The Greatest Question in Philosophy

SUPPORT US ON PATREON: ▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT WATCH: ▶ Nietzsche's Warning to Scientists: https://youtu.be/Qy8Xof92OYQ ▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Socrates: https://youtu.be/DM78nStythg ▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Plato: https://youtu.be/nEhNRuPh4As ▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Kant: https://youtu.be/9E_RLvcZ8jI OUR ANALYSES: ▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk ▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c ▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI ▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA ▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8 ▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA ▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I For 2000 years, European culture had been dominated by the idea of God. God as the source of truth, beauty and justice. What is good? Good is whatever is sanctioned by God. What is evil? Evil is whatever is prohibited by God. The moral order had God as its foundation. Critically, the concept of God is transcendent. He exists not as a part of the world, but rather God exists outside of the world if you will, above it, beyond it. That is what allows God’s morality to be objective: it’s sacred, it doesn’t find its origin our world with all its imperfections and contingencies. So what is really at stake with the death of God, is not the disappearance of God himself, but rather the death of objective morality as such. Scientific atheism had been preparing itself in the decades leading up to Nietzsche’s proclamation. Little by little, God had become superfluous: the world could be explained through the scientific method. Even worse, the place of man in the universe had been under constant attack. No longer were we created in God’s image, chosen by God to fulfil his divine plan. Copernicus robbed us of our central place in the universe, and Darwin gave us a worldly explanation for the origin of man: descent from an ape-like ancestor. But what these scientific discoveries reinforced, is the idea that only this world is the real world. Confidence in the scientific method and its great explanatory power eroded the necessity for a beyond world. After all: we seem to be doing pretty well without it. Yet, our existence in the material world is characterised by change and contingency. Everything is in constant flux, cultures change, wars are fought, empires are lost and won. Continental drift. Entropy. The expanding universe. Where can we find something everlasting, something eternally true, a solid foundation on which to build our table of values? Where can meaning be found? Nietzsche dedicates a few words to Schopenhauer’s reception in German philosophy, and he’s not positive about it. He mentions by name three philosophers: Julius Bahnsen Eduard von Hartmann Philipp Mainländer These three were followers of Schopenhauer’s philosophy who critically engaged with it and let him influence their own philosophy. In this sense they are post-Schopenhauerian philosophers. But neither of these three, says Nietzsche, truly engaged with the most important question that Schopenhauer asked. They are not real pessimists. Let’s fast-forward to today. It’s been over 200 years since Schopenhauer first unleashed his philosophy upon the world, and it’s been over a 100 years since Nietzsche died. Where are we now in regards to the fundamental question: what is the significance of existence? Well, we haven’t conclusively answered the question yet. And we probably never will. But the question has become more urgent than ever. In a way, this question spawned the entirety of existentialist philosophy, which dominated the latter half of the 20th century. Kierkegaard, the philosopher who is commonly credited with being the first truly existentialist philosopher, tried to escape Hegel’s all-encompassing system of the development of history. Looking at Hegel’s huge construction, his Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices