The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way. A second amendment to Laurence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche.

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Self-Lightening
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The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way. A second amendment to Laurence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche.

Post by Self-Lightening »

About Nietzsche's "philosophers of the future", Laurence Lampert rightly says:

"The philosophers of the future rule in the only way philosophers have ever ruled, through a new highest ideal." (Lampert, Leo Strauss and Nietzsche, page 78.)

He's wrong, however, in identifying that ideal as the eternal recurrence itself, and not as the one who wills that recurrence. This misidentification is made explicit in a later work of his:

"Before presenting the new ideal, Nietzsche describes the person capable of thinking it as an ideal: 'the most high-spirited, most alive, most world-affirming human being.'" (Lampert, Nietzsche's Task, page 118, quoting Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 56.)

What Nietzsche writes is: "the ideal of the most high-spirited" etc. Now Lampert understands this "of" in a strictly possessive sense. However, it can also be interpreted in the sense of, for instance, the phrase "the ideal of selflessness".¹ To be sure, Lampert is right again when he says:

"The highest ideal for a world-affirming human being is that the world as it is eternally return just as it is." (ibid.)

What's crucial, however, is that this ideal can never be a direct "means of effecting the rule of the philosopher of the future" (Leo Strauss and Nietzsche, page 104). For, for non-philosophers, the eternal return of the world as it is is not an ideal, i.e., not something to desire.—I think Strauss, perhaps by virtue of his being a native German-speaker, did understand the aforementioned "of" in a not (exclusively) possessive sense. Because Lampert does not, he is forced to read Strauss relatively badly at one point:

"In the final two sentences of his paragraph on the complementary man's solution to the most difficult problem, Strauss names two different actions with two different actors, an act by one who paves the way for the complementary man, and an act by that 'highest nature' itself." (op.cit., page 108.)

In fact, Strauss does nothing of the sort. There is nothing in Strauss's formulation to suggest that there are two actions; and the repetition of the phrase "unbounded Yes", which first occurred at the end of the preceding paragraph, and which Lampert interpreted correctly at the bottom of page 101, implies that there is only one action:

"While paving the way for the complementary man, one must at the same time say unbounded Yes to the fragments and cripples. Nature, the eternity of nature, owes its being to a postulation, to an act of the will to power on the part of the highest nature." (Strauss, Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, page 190.)

There is no difference between saying unbounded Yes to the fragments and cripples and postulating the eternal return of nature; there is no difference between the one who paves the way for the complementary man and that highest nature itself.² Nietzsche paved the way for philosophers of the future by being himself a philosopher of the future, by willing the eternal recurrence; the new highest ideal through which the philosophers of the future rule is the ideal of the philosopher of the future, in the non-possessive sense of the word "of"... One manifests this ideal, however, by openly and sincerely proclaiming the ideal of the eternal recurrence,³ by ardently wishing out loud "that the world as it is eternally return just as it is."

By willing the eternal recurrence, i.e., by having the eternal recurrence as one's highest ideal, one manifests oneself as a philosopher of the future, a Superman, a complementary man, or however you wish to call it. And for those who do not love reality enough to desire its eternal recurrence, that manifestation can be what the eternal recurrence itself cannot, their highest ideal. "I'm not sufficiently well-disposed toward reality to wish for its eternal recurrence; but I wish I was! I wish reality or I myself would be so changed that I should wish with all my heart for the eternal recurrence"... What the Superman does is, he shows that it's possible to be that well-disposed toward reality as it is.

What has attracted Lampert, a self-proclaimed non-philosopher, to philosophy? Was it that which the philosopher desires, wisdom? Or was it the philosopher himself, men like Nietzsche, Plato, Bacon, and Descartes? Aren't they the great erotics who arouse in non-philosophers the eros that makes them devote themselves to philosophy? Makes Lampert, for example, withdraw from society for protracted periods of time to write book upon book showcasing the brilliance of such men? Something he will probably keep doing, if possible, until the day he dies? These questions are of course rhetorical, and I think Lampert's kind of activity is the highest kind for a non-philosopher. He cannot and need not glorify reality itself; that must be left to actual philosophers. What suffices is to glorify them, as those who glorify reality. For by doing so, one illuminates the way that they paved for their kind.

Notes:

¹ The ascetic ideal, too, is in the first place a person. Thus in the express sequel to Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche speaks of "[man's] will to erect an ideal—that of the 'holy god'" (On the Genealogy of Morals, Second Treatise, section 22. In Ecce Homo, "Why I Write Such Good Books", ''Genealogy of Morals', he calls his ideal the "counter-ideal" to the ascetic). The ideal of the "holy god" is surely the perfect symmetrical counterpart of the ideal of the most high-spirited, alive, and world-affirming human being: "sanctus deus" contra "vitiosus deus"!

² Remarkable as it may be that the one who paves the way be the same as the one(s) whom that paving prepares, this is not a novelty introduced first in Nietzsche's mature philosophy. Thus in Nietzsche's early, posthumously published essay "The Greek State", the military genius is the instrument by which nature arrives at the state, i.e., at a classical organisation of society (its organisation into classes), which is the precondition of the development of Apollonian genius; and in the prototypical state, the military state, the genius that is developed is the military genius itself. (By "the development of genius", I mean the genius's sprouting and flourishing culturally, not naturally. This means that the initial military genius must sprout and flourish naturally. And the same goes for the initial Superman: Nietzsche had to sprout and flourish naturally, and because he did, Supermen can now sprout and flourish culturally. In Strauss's words: "It is however the history of man hitherto, i.e. the rule of non-sense and chance, which is the necessary condition for the subjugation of non-sense and chance." (Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, page 189.) Nietzsche came to sprout and flourish non-sensically, by chance, and because he did, men like him can now do so sensically, by design. And doesn't what Nietzsche wrote about the military genius also apply to the Superman? "The weaker forces attach themselves to them with such mysterious speed, and transform themselves so wonderfully, in the sudden swelling of that violent avalanche, under the charm of that creative kernel, into an affinity hitherto not existing, that it seems as if a magic will were emanating from them." ("The Greek State".) What I'm suggesting is that the Superman "wills" the cultural sprouting and flourishing of Supermen first and foremost by manifesting himself as a Superman, by willing the eternal recurrence. In fact, I think that suffices—that the rest "is just the idleness of God on every seventh day..." (Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, "Why I Write Such Good Books", 'Beyond Good and Evil', end.)

³ By openly and exuberantly proclaiming one's will to the eternal return of suffering and inequality—"the prerequisites of human greatness" (ibid.)—, one wills present and future suffering and inequality, and thereby commands and legislates future such greatness. In other words: through unconcealed actual-philosophic greatness, one commands and legislates future such greatness. Thus Harry Neumann rephrases roughly the second half of Strauss's paragraph on the complementary man's solution to the most difficult problem as follows: "Although the past was responsible for the present egalitarianism detested by Nietzsche, for the most part it was characterized by the inequalities dear to him. However, lack of awareness of nihilism's threat formerly led men to take those inequalities for granted, to interpret them as necessary consequences of natural or divine justice. Modern thinkers culminating in Nietzsche made men aware that human creativity or technology was not limited by anything. Nietzsche feared that contemporary egalitarians would employ this unlimited power to create a world of universal peace and equality. He yearned for a superman whose will to overpower nihilism and egalitarianism would use modernity's immense power to create the eternal return of the past's inequality and wars. Then there would be no wars to end all wars." (Neumann, Liberalism, pp. 165-66.) The reason there would be no wars to end all wars is that at the very least the wars of the past would eternally recur. This also goes for the Superman: the Superman whose conditions Nietzsche creates is in the first place Nietzsche himself—the Nietzsche of the "next" cycle. And in the broad sense, it is in the first place all the Supermen of the past... But this is an absurdly literal interpretation of what Strauss describes. It's well-nigh inconceivable that, if time is not yet a circle, we could so to say bend it into a circle; let alone that we could ever know that we'd succeeded. It's highly improbable that we could ever cause a new Big Bang; but a new Great Flood is already much more probable...
promethean75
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Re: The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way. A second amendment to Laurence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche.

Post by promethean75 »

So nobody has anything to say? Unbelievable.

These are not philosophers of the high noon. U have come too soon, SL.
promethean75
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Re: The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way. A second amendment to Laurence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche.

Post by promethean75 »

Hey Saully did Fritz really say this, and if he did, where?

"Sharp and mild, dull and keen,
well known and strange, dirty and clean,
where both the fool and wise are seen:
All this am I, have ever been, -
in me dove, snake and swine convene!"
Self-Lightening
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ΕΞΗΓΗΣΙΣ·ΔΙΑ·ΕΙΣΗΓΗΣΕΩΣ·ΕΙΣΗΓΗΣΕΩΣ

Post by Self-Lightening »

Yeah, prolly in the beginning of the Gay Science. But the real question is: if my OP is a second amendment, what's the first? Or: why must it be a philosopher who wills the ER? What's the connection between the will to eternity and the love of wisdom? And why must the willer of the return be a philosopher of the future?
Impenitent
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Re: The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way. A second amendment to Laurence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche.

Post by Impenitent »

Nietzsche's ER was not about an actual state of affairs nor about wishing it in to existence through an exercise of the will...

it was merely an ethical standard - a very egoistic and egocentric standard, but only a standard nonetheless...

-Imp
Self-Lightening
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ELLIPSIS·ELLIPSI·IPSI·SCRIPSI

Post by Self-Lightening »

Well, you make a very strong case, what with the repeated ellipses, but I still beg to differ. Sure, it does not have to be an actual state of affairs, but it must be believed to be in order for it to work as an ethical standard (more precisely, the more it's believed in the better it works as an ethical standard).

"Conviction as a means: many things one only attains by means of a conviction." (Antichrist 54, my trans.)

To be sure, when the conviction has done its job, it's no longer necessary. Thus I wrote, five months ago:

"Nietzsche abolishes the distinction between the fictional and the factual by willing the whole past to recur as will to power and nothing besides. This is how his philosopher of the future is the first man who consciously creates values on the basis of the understanding of the will to power as the fundamental phenomenon, for he is the first to understand that understanding means creating, valuing, willing to power.—It is, however, not necessary for the eternal recurrence of the same to be a fact—that is, for the philosopher's will to power, to that very recurrence, to succeed, to actually attain that mightiest of re-creations. […T]he philosopher's essential attainment consists in 'attaining a height from which it is possible and permitted to converse with the heaviest task as play.'"

And, as to its being an egoistic and egocentric standard, seventy-seven months ago:

"We have to will the eternal recurrence to prove that we are not moral. We have to be Übermenschen only for our own sake: so that some day in the future, we may be born, thanks to ourselves. If we have anyone (or anything) else to thank for our present, we could only be ungrateful or moral. Even if we are grateful to nothing, we are still not 'evil', just lacking 'good'. Even if 'good' were completely lacking, that would still not be 'evil'. 'Evil' is not where God is not, but where God is, where one asserts oneself as the One God."

The Aristotelian God, naturally...
promethean75
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Re: The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way. A second amendment to Laurence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche.

Post by promethean75 »

Good shit. First time I've seen Imp crack anything but a joke. It's like the ILP days of 03. *sigh*

how does one find reconciliation with the following logical problem. if the ER has always been, then one isn't able to will anything that would make one different, as whatever one is has already been eternally recurring.

but if the ER began with the beginning of the universe (assuming an ex nihilo beginning), and this life is the first 'go-round', it would be meaningful to say what one wills is important in regards to the imperative of 'living as if u were going to live forever, etc', and creating one's future self (as u say). follow me? so if the ER's already going, your will is not free to be anything other than it is. contrarily, if it just started with the big boing, and freewill does exist (that's the caveat tho), the philosophy of the ER becomes 'tremendously, tremendously' important, to describe it as Trump would.

"But the real question is: if my OP is a second amendment, what's the first?"

The real question is, where is pony?
promethean75
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Re: The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way. A second amendment to Laurence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche.

Post by promethean75 »

really tho, SL, whatever one is inclined to do, one should be doing anyway and not on account of and for the purposes of securing some eternally recurring self.

so while the ER doesn't 'solve' my nihilism, nothing is lost by not having an ER as a reason to do something.... which I'm inclined to do anyway.

concerning overmen, without some teleological element to the formula and design of such - and I don't think there is - there is no way to be sure u have a case of it when u find an ubermensch. rather we'd only have this conceptually and metetically manufactured symbol of the overman... and idea put together by a certain collection of ideas associated with ultra-masculine logocentric symbols... qualities of nobility, artistry, rugged individualism, exceptional talent, political or military genius, nobility in the Roman sense... Mach's 'virtu', and so forth. 

plus history has turned N's ubermensch into an overweight billionaire or a useless dictator clown like Kim or Vlad. this might explain my aversion to considering the ubermensch in any bourgeois sense, of which it now must, and my tendencies toward anarcho,-egoism in the classic Stirner sense... or Novatore would suffice to detail the general attitude as well.

but a 'platonic' overman.... the Form 'overman' as opposed to individual particular overmen we find on erf? I dunno I doubt it.
Self-Lightening
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Re: The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way.

Post by Self-Lightening »

promethean75 wrote: Mon Dec 12, 2022 12:14 amhow does one find reconciliation with the following logical problem. if the ER has always been, then one isn't able to will anything that would make one different, as whatever one is has already been eternally recurring.

but if the ER began with the beginning of the universe (assuming an ex nihilo beginning), and this life is the first 'go-round', it would be meaningful to say what one wills is important in regards to the imperative of 'living as if u were going to live forever, etc', and creating one's future self (as u say). follow me? so if the ER's already going, your will is not free to be anything other than it is. contrarily, if it just started with the big boing, and freewill does exist (that's the caveat tho), the philosophy of the ER becomes 'tremendously, tremendously' important, to describe it as Trump would.
The ER cannot have begun. If there's ER, there's never been a first "go-round"; there's only a single "go-round". Compare this thing I wrote four months ago:

"If philosophy is simply a will in a whole that can be understood as will and nothing besides, it cannot be a will to that whole, since the whole is then already there; it need not and cannot be willed. And conversely, if philosophy is simply a will to a whole that can be understood as will and nothing besides, it cannot be a will in that whole, since the whole then is not there yet; it can and must be willed. Now in the latter case, the whole that can be understood as will and nothing besides could only exist in the future, as the fulfillment of philosophy."
promethean75
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Re: The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way. A second amendment to Laurence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche.

Post by promethean75 »

sure u can think of the WTP being supra-physical and superceding the big boing, it there wuz one, like a creative impulse that sets to motion. But one has to square the ER with what might very well be the origins of the universe. A big boing, before which there was nahsing, Lebowski.

If it is true, the material universe(s) aren't the active, essential expression of the WTP becuz none of them would be eternal.

Is our universe is a necessary feature of the ER of the WTP, iow? i mean, it could be that the WTP need not create material universes at all. the impulse might be put to something else entirely, something immaterial, but i don't pretend to know. we're already in metaphysical no man's land man.
Self-Lightening
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Re: The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way.

Post by Self-Lightening »

promethean75 wrote: Tue Dec 13, 2022 11:41 pmsure u can think of the WTP being supra-physical and superceding the big boing, it there wuz one, like a creative impulse that sets to motion. […] it could be that the WTP need not create material universes at all. the impulse might be put to something else entirely, something immaterial, but i don't pretend to know. we're already in metaphysical no man's land man.
This is not at all what I meant. My view is entirely physical, if not material.

promethean75 wrote: Tue Dec 13, 2022 11:41 pmone has to square the ER with what might very well be the origins of the universe. A big boing, before which there was nahsing, Lebowski.
In my view there was no "before" the Big Bang; the Big Bang is itself the beginning that never began.
promethean75
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Re: The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way. A second amendment to Laurence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche.

Post by promethean75 »

"This is not at all what I meant. My view is entirely physical, if not material."

now that you've explained how u believe the big boing wuz a beginning that never began, then i suppose not. my bad then. my whole thing is, the cosmological orgins story of our universe or multiverse of whatever - the competing theories - are different enough to mean that the WTP would be significantly different in its nature as a consequence. in other words, you'd have a different kind of WTP in a universe that at some point didn't exist and wuz created (the big boing) than you would have in a universe that was oscillating and had always existed.

the former gives the WTP a transcendent, supernatural feature while for the latter it's mundane and natural. oh i know! compare the two vitalists schopenhauer and bergson for an analogy. will for S is just an irrational, blind striving force while for Bergson it's a rational, teleological organizing dynamic, etc.
promethean75
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Re: The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way. A second amendment to Laurence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche.

Post by promethean75 »

yo here's a fun little thought experiment for the theory of the ER.

say it's true.... so the maxim stands and is utterly and inexplicably significant. the guiding fucking principle of life, etc. u wanna be, and better be, the best u can be becuz whatever u become, u will be forever.

but wait. watch this.

say u fucked up in this life and in fact didn't become all u could be. your life sucked and you'd never wanna live it again. but it's too late... becuz u lived it, and so this is what u will be eternally u fuckin putz. not u the hypothetical guy.

and so he lives again on the next go-round, destined to be the putz he had designed in the former life.

now the question is, is this guy able to feel like he's destined to be the putz. will he suffer this life becuz he blew it in the last. i say he cannot, becuz he can't know what he is going to be, and therefore can't know, can't feel, like he has lost something... like he has done something wrong, like he is now living a life he designed to be eternally fucked up.

he just can't know it. no sooner than u or i can suffer what we are going to become becuz of what we became in the last go-round. the whole concept as an imperative loses all ballast.

lol u could say that the best feature of the ER is that you never know its true and if u fuck up, u won't know it. each new life is experienced as a reset while in fact its an already externally recurring event. bro that's some heavy shit. think about it. 

p.s. hey man if u wanna keep this thread clean and orderly u better tell me cuz I'll spam the shit out of it with my rambling. I know how u roll, Saully.
Self-Lightening
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Re: The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way.

Post by Self-Lightening »

promethean75 wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 3:02 pmmy whole thing is, the cosmological orgins story of our universe or multiverse of whatever - the competing theories - are different enough to mean that the WTP would be significantly different in its nature as a consequence. in other words, you'd have a different kind of WTP in a universe that at some point didn't exist and wuz created (the big boing) than you would have in a universe that was oscillating and had always existed.

the former gives the WTP a transcendent, supernatural feature while for the latter it's mundane and natural.
Is that because the creating would have to be done by the WTP?

promethean75 wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 3:31 pmyo here's a fun little thought experiment for the theory of the ER.

say it's true.... so the maxim stands and is utterly and inexplicably significant. the guiding fucking principle of life, etc. u wanna be, and better be, the best u can be becuz whatever u become, u will be forever.

but wait. watch this.

say u fucked up in this life and in fact didn't become all u could be. your life sucked and you'd never wanna live it again. but it's too late... becuz u lived it, and so this is what u will be eternally u fuckin putz. not u the hypothetical guy.

and so he lives again on the next go-round, destined to be the putz he had designed in the former life.

now the question is, is this guy able to feel like he's destined to be the putz. will he suffer this life becuz he blew it in the last. i say he cannot, becuz he can't know what he is going to be, and therefore can't know, can't feel, like he has lost something... like he has done something wrong, like he is now living a life he designed to be eternally fucked up.

he just can't know it. no sooner than u or i can suffer what we are going to become becuz of what we became in the last go-round. the whole concept as an imperative loses all ballast.

lol u could say that the best feature of the ER is that you never know its true and if u fuck up, u won't know it. each new life is experienced as a reset while in fact its an already externally recurring event. bro that's some heavy shit. think about it.
Yes, exactly. The ER, rightly understood, cannot serve as an ethical standard whatsoever.
promethean75
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Re: The Ideal of the One Who Paves the Way. A second amendment to Laurence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche.

Post by promethean75 »

Hey post your exceedingly thought provoking, well articulated thoughts, ideas and formulations of the 'will' and 'freewill' you're posting at ILP, over here too, man. The fishing can be good here if the right fish take to your postings.

This one wuz a doozy tho. Everybody wuz like who the fuck is Lance Laurenceberg and what does Leo have to do with Dr. Seuss? What is that his zodiac sign or something?
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