The Nietzsche Podcast

Nietzsche listed Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) among the best French writers of the Renaissance, and called him a link to classical antiquity. The personal seal of Montaigne read, “What do I know?” For Montaigne, doubting was no less pleasing than knowing, and he exemplified the philosopher’s proclivity to inquire about every proposition. In his work we find the forerunner of not only skepticism...

Devin Goure is a scholar with a background in philosophy, an interest in psychology, mental health & neurodivergence. He holds a PhD in political theory. He's known as Left Nietzschean on X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/DevinGoure You can find Devin's substack here: https://devingour.substack.com/ In this conversation, Devin and I discuss the meaning of leftism in modernity. I asked him a number of...

In this second part of our exploration of Deleuze, we go straight into the Deleuzian understanding of ressentiment, and the significance of Nietzsche's distinction between ressentiment and the bad conscience. Deleuze's interpretation is predominantly psychological/physiological, and he sees the origins of ressentiment in the "inverted image" produced by reactive forces. Ressentiment therefore does...

Multiple discourses on birth, death & resurrection. Featuring Andrei Georgescu, Vivienne Magdalen, Mynaa Miesnowan. Includes a segment of where my wife and I read Youtube comments. Here's to another year of the podcast! Episode art: Dionysian Ghost of Christmas by John Leech

Giles Deleuze is one of the most significant figures of French postmodernism, famous for his work with psychoanalyst Felix Guattari. In this episode, we're going to consider Deleuze's work, Nietzsche and Philosophy. In the words of Deleuze, the opposition to Hegel runs through the entirety of Nietzsche's work as its cutting edge. Nietzsche's philosophy is truly 'against the dialectic': as Nietzsch...

I'd originally planned to launch into Deleuze this week, but I'm busy playing shows all weekend and decided to release this instead. I think this was a great episode, perhaps one of the best Untimely Reflections yet. Andrei Georgescu is an old friend of the show. He's a writer, a graphic designer, and a podcaster. A few months ago, he published an essay called, "Seedless Flowers:...

GWF Hegel is one of the most difficult philosophers in the western canon, but today we’ attempt to demystify him. In this episode, we’ll break down Hegel’s phenomenology, the dialectic, and the Hegelian understanding of desire. Our concrete entrypoint into the thought of Hegel is his famous chapter, The Master-Slave Dialectic. Deleuze argued that Nietzsche’s work constitutes a rejection of Hegel:...

Today we continue with our inquiry into rhetoric and dialectic, with Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig, like Nietzsche, saw himself as a modern-day Sophist, and part of his work was the rescue of the Sophistic school from the ill repute visited upon them by the Socratics. Perhaps more expansively, Pirsig devotes his philosophical work to the question, “What is quali...

In my second conversation with William, we discuss the possibilities for language-learning models, the coming of artificial general intelligence, why the writers may be striking against creative destruction in the economy, and the legitimacy of A.I. art and writing.

This episode concerns the autobiographical essays in Ecce Homo, which Kaufmann has called, Nietzsche’s Apology. Similarly to Socrates, Nietzsche gives a defense of himself and his career: a defense against being “mistaken”, or “misunderstood”. Like Socrates, who came with a special mission for Athens, Nietzsche comes with the greatest demand ever made of mankind. Central to our analysis is the phy...

Socrates was a famous opponent of the Sophists, the teachers of rhetoric instead of truth - and yet, in his legal defense, he employs the techniques of rhetoric and displays a mastery of oratory. In a society that distrusted irony and regarded it as a form of dishonesty, Socrates uses the art of persuasion in a manner that is anti-persuasive: a brilliant irony that few of his judges would have und...

In this episode, I attempt to give a fresh biographical account of Nietzsche's life, by examining his life in light of his Three Metamorphoses of the Spirit, found in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In the course of this biography, using Nietzsche as our concrete example, we discuss the abstract meaning of the Camel, the Lion & the Child, and where I see these transformations appearing in the course of Ni...

A Merry All Hallow’s Eve to Ye All! There will be a regular episode this Friday, but I can’t resist the opportunity to release an episode on the day of Halloween. Mynaa and I discuss a Persian novel concerning Nietzschean existential horror! Sadegh Hedayat grew up in the Iran of the Shah, and was influenced by western writers such as Kafka & Hesse. The urban legends surrounding this text in Iran w...

Welcome to all free spirits, wanderers, madmen and godless anti-metaphysicians! It is high time to drink from the waters of Lethe, and forget all that came before in this podcast. Today, we embark on a new phase of our voyage of inquiry, concerning Nietzsche's views on the origins of self-consciousness. We'll consider his remarks on memory and forgetfulness, found in his early essay Use an...

Update on my life and the podcast, some random musings and stories. NO EPISODE NEXT WEEK. We’re taking a short break before season 4. Cheers

Nietzsche concludes the book with the suggestion that cognition itself is “common”, insofar as communicability is more effective the more common the experience that is communicated. Language facilitates the “abbreviation” of the most common sentiments and experiences, which is part of the process of joining a people together as one. The person whose experiences, thoughts or feelings are individual...

The first half of the final chapter, “What is Noble”. We cover the concepts of the order of rank, pathos of distance, the origins of civilization and morality. The master/slave morality is formally introduced, and Nietzsche gives several remarks supporting his aristocratic radicalism. But, shortly thereafter, he pivots and begins describing nobility and plebeianism as states of the soul rather tha...

This episode covers the entirety of Peoples and Fatherlands, chapter eight of Beyond Good and Evil. Nietzsche considers the character of the Germans, that of the French and the English, and the Jews. He attacks nationalism and anti-semitism, and reiterates his vision for a new European future in which all nationalities give way to a single Europe. Patriotism, or “fatherlandishness”, even though it...

A fascinating discussion with someone with an unusual perspective for modern times. Vivienne joins me while we go over the remainder of aphorisms from Beyond Good & Evil, section 7, Our Virtues: the ones concerning women. This is a topic that is incredibly complex and has often been handled without nuance by modern readers: either by those who criticize Nietzsche as a misogynist, or those who cele...

My unnecessarily long review of the cultural meaning of Barbenheimer.

This part of the text is a re-evaluation of what morality is, or can be, for the philosopher of the future. Nietzsche is a bit sneaky here, by implying the free spirit, or philosopher of the future, to be admirable from the perspective of our own moral intuition. Nevertheless, he throws us some curveballs here and there as the chapter continues, and Nietzsche attempts to lyrically portray the para...

Today, we cover the entirety of part six - We Scholars. This chapter is of particular importance for understanding Nietzsche’s reconceptualization of the philosopher, and how such a figure stands in relation to the academic. The philosopher’s essential character is not that he employs reason, but that he exercises the value-creating power of mankind, whereas the scholar is merely a “philosophical...

Much of the second half of the Natural History of Morals is a meditation on the common morality as one of prudence, stupidity, and fear. In one word: timidity. Nietzsche draws upon ideas he’s explored in Human all too Human, Daybreak & The Gay Science: man as animal/natural being, morality as a means of dealing with vehement drives, and the wicked person as being just as indispensable as the moral...

A question and answer session just from the patrons, though I figured the public would enjoy some of the topics covered. Enjoy!

Finally getting into part five, The Natural History of Morals. We’re more than halfway through the text, and Nietzsche applies his psychological method to morality. Episode art is Satan overlooking Paradise by Gustave Dore.