The Nose Dive of Philosophy

[Shaibei]

I know, and the point I am making is that Kant and Nietzsche do not deny the objective reality of ideals, only the claim that humanity has already found those ideals as static/fixed entities from the past. Therefore it is not accurate to say they embrace or are generally responsible for relativism when properly understood. Although I can see why the static view would be adopted if Christ is denied as the archetype. Ironically, it was Nietzsche who said:

This is not really a point made by me, but by various philosophers. As i wrote one can understand why. As a jew i have no problem rejecting jesus and have no interest with converting others to judahism

Made by you or someone else, the point is invalid. I know many fundamentalist theists and secular relativists both want us to believe Nietzsche was in the relativist camp, but that simply doesn't cash out from his work. He was concerned with freedom, the freedom of the human spirit to realize these 'objective values' for itself so that they could naturally flow from its own essence. And it was not an abstract concern either, because it clearly provided him penetrating insights into the various 'movements' of his era and how they would develop in the century to come, which only look rather unimpressive now because we have the benefit of hindsight.

The soul experiences of the Germans during the War of 1870 found so little echo in his soul that “while the thunder of battle passed from Wörth over Europe,” he sat in a small corner of the Alps, “brooding and puzzled, consequently most grieved, and at the same time not grieved,” and wrote down his thoughts about the Greeks. And, a few weeks later, as he found himself “under the walls of Metz,” he still was not freed from the questions which he had concerning the life and art of the Greeks. (See Versuch einer Selbstkritik, Attempt at a Self-Critique, in the 2nd edition of his Geburt der Tragödie, Birth of Tragedy.) When the war came to an end, he entered so little enthusiasm of his German contemporaries over the decisive victory that in the year 1873 in his writing about David Strauss he spoke about “the bad and dangerous consequences” of the victorious struggle. He even represented it as insanity that German culture should have been victorious in this struggle, and he described this insanity as dangerous because if it should become dominant within the German nation, the danger would exist of transforming the victory into complete defeat; a defeat, yes, an extirpation of the German spirit in favor of “the German realm.” This was Nietzsche's attitude at a time when the whole of Europe was filled with national fanaticism. It is the thinking of a personality not in harmony with his time, of a fighter against his time.
-Friedrich Nietzsche: Fighter for Freedom (1895) (emphasis in original)

Please note that I do not refer to the (bad) use made of Nietzsche'swi will to power nor to Nietzsche's moral condition. Nietzsche may will be considered a morally noble person. I'm talking about subjectivity. Nietzsche has various aphorisms about science. There are scientists, says Nietzsche, who are descendants of lawyers, for whom a good job is to put things in order. Darwin's evolution stems from small people whose whole ambition is self-preservation and other claims in a similar spirit about the lack of objectivity of science and its dependence on the character of scientists.
The same goes for Nietzsche's claims that morality is only for the benefit of society and is not absolute on its own part and the like

[AshvinP]

This is not really a point made by me, but by various philosophers. As i wrote one can understand why. As a jew i have no problem rejecting jesus and have no interest with converting others to judahism

Made by you or someone else, the point is invalid. I know many fundamentalist theists and secular relativists both want us to believe Nietzsche was in the relativist camp, but that simply doesn't cash out from his work. He was concerned with freedom, the freedom of the human spirit to realize these 'objective values' for itself so that they could naturally flow from its own essence. And it was not an abstract concern either, because it clearly provided him penetrating insights into the various 'movements' of his era and how they would develop in the century to come, which only look rather unimpressive now because we have the benefit of hindsight.

The soul experiences of the Germans during the War of 1870 found so little echo in his soul that “while the thunder of battle passed from Wörth over Europe,” he sat in a small corner of the Alps, “brooding and puzzled, consequently most grieved, and at the same time not grieved,” and wrote down his thoughts about the Greeks. And, a few weeks later, as he found himself “under the walls of Metz,” he still was not freed from the questions which he had concerning the life and art of the Greeks. (See Versuch einer Selbstkritik, Attempt at a Self-Critique, in the 2nd edition of his Geburt der Tragödie, Birth of Tragedy.) When the war came to an end, he entered so little enthusiasm of his German contemporaries over the decisive victory that in the year 1873 in his writing about David Strauss he spoke about “the bad and dangerous consequences” of the victorious struggle. He even represented it as insanity that German culture should have been victorious in this struggle, and he described this insanity as dangerous because if it should become dominant within the German nation, the danger would exist of transforming the victory into complete defeat; a defeat, yes, an extirpation of the German spirit in favor of “the German realm.” This was Nietzsche's attitude at a time when the whole of Europe was filled with national fanaticism. It is the thinking of a personality not in harmony with his time, of a fighter against his time.
-Friedrich Nietzsche: Fighter for Freedom (1895) (emphasis in original)

Please note that I do not refer to the (bad) use made of Nietzsche'swi will to power nor to Nietzsche's moral condition. Nietzsche may will be considered a morally noble person. I'm talking about subjectivity. Nietzsche has various aphorisms about science. There are scientists, says Nietzsche, who are descendants of lawyers, for whom a good job is to put things in order. Darwin's evolution stems from small people whose whole ambition is self-preservation and other claims in a similar spirit about the lack of objectivity of science and its dependence on the character of scientists.
The same goes for Nietzsche's claims that morality is only for the benefit of society and is not absolute on its own part and the like

Yes and that is pretty well covered in Steiner's book. What Nietzsche loathes the most are intellectuals, religious, secular, and everyone in between, who act as if they have transcended their subjective influence on the 'objective world'. That they can study the 'truths' of science, religion, etc. without bringing their own unconscious instincts and motivations to the table. He doesn't even bother with a 'rational' evaluation of the 'truths' they are putting forth - if it reeks of cold detached 'objectivity' and/or life-negating propositions, he's done with it. And I can hardly blame him for that. A good modern day example would be the anti-natalists, who put forth the most 'rock solid' intellectual arguments for why humans should stop procreating and let the species die out. Everything from utilitarian ethics to scientific ecological arguments are employed by them. But none of those arguments matter, according to Nietzsche, because the conclusion reached is life-negating and therefore fundamentally wrong in a manner that cannot be captured by pure rationality. And I don't see any reason that we must adopt scientific and moral relativism to affirm what he is affirming.

[Shaibei]

Nietzsche holds a critical method. He says let's take something in culture as morality and trace the origin of that cultural idea. This idea is significant for postmodernism because it expresses the idea that worldviews and systems of knowledge are not a revelation of truth but a creation of it that is constructed in a process that can be traced.
Nothing is unequivocal or absolutely true and absolute. The essence according to Nietzsche, and the postmodern thinking after it, is to understand why a particular behavior has become the dominant development.
Objectivity does not have to be detached nor a denial of life. The prophet for example ascends as a subject and feels that he is expressing transcendental truth, the word of God. As David says "The spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and His word was upon my tongue"

[AshvinP]

Nietzsche holds a critical method. He says let's take something in culture as morality and trace the origin of that cultural idea. This idea is significant for postmodernism because it expresses the idea that worldviews and systems of knowledge are not a revelation of truth but a creation of it that is constructed in a process that can be traced.
Nothing is unequivocal or absolutely true and absolute. The essence according to Nietzsche, and the postmodern thinking after it, is to understand why a particular behavior has become the dominant development.
Objectivity does not have to be detached nor a denial of life. The prophet for example ascends as a subject and feels that he is expressing transcendental truth, the word of God. As David says "The spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and His word was upon my tongue"

And we should all hold that same critical method. It is no different from American pragmatic philosophy, which traces continuity between our natural progression as humans and what is fundamentally True, but no one would describe those philosophers as "relativists". In fact, objective idealism is very much the same. That's why BK always makes clear that he is a "naturalist", because he knows there cannot be any discontinuity between natural processes and metaphysical truths under idealism. But no one would describe BK's objective idealism as "relativist". If you still hold to that after everything I have pointed out, then I think you have simply decided to go with whatever you concluded about Nietzsche previously, regardless of what arguments are made to undermine those conclusions.

[Shaibei]

Nietzsche holds a critical method. He says let's take something in culture as morality and trace the origin of that cultural idea. This idea is significant for postmodernism because it expresses the idea that worldviews and systems of knowledge are not a revelation of truth but a creation of it that is constructed in a process that can be traced.
Nothing is unequivocal or absolutely true and absolute. The essence according to Nietzsche, and the postmodern thinking after it, is to understand why a particular behavior has become the dominant development.
Objectivity does not have to be detached nor a denial of life. The prophet for example ascends as a subject and feels that he is expressing transcendental truth, the word of God. As David says "The spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and His word was upon my tongue"

And we should all hold that same critical method. It is no different from American pragmatic philosophy, which traces continuity between our natural progression as humans and what is fundamentally True, but no one would describe those philosophers as "relativists". In fact, objective idealism is very much the same. That's why BK always makes clear that he is a "naturalist", because he knows there cannot be any discontinuity between natural processes and metaphysical truths under idealism. But no one would describe BK's objective idealism as "relativist". If you still hold to that after everything I have pointed out, then I think you have simply decided to go with whatever you concluded about Nietzsche previously, regardless of what arguments are made to undermine those conclusions.

Strange, the same can be said about you. I explained what is at the core of Nietzsche's thinking compared to the postmodern thinking that followed it. This has nothing to do with the importance of criticism.
"Truth" is an elusive concept. Indeed there are those who feel uncomfortable about Kant's conclusions and see the laws of physics as valid and substantial. Reality can not surprise us. Here I agree with Nietzsche's words that talking about reality as a set of formulas is like trying to understand what a musical work is just by looking at the notes.

[AshvinP]

Nietzsche holds a critical method. He says let's take something in culture as morality and trace the origin of that cultural idea. This idea is significant for postmodernism because it expresses the idea that worldviews and systems of knowledge are not a revelation of truth but a creation of it that is constructed in a process that can be traced.
Nothing is unequivocal or absolutely true and absolute. The essence according to Nietzsche, and the postmodern thinking after it, is to understand why a particular behavior has become the dominant development.
Objectivity does not have to be detached nor a denial of life. The prophet for example ascends as a subject and feels that he is expressing transcendental truth, the word of God. As David says "The spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and His word was upon my tongue"

And we should all hold that same critical method. It is no different from American pragmatic philosophy, which traces continuity between our natural progression as humans and what is fundamentally True, but no one would describe those philosophers as "relativists". In fact, objective idealism is very much the same. That's why BK always makes clear that he is a "naturalist", because he knows there cannot be any discontinuity between natural processes and metaphysical truths under idealism. But no one would describe BK's objective idealism as "relativist". If you still hold to that after everything I have pointed out, then I think you have simply decided to go with whatever you concluded about Nietzsche previously, regardless of what arguments are made to undermine those conclusions.

Strange, the same can be said about you. I explained what is at the core of Nietzsche's thinking compared to the postmodern thinking that followed it. This has nothing to do with the importance of criticism.
"Truth" is an elusive concept. Indeed there are those who feel uncomfortable about Kant's conclusions and see the laws of physics as valid and substantial. Reality can not surprise us. Here I agree with Nietzsche's words that talking about reality as a set of formulas is like trying to understand what a musical work is just by looking at the notes.

There is nothing inherently relativistic about 'post-modern' philosophy, which could broadly encompass all of 20th century philosophy that was critical of the modern era's rationalism, logical positivism, materialism, etc. So I still don't understand how you equate Nietzsche with relativism simply by asserting he had a large influence on post-modern philosophy, which is undoubtedly true.

[SanteriSatama]

Discussions concerning relativism are often very hard to follow, as relativism is very seldom defined well enough for the purposes of the discussion and very often just an emoticon. If we go by the simplest definition of relativism, it means just negation of objectivism. In that sense various forms of subjectivism could be a form of relativism, but with pain, as subject-object is better comprehended as a codependent relation. Also, very often at closer inquiry objectivism is given meaning 'consensus reality', which is more accurately said a collective form of subjectivism instead of genuine objectivism, what ever that might mean.

Another, IMO more natural negation of objectivism is the absence of the subject-object relation, which in philosophy is often referred to by term 'asubjective'.

Under these definitions, I don't think Nietzsche can be characterized as an objectivist in any sense, but both subjectivist and asubjective can apply to various degrees. The insight that Nietzsche was increasingly channeling Dionysos (whether actual or archetypal deity) during his productive career can be very helpful in this regard, as such channeling can have both aspects of self-aggrandizing subjectivism and asubjective room giving for the archetype/deity.

[AshvinP]

Discussions concerning relativism are often very hard to follow, as relativism is very seldom defined well enough for the purposes of the discussion and very often just an emoticon. If we go by the simplest definition of relativism, it means just negation of objectivism. In that sense various forms of subjectivism could be a form of relativism, but with pain, as subject-object is better comprehended as a codependent relation. Also, very often at closer inquiry objectivism is given meaning 'consensus reality', which is more accurately said a collective form of subjectivism instead of genuine objectivism, what ever that might mean.

Another, IMO more natural negation of objectivism is the absence of the subject-object relation, which in philosophy is often referred to by term 'asubjective'.

Under these definitions, I don't think Nietzsche can be characterized as an objectivist in any sense, but both subjectivist and asubjective can apply to various degrees. The insight that Nietzsche was increasingly channeling Dionysos (whether actual or archetypal deity) during his productive career can be very helpful in this regard, as such channeling can have both aspects of self-aggrandizing subjectivism and asubjective room giving for the archetype/deity.

That's true. I was using "relativism" to mean epistemological and ethical relativism, where we cannot, in principle, ever posit a concept is more True than any other one or Better than any other one. I assert Nietzsche clearly falls outside the scope of either category, even though it is possible to conclude he is within them if we stick a surface level understanding based on aphorisms here or there.

[SanteriSatama]

That's true. I was using "relativism" to mean epistemological and ethical relativism, where we cannot, in principle, ever posit a concept is more True than any other one or Better than any other one. I assert Nietzsche clearly falls outside the scope of either category, even though it is possible to conclude he is within them if we stick a surface level understanding based on aphorisms here or there.

Because of so many types and subtypes of relativism that the term becomes pretty vague, I prefer philosophical skepticism / Pyrrhonism instead of epistemological relativism. We need to make clear that in Pyrrhonism also denial of ability to know is consistently doubted to avoid such naive and blatantly self-contradictory principle that you mention. Epistemology referring here primarily to truth values of propositions.

Ethical relativism contains many positions, descriptive, meta-ethical, normative etc. Nietzsche gets three paragraphs in the wiki about ethical relativism:

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) believed that we have to assess the value of our values since values are relative to one's goals and one's self. He emphasized the need to analyze our moral values and how much impact they may have on us. The problem with morality, according to Nietzsche, is that those who were considered "good" were the powerful nobles who had more education, and considered themselves better than anyone below their rank. Thus, what is considered good is relative. A "good man" is not questioned on whether or not there is a "bad", such as temptations, lingering inside him and he is considered to be more important than a man who is considered "bad" who is considered useless to making the human race better because of the morals we have subjected ourselves to. But since what is considered good and bad is relative, the importance and value we place on them should also be relative. He proposed that morality itself could be a danger.[16] Nietzsche believed that morals should be constructed actively, making them relative to who we are and what we, as individuals, consider to be true, equal, good and bad, etc. instead of reacting to moral laws made by a certain group of individuals in power.[17]

One scholar, supporting an anti-realist interpretation, concludes that "Nietzsche's central argument for anti-realism about value is explanatory: moral facts don't figure in the 'best explanation' of experience, and so are not real constituents of the objective world. Moral values, in short, can be 'explained away.'"[18]

It is certain that Nietzsche criticizes Plato's prioritization of transcendence as the Forms. The Platonist view holds that what is 'true', or most real, is something which is other-worldly while the (real) world of experience is like a mere 'shadow' of the Forms, most famously expressed in Plato's allegory of the cave. Nietzsche believes that this transcendence also had a parallel growth in Christianity, which prioritized life-denying moral qualities such as humility and obedience through the church. (See Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, etc.)

A very common problem in these discussions is that often relativism in all forms is categorically identified as nihilism. That rhetorical strawman stunt is used especially by various moral authorities that consider relativism defying and questioning their moral authority and it's claim of objective universalism. I'm not saying that's what you are doing. The classic example that comes to mind is various popes vs. relativism, and my position in that discussion is to declare Catholic popes as heretics based in my role and authority as a Discordian pope who preaches normative relativism of big fat disagreements.

[AshvinP]

Ethical relativism contains many positions, descriptive, meta-ethical, normative etc. Nietzsche gets three paragraphs in the wiki about ethical relativism:

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) believed that we have to assess the value of our values since values are relative to one's goals and one's self. He emphasized the need to analyze our moral values and how much impact they may have on us. The problem with morality, according to Nietzsche, is that those who were considered "good" were the powerful nobles who had more education, and considered themselves better than anyone below their rank. Thus, what is considered good is relative. A "good man" is not questioned on whether or not there is a "bad", such as temptations, lingering inside him and he is considered to be more important than a man who is considered "bad" who is considered useless to making the human race better because of the morals we have subjected ourselves to. But since what is considered good and bad is relative, the importance and value we place on them should also be relative. He proposed that morality itself could be a danger.[16] Nietzsche believed that morals should be constructed actively, making them relative to who we are and what we, as individuals, consider to be true, equal, good and bad, etc. instead of reacting to moral laws made by a certain group of individuals in power.[17]

One scholar, supporting an anti-realist interpretation, concludes that "Nietzsche's central argument for anti-realism about value is explanatory: moral facts don't figure in the 'best explanation' of experience, and so are not real constituents of the objective world. Moral values, in short, can be 'explained away.'"[18]

It is certain that Nietzsche criticizes Plato's prioritization of transcendence as the Forms. The Platonist view holds that what is 'true', or most real, is something which is other-worldly while the (real) world of experience is like a mere 'shadow' of the Forms, most famously expressed in Plato's allegory of the cave. Nietzsche believes that this transcendence also had a parallel growth in Christianity, which prioritized life-denying moral qualities such as humility and obedience through the church. (See Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, etc.)

A very common problem in these discussions is that often relativism in all forms is categorically identified as nihilism. That rhetorical strawman stunt is used especially by various moral authorities that consider relativism defying and questioning their moral authority and it's claim of objective universalism. I'm not saying that's what you are doing. The classic example that comes to mind is various popes vs. relativism, and my position in that discussion is to declare Catholic popes as heretics based in my role and authority as a Discordian pope who preaches normative relativism of big fat disagreements.

I don't find myself disagreeing with much in the Wiki. Maybe the term "relativism" is simply a bad one to use for anything. There are certainly people who ascribe to various forms of explicit or implicit nihilism and those are the ones I am most concerned with, and ironically so was Nietzsche. The "moral authorities" you reference contribute to the cause of nihilism, because they are setting up 'objective' standards of behavior which cannot possibly be met and are so Otherworldly that adhering to them necessarily causes us to feel mechanistic, mindless and unfree. There is no arguing with Nietzsche on that point, as far as I am concerned.