Brian Leiter gives a talk on Nietzsche at Davidson College. The truth is terrible, Nietzsche tells us. There is no God, the universe lacks any ultimate meaning or purpose, and is filled with pointless suffering. We are but the playthings of alien forces, inevitably leading to perpetual disappointment, dissatisfaction, and suffering in the face of terrible existential truths. Our only relief comes with nonexistence upon death. Besides the terrible existential truths, there are terrible moral and epistemic truths. Life is filled with injustice, and illusion. Even our views about ourselves are mostly illusory. Nietzsche claims there is simply no underlying self, free will, objective value, or absolute truth. All forms and qualities are but mere human conventions, subjective expressions of our competing drives. The unquenchable desire for the absolute is the drive to transcend our finite bodily existence and grab hold of something immaterial, unchanging, universal, absolute, and God-like. But these vestiges of God are nowhere to be found. As such, it is all too easy to become disillusioned and fall into an abyss of anguish and nihilistic despair, turning away from existence and the drives, as suggested by the pessimistic vision of Schopenhauer. But Nietzsche urges against this turning away from life. Existence is justified, he tells us, but only as an aesthetic phenomenon. But what exactly does this mean? And why did Nietzsche claim such? Brian Leiter explains. (My Description) More Nietzsche:
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