Don Enss
1. In Ivo Frenzel's book, Friedrich Nietzsche: An Illustrated Biography, he quotes Nietzsche as saying, "Ecce Homo: I am one thing, my writings are another." Do you agree or disagree? Can a writer, or any artist totally separate themselves from their writings or works of art?
2. Herman quotes Nietzsche on page 497 as saying that "Heraclitus's regal possession is his extraordinary power to think intuitively." What does it mean to think intuitively? I found this interesting link:
http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/making-critical-thinking-intuitive-using-drama-examples-and-images/600 What do you think of when you think intuitively?
Interesting. Was Nietzsche endorsing that Walt Whitman sentiment of not caring whether his writings contradicted themselves since "I contain multitudes"? Is it really self-contradictory to entertain different thoughts and feelings, on different occasions? Emerson warned us against "foolish consistency." On the other hand, it seems appropriately aspirational for a reflective person who writes to aim at a final edition, an ultimate and internally-consistent last word (even if nothing ever finally "concludes").
ReplyDeleteIntuition is a mark of the human, isn't it? And like everything human, often as not it misses its mark. Carl Sagan, asked for his "gut" reaction to the hypothesis of UFO visitations, said he tried not to think with that body part. Then again, his sense that a lifeless universe would be an awful "waste of space" is part probabilistic prediction, part hunch. Hunches and intuitions are a strong stimulus to curiosity, but they're not a substitute for thinking.