Happy 169th Birthday Friedrich Nietzsche!

When first thinking about what to write in this post, I was wondering about what the most important thing is that Nietzsche has to offer to philosophy. And since pondering upon this thought I deduced, that, putting aside his key ideas such as; the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy, perspectivism, the Will to Power, the "death of God", the Übermensch and eternal recurrence, if there is anything that you should take away from this, at the very least it is that he had an epic moustache!

However, more importantly and more relevant to the synoptic unit I will be doing at the end of this year... I will be looking at his idea of the Übermensch and the death of God. Firstly though, something that I found quite interesting about Nietzsche, was what happened to him relatively early on in life. After resigning from being the Chair of Classical Philosophy at the University of Basel, his health problems rapidly escalated and he lost all mental faculties (which seemed to be due to a tertiary stage of syphilis), and due to this, his sister then cared for him. It then followed that because of this, for a long time, Nietzsche was seen to be very anti-Semitic, and even a kind of Nazi. All because of the fact that whilst under his sisters care, she reworked his unpublished writings to fit her husbands nationalist ideologies. Therefore this is why since then, many twentieth-century scholars have attempted to disprove these false allegations against Nietzsche. 


Now, moving onto the idea of the death of God. The term 'God is dead' has possibly become his most well known remark. The basis around this comment comes from an origin in Nihilism (which I guess is coming from the Latin word nihilo - nothing?) which basically argues that life is now existing without objective meaning, purpose or intrinsic value. And especially in terms of Nietzsche, Nihilism always has negative meanings and connotations. In addition to this, as he was a moral Nihilist, he stated that morality does not inherently exist, and anyone claiming to have any established morals has abstractly invented them, in order to feel as though they have truly gained them. The reason that this links in with the death of God, is due to how Nietzsche possibly felt that the secularisation of modern society, had 'murdered' the Abrahamic God, and left people with the feeling that life has no inherent importance or purpose. In fact, Nietzsche had his own definition and version of this which he called passive Nihilism. To achieve this idea of passive Nihilism, he worked from the basis of Schopenhauer's doctrine, which he describes as a kind of Western Buddhism. This incorporates the ascetic attitude which is a 'will to nothingness', that religions such as Buddhism and Jainism use, which again work upon the idea that there is nothing of value to be found in the world, which is why they have an abstinence towards many worldly pleasures.


The other important concept to understand abouts Nietzsche's thoughts, is that of the Übermensch. The general translation of this, is that of a superman, or an overman. The Übermensch first appears in Nietzsche's book 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra', where the gift of the Übermensch is given to mankind as a way to solve the problem that faces it, even though they are not yet aware of the problem. In the book, it also presents the Übermensch as the creator of new values, and he appears as a solution to the problem of the death of God and also to nihilism. The reason that the Übermensch is above everyone else and different is because he/she does not follow the common morality of ordinary people and rises above the 'herd mentality' in order to judge for him/herself what the notion of good and evil really is. However, in order for the Übermensch to fulfil their greatest potential he/she must have a spiritual evolution in self awareness which for example, then enables them to overcome the traditional superstitions of deep rooted beliefs such as Christianity and any others that they hold in life. And so finally, Nietzsche then thinks that once the Übermensch has achieved these feats they must then accept our worldly experience as the greatest one available and possible, and then they will truly have satisfaction in their lives, as well as objective meaning. So, overall it might possibly be saving them from the death of God.

Mr Alvin Plantinga - has he found the maximally great Ontological Argument?

When first hearing about this argument, and the way in which Plantinga approaches it, I got rather nostalgic about last year and studying AS, as this possible worlds idea that he comes up with, made all of the quantum stuff come rushing back to me. Mainly due to the spacey kind of idea it put into my head, about alternate worlds or parallel universes. But, after reading through his argument for the first time, I decided that I'd rather deal with quantum any day of the week, as at first glance it seems to be quite a confusing argument... However, since reading it through several more times, I found that Plantinga's clever alternative version, and criticism of Norman Malcolm's argument, incorporates his mathematical background well to put across his own ontological argument.

The first thing that seems to be key to understanding his argument, is by firstly grasping his concept of what the possible worlds are. To Plantinga a possible world isn't just another world somewhere else in the universe, it is another parallel world in an entirely separate universe in which a completely different chain of events unfolds every second. A world that is different for all different possibilities that could happen. So for instance, in one of the possible worlds I may have not just happened to look out the window and instead, I would have continued to write on this blog, describing a completely different chain of events, that you would now be reading as something different to this. (Messes with your head doesn't it?!) And so due to this rule of the possible worlds theory, it pretty much indicates the existence of an infinite number of worlds, as there are so many alternate things that can happen in even a second.

He then starts by stating that the greatest possible being must have maximal excellence and greatness in every possible world. This ensures he corrects what he sees to be incorrect about Malcolm's argument, as to Plantinga, Malcolm doesn't overtly state that the God he is proving to exist, has the maximal greatness within our world.

So, on to the argument itself, he starts by saying that firstly there is the possibility of a being of maximal greatness, which is of course his definition of God. And that secondly such a being would exist necessarily, not contingently. This is because contingent beings depend upon other factors for their existence and so are not maximally great. Now, moving on to his third point which is a maximally great being's existence in a possible world is either necessary or impossible, and fourthly, in addition to this a maximally great being's existence is only impossible if it is self-contradictory. These last two points imply that if there is something about the concept of a maximally great being that makes it illogical and incoherent then it is impossible. For example if we took an example like that of Descartes', which is of a mountain without a valley, which is an example of a self contradictory statement. Then we can see how it applies to Plantinga's argument and to a maximally great being, as it would not be incoherent or contradictory to say that 'a maximally great being exists in a possible world'. He then goes on to his fifth point, which states that a maximally great being's existence is not impossible in an infinite number of possible worlds. And then finally his sixth, which concludes by saying therefore, it is necessary in all possible worlds, including ours. So overall, if something is not inherently contradictory (e.g. it is possibly true), then it is necessarily true in all worlds (including the actual world in which we live).

Norman Malcolm's Ontological Argument

This argument for me at first glance, was perhaps the most easy to read, and understand. Simply due to the fact that unlike Descartes and Anselm's arguments there is no confusing definition of God to wrap my head around. Furthermore, because he was using parts of Anselm's Proslogian to form his argument (chapters 2 + 3), it could be assumed that he also thought of God as that than which nothing greater can be conceived. However, because he, like Kant saw error within chapter 2 of Anselm's Proslogian, he sought to use chapter 3, which he established as a second ontological argument which was not susceptible to such criticism as a way to form his own argument.

So, on to his argument, which is as follows;

1) If God does not exist, his existence is impossible
2) If God does exist, then his existence is necessary
3) God's existence is either impossible or necessary
4) God's existence is not impossible
5) Therefore God's existence is necessary

Now, from this argument a few things can be identified, the first thing being that because of the implicitly assumed definition of God, Malcolm therefore states that God is immutable or unchanging. This means that God couldn't and wouldn't change from non-existence to existence, because as he says 'If God does not exist, his existence is impossible'. Another key point about this argument is how Malcolm gives an example of the only thing that is truly impossible, which is the statement "Nothing Exists" as this is an oxymoron, or a contradiction. And so secondly due to this, a further thing that this argument shows is that because of that oxymoron, this next statement "God Exists" can be possibly true and is therefore why he says that the existence of God is not impossible.
Thirdly and finally, another side that can be drawn from his argument, is that of the four possibilities concerning God, which are;

1) Necessarily false - God can't exist.  (any statement that were to fall under this are contradictory propositions, such as the statement 'this square is round)

2) Contingently false - Could but doesn't exist.
(the reasons that 2 and 3 cannot be applied to God are simply because God shouldn't be limited or dependant upon anything else)
3) Contingently true - Could and does exist.

4) Necessarily true - Has to exist. 

So overall, the reason why God is being proved to exist in Malcolm's argument is because God cannot be brought into existence, or be made to stop existing, therefore necessitating God's own existence. And in addition to this because the existence of God is not impossible, it means that there is a chance of this necessary God existing.