moral, they just did it out of rote, driven by a combination of religious and social fear. People want to murder and steal, they refrain not because they understand that not being a murderer or thief was a better way of life, but because they did not want the neighbors looking down on them, or because they were afraid they would go to hell or what not. That was why he expressed some slightly higher appreciation of those who had rejected such to live as predators. At "least" they had freed themselves to some degree from a dead morality. It remained though as I noted above that they were still living as animals and not as humans, a philosophical dead end he associated with nihilists, who also rejected all morality, refusing to replace it with even a predator morality.
Instead what he was trying to get people to see was that a re-evaluation of morals was needed to give us a new basis for our moral judgements. When understood at its core it is seen that this morality is in many ways identical to the existing morality, having all the same elements of good and evil and the like, but with a firm understanding that we are choosing to live this way, and that our choice is not predicated on fear of social exile or religious damnation. Instead it is based on a rational conclusion that it is in fact quantifiably better to live this way, among other creative people, who have willingly embraced such a morality, even if it involves great effort trying to uplift those who are still trapped living as predators or prey.
If you want to "read" Nietzsche from "the other side", try Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, which starts from a more positive standpoint but ultimately asserts the same conclusion - it is simply a better life living as a good and decent person, caring about those around you, and looking to better them as you better yourself.

[secretbison]

Let me see if I've gotten the positive side of Nietzsche right:

Nietzsche believed in making ethical judgments, not on the basis of good and evil, but on the basis of good and bad. Something is good in the Nietzschean sense if it is in itself pleasant, not if it is self-deprecating or vengeful. He thought that Christian ethics is spiteful and unpleasant, because it denies real good things like strength and beauty in favor of fictional good things like heaven. Nietzsche wanted people to love their enemies, not because of a divine mandate to do so, but simply because it is more pleasant to love someone.

[Tiktakkat]

Let me see if I've gotten the positive side of Nietzsche right:

Nietzsche believed in making ethical judgments, not on the basis of good and evil, but on the basis of good and bad. Something is good in the Nietzschean sense if it is in itself pleasant, not if it is self-deprecating or vengeful. He thought that Christian ethics is spiteful and unpleasant, because it denies real good things like strength and beauty in favor of fictional good things like heaven. Nietzsche wanted people to love their enemies, not because of a divine mandate to do so, but simply because it is more pleasant to love someone.

Almost.

He believed in good and evil, just not as defined and functionally unpracticed. The spirit, not the letter, of such was what he wanted people to get to.

From that, for something to be good it must, a priori, be pleasant. Other standards follow from there. It is critical to add though that the effects on others are relevant, something often overlooked.

Nietsche's views on Christianity are more complex than that. As it goes, he disliked virtually everything about all organized religion, with Christianity being the one closest to home and most relevant to him to comment on. (Or simplest to take cheap shots at if you will.) It would be inappropriate to single out Christianity simply because that was the example he constantly used. With that in mind, the rest of your summarization on that is correct.

Nietzsche had no overt issues with hating your enemies. He said hate was an honest emotion, and he despised subverting it. If you must hate, hate honestly and openly. Do not try and create some shield of moral prententiousness to hide behind, "loving" the person openly while sneeringly believing in his ultimate and eternal "damnation", and definitely do not use it as an excuse to treat others like garbage. Also remember, Nietzsche was clear that some people, like anti-semites, were only worth despising. Do not go looking for enemies, but when you find them, do not hide from acknowledging them for what they are.
That understood, it is critical to remember that it is always more beneficial and fulfilling, or profitable if you must look at it from a purely selfish perspective, to have a good relationship with your neighbor than a bad one. Nine friends and one enemy is better than one friend and nine enemies, but ten friends is best of all. Likewise a friend is better than a mere trading partner, which is why you want other people to transcend the predator or prey mentalities with you. The overall quality of life is simply superior.

[The Extinguisher]

Sartre's philosophy is rather non-sensical overall.


I liked Sartre. In a "tee hee oh man this is great" kinda of way, but still. I actually like a whole lot of existentialism, but I will agree Sartre is pretty crazy.

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

At least Kant is loved in Essex; you always hear his name being shouted in the street over there... :smalltongue:

First one to get that wins forever.

[Devils_Advocate]

I haven't really read anything by Kant, given his philosophy never entered my courses and I had more entertaining fare to read in my free time :smallwink:, but at least from the random quotes you inevitably hear around, he doesn't sound that bad. That famous quote of "Live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law" is pretty much the Vaarsuvius Version of "do to others as you would want they'd do to you", which is, overall, a pretty decent base idea to work from, as far as systems go.
Well, all I know about his moral philosophy is what I got out of a Wikipedia article I just read (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative), but what I do understand of it is... not good. According to Kant, the Golden Rule is a more limited version of the Categorical Imperative. In other words, the Categorical Imperative is a generalization of the Golden Rule. And, from what I can tell, it's a stupid one.

Kant apparently feels that we have a perfect duty never to do something if it would be impossible for everyone to do it at every possible opportunity. For example, we might imagine that if everybody spent as much time as they could eating as much as they could this would eventually kill everyone. "Universalized" eating would lead to there being no more people, which would make it impossible for people to eat all the time. Therefore, by Kant's standards as I understand them, we should never eat at all.

First of all, that's profoundly ridiculous. But secondly and more damning, the maxim "Don't eat" also can't be universalized. It would seem that there are some things that we should do in moderation, rather than as much as possible or not at all. And that means that there are cases where we shouldn't avoid doing something just because doing it as much as possible would be bad. Hence applying the Categorical Imperative itself isn't universalizable. So it recommends against its own use. OH SNAP!

There are other dumb parts. Like the fact that a lot of people think it would be totally sweet if everyone worked to maximize happiness and minimize suffering, so in that sense, the Categorical Imperative works as an argument for utilitarianism. "Don't just completely disregard the consequences of your actions, stupid" seems like it would have even broader appeal. Then there's the fact that everyone lying all the time wouldn't undermine the value of language at all, since we'd always know that the opposite of what someone is saying is true.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I think you're overusing reductio ad absurdem there. I'm not a fan of the Categorical Imperative, but give Kant a little credit for common sense. You're overgeneralizing


Kant apparently feels that we have a perfect duty never to do something if it would be impossible for everyone to do it at every possible opportunity.

to mean something it doesn't.

[Semidi]

1) Which one ringed a bell for you?
2) Have you read any of their books? (which ones?).
3) Do you agree with them? (quote if you want to).
4) Anything interesting to say about them? (or their work?)
5) And why not? Name your favorite author (or someone related to this topics that you like).

1) Nietzsche
2) Books I've read of Nietzsche: Birth of Tragedy, (Part of) Truth and Lying in the Non-Moral Sense, The Dawn, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zaruthustra, Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morals, The Case of Wagner, The Twilight of Idols, Ecco Homo, and (Part of) Will to Power.

(I think it would have been easier saying the books of his I've not read)

3) I think some of his ideas have merit, though his philosophy is far too personal for me to agree with him. My favorite of his ideas was of of doing a Genealogy.

4) I probably do have something to say on the subject, but I'm not an Nietzsche scholar by any means. I will say that if you've read a book or three by Nietzsche and think you understand him--then you don't understand him. Even if you think you understand an individual concept, chances are that Nietzsche is laughing at you.

5) Similar to Nietzsche is Kierkegaard (The whole dealing with Nihilism, though they had very different ideas of what nihilism was), Oscar Wilde (evaluation of life by aesthetic criteria), and Ralph Waldo Emerson (Who Nietzsche was most influenced by).

I'm far too lazy and burned out to get into a long drawn out discussion on this. Mostly because I've just gotten done with an entire course on Nietzsche (also why I've read most of his books).

However I will say of just about everything I've read here:
It's a lot more complicated than that.


Regarding Jung:

I got the gist of it, but I've not studied much continental philosophy.