In one of the first books he wrote in English, Leo Strauss said:
I think that Strauss actually found the solution to this problem near the end of his life. In the central one among the essays comprising his last book—and that it is the central one is of great significance in the context of Strauss—, he said:
The Nietzschean Übermensch, a.k.a. the philosopher of the future and the complementary man, is the natural end of man in the sense that he is at the same time 1) man’s peak and 2) natural in the sense of “the pure, newly found, newly redeemed nature”, which is basically nature according to modern natural science (cf. Beyond Good and Evil aph. 22). He is man’s completed state:
And he is natural—highly, freely, even terribly natural:
Compare:
From this it follows, in the language of the Introduction to Natural Right and History, that that kind of operation is good for man which brings him closer to being a Nietzschean Übermensch.—
‘Natural’ could also be seen as ‘left alone’, as in, not adhering to others ideals e.g. Ubermensch
Or simply being, not trying to be anything [especially egoistic].
Why ‘try’ to be terrible_natural or et al.
Or, there are higher and lower ‘made’ men [see my argument in the philosophy section], and even then only if one holds to some hierarchic value system.
Describing the whole millennia of men by one, surely puts all others as slaves to that.
How can one be special, better in the particular [a master] …an Ubermensch, and also be lesser than another. Unless we change the context of Ubermensch to mean inferior or partly so, in which case it just means ordinary or average, just man instead of superman.
Animals in nature only [mostly] act the way they do to survive, in nature my dog would eat my children, but as he gets fed he doesn’t need to. His natural state is hence not terrible, like is surviving in nature state is.
Doing evil/terrible things is contrived, something has to make that need [if it is even a need] happen, the natural state is the un-contrived one.
You’re right. The Übermensch does not try to be natural, he is natural. He is the unteleological end of teleological man—that is, of man who considers himself teleological (i.e., who gives an account of his ends by conceiving of them not merely as posited by desires or impulses).
I’m not sure what you mean by “made” men; your reference to the Philosophy section is not very clear. The Übermensch is not a different species, by the way.
Any value system is necessarily hierarchic: if X is valued, i.e., is deemed good, then the absence of X is deemed bad—which means there is then a hierarchy in which X ranks above the absence of X.
And?
I don’t understand how this question follows from any of the aforesaid. Why should such a one be lesser than another?
Actually, the two states are equal. In the wild your dog would not eat your children if he’d just eaten another man’s children. And in his current situation, he is indifferent to whether he’s fed children or dog food.
By the way, animals do not in any teleological sense act the way they do to survive; rather, they survive or not (or, what’s more important from an evolutionary point of view, they die with or without offspring) because they act the way they do. The way they act however is determined by what Strauss calls their desires or impulses, which are wholly irrational.
Teleology; noun: (philosophy) a doctrine explaining phenomena by their ends or purposes.
Yea I like that too, its kinda hippy or Buddhist, but its not what we are nor what an Ubermensch is. Or is it what that is?
To be or to utilise thoughts which are ‘considered’, is the end of a process or set of them. Do you think one can arrive at an all_things_considered place?
The thinking man will surely not spout out the first things that come to mind [of impulses, desires etc], and will retreat to consider a problem. I think one can arrive at that position, but not one where one has already resolved everything. …or is that kind of what you meant?
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Made as in cultivated or arrived at after a fashion; our neural networks grow from being simple to complex via situations. Our genetic ancestral path grows from nothing into given skill bases by which ones offspring may be good at a particular skill.
Is it not ‘beyond good and evil’ to first consider things as neither good nor bad? It would seem irregular if one were to use value systems in order to arrive at value systems, no? hence all ‘x’s have the same initial value, it does not necessarily follow that a is lesser that or before b.
What I am saying is that the hierarchic system is superficial/secondary, or made/created, rather than the natural and universal standard from which all men are made equal.
If the desire is to be ubermensch then one cannot accept an overall singleton of the case, as that denies ones ubermensch.
Is there not an acceptance of superiority of the one above the rest? How else do you get the ‘one of the millennium’ if that does not imply some kind of pinnacle [perhaps i am thinking ‘hitler’ here].
What I meant was that they don’t act in an animalistic and brutish manner, unless provoked. Aren’t animal impulses purposeful and reasoned [at least mostly planned out]? the two states arent equal if one is the unteleological one.
I think so, yes. Consider that quote from Nietzsche’s Nachlass.
No, I don’t think one can ever consider all things.
Well, no. I don’t think it’s a question of immediately acting on one’s impulses or not; after all, “self-restraint” ultimately means that some of one’s impulses are restrained by others (e.g., the impulse to spout out the first thing that comes to mind by the impulse to retreat and consider a problem). The human brain is like the weather: it’s unpredictable for us, but still completely determinate, mechanical, nonteleological.
Well, as E.O. Wilson put it, the nature (genetics) of a living being is like the negative of a photo, and the only thing that depends on nurture is whether the negative is well or badly developed. Acquired characteristics are not inherited; therefore, how good one’s offspring’s is at a particular skill depends in no way on how well that skill is developed in oneself.
No, “beyond good and evil” does not mean “beyond good and bad”, as Nietzsche emphasises at the very end of the first treatise of his Genealogy of Morals.
A value system according to which all men have an equal positive value is no less superficial/secondary or made/created than a value system according to which some men have more value than others. Without any value systems, all men only have equal value in that they all have no value at all, a value of zero.
Nietzsche never says that there can be only one Übermensch at any given time; all he says in Will to Power nr. 997 is that there may be only one in multiple millennia.
Yes, it does imply a pinnacle. But what you seemed to say was that the same person would at the same time “be special, better in the particular [a master] …an Ubermensch, and also be lesser than another.”
Well, I think what’s terrible is rather that they are indifferent to whether they act in an animalistic and brutish manner or not: for example, to whether they eat children or dog food.
Impulses themselves never are, no. Behaviour can be, but that’s simply a complex system of impulses.
Both are unteleological or, as Strauss put it, nonteleological (I don’t think there’s a relevant difference, but I will henceforth try to say “nonteleological” instead of “unteleological”, for the sake of consistency). The only “teleological” state is the state of the Mensch (man) as opposed to the Übermensch, and even that state only in the sense that the Mensch considers himself teleological (i.e., gives an account of his ends by conceiving of them not merely as posited by desires or impulses).
If all is just as natural, then whatever is artificial and man-concieved is simply another order of natural, and the ubermensch, the most natural, is instead the non-concieved, the stronger alternative of natural. In fact,if by natural we understand that which has gone through less series of changes and agglomerations, than a rock is more natural than anything living.
Well, you’re right, but the concept “natural” is only meaningful if not everything is natural. The traditional opposite of “natural” is——
Wait. There’s something that has been nagging at me in the back of my head, and that is the feeling that I did not really understand what Strauss meant by this:
“But this ‘naturalistic’ solution is exposed to grave difficulties: it seems to be impossible to give an adequate account of human ends by conceiving of them merely as posited by desires or impulses.”
I now think I have indeed misunderstood this. I now think it means that it seems to be impossible for us to think of a natural end merely as posited by desires or impulses. It seems impossible for us to think of something natural as posited, for the traditional opposite of “natural” is “positive”, as in “natural law” and “positive law”. Is not any posited end a positive end as opposed to a natural end? My answer, which I’ve found in Strauss and which he, in turn, found in Nietzsche, is twofold: on the one hand, Yes, it’s not natural in that “the Vernatürlichung of man […] is by no means necessary but requires a free, creative act” (Strauss, SPPP ibid., paragraph 34); on the other hand, No, it is natural in that the Übermensch is the man who is “made natural” (vernatürlicht)—the man who is truly “an image of nature”.
Ah, well that’s a lot more enlightened than I had considered Nietzschean philosophy to be. Bluntly, that’s not what ‘superman’ infers or has been taken historically.
I am currently unemployed, does that make me ‘The unteleological man’
Determinate is non-teleological? If it is determined and purely mechanistic then one would think that is its purpose or purposes, and its ends are to address such purpose. A bit like a computer is set a task [see purpose] then mechanistically resolves that. This makes us entirely teleological entities I’d think.
The brain is unpredictable for us because we only ever experience part of what’s going on in the machine perhaps?
upon reflection i see what you mean as weather; like the hindu notion of the mind being like wild horses.
That analogy places a lot of impetus of the negative photo, if not ultimately all. Fact is neuronal connections develop as we grow ~ massively, so we have one aspect of the equation that is given [genes] and another arrived at. Epi-genetics seem to show that some skills are passed down.
Either way, the fundamental point is that we begin at a zero sum equation; in both cases [nurture/nature] the ubermensch is arrived at outside of what the individual does. If you are born in my shoes or I in yours, we only arrive at ubermensch via situations either genetic or environmental [societal etc].
Anyone can be and are ubermensch, thus if that title concerns the superiority of one individual over another, said superiority doesn’t belong to the individual. Its kinda like saying its luck of the draw.
Indeed we don’t have any value. zero is the base nature of relaity.
Value is artificial or made, and not by the individual concerned.
Ok. Does he mean then that we can all be ubermensch? I don’t understand the statement; ‘there may be only one in multiple millennia’? is this a group e.g. like Arians/group ’x’ or what have you?
‘Terrible’ is perhaps not the right term then, ignorant, indifferent or amoral may be better? I had thought the reference was to how brutal nature can be. Cannibals are the same perhaps.
is it? impulses often derive from lengthy thought in us, when trained a martial artist will react impulsively in a trained manner. I expect it’s the same in other animals but a little less sophisticated.
Un-teleological to me came across as the living state of non-teleological, what it is rather than what it does; where ‘un-teleological’ is a description of a thing, rather than non-teleological which is a reference to something not being teleological.
So in a layman’s language, ‘ubermensch’ is when man stops thinking of himself in terms of desires and impulses. A bodhisattva.
Best arrived at by the discipline of detachment.
So rather than Nazism, Nietzsche was thinking of a millennium Buddhists!
Atheist Buddhists! I have met some believe it or not, apparently nirvana is a mental state rather than a spiritual one. I feel the same thing is ultimately meant though I don’t know what people mean by ‘mental‘ if they are not equally meaning spiritual ~ or something which means the same thing in our minds and in reality.
are we talking ‘natural’ as in ‘stateless’, the buddha being, the reality [as described in my anti-logic thread] which surpasses the illusion ~ the transient and partly formed [impulses]?
Well, I meant that I think that the Nietzschean Übermensch is the nonteleological man, not that he’s hippy or Buddhist.
There can only be purpose if a task is set, as you say. But in the case of the weather, for example, there’s no one setting a task: neither the weather itself nor someone external to it (unless you believe in at least one god).
A computer is set a task by us, yes, but how do we set the task? Do we set ourselves the task of setting tasks? Do others (e.g., gods) set us the task of setting tasks? Or does the desire or impulse to set tasks form mechanistically (though chaos-theoretically) in our brains, just like a stormcloud forms in the air? I think the latter.
I didn’t know that notion. I like it.
Hm, yes, that is new to me. Interesting.
Yep.
Okay. What conclusions, if any, do you draw from this?
In theory, yes. But most men are by nature unable to be an Übermensch, for genetic reasons alone.
No, there may be only one Übermensch, one superhuman person, in multiple millennia. There may be multiple millennia between that person and the last or next Übermensch.
The reference is to how brutal nature can be, but not directly. It’s to how nature can be brutal or not very brutal at all, and is indifferent to that distinction. An example would be a man who eats all kinds of animals, including other men, indiscriminately, rather than a man who eats only or especially other men.
Lengthy thought is just a lengthy war, and be it a cold war, between impulses. What the martial artist does, is, he at some point turns the cold war into a hot war, by launching a nuke after all.
No, I think the other way round: when man does think of himself in terms of only desires and impulses.
The statement “we don’t have any value” is an answer to the Euthyphro dilemma in the following form:
“Are things (including living things like ourselves) valued because they are valuable, or are they valuable because they are valued?”
The statement “we don’t have any value” basically means that we are valuable only inasmuch as we are valued, and not at all insofar as we aren’t. Against this answer to the dilemma, however, I present an argument that I recently posted on Facebook (…):
This world is valuation—and nothing besides! And we ourselves are also this valuation—and nothing besides!
I should probably stop thinking of the ubermensch in terms of superiority in the usual sense of one-upmanship etc?
Good point. I don’t think there is an external originator of tasks, nor do we initially set them ourselves. It seems more like we pick things out of the clouds - so to speak, or indeed stuff rains upon us out of same said clouds.
We wouldn’t want to be puppets especially in terms of pulling our own strings, I’d be a complete idiot if egoism had only ever allowed me to go by my own choices, or by another’s* [especially an undefined other e.g. god].
Wisdom is in the choices ~ the plurality, of learning and listening or not as the case may be.
*‘teachers are possibly the most destructive force in the universe - so to speak’ - quetz
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The ‘natural state‘* we have been discussing is before during and after [throughout], we simply loose sight of it in our meanderings [away fro its* virtues [vanity, ego etc]]. this may serve as an ethical basis and personal quest. For me its everything really.
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Now I am confused again. Anyone can become a bodhisattva, in what way then is the Übermensch any different to that? how do genes determine what we can become when such things are learned or trained?
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Oh, perhaps he is thinking in terms of historical figures that have made a massive impact e.g. Alexander, Jesus, Buddha, Newton, Einstein and perhaps Nietzsche.
Then that no others rise to that.
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How is this better than a thinking man who considers things first? Hmm I suppose that at first we’d consider indifference to result in casual rape, killing, holocaust and all manner of atrocities. Yet all these things require reasons, desires and impulses, so what we actually arrive at is a kind of avoidance?
‘Nothing matters enough to take action upon that thing, so take actions not according to things’ quetz
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Nice!
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Now I am really confused. Are we to reduce ourselves to animals and with stark duality of mind, or become detached and free from petty reality? all this doesnt make sense?
I know it as low cognitive behaviour.
Why wouldn’t any intelligent person want to increase [if anything] our distance from nature [animalistic behaviour], that’s my entire purpose.
I often see humans acting in an unthinking manner and it drives me to distraction, sometimes I wonder if we are as if like a different species to most - if I may.
Non-dualism would be a better description imho.
Nihilism: Noun; the belief that nothing in life has any importance or value
Is not the same as non-duality, irreverent behaviour can itself create duality e.g. if a child was hanging off a cliff and you didn’t value its life, then you’d have no reason to save him/her. Reminds me of ‘the time machine’ [film][the future humans who got eaten by morlocks]. Such an act would create much duality not only in the minds of relatives [and the death of the child [itself a dualistic occurrence]], but no intelligent mind could not have to consider the outcome one has produced in the world. Admittedly the duality would be lessened if we had no values, but I don’t think that’s achievable.
As young punks we had a generally irreverent attitude [I wonder if Nietzschean philosophy had got into that! …which is strange as i had never heard of him then] kinda like casual observers, but I don’t think anything more is possible [as concerns extremes] without great distress.
What I wonder, then, is why you value, as you seem to do, that “natural state”. Why is it really everything to you? Is the value you attach to it not artificial or made?
Well, I don’t necessarily believe that anyone can become a bodhisattva. But take the example of a fighter jet pilot. If your genes tell your body to grow taller than a certain height, you can never become a fighter jet pilot. In the case of the Übermensch, it’s not about being too tall, but about being not spiritually/mentally great enough. Intelligence is in part genetic.
Yes, something like that. But note that Nietzsche also says:
“[T]he ‘higher nature’ of the great man lies in being different, in incommunicability, in distance of rank, not in an effect of any kind—even if he made the whole globe tremble.” (Will to Power number 876.)
Well, note that Nietzsche says in that passage from the Nachlass that the highest man has “monstrous [i.e., enormous] reason in particulars, [but] as a whole [is] squandering himself”. Perhaps The Doors frontman Jim Morrison may serve as an image of this. He supposedly said:
“I see myself as a huge fiery comet, a shooting star. Everyone stops, points up and gasps ‘Oh look at that!’ Then—whoosh, and I’m gone… and they’ll never see anything like it ever again… and they won’t be able to forget me—ever.” (Quote source unknown; possibly spurious.)
We are to reduce ourselves to animals in a sense:
“[A] man is the not yet fixed, not yet established beast (aph. 62): man becomes natural by acquiring his final, fixed character.” (Strauss, SPPP, ibid.)
This final, fixed character is the character of the Übermensch.
