At the start of Week #8, I will post some comments here to help you focus on this week's material.

Week #8 we'll be learning about Nietzsche. He's a difficult philosopher, addressing many different issues, writing in an aphoristic style that can be, and seemingly was used because it can be, obscure. I was tempted to replace him with another philosopher while I find myself teaching online. But I'm going to experiment and see what happens when we try to learn about Nietzsche online. To help I'll be focusing on only a few themes from his writings. Here we go.

First, a preliminary comment. Beginning with Nietzsche, we're shifting our attention to modern philosophers. In Philosophy, the word "modern" usually is used to refer to philosophers from the mid-1600s until the present. What makes this period "modern"? There are many themes. One is the rise of modern science, which introduced many metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, and religious issues. But the thinkers we're considering this semester are "modern" in a different sense. Starting in the early 1800s with the German philosopher, Georg Hegel, Historicism became a central theme; and it's going to be an important concept when trying to understand the philosophers we cover in the second half of the semester.

What is Historicism? I'm using the term to refer to the idea that the issues we face are established by our historical conditions. The ancient philosophers we read tried to identify a problem or problems that were associated with our ahistorical human condition. For example, for the Epicureans, to be human is to be a material being pursuing pleasure, a task that was harmed by the role of desires in our lives. It doesn't matter if you lived in 150bce or 2020ce. Most of the modern thinkers we examine will give a different kind of answer. This includes Nietzsche. He was identifying a problem that 19th century Europeans faced, a problem that he thought did not exist in earlier times, a problem that we may or may not continue to face in 2020. Beauvoir, Marx, DuBois, and Carson give the same kind of answer. Each thinks that there is a historical problem that contemporary individuals face. Indeed, Beauvoir and DuBois recognized multiple problems; and none of them claimed that the problem(s) they addressed was the only historical problem. As we read each of these modern thinkers, we'll need to decide for ourselves if that thinker is identifying one of the historical problems individuals now face.

For Nietzsche, the problem that dominated his writings was nihilism. To be a modern individual is to be aware that one's life has no inherent meaning. Indeed, if you read his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, it includes a troubling anecdote about King Midas during which Nietzsche suggests it's not simply that one's life has no meaning, which can seem neutral. Rather, the Birth of Tragedy suggested that it would have been better if one never was born, and the next best thing would be to die soon. Now that's nihilism!

Only Nietzsche did not offer this as his answer to the question, "What is the Good Life?" He did not even identify as a nihilist. Rather, he offered nihilism as a problem to be faced. As modern humans, we no longer are capable of deluding ourselves into thinking there is some inherent meaning or purpose to life. Well, some try. But, in the modern world, such attempts come across as lies, and the effort to lie comes across as a sign of weakness, an unwillingness to face the problem of nihilism. For Nietzsche, our modern challenge is to acknowledge nihilism and still "say yes to life."

Our goal this week will be to make sense of this. At a minimum, we will focus on three concepts in Nietzsche's writing: Amor Fati, Living Dangerously, saying "Yes to life." We may also explore his concept of Eternal Recurrence. Unfortunately, it's not realistic to address more than this. If you know something about Nietzsche, and want to discuss some of his other concepts (e.g., the Will to Power, the Overman, the Death of God, or Slave Morality versus Master Morality), I'll be happy to do so in a personal message or separate thread on our Online Office. But my focus will be on making sure you understand his references to Amor fati and Living Dangerously.

Last year -- back when classes met in rooms and we talked -- I mentioned that I'm considering my next tattoo to be "Amor Fati" (I didn't say if it was because of Nietzsche or the Stoics, who both used the term). A student said that he'd heard "Amor Fati" was the most popular script tattoo. I'm not sure how one could reliably know that, but it was an interesting thought. When I was a student at SRJC, I'm pretty sure "Born to be Wild" was more common.