| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Matt Carrico
Apprentice
29 Posts |
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
 Posted - Dec 06 2010 : 3:09:09 PM
|
| Matt, this is a really good question, but I think that instead of jumping in and stealing anyone else's thunder, I'll let others tussle with this for a while. |
 |
|
|
Abraham Valenzuela
Fledgling
10 Posts |
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Dec 08 2010 : 08:03:58 AM
|
Abraham, since a pun is a joke that involves either playing on two or more senses of a word or else on the fact that two different words (that have very different meanings) sound alike, it's hard to see any of Nietzsche's uses of the word "soul" as a punning use. He'd have to be trying to get a laugh due to the fact that "soul" sounds like "sole" or something like that (e.g., "Maybe we could call the fact that A believes in the soul whereas B does not "the soul difference" between them -- since otherwise their views are so very much alike!").
I'll grant you, though, that Nietzsche may sometimes use the word for humorous effect, and his humor often involves irony -- not typically sarcasm, I think, but irony. (Irony and sarcasm are easily confused with one another. If you're interested in the difference, take the course I'm offering next semester on Kierkegaard v. Sokrates. It's going to treat of irony and related forms of humor in a really central way.)
But I think that Nietzsche is prepared to say that soul exists. Remember that what he has Zarathustra say in that memorable passage in "On the Despisers of the Body" in the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra:quote:
"Body am I, and soul" -- thus speaks the child. And why should one not speak like children?
But the awakened and knowing say: body am I entirely, and nothing else; and soul is only a word for something about the body. (The Portable Nietzsche 146)
This suggests that the soul is something that Nietzsche may take every bit as seriously as he takes, say, sickness and health: the words "sickness" and "health" are words for something about the body. One needn't stop using them simply because one doesn't think that health and sickness are non-corporeal substances that enter into bodies and depart from them. Similarly, there are people who are extremely spiritual, but this has to do with they way they live their very corporeal lives; it doesn't entail that in addition to their bodies there exist -- incorporeal spirits! |
|
|
|
Abraham Valenzuela
Fledgling
10 Posts |
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Dec 09 2010 : 06:55:33 AM
|
Abraham, is the Biblical passage you're thinking of Corinthians 13:11: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things"? I think there can be no doubt that there is an allusion in what Nietzsche makes Zarathustra say to this passage, and the point is doubtless that the Christian conception of the soul is a thoroughly childish conception that those who are "awakened and knowing" have put away just as Paul says he put away childish things when he grew up.
Once again, though, this isn't sarcasm. It's irony. Here's a nice (even if somewhat oversimplified) explanation of the difference between irony and sarcasm as forms of speech, and that's a good place to begin. But the irony we're talking about here is an objective irony: an ironic state of affairs, not a mode of discourse, for the irony that Nietzsche is trying to get his readers to see (and that perhaps Zarathustra himself is trying to get those he is speaking to to see) lies in the fact -- or what in any case Nietzsche (and I guess we could say Nietzsche's Zarathustra, too) sees as a fact -- that Christians like Paul, who profess to have gotten over childish notions, clearly haven't: they still believe in a soul that could exist apart from the body. Neither Nietzsche nor Zarathustra is using either irony or sarcasm here (neither is "being" either ironic or sarcastic); instead, the passage is one in which what's being pointed out is the irony (here, the discrepancy between appearance and reality) in the fact that people who seem to themselves to be the very opposite of childish in their ways of speaking and thinking are so very childish in their ways of speaking and thinking. It really is possible to see irony in certain facts whereas it's absolutely impossible to see sarcasm in a fact. It makes perfectly good sense to say "there's something really ironic about the fact that the Republicans a proposing a policy that is going to add to the deficit" whereas it makes no sense whatsoever to say "there's something really sarcastic about the fact that the Republicans are proposing a policy that is going to add to the deficit."
As for what the purpose of the soul would be if it's a part of the body, what is it that moves you to ask this question? Is it a conviction that all the familiar parts of the body have purposes? Nietzsche generally rejects this sort of teleology. Also: Zarathustra doesn't say here that the word "soul" is a word for a part of the body. That's why I compared it to health and sickness. Those aren't parts of the body either, though each of them is certainly describable as something about the body (i.e., as having to do with the body's condition. Compare Aristotle's use of the word "soul" to refer to that thanks to which a living plant or animal is a living plant or animal: its ability to do the things that constitute living for things of its kind. This is very different from the "childish" use of the word "soul" to refer to something that could exist apart from the body, but it's not tantamount to a use of the word to refer to a part of the body. A living thing's ability to live isn't one of its organs.
Regarding talk about "the faith of a child": usually, people who talk about this with reference to the Bible have either Mark 10:15 or the parallel passage at Luke 18:17 in mind ("Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein"). I don't see how this passage in Thus Spoke Zarathustra could be seen as involving an allusion to that. There, the whole point is that we should "become as little children" (cf. Matthew 18) not that we should grow up. |
|
|
|
Elise Harris
Fledgling
16 Posts |
Posted - Dec 09 2010 : 12:38:37 PM
|
Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of the passage in the Gospels in which Jesus says that in order to achieve true greatness, one must become as a little child. Jesus says this to his disciples when they are arguing about who among them is the greatest. This seems to say that the soul of a child is in fact closer to greatness and closer to God, and although we should give up our childish nature as we mature into adulthood (as Paul was suggesting in his letter to the Corinthians), we should not give up certain traits of being child-like, which is quite different.
Also, while some believe that a person is a body, and some believe the person is a soul, the Christian tradition maintains that the person is a unity of the two, that the person consists of both body and soul, and that each serves a unique purpose. According to Christian teachings, we are human beings made in the image and likeness of God, and therefore we have both a human element and a Divine element. Our bodies are the human, physical part of us, and our souls -- or better, our spirits -- have the Divine imprint of God, providing us with the opportunity to join Him in Heaven once we die. That is the "purpose," or nature of a soul. It is a part of us, just as our hands and our feet, eyes, ears, noses and mouths are parts of us. Each of these parts serves a specific purpose, and so does the soul -- it is a part of us that cannot be removed because it is beyond the physical, by which we are limited. As to this understanding of a soul, I don't know what Nietzsche would say. I certainly don't think he would say that the body and the soul are the same thing, however I agree that he does give the idea of the soul some presence.
[Lightly edited to enhance readability -TT] |
|
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Dec 11 2010 : 09:38:57 AM
|
Right. The question in Matthew 18, Mark 9, and Luke 9 has to do with which of the disciples is the greatest, and Jesus' response in Matthew 18 (verses 1-11, where the question has to do specifically with which of the disciples is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven) involves the idea that one must become as a child even to enter the kingdom of heaven (both the question and the answer are a little different in Mark 9:33-50 and in Luke 9:46-50). As for your idea about the implication of this concerning the soul of a child, I'm not so sure about that....
As for what Nietzsche would say about the understanding of the soul as a part of us, I think it's clear that he would reject it. Let me quote once more the passage in "On the Despisers of the Body" in the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra that I quoted just a few posts back:quote:
"Body am I, and soul" -- thus speaks the child. And why should one not speak like children?
But the awakened and knowing say: body am I entirely, and nothing else; and soul is only a word for something about the body. (The Portable Nietzsche 146)
As I said to Abraham, I think this makes it tolerably clear that the soul is something that Nietzsche is inclined to take every bit as seriously as he takes, say, sickness and health: the words "sickness" and "health" are also words for something about the body. One needn't stop using those words simply because one doesn't think that health and sickness are non-corporeal substances that enter into bodies and depart from them. Similarly, we talk about people who are extremely spiritual, but this has to do with they way they live their very corporeal lives; it really doesn't entail that in addition to their bodies there exist -- incorporeal spirits! The use of the word "soul" needn't commit one to what Nietzsche sees as the childish view that "[b]ody and soul are [we]" or, as you put it, that "the person consists of both body and soul." One can speak of the soul -- as Nietzsche does -- and think that "bodies are we entirely, and nothing else." There's nothing inconsistent in Nietzsche's continuing to use the word "soul" even after he has rejected utterly the dualistic metaphysics that postulates a soul or spirit "beyond the physical" that you yourself are inclined to accept. |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
Nietzsche on the Soul...
