The first book I have read this year — perhaps my whole life — that I cannot effectively rate at all. Where do I stand with this? It’s a mystery to me.
I was told this text is supposed to be an overview, an introduction, but even besides the reference to authors I’ve not read, his own words are often lacking in explanation. He will state, and the restless doubts that bubble up in the reader’s mind are apparently of no importance. I hope there will be greater lucidity in his earlier work, as this one is apparently a late work.
I was quite satisfied to see someone speak word-for-word certain beliefs I’d developed; in particular, his denial of the question of life purpose or meaning, as the living cannot observe life while within it. You necessarily need to observe both life and death, to see the whole system encasing them both, to begin genuinely answering the question. This isn’t really a point to support the work, but a moment where I was pleased to see my thoughts mirrored with great precision.
I feel there are so many contradictions which make it so confusing to understand. (1) Nietzsche proclaims there are no moral facts, but will speak of things such as a higher morality — what could this be? (2) He despises the Socratic’s for undermining tradition, but he criticizes Christianity and says it is the worst thing to happen in Europe; why should he have a problem with the pure act of ‘undermining tradition’? (3) Such a sentence as “the weak prevail over the strong”, makes me wonder what his notions of strength and weakness are, if strength does not mean superior? (4) He says “one must acquire a command of the obstructing and isolating instincts” — what happened to the perceived world being the only real world? To draw inwards and interpret things in such a way is, in my belief, to construct a symbolic world in our head, a simulation of our own; it is supposed to reflect our real world, but our models are usually grossly simple and faulty. All the same, any one who tries to make sense of the world, is not truly thinking of the real world but of their constructed world. And then, there are simply many passages that make no sense at all.
Is this just how it is to ‘philosophize with the hammer’? To knock at all different angles and in different ways, on all these long-standing idols to make them ring hollow, yet not without a true method or set of principles, but by intuition, wherever it leads?
I am undecided, and frankly not moved by anything he said. I resolve to read more, and see if it will come to make sense.