Pandora by John William Waterhouse
The next volume of Pantheon will center on the artifact known as Pandora’s Box (or Jar), but in order to render the mythology properly, we need to assess its significance first. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Posts Tagged ‘Nietzsche’
28 results.
While I’ve read several works in literature that could pass as nihilistic, it wasn’t until Fate/Zero I could say I’ve come across a truly nihilistic masterpiece. Even the classic Neon Genesis Evangelion did not reach the nadir of such depraved nihility. Gen Urobuchi, the writer of Fate/Zero has expressed similar sentiments in his other works such as Puella Magi Madoka, but Fate/Zero serves as a platform that displays a potpourri of various philosophies that are exposed one by one as fictitious or illusory.
Bored? by Urko Dorronsoro
There are two aspects of boredom: Kurzeweile (short while) and Langeweile (long while).
Langeweile is the condition of modernity and one isn’t held accountable for being born in a certain epoch. However kurzeweile is a response to a short stretch of time where nothing happens. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Left to right: Archer, Saber & Rider
I have been enjoying the ongoing Japanese anime Fate/Zero, & episode 11 consists of a dialogue between three legendary kings who expressed philosophical differences about ruling. The interlocutors are Saber (King Arthur), Rider (Alexander the Great) and Archer (Gilgamesh), but the most interesting aspect was the diametrically opposite approach between Arthur and Alexander regarding how to rule. It was fascinating enough to inspire a lengthy rant on morality, Nietzsche, and representation. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
from bizarro.com
Nietzsche is often taken as a poster-boy for atheism due to his infamous phrase, “God is dead!” However, that is not a clear endorsement of atheism but rather, theothanatology. In his writings, Nietzsche did refer to atheism and oftentimes in jest. His hermeneutic-psychoanalysis of Christianity led him to be exceedingly critical of atheists, as well as scientists and skeptics. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
(for part I go here)
Knee-deep into ontological shit
I feel there’s plenty to mine from the first part of the introduction. 
On p. 16, Heidegger says that Dasein has a number of positions:
- Ontic: the special position is ontic, in which existence determines this being in its being.
- Ontological: Dasein is itself ontological, based on its existence. Dasein is the ontic-ontological condition of all ontology.
- Dasein is ontologically primary being that precedes all Being that is the object of inquiry (or questioning).
Yeah, so? This piece is actually quite thought-provoking. That is, if you can handle the number of beings and ontologies and onticalities and existences… 
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After 7 years, I was burned out by philosophy, yet I continued to haunt the philosophy section in search for anything radical and profound. Amidst the expected titles commonly found at any bookstore, sat A Short History of Decay. I pulled it off the shelf in the faint hopes of killing time until the cigar shop opened in 20 minutes. After a couple of hours disappeared savoring the salacious prose, I begrudgingly closed the book and hurried to the checkout counter, cackling in glee in the wonderful fortune of uncovering a new thinker that spoke blasphemous music to my eyes.
This essay seeks to compare and contrast Schopenhauer and Nietzsche by putting their philosophies of pessimism and optimism in high relief. I suspect I may have caricatured Nietzsche in order to write a balanced essay, so feel free to disregard this as an adequate representation of Nietzsche’s mutifaceted philosophy. It was originally written for a friend who argued that I had no reason of siding with Schopenhauer over Nietzsche, and it became a lengthy analysis of optimism and pessimism.
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1. The higher cultures are so structured that they force the inhabitants to live along longer and more difficult paths. The higher this culture develops, the more indirect man becomes. Older cultures have simple means of acquiring food, while modern man orders pizza through a system of interlocking functions and patterns.
The elongated strand of means and ends make it impossible to be totally aware of every inch of every strand. The entire sequence is unmappable, which leaves our modern consciousness limited to the means, the mechanisms, and the final goals that bring meaning to the steps are pushed off towards the horizon and eventually lie past it.
Us moderns are surrounded by an endless web of enterprises and institutions where the final and valuable goals are missing. In this culture, the need for a final goal and meaning for life emerges.
