The Guardian's How to Believe series summarizes some great philosophical works in the reversed-date format we all know and love. Giles Frasier evaluates the lasting value of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, Julian Baggini tells us what to believe about Hume's critique of religion, Mary Midgeley begrudgingly accepts the majestic contributions of Hobbes' Leviathan, and Simon Critchley throws himself into the hermeneutic circle of Heidegger's Being and Time. [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea on Jul 1, 2009 - 63 comments

I both loved and resented that wealth of warmth which Elisabeth brought to me in those unexpected hours of the night. I was usually in the midst of a sound sleep when she got into my bed, and thrilling as I found the ministrations of her fat little fingers, it also meant my being kept awake for hours and hours. Besides, though in my conscious nature I knew nothing about what was going on, I must have had a feeling that my sister was bringing to my life as accomplished facts sensations whose real value to a boy was in their being discovered as part of the experience of growing up. She was presenting me with triumphs I should by right attain only by my own efforts in a much more restricted world… [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Mar 20, 2009 - 11 comments

Human, All Too Human
posted by cthuljew on Dec 3, 2008 - 26 comments

Are We All Really Just Disembodied Brains Floating in Empty Space? Recent mathematical results in the field of cosmology related to the Boltzmann's Brain Problem may point toward a peculiarly arbitrary universe in which, as improbable as it sounds, it's more likely than not. [more inside]
posted by saulgoodman on Jan 16, 2008 - 104 comments

One should speak only when one may not remain silent; and then speak only of that which one has overcome—everything else is chatter, "literature," lack of breeding. My writings speak only of my overcomings: "I" am in them, together with everything that was hostile to me.

On January 3, 1889, Friedrich Nietzsche walked into the Piazza Carlo Alberto in Turin and saw a horse, fallen, beaten brutally by its master. Nietzsche embraced it, and thereafter never regained his reason. The story might be mythical, or borrowed. If so, it is hardly alone; myths about Nietzsche--his Nazism, his syphilis--seem to confirm his dictum that "truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions." But separating the man from the myth is impossible: Nietzsche was Zarathustra, he was Heraclitus. Like his ancient antecedents, he spoke in aphorisms and hymns, in fragments; like a bird, he fled south for the winter. "Only a fool, only a poet..."
posted by nasreddin on Sep 13, 2007 - 74 comments

Nietzsche Family Circus : Family Circus cartoons randomly combined with quotes from Nietzsche. Remixing Family Circus is nothing new, but I find this one fascinating.
posted by Lirp on Oct 5, 2006 - 30 comments

Plato was a bore. Everything Nietzsche ever wrote is available on The Nietzsche Channel, in both English and German. They have many other Nietzsche-related resources, including a quiz. (Geocities, unfortunately.)
posted by louigi on Nov 24, 2004 - 12 comments