Friedrich Nietzsche died in Weimar, Saxony, German Empire on this day in 1900 (aged 55).
"'Where the tree of knowledge stands, there is always paradise': thus speak the oldest and the youngest serpents."
— from "Beyond Good and Evil"
— from "Beyond Good and Evil"
One of the latest Twitter phenomena is publishing posthumous tweets from famous personalities beyond the grave. So far, so good. But why exactly is the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche proving such a hit?Google "Friedrich Nietzsche" and you might just end up at his Twitter account. Or one of them, anyway.Nietzsche has around 100 active Twitter feeds - an impressive feat for a man who's been dead for 130 years. It's even more impressive when you consider the company he's in: William Shakespeare has a similar Twitter presence; Jesus Christ comes in just a bit higher than Fritz and the Bard combined.Yet unlike his companions, Nietzsche's words are not the stuff of high-school curriculums or Sunday sermons. Most, if they have heard of the philosopher, did so in college or thereafter.Perhaps dead German philosophers are in vogue? Immanuel Kant, the father of German enlightenment thought, whose "categorical imperative" is still discussed not only in 700-level philosophy courses at Cambridge, has 15 phantom accounts. Hegel, the brain behind the master-slave dialectic and the author of one of the densest texts in the history of philosophy, the Phenomenology of Spirit, has a paltry single account.What, then, explains Nietzsche's Twitter magnetism?Brevity is witIn addition to being one of the most powerful minds in the history of thought, Nietzsche is known in scholarly circles today as a father of the aphorism - or philosopher speak for a tweet - a thought or saying packaged in a concise manner, oftentimes in a sentence or two."Without music, life would be a mistake.""There are no moral phenomena at all, but only moral interpretations of phenomena.""Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself."![]()
Arthur Schopenhauer - young Nietzsche's educatorThese are three examples of classic Nietzsche "tweets," just three of thousands of aphorisms that filled Nietzsche's books throughout his career. Quite often, Nietzsche's books consisted of nothing else."Nietzsche writes in an engaging way, whereas Kant, for example, writes in dense philosophical prose," said Kirk Wetters, Associate Professor of German language and literature at Yale University. "He's widely perceived as a philosopher of radical (or even macho) individualism. It's ironic, perhaps, that a purportedly individualistic philosophy should end up producing 100 impersonators."Arthur Schopenhauer, meanwhile, has just 10 phantom Twitter accounts. It was the directness of Schopenhauer's language and thought that impressed the young Nietzsche, something the latter thinker was unashamed to acknowledge.He called Schopenhauer outright his educator, and he attempted to emulate the immediate and straightforward way in which Schopenhauer wrote."Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity.""It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what other men say in whole books - what other men do not say in whole books."Another two Tweets. And indeed, what Nietzsche didn't take from the long line of German philosophers that preceded him was their wordiness, their long-windedness, their veritable logorrhoea, their - well, let's let Hegel speak for himself ...A case of 'tl;dr'"The moral consciousness, qua simple knowledge and willing of pure duty, is brought, by the process of acting, into relation with an object opposed to that abstract simplicity, into relation with the manifold actuality which various cases present, and thereby assumes a moral attitude varied and manifold in character."![]()
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - the philosopher's name alone is almost too much for TwitterCome again? Such sentences - Nietzsche said it back in his day - are nothing other than a stumbling block on the path of knowledge. A discombubulated array of thoughts that few - philosophy PhD candidates included - could ever hope to comprehend.And, they wouldn't even have a chance on Twitter. Hegel's sentence there clocks in at 259 characters, including spaces. Tweetable? Forget it - nearly double the 140 allowed. Little surprise, then, that Hegel's stuck at one phantom account.But does this mean that thinkers today have changed the way they write across the board? Do thinkers have to be tweetable?According to comments across the web, yes. Comments columns are peppered with the collection of letters and numbers known as "tl;dr." They stand for "Too long; didn't read."While Kant and Hegel seem to have that problem, Nietzsche's Tweetable aphorisms don't. And in fact, his writing should remain free of "tl;dr" comments for quite some time.The great philosopher claimed his work would only be understood 200 years after his death - giving us 70 more years to enjoy him.
One of the latest Twitter phenomena is publishing posthumous tweets from famous personalities beyond the grave. So far, so good. But why exactly is the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche proving such a hit?
Google "Friedrich Nietzsche" and you might just end up at his Twitter account. Or one of them, anyway.
Nietzsche has around 100 active Twitter feeds - an impressive feat for a man who's been dead for 130 years. It's even more impressive when you consider the company he's in: William Shakespeare has a similar Twitter presence; Jesus Christ comes in just a bit higher than Fritz and the Bard combined.
Yet unlike his companions, Nietzsche's words are not the stuff of high-school curriculums or Sunday sermons. Most, if they have heard of the philosopher, did so in college or thereafter.
Perhaps dead German philosophers are in vogue? Immanuel Kant, the father of German enlightenment thought, whose "categorical imperative" is still discussed not only in 700-level philosophy courses at Cambridge, has 15 phantom accounts. Hegel, the brain behind the master-slave dialectic and the author of one of the densest texts in the history of philosophy, the Phenomenology of Spirit, has a paltry single account.
What, then, explains Nietzsche's Twitter magnetism?
Brevity is wit
In addition to being one of the most powerful minds in the history of thought, Nietzsche is known in scholarly circles today as a father of the aphorism - or philosopher speak for a tweet - a thought or saying packaged in a concise manner, oftentimes in a sentence or two.
"Without music, life would be a mistake."
"There are no moral phenomena at all, but only moral interpretations of phenomena."
"Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself."
Arthur Schopenhauer - young Nietzsche's educatorThese are three examples of classic Nietzsche "tweets," just three of thousands of aphorisms that filled Nietzsche's books throughout his career. Quite often, Nietzsche's books consisted of nothing else.
"Nietzsche writes in an engaging way, whereas Kant, for example, writes in dense philosophical prose," said Kirk Wetters, Associate Professor of German language and literature at Yale University. "He's widely perceived as a philosopher of radical (or even macho) individualism. It's ironic, perhaps, that a purportedly individualistic philosophy should end up producing 100 impersonators."
Arthur Schopenhauer, meanwhile, has just 10 phantom Twitter accounts. It was the directness of Schopenhauer's language and thought that impressed the young Nietzsche, something the latter thinker was unashamed to acknowledge.
He called Schopenhauer outright his educator, and he attempted to emulate the immediate and straightforward way in which Schopenhauer wrote.
"Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity."
"It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what other men say in whole books - what other men do not say in whole books."
Another two Tweets. And indeed, what Nietzsche didn't take from the long line of German philosophers that preceded him was their wordiness, their long-windedness, their veritable logorrhoea, their - well, let's let Hegel speak for himself ...
A case of 'tl;dr'
"The moral consciousness, qua simple knowledge and willing of pure duty, is brought, by the process of acting, into relation with an object opposed to that abstract simplicity, into relation with the manifold actuality which various cases present, and thereby assumes a moral attitude varied and manifold in character."
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - the philosopher's name alone is almost too much for TwitterCome again? Such sentences - Nietzsche said it back in his day - are nothing other than a stumbling block on the path of knowledge. A discombubulated array of thoughts that few - philosophy PhD candidates included - could ever hope to comprehend.
And, they wouldn't even have a chance on Twitter. Hegel's sentence there clocks in at 259 characters, including spaces. Tweetable? Forget it - nearly double the 140 allowed. Little surprise, then, that Hegel's stuck at one phantom account.
But does this mean that thinkers today have changed the way they write across the board? Do thinkers have to be tweetable?
According to comments across the web, yes. Comments columns are peppered with the collection of letters and numbers known as "tl;dr." They stand for "Too long; didn't read."
While Kant and Hegel seem to have that problem, Nietzsche's Tweetable aphorisms don't. And in fact, his writing should remain free of "tl;dr" comments for quite some time.
The great philosopher claimed his work would only be understood 200 years after his death - giving us 70 more years to enjoy him.
尼采的使命
出 版 社： 华夏出版社
- 出版时间： 2009-1-1
- 字 数： 350000
- 版 次： 1
- 页 数： 385
- 印刷时间： 2009-1-1
- 开 本： 大32开
编辑推荐
尼采当时的使命是什么？就是哲学的使命：获得一个全面的、堪称正确的视角，以观察世界和人对世界的安排。……尼采的两部主要著作《拉图斯特拉是说》和《善 恶的彼岸》表明，他已经获得了全面的视角；随之而来的是，另一项使命落在了尼采头上，即政治哲学的使命：在人类文化的生活世界中，为这种全面视角挣得一席 之地；或在人对万物的安排中，公正地对待万物。然而，鉴于非理性视角的淫威，要想在非理性视角的包围中为更理性的视角挣得一席之地，就必须具备巧妙的战略 手腕；对一位既了解读者、又知道如何勾引读者的高明作家来说，这是一项使命。
——郎佩特
——郎佩特
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内容简介
内容简介研究尼采当以尼采发表的著作为主，重要的是研读尼采或充满激情或深具匠心地写下并发表的文字。尽管尼采的书显得好看，实在不容易读（首先是不容易译），编译尼采著作，不仅当以尼采的著作为主，得同时注重注释和解读。
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目录
中译本说明
缩写表
引子：尼采的使命
序言：一项为了好欧洲人的使命
第一章 论哲学家们的偏见
第二章 自由精神
第三章 宗教性的本质
第四章 警句与插曲
第五章 论道德的自然史
第六章 我们学者们
第七章 我们的美德
第八章 民族与祖国
第九章 何为高贵？
来自高山之巅：终曲
尼采的未来
参考文献
索引
缩写表
引子：尼采的使命
序言：一项为了好欧洲人的使命
第一章 论哲学家们的偏见
第二章 自由精神
第三章 宗教性的本质
第四章 警句与插曲
第五章 论道德的自然史
第六章 我们学者们
第七章 我们的美德
第八章 民族与祖国
第九章 何为高贵？
来自高山之巅：终曲
尼采的未来
参考文献
索引
情遇尼采
本书是尼采曾经的恋人露·莎乐美对尼采的精彩回忆录，阅读本书对解读尼采及尼采的思想有着重要意义。
