The Nietzsche Podcast

In this Q&A episode, the host explores Nietzsche's stance on Deleuze and Guittari's ontology. They delve into relativity and how qualities like temperature and wealth are subjective. They also discuss Nietzsche's view on morality, his alignment with stoicism, and the role of liberal institutions. Additionally, they explore the power of justice and altruism, and preview a future episode on the will to power.

On our second excursion into Nietzschean science, we’re studying Nietzsche’s two most celebrated figures in science: one from Ancient Greece and another from Enlightenment Europe. In Democritus, Nietzsche sees the zenith of the materialist project in Greek philosophy, opening the way for a mathematical atomist description of the world, carried on by the Pythagoreans. In Boscovich, he finds a continuation of this project, centuries later - to describe the world by one force or law, and account for the problem of motion in a way that rejects Kantian or Newtonian appeals to God, or Spinozistic teleology. What comes out of this inquiry is an understanding that Nietzsche may have construed the will to power as a physical reality from the very beginning. From this perspective, will to power is the answer to the problem of motion; it is the inner, “intelligible character” of matter; it is the qualitative expression of what Boscovich’s unified field theory offers us in quantitative terms. This episode culminates in a look at some of Nietzsche’s more extreme or puzzling statements in his notes where will to power is discussed as a very real physical principle. Pictured in the episode art are Democritus and Boscovich.

In this episode, we revisit the Pre-Platonic lecture series given by Nietzsche at Basel, the notes for which were assembled and translated by Gregory Whitlock. These lectures detail Nietzsche’s views on the first philosophers of Ancient Greece, and how they demonstrated that the spirit of scientific investigation is a manifestation of will to power: to bound the boundless within the understanding of reason, by appeal to as few possible starting principles. Nietzsche believes that the Pre-Platonic philosophers - Thales, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus and others - represented the descent from an understanding of the world as controlled by a personified heaven, into something explained by natural forces. The end result is materialism: matter as explained by matter itself and its properties or laws. This is powerful and dangerous as an innovation. Materialism offers the greatest utility, but precedes a slide into nihilism. Many of Nietzsche’s insights in his interpretation were influenced by the philosopher of science, Friedrich Albert Lange. In this episode, we examine the relation of Nietzsche to Lange, their view of the Pre-Platonics, and then analyze each figure individually to see how each fits in to Nietzsche’s narrative of the unfolding of scientific thought in Greece. Rather than a mere historical curiosity, Nietzsche finds the Greeks to express the same driving tendency that underlies science in our own time.

In this episode, I'm reading a chapter of my book, Unconscious  Correspondences. I considered an episode on Cartesian Dualism, but realized I'd already said everything I needed to say, in a chapter in this book. Rather than repurposing the same content into a new form, why  not just read directly from the book? As Nietzsche tended to do  when introducing his own earlier works, I shall do the same. I will  introduce this essay: "Body and Mind: The Life and Meditations of Rene  Descartes - A Polemic" with, "An attempt at self-criticism". This  essay has its flaws, and belabors the point a bit too stringently at  places. In retrospect, I made some very overgeneralized claims about  academia and modern attitudes towards Descartes that one could easily  challenge. I should also say that these claims derived from personal  experience with my own professors, and the professors of many of my  friends. Descartes was always taught as being "basically a secret  atheist who didn't believe the religious stuff at all and included it  just to please the church." Not only did one of my own professors say  some version of this, I heard this from others, attending different  universities. This always struck me as odd, because the central  premises of his Meditations on First Philosophy are completely derived  from Christian presuppositions, which are simply taken from theology and  put into philosophical language. Thus, I challenged: whether Descartes  was truly a departure from past philosophy (Plato, of course, sets up  figures to raise assertions and Socrates to raise skeptical  objections/doubts); whether Descartes was actually an atheist or a deist  (or whether we could understand him within the assumption he was a  Christian, perhaps a Rosicrucian); whether our own interpretations of  Descartes have to do with our embrace of the "mind as self"  ego-consciousness (thus leading us to be confused and embarrassed by  Descartes' invocation of God as the ultimate certainty). While I wrote  in a way that was somewhat clumsy in my eyes now, and while I may have  spent too much time in a detour talking about the background historical  context in which Descartes emerged, I feel these challenges are raised  in a forceful and meaningful enough way to be useful for people to think  about. https://app.thebookpatch.com/BookStore/unconscious-correspondences/3fe82dc3-d4ac-4d61-81c3-9ce9a7abe483

Much had been made of Nietzsche’s predictions of the coming nihilism. As a result of the death of the Christian God, Europe is bound for a crisis of values, in which nothing can any longer give us a goal beyond ourselves and our own happiness, and people search for this meaning or justification in all sorts of other spheres of human life: morality, reason, history, and utility. Ultimately, however, since we have so thoroughly devalued the physical world of experience, we find no such meaningful answer to the problem of life. That we have devalued life in order to justify life was a masterstroke of Christianity, so long as we had a transcendent authority to look to: a higher sphere to justify the material sphere. But now, we are left only with the burdens, the curse on existence, the “in vain”. As the will cannot aim at nothing, the ultimate consequence is the pursuit of happiness for the greatest number. Rather than this passive, incomplete nihilism, Nietzsche dreams of an active nihilism, and a strength of will to cut through the meaninglessness into a true revaluation. Come explore the meaning, causes and consequences of nihilism with me! Episode art: Gustave Dore - Satan’s Fall to Earth

This podcast explores the intriguing storyline of Goethe's Faust, including Faust's pact with Mephisto, his pursuit of youth, his tragic love affair with Gretchen, and the consequences of his actions. It also delves into the transformation of Faust's character, his involvement in politics and civil engineering projects, and the concept of the eternal feminine. The podcast concludes by discussing the themes of Christianity, redemption, and modernity in Goethe's Faust.

Goethe is perhaps the most widely-celebrated author of German literature, and Faust is his most famous tale. While the historical Doctor Faustus had always been portrayed as an essentially evil man, who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for greater power, Goethe reinterpreted the story into a wager between Faust and Mephistopheles, and set it against the backdrop of a metaphysical wager between God and Satan. Faust, as protagonist, stands not for evil, but for the spirit of ceaseless striving. Having mastered all the faculties of the university, and attained the zenith of knowledge available to mankind, Faust feels his lifelong quest has been for naught. He declares: "...for all our science and art / we can know nothing, it burns my heart". His restless heart sees Faust turning to magic and conjuration in order to break past the boundaries of science, morality, or even common decency - in his neverending quest to pursue knowledge and achievement. This path leads him straight to Mephisto, who offers Faust a deal that he cannot refuse. In part one, we'll discuss the philosophical themes of Faust, and how they influenced the thought of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Then, Goethe's place in literature and a brief summary of his life and work, as well as the background of the work in question, Faust. We'll then examine in detail some of the scenes and monologues from the first scenes of the play: from Heaven's Prologue to the scene in Faust's study where the deal is struck. I'm very excited for this one! Episode art: Philipp Winterwerb - Faust in his Study

Ralph Waldo Emerson, a leading figure in the Transcendentalist movement, is discussed in this podcast. Topics include his crisis of faith, his view on preaching and divinity, the concept of fire representing an omnipresent force, contrasting attitudes towards the world and will, the oversoul and the will to power, and his influence on Friedrich Nietzsche.

In a second episode with my wife, Amberly, we talk about another movie. This time it's not a movie about Nietzsche, the man, but a film that I argue approximates some of Nietzsche's ideas about the decline of society, the weakness of modernity, and the need to rediscover the barbarian within us all. That film, of course, is Demolition Man (1993) by Paul Verhoeven, starring Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, and Sandra Bullock. In the film, the reanimation of a super-criminal from a cryogenic prison sees the law enforcement of a dystopian, future "San Angeles" unable to cope with the threat. Society has been transformed into what Sandra Bullock's character describes as a place of peace, comfort, and understanding. Everything potentially harmful, offensive, or disturbing to the public morality has been made illegal, and basic human drives such as sexuality have either been eliminated or translated into a virtual form. We discuss the relationship of this society to the values of the Last Man, argue over whether it is better to live in a soft, dying society or a hard, barbaric one, and get into the weeds on Star Trek a couple times (trust me, it's all related). I hope you all enjoy it, this was a lot of fun for us.  This is the Trek episode we were talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apple_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series)

Guest William Kaiser, a sociologist and pupil of Peter Berger, discusses the commonality between Nietzsche's and Wittgenstein's ideas on language, memory, self-identity, learning, and living an enriching life. They also explore the influence Nietzsche had on Freud and the impact of Nietzsche's ideas in a secular society. The hosts express their hope for people to experience love for life and inquire about Nietzsche's fascination with resentment.