Tag Archives: Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist by Walter Kaufmann

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Walter Kaufmann’s Nietzsche is the book that got Anglo-American philosophers to take Nietzsche seriously after World War II. It was originally published in 1950 and has been selling ever since. Some observers think Kaufmann may have been a bit too easy on Nietzsche, but there is no doubt that Kaufmann’s book is a classic and Nietzsche was a great philosopher whose works justify serious consideration.

Nietzsche viewed the “will to power” as humanity’s basic motivating force, but didn’t worship violence. Despite what’s commonly believed, Nietzsche wasn’t a proto-Nazi or an anti-Semite. Neither was he a political liberal. It’s best to view him as a kind of aristocrat, in the way that Aristotle was an aristocrat when he wrote n favor of the “great-souled man” (“a person is thought to be great-souled if he claims much and deserves much”).

According to Nietzsche, there is a natural aristocracy of individuals who can control their passions and channel their will to power into the accomplishment of great things. In Nietzsche’s view, Caesar and Napoleon were natural aristocrats, but so were Socrates, Jesus, Michaelangelo, Spinoza, Goethe and Wagner:

Quite generally, Nietzsche distinguishes between (a) men whom he admires, (b) the ideas for which they stand, and (c) their followers. Only in terms of some such categories can one understand Nietzsche’s complex attitude toward Jesus, Christianity and Christendom [i.e. he admired the first, criticized the second and hated the third.]

Similarly, Nietzsche admired Schopenhauer; respected but criticized Schopenhauer’s philosophy; and despised his followers. Nietzsche admired Wagner and felt drawn to much of his music, but he abominated the ostentatiously Christian nationalists and anti-Semites who congregated in Bayreuth…

Nietzsche’s fight against Socrates thus takes two forms: denunciations of his epigoni [his disciples] and respectful criticisms of his doctrines… [Socrates] is the very embodiment of Nietzsche’s highest ideal: the passionate man who can control his passions [398-399].

By all accounts, Nietzsche was a kind and considerate person despite his critical nature. He even argued that the strong should be considerate of the weak (the bulk of humanity). I’d recommend Kaufmann’s book as a helpful and enjoyable account of Nietzsche’s philosophy, but Kaufmann spends a lot of time responding to old, misleading descriptions of Nietzsche’s positions. That made sense 60 years ago, but it makes Nietzsche (the book, not the philosopher), feel somewhat dated now.

Friedrich Nietzsche on Doing It Again

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Friedrich Nietzsche had a recurring thought about recurrence.

In one of his early works, he imagines people being asked “whether they would wish to live through the past ten or twenty years once more”.

In a later work, he appears to raise the stakes:

What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more” … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine”.

Assuming the demon and I didn’t get hung up on questions like “Who are you anyway?” and “Are you sure about that?”, I’d want some clarification. (I can’t imagine gnashing my teeth, since I don’t know what that is.)

Tell me, demon. Would I know that I was living my life again? There wouldn’t seem to be much point in doing it again from scratch.

The demon would probably have a ready answer: if you knew you were living it again, it wouldn’t be the same as living it the first time. You’d have more knowledge the second (or third, or fourth) time around, and presumably be in a position to make different choices.

Right, the Debbie Anderson thing again.

But if I didn’t know anything more this time or remember how things turned out before, what difference would it make? Even if things turned out differently, I wouldn’t know they were turning out differently. I’d simply be living my life as if it were the first time. In fact, for all I know, I’m living my life right now for the umpteenth time, even though it sure feels like the very first (and only) time.

The demon might be nonplussed at this point. Hey, he might say, I never thought of it that way. If you remember you’re doing it again, you’re not really doing it again. But if you don’t know you’re doing it again, you might as well be doing it for the first time. Oh well, I guess it was a stupid question to begin with.

Nietzsche clearly didn’t think it was a stupid question. He thought that a superior person would willingly live the very same life over and over again. To do so would be the highest affirmation. Life is tragic and full of pain, but the best among us will embrace it anyway.

He’s probably right about that, even though the idea of “eternal recurrence” is a dead end.

What some of us really want, of course, is to go back and do things differently. If I could only go back to that one moment ten years ago, or forty years ago, I’d do it better this time.

Since we’re merely human, fantasizing about the past is much easier than getting the future right.

On the Genealogy of Morality by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Maudmarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen

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On the Genealogy of Morality (more often translated as “On the Genealogy of Morals”) is Nietzsche’s attempt to explain why many of us subscribe to Judeo-Christian morality, and why we’re wrong to do so.

The book is divided into three treatises. In the first treatise, Nietzsche argues that there was an ancient distinction between “good” and “bad”. “Good” referred to the powerful, i.e. the nobility; “bad” referred to the weak, i.e. the slaves. Then Judaism and Christianity popularized a new distinction, replacing “bad” with “evil”. “Good” people were now those who followed strictures like the Golden Rule and evil people were those who didn’t. Judeo-Christian morality embraces ideas like compassion for the weak in place of respect (including self-respect) for the strong. It is “slave morality”.

The second treatise describes the origins of punishment in the ancient relationship between creditor and debtor and the subsequent creation of the guilty conscience. God was erected as the ultimate creditor to which we owe absolutely everything. We are not worthy. We feel guilt. Nietzsche says that having a guilty conscience is a kind of sickness. We should accept the fact that we all have a fundamental “will to power” or, what he says is an equivalent phrase, an “instinct for freedom”. If we suppress our will to power, if we do not act as we will, our internal energy bursts forth in other ways. We become sick. We suffer. 

According to Nietzsche, bad conscience should really be wed to “the unnatural inclinations, all those aspirations to the beyond, to that which is contrary to the senses, contrary to the instincts, contrary to nature, contrary to the animal — in short, the previous ideals which … are hostile to life, ideals of those who libel the world” (section 24).

Not everyone recommends reading the third treatise. It is an extended rant concerning the ill effects of religion as practiced by the “ascetic priest”. To quote Nietzsche: “the ascetic ideal and its sublime-moral cult, this most ingenious, most unsuspected and most dangerous systematizing of all the instruments of emotional excess under the aegis of holy intentions, has inscribed itself in a terrible and unforgettable way into the entire history of man” (section 21). But not all is lost: “It is from the will to truth’s becoming conscious of itself that from now on — there is no doubt about it — morality will gradually perish” (section 27).

Nietzsche apparently believes that the will to power or instinct for freedom is such a large part of human psychology that it is foolish to deny it. In order to live good, healthy lives, we need to create our own morality, one that meets our need for power and freedom, if we are capable of doing so. This does not necessarily mean that we must treat other people badly. We just have to remember that we should always come first. It isn’t surprising that this philosophy appeals to some people, since it is awfully one-dimensional. Fortunately, cooperation, compassion and even altruism are natural too.  (4/2/12)

American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

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Friedrich Nietzsche has probably affected more people than any other philosopher, except Karl Marx. American Nietzsche describes the effect Nietzsche has had on generations of Americans, including philosophers, theologians, journalists and literary critics, as well as ordinary citizens. Many have considered him to be a kind of prophet, or at least a kindred spirit.

Nietzsche expressed strong opinions on ultimate questions, and his aphoristic, feverish style has supported many interpretations. I didn’t realize that he greatly admired Ralph Waldo Emerson and how similar their views were. First came Emerson, then Nietzsche, then pragmatists like William James and John Dewey. Walter Kaufmann made Nietzsche popular again after World War II and Richard Rorty tried to synthesize Emerson, Nietzsche and Dewey, among others. It’s quite an interesting story if you enjoy intellectual history.  (3/25/12)

Nietzsche’s Perspectivism by Steven D. Hales and Rex Welshon

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Nietzsche is generally credited with (or accused of) inventing or popularizing a philosophical view known as “perspectivism”. Philosophers, of course, disagree about what perspectivism is, but, roughly speaking, perspectivism is the idea that all knowledge and belief involves interpretation and all interpretation is carried out from a particular perspective. The fact that all of our ideas are bound up with some perspective or other is then taken to show that our ideas are somehow limited or unreliable. There is no perspective-free knowledge, science or morality. Another way of putting this claim is that we have no access to a “God’s-eye” view of the world.

Perspectivism seems to be one step away from relativism, which might be characterized as the view that no perspective is better than any other. Nietzsche believed that some perspectives are definitely better than others, which is why he was not a relativist.

Hales and Welshon discuss Nietzsche’s views on several different kinds of perspectivism, including perspectivism about truth, knowledge and morality. They also try to explain Nietzsche’s views about the fundamental nature of reality. Although Nietzsche severely criticized those metaphysicians who tried to characterize the world as it is “in itself”, he apparently believed that the world is composed of “quanta of power” and that every quantum of power is associated with a perspective. Hales and Welshon argue that this does not make Nietzsche a metaphysician. Maybe a better explanation is that these ideas came to Nietzsche late in life and are somewhat peripheral to his philosophy.  (3/11/12)