...Nietzsche: Life-Affirmation and Nihilism In Nietzsche’s writings, he attributes some of the blame for Western culture’s decline on nihilism through a pessimistic outlook on society’s ability to cope without a Judeo-Christian God. Nietzsche views nihilism as a deteriorating disability of one’s mentality and physicality, yet there appear to be moments where he leaves hints of being a nihilist himself. This is an interesting aspect in his writings that deserves attention: Nietzsche wishes only to be a Yes-sayer, with a life-affirming philosophy including Eternal Recurrence and Amor fati; yet, a pessimistic side also exists, who exhibits nihilistic tendencies in his writing. And here lies the contradiction. While criticizing nihilism as a disease in Western culture, he appears to possess nihilistic characteristics. I will analyze Nietzsche’s role as both a Yes-sayer and a possible nihilist in order to shed light on this possible contradiction. Through specific evidence in his works, I will attempt to show...
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...thoroughly illustrates Friedrich Nietzsche’s core philosophical beliefs, utilizing scripture-like parables and mystical narratives that outline the travels and experiences of the quasi-fictional philosopher Zarathustra. Nietzsche’s philosophy is quintessentially immoralist and inescapably the story unraveling it would have to denounce morality as a whole. In Nietzsche’s eyes, the historical Zarathustra would serve as the perfect figurehead for his personal teachings. Historically, Zarathustra (or Zoroaster as the Greeks knew him) was an influential Persian philosopher credited with popularizing the ideas of individual judgement, “Heaven and Hell”, the future resurrection of the body, and the afterlife – essentially paving the path for all modern religious doctrines. In Thus Spoken Zarathustra, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra attempts the polar opposite – effectively dismantling the “out-dated” concept of morality and bringing all moral-powered beliefs down with it. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra doesn’t stop there; he goes on to introduce the concept of the “overman” as the necessary answer to the death of God and illuminates a cyclical explanation of time, which he refers to as “eternal return”. Thus Spoken Zarathustra was originally composed of four separate books, each written apart from each other – which have since been compiled into one comprehensive work. In the second book, the story “Upon The Blessed Isles” passionately breathes life into some of Nietzsche’s most fundamental beliefs:...
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...Care Theory Compare and Contrast Paper Jean Watson’s Theory of human caring is based on transpersonal relationships and developing a caring environment that offers the development potential while allowing the person to choose the best course of action. Through interactions with others we learn how to recognize ourselves in others. Watson believes that through these interactions humanity is preserved. John Paley’s article A Slave Morality: Nietzchean themes in nursing ethics criticizes Watson’s theory that caring is central to nursing. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast John Paley’s article to Jean Watson’s Commentary on Shattle M (2004) Nurse-patient interaction: A review of the literature. A discussion of Watson’s background and care theory; John Paley’s background, and a brief discussion Friedich Nietzschen’s major philosophical beliefs. Jean Watson’s background Jean Watson was born in West Virginia in 1940. She graduated from the University of Colorado where she earned her BSN, MS, and in 1973 her PhD. Dr. Watson is widely published and has received many awards and honors. She is a distinguished professor of nursing and endowed chair in Caring Health Science. She is also a fellow at the American Academy of nursing. Watson’s research specialized in loss and human caring. She developed the Theory of Transpersonal Caring, which is also referred to as The Caring Model in the late 1970’s. Her theory evolved over many years, but the principles have remained...
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...Nietzsche: His philosophy and “Beyond Good and Evil” And Marxists vs. Mill’s view of socialism 1- Describe Nietzsche’s basic philosophy and his “New Morality” as revealed in his “Gay Science”, “Twilight of the Idol’s” books. Then choose one of his writings in his book “Beyond Good and Evil” and describe the philosophy he attempts to reveal. Conclude with your opinion on his philosophy of religion and his view of the Cosmos. Born on October 15, 1844 in the small town of Röcken, near Leipzig, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German poet and philosopher, a classical philologist and a professor of Greek at the University of Basle. He was the author of many works that talked about religion, morality, culture, philosophy, science using a unique style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth. In his writings, Nietzsche called for revision of all values; he rejected organized religion attacking Christianity and other religious institutions as contributors to what he called “slave morality”. He was, also, equally critical of democratic institutions whose singular vision and courage, according to him, produce a “master morality” and he called the rule by mass mediocrity. Nietzsche also believed that European materialism have led to decadence and decline. He died on August 25, 1900. In his works, he voiced the sentiments of radical moralists. He was deeply critical of his own times and he called for a revision of all values. The major...
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...wrote several critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism. Nietzsche's key ideas include the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy, perspectivism, the Will to Power, the "death of God", the Übermensch and eternal recurrence. One of the key tenets of his philosophy is the concept of "life-affirmation," which embraces the realities of the world in which we live over the idea of a world beyond. It further champions the creative powers of the individual to strive beyond social, cultural, and moral contexts.[3]Nietzsche's attitude towards religion and morality was marked with atheism, psychologism and historism; he considered them to be human creations loaded with the error of confusing cause and effect.[4] His radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth has been the focus of extensive commentary, and his influence remains substantial, particularly in the continental philosophical schools of existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism. His ideas of individual overcoming and transcendence beyond structure and context have had a profound impact on late-twentieth and early-twenty-first century thinkers, who have used these concepts as points of departure in the development of their philosophies.[5][6] Most recently, Nietzsche's reflections have been received in various philosophical approaches which move beyond humanism, e.g. transhumanism. Nietzsche began his career as a classical...
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...writings. In this essay, I will discuss Nietzsche’s conception of freedom as presented in two of his works: The Genealogy of Morals and The Gay Science. To begin, in Section 12 from The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche introduces to us the term, “will to power” (GM, pg 78) with which he uses synonymously with the term, “instinct for freedom” in latter sections of the essay. Although Nietzsche never clearly defines what he means when he says, “will to power,” he provides the reader a depiction of this concept through the origin of punishment. According to Nietzsche, the concept of punishment contains an aspect that is enduring and an aspect that is fluid (GM, pg 79). In other words, the act of punishing remains the same, but the meaning of the act changes radically over time. For example, while the barbarians of ancient time may have used punishment as a “festival, namely as the rape and mockery of a finally defeated enemy,” modern morality uses punishment as “a means of rendering harmless, or preventing further harm” or even “as the isolation of a disturbance of equilibrium (GM, pg 80). Thus, Nietzsche shows that the significance of punishment is not the act itself, but the meaning that we attach to it. Because the meaning of punishment is independent of the act itself, we can essentially understand the word “punishment” as meaning anything we want, according to Nietzsche’s logic. With this, Nietzsche shows...
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...Culture and Freedom (Romanian Philosophical Studies, III), (3rd ed.), The Relation Between Value and Cultural Development. In Marin Aiftinca, pp. 16-17.) “So, the past erupts into the present not only announcing the other, repressed, side of modernity but also seeding a more unruly disturbance. Modernity does not merely become more complex through the addition of the unacknowledged; it remains irretrievably undone by the questions it can no longer contain. The archaic, presumed to lie back there in the mist of time, appears in the midst of modernity bearing another sense, another direction. An absence, the ‘lost’ world of the past against which the present measures its ‘progress’, unexpectedly returns to haunt modernity. Rational certitude confronts a ghost that bears witness to the return of the apparently timeless economy of the ‘archaic’ and the ‘primitive’: ‘a rumour of words vanish no sooner than they are uttered, and which are therefore lost forever.’ For the potent traces of such lost languages, of diverse cultural configurations of time and place – prehistoric rock paintings in South Africa and Zimbabwe, pre-Colombian cities in the jungles and deserts of the Americas, song lines in the Australian bush, prayer flags in Asian mountain passes – can prise open the present to interrogate its all-inclusive manner of knowing....
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...History of Evolution The word "evolution" in its broadest sense refers to change or growth that occurs in a particular order. Although this broad version of the term would include astronomical evolution and the evolution of computer design, this article focuses on the evolution of biological organisms. That use of the term dates back to the ancient Greeks, but today the word is more often used to refer to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. This theory is sometimes crudely referred to as the theory of "survival of the fittest." It was proposed by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species in 1859 and, independently, by Alfred Wallace in 1858—although Wallace, unlike Darwin, said the human soul is not the product of evolution. Greek and medieval references to "evolution" use it as a descriptive term for a state of nature, in which everything in nature has a certain order or purpose. This is a teleological view of nature. For example, Aristotle classified all living organisms hierarchically in his great scala naturae or Great Chain of Being, with plants at the bottom, moving through lesser animals, and on to humans at the pinnacle of creation, each becoming progressively more perfect in form. It was the medieval philosophers, such as Augustine, who began to incorporate teleological views of nature with religion: God is the designer of all creatures, and everything has a purpose and a place as ordained by Him. In current times, to some, the terms "evolution" and...
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...The dominant artistic movement from about 1900 to 1940, modernism was characterized by the reexamination of existence from every possible angle. Modernist writers sought to leave the traditions of nineteenth-century literature behind in terms of form, content, and expression. They realized that a new industrial age—full of machines, buildings, and technology—had ushered out rural living forever, and the result was often a pessimistic view of what lay before humankind. Frequent themes in modernist works are loneliness and isolation (even in cities teeming with people), and a significant number of writers tried to capture that sense of solitude by engaging in stream-of-consciousness writing, which captures the thought process of a single character as it happens without interruption. Some of the most famous modernist authors include Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce. 1. Open form and free verse are distinguishing characteristics of modernist poetry. Though commonplace now, this style was quite a break from nineteenth-century rules about meter and rhyme. 2. The moniker “The Lost Generation” was coined by Gertrude Stein and refers to those artists of the 1920s who had become disillusioned with America and found themselves living as ex-patriots in Europe, chiefly in France. 3. An example of stream-of-consciousness (also called “interior monologue”) from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway: “She felt somehow very like him—the young man who...
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...him, there is more to “goodness” than merely obeying the laws of our countries and keeping contracts. Morality for him has to do with those acts for which human beings can be held responsible, for Hegel, the essence of morality is located within a person’s purpose. Moral responsibility, then, begins with the acts that can be designated to a free will, a will that intends the act. Also the stoic philosopher Epictetus said that moral Philosophy was a form of an act, where each person is an actor/ actress in a drama, he means that an actor does not chose a role, it is the author or the director who does the picking. In the drama of the world it is God who is the author or the director, who will pick out whom the person will be portraying and what to portray and or how he or she will be situated in the story, people have no choice because it is God who is responsible for the...
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...LIBERTY UNIVERSITY THE GOD-IS-DEAD THEOLOGY A RESEARCH PAPER SUBMITTED TO DOCTOR RICHARD ELLIGSON PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF CHURCH MINISTRY BY EL-FATIH J. AJALA (25927535) THEO 510 LUO LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA JULY 21, 2013 Introduction Paul Enns in his book The Moody Handbook of Theology states of theologians who profess this theology, “deny all forms of traditional ontology and allow for no sovereign and unconditioned Being but only a ‘God’ who at some point in the dialectic wills His own self-annihilation” and that, “man must learn to live without God.”[1] The lack of universal truth in our lives in this 21st century can be directly attributed to the lack of morals and moral values begun in the 19th century; and which took root in the 20th century; and might be the death of man in the 22nd century. In stating that God is dead, it has to be shown that: * Is God dead? * Science and technology can solve the world’s problems * God died as a transcendent God when Christ died * The Bible is narrative (i.e. myth) This review of the God-Is-Dead theology focuses on these four questions. Is God Dead? In an article written in the Chicago Tribune in 1963 it is stated that two men (Thomas Altizer and William Hamilton) experienced the death of...
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...INTRODUCTION The plays and prefaces of Bernard Shaw deal with many and diverse themes. At least four, however, concern themselves with evolutionary themes and ideas: Man and Superman, Back to Methusalah, The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles, and Far-fetched Fables. In Man and Superman, especially the third act, the preface, and The Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion, Shaw touches on two main themes: the pursuit of man by woman and the direction of evolution, which Shaw sees as leading towards the development of the mind and brain. In Back to Methusalah, Shaw carries forward his vision of evolution as proceeding in the direction of mental development but introduces a seemingly new idea in the last play of the cycle, the antithesis of mind and body. Shaw's dualism receives its most explicit statement in the last play of the cycle although there may be indications of it in the earlier plays. The mind-body antithesis, however, derives as a philosophical problem from Descartes,1 although the antithesis also appeared in the Manichean and Gnostic heresies, the spirit, or mind, being regarded as good and the body as evil. Although the antithesis of body and mind makes its first open appearance in the Methusalah cycle, it is present, at least as an implicit assumption in Man and Superman. Don Juan continually expresses his longing for the life of contemplation, a life which is to be achieved at the expense of the body. We will deal with the presence of the mind body antithesis...
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...existence of God has been questioned. Science has attempted to provide humanity with an explanation for human origin and has failed. Atheists argue that God does not exist and do not really offer any strong counter argument to the contrary. Muslims, Jews, and Christians each claim they serve the one supreme Creator of the universe. Who is right and who is wrong? If God is dead, why is religion alive and well? This paper will attempt to answer these questions by providing examples and counter examples. By taking a closer look at the life of Friedrich Nietzsche, his beliefs, morals and values, one will find that he does not possess any evidence that God is dead. Friedrich Nietzsche The life of Friedrich Nietzsche started out rather sadly. Nietzsche’s father, Karl Ludwig Nietzsche, developed a problem in the brain that caused him to die at the young age of 36. Karl was a Lutheran pastor who developed a medical condition called encephalomalacia. Friedrich Nietzsche was five years old when his father passed away. Shortly after, about six months later, his two-year-old brother also passed away. He watched two people that he loved dearly die at a very young age while living only yards away from a church. The...
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...mythological hero’s adventure in Life of Pi. The theory is based on Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which illustrated and distilled heroic patterns from various cultures. The hero’s journey has three stages: separation, initiation, and return. Answering a call to adventure, the hero departs from his familiar world and ventures into a region of supernatural wonder. Miraculous forces are encountered there and a decisive victory is won. He then returns from this mysterious land, bringing an elixir to bene¿t his fellow men. Through this journey of trials, the hero transforms his former self and achieves spiritual growth. Such heroes range from monster slayers to spiritual leaders such as the Buddha and Christ. Life of Pi is a fantasy adventure novel about an Indian boy who survives a shipwreck by drifting on a lifeboat with a tiger. His adventure ¿ts Joseph Campbell’s hero archetype. Similar to the mythological hero, Pi departs from his familiar land of India, answering the call for adventure to a new country. Protected by the supernatural powers of Hinduism, Catholicism, and Islam, he penetrates the dangerous and mysterious realm of the Pacific Ocean. After experiencing harsh ordeals, he returns to the human world with a life-enhancing boon to share. In this study, Campbell’s insights on the heroic pattern are appropriated as an analytical tool to deepen the meaning of the novel and reveal the common mode of the heroic quest. As enlightening today...
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...The Trinity and The Church Dirk Weber DeVry University The Trinity and The Church In Christianity no discussion of ecclesiology should begin without addressing the nature of the One who gives the church meaning and purpose. It is the Triune God that brings the church; unity of substance, differentiated in personhood that is understood in perichoretic co-activity. The universal church received God’s full self-revelation in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and God’s Holy Spirit communicates that revelation to us even today. To what purpose? It is in the universal Christian church that God creates a matrix of categorical understanding in Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit. Within that Christian context, the universal church becomes the “Body of Christ” where all people from various Christian movements and denominations come together with the purpose of building a society based on relationship instead of wealth, power and glory. Why did God endure history, transform history, in the first place? The answer goes to the very heart of the Trinitarian relationship; a relationship humanity struggles to explain fully even two millennia after God’s full self-revelation, but humanity begins to understand when the community of faith reflects upon the whole scriptural witness. The passage in the Christian text that most effectively summarizes the relationship between the persons of the Trinity is found in 1 John 4:8, “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8, New International Version). Love...
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