Friedrich Nietzsche's Philosophy - J. P. Stern & Bryan Magee (1987)

#philosophy #nietzsche #bryanmagee

[Philosophy_Overdose]

This is a reupload. I preferred the audio of this version, so that's the main reason I decided to reupload it. I’ll still leave the previous video up as unlisted, so as to not break any external links with it. Sorry about any inconvenience!

[rossg]

Bryan Magee is the greatest presenter I’ve ever seen.

[kirkj]

I would take Bryan Magee over any youtuber every time. Thank you for uploading!

[DonkeyPopsicle]

"He was always going to study physiology, physics, but never got around to it."

omg he's just like me fr

[noexit]

“What have you learned from this video?”

“Yes.”

[kazkk]

It is good that they mention his psychosis was the result of tertiary syphilis not his philosophy

[Neneis]

Hey, thanks for posting such old videos. Post more, it’s helpful.

[onetime]

This was very interesting. Thank you for uploading.

[bryanutility]

This was a great episode. Nietzsche is so much easier to follow than Aristotle.

[zeroequalstwo]

Both Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky address the same concept regarding the "Ubermensch". The big distinction is that Dostoyevsky approaches it from a religious perspective and the mental turmoil that follows. For anyone interested in this concept definitely read Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment together with Nietzsche's work.

[willieluncheonette]

" Friedrich Nietzsche is a strange philosopher, poet and mystic. His strangeness is that his philosophy is not the ordinary rational approach to life; his strangeness is also that he writes poetry in prose. He is also a strange mystic, because he has never traveled the ordinary paths of mysticism. It seems as if mysticism happened to him. Perhaps being a philosopher and a poet together, he became available to the experiences of the mystic also. The philosopher is pure logic, and the poet is pure irrationality. The mystic is beyond both. He cannot be categorized as rational, and he cannot be categorized as irrational. He is both, and he is neither.

It very rarely happens that a philosopher is a poet also, because they are diametrically opposite dimensions. They create a tremendous inner tension in the person. And Nietzsche lived that tension to its very extreme. It finally led him into madness, because on the one hand he is one of the most intelligent products of Western philosophy, without parallel, and on the other hand so full of poetic vision that certainly his heart and his head would have been constantly fighting. The poet and the philosopher cannot be good bedfellows. It is easy to be a poet, it is easy to be a philosopher, but it is a tremendous strain to be both. Nietzsche is not in any way mediocre — his philosopher is as great a genius as his poet. And the problem becomes more complicated because of this tension between the heart and the mind. He starts becoming available to something more — more than philosophy, more than poetry. That’s what I am calling mysticism.

His statement is of tremendous importance: “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.” I have always been telling you that you can choose a friend without being too cautious, but you cannot afford an enemy without being very alert — because the friend is not going to change you, but the enemy is going to change you. With the friend there is no fight, with the friend there is no quarrel; the friend accepts you as you are, you accept the friend as he is. But with the enemy the situation is totally different. You are trying to destroy the enemy and the enemy is trying to destroy you. And naturally you will affect each other, you will start taking methods, means, techniques from each other. After a while it becomes almost impossible to find who is who. They both have to behave in the same way, they both have to use the same language, they both have to be on the same level. You cannot remain on your heights and fight an enemy who lives in the dark valleys down below; you will have to come down. You will have to be as mean, as cunning as your enemy is — perhaps you will have to be more, if you want to win.

Nietzsche is right. “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

The second part of the statement is actually the very essence of meditation: it is gazing into emptiness, nothingness, into an abyss. And when you gaze into an abyss it is not one-sided; the abyss is also gazing into your eyes. When I am looking at you, it is not only that I am looking at you; you are also looking at me. The abyss has its own ways of gazing into you. The empty sky also gazes into you, the faraway star also looks into you. And if the abyss is allowed to gaze into you, soon you will find a great harmony between yourself and the silence of the abyss, you will also become part of the abyss. The abyss will be outside you and also inside you.

What he is saying is immensely beautiful and truthful. The meditator has to learn to gaze into things which he wants to become himself. Look into the silent sky, unclouded. Look long enough, and you will come to a point when small clouds of thoughts within you disappear, and the two skies become one. There is no outer, there is no inner: there is simply one expanse."

[jrlakin]

From this sort of lengthy, entertaining and intelligent conversation to split second, fake, you tube pranks in 35 years. Nice.

[WimbledonEngland]

Magee: so Nietzsche wants us to say yes to life...
Stern: yesss

[vario]

Nietzsche's 'eternal recurrence' has a meaning of an existential test, in that one should measure one's strength determined by one's ability to embrace all the irreversible circumstances that have created everything about one's life to the point of passionately wanting to relive them infinitely -- "amor fati".

[BobACNJ]

This type of conversation will never happen today. Pitty...

[kazkk]

I don’t think he was anti evolution. In fact he argued for a reevaluation of values around evolutionary theory

[urbanverificationist]

The use of the term "underdog" here is misleading, I think.
Rather, Nietzsche contrasts, in all of us, that which is poor in spirit vs our potential for living life with a halcyon spirit. Think, Zorba the Greek. It is self-pity that Nietzsche sees as the enemy in this regard.

[scoon]

Love this show. What channel was this on back in the day? BBC?

[TheBoofer]

Nietzsche’s philosophy is almost the total opposite of my own. Fascinating though!

[georgeklein]

Nietzsche just said that all things that seem right to an INTJ, 5W6. The issue is that we aren't like the common man and you can't extrapolate what works for us to everyone else. And so there is no system greater than the individual.