Nihilism and Philosophy: Nothingness, Truth and World by Gideon Baker

Author:Gideon Baker [Baker, Gideon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Philosophy, Metaphysics, Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Epistemology
ISBN: 9781350035195
Google: 605NDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2018-04-19T21:43:58+00:00

1Agamben’s Paul (2016: 56) is no different at this point: Paul’s ‘“new creature” is only the capacity to render the old inoperative and use it in a new way’.

2Although it has to be said that the same point had already been noted by Spinoza (2007: 173) in his Theological-Political Treatise.

3The dual commandment, along with the two worlds to which it belongs, is reinstated in the Church Fathers, for example in Augustine’s City of God (1963: 345) in which the dualism of the earthly and heavenly cities is the organizing theme: ‘God, the Instructor, teaches two main laws: love of God and love of one’s neighbour.’

4Yet Plato elsewhere (Philebus, 28c6-8) appears to admit that this vision of the world as cosmos, this decision to value the world as ordered, could be seen as the veneration of the intellect that finds it so, that is, of the wise man, the philosopher, himself. If this is correct, then Plato is not blind to the point made by Nietzsche when he suggests that philosophers vainly imagined God after their own image, thereby creating a ‘God-monster of wisdom’ (Brague 2003: 24)!

5According to Diogenes Laertius (1991: 417), Heraclitus’ view was that ‘The moon, which is nearer to the earth, traverses a region which is not pure. The sun, however, moves in a clear and untroubled region, and keeps a proportionate distance from us’. This accords closely with the Pythagorean view that, ‘The air about the earth is stagnant and unwholesome, and all within it is mortal; but the uppermost air is ever-moved and pure and healthy, and all within it is immortal and consequently divine’ (Diogenes Laertius 1991: 343). Like Heraclitus, Anaxagoras answered the question as to why human existence has value: ‘Because it allows me to view the heavens and the whole order of the cosmos’ (in Nietzsche 1962: 113).

6For all this, Augustine’s thinking of truth and world is not reducible to Platonism. As he writes in his Confessions (1961: Book 7.20): ‘By reading those books of the Platonists I had been prompted to look for truth as something incorporeal, and I “caught site of your invisible nature, as it is known through your creatures” [Rom. 1.20] [. . .] [Thus] I should be able to see and understand the difference [. . .] between those who see the goal that they must reach, but cannot see the road by which they are to reach it, and those who see the road to that blessed country which is meant to be no mere vision but our home.’

7Although as early as 1930, Heidegger was clarifying (1988: 13): ‘It was never my idea to preach an “existential philosophy”. Rather, I have been concerned with renewing the question of ontology [. . .] the question of being.’

8Bornkamm (1971: 147) thinks that salvation in Paul is for the individual since this is what sets Paul apart from the Jewish apocalyptic tradition, where it is rather a matter of the salvation of the world.

9Although not attributed to Paul by most scholars, Breton believes this epistle to be directly inspired by Paul.

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