Welcome to my shitlist
Martijn Benders
>
> >"That the artist esteems appearance higher than reality is no
> > objection to this proposition. For "appearance" in this case means reality once
> > more, only by way of selection, reinforcement, and correction. The tragic
> > artist is no pessimist: he is precisely the one who says Yes to everything
> > questionable, even to the terrible--he is Dionysian."
>
> >F.Nietzsche
>
> Let me assure you that Nietzsche is not talking about picture frames
> here, or special effects.
How the fuck would you know? You thought Nietzsche had never overthrown Kant either,
remember. You have never read the guy if you seriously believed that Nietzsche would
agree about Kant's ideas being still in effect. Nietzsche thought that Kant was the
greatest imposter that ever walked around in philosophical circles. He sincerely
thought that Kant was wrong in virtually everything. And that's the worlds greatest
philosopher up to date, who'd declare you a complete schmuck if he could read the vile
nonsense you spout about him. Simularily, Nietzsche believed that artists lived in a
world completely opposite to that of normal people: what is form to a normal person is
content to an artist, while what is content to a normal peron to an artist appears as
pure form. So bollocks to you and your 'frame', you're just a perfectly ordinairy
example of a populist Harry-with-the-Hat who believes he is the salt of the fucking
world. The small, insignificant little rationalist who thinks he's called to judge
over affairs of things that are so much bigger than himself. A guy whose so fucking
clueless he mistakes every expression of sarcasm for an 'a priori judgement' ; the
very definition of a scholastic dweeb who never fails in underestimating his opponent.
You made a complete idiot out of yourself in the 'Kant' thread and everyone who has
the slightest taste for aesthetics would agree with me you're simply the golem of a
religion long found dead, you and all your small time american critters who keep
polluting this forum
with your infantile obsessions.
M.H.Benders
R. v.d. M.
beweerde in [news:3D348A69...@chello.nl] d.d. 16 jul 2002:
[...]
Ga je mond met zeep spoelen, en niet alleen vanwege je taalgebruik.
Martijn Benders
>
> [...]
>
> Ga je mond met zeep spoelen, en niet alleen vanwege je taalgebruik.
Kunsthater!
M.H.Benders
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.kannibaal.nl/
http://www.cacaofabriek.nl/
The only official FAQ for the newsgroup AAPC:
http://www.kannibaal.nl/aapc.htm
'Almost every one of your poems has a few lines that take my breath
away, and makes me think about applying for a job as a doggy treat
salesman.'
Joshua P.Hill
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joshua P. Hill
Oh, you blithering pussy. Where did I ever say, or suggest, that
Nietzsche agreed that all of Kant's ideas were still in effect? You
can't say, because, of course, I didn't. You seem to think that
philosphy is some sort of soccer match, where an entire system falls
when the latest guy comes along. But if you'd actually studied it,
you'd know that that isn't true. Kant made some well known errors, and
so did Nietzsche, who, after all, wrote 100 years ago. But you no more
know what those errors are than you know what the successes are,
because you don't understand this stuff at the level of an
undergraduate half way through Philosophy 101. How can you talk about
Kant, or Nietzsche, if you don't even know what synthetical reasoning
a priori is, or why it is significant to Kant's philosophy? How can
you understand Kant if you think that "that which has subjective
purposiveness for cognition" means "beauty is in the eye of the
beholder"? You're a total duffer when it comes to this stuff, but,
with your ludicrously oversized ego, you act the part you accuse me
of.
You say I underestimate you, but sorry, guy, you overestimate
yourself, grossly. It's apparent that you no more understand the
passages you quote than a pumpkin understands the pie its in. And when
people express their amazement at your ludicorous statements, you
simply write them off as "small time American critters" whose
criticism is insignficant. Never mind that those ignorant American
critters went to the moon and win Nobel prizes left and right: they
criticize *you*, so they must be wrong.
Look, Martijn, there's nothing wrong with ignorance. There's nothing
wrong with making a mistake, or wanting to learn. But there is
something wrong with a grownup who acts like a 17-year-old
know-it-all. Unlike you, I have never been reluctant to praise your
talents: your creativity, your humor, your vigor. But you throw it
away, you waste it if you spend your time throwing misunderstood
Nietzsche abound and then insisting that everyone who calls your bluff
is a fool. This is wonderful stuff, but it is not the heady young wine
of a Dionysiac frenzy. It must be understood before it can be savored,
and that is not something one can do without a tad of humility and a
willingness to learn.
Josh
"Frankly, to tell you the truth: I don't believe in
'insanity' which requires a belief in 'sanity' which
I don't have either." -Martijn Benders
cAp
>And when
>people express their amazement at your ludicorous statements, you
>simply write them off as "small time American critters" whose
>criticism is insignficant. Never mind that those ignorant American
>critters went to the moon and win Nobel prizes left and right: they
>criticize *you*, so they must be wrong.
When you as an individual are attacked at your nationality, it is not
the wisest thing to try to defend this nationality "we went to the
moon". Especially not when you belong to a nation that cries at a flag,
that consists of either overweighted sexually indistinguishable
potatobags or underweighted hunger-strike imitating biafra looks.
Moreover, as long as thought is a crime in the US -remember that when
you even *think* of a 14-year old you commit a crime- you 'd better be
ashamed of the nation you sadly enough belong to, and you 'd better fall
back on yourself as a cosmoburger.
Just an advice.
cAp
Martijn Benders
>
> Oh, you blithering pussy. Where did I ever say, or suggest, that
> Nietzsche agreed that all of Kant's ideas were still in effect?
You claimed that Nietzsche thought _parts_ of Kants ideas were still in effect,
especially his ideas involving beauty. This is a blatant lie. Let me quote Nietzsche again,
because you obviously didn't read it the last time. I'll try to keep the quotes smaller so
it is not so hard for you to read:
"That the Germans have been able to stand their philosophers at all, especially
that most deformed concept-cripple of all time, the great Kant, provides not a
bad notion of German grace."
"Instinct at fault in everything and anything, instinct as a revolt against nature, German
decadence as a philosophy--that is Kant!"
"Kant became an idiot.--And such a man was the contemporary of Goethe! This calamitous
spinner of cobwebs passed for the German philosopher--still
passes today! . . . I forbid myself to say what I think of the Germans."
What part of above passages makes you think Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas about
beauty, josh?
M.H.Benders
Joe Black
:: Joshua P. Hill heeft geschreven in bericht ...
As a writer from nl.filosofie I would like to add that what most US
citizen see as a God given system is nothing more than a random
historical development that was maintained because it makes some
Americans so terrible rich that they would never allow it to be changed.
--
"Im Satze kann der Gedanke so ausgedrückt sein, daß den Gegenständen
des Gedankens Elemente des Satzzeichens entsprechen."
Groeten,
Tjeerd
cAp
>:: When you as an individual are attacked at your nationality, it is
not
>:: the wisest thing to try to defend this nationality "we went to the
>:: moon". Especially not when you belong to a nation that cries at a
>:: flag, that consists of either overweighted sexually
indistinguishable
>:: potatobags or underweighted hunger-strike imitating biafra looks.
>:: Moreover, as long as thought is a crime in the US -remember that
when
>:: you even *think* of a 14-year old you commit a crime- you 'd better
>:: be ashamed of the nation you sadly enough belong to, and you 'd
>:: better fall back on yourself as a cosmoburger.
>::
>:: Just an advice.
>::
>:: cAp
>
>As a writer from nl.filosofie I would like to add that what most US
>citizen see as a God given system is nothing more than a random
>historical development that was maintained because it makes some
>Americans so terrible rich that they would never allow it to be
changed.
In addition, axes of evil have ravaged the average American mind, where
evolutionist thinking and free market ideology are blended in a kind of
*naturalism* (cf. Fukuyama) and where Americans killing, slaughtering
and exploiting others is rephrased as defending freedom. No wonder that
we respond and destroy the American concept of freedom.
cAp, semantic terrorist
Martijn Benders
>
> When you as an individual are attacked at your nationality, it is not
> the wisest thing to try to defend this nationality "we went to the
> moon".
Next time anyone says anything about Holland, I'll simply point out that we
discovered Tazmania!
M.H.Benders
Martijn Benders
>
> In addition, axes of evil have ravaged the average American mind, where
> evolutionist thinking and free market ideology are blended in a kind of
> *naturalism* (cf. Fukuyama) and where Americans killing, slaughtering
> and exploiting others is rephrased as defending freedom. No wonder that
> we respond and destroy the American concept of freedom.
The American concept of 'freedom' is an imbecile bubble based mainly on the
freedom to exploit others and the freedom not to take seriously anything
anyone says ('freedom of speech') - hence the enormous emphasize on
'freedom of speech' which is just a useless device augmented to excuse all
sorts of rubbish. If man has 'the right' to behave like an idiot, one
naturally wonders what his duties will be.
Pyrrho
And how right this advice is. Let us not forget, we are talking about
a nation here, whose president publically proclaimes his aversion
towards atheists, declares his soldiers outside the juridiction of any
international criminal law and where provocation of crime is an
acceptable police methode.
Pyrrho
R. J. Gumby, philosopher
<josh...@snet.net.REMOVE.THIS> wrote:
>Oh, you blithering pussy. Where did I ever say, or suggest, that
>Nietzsche agreed that all of Kant's ideas were still in effect?
[...]
> You seem to think that
>philosphy is some sort of soccer match,
The tone of this debate is, indeed, decidedly Pythonesque.
It's a nice passtime trying to imagine the proper voice for the
authors of these Usenet philosophicalities. For this thread I'd most
certainly cast John Cleese dressed as a middle-aged housewife.
--
Samuel
http://concerten.free.fr/home.html
Today everyone's so jaded. The whole postmodern stance is a dead end in terms of
art and its transformational qualities. I think people used to go to art for visions.
- Elliott Sharp
j r sherman
bohr...@hotmail.com says...
well, shit, we can't argue with ya on that one, can we?
don't forget the part where the (supposed) US president wasn't even elected! for
those who may not know, the true president of the United States lives somewhere
in eastern Tennessee.
but, hey! we make the best porn in the world, so it's sort of a wash.
most sincerely,
j r sherman
------------------------------------------------------------------
"A sad tale's best for winter: I have one
Of sprites and goblins."
------------------------------------------------------------------
Martijn Benders
>
> > No wonder that
> >we respond and destroy the American concept of freedom.
>
> Not only the American concept.
>
> The charter of this group (nl.filosofie) says in all its wisdom:
> "Kruisposten van en naar nl.filosofie is ongewenst, uitgezonderd
> wanneer het om aankondigingen van voor de filosofie relevante
> zaken gaat, waarbij de follow-up naar 1 nieuwsgroep is gezet."
>
> In translation:
>
> "Crossposting from and to nl.filosofie is unwished for, except when
> it concerns announcements, relevant for nl.philosophy and when the
> follow-up is set to one of the newsgroups"
That's an illegal charter - the dutch groups are controlled by the
nl-admin, a bureaucratic and unefficient organ that thinks it has the
right to superimpose all sorts of
silly rules for the dutch part of usenet. Crossposting was invented
because multi-posting was deemed an unnecissary spill of bandwidth.
Crossposting is a useful and necissary tool in reaching and crossing
audiences with a single post or discussion. On the international
internet crossposting is allowed - and I just don't see why the nl-admin
would have the right to somehow try to control the behaviour of the
dutch participants of usenet. I pay for my access to newsgroups. Why on
earth would anyone give the founder of a newsgroup the right to
determine its policy, a founder who very well could be completely
ignorant on the topic which is supposed to be discussed?
Usenet is no different than the WWW. I can post wherever I chose, and
the petty laws of those who want to restrict the freedom of culteral
diversity interest me much less.
M.H.Benders
Immortalist
"Martijn Benders" <maan...@chello.nl> wrote in message
news:3D359B6C...@chello.nl...
thanx mother fucker! i am gonna print that and hang it on my wall!
Martijn Benders
>
> thanx mother fucker! i am gonna print that and hang it on my wall!
Fuck yeah, no prob, brother. Keep the revolution alive, mate.
Immortalist
> Immortalist wrote:
>
> >
> > thanx mother fucker! i am gonna print that and hang it on my wall!
>
> Fuck yeah, no prob, brother. Keep the revolution alive, mate.
>
> M.H.Benders
>
i think crossposting has gotten a bad reputation because of advertising of
products but i think crossposting is good to stimulate a wider discussion on
topics and ideas.
Joshua P. Hill
No, I never claimed that. I made no claims either way. I simply
pointed out that the passage from which you quoted had little or no
bearing on Kant's aesthetic philosophy. And this one, too, has none.
You don't understand what Nietzsche is talking about here, or in the
other passage, because you have no understanding of Kant. So you can't
distinguish between hyperbole and logical argument. Nietzsche,
polemicist though he was, didn't share your limitation.
Pyrrho
> But there is something wrong with a grownup who acts like a 17-year-old
> know-it-all.
Thats true allright. But then what to do about the American people that has
the mental age of a 17-year-old and acts like it knows it all?
Pyrrho
Paul Heslop
> On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 03:23:29 GMT, Joshua P. Hill
> <josh...@snet.net.REMOVE.THIS> wrote:
>
>
>>Oh, you blithering pussy. Where did I ever say, or suggest, that
>>Nietzsche agreed that all of Kant's ideas were still in effect?
>
>
> [...]
>
>
>>You seem to think that
>>philosphy is some sort of soccer match,
>
>
> The tone of this debate is, indeed, decidedly Pythonesque.
>
> It's a nice passtime trying to imagine the proper voice for the
> authors of these Usenet philosophicalities. For this thread I'd most
> certainly cast John Cleese dressed as a middle-aged housewife.
>
> --
--
Paul. (Tonight I think I'll walk alone...)
____________________________________________________________
http://www.geocities.com/dreamst8me/
Martijn Benders
>
> >What part of above passages makes you think Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas about
> >beauty, josh?
>
> No, I never claimed that. I made no claims either way.
You claimed that Kant's ideas about beauty were still relevant nowadays, and that Nietzsche had
never overthrown them. Nietzsche, however, clearly rejected the whole body of Kant's work,
including his rather infantile ideas about 'the relationship between truth and beauty'. So what
ideas do you actually claim are still relevant nowadays? I bet you can't even put them into
words, for they'd sound much to silly to vent them into the plain air. However, being the dweeb
you are you keep hammering on the fact that 'I don't understand Nietzsche' as if making such a
statement would be enough to make it true. The truth is that you yourself had never read
Nietzsche, you've discovered now that he didn't think your great Hero Kant was relevant in his
days let alone at present.
But instead of admitting you are wrong you start to launch the biggest hyperbole of them all:
you don't _understand_ Nietzsche. You don't _understand_ Kant. You don't _understand_ my poems,
we've been to the moon, tahiti is beautiful, and Josh P.Hill thinks saying the moon is made of
green cheese makes it so. What on earth do you think people are here? Do you really think people
all read as badly as you do? What on earth is on your mind when you claim that the pages full of
Nietzsche I qouted 'have no bearing on Kant's aesthetic philosophy' - that was about the only
subject the whole piece was about! And you actually have the nerve to say 'it has no bearing' on
it, like
saying so would make that _true_? Do you even have the faintest clue what an argument is
supposed to consist of? All your posts breathe the same typical naieve (dare I say) american
shallowness. If someone starts critiqueing your country you retort with 'how dare you critique
my country, we've been to the moon'. In a simular way it's not really hard to visualize your
defense on the Aestethics of Kant. 'How dare you critique Kant, he won several awards and had an
academic title'. That you actually expect others to fall for this sort of nitwit retoric is the
only true hyperbole, one you wouldn't even see if someone managed to free it out of your
otherwise empty skull.
M.H.Benders
erik
erik
> i think crossposting has gotten a bad reputation because of advertising of
> products
or maybe because of flaming...
erik
brain...
Martijn Benders
> mensenhater
Heb jij iets tegen mensenhaters?
Art McNutt
cAp_in...@hotmail.com wrote on 7/17/02 6:33 AM:
[snip]
>
> In addition, axes of evil have ravaged the average American mind, where
> evolutionist thinking and free market ideology are blended in a kind of
> *naturalism* (cf. Fukuyama) and where Americans killing, slaughtering
> and exploiting others is rephrased as defending freedom. No wonder that
> we respond and destroy the American concept of freedom.
>
> cAp, semantic terrorist
>
So I'm reading this play by Sartre, gosh, I can't remember which one, it
wasn't that good and I know it wasn't "The Flies" as I actually /liked/ that
one. Only thing Sartre ever did that I truly admired was turning down the
Nobel Peace Prize, mostly because he wasn't /that/ kind of hypocrite and
refused to show himself to the world as /that kind/ of hypocrite. It might
have been "Dirty Hands" but, anyway, I'm reading along and it's set in
America at the turn of the last century, New Orleans, actually, and it's
about this Prostitute, musta been an inspiration to Malle later who did a
film about that famous red light district that helped give birth to the
Blues but Malle, of course, turned it into prurient tripe for the Marks
starring 13 year old Brooke Shields and Janet "I'll take my clothes off for
art" Rocky Horror Picture Show. Anyway, this prostitute is in her one room
apartment and I think there's a murder or something and the police come
knocking on her door. "Where are your papers?" the police ask, and she goes
to a table drawer an gets them out and hands them over.
Now we're talking 1903 or something New Orleans. Okay?
I couldn't think of anything else as I read the rest of the play. I couldn't
get past this little faux, this little mistake of Sartre's. His European
petticoat was showing, and I knew that he would never have anything relevant
or meaningful to say about America because he quite simply couldn't
understand us. He shoulda wrote about something he understood.
The point is, to me, this taints everything /any/ European has to say about
America. They, quite naturally, can't imagine a time in the last few
generations (or ever) when anyone, or especially a Prostitute, wouldn't have
to have papers--a stamp of approval from some office of authority, on hand
at all times to produce to an officer of the law (crown-king-politburo).
I doubt that any one here at AARP has any idea to what I'm driving at here,
and I don't know how to spell it out without coming off pompous, as I have a
tendency to do way too often when I'm trying to make points like this. And
surely, every one here would trade their freedom for safety in a New York
Minute, and all think a whore /oughta/ have ID papers /anyway/ and now that
Homicidal artists are orchestrating attacks on our symbols involving
indiscriminant slaughter, we think Police should most definitely have the
"authority" to stop suspicious people whether or not they walk around with
towels on their heads and while suspicious characters are being held without
any Constitutional rights, though they aren't citizens here anyway--no one
here has ever offered a better solution to security (with one exception).
Somebody mentioned "The Treasure of Sierra Madre," or did they? While
listing movies they thought deserved to be considered as the top ten films
of all times. Anyway, I'm reminded of the famous line "Badges? Hhwhee don'
neeed noh steenkink badges." Houston was making a comment on the human
condidtion, but he still believed in the natural autonomy of the individual;
And the individual's ability and right to look after himself.
Like the hard earned gold dust in the movie, this idea, this principle that
so many men thought noble enough to died for, has blown away in the desert
wind...long ago.
Europeans have no valid criticism to offer America. Americans should never
lean towards Europe for answers. They have none, at least none for /us/.
They cannot imagine a time they didn't need their papers. We can.
---
Art
"I'd like to thank all the little pebbles
for making this possible."
Art McNutt
amcn...@insightbb.com wrote on 7/17/02 6:49 PM:
[snip]
>
> Like the hard earned gold dust in the movie, this idea, this principle that
> so many men thought noble enough to died for, has blown away in the desert
> wind...long ago.
Wellya, I shouldn't type and talk to my 6 year old at the same time, should
I? ...so many men thought noble enough to /die/ for...
The other typos I don't care about, but that sentence deserves to be right
(even though no one will read it, or think much about it).
There was a time this didn't need to be said. Even among poets. There was a
time most Americans (seemingly) thought a poor whore's dignity, what little
there might be of it, was worth all our lives, fortunes and honor. At least
they used to talk that talk. Now, no one's freedom is worth our secure jobs,
secure prices, our loose shoes and our warm place to shit; Our homeland
security.
Well, there I go sounding pompous again.
Fuck the crowns of Europe. That better? Guys like Martijn Hilfiger may not
recognize crowns, per se, and thus duck under the arrow. Sartre ducked that
one too. But a free people can tell the difference between throwing grenades
in pre-schools and buying the Apache blankets and food so they don't go on
murderous raiding parties any more. When they start up those raids again
anyway, there's only the /one/ distasteful solution. And none of us have the
guts for that one anyway.
We'll feel guilty whether we do anything to deserve it or not.
But...having pampered slaves criticize us, and having the obvious lie in
that go unanswered is one sin I still refuse to commit.
Martijn Benders
>
> Wellya, I shouldn't type and talk to my 6 year old at the same time, should
> I? ...so many men thought noble enough to /die/ for...
You can check art's current status at:
Joshua P. Hill
<maan...@chello.nl> wrote:
>The American concept of 'freedom' is an imbecile bubble based mainly on the
>freedom to exploit others and the freedom not to take seriously anything
>anyone says ('freedom of speech') - hence the enormous emphasize on
>'freedom of speech' which is just a useless device augmented to excuse all
>sorts of rubbish. If man has 'the right' to behave like an idiot, one
>naturally wonders what his duties will be.
Yours, I think.
Art McNutt
maan...@chello.nl wrote on 7/17/02 10:09 PM:
Heh. Good response.
For those who need Mr. Hilfiger to make up their minds for them, he's got a
website. No need to check my current status /here/, of all places.
One wonders at the mindset that would cause a mutiny over Tom's meter
program (which no one had to use in the first place) and the benign
complacency with Mr. Hilfiger's magic I'll-judge-the-poetry-here-from-now-on
site (which no one needs go to).
Eh. Martijn Hilfiger: FWIW. Art McNutt: FWIW.
No huhu.
Joshua P. Hill
<maan...@chello.nl> wrote:
>"Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
>
>>
>> >What part of above passages makes you think Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas about
>> >beauty, josh?
>>
>> No, I never claimed that. I made no claims either way.
>
>You claimed that Kant's ideas about beauty were still relevant nowadays, and that Nietzsche had
>never overthrown them. Nietzsche, however, clearly rejected the whole body of Kant's work,
>including his rather infantile ideas about 'the relationship between truth and beauty'. So what
>ideas do you actually claim are still relevant nowadays? I bet you can't even put them into
>words, for they'd sound much to silly to vent them into the plain air. However, being the dweeb
>you are you keep hammering on the fact that 'I don't understand Nietzsche' as if making such a
>statement would be enough to make it true. The truth is that you yourself had never read
>Nietzsche, you've discovered now that he didn't think your great Hero Kant was relevant in his
>days let alone at present.
Chortle. This from the fellow who, a year ago, didn't even know what
"resentiment" means!
Martijn, I have little interest in explaining the basics of philosophy
to someone who seems by nature better suited for the wrestling ring
than intellectual discourse. Kant is no "great hero" of mine,
although, like many or most conversant with philosophy, I consider him
the greatest modern philosopher (and no, don't start another
simpleminded tirade in which you point out that he was wrong about a,
b, and c; you merely illustrate, in doing so, that you haven't even an
undergraduate's understanding of what constitutes greatness in a
historical personage; or, put another way, that you haven't read
Hegel).
I will, however, note that Platonic beauty is today widely considered
the emotion of cognition, long after Kant pointed that out in the
beautiful passage which you took, in your infinite sophistication, to
mean "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"; and that the relationship
between beauty and truth was first observed in ancient and medieval
times, not in the time of Kant, as you so ludicrously suggest.
>But instead of admitting you are wrong you start to launch the biggest hyperbole of them all:
>you don't _understand_ Nietzsche. You don't _understand_ Kant. You don't _understand_ my poems,
>we've been to the moon, tahiti is beautiful, and Josh P.Hill thinks saying the moon is made of
>green cheese makes it so. What on earth do you think people are here? Do you really think people
>all read as badly as you do? What on earth is on your mind when you claim that the pages full of
>Nietzsche I qouted 'have no bearing on Kant's aesthetic philosophy' - that was about the only
>subject the whole piece was about! And you actually have the nerve to say 'it has no bearing' on
>it, like
>saying so would make that _true_?
I reiterate: you have no understanding whatsoever of the passages you
read. It is abundantly clear that you have never studied philosophy at
the university level, and that you are not widely read enough to
understand it on your own. You argue like the 16-year-old boy on the
Sopranos who discovers, just in time for his confirmation, that
"Neech" said God is dead.
> Do you even have the faintest clue what an argument is
>supposed to consist of? All your posts breathe the same typical naieve (dare I say) american
>shallowness. If someone starts critiqueing your country you retort with 'how dare you critique
>my country, we've been to the moon'. In a simular way it's not really hard to visualize your
>defense on the Aestethics of Kant. 'How dare you critique Kant, he won several awards and had an
>academic title'. That you actually expect others to fall for this sort of nitwit retoric is the
>only true hyperbole, one you wouldn't even see if someone managed to free it out of your
>otherwise empty skull.
Riiight. -- Martijn, I react to your posts with the intellectual
contempt they deserve. One can't have an adult conversation with
someone whose reaction to the higher expressions of the human spirit
consists essentially of schoolroom sarcasm.
Nietzsche could accuse Kant of being covered in cobwebs and remain
interesting for two main reasons: he was a genius, and he'd actually
read Kant.
You have apparently conluded that because your idol -- and note what
Zarathustra had to say about hero worship, if you've actually read
that far -- was fond of the ludicrously hyperbolic, Nietzshe's merit
lies in hyperbole. In that you're like the tone deaf fellow (funny how
he keeps showing up) who, having heard Louis Armstrong play the
trumpet, concluded that the key to good trumpet playing lay in blowing
as loudly as one possibly could, bought himself an instrument, and
ended up paying a fine for disturbing the peace.
<DE nederlandsche CACAOFABRIEK>
> Chortle. This from the fellow who, a year ago, didn't even know what
> "resentiment" means!
Chortle. This from the fellow who, a year ago, didn't even know what
"resentiment" means!
> Martijn, I have little interest in explaining the basics of philosophy
> to someone who seems by nature better suited for the wrestling ring
> than intellectual discourse. Kant is no "great hero" of mine,
> although, like many or most conversant with philosophy, I consider him
> the greatest modern philosopher (and no, don't start another
> simpleminded tirade in which you point out that he was wrong about a,
> b, and c; you merely illustrate, in doing so, that you haven't even an
> undergraduate's understanding of what constitutes greatness in a
> historical personage; or, put another way, that you haven't read
> Hegel).
Josh, I have little interest in explaining the basics of philosophy
to someone who seems by nature better suited for the wrestling ring
than intellectual discourse. Kant is no "great hero" of mine,
although, like many or most conversant with philosophy, I consider him
the greatest nitwit ever walking around in philophical circles (and no,
don't start another simpleminded tirade in which you point out that he
was right about a,
b, and c; you merely illustrate, in doing so, that you haven't even an
undergraduate's understanding of what constitutes stupidity in a
historical personage; or, put another way, that you haven't read
Hegel).
> I will, however, note that Platonic beauty is today widely considered
> the emotion of cognition, long after Kant pointed that out in the
> beautiful passage which you took, in your infinite sophistication, to
> mean "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"; and that the relationship
> between beauty and truth was first observed in ancient and medieval
> times, not in the time of Kant, as you so ludicrously suggest.
I will, however, note that Platonic beauty is today widely considered
the emotion of of those who can't get laid, long after Kant pointed that
out in the
awkward passage which you took, in your infinite sophistication, to
mean "beauty is still a truthful appearance nowadays"; and that the
relationship
between beauty and truth was first observed in ancient and medieval
times, not in the time of Kant, as you so ridiculously read in my words
proving again you don't even have an ounc eof talent for reading.
> I reiterate: you have no understanding whatsoever of the passages you
> read. It is abundantly clear that you have never studied philosophy at
> the university level, and that you are not widely read enough to
> understand it on your own. You argue like the 16-year-old boy on the
> Sopranos who discovers, just in time for his confirmation, that
> "Neech" said God is dead.
I reiterate: you have no understanding whatsoever of the passages you
read. It is abundantly clear that you have never studied philosophy at
the university level, and that you are not widely read enough to
understand it on your own. You argue like the 16-year-old boy on the
Sopranos who discovers, just in time for his confirmation, that
"Kantos" said Beaty is truth.
> Riiight. -- Martijn, I react to your posts with the intellectual
> contempt they deserve. One can't have an adult conversation with
> someone whose reaction to the higher expressions of the human spirit
> consists essentially of schoolroom sarcasm.
>
> Nietzsche could accuse Kant of being covered in cobwebs and remain
> interesting for two main reasons: he was a genius, and he'd actually
> read Kant.
Riiight. -- Josh, I react to your posts with the intellectual
contempt they deserve. One can't have an adult conversation with
someone whose reaction to the higher expressions of the human spirit
consists essentially of schoolroom sarcasm.
Nietzsche could accuse Kant of being covered in cobwebs and remain
interesting for two main reasons: he was a genius, and he'd actually
been to the moon, and he had a few academic titles.
M.H.Benders
Joshua P. Hill
Which just happens to have been created by Martijn, that compulsive
liar, without the participation or approval of the group.
Joshua P. Hill
failure: he's gone into clown mode, a sure sign that even he has
finally realized he lost the argument. Now wait a bit: he'll
disappear, and reboot, and come back to life, with all the same bugs
he always had.
Josh
Aidan Tynan
>
>The point is, to me, this taints everything /any/ European has to say about
>America.
Since you believe Sartre was offered the Nobel Peace Prize, I'm guessing you
probably haven't read Baudrillard or J.G. Ballard.
>
>Somebody mentioned "The Treasure of Sierra Madre," or did they? While
>listing movies they thought deserved to be considered as the top ten films
>of all times. Anyway, I'm reminded of the famous line "Badges? Hhwhee don'
>neeed noh steenkink badges." Houston was making a comment on the human
>condidtion, but he still believed in the natural autonomy of the
individual;
>And the individual's ability and right to look after himself.
B. Traven was a German!
>
>Like the hard earned gold dust in the movie, this idea, this principle that
>so many men thought noble enough to died for, has blown away in the desert
>wind...long ago.
>
>Europeans have no valid criticism to offer America. Americans should never
>lean towards Europe for answers.
Yes, well, I guess as long as you can re-fuel your war planes here you'll be
happy. I'm hoping Ireland will single handedly bring down the EU by
rejecting Nice (again).
-Aidan
Aidan Tynan
>
>The other typos I don't care about, but that sentence deserves to be right
>(even though no one will read it, or think much about it).
>
I was too busy chucking at the other mistakes, you know, where you thought
Sartre was offered the Nobel Peace Prize and where you thought B. Traven was
an American.
And your use of 'crown' as a metonym for Europe is one way to rile us
Parnelites.
-Aidan
Martijn Benders
> Uh-oh, it's the polka dot screen of death, and that means Martijn
> failure: he's gone into clown mode, a sure sign that even he has
> finally realized he lost the argument.
What argument? Do you really think that your hopeless cackle 'you don't know
anything about philosophy' constitutes an _argument_?
First you claim that Kants idea's of beauty are still actual and that
Nietzsche has never overthrown them. I post a long article full of Nietzsche
quotes that clearly proves otherwise and your only retort is 'you don't
understand philosophy'.
And then you actually claim that is an _argument_
To such parrot talk the only sane reply is parrotism.
M.H.Benders
Martijn Benders
>
> >The only official FAQ for the newsgroup AAPC:
> >http://www.kannibaal.nl/aapc.htm
>
> Which just happens to have been created by Martijn, that compulsive
> liar, without the participation or approval of the group.
This is clearly untrue. The FAQ in fact has the full approval of Jim Sheard, the
previous
FAQ keeper of AAPC who, unlike P.Hillbilly, is an amicable and reasonable guy:
"I'm delighted that you have made such excellent use of my
absence. Clearly, a power-vacuum has developed and you have
taken full advantage.
Your new FAQ says pretty much all that needs to be said, if you
need my approval. I only wish that such micro-FAQs were more
common on the Internet.
I am enjoying my rest from aapc, and have been spending my time
digging away a hillside in my back garden and rebuilding it
elsewhere. Such Promethean tasks are as nothing compared to
the task of converting aapc-types to your new FAQ, and I will
check on your progress periodically.
How are you doing, apart from this?
Best wishes
Jim"
Art McNutt
aty...@eircom.net wrote on 7/18/02 12:52 PM:
>
>
>>
>> The point is, to me, this taints everything /any/ European has to say about
>> America.
>
> Since you believe Sartre was offered the Nobel Peace Prize, I'm guessing you
> probably haven't read Baudrillard or J.G. Ballard.
Okay, I told you I was sorry I sent that off after having carried on a
conversation about how to best succeed in the game Crash Bandicoot while
typing it. You see, level five has these moving iron walls...well, never
mind.
The Nobel Prize for Literature, obviously is what I meant. The Peace Prize
usually goes to pacifists, revolutionaries and sometimes murderers, Sartre
didn't qualify, quite. Anyway, he never signed a peace treaty in his life.
>
>
>>
>> Somebody mentioned "The Treasure of Sierra Madre," or did they? While
>> listing movies they thought deserved to be considered as the top ten films
>> of all times. Anyway, I'm reminded of the famous line "Badges? Hhwhee don'
>> neeed noh steenkink badges." Houston was making a comment on the human
>> condidtion, but he still believed in the natural autonomy of the
> individual;
>> And the individual's ability and right to look after himself.
>
> B. Traven was a German!
Oh Pooh. You got me. Except that Tavern, himself, wisely denied his
heritage. From what little I know of him, he was a citizen of the world.
>
>
>>
>> Like the hard earned gold dust in the movie, this idea, this principle that
>> so many men thought noble enough to died for, has blown away in the desert
>> wind...long ago.
>>
>> Europeans have no valid criticism to offer America. Americans should never
>> lean towards Europe for answers.
>
> Yes, well, I guess as long as you can re-fuel your war planes here you'll be
> happy. I'm hoping Ireland will single handedly bring down the EU by
> rejecting Nice (again).
>
Aidan, if I had my way, you'd have supplied all your own planes to defend
yourselves. Then we wouldn't have all this left over hardware and
obligations floating around haunting us from the aberration called the Cold
War in the first place.
While I /did/ lump all of Europe under the terms Crown and Politburo
(referring to your other post), I did so because this is your heritage, just
as slaughtering Indians and holding racial slaves is ours.
Why would I think Europeans had nothing to say if I read Sartre? It can't be
for the entertainment value, as there is very little of that in him. I'm
afraid you heard/read me saying that, when what I really said, in essence,
was that Europe holds no answers /for us/. What I meant was, Europe has a
great deal to say about itself, but next to nothing to say about America.
Surely the reverse is true.
BTW, I don't think much of the EU, either. The Articles of Confederation
would work /so/ much better.
See what I mean?
Joshua P. Hill
You routinely ignore any actual arguments or dismiss them agressively
using arguments that I find ridiculous. So why should I sit here
explaining what Nietzsche had against synthetical reasoning a priori,
or the relationship between beauty and cognition? Buy some books: they
will tell you the same thing, they don't get bored, and they ignore
arrogance and insults.
Joshua P. Hill
As you well know, oh disingenuous one, Jim Sheard has no authority
whatsoever over this group.
Martijn Benders
>
> >Best wishes
> >Jim"
>
> As you well know, oh disingenuous one, Jim Sheard has no authority
> whatsoever over this group.
And who has? You? One of the top polluters of AAPC, who is mostly known for the
company he keeps - Hammes, Heslop, J.P. and a few other nutballs?
Jim has all the authority over the group, because he's simply one of the best poets
there. And I am, by your own admission, also one of the better poets there.
What made you think trolls should rule the newsgroup instead of poets? Let me guess,
does it have something to do with 'the beauty of cognition'?
M.H.Benders
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.kannibaal.nl/
http://www.cacaofabriek.nl/
The only official FAQ for the newsgroup AAPC:
http://www.kannibaal.nl/aapc.htm
'Almost every one of your poems has a few lines that take my breath
Martijn Benders
>
> >What argument? Do you really think that your hopeless cackle 'you don't know
> >anything about philosophy' constitutes an _argument_?
> >First you claim that Kants idea's of beauty are still actual and that
> >Nietzsche has never overthrown them. I post a long article full of Nietzsche
> >quotes that clearly proves otherwise and your only retort is 'you don't
> >understand philosophy'.
> >
> >And then you actually claim that is an _argument_
> >
> >To such parrot talk the only sane reply is parrotism.
>
> You routinely ignore any actual arguments or dismiss them agressively
What argument? That americans have been to the moon and therefore must not be
criticized? Sorry pal, but I've yet to see your first argument arrive. 'You don't
understand philosophy' is not an argument.
>
> using arguments that I find ridiculous. So why should I sit here
> explaining what Nietzsche had against synthetical reasoning a priori,
> or the relationship between beauty and cognition?
That's not what you should explain. You should explain why you claimed that
Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas on beauty. Didn't see any such explanation yet.
You either admit that Nietzsche was a great philosopher and that he was right
about Kant being a bogey, or you reject Nietzsche and claim that the cobwebs of
Kant are still the hottest thing in the field of Aesthetics. Claiming both at the
same time is clownery.
M.H.Benders
Joshua P. Hill
<maan...@chello.nl> wrote:
>"Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
>
>>
>> >Best wishes
>> >Jim"
>>
>> As you well know, oh disingenuous one, Jim Sheard has no authority
>> whatsoever over this group.
>
>And who has? You? One of the top polluters of AAPC, who is mostly known for the
>company he keeps - Hammes, Heslop, J.P. and a few other nutballs?
>
>Jim has all the authority over the group, because he's simply one of the best poets
>there. And I am, by your own admission, also one of the better poets there.
>
>What made you think trolls should rule the newsgroup instead of poets? Let me guess,
>does it have something to do with 'the beauty of cognition'?
Sorry, guy, but no one has authority over this group -- not poets like
me, not off-topic crossposters like you. AAPC is whatever *we* make
it, not some self-declared "this is *my* club and you can't be in it
because you don't lick my boots" schoolyard dictator -- and you can
stick that up your anal control freak cigar box syndic ass.
Art McNutt
maan...@chello.nl wrote on 7/18/02 9:06 PM:
> "Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
>
>>
>>> Best wishes
>>> Jim"
>>
>> As you well know, oh disingenuous one, Jim Sheard has no authority
>> whatsoever over this group.
>
> And who has? You? One of the top polluters of AAPC, who is mostly known for
> the
> company he keeps - Hammes, Heslop, J.P. and a few other nutballs?
That's McNutt, to you, Kid.
>
> Jim has all the authority over the group, because he's simply one of the best
> poets
> there. And I am, by your own admission, also one of the better poets there.
You see, Josh, Martijn "feels" this is a group. And, of course, all right
thinking people believe that a group can't function without "authority."
As Jim mentioned in his e-mail to Ingmar, errr, Martijn, this sets up a
"power vacuum." Martijn, being in reality a Hilfigerian, has set himself up
as the Oreck XL of AAPC.
Now if someone would just show him how to set the attachments correctly, we
could get him to quit blowing out all that dusty, hot air, and start
sucking, which is really what he does best.
>
> What made you think trolls should rule the newsgroup instead of poets? Let me
> guess,
> does it have something to do with 'the beauty of cognition'?
>
No, it's all about juxtaposing images of beauty, isn't it Tommy? Associate
yourself with thinkers, and you must be a thinker too. It's all about
Freedom and the new generation.
Martijn Benders
>
> >What made you think trolls should rule the newsgroup instead of poets? Let me guess,
> >does it have something to do with 'the beauty of cognition'?
>
> Sorry, guy, but no one has authority over this group
If it were up to trolls like you, that is.
> -- not poets like
> me,
What gave you the idea you are a poet? No one else but yourself seems to think so.
How many 'poems' have you written in your life? Five?
> not off-topic crossposters like you. AAPC is whatever *we* make
> it,
No, AAPC is whatever the poets make it. The trolls don't count.
You don't count, for you're even a worse poet than a philosopher.
Dennis M. Hammes
One must teach the pebble -- to distinguish it from a student.
--
------(m+
~/:o)_|
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
http://scrawlmark.net
Joshua P. Hill
<maan...@chello.nl> wrote:
>"Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
>
>>
>> >What argument? Do you really think that your hopeless cackle 'you don't know
>> >anything about philosophy' constitutes an _argument_?
>> >First you claim that Kants idea's of beauty are still actual and that
>> >Nietzsche has never overthrown them. I post a long article full of Nietzsche
>> >quotes that clearly proves otherwise and your only retort is 'you don't
>> >understand philosophy'.
>> >
>> >And then you actually claim that is an _argument_
>> >
>> >To such parrot talk the only sane reply is parrotism.
>>
>> You routinely ignore any actual arguments or dismiss them agressively
>
>What argument? That americans have been to the moon and therefore must not be
>criticized? Sorry pal, but I've yet to see your first argument arrive. 'You don't
>understand philosophy' is not an argument.
No, it isn't. Or rather, it's a summary of my assessment, without the
evidence. But you've given me no cause to assume that you're willing
or able to argue on the basis of the evidence, because whenever I do
attempt to argue something seriously, you misunderstand it crassly and
dismiss it with the sarcasm of the unlettered. As, to use one of an
infinite number of examples, when you criticized a love sonnet (!) of
Shakespeare's over his reference to the neo-Platonic formula of truth,
beauty, and the good, and accused him of being Rousseauian, even
though Rousseau had not yet been born, and Shakespeare is well known
to have argued *against* some of the central tenets of what became
Rousseau's main beliefs -- or, rather, Rousseau argued against some
central tenets of the Renaissance beliefs that Shakespeare shared and
helped create.
Error alone is no bar to argument or discussion. But you couch
everything in insulting terms: every schoolboy knows, it is obvious
that, even a blah blah blah would know that. And you make ludicrous
accusations, e.g., that I've never read Nietzsche, or the other great
philosophers.Since most of the serious people here find your
philosophical opinions as laughable as I do, and since you won't/can't
dicuss these things rationally, why should I take the time to argue
them? Frankly, I'm a lot more interested in discussing that sort of
stuff than trading insults, but every time I've tried it's been a
waste of time.
>> using arguments that I find ridiculous. So why should I sit here
>> explaining what Nietzsche had against synthetical reasoning a priori,
>> or the relationship between beauty and cognition?
>
>That's not what you should explain. You should explain why you claimed that
>Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas on beauty. Didn't see any such explanation yet.
I never said that Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas on beauty. I've
read nothing that argues the case either way.
>You either admit that Nietzsche was a great philosopher and that he was right
>about Kant being a bogey, or you reject Nietzsche and claim that the cobwebs of
>Kant are still the hottest thing in the field of Aesthetics. Claiming both at the
>same time is clownery.
No, you see, this is why Dennis was talking about clothing designers
the other day.
Both Nietzsche and Kant were great philosophers. But few knowledgeable
people believe today that philosophers, working as they do in the
uncomfortable interstice between the functional imprecision of
everyday thought and the rigor of Galilean science, can build
impregnable logical edifices. And even those who treat philosophical
systems as dogma turn to philosophers more recent than Kant or
Nietzsche for their beliefs. They wrote many years ago, and some of
their respective mistakes were apparent even to men of their own time.
If we consider Kant the greatest of philosophers, and that is a fairly
commmon sentiment, it isn't because we agree with everything he had to
say. And if Nietzsche, too, is revered, it surely isn't over
"treasures" like the theory of the eternal recurrence. More to the
point, much of what he said was long ago superceded by more
sophisticated views. We appreciate him for having challenged the
conventional (something you have not yet learned to do, as challenging
the conventional still means to you donning the robes of the
conventional convention challenger), but we find many of his ideas
unsophisticated in light of more modern knowledge such as, say, the
evolutionary function of altruisim.
Joshua P. Hill
<maan...@chello.nl> wrote:
>"Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
>
>>
>> >What made you think trolls should rule the newsgroup instead of poets? Let me guess,
>> >does it have something to do with 'the beauty of cognition'?
>>
>> Sorry, guy, but no one has authority over this group
>
>If it were up to trolls like you, that is.
Or trolls like you. You see, no one has authority over this group. Or
has anybody actually listened to you? Supported you? Done what you
said? Paid attention to you, except to laugh and jibe? The only people
who think your phony FAQ is anything but a laughable travesty are
people who have never been on this group before -- and it doesn't take
them long to figure out what the real story is.
Which is to say that you can prance about to your heart's content, but
it just makes you look like a psych ward Napoleon.
>> -- not poets like
>> me,
>
>What gave you the idea you are a poet? No one else but yourself seems to think so.
>How many 'poems' have you written in your life? Five?
Ah, I see. No one else but yourself. Masturbatory insanity, is it?
Frankly, Martijn, I've never cared whether people called me a poet or
not. But it seems that other people will start calling you that if you
write poetry -- fancy that -- and, indeed, some people do refer to me
that way.
This seems to cause no difficulties among the sane, but you seem to
have some kind of bourgeois maniac's need to sort people by weight and
height and the degree to which they say you're an idiot rather than
just believing it.
>
>> not off-topic crossposters like you. AAPC is whatever *we* make
>> it,
>
>No, AAPC is whatever the poets make it. The trolls don't count.
>You don't count, for you're even a worse poet than a philosopher.
You know, you would do yourself quite a favor by considering the
possibility that there are notes other than "mi."
Joshua P. Hill
wrote:
Hey, Art, did I see a thought go by? Unfortunately, I'm afraid that
Martijn's head is way down /there/ . . .
Martijn Benders
>
> >What argument? That americans have been to the moon and therefore must not be
> >criticized? Sorry pal, but I've yet to see your first argument arrive. 'You don't
> >understand philosophy' is not an argument.
>
> No, it isn't. Or rather, it's a summary of my assessment, without the
> evidence. But you've given me no cause to assume that you're willing
> or able to argue on the basis of the evidence, because whenever I do
> attempt to argue something seriously, you misunderstand it crassly and
> dismiss it with the sarcasm of the unlettered.
'The sarcasm of the unlettered'? Pal, you can't even write in another language, let
alone express complex ideas in it. Indeed, you even have problems presenting such ideas
in your own language, as your use of metaphors is often laughably infantile. 'Don't
critisize America for we've been to the moon' - 'You don't understand philosophy' -
'You misunderstand me and use the sarcasm of the unlettered' ; its hard to read lines
like these and not visualize some sort of crackpot critic who can't even put his own
ideas in order.
>
> And you make ludicrous
> accusations, e.g., that I've never read Nietzsche, or the other great
> philosophers.Since most of the serious people here find your
> philosophical opinions as laughable as I do,
There we go again - popularity as a means of making an argument. 'Many people think you
are laughable here' - this sort of cheap populism always returns in whatever post you
make. And its always combined with a lot of whines about _me_ using 'insulting terms' -
in reality you are no different, and that makes you at least a nauseating hypocrite. As
to your idea that Hammes and McNutts are the 'serious people' here (instead of for
example Sheard or Ross) - well, you're entitled to that opinion and like I said - know
the man by the company he keeps.
> and since you won't/can't
> dicuss these things rationally, why should I take the time to argue
> them?
Since all discussion is rational by default, I fail to see what point you're trying to
make here, other than the again rather cheap insult about you possessing 'rationality'
whileas I would lack such. Josh, I have always thought of as a boring and uncreative
type of person, and your complete obsession with my personality only reinforces this
opinion. You in fact greatly admire my creativity, but you have the insane idea that
this gives you the right somehow to try and control my behavior. That sort of thing is
not uncommon amongst people who themselves lack any kind of creativity - it is the
political revenge of the small mind, who demands 'rational' behaviour of his superiors
because he feels they have to pay a price for earning his admiration. When I however
told you where you could stick your insane fantasies you flipped out of your skull and
you're still, day after day, moralizing me to the pint of insanity.
> Frankly, I'm a lot more interested in discussing that sort of
> stuff than trading insults, but every time I've tried it's been a
> waste of time.
I don't think anyone actually has the impression that you try very hard, Josh.
>
> >That's not what you should explain. You should explain why you claimed that
> >Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas on beauty. Didn't see any such explanation yet.
>
> I never said that Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas on beauty. I've
> read nothing that argues the case either way.
Then you've not read very well. But that comes as no surprise.
> If we consider Kant the greatest of philosophers, and that is a fairly
> commmon sentiment,
Common? Does that mean anything? Nietzsche thought he was comletely worthless as a
philosopher, a failure in all ways.
> it isn't because we agree with everything he had to
> say. And if Nietzsche, too, is revered, it surely isn't over
> "treasures" like the theory of the eternal recurrence.
What theory is that? I'm aware of the writings you have in mind, but I think that, as
usual, you cherish some really popular misconceptions.
> More to the
> point, much of what he said was long ago superceded by more
> sophisticated views.
And that, of course, isn't true of Kant, whose ideas on Beauty are still as relevant
today as they were ever.
> We appreciate him for having challenged the
> conventional (something you have not yet learned to do, as challenging
> the conventional still means to you donning the robes of the
> conventional convention challenger), but we find many of his ideas
> unsophisticated in light of more modern knowledge such as, say, the
> evolutionary function of altruisim.
'We'? Who is 'we'? What on earth does a political movement as humanism have to do with
Nietzsche philosophical ideas? 'Modern knowledge' - feh.
M.H.Benders
Aidan Tynan
>
>What theory is that? I'm aware of the writings you have in mind, but I
think that, as
>usual, you cherish some really popular misconceptions.
Well, Nietzsche is probably the most misunderstood philosophers of all time.
>
>
>> More to the
>> point, much of what he said was long ago superceded by more
>> sophisticated views.
>
>And that, of course, isn't true of Kant, whose ideas on Beauty are still as
relevant
>today as they were ever.
I think the notion that one philosopher can completey overturn the ideas of
another is practically impossible, since each philosopher represents a
certain cultural tradition and milieu. I think 'negation' shouldn't be
misconstrued as overturning or debunking. For example, in the Geanology of
Morals, Nietzsche critique's the Kantian definition of the beautiful: "Kant,
like all philosophers, envisaging the aesthetic problem from the point of
view of the artist, considered art and the beautiful purely from that of the
spectator". Nietzsche was basically refuting the impersonality and
universality of aesthetic knowledge, and wished instead to posit the
aesthetic experience as a "great personal fact ... an abundance of vivid
authentic experiences, desires, surprises, and delights in the realm of the
beautiful". Of course, Nietzsche here is denouncing Kant's famous definition
of beauty as being "that which gives us pleasure without interest". In a
way, as Agamben has pointed out, Nietzsche rejected aesthetics as a
disinterested discipline of the spectator, as a Kantian discipline.
Nietzsche is immensly contradictory though, being a nihilist philosopher who
sought authenticity (the will to power) in every aspect of life, including
art. Artaud, similarly, attempted to emphasise the natural danger of art, as
Plato did, in his Theatre of Cruelty. However, does this mean that Nietzsche
abrogated Kant's ideas on art? It depends on who you talk to, but people
(Nancy, Lyotard) are still successfully applying his ideas such as the
analytic of beauty and the sublime etc. Kant's work was essential for
Nietzsche's (and Hume's) ideas, since the former needed them for his
dialectic; without Kant's categories of human knowledge Nietzsche (and
Schoupenhauer before him) probably wouldn't have had his 'will to power'. In
other words, I think if you want to understand Nietzsche or Kant, you have
to understand the German tradition more broadly.
-Aidan
Martijn Benders
>
> I think the notion that one philosopher can completey overturn the ideas of
> another is practically impossible, since each philosopher represents a
> certain cultural tradition and milieu.
I don't agree with that. A philosopher only represents himself. One can
attribute almost anything to a 'cultural tradition' - like one can excuse any
kind of behavior in this way as well. A philosopher has to be able to make it on
his own, or he isn't worthy of the name 'philosopher'. His ideas need to be have
a fair amount of independence towards the culture he was raised up in.
> I think 'negation' shouldn't be
> misconstrued as overturning or debunking. For example, in the Geanology of
> Morals, Nietzsche critique's the Kantian definition of the beautiful: "Kant,
> like all philosophers, envisaging the aesthetic problem from the point of
> view of the artist, considered art and the beautiful purely from that of the
> spectator".
Yes, Kant was essentially into consumerism. He didn't actually even touch the
real questions and the real charactaristics that make such an abstract thing as
'beauty' - his point of view is mainly passive, and I attribute that to his
personality rather than his cultural heritage.
> Nietzsche is immensly contradictory though, being a nihilist philosopher who
> sought authenticity (the will to power) in every aspect of life, including
> art.
I have problems with people who define Nietzsche as a nihilist philosopher. I
think that's another one of those popular misconceptions which circulate about
him. Nietzsche predicted the rise of nihilism, he worked out the future of
humanity in his mind and on paper, but he also strongly disliked nihilism; hence
his descriptions of christianity as a 'nihilist religion'. Personally I don't
think Nietzsche is contradictionary at all, but he might seem so for people who
need to catagorize ideas all the time.
M.H.Benders
Joshua P. Hill
<maan...@chello.nl> wrote:
>"Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
>
>>
>> >What argument? That americans have been to the moon and therefore must not be
>> >criticized? Sorry pal, but I've yet to see your first argument arrive. 'You don't
>> >understand philosophy' is not an argument.
>>
>> No, it isn't. Or rather, it's a summary of my assessment, without the
>> evidence. But you've given me no cause to assume that you're willing
>> or able to argue on the basis of the evidence, because whenever I do
>> attempt to argue something seriously, you misunderstand it crassly and
>> dismiss it with the sarcasm of the unlettered.
>
>'The sarcasm of the unlettered'? Pal, you can't even write in another language, let
>alone express complex ideas in it. Indeed, you even have problems presenting such ideas
>in your own language, as your use of metaphors is often laughably infantile. 'Don't
>critisize America for we've been to the moon' - 'You don't understand philosophy' -
>'You misunderstand me and use the sarcasm of the unlettered' ; its hard to read lines
>like these and not visualize some sort of crackpot critic who can't even put his own
>ideas in order.
Sorry, guy, but there are lots of people who can speak two or more
languages and can't even sign their names. And why would I bother to
write in French? To talk to all the French speakers here, I suppose?
As to my prose -- well, I don't write as good as Dale do, but then, we
can't all be perfect. But I daresay you're ill-equipped to judge it,
given the state of your own. Certainly, I'm not aware of anyone here,
or anywhere else, who agrees with your assessment.
>There we go again - popularity as a means of making an argument. 'Many people think you
>are laughable here' - this sort of cheap populism always returns in whatever post you
>make. And its always combined with a lot of whines about _me_ using 'insulting terms' -
>in reality you are no different, and that makes you at least a nauseating hypocrite. As
>to your idea that Hammes and McNutts are the 'serious people' here (instead of for
>example Sheard or Ross) - well, you're entitled to that opinion and like I said - know
>the man by the company he keeps.
And who said Sheard and Ross don't find your philosophical notions
laughable?
You delude yourself.
>> and since you won't/can't
>> dicuss these things rationally, why should I take the time to argue
>> them?
>
>Since all discussion is rational by default, I fail to see what point you're trying to
>make here, other than the again rather cheap insult about you possessing 'rationality'
>whileas I would lack such. Josh, I have always thought of as a boring and uncreative
>type of person, and your complete obsession with my personality only reinforces this
>opinion. You in fact greatly admire my creativity, but you have the insane idea that
>this gives you the right somehow to try and control my behavior. That sort of thing is
>not uncommon amongst people who themselves lack any kind of creativity - it is the
>political revenge of the small mind, who demands 'rational' behaviour of his superiors
>because he feels they have to pay a price for earning his admiration. When I however
>told you where you could stick your insane fantasies you flipped out of your skull and
>you're still, day after day, moralizing me to the pint of insanity.
Martijn, I object to what you say not because I disagree with it
(which is not always the case), but because of the way you present it.
You seem to think I envy your creativity: but, I'm afraid, that speaks
only to how little you know of mine. Suffice it to say that it has
never been in short supply, and has frequently been expressed in forms
that you would find surprisingly familiar. What you do overlook, even
though many have tried to say it, is the possibility that you do
something wrong yourself -- something that many react to, and that I
find particularly galling.
Again and again, I've broken this thing off -- or you have -- and each
time, you've come back and started it up again. And weirdly enough, I
think you're genuinely unaware of what you do, or at least of the
effect it has on people.
>> Frankly, I'm a lot more interested in discussing that sort of
>> stuff than trading insults, but every time I've tried it's been a
>> waste of time.
>
>I don't think anyone actually has the impression that you try very hard, Josh.
I really can't say! But look -- you know, and I know, that in
arguments such as this one people get polarized to the point that they
put the worst possible construction on everything the other person
says or does. Every time I try to say something about Kant or the
like, you come back with "every schoolboy knows" or "only an American
hillbilly" or the like, and something I regard us uninformed. If you
were more polite, we could debate, or if I though your ideas (in this
case) were serious. Either one. I just don't see it happening.
>> >That's not what you should explain. You should explain why you claimed that
>> >Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas on beauty. Didn't see any such explanation yet.
>>
>> I never said that Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas on beauty. I've
>> read nothing that argues the case either way.
>
>Then you've not read very well. But that comes as no surprise.
You see?
>> If we consider Kant the greatest of philosophers, and that is a fairly
>> commmon sentiment,
>
>Common? Does that mean anything? Nietzsche thought he was comletely worthless as a
>philosopher, a failure in all ways.
Nietzsche thought a lot of things, and then put his arms around a
horse. The man was, as I said, given to hyperbole, which he himself
didn't necessarily take seriously ("Why I write such good books"?).
When he first wrote, many thought that was all it was -- style, fluff,
grand pronouncements without meaning. It was only some years after his
death that there was wide recognition of the underlying seriousness of
his philosophy.
It's hard not to love the hyperbolic Nietzsche, but that should not
prevent one from appreciating its depth. In calling Kant cobwebby, he
was doing nothing you, or I, or anyone could not have done; in
questioning the possibility of synthetic judgements a priori, he was
doing something far more interesting, and I might add that, while
Kant's assumption about the primacy of Euclidean space was famously
flawed -- something that Gauss, who had developed differential
geometry, understood at the time -- the question of whether there are
actually synthetic judgements a priori has still not been settled.
>> it isn't because we agree with everything he had to
>> say. And if Nietzsche, too, is revered, it surely isn't over
>> "treasures" like the theory of the eternal recurrence.
>
>What theory is that? I'm aware of the writings you have in mind, but I think that, as
>usual, you cherish some really popular misconceptions.
In Nietzsche's own words:
"If the world may be thought of as a certain definite quantity of
force and as a certain definite number of centers of force -- and
every other representation remains indefinite and therefore useless --
it follows that, in the great dice game of existence, it must pass
through a calculable number of combinations. In infinite time, every
possible combination would at some time or another be realized; more:
it would be realized an infinite number of times. And since between
every combination and its next recurrence all other possible
combinations would have to take place, and each of these combinations
conditions the entire sequence of combinations in the same series, a
circular movement of absolutely identical series is thus demonstrated:
the world as a circular movement that has already repeated itself
infinitely often and plays its dice game in infinitum."
>> More to the
>> point, much of what he said was long ago superceded by more
>> sophisticated views.
>
>And that, of course, isn't true of Kant, whose ideas on Beauty are still as relevant
>today as they were ever.
I really, for the life of me, don't know why you say this stuff. Who
the hell said everything Kant believed was still correct? Or
Nietzsche? Or that we still believe it? They're both great
philosophers, but there's been quite a bit of Hegelian dialect since
then -- thesis, antithesis, synthesis -- quite a bit of aufgeheben --
quite a bit of thought and science.
>> We appreciate him for having challenged the
>> conventional (something you have not yet learned to do, as challenging
>> the conventional still means to you donning the robes of the
>> conventional convention challenger), but we find many of his ideas
>> unsophisticated in light of more modern knowledge such as, say, the
>> evolutionary function of altruisim.
>
>'We'? Who is 'we'? What on earth does a political movement as humanism have to do with
>Nietzsche philosophical ideas? 'Modern knowledge' - feh.
I'm talking about evolutionary biology and the study of animal
behavior, not "humanism." Altruism is observed in all higher species,
and one of the nicest triumphs of late 20th century evolutionary
biology was the simple but beautiful observation that natural
selection favors the propagation of *DNA*, not individuals. This
dispensed with a commonplace objection to Darwinism, namely, that if
the individual must survive to have offspring, it makes little sense
in certain circumstances for an animal to sacrifice itself to defend
another. In fact, altruism can be justified if, by saving the other
animal, the animal increases the chance that it's own DNA will be
propagated because the other animal is related to it, and so carries
DNA similar to its own. This in turn leads to a very elegant result,
for if it be true, then animals should on the whole be most altruistic
to the animals whose DNA is closest to their own -- immediate family
first, followed by extended family, followed by tribe. And that, of
course, is what we observe.
Martijn Benders
>
> >> I never said that Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas on beauty. I've
> >> read nothing that argues the case either way.
> >
> >Then you've not read very well. But that comes as no surprise.
>
> You see?
See what? That you've not read 'Geanology of Morals'?
> >> it isn't because we agree with everything he had to
> >> say. And if Nietzsche, too, is revered, it surely isn't over
> >> "treasures" like the theory of the eternal recurrence.
> >
> >What theory is that? I'm aware of the writings you have in mind, but I think that, as
> >usual, you cherish some really popular misconceptions.
>
> In Nietzsche's own words:
>
> "If the world may be thought of as a certain definite quantity of
> force and as a certain definite number of centers of force -- and
> every other representation remains indefinite and therefore useless --
> it follows that, in the great dice game of existence, it must pass
> through a calculable number of combinations. In infinite time, every
> possible combination would at some time or another be realized; more:
> it would be realized an infinite number of times. And since between
> every combination and its next recurrence all other possible
> combinations would have to take place, and each of these combinations
> conditions the entire sequence of combinations in the same series, a
> circular movement of absolutely identical series is thus demonstrated:
> the world as a circular movement that has already repeated itself
> infinitely often and plays its dice game in infinitum."
I fail to see why these ideas would be ridiculous. They're the logical consequence of an
infinite universe. Of course you will argue now that 'modern discoveries' have argued that
the universe is far from infinite, but that's a really weak argument, since there could well
be an infinite number of universes outside this one, since time itself could be infinite, or
the cup of coffee on my desk could be as infinite as I would wish.
M.H.Benders
Pyrrho
Kant defines beauty in art as "the form of purposiveness in so far as
it is perceived apart from the presentation of a purpose." The unity
of aesthetic experience is due to the interplay of the faculties of
perception and imagination with the faculty of understanding. An
aesthetic judgement also claims that the beautiful object is connected
with a pleasurable feeling, and that it pleases universally. "
"Only art, Nietzsche said, is capable bending that terrible thoughts
about the absurdness and dreadfulness of the existence into
representations we can live with. The absurdness and senseless gets a
structure in art."
Compared with the naive slide rule and calculator philosophy of Kant
something different completely. Nothing nihilistic about it either.
Pyrrho
Pyrrho
> In other words, I think if you want to
> understand Nietzsche or Kant, you have to understand the German
> tradition more broadly.
Don't you think that also means you lot across the Atlantic finally need to
understand and write some German to?
Pyrrho
sophie
Joshua P. Hill
<maan...@chello.nl> wrote:
>"Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
>
>>
>> >> I never said that Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas on beauty. I've
>> >> read nothing that argues the case either way.
>> >
>> >Then you've not read very well. But that comes as no surprise.
>>
>> You see?
>
>See what? That you've not read 'Geanology of Morals'?
You see?
>> >> it isn't because we agree with everything he had to
>> >> say. And if Nietzsche, too, is revered, it surely isn't over
>> >> "treasures" like the theory of the eternal recurrence.
>> >
>> >What theory is that? I'm aware of the writings you have in mind, but I think that, as
>> >usual, you cherish some really popular misconceptions.
>>
>> In Nietzsche's own words:
>>
>> "If the world may be thought of as a certain definite quantity of
>> force and as a certain definite number of centers of force -- and
>> every other representation remains indefinite and therefore useless --
>> it follows that, in the great dice game of existence, it must pass
>> through a calculable number of combinations. In infinite time, every
>> possible combination would at some time or another be realized; more:
>> it would be realized an infinite number of times. And since between
>> every combination and its next recurrence all other possible
>> combinations would have to take place, and each of these combinations
>> conditions the entire sequence of combinations in the same series, a
>> circular movement of absolutely identical series is thus demonstrated:
>> the world as a circular movement that has already repeated itself
>> infinitely often and plays its dice game in infinitum."
>
>I fail to see why these ideas would be ridiculous. They're the logical consequence of an
>infinite universe. Of course you will argue now that 'modern discoveries' have argued that
>the universe is far from infinite, but that's a really weak argument, since there could well
>be an infinite number of universes outside this one, since time itself could be infinite, or
>the cup of coffee on my desk could be as infinite as I would wish.
Not quite -- it seems to me that they're a logical consequence of the
notion of a universe that has a finite number of states and infinite
time, or possibly of a universe that has an infinite number of states
and in which time is infinite and in which there is a finite ratio
between the two infinities. But, as you said, there's no saying, and
that's what's weak (not "ridiculous") about Nietzsche's theory: it's
the philosophical equivalent of concluding that a gumball you can't
see behind the other gumballs is red.
Martijn Benders
>
> >> >> I never said that Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas on beauty. I've
> >> >> read nothing that argues the case either way.
> >> >
> >> >Then you've not read very well. But that comes as no surprise.
> >>
> >> You see?
> >
> >See what? That you've not read 'Geanology of Morals'?
>
> You see?
You're boring.
>
> Not quite -- it seems to me that they're a logical consequence of the
> notion of a universe that has a finite number of states and infinite
> time, or possibly of a universe that has an infinite number of states
> and in which time is infinite and in which there is a finite ratio
> between the two infinities. But, as you said, there's no saying, and
> that's what's weak (not "ridiculous") about Nietzsche's theory: it's
> the philosophical equivalent of concluding that a gumball you can't
> see behind the other gumballs is red.
Speculating about the unknown isn't 'weak' - what's weak is sticking to the known, trying to
avoid all contradictions in some perfect rational scheme that says nothing about existence if you
start to look at the big picture.
That you'd try to present this sort of philosophical courage as a weakness doesn't surprise me in
the least.
M.H.Benders
>
>
> Josh
>
> "Frankly, to tell you the truth: I don't believe in
> 'insanity' which requires a belief in 'sanity' which
> I don't have either." -Martijn Benders
Martijn Benders
>
> Kant defines beauty in art as "the form of purposiveness in so far as
> it is perceived apart from the presentation of a purpose."
Hopeless.
> The unity
> of aesthetic experience is due to the interplay of the faculties of
> perception and imagination with the faculty of understanding.
I'm surprised that Kant wasn't dutch. He could have held infinite 'vergaderingen'
with Jos Horix and all the faculties in his head.
M.H.Benders
Pyrrho
> Pyrrho wrote:
>
>>
>> Kant defines beauty in art as "the form of purposiveness in so far as
>> it is perceived apart from the presentation of a purpose."
>
> Hopeless.
Indeed. Or like our American friends would or at least should say
in that somewhat peculiar but effective way of theirs:
He didn't understand shit about nothing.
"A beautiful object is connected
with a pleasurable feeling"
My ass!
Pyrrho
Samuel Vriezen
wrote:
>Moreover, as long as thought is a crime in the US -remember that when
>you even *think* of a 14-year old you commit a crime-
Regarding that whole 'provoking a sex crime' case, what I found most
striking about it is that the side of Evil is apparently played by a
guy who chooses to meet a very young girl who is willing to talk sex
with him and who likes to meet him for real;
but the side of Good is played by an adult guy who _pretends_ to be a
14-year old girl who wants to have sex with other adult guys. Why?
Does that turn this detective on or something?
Have you ever imagined the kind of erotic atmosphere there must be in
the police departments where detectives sit pretending to be fourteen
year old girls who are into sex talk? What is going on in the minds of
these guys? Do you think they enjoy this, this imagining of fourteen
year old girls discovering their bodies, setting up scenarios for
being touched... how old are these detectives? When did they last
touch a young body themselves? Do they have wrinkles? Do they sweat?
And now imagine the aggression mixing in with these emotions as they
home in on the pervert, as they get ready to eradicate this putrid
source of their own erotic imagining...
One thing I know for certain. I don't want to know what their offices
smell like.
Small wonder so many Americans seem to be addicted to the palliative
of moral indignation.
--
Samuel
http://concerten.free.fr/home.html
Today everyone's so jaded. The whole postmodern stance is a dead end in terms of
art and its transformational qualities. I think people used to go to art for visions.
- Elliott Sharp
Pyrrho
> the police departments where detectives sit pretending to be fourteen
> year old girls who are into sex talk? What is going on in the minds of
> these guys?
In fact the _virtual-forteen-year-old-lolita_ was faked by a 50-year old
female FBI-agent.
Pyrrho
Samuel Vriezen
wrote:
That is of course still perverse, but slightly easier perhaps to
explain as a search for compensation for her own getting older.
Samuel Vriezen
Vriezen) wrote:
>On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 23:17:10 +0200, "Pyrrho" <bohr...@hotmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Samuel Vriezen wrote:
>>> On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 08:27:16 GMT, "cAp" <cAp_in...@hotmail.com>
>>> Have you ever imagined the kind of erotic atmosphere there must be in
>>> the police departments where detectives sit pretending to be fourteen
>>> year old girls who are into sex talk? What is going on in the minds of
>>> these guys?
>>
>>In fact the _virtual-forteen-year-old-lolita_ was faked by a 50-year old
>>female FBI-agent.
>
>That is of course still perverse, but slightly easier perhaps to
>explain as a search for compensation for her own getting older.
I still think, though, the perversity on the level of the FBI itself
has to be adressed. Basically, they create virtual (though fictional)
kiddie porn. Why do US children need a federal pornographic agency for
the protection of their moralilty? What sort of morality is that?
Joshua P. Hill
<maan...@chello.nl> wrote:
>"Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
>
>>
>> >> >> I never said that Nietzsche agreed with Kant's ideas on beauty. I've
>> >> >> read nothing that argues the case either way.
>> >> >
>> >> >Then you've not read very well. But that comes as no surprise.
>> >>
>> >> You see?
>> >
>> >See what? That you've not read 'Geanology of Morals'?
>>
>> You see?
>
>You're boring.
>
You see?
>> Not quite -- it seems to me that they're a logical consequence of the
>> notion of a universe that has a finite number of states and infinite
>> time, or possibly of a universe that has an infinite number of states
>> and in which time is infinite and in which there is a finite ratio
>> between the two infinities. But, as you said, there's no saying, and
>> that's what's weak (not "ridiculous") about Nietzsche's theory: it's
>> the philosophical equivalent of concluding that a gumball you can't
>> see behind the other gumballs is red.
>
>Speculating about the unknown isn't 'weak' - what's weak is sticking to the known, trying to
>avoid all contradictions in some perfect rational scheme that says nothing about existence if you
>start to look at the big picture.
>
>That you'd try to present this sort of philosophical courage as a weakness doesn't surprise me in
>the least.
Except that Nietzsche didn't present this as mere speculation; he
presented it as theory, and used it as the underpinning of other
aspects of his philosophy. In other words, he goofed. And, as I
originally said:
"Both Nietzsche and Kant were great philosophers. But few
knowledgeable
people believe today that philosophers, working as they do in the
uncomfortable interstice between the functional imprecision of
everyday thought and the rigor of Galilean science, can build
impregnable logical edifices. And even those who treat philosophical
systems as dogma turn to philosophers more recent than Kant or
Nietzsche for their beliefs. They wrote many years ago, and some of
their respective mistakes were apparent even to men of their own time.
"f we consider Kant the greatest of philosophers, and that is a fairly
commmon sentiment, it isn't because we agree with everything he had to
say. And if Nietzsche, too, is revered, it surely isn't over
"treasures" like the theory of the eternal recurrence. More to the
point, much of what he said was long ago superceded by more
sophisticated views. We appreciate him for having challenged the
conventional (something you have not yet learned to do, as challenging
the conventional still means to you donning the robes of the
conventional convention challenger), but we find many of his ideas
unsophisticated in light of more modern knowledge such as, say, the
evolutionary function of altruisim."
QED.
Joshua P. Hill
<maan...@chello.nl> wrote:
>Pyrrho wrote:
>
>> Kant defines beauty in art as "the form of purposiveness in so far as
>> it is perceived apart from the presentation of a purpose."
>
>Hopeless.
Actually, accurate and elegant. Which is why I suggested that you turn
that painting upside down the other day.
Joshua P. Hill
Mere detail, that.
Martijn Benders
>
> >> >See what? That you've not read 'Geanology of Morals'?
> >>
> >> You see?
> >
> >You're boring.
> >
> You see?
Yes, I see that you've never read 'Geanology of Morals'. You do seem to have some sort of trouble
admitting so, however.
>
> Except that Nietzsche didn't present this as mere speculation; he
> presented it as theory, and used it as the underpinning of other
> aspects of his philosophy.
Unlikely, since Nietzsche isn't a theoreticus. A 'theory' implies a system of coherent thoughts that
actually explains phenomena. Nietzsche sketches away here into the unknown, but he doesn't 'present it
as a theory'. Nietzsche didn't care about 'theories' as he didn't believe in a formulatic approach to
reality. Of course, if you've hardly ever read Nietzsche or are a bit illiterate like you are, its an
easy enough miscalculation to make. In fact you yourself cannot conceive anything outside of the
formulatic approaches you've set up for yourself, and as such you start to see 'theories' where there
are none.
> In other words, he goofed. And, as I
> originally said:
>
> "Both Nietzsche and Kant were great philosophers. But few
> knowledgeable
> people believe today that philosophers, working as they do in the
> uncomfortable interstice between the functional imprecision of
> everyday thought and the rigor of Galilean science, can build
> impregnable logical edifices. And even those who treat philosophical
> systems as dogma turn to philosophers more recent than Kant or
> Nietzsche for their beliefs. They wrote many years ago, and some of
> their respective mistakes were apparent even to men of their own time.
This is again one of those formulatic approaches: you try to squeeze everything into the same box
'because its all old' so you don't look so silly admiring the cobwebs of Kant. Fine with me, but only
an idiot would not see that this is plain trickery from your side.
>
> More to the
> point, much of what he said was long ago superceded by more
> sophisticated views.
Haven't encountered them yet. Your example:
> but we find many of his ideas
> unsophisticated in light of more modern knowledge such as, say, the
> evolutionary function of altruisim."
'The evolutionairy function of altruism' is merely Kant in a modern jacket.
You're simply stuck in the cobwebs, Josh. And I'm not even feeling
sorry for you as you try to drag the whole world into it.
M.H.Benders
Martijn Benders
>
> >> Kant defines beauty in art as "the form of purposiveness in so far as
> >> it is perceived apart from the presentation of a purpose."
> >
> >Hopeless.
>
> Actually, accurate and elegant.
Well, you're hopeless too.
M.H.Benders
Joshua P. Hill
<maan...@chello.nl> wrote:
>"Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
>
>>
>> >> >See what? That you've not read 'Geanology of Morals'?
>> >>
>> >> You see?
>> >
>> >You're boring.
>> >
>> You see?
>
>Yes, I see that you've never read 'Geanology of Morals'. You do seem to have some sort of trouble
>admitting so, however.
You see? -- The originally point was that you can't debate this stuff
without starting up your silly-season attacks. And you are
demonstrating that, despite your protestations to the contrary, that
is still true.
>>
>> Except that Nietzsche didn't present this as mere speculation; he
>> presented it as theory, and used it as the underpinning of other
>> aspects of his philosophy.
>
>Unlikely, since Nietzsche isn't a theoreticus. A 'theory' implies a system of coherent thoughts that
>actually explains phenomena. Nietzsche sketches away here into the unknown, but he doesn't 'present it
>as a theory'. Nietzsche didn't care about 'theories' as he didn't believe in a formulatic approach to
>reality. Of course, if you've hardly ever read Nietzsche or are a bit illiterate like you are, its an
>easy enough miscalculation to make. In fact you yourself cannot conceive anything outside of the
>formulatic approaches you've set up for yourself, and as such you start to see 'theories' where there
>are none.
And I can't imagine a better demonstration of that. You simply can't
discuss philosophy or anything else without launching into a series of
silly-season ad hominems, e.g., "that I've hardly ever read Nietzsche"
or that I'm "a bit illiterate." So, fine. But next time you drag out
your "you won't discuss philosophy" argument, you can bet I'll tell
you where to go.
>> In other words, he goofed. And, as I
>> originally said:
>>
>> "Both Nietzsche and Kant were great philosophers. But few
>> knowledgeable
>> people believe today that philosophers, working as they do in the
>> uncomfortable interstice between the functional imprecision of
>> everyday thought and the rigor of Galilean science, can build
>> impregnable logical edifices. And even those who treat philosophical
>> systems as dogma turn to philosophers more recent than Kant or
>> Nietzsche for their beliefs. They wrote many years ago, and some of
>> their respective mistakes were apparent even to men of their own time.
>
>This is again one of those formulatic approaches: you try to squeeze everything into the same box
>'because its all old' so you don't look so silly admiring the cobwebs of Kant. Fine with me, but only
>an idiot would not see that this is plain trickery from your side.
Again -- no argument here whatsoever, just a bunch of snide comments
and a some fairly ludicrous ad hominem suppositions.
>>
>> More to the
>> point, much of what he said was long ago superceded by more
>> sophisticated views.
>
>Haven't encountered them yet. Your example:
>
>> but we find many of his ideas
>> unsophisticated in light of more modern knowledge such as, say, the
>> evolutionary function of altruisim."
>
>'The evolutionairy function of altruism' is merely Kant in a modern jacket.
>You're simply stuck in the cobwebs, Josh. And I'm not even feeling
>sorry for you as you try to drag the whole world into it.
Oh, I see -- a moment ago, that was "humanism," now it's Kant.
Actually, what it is is contemporary evolutionary biology, and while I
do think highly of old man Kant I can't give him credit for that.
Sorry, guy, but you're the one whose stuck in the cobwebs -- about 100
years in, if you think Nietzsche represents the state-of-the-art in
human knowledge -- and the one who, it seems, is incapable of thinking
for himself, rather than blindly accepting or rejecting the work of
others -- which is to say that Nietzsche would have held you in
contempt.
Aidan Tynan
>
>I have problems with people who define Nietzsche as a nihilist philosopher.
I
>think that's another one of those popular misconceptions which circulate
about
>him. Nietzsche predicted the rise of nihilism,
Don't fall into the popular misconception that being a philosopher of
'something' necessarily means that you support and condone that 'something'!
It's pretty much entirely accepted that Nietzsche was a nihilist philosopher
(or anti-humanist) who opposed what he saw as nihilist culture (I think 'The
Gay Science' represented his most extreme effusions on this point), in the
same way as current-day postmodernists (Jameson, Eagleton etc) oppose the
greater part of postmodernist culture. It's impossible to remove any writer
from their cultural context, because they are largely defined by it. There
is no transcendence in literature.
he worked out the future of
>humanity in his mind and on paper, but he also strongly disliked nihilism;
hence
>his descriptions of christianity as a 'nihilist religion'. Personally I
don't
>think Nietzsche is contradictionary at all, but he might seem so for people
who
>need to catagorize ideas all the time.
Well, most scholars of Nietzsche try to categorise him one way or another
(Wagner said he was a closet homosexual and chronic masturbator!), of course
he is difficult in this sense, and this is his greatness.
-Aidan
>
>M.H.Benders
>
Aidan Tynan
Joshua P. Hill wrote in message ...
>On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 20:15:44 +0100, sophie
><sophiej...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Pyrrho <bohr...@hotmail.com> said
>>>Aidan Tynan wrote:
>>>> In other words, I think if you want to
>>>> understand Nietzsche or Kant, you have to understand the German
>>>> tradition more broadly.
>>>
>>>Don't you think that also means you lot across the Atlantic finally need
to
>>>understand and write some German to?
>>
>>Aidan's in Ireland.
>
>Mere detail, that.
Well, isn't it obvious you need to be able to speak Irish in order to enjoy
Yeats and Kavanagh?!
-Aidan
Aidan Tynan
Pyrrho wrote in message ...
Hey, we Mercans take exception to being talked to you like that young
feller! I'll meet you on the Falls Road at dawn, I'll take orange (since I'm
sure I have an ancestor named William), you take green!
-Aidan
>
>Pyrrho
>
>
Martijn Benders
>
> Don't fall into the popular misconception that being a philosopher of
> 'something' necessarily means that you support and condone that 'something'!
I simply don't think his work is 'nihilist' at all! I'm a bit confused now as I
looked up 'nihilism' in the dictionary and it had four definitions varying very
widely. None of these four definitions seem to resonate with the popular meaning
which is more like 'a philosophy that doesn't believe in anything' (to put it
very simple) - the dictionary gives:
1) A russian revolutionary movement that wanted to completely overturn society
2) Theory which denies that it's possible to come to truths by either either
ethical, philosophical or social means
3) (med) an unbelief in the vices of therapy
4) Psychopathic dillusion that a part of your body doesn't exist
See what I mean? None of these apply to Nietzsche. Not the popular one, not the
dictionary ones. Moreover, I do fail to see why someone would be 'the
philosopher of nihilism' when he has never promoted nihilism a moment in his
life! I wouldn't say you are the 'poet of surrealism' when you haven't written a
single piece of surrealist poetry in your life! If you want to argue about all
this, I'd welcome you to explain me why 'Zarathustra' would be a nihilist book!
Nietzsche fought very hard all his life to overturn old values - that is true;
but who can deny he wanted to replace them with new ones?
And as such the term 'nihilist' is completely ridiculous in his case.
M.H.Benders
Aidan Tynan
>
>Not quite -- it seems to me that they're a logical consequence of the
>notion of a universe that has a finite number of states and infinite
>time, or possibly of a universe that has an infinite number of states
>and in which time is infinite and in which there is a finite ratio
>between the two infinities. But, as you said, there's no saying, and
>that's what's weak (not "ridiculous") about Nietzsche's theory: it's
>the philosophical equivalent of concluding that a gumball you can't
>see behind the other gumballs is red.
The theory of eternal recurrence is one of Nietzsche's greatest
contributions to modern thought; Delleuze's Difference and Repetition,
Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation, Debord's Society of the Spectacle,
none of these books, or many post-structuralist theories of representation,
would have existed without it.
-Aidan
Martijn Benders
> >Yes, I see that you've never read 'Geanology of Morals'. You do seem to have some sort of trouble
> >admitting so, however.
>
> You see? -- The originally point was that you can't debate this stuff
> without starting up your silly-season attacks.
It's not my problem you are so paranoid that you think it's an 'attack' if your own words prove you've
never read a certain book. You said you weren't aware of Nietzsche ever writing anything 'either way' about
Kant's beauty theories. Well, he did that in 'Geanology of Morals' - now you start to scream that I'm
attacking you if I point that out. How much more silly can a person get?
> >'The evolutionairy function of altruism' is merely Kant in a modern jacket.
> >You're simply stuck in the cobwebs, Josh. And I'm not even feeling
> >sorry for you as you try to drag the whole world into it.
>
> Oh, I see -- a moment ago, that was "humanism," now it's Kant.
Kant was one of the fathers of humanism, you silly boy.
> Actually, what it is is contemporary evolutionary biology,
It's Kantean/Christian schmuck dresses up as 'evolutionary biology', yes.
Man as the great shepherd of life, whileas all around you we do nothing but destroy
every living thing on earth. What kind of drugs are you on?
M.H.Benders
Aidan Tynan
>
>Unlikely, since Nietzsche isn't a theoreticus. A 'theory' implies a system
of coherent thoughts that
>actually explains phenomena. Nietzsche sketches away here into the unknown,
but he doesn't 'present it
>as a theory'. Nietzsche didn't care about 'theories' as he didn't believe
in a formulatic approach to
>reality. Of course, if you've hardly ever read Nietzsche or are a bit
illiterate like you are, its an
>easy enough miscalculation to make. In fact you yourself cannot conceive
anything outside of the
>formulatic approaches you've set up for yourself, and as such you start to
see 'theories' where there
>are none.
>
Nietzsche rejected 'science', along with pretty much the whole of
Enlightenment thought, since he held that objective truths were impossible,
and that science would become just another dogma like morality. To put this
down to a 'goof', as Josh, I think, does, is a mistake, since much
postmodernist thought has ratified his views.
-Aidan
Art McNutt
aty...@eircom.net wrote on 7/19/02 8:12 PM:
[snip]
>
>...as Josh, I think, does, is a mistake, since much
> postmodernist thought has ratified his views.
>
Query Aidan:
I know the exact date and reason for the term "post modern" in the visual
arts. (1970)
This is a serious query; when, what, who is behind what you term
"postmodernist /thought/?"
---
Art
"I'd like to thank all the little pebbles
for making this possible."
>
>
Martijn Benders
>
> Nietzsche rejected 'science', along with pretty much the whole of
> Enlightenment thought, since he held that objective truths were impossible,
Perhaps, but he certainly never claimed that truths themselves were impossible.
> To put this
> down to a 'goof', as Josh, I think, does, is a mistake, since much
> postmodernist thought has ratified his views.
You know, I kind of believe Nietzsche when he claimed he was the last
philosopher.
Did you ever read 'Umwertung aller Werte'? I think that's his best work. It
contains some of the things he's written in that late period in his life before
his so-called 'insanity'. It is the least conventional of his works, besides
maybe 'Zarathustra' - well no, I think it's even less conventional as that one
as the whole parable thing is kind of conventional of itself.
M.H.Benders
Aidan Tynan
>
>1) A russian revolutionary movement that wanted to completely overturn
society
>2) Theory which denies that it's possible to come to truths by either
either
>ethical, philosophical or social means
>3) (med) an unbelief in the vices of therapy
>4) Psychopathic dillusion that a part of your body doesn't exist
Another example of why dictionary definitions are pretty useless for
specific terminology, but #2 is closest. In the Gay Science, Nietzsche
announced the death of God, and the nihilist void, I see him as a chronicler
of this void, and what can come from it: a rejuvenated society. Nietzsche
called himself the first complete nihilist in the Europe. He was in the
tradition of the Greek Skeptics. The Greek Rhetoricians believed in the
*primacy of the signifier*, that we cannot get around speech to an objective
truth beyond language. Later, Derrida would would arrive at deconstruction
(which is criticised for its nihilism, but nihilism isn't mere denial) via
Nietzsche. See: David Levin, The Body's Recollection of Being:
Phenomenological Psychology and the Deconstruction of Nihilism (Routlege,
1990) and Karl Lowith, Martin Heidegger and European Nihilism, ed. by
Richard Wolin and Gary Steiner. Although people argue all the time about
Nietzsche's status as a nihilist, I think of him as being in a European
nihilist tradition, but disagree that nihilism is simply denial or negation.
>
>See what I mean? None of these apply to Nietzsche. Not the popular one, not
the
>dictionary ones. Moreover, I do fail to see why someone would be 'the
>philosopher of nihilism' when he has never promoted nihilism a moment in
his
>life!
As I said: Jameson and Eagleton, among others, are postmodern philosophers,
even though they are opposed to postmodern culture (they are Marxists).
Similarly, a World War 2 historian doesn't necesarily support World War 2.
It is, however, his main area of interest.
-Aidan
Aidan Tynan
>This is a serious query; when, what, who is behind what you term
>"postmodernist /thought/?"
Postmodernism breaks down into a cultural period defined by certain
characteristics, such as modernism, and a cultural critique. This critique
is very heterogenous, spread across a number of disciplines.
A few big name theorists: Jameson, Eagleton, Levi-Strauss, Lyotard,
Baudrillard, Rorty, Derrida, Lacan, Barthes, Foucault, Delleuze, Guattari,
Kristeva, Harvey, Spivak, Baidou. Nietzsche is often considered to be a
postmodern philosopher, since the postmodern is characterised by what
Lyotard termed the breakdown of metanarratives such as morality, religion
and state.
-Aidan
Art McNutt
aty...@eircom.net wrote on 7/19/02 9:18 PM:
You're gonna overload my library card, thanks :-)
I understand the wide spread (time-space-thought) nature of "post
modernism." Is there a thinker who is credited with coining the term in the
first place? If he's on this list, I might start there. Lyotard, perhaps?
Joshua P. Hill
wrote:
>
>Joshua P. Hill wrote in message ...
>>On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 20:15:44 +0100, sophie
>><sophiej...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>Pyrrho <bohr...@hotmail.com> said
>>>>Aidan Tynan wrote:
>>>>> In other words, I think if you want to
>>>>> understand Nietzsche or Kant, you have to understand the German
>>>>> tradition more broadly.
>>>>
>>>>Don't you think that also means you lot across the Atlantic finally need
>to
>>>>understand and write some German to?
>>>
>>>Aidan's in Ireland.
>>
>>Mere detail, that.
>
>Well, isn't it obvious you need to be able to speak Irish in order to enjoy
>Yeats and Kavanagh?!
Pomes penyeach!
Joshua P. Hill
<maan...@chello.nl> wrote:
>"Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
>
>
>> >Yes, I see that you've never read 'Geanology of Morals'. You do seem to have some sort of trouble
>> >admitting so, however.
>>
>> You see? -- The originally point was that you can't debate this stuff
>> without starting up your silly-season attacks.
>
>It's not my problem you are so paranoid that you think it's an 'attack' if your own words prove you've
>never read a certain book. You said you weren't aware of Nietzsche ever writing anything 'either way' about
>Kant's beauty theories. Well, he did that in 'Geanology of Morals' - now you start to scream that I'm
>attacking you if I point that out. How much more silly can a person get?
Er, think, Martijn. I know it's difficult, but if you do make that
particular breakthrough, you'll see at least two other possibilities.
>> >'The evolutionairy function of altruism' is merely Kant in a modern jacket.
>> >You're simply stuck in the cobwebs, Josh. And I'm not even feeling
>> >sorry for you as you try to drag the whole world into it.
>>
>> Oh, I see -- a moment ago, that was "humanism," now it's Kant.
>
>Kant was one of the fathers of humanism, you silly boy.
Er, in case you hadn't noticed, humanism was the predominant
philosophy of the Renaissance. That's *before* Kant, you see.
>> Actually, what it is is contemporary evolutionary biology,
>
>It's Kantean/Christian schmuck dresses up as 'evolutionary biology', yes.
>Man as the great shepherd of life, whileas all around you we do nothing but destroy
>every living thing on earth. What kind of drugs are you on?
As inconceivable as it is that there's something you understand even
less than philosophy, your statements about science suggest strongly
that that is indeed the case.
Joshua P. Hill
wrote:
>Nietzsche rejected 'science', along with pretty much the whole of
>Enlightenment thought, since he held that objective truths were impossible,
>and that science would become just another dogma like morality. To put this
>down to a 'goof', as Josh, I think, does, is a mistake, since much
>postmodernist thought has ratified his views.
Most scientists find such postmodernist views ludicrous and laughable,
and I confess I agree with them.
Aidan Tynan
>>
>You're gonna overload my library card, thanks :-)
>
>I understand the wide spread (time-space-thought) nature of "post
>modernism." Is there a thinker who is credited with coining the term in the
>first place? If he's on this list, I might start there. Lyotard, perhaps?
I think it was coined by Arnold Toynbee but it was only taken on board as a
serious method of social criticism in the 80s, and from then on it's been
retrospectively applied to all sorts of disciplines and areas of
understanding. I'm relatively new to all this myself. Personally, I'd
recommend Eagleton (Postmodernism) and Lyotard (The Postmodern Condition),
although Baudrillard is one of my favourite writers in the field. Jameson's
Cultural Turn is good if you want to understand the literary side, and Madan
Sarrup has a good introductory text which touches on all the major figures.
The Routledge Companion is good also, although more advanced.
-Aidan
Pyrrho
> On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 20:15:44 +0100, sophie
> <sophiej...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Pyrrho <bohr...@hotmail.com> said
>>> Aidan Tynan wrote:
>>>> In other words, I think if you want to
>>>> understand Nietzsche or Kant, you have to understand the German
>>>> tradition more broadly.
>>>
>>> Don't you think that also means you lot across the Atlantic finally
>>> need to understand and write some German to?
>>
>> Aidan's in Ireland.
>
> Mere detail, that.
They don't speak very much German in Ireland. Mere detail ofcourse.
Pyrrho
Pyrrho
You don't belong to that funny farm up north, where they keep those orange
marches do you?
Pyrrho
Paul Heslop
> On Sat, 20 Jul 2002 01:47:27 +0100, "Aidan Tynan" <aty...@eircom.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>>Joshua P. Hill wrote in message ...
>>
>>>On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 20:15:44 +0100, sophie
>>><sophiej...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Pyrrho <bohr...@hotmail.com> said
>>>>
>>>>>Aidan Tynan wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>In other words, I think if you want to
>>>>>>understand Nietzsche or Kant, you have to understand the German
>>>>>>tradition more broadly.
>>>>>
>>>>>Don't you think that also means you lot across the Atlantic finally need
>>>>
>>to
>>
>>>>>understand and write some German to?
>>>>
>>>>Aidan's in Ireland.
>>>
>>>Mere detail, that.
>>
>>Well, isn't it obvious you need to be able to speak Irish in order to enjoy
>>Yeats and Kavanagh?!
>
>
> Pomes penyeach!
>
--
Paul. (Tonight I think I'll walk alone...)
____________________________________________________________
http://www.geocities.com/dreamst8me/
Aidan Tynan
>
>They don't speak very much German in Ireland. Mere detail ofcourse.
Well they don't speak much Irish in Germany, unless you mean the Aud
connection.
-Aidan
>
>Pyrrho
>
>
>
Aidan Tynan
Paul Heslop wrote in message <3D394235...@blueyonder.co.uk>...
>>
>> Pomes penyeach!
>>
>getcha pomes ere
fearful jesuits!
-Aidan
Aidan Tynan
>
>You don't belong to that funny farm up north, where they keep those orange
>marches do you?
No, I'm a southerner, but I sell oranges from a garage in Chapelizod.
-Aidan
>
>Pyrrho
>
>
Paul Heslop
> Paul Heslop wrote in message <3D394235...@blueyonder.co.uk>...
>
>
>>>Pomes penyeach!
>>>
>>
>>getcha pomes ere
>
>
> fearful jesuits!
>
>
> -Aidan
>
Pyrrho
> On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 23:17:10 +0200, "Pyrrho" <bohr...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Samuel Vriezen wrote:
>>> On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 08:27:16 GMT, "cAp" <cAp_in...@hotmail.com>
>>> Have you ever imagined the kind of erotic atmosphere there must be
>>> in the police departments where detectives sit pretending to be
>>> fourteen year old girls who are into sex talk? What is going on in
>>> the minds of these guys?
>>
>> In fact the _virtual-forteen-year-old-lolita_ was faked by a 50-year
>> old female FBI-agent.
>
> That is of course still perverse, but slightly easier perhaps to
> explain as a search for compensation for her own getting older.
Mmm, I fear your psychological approach generates a somewhat _romantic_ view
on the subject. In my opinion the state of mind of the participating officer
should more likely be compared with a slightly boared nail polishing
telephone sex operator.
Pyrrho
Pyrrho
>> They don't speak very much German in Ireland. Mere detail ofcourse.
>
> Well they don't speak much Irish in Germany, unless you mean the Aud
> connection.
So, what language you should better understand if you want to discuss german
philosophers?
Pyrrho
Martijn Benders
>
> Another example of why dictionary definitions are pretty useless for
> specific terminology, but #2 is closest. In the Gay Science, Nietzsche
> announced the death of God, and the nihilist void, I see him as a chronicler
> of this void, and what can come from it: a rejuvenated society. Nietzsche
> called himself the first complete nihilist in the Europe.
I would like to see the exact quote of where he says this, and the context. But
first of all, 'the gay science' is one of the older books of Nietzsche, and
presents a stage in his thought were most of his thinking was still not very
developed.
M.H.Benders
kooka
Art,
I don't know who coined the term "post modernism" but the common
thread that runs through most of those people who are put under that
label, is the idea that there is no bedrock or foundation for our
beliefs, whether in science, morality or politics. Everything is in
some sense made up or invented by fallible human beings, so there is
no Authority that can be invoked to back up our scientific theories or
our moral principles or our political ideologies.
As you'd know, Neitzsche has been adopted as one of the founding
fathers of this movement due to the statement that has been
attributed to him "God is dead and so everything is permitted".
I find that the best rejoinder to the irrationalism of the postmoderns
has been provided by the late William W. Bartley in a book called "The
Retreat to Commitment". He showed that as long as we remain critical
of all assumptions we can form preferences for particular ideas or
principles, in favour of others, on the basis of their capacity to
serve their purpose and stand up to critical appraisal.
Kooka
(sorry if this appears twice..server problems)
Pyrrho
> I don't know who coined the term "post modernism" but the common
> thread that runs through most of those people who are put under that
> label, is the idea that there is no bedrock or foundation for our
> beliefs, whether in science, morality or politics. Everything is in
> some sense made up or invented by fallible human beings, so there is
> no Authority that can be invoked to back up our scientific theories or
> our moral principles or our political ideologies.
Not quite accurate. Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed
certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality. In
essence, it stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in
human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to
understand its own particular and personal reality. For this reason,
postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid
for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the
relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding,
interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our
interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism
relies on concrete experience over abstract principles (compare the
controverse at this point between Aristotle and Plato ), knowing always that
the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be fallible and
relative, rather than certain and universal.
Pyrrho