The Nietzsche Podcast

Nietzsche finishes sketching his vision of a philosophy of the future. True free spiritedness represents a fundamental commitment to hardness and independence of spirit. This makes the philosopher opposite the scholar in terms of his virtues. This total individuality necessitates that there are some truths that are inexpressible or peculiar to the point that they cannot be shared: they must be ”masked”. We finish by looking at the first two sections of part three, “What is Religious”. We consider how N’s method so far brings him to regard religion as another field of study regarding the human soul (its knowledge and conscience), and how this section is an application of his psychological method. He considers what is meant by the religious pathology as part of his ongoing critique of Christianity. Episode art: Henri Lievens - The Wild Hunt of Odin

Karl Nord, a philosophically informed commentator, delves into the fascinating life of James Burnham, a pivotal figure in modern conservatism. Discover Burnham’s unconventional journey—from Marxist art professor to a Machiavellian political thinker. They explore his critiques of various ideologies, his controversial CIA work, and his insights on foreign policy. Nord highlights Burnham's remarkable ability to navigate complex political landscapes while emphasizing the dangers of covert actions and the importance of empirical analysis in politics.

In this section, Nietzsche describes the truth-seeker as an exception among the rule, and emphasizes the difference between esoteric and exoteric knowledge. Nietzsche explores differences in tempo of thinking between individuals and cultures, which he sources to physiological realities. This portion of the text also concerns Nietzsche’s natural history of morality in three stages (pre-, moral, post-) and an experimental portrait of the world as will to power. Does this mean God is refuted and the devil is not? On the contrary, friends, on the contrary! And who forces you to speak with the vulgar? Episode art is John William Waterhouse - The Magic Circle.

In this next episode on Beyond Good & Evil, we discuss the simplification of the world out of a psychological need, and the ways in which we have sought for “Being” in the soul, the ego, the will, and in the materialistic atom. All were expressions of the ”one ruling thought” of the drive doing the philosophizing. Nietzsche reconceptualizes thinking and willing as inseparable, and declares psychology to be the route to the deepest questions. We conclude with a look at the first two passages of part two, The Free Spirit, in which Nietzsche advocates a departure from solemn seriousness and martyrdom for the sake of truth, in exchange for love of uncertainty and a sense of humor. Episode art: Jean Delville - The God-Man

My conversation with horror author John Hunt, an Amazon bestseller in his genre and veteran of the homicide division in the Canadian police. John and I cover a range of topics in this discussion, from why he loves Nietzsche, to the role of revenge and justice in his stories as well as horror and suspenseful writing more broadly. John and I gush over our mutual love of Tarantino, and his pick for his favorite among Tarantino's films may surprise you. Other topics include the best ways to show rather than tell about a character's inner turmoil, the theory of drives and how it plays out in John's stories, and what it is that makes Stephen King so damn good. I included quite a bit of banter at the end where we continued talking long after I'd planned on ending the conversation, but most of it was interesting and genuine so I left it in. John's overarching commitment in his work is to realism: in honestly portraying the brute reality as he sees it, without trying to sugarcoat or hide the truth. So glad to have had John on the show, and we can add him to a number of interesting characters with very different life paths who have joined us on Untimely Reflections. John's website: https://johnhuntfiction.ca/ John on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/John-Hunt/author/B01MUHIIOA?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true John on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnhuntfiction2537

We continue our exegesis of Beyond Good and Evil, and cover the bulk of On the Prejudices of Philosophers. This section involves Nietzsche’s analysis of various philosophers for whom he has admiration or which exercised a great influence on the philosophical world, but he approaches them with the method of treating their philosophy as an involuntary, unconscious memoir. Episode art: An artistic representation of Epictetus, courtesy of Wikimedia Common.

Today we begin our analysis of Beyond Good & Evil. This episode concerns the preface, which is perhaps my favorite of Nietzsche’s, and the first five sections of chapter one: On the Prejudices of Philosophers. As always I move incredibly slowly during the opening sections because of their incredible importance for understanding the entirety of the work, but promise to move more quickly as we proceed. I’m not sure how many parts this series will require; we’re going to make it up as we go along. Episode art: Giovanni di Paolo -- The Creation of the World and the Expulsion from Paradise

Update about my life, and some musings on AI, aliens, the supernatural, and why I don’t get involved in contemporary politics.

In this episode, I attempt to sum up the relevance of Nietzsche's political insights to the modern day, insofar as his challenge to our values becomes an entrypoint for us to begin the work of revaluating our values. In this piece, I argue that Nietzsche's goal for his readership is for them to find freedom in the unity of their beliefs and actions, and acceptance of humanity and the natural world for what they are rather than what we'd like them to be. Nietzsche invites us to a trusting acceptance of all that is necessary in the world, such that we may not live with the burden of having to morally condemn mankind, nor the human condition. He stands forever with the realism of Thucydides against Plato. Whether accept Nietzsche's prescriptive statements or not is irrelevant to whether we have taken seriously his contentions in the realm of values, and whether we can discover any motivating principles for humanity outside of the will to power. Nietzsche's challenge to us spurs us to consider what consequences such a shift in values might entail. At the end, we return to some of the concepts from the very beginning of the podcast, and examine how Nietzsche's view of politics and history is another manifestation of this same 'world acceptance' (or, 'amor fati') that is demanded by the abolition of the true world. Or, how Nietzsche characterizes his free spirits as 'tempters and attempters', those who experiment with the strange, wicked, and questionable questions. This is the path he lays out for the philosophers of the future, and as we are now in the time when the crisis of nihilism seems to be coming to a head, I assert that we ourselves are the philosophers he was speaking to. However you answer these questions of value, Nietzsche demands that we follow our own path, and adopt only those truths to which we have a right. The philosophers of the future will therefore be accustomed to solitude, and to a sense of distance from his fellow men. We are the types who enjoy "wandering in forbidden country", which is the way Nietzsche defines his understanding of philosophy in Ecce Homo. Every philosopher who takes it on themselves to be a creator and self-legislator is already their own revaluation of values. The time is noon. Thank you to everyone for supporting the podcast! Here's to a wonderful season three! A very special thank you to all of my patrons. I wish to express the deepest love and gratitude to you, and my delight that so many have connected in such a deep way with the podcast. I can't wait to explore so many fascinating topics in the future with all of you! Episode art - A Futurescape by Robert McCall (1981)

What does eternal recurrence mean in the historical sense? Nietzsche invites us to explore that question in his raising of the Problem of Science, and the notion of conflict as central to life. Today, in the penultimate episode of the season, we'll take a look into a section from Will to Power called "The History of European Nihilism", in which Nietzsche takes on the history of Europe from the perspective of his cultural/moral analysis, and charts the history of the descent into materialism as it played out in Enlightenment Europe. In his Pre-Platonic lectures, Nietzsche suggests a parallel between the project of Greek philosophy, and the progression that played out in the centuries of the Enlightenment. The Pre-Platonic Greeks experimented with materialist philosophy, eventually culminating in the atomism of Democritus and the arrival of Socrates, the ultimate logician - soon, the values of their traditions, and their long-held superstitions came to be questionable. The values of the society were undermined, and a crisis of nihilism set it. Nietzsche believes that this played out over the course of several centuries in Europe: in the form of the Reformation, then the scientific dawning of the Enlightenment rationalism with Descartes at the forefront. He comments on many of the figures we have covered this season, such as Kant, Rousseau, Schopenhauer, and others, as manifestations of the spirit of their times, who signified shifts or turning points in the European psyche. He reimagines Kant as a sentimentalist towards the concept of duty, a twin spirit with the moralistic Rousseau, who rebelled against the self-legislating rationalism of the 17th century and instead opted to be guided by feeling. Now, in Nietzsche's 19th century, he sees the ascendance of a more honest yet more gloomy period of European thought. The animalian in man is fully uncovered and embraced, and man becomes understood as a historical creature. This has dire consequences, bringing on the dissolution of society and the disbelief in all past metaphysical and moral comforts. But, as a result, the European psyche has the opportunity to enter a period of "Active Nihilism", and overcome the previous dogmas as part of a revaluation of all values. In spite of his predictions of coming great wars, Nietzsche is hopeful that the conditions of decay will lay infinite possibilities before us for the future. Contrary to many who warn of degeneration or decadence, Nietzsche cleaves to the conviction that with decay comes new growth, and that periods of dissolution are always periods of great creativity. This is, somewhat paradoxically, one of the more hopeful passages of Nietzsche, which acquiesces both to his belief in eternal recurrence, as much to the hope for something new in the future. Episode art: George Frederic Watts - Hope