In his work Daybreak, Nietzsche challenges our understanding of what constitutes the self. Instead he offers a rather provocative understanding of what constitutes the self. For one to be able to understand Nietzsche’s view of the self, one has to interpret his concept of drives. So, what are drives? Properties attributed to drives show that they are unconscious entities that seek “nourishment” (to be explained below) to manifest themselves to
This unique characteristic is rewarded with torture, expressed by the imagery and figurative language present throughout the poem. “What was thy pity’s recompense?/A silent suffering and intense;”(5-6, Byron). The use of the descriptive word “silent” represents both the way the other gods looked upon Prometheus’s sentence and the pride with which he held himself in its duration. He is viewed by Byron as a martyr of liberty, a cause that Byron was very adamant about and eventually gave his life for in the Greek War for Independence. Prometheus’s compassion for lesser mortals is juxtaposed against the natural hierarchy of his society, due to the fact that “Titans, like gods, have hitherto been the object of human attention, models of human aspiration and resentment.
He believes that it is “a will to nothingness, an aversion to life, a rebellion against the most fundamental presuppositions of life.” To explain this we must first define sacrifices in general, which is to give up something so as to feel better when suffering, reaching a moment of inspirational truth. In this idea Nietzsche challenges the true ideals of sacrifice by saying, sacrifice is only truly virtues when you give up something for nothing in return. If we look closely at the consequences of peoples sacrifice we see a trend of return interest, that is people receive a feeling of well-being. Nietzsche explains that sacrifice is only used for personal self-interest; in this point the word sacrifice has disbelief in its self. To escape from this continuing moral dilemma we have two choices: 1, we sacrifice, sacrifice all together or 2, we sacrifice for nothing.
In this respect, morality and Socratism are the expressions of a vital drive analogous to those which give birth to the figures of Apollo and Dionysus, as they are both connected to the metaphysical inquiry into the nature of things. Still, the Socratic worldview fails in seeing its dependency and connections to these drives, and thus fails to see its connection to life and its irrational kernel . According to Nietzsche, this mindset is the result of a pathology, as it gives too much merit to appearances while it excludes the Will from its view, making the former absolute and arranging them in a rational but insincere way. Socratism is then made of the same substance of the drives which inspire tragedy insofar as it is an expression of life, but, in both a literal and a metaphysical sense, it is the result of a sick form of this substance – it presents a metaphysical view of reality, just like art, but at the same time causes life to retreat within the safe walls of reasonableness, as by contrast art pushes the person to transcend them . In some respect, we can see here one of the seeds of Nietzsche’s later intuitions, and I believe there is no harm in employing them to elucidate this point.
The disregard for our consequences of behaviour is referred to as ‘primary process thinking’. The second area Freud called the ‘ego’ and he claimed that this dominates the human mind. It is the part in contact with the outside world and it considers the consequences of an action and carries out ‘secondary process thinking.’ Ego led individuals are said to be well balanced. The third part of the mind Freud called the ‘superego’. It is said this develops as behaviour is motivated by trying to balance the needs of the id (pleasure, comfort and food.)
Poet T.S. Eliot infamously referred to Titus as “one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written,” while playwright Edward Ravenscroft dismissed it simply as a “heap of rubbish” (Shakespeare, 399). Yet for all of Titus’s grotesque horrors, the violence that seemingly repulsed Eliot and company should not be viewed as erratic, uncalculated acts. Rather they should be understood as representations of a wider, symbolic significance. It is through dismemberment, and the dismemberment of hands in particular, that the play can be seen through an emblematic perspective to signify the justification of vengeance and the loss of political and personal agency.
Essay Question 1: Existentialism in No Exit In Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit, Sartre masterfully combines an underlying theme of existentialist philosophy ironically in a scene portraying Hell. No Exit communicates existential philosophy by expressing that requiring outside approval is a failing in human nature, that one must take absolute responsibility for one’s actions, and that God does not exist. Existentialism states that humans have the ability to choose and define their own individualities or characteristics, also known as one’s essence. However, this freedom brings with it the absolute responsibility for one's actions. The overwhelming significance of this complete responsibility causes fear and anxiety in many people.
The fundamental belief of metaphysics solely relies on the belief in oppositions of values. But Nietzsche questions this, ‘all is to be doubted,’ asking how do opposites originate – why is truth and deception or selfless and selfishness evil opposites? What if “value for life … [is] … ascribed to deception, selfishness, and lust”? [§2] There is a fundamental faith in opposites here that has never been questioned, these ‘highest values’ originated from where? Nietzsche asserts this prejudice is the first major fault philosophers make, these provisional perspectives identifies held prejudices, priori beliefs upon which they build theories of ‘truth’.
This is the most likely as Hobbes justifies the state by explaining that as humans are by nature are selfish, unsocial creatures driven by two needs: survival and personal pleasure. Life is characterized by constant struggle - strife and war - in which individual is pitted against individual in a battle for self-preservation. Hobbes believed that life was nasty brutish and short in the state of nature and this necessitates a state formed by hypothetical consent to a social contract. By consenting this state you surrender your natural rights to an absolute sovereign and in return you are granted rights in the form of positive law. Locke also gives a justification for the state, for one a state would give a firm, clearly understood interpretation of natural law, unbiased judges to resolve disputes, and it would resolve the problem that personal recourse to solving problems is unjust.
It is the unconscious part of our minds and/or ego. Jung believed that whenever we criticized someone, cast them out for their indifference, or simply envied others, these traits of human nature are placed into our shadow side. Carl Jung believed that eventually these traits would manifest in the shadow side, and one day will be used and only then will you find tolerance for that trait which you criticized. “Every one carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it becomes. At all accounts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well meant intentions (“Eigen”).