James’s Comments (group member since Apr 12, 2021)

James’s comments from the Practical Philosophy group.

The works of German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche are esoteric and enlightening in equal measure. Nietzsche developed many obscure notions which rendered him a unicorn in the history of Continental philosophy and epistemology.

His works can be understood as stemming from a preoccupation with suffering and contemporary European nihilism: the denial that life can have any meaning. Instead, he espoused a "life-affirming" philosophy that juxtaposed the Dionysian—the ecstatic, chaotic, and tragic—with the Apollonian—the rational, individualistic, and self-conscious.

Nietzsche gave us an embryonic principle with which to frame our approach to sensuality, religion, aesthetics, idealism, and the problems of suffering and nihilism. It's time to take this profound but neglected insight and apply it to something practical:

How should we approach drugs and alcohol? Nietzsche himself only drank water and milk as a special treat. In his view, drinking is a palliative submission to suffering—what Nietzsche demands is a direct confrontation with life's pains and contradictions. So...what about psychedelics and non-ordinary states of consciousness? Is to juxtapose sobriety and intoxication a false dichotomy for the purpose of "affirming life"? Do psychedelics not help us to affirm conscious experience?

Should we be idealistic? Nietzsche targetted Christian ideals and the platonic conception of the "forms," but what about things that are arguably more real than reality, and thereby affirm it? For example, archetypes and roles in cultural narratives. Nietzche's conception of "higher men" or women as cross-cultural constants seems to dovetail effortlessly with this view. As he wrote in 'Ecce Homo':

"One is least related to one’s parents: it would be the most extreme sign of vulgarity to be related to one’s parents. Higher natures have their origins infinitely farther back, and with them much had to be assembled, saved and hoarded. The great individuals are the oldest: I don’t understand it, but Julius Caesar could be my father – or Alexander, this Dionysos incarnate..."

I hope this makes for an interesting and relevant discussion. For further reading/viewing, have a look at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9zSQ...
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x... (login via educational institution)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ni...
https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebo...
The Birth of Tragedy
The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism

Taliarochminska wrote: "I'm afraid all contemporary cultures exhibit the affliction described by de Beauvoir, although to varying extent. The secondary place of women in society being universal. For further exploration of..."

Thanks for the recommendation! I admired Ortner's fair-mindedness and her intuitive attempt to explain the perceived phenomenon of female closeness to nature.

It strikes me that Ortner seems to abandon her commitment to maintaining strict dichotomies based on cultural facts. Later in the article, she describes the female position as often ambiguous, acting as a mediator between symbolic couplings. This conjecture accounts for the representation of the feminine in non-traditional roles. Her examples of the Siriono, Nazi Germany, and European courtly love are particularly apt. I would add the feminine yin—the Taoist symbol of darkness, wetness, receptiveness, passivity, and, surprisingly, order—to the list.

Nonetheless, we should specify what we are trying to demonstrate or explain before drawing parallels, otherwise there is no utility in this evidential exercise. Besides Ortner’s investigation of the intuition behind the nature/culture dichotomy and its correlation to gender, there is no hint as to what these dichotomies illustrate.

I notice a stark difference between the quality of ‘second-ness’ and the quality of ‘secondary status’ adopted by Ortner (pp. 5, 9 & 23). In the former, the state of being second is the crux of the claim. It is a claim which infers a positioning of genders within a meta-narrative, with the male ‘subject’ and the female ‘object’ operating as actors within this scheme. This model is confirmed by de Beauvoir’s use of Hegel’s concept of ‘the Other’. The masculine, it is implied, is the active element, while the female is the receptive. Regardless of symbolic specificities, this claim holds true for many well-known cosmogonic myths (any model concerning the origin of the cosmos). For example, the male god Marduk slays Tiamat, the primordial goddess embodying chaos, to form the heavens and the Earth in the Enûma Elish. Similarly, the Chinese god Pan Gu is born from a cosmic egg (symbolic of maternity), after which he proceeds to construct the inhabitable universe. In these meta-narratives, a male actor creates inhabitable order from a feminine or hermaphroditic instantiation of chaos. The feminine may also be emblematic of order, as in the ying-yang duality, but tends also to be receptive (the male yang (growth, culture) balances excessive yin (negativity, passivity)). The foundation of de Beauvoir’s claim is the relative positioning of femininity and masculinity towards action, rather than any claim about the symbolic perception or social condition of women.

This claim about the positioning of the genders within narratives through ‘second-ness’ or ‘otherness’ is sensible, and it is understandable why de Beauvoir would choose these terms. Critically, it avoids a discussion of the nebulous concepts of power, status, and justice. On the other hand, offhand substitutes for ‘second-ness’ (such as ‘secondary status,’ ‘lower order of being,’ ‘prey of the species,’ and ‘more manifest animality’) detract from de Beauvoir’s initial conceptual precision and unduly re-introduce these confused concepts. This is a serious issue with the way de Beauvoir has been received by postmodernist feminists.

These are just simple observations. It would be great to hear your thoughts! Feel free explore whichever themes you feel would be constructive—there’s no need to reply to each post.

In this book, the poet Dante offers in encyclopaedic fashion an entire body of mediaeval religious knowledge. In a study of the book which condemns Aristotle to hell, we would like to explore the possibility for the co-existence of philosophy in religious systems of punishment, with 'Inferno' serving as a case study on mediaeval attitudes towards divine justice.

On the topic of damnation—a topic rarely congenial to secular thinkers—a consolidation with the questioning spirit seems unlikely, yet this consolidation is what we will consider in this discussion. This topic is relevant in our times because of the persisting differences between theological and philosophical thinking. Moreover, this topic may help in the study of how to integrate religious ideas into our modern ways of thinking. It offers an opportunity to consider the rationale behind Christian punishment systems—which are sometimes too readily condemned or dismissed as anachronistic by modern atheists—and to extract insights for modern-day incorporation.

The Second Sex An engagement with the perspectives offered by de Beauvoir's seminal feminist work 'The Second Sex.' How has the 'eternal feminine' manifested itself culturally and symbolically? How has femininity assumed the role of Hegel's Other? An exploration of de Beauvoir's physiological enquiry, her treatment of sexual differences, Plato, and psychoanalysis. Lastly, how can we realise, if at all, her assertion that women must free themselves from (1) the idea that to become independent she must become masculine, and (2) the socialisation through which she becomes feminised? The practical aim of this discussion is, if applicable, to diagnose modern cultures with the affliction described by de Beauvoir, and identify a way to overcome it.