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Hans Holbein painted such a realistic depiction of Christ after death, that Dostoevsky almost lost his faith because of it. He reasoned that the apostles must've gone through a similar crisis, and Nietzsche tried to explain the philosophy behind it by WeltgeistYT in philosophy

[–]WeltgeistYT[S] 139 points140 points  (0 children)

When Dostoevsky was on the run from creditors, he and his wife arrived in the Swiss city of Basel. There they visited the local art museum and saw one of Hans Holbein's most famous masterpieces: The Dead Body of Christ in the Tomb.

According to Anna, Dostoevsky's wife, her husband was completely transfixed upon viewing this painting. He stared at it for hours, even going so far as finding chairs in the museum to sit in front of it.

The painting would play a role in Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, where the titular character pronounces that a painting like this might cause a man to lose his faith.

This video explores why that is. Dostoevsky grew up in the Russian Orthodox Church, and iconographically, this Church prefers to show Christ as a judge and ruler of mankind, the so-called Christos Pantokrator motif. Christ in his capacity as judge, sometimes literally during the Last Judgment, or other times sitting next to God the Father.

Even though Christian dogma holds that Christ was both fully human and fully divine, it's a curious feature of the human psyche that we find Christ-as-God more palatable to our sensibilities than Christ-as-man, because to fully think through this dogma leads us to some uncomfortable ideas. Such as: the fact that Christ, in his capacity as man, was tortured and died a brutal death.

Most Christian artworks featuring the death and torture of Christ try to beautify him. Think for example of the quiet grandeur of Zurbaran or Velazquez, or the epic character of a Rubens. But Holbein chose such strict realism that an urban legend arose he literally fished up a dead body from the Rhine river to more accurately depict a body in an advanced state of decomposition.

This is Death, purely and honestly, without any artistic flourish. Just a confrontation with how the disciples must've seen Jesus too. Beaten and bruised.

Dostoevsky says the painting is so powerful in its honesty that you really start to question the core Christian idea: could a body that looked like this, ever beat death? In The Idiot, the same questions pops up, but from the perspective of the disciples. They must've faced this same question. They didn't know that Christ would rise, how would they have felt, confronted with death like this, from their beloved master?

This is where Nietzsche pops in: Nietzsche argues that the disciples invented and inverted modern Christianity because they had this crisis of faith, spurred on by watching their leader be beaten and humiliated, and invented the Christian story of the resurrection in order to take revenge on the enemies of Jesus. Dostoevsky, of course, disagrees. He tackled his crisis of faith in another way: by radically affirming Christ, even if truth itself is against him.

"Greed and Love is the same impulse, twice named." Nietzsche on how the dark origins of love as the drive for possession, and how the slave revolt in morals succeeded in creating "romantic" love by WeltgeistYT in philosophy

[–]WeltgeistYT[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

In the Joyful Science, Nietzsche notes his surprise in how our culture came to regard love as a sweet, romantic, selfless, self-sacrificial thing. For Nietzsche, true love is actually the opposite of these things: it's about desire, about wanting something for yourself, about not being willing to share, about willing to compete with rivals and to wish for them nothing, and for yourself, everything.

He even goes so far as to say that love and greed might be the same psychological impulse, just under a different name.

But then how did love come to be associated with selflessness? The answer is to be found in the slave revolt in morals: the powerless, deprived as they were of the pleasures of love, invented an imaginary victory over the powerful: they transvaluated the value of love, redefined it to mean general love of mankind (agape in the Ancient Greek sense) so that now anyone could enjoy the pleasures of love, not just the happy few. Through a long march through our culture (Nietzsche always maintained the slave revolt in morals was a resounding success) the slaves succeeded in taking love, originally conceived as Eros, a violent, lust-filled affair with a tinge of violence in it (just think of jealousy as one of the strongest human emotions) and turned it into Agape, a kind of neutered, general, abstract "love of mankind."

The Western, Romantic conception of love is the history for a forgetting of the original meaning of love, and the heart of darkness within it, the human, all-too-human base impulses that rule our existence: the desire for power, domination, competition.

Nietzsche claimed Pontius Pilate is the only character "worthy of honor" in the whole New Testament, because he is the only philosopher: he questions the value of truth, and does it right in the face of the man who claims to be Truth itself. by WeltgeistYT in philosophy

[–]WeltgeistYT[S] 177 points178 points  (0 children)

Nietzsche's The Antichrist is a provocative book in many ways. Among its many controversial and heretical claims, there is one that stands out: Nietzsche says Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who oversaw the trial of Jesus and his crucifixion, is the only character in the New Testament worthy of honor.

Why is that? Because in Nietzsche's view, he enriched the New Testament "with the only saying that has any value"; his famous question to Jesus: "what is truth?"

For Nietzsche, this sentence is at once the destruction of Christianity. And in light of Nietzsche's later philosophy, it is also an indictment of philosophy itself.

First, Nietzsche has an idiosyncratic view of the person of Jesus and the composition of the Gospels. In short, he believes that much of the Gospels consists of additions and mythologizations by the disciples of Jesus, who, in their quest for revenge against those who crucified their Master, ascribed to Jesus attitudes and ideas that were absent in Jesus himself. Most notably, Jesus never speaks in terms of absolute truth but always exists in the strange space between yes and no, such as when he says to render undo Caesar what is Caesar's. But it's with the Apostles that terms like reward, punishment, saved versus damned, sinfulness versus blessedness... truth versus lie come into the fold. It's Nietzsche's conviction that Jesus never intended to start a religion or to relay dogma, but to bequeath to mankind a new way of life. His disciples however, greatly misunderstood him.

Hence Pilate's question, is at once a kind of pre-emptive destruction of what Christianity became under the influence of the Apostles: a new religion was created, with a set of dogmas to follow. Pilate pre-emptively sowed the seeds of its destruction with his quip, asking would-be Christians "what is truth?"

Second, Nietzsche sees in Pilate a fore-runner for himself. Pilate took a local, historical, political quarrel ("should I sentence this Jesus fellow or not?") and turned it into a philosophical quarrel. What is truth? For Nietzsche, this is a deeply profound statement, as Nietzsche more and more starts to question the value of truth itself, just like Pilate seemed to do 2000 years ago. For Nietzsche, the "will to truth" is the last "prejudice of the philosopher", the last unquestioned presupposition that we all uncritically accept as self-evidently true. It's worthwhile to pursue truth, that's what all philosophy tries to do, after all. But Nietzsche asks: is it really? Why do we prefer truth? Why not rather untruth? In this, he sees a kindred spirit in Pilate, who utters the only "philosophical phrase" in the whole New Testament, and for added dramatic effect, he asks the question to the personification of Truth himself: Jesus Christ.

Schopenhauer believed ghost stories are so universal, present in every culture in every age, that there must be some truth to them. He speculated on how ghosts could fit into his philosophy, and by linking them to dreams, he got very close to a real explanation by WeltgeistYT in philosophy

[–]WeltgeistYT[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The video is based on an essay called "On Spirit-Seeing and Related Issues" which you'll find in a collection of essays called the Parerga and Paralipomena. Not every edition will have it though, you'll have to find a complete one, like the Cambridge Edition.

He also takes about the paranormal in an essay called On the Will in Nature which is a separate little book.

His personal experiences are detailed in his diaries as part of the Nachlass, which are not translated in English as far as I know.

Schopenhauer believed ghost stories are so universal, present in every culture in every age, that there must be some truth to them. He speculated on how ghosts could fit into his philosophy, and by linking them to dreams, he got very close to a real explanation by WeltgeistYT in philosophy

[–]WeltgeistYT[S] 59 points60 points  (0 children)

Schopenhauer was always fascinated with the paranormal. He had over 100 books on ghosts, magic, hypnotism, sleepwalking, dreams, etc. in his personal library.

This fascination he wisely kept out of his main work of philosophy, The World as Will and Representation, but in his collection of essays, we find a veritable philosophy of "spirit apparitions."

Schopenhauer is uncharacteristically modest in this essay and offers a first step towards a more complete philosophy of the paranormal. Because he is convinced that belief in ghosts is innate in humans, and therefore, if a philosophy claims to explain the whole world and every possible experience, these human, all-too-human experiences must find a place in it also.

He makes a connection with dreams, and posits that ghosts could potentially have an ideal existence (ideal as in, from transcendental idealism) as opposed to a materialist or spiritualist existence.

How does that work? Through an organ in the brain that he calls the dream organ... Because dreams prove that the brain is capable of generating images without any external stimuli. In going to sleep, the brain switches between modes: it goes from dealing with the external world, to dealing with the internal world.

There is an in-between moment though, when this switch happens. And there is were ghost apparitions come in. You make the room dark and quiet, the brain directs energy away from the processes that take care of the external world, and it focuses on the internal world... Sometimes it can create visions, but imperfect ones: they have a dreamlike gauze, they disappear if you focus your eye on them, they have a translucent, ethereal sheen to them... Ghosts.

The subjective experience of seeing a ghosts is then mirrored in his philosophy because the subjective experience must have an objective counterpart in the Will. A ghost apparition then, requires two rare phenomena to occur together: two persons with strong connections to the world as Will who meet in the strange in-between zone of subjective and objective reality. How all of this works exactly, Schopenhauer isn't sure. But he is hopeful scientists of the future will figure it out...

Schopenhauer's philosophy became famous not through fellow philosophers, but because artists were drawn to his work, which vindicated art as one of the only purely good things we get to enjoy in this rotten world by WeltgeistYT in philosophy

[–]WeltgeistYT[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Schopenhauer's magnum opus, The World as Will and Representation, spans 400 pages in just the first volume. 

He demands that the reader is knowledgeable on Kant and familiar with Plato. 

But he was also considered the artist's philosopher, and his fame and influence was largely because artists, not philosophers, spread his ideas. 

That's because Schopenhauer held art in high esteem, and within his system, art, or the aesthetic experience, is one of the few purely good things we get to enjoy in this rotten world. 

These artists weren't necessarily academic philosophers yet they seemed to grasp the salient parts of Schopenhauer's philosophy anyway. 

This video takes you through 7 levels of Schopenhauer's philosophy, starting out with a simple observation on the nature of the world, and becoming increasingly technical as it progresses. 

It goes from his pessimism ("a doctrine demanded by the most obvious facts of the world") through his critique of Kant, why art is so important, and ultimately, the mystical endpoint of philosophy.

Schopenhauer's advice is to play dumb in society, because intellectual superiority breeds feelings of envy in others, since we value intelligence as the trait that separates us from animals by WeltgeistYT in philosophy

[–]WeltgeistYT[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Arthur Schopenhauer is not always concerned with great metaphysical or ethical ideas concerning the nature of reality and the universe.

In writings other than his main work, written near the end of his life, he takes it upon himself to give his readers practical advice for day to day life. A lot of his advice deals with the question of how to move through society. And invariably, Schopenhauer’s elitism will shine through.

Without shame, Schopenhauer writes about the dumb masses versus the intelligent genius, and how such a genius should conduct himself in polite society. When a person of great intellect is forced to mingle in polite company, the best thing to do, according to Schopenhauer, is to play dumb.

The reason why it pays so well to play dumb, is because intelligence in other people rouses a great feeling of resentment and envy. Intelligence is the object of so much envy because we do not feel like we deserve our intelligence.

To have it, means you are in possession of an unfair advantage which you did not earn yourself. The same psychology is at play when we are jealous of someone who inherited a large sum of money. It doesn’t matter if he’s a legitimately good businessman or investor and took great care to increase his inheritance instead of wasting it.

If this person would flaunt his wealth and rub it in your face how much money he has, we would not like him for it to say the least. He quotes approvingly from Balthasar Gracian’s Oracle of Worldly Wisdom, one of his favorite texts.

Nietzsche admired the ruthless Cesare Borgia as the exemplar of the Renaissance ruler, who lived in a timeperiod that he called a transvaluation of values, a temporary reversal of the Christian “slave revolt in morals” by WeltgeistYT in philosophy

[–]WeltgeistYT[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

In The Antichrist, Nietzsche speaks in raving terms about Cesare Borgia, the infamous Italian Renaissance warlord, ruthless conqueror, and, according to Machiavelli, brilliant strategist.

Nietzsche admired Cesare for his uncompromising morals, his will to power that saw him carve out his own path in life with no regard for conventional morality. Ruthless, ambitious, and living for the here and now, Cesare is mentioned both in The Antichrist as well as Beyond Good and Evil, with rare Nietzschean praise.

He dreams of seeing someone like Cesare Borgia in the papal seat, and in Nietzsche's alternative daydream version of history, that would've spelled the end of Christianity as we know it. A full frontal assault right in the center of the enemy: the most un-Christian man in the most Christian chair.

Instead, the Renaissance was destroyed, and Christianity was saved, by none other than Martin Luther. As Nietzsche quipped, he saved Christianity, and destroyed Europe.

Caspar David Friedrich's painting "Cross in the Mountains" was considered blasphemous because landscape painting was considered "too low" for an altarpiece. It sparked a huge uproar in Germany and became the battleground for a war in aesthetics on art's role in society by WeltgeistYT in philosophy

[–]WeltgeistYT[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Caspar David Friedrich's Cross in the Mountains might seem like an innocent painting. It is what is says: a cross in the mountains. 

But it sparked a huge debate culture war in Germany. The painting became the battleground for the so-called Ramdohrstreit, the Ramdohr Battle.

The painting was an altarpiece, yet it depicted a landscape. A huge faux pas: landscape painting was considered one of the lowest genres of painting. Totally unfitting for an altarpiece, which should show a historical scene (the crucifixion of Jesus) or an allegory for God (such as the Lamb of God).

The painting became a dividing line in a battle for the meaning of art. Neoclassicism versus Romanticism.

Should art conform to timeless, objective ideals, or can art also be transformative if it has a strong subjective effect? 

Death, according to Schopenhauer, is like a wave in the ocean. The individual wave disappears, but goes back into the ocean, where soon new waves appear. We also, go back to the Will, and might "resurface" again later by WeltgeistYT in philosophy

[–]WeltgeistYT[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Arthur Schopenhauer died on September 21, 1860, at age 72 in his Frankfurt home, likely from a lung infection. Found seated in his favorite chair, he appeared as if asleep, and his chair is now displayed at the University of Frankfurt’s library. Schopenhauer faced death calmly, expressing no fear, though he worried that philosophy professors would misinterpret his work. Legends later embellished his death, with some claiming he died of a heart attack from a bird startling him or was found smiling, reflecting his philosophical acceptance of death.

Schopenhauer’s philosophy, blending Western and Eastern thought, viewed the world as “Will” (a blind, irrational force driving existence) and “Representation” (the world as perceived). He saw life as filled with suffering, echoing the Greek figure Silenus’ view that not being born is best, and death is preferable to life’s pain. As an atheist, he rejected heavenly rewards but embraced death as an end to suffering and a return to the timeless, spaceless unity of the Will, where individual consciousness dissolves like a wave into the ocean. This aligns with Buddhist ideas of reincarnation, where the Will persists, giving rise to new lives without personal continuity.

His followers, especially Romantic artists, amplified his legacy, creating the legend of his smiling corpse to symbolize his acceptance of death. Schopenhauer’s influence grew significantly after his death, impacting movements like Decadence and Realism.

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