General Philosophy --
Schedule for April 9-20
Monday, April 9 – review
Hume, catch up, and take stock. No new
reading (unless you want to read part 12 of the Dialogues). Write your response paper about your overall
reaction to Hume and our discussion of his arguments.
Wednesday, April 11 –
Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, pp. 3-24
Friday, April 13 – no class
Monday, April 16 –
Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, pp. 25-49
Wednesday April 18 –
Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, pp. 50-70
Friday, April 20 – Nietzsche,
Twilight of the Idols, pp. 70-92
A note about reading
Nietzsche: Nietzsche can be infuriating.
He says insulting things about Christians, Jews, women, philosophers,
the Germans, the English, and other groups.
Sometimes his insults seem to have a point; other times they seem
gratuitous. At the same time his
writing style can also be maddening. He
writes mainly in short sections, not always clearly or obviously related to one
another (or even consistent with one another).
Pretty clearly he is sometimes joking and sometimes exaggerating and
sometimes putting forward ideas he will elsewhere criticize and reject. It is
not easy to figure out what he is really trying to convey to us. Try to read him with an open mind, not to be
too put off by his insults, and to see if you can’t find some sense in what he
says.
1. Note the explanation of the book’s title given on
p.3-4: the hammer is not a sledgehammer smashing idols; it is more like a piano-tuner’s
hammer, tapping the idols to see whether or not they are hollow.
2. (Pp.12-17)
What is Nietzsche trying to say about Socrates? Why does he bring up Socrates' appearance? His social class? His last words (as reported by Plato)?
3. On p.14 Nietzsche says "Dialectic . . . is not
very convincing." Judging from the
samples we've encountered, do you agree with this assessment? What is Nietzsche’s explanation (in section
8) for the attraction of dialectic?
4. Do you agree that Socrates (and Plato) "made a
tyrant out of reason?" What do you
think of Nietzsche’s explanation of their motives for doing so? (p.16)
5. What exactly is "the error which lay in his
belief in 'rationality at all costs'?" (Section 11, p.16-17)
6. In the next two sections (pp.18-24) Nietzsche
criticizes philosophers who distrust the senses and talk about a 'true world'
behind or beyond illusory appearances.
Do you think this applies to any of the philosophers we have read? What do you think of Nietzsche's critique?
7. In section 5 (pp.20-21) Nietzsche develops the idea
that it is not our senses that are a source of illusion; it is our
language. It is our language which
teaches us to believe in an “I” and in “the will.” (I think one way our
language is supposed to mislead us is that it encourages us to think that there
is a substance or a thing corresponding to every word which is the subject of a
sentence.) You might consider whether Descartes made this kind of mistake in
connection with his famous “Cogito”: I
think. Therefore, I am. Therefore, I am
a thing which thinks.
8. What do you think Nietzsche means when he says
(p.24), "Along with the true world we have also done away with the
apparent!”?