Critique of Walter Kaufmanns Nietzsches Attitude Toward Socrates It would perhaps be thought to be better, indeed to be our duty, for

the sake of maintaining the truth even to destroy what touches us closely, especially as we are philosophers or lovers of wisdom; for while both are dear, piety requires us to honor truth above our friends. Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, I,6 The publication of Nietzsches The Birth of Tragedy early in 1872 at once incited two remarkable points of issue within a number of nineteenth-century German philological and philosophical circles. Whereas one contention centered upon Nietzsches enthusiasm to establish the composer Richard Wagner as Aeschylus heir apparent, i. e., as the most qualified candidate who would be capable of reanimating the Dionysian spirit within the German Kultur a vitriolic debate that forever contaminated Nietzsches career as a philologist the other concerned his (Nietzsches) rather curious, negative-to-ambivalent disposition toward the Platonic Socrates. However, while later Nietzsche came to regret and publicly to rescind his own unabashed evaluation of the musical genius as perhaps the only living hero who could again symbolically deliver us from everything sub specie saeculi and thus convey us to the bosom of that all-inclusive aesthetic ground, which Schopenhauer had named das Ur-Eine; and, with his rambling The Case of Wagner (1888), himself concluded the first debate by characterizing Wagners art as sick [krank] [1] and identifying it as a sanctuary for the layman and the art-idiot [2], he never quite resolved his preoccupation with Socrates as both a thinker and personality. Indeed, not even in his Ecce Homo (1888) that singularly unorthodox autobiography of a rapidly deteriorating but still lucid and vivacious intellect did he come to terms with this ugly Greek. While this second controversy evidently abated by the turn of the twentieth century with the generally-concurred-upon conclusion that Nietzsche did in fact attempt to abrogate and supersede the authority of Socrates metaphysically-grounded moralo-epistemic system on at least two occasions, in 1948 with an article and in 1950 with his book entitled Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist [3], Walter Kaufmann threatened to revive the dispute by audaciously proposing not only that Nietzsche viewed Socrates as little less than an idol [4], but that it is even false to say that Nietzsche abominated Socratism, if the latter is taken to mean the [philosophical] outlook Socrates embodied [5]. Surprisingly, after several decades this gauntlet of Kaufmanns remains down: not only has a host of cognoscenti written at length (and some republished their pre-1950 major works) on Nietzsche without so much as venturing a passive observation concerning Kaufmanns posture on this question, but what is even more startling is that many of them appear contented merely to point to primarily by means of animadversions and loaded terms and phrases but not expound the possibly worldwide (but certainly Western) cultural implications of Nietzsches manifestly unpropitious inclination toward Socrates. As a consequence, thus far we have read an impressive aggregate of vituperations that identify Socrates as Nietzsches problem [6], villain [7], and arch-villain [8], but ones which hardly enrich our understanding of the reasons why Nietzsche found his didactics both personally unpalatable and existencestagnating.

In the following text, therefore, I shall attempt to do what ought to have been done some time ago: I shall examine in detail and hope to rectify the (in my judgment) decidedly misleading text in Kaufmanns above-cited book; namely, Chapter 13, entitled Nietzsches Attitude Toward Socrates. The governing principle here will be my understanding that Nietzsche not only did not subscribe to Socratism, but that perhaps most of his prominent philosophical conceptions in fact originated in and pivot around his colorful confutation of Socrates aesthetic/moral prescriptions: To be beautiful everything must be intelligible [9], and Knowledge is virtue [10]. My criticism, therefore, will be assiduously advocating the idea that the practical subversion of these culturally entrenched, libido-sublimating standards represented for Nietzsche a most imperative and urgent enterprise whereby morality can be returned to its historically incipient and existentially rightful function; that is, for morality to serve as an auxiliary, not as an impediment, to mans selfexpression. Hence, I shall be ipso facto attempting to demonstrate that Nietzsche regarded Socrates as, essentially, a socio-culturally destructive phenomenon of world-historical proportions. Perhaps the immediate impression that one who is reasonably well versed in the scholarship on Nietzsche would form is that our detailed critique of Kaufmans views on Nietzsches disposition toward Socrates is untimely. After all, though, indeed, the fourth edition of his book in question was published as recently as in 1974, his understanding of the subject derives from the original publication of 1950. Is there, then, any substantial need, now or in the foreseeable future, to take Kaufmanns views to task? Is such an analysis, in the face of even more recent creative efforts to appropriate Nietzsche anew, worth doing after so many years? Two considerations, I believe, demand that we answer both queries in the affirmative. First, the merit to having such a critique available in the literature other than to dispel the pretentions, perpetrated by Kaufmann himself, that he is the only one who has grasped Nietzsche properly is entailed by the fact that his Nietzsche not only served to bring home the challenge of that thinkers writings to an unfriendly or at least oblivious Anglo-American readership, but still serves as a useful primer on him (Nietzsche). In this respect, I think that any charge of untimeliness should carry no weight at all, insofar as here we are concerned with what has by now become a classic and thus persistently relevant statement on the topic under consideration. Second, since the 1974 reappearance of this position of Kaufmanns there has been relatively little print devoted to Nietzsches regard of Platos teacher, which indicates that thus far Kaufmann has had perhaps the last word on the matter. While ostensibly promising to introduce a principal address on that same theme, Werner J. Dannhausers Nietzsches View of Socrates (also pub lished in 1974) disappoints by turning out to be a mares nest: insofar as it is primarily expository in content, the book offers little either toward providing a counterweight to Kaufmanns influence or toward rediscovering Nietzsche. At the same time, many of the more noteworthy works on Nietzsche since 1974 as, for instance, David B. Allisons edition of The New Nietzsche (1977, 1985), Bernd Magnus Nietzsches Existential Imperative (1978), Richard Schachts voluminous Nietzsche (1983), Ofelia Schuttes Beyond Nihilism (1984) hardly so much as mention Socrates. In the opening pages to his highly acclaimed Nietzsche: Life as Literature (1985) Alexander Nehamas does discuss Nietzsches attitude toward the ancient Athenian, but he does not bring to fruition the dialectical significance of that relationship to Nietzsches philosophy in extenso. The still-influential post-structuralist

interpretations of Nietzsche beginning with Gilles Deleuzes Nietzsche et la Philosophie (1962, translated into English 1983) are even more parsimonious in their references to Socrates. Of course, this is to be anticipated in view of that schools movement away from origins, away from the widely-accepted idea that dialectics constitute the fundamental occasion for the rise of radical intellectual/practical thought. In view of these facts, I believe that here we satisfy the still-pressing need to set right Kaufmanns position a correction that the latter has been implicitly inviting since its editio princeps. Kaufmann commences his Nietzsches Attitude Toward Socrates by asserting that despite most commentators who have accepted it as an unquestioned and unexamined dogma that Nietzsche repudiated Socrates Nietzsches concern with the ancient dialectician is a focal point of his thought and reflects his views of reason and morality as well as the image of man he envisaged. Indeed, he maintains further, a thorough reinvestigation of the subject would clearly reveal not only Nietzsches genuine attitude in question but also throw new light upon his entire philosophy, from his first book to his last (p. 391). (In order to present as concise and systematic an examination of the whole of Kaufmanns Chapter 13 as possible, I shall, first, faithfully paraphrase several of its paragraphs at a time and, subsequently, state my negation of them. Each block of paraphrasis is numerically identified by a small Latin digit, and each cited passages is immediately succeeded by the page number relevant of course to Kaufmanns book on which it may be found.) i. Following these prelusive general comments, in Part I of his essay Kaufmann charges that the prevailing impression in Philosophy concerning Nietzsches feelings toward Socrates is grounded in a misconstruction of his (Nietzsches) initial book. That is, he explains, precisely due to its Hegelian dialectical arrangement, The Birth of Tragedy does, and ought to be expected to, emphasize its authors negative and critical note most strongly (pp. 3912). Yet, Kaufmann promptly cautions us, this explicit display of attitude must not be interpreted as implying that at the very time he was committing this work on paper Nietzsche was primarily either for or against anything. Rather, we are told, he was merely attempting to comprehend his subject at hand (p. 392). In fact, Kaufmann proposes, in a general way, Nietzsches dialectic appears in his attitude toward [all] his heroes such that, just like Oscar Wilde, he most likely believed that all men kill the thing they love even that they should kill it. Thus, in a quest for independence and freedom, all of his old friends and values are given up in a twilight of the idols (Ibid). Negation: These considerations point directly to the genesis of the error in Kaufmanns position. The misconstruction of Nietzsches literary debut to which he is referring could not well rest with those of us who have elected to proceed along the course that is brightly illumed by the preponderance of evidence, but with his own forced elucidation of the books contents. Admittedly, many philosophical treatises have been, are, and will be composed as objective investigations whose ultimate aim has been, is, and will be to grasp some specific issue. Kaufmanns claim that The Birth of Tragedy should be looked upon as such, i. e., that it does not quite assume a definite stand, however, is eminently mistaken. Not only does he nowhere even intimate what could have been the subject that Nietzsche set out to comprehend in that endeavor, but his argument also (a) misses the meaning of the books Sections 16 through 25 in which Nietzsche insists upon Germanys return, through Wagners musicdramas, to the terra-centric paideia of post-Homeric/pre-Euripidean tragic art and (b) overlooks Nietzsches declaration, in Attempt at a Self-Criticism, that it was against

morality [11] as a principle of decay [...] and slander that with The Birth of Tragedy his whole instinct turned [12]. Though it is in Attempt at a Self-Criticism that Nietzsche also pronounces The Birth of Tragedy a questionable book, and appraises its style and position as ponderous, embarrassing, arrogant and rhapsodic, the fact is that that same book represents nothing less than his programmatic discours douverture to the intellectual community of his day. That Nietzsche himself (in view of his ambivalent feelings and premonitions immediatelypreceding and -succeeding the books appearance) most likely thought in these terms may be safely inferred from his letter to his former professor and mentor, Friedrich Ritschl, wherein he complains (somewhat superciliously) about the latters mute reception of the work: You will not take amiss my astonishment at not having heard a single word from you about my recent book [which] [...], after all, is something of a manifesto, and the last thing it invites is silence [...] [Indeed], I thought that if you had ever met with anything hopeful in your life, it might be this book [....] [13] These could hardly pass for the words of an authors own description of a literary effort that aims at merely apprehending the nature of its topic. Rather, they are the words of one who regards his own text as conveying a distinct sense of conviction and even mission. But what about Kaufmanns assertion that Nietzsches uneven style in The Birth of Tragedy brings out his negative and critical note most strongly? As we have stated already, Kaufmann holds that, in a general way, Nietzsches dialectic appears in his attitude toward his heroes that in a quest for independence he gives up all his friends and values. Such a dialectic, however, does not exist in The Birth of Tragedy. Since the only negative attitude in the latter is the one toward Socrates (the thinker), and since we can point to no previous writing of Nietzsches in which we read anything positive regarding the teacher of Forms anything that would make us suspect that he possibly could have at some time passed for one of Nietzsches heroes one is left wondering as to what Kaufmann has in mind here. Whereas concerning Wagner and Schopenhauer a contextual/attitudinal change indeed does develop in his later writings vis--vis The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsches vitiating disposition toward Socrates metaphysically-oriented model is one of those few constants that extend through his entire corpus. Other, concrete dialectical methodologies do operate in The Birth of Tragedy, but they are not what Kaufmann refers to; rather, they are (a) the discursive interplay between the two primary artistic impulses, namely, the Apollinian and the Dionysian, and (b) their (Apollinian/Dionysian) collective commerce with the one, worldaesthetic Ursprung. ii. That, according to Kaufmann, Socrates indeed was little less than an idol for Nietzsche may be observed from the fact that the latter regarded him as the deity who spoke through Euripides the equal of Dionysus and Apollo, man and myth at once (pp. 3923). As such, Kaufmann maintains, it must not at all be surprising that Nietzsche should speak reverently regarding Socrates superhuman dignity, his logical urge, which as an unbridled flood displays a natural power such as we encounter to our awed amazement only in the very greatest instinctive forces, his divine naivete and assurance in life, as well as (and here Kaufmann quotes from what he calls Nietzsches

loving poetry) his manifestly calm posture, perfect awareness and absence of natural awe in the face of imminent death (p. 393). Negation: Kaufmanns argument here is as truly misleading as it is only apparently compelling. Beginning with his point that Nietzsche exalted Socrates, let us note Kaufmanns failure to quote properly (in fact his conscientious presentation out of context of) Nietzsches own statement upon which his allegation rests. As he quotes it: Euripides, too, was ... a mask only: the deity who spoke out of him was not Dionysus, nor Apollo, but ... Socrates (p. 393). Juxtaposed to this attenuated version of itself, Nietzsches ad verbum passage provides us with a very different understanding of what its author meant to say: Even Euripides was, in a sense, only a mask: the deity that spoke through him was neither Dionysus nor Apollo, but an altogether newborn demon, called Socrates. [14] What these words virtually force us to conclude is, I believe, evident: while Kaufmanns somewhat benign citation may well have been intended to incite the impression that Nietzsche esteemed Socrates so highly that he labelled him a deity, Nietzsches own pronouncement conveys a depreciatory appraisal of the same individual. That Nietzsche greatly admired as well as deeply detested Socrates world-influential philosophy is a fact that we accept as a truism. His choice of the term deity, however, is, contrary to what Kaufmann would have us believe, not at all a reflection of that admiration; rather, it is essentially an ironic characterization of the Athenian plebe as one who has wrought an inestimable amount of artistic and moralocultural damage. Indeed, this is the reason why we hear Nietzsche uttering both deity and demon in the same breath. We find additional evidence of the correctness of this view in Nietzsches regard of Euripides that principal literary proponent of aesthetic Socratism as the destroyer (Vernichter) of the most beautiful of all temples, the art of Aeschylean/Sophoclean tragedy. Such a profoundly injurious consequence has Euripides effect had upon this Attic-specific aesthetic expression that, as Nietzsche laments, if he (Euripides) had been punished by being changed into a dragon by the art critics of all ages who could be content with so miserable a compensation? [15] Kaufmanns claim that Nietzsche speaks with reverence concerning Socrates logical urge is, likewise, brought forth out of context. Though Nietzsche does indeed point out that, in its unbridled state, this capability/ inclination of Socrates displays the power that can be witnessed only in the greatest instinctive forces, even a perfunctory examination of the primary text should reveal that that solemn appraisal is, while one of awed amazement, not at all one of approval. For only a few lines above that passage, Nietzsche declares Socrates a monstrosity per defectum for having turned the instinct/reason artistic mechanism upside down. In his eyes, Socrates was in effect an inartistic personality, insofar as therein in opposition to the then-dominant myth-affirming tragic aesthetics we observe a monstrous defectus of any mystical disposition. Nietzsches ostensibly superlative description of that ancient Athenian dialecticians logical nature, then, is clearly a manifestation of abysmal dread in the face of a practically inexorable, destructive force, rather than a case of obeisance, as Kaufmann urges. iii. In order to reconcile the patent fact that Socrates was an idol for Nietzsche with the latters explicitly negative attitude toward that same metaphysician, some serious students of Nietzsches writings, as Kaufmann reports, have carefully distinguished between Socrates and Socratism. However, he contends, the view that Nietzsche merely admired the man Socrates while hating the outlook he embodied is untenable (p. 393). For even a cursory inspection of Section 15 of The Birth of Tragedy the Section with which the original

manuscript apparently ended ought to show that here Nietzsche brings to a conclusion his long analysis of the problem of Socrates (pp. 3934) thus: Socratism that history-altering, theoretical/rationalistic tendency, which does not originate but only culminates with Socrates through its optimism and elemental passion for knowledge, at once guarantees the infinity and continuation of art and serves as a prophylaxis against race suicide by decisively neutralizing the weakening element of unrestrained pessimism over the instinctive lust for life (p. 395). This, Kaufmann insists, is precisely the reason why interpreters have almost invariably ignored 15 (p. 394). Negation: Kaufmanns understanding that Nietzsche looked upon Socratism as not only not inartistic but as even indispensable for the regeneration of art is in some respects correct. At the same time, it also betrays a serious misapprehension of Nietzsches direction of thought. Admittedly, in the closing paragraphs of Section 14 and in the first (but very brief) paragraph of Section 15 of The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche does appear to be squarely contradicting himself concerning the character of aesthetic Socratism. A more scrupulous examination of the same text, however, reveals that this is not quite the case. Kaufmanns error becomes evident when we put Nietzsches statement in focus: though the Socratic ethic/aesthetic phenomenon does indeed incline toward the dissolution of Dionysian tragedy, a profound experience in Socrates own life impels us to ask whether [...] the birth of an artistic Socrates is altogether a contradiction in terms [16]. For while in prison, only a few days prior to his execution, Socrates, repeatedly ordered by one and the same dream apparition, consented to practice the music for which he had but little respect. Within such a poignantly dissonant context, it is not unlikely that Socrates asked himself, perhaps what is not intelligible to me is not necessarily unintelligent? Perhaps there is a realm of wisdom from which the logician is exiled? [17] Based on these suggestive questions, it may be concluded that Socrates influence, spread over posterity like a shadow that keeps growing in the evening sun, not only prompts a regeneration but even guarantees the infinity of art. [18] In order to grasp correctly Nietzsches remarks here, it would be decidedly beneficial to dichotomize his understanding of Socratism as: (a) the systematic intellectual thought that was publicly pronounced by the free Socrates (Sf) and (b) the collection of Aesopean fables that were put into verse and set to music by the imprisoned Socrates (Si). Unless we accept the idea that in Sections 14 and 15 Nietzsche is referring to two markedly different personalities, then, indeed, we should be compelled to interpret his attitude as, besides an instance of hopeless ambivalence, one of conspicuously unembarrassed vacillation and flagrant contradiction. While such a characteristic must be judged as pernicious in any scholarly venture, the same trait becomes virtually unreasonable in The Birth of Tragedy, the work with which Nietzsche attempted not only to vindicate his extraordinary installment as professor of classics at the University of Basle, but also to make a decisive impression in the realm of Universittsphilologie and klassische Bildung. That Nietzsche did in fact regard Si as being qualitatively distinct from Sf is, I believe, clearly communicated in the concluding few paragraphs of Section 14. After all, the birth, as he terms it, of the truly artistic Socrates never took place until Socrates was jailed. In view of this information, we may infer that it could be nothing other than this one event, Socrates imprisonment and his imminent execution, which stands as the profound experience that, in Nietzsches eyes, had rendered the old rationalist somewhat more sympathetic to the Dionysian art impulse. It was this his eventual realization of the deep import of myth, music, and folk wisdom that at last had metamorphosed him into an almost novus homo. From this

perspective, therefore, Nietzsche would be correct: Si, as the only true form of artistic Socratism, is indeed not a contradiction in terms. In fact, a contextual inconsistency of this type arises immediately and necessarily only when the adjective artistic is attached to Sf if by artistic we understand Nietzsche to mean that aesthetic expression in which the Dionysian impulse is accorded precedence. [19] By grossly overemphasizing the indigenous Apollinian inclination of Old Attic tragedy, Sf, as Nietzsche urges, did not (from behind his Euripidean Fassade) merely dilute the symbolic fate-and-libido-affirming tendency of either tragedy or its music; he, in the strict sense of the term, transfigured them. By radicalizing the character-representing precedent of tragedy, which from Sophocles onward constitutes a victory of the phenomenon over the universal, he rendered the spectators no longer conscious of the myth, but of the vigorous truth to nature and the artists imitative power [20]. Accordingly, insofar as in The Birth of Tragedy we can discern Nietzsches implicit distinction between the Apollinian artistic drive and aesthetic Socratism, it is evident that he thought of Sf as not only reformulating the Apollinian phenomenons ultimate grounds, but as, eventually, even superseding it entirely. This explains why at one point he announces that, with the advent of aesthetic Socratism, the old, the natural Dionysian-Apollinian contrapositional interplay had succumbed to another, artificial such arrangement: This is the new opposition: the Dionysian and the Socratic and the art of Greek tragedy was wrecked on this. [21] Simply put, insofar as Sf had exerted his logical influence within tragic art to such an anti-Dionysian degree that, in Nietzsches words, it frightened even the wine-god himself from the tragic stage [22], classical tragedy per se was rapidly reduced to a mere artistic curiosity. Not that this new, Dionysian/Socratic opposition spelled the end of art in toto. True, Aeschylean/Sophoclean tragedy was rendered inartistic though a relatively large part of it was preserved in the Euripidean drama and, true, the Dionysian-Socratic resultant genre irremediably vitiates itself insofar as it involves the type of creative spirit that is neither inclined to nor capable of reaching that truly aesthetic, i. e., life- and earth-accepting, expression of the Dionysian/tragic dithyramb. Nevertheless, this reformed art, whose tonal Malereien and architectonic Anschein aim at a perceptual/apolitical world/life transformation, is of decisive value as effective protection against mankinds vicissitudes and limitations in life. Hence, Kaufmann would have been right on target had he understood Nietzsche to mean (a) that only with respect to this novel, anti-tragic aesthetics can Socrates be considered the guarantor of art, and (b) that the same aesthetics may be regarded as a preventative against race suicide. Nor is this a minor critical observation, since it not only contributes to our distinction between Sf and Si, but also serves as an essential piece of evidence that lends credence to our above-made claim that Socrates had no less than superseded the Apollinian aesthetic impulse. Apparently, therefore, a universal Vlkermord could very likely occur if the worlds sum of energy were not, as Socrates insisted, employed in the service of knowledge but expended in the realization of sheer egoistic pursuits. Respectively, what above all Nietzsche credits Socrates with is his unprecedented success in spreading a common net of thought over the whole globe [23]. It is this feat that, as he puts it, makes Socrates both (a) the one turning point and vortex of so-called world-history and (b) stand as the highest, indescribably magnificent expression of the rationalistic tendency that had been in effect well prior to his appearance.

A few lines below these passages, however, we come across the first indication that Nietzsches uncharacteristic commendation of Socrates is in fact not quite what it appears to be. For here we read that a gruesome ethic of genocide [...] is, and was, present in the world wherever art did not appear in some form especially as religion and science; that is, wherever the Dionysian urges are, and were, left unmediated by Apollos soothing constraint. In effect, then, a social catastrophe of world-wide proportions could well happen if the Apollinian, not necessarily the Socratic, element were to no longer be. But was it not, after all, Socrates who, through that common net of thought, set the culturo-intellectual context for the rise of much of the worlds religion and science, which currently are effectively dissuading mankind from self-destruction? Indeed he was; and as such he ought to be regarded as significantly contributing to the preservation of the human species. Kaufmann, however, misinterprets Nietzsches text when he claims that it identifies Socrates as the ultimate savior; for, at least in this respect, he (Socrates) accomplished nothing more than what already was accomplished by the Apollinian art drive. Whatever discrepancy this point effects is fully resolved at the end of Section 15, wherein Nietzsche looks at Socratism as a gross distortion of the Apollinian phenomenon. It was, as we learn from Section 3 of The Birth of Tragedy, through the Apollinian impulse toward beauty that the Olympian divine order evolved, and thus insulated the Greeks sensitive soul from suffering and pessimism by (through their own lives) justifying existence. This is in fact why no society guided by the sun-gods transfiguring mirror and insistence upon measured restraint ever has, or had, suffered any largescale dire consequences. The same of course applies to those societies that have adhered to the Socratic/Alexandrian pronounced principle of reason but with an unavoidable, a palpably different outcome: unadulterated Socratism, insofar as it wholly neutralizes the Dionysian thrust, has (wherever established) effected in the form of metaphysical/theoretical convictions a large, self-referential body of intellectual thought as a most expedient manner whereby to avoid facing the terror and horror of existence. Whereas, therefore, in Section 15 Nietzsche indeed does praise Socrates for being the teacher of a decidedly transformed, a blissful affirmation of life, he also identifies him as a worldexemplar of the futility in any and all attempts to escape or even assuage lifes nature through sheer reason. [...] science, spurred by its powerful illusion, speeds irresistibly toward its limits where its optimism, concealed in the essence of logic, suffers shipwreck. For the periphery of the circle of science has an infinite number of points; and while there is no telling how this circle could ever be surveyed completely, noble and gifted men nevertheless reach, eer half their time and inevitably, such boundary points on the periphery from which one gazes into what defies illumination. When they see to their horror how logic coils up at these boundaries and finally bites its own tail suddenly the new form of insight breaks through, tragic insight which, merely to be endured, needs art as a protection and remedy. [...] let us look at the highest spheres of the world around us; then we shall see how the hunger for insatiable and optimistic knowledge that in Socrates appears exemplary has turned into tragic resignation and destitute need for art [...] The meaning of these remarks should be evident. Insofar as Socrates lifepromoting/preserving reformed art is primarily delusive, it is by nature limited, as its own theoretical pursuit has today shown it to be. Having experienced the error of Socrates

monstrous optimism-through-reason, the world is now ready and crying for a return to the wisdom of the Dionysian-Apollinian rough balance in tragic art, art par excellence. At the time that Socrates set for himself the task of improving tragedy, he understood neither its fate/earth-affirming character nor its internal Wechselspiel: while Apollo soothes lifes intrinsic ferocity, as it is expressed through the Dionysian destruction of the principium individuationis, Dionysus serves as an anchor to that evidently universal tendency to symbolically transcend life, as it is manifested in Apollos drive toward an audio-visual superficiality. Such a balance of course does not exist in the Socratic/Euripidean drama. For Nietzsche, then, Socrates is much more of a profound revelation of how life ought not to be lived i.e., a confirmation that reason as well as all Apollinian iridescence requires a tragic yea-saying to life than the worlds savior as such. Kaufmanns error in his intepretation of Sections 14 and 15, therefore, is twofold: he (a) fails to distinguish between Sf and Si as two different (though, judging by such Platonic dialogues as the Phaedo and the Crito, not necessarily mutually exclusive in Si) artistic directions taken by the same person at two qualitatively disparate periods in his life, and (b) misapprehends Nietzsches irony behind his only ostensible praise of the ancient thinker. These points further fortify our positive evaluation of the significance of Sections 16 through 25 to the thematic thrust of the preceding fifteen Sections of The Birth of Tragedy. Had Kaufmann been more careful to notice that Sf had eventually superseded its own mother-ground, and that Si was implicitly appealing for a new artistic direction that is, for a savior from the hunger for knowledge, which Sf had made the real task for every person of higher gifts he would have been less hasty to claim that the text might as well have ended with Section 15, insofar as the following celebration of the rebirth of tragedy weakens the book [24]. iv. In the remaining few paragraphs of Part I of his essay, Kaufmann (a) advances several parsimonious critical observations against two indeed questionable Nietzschean commentators: A. H. J. Knight and Richard Oehler; (b) claims that, but does not explain how, in Section 15 Nietzsche effects a self-portrait with the statement: the Socrates who practices music ; and (c) maintains that Nietzsches admiration for Socrates prevented him no more than the Platonic Alcibiades from stressing the physical ugliness of Socrates no less than his plebeian descent. His flat nose and thick lips, and his alleged admission that nature had endowed him with the fiercest passions, are all emphasized on the page preceding the praise of the Lebensphilosoph. [p. 397]. Negation: We may immediately proceed to point (c) after we, first, concerning (a), acknowledge that Kaufmanns critical stand against Knight and Oehler is indeed well taken, and, concerning (b), admit that I cannot understand how the statement in question implies that Nietzsches features mingle with those of Socrates (p. 395). (c) In his endeavor to examine, as he claims, all of Nietzsches passages relating to Socrates, Kaufmann concedes that the Rckenites admiration for the Athenian did not at all prevent him from stressing the latters physical ugliness and plebeian descent. Having made that perhaps inevitable accession, however, Kaufmann does not even attempt an interpretation regarding the possible meaning and motive(s) behind Nietzsches at-times immoderate ad hominem remarks. Nor should this be surprising; for unless one grants that Nietzsches vituperation is in effect an expression of his deep indignation with Socrates world-historical

changes in both the realm of art and that of morality, one is left with no cogent explanation whatever. Indeed, a more scrupulous inspection of all of Nietzsches acrimonious texts concerning Socrates ought to reveal that very likely he regarded the latters somatic appearance from even a phrenologists viewpoint: Socrates ugliness was essentially an explicit, a superficial manifestation of his morally- and intellectually-decadent convictions. Two choice quotations one from the Twilight of the Idols and the other from his notes, respectively should lend support to this idea: In origin, Socrates belonged to the lowest class: Socrates was plebs. We know, we can still see for ourselves, how ugly he was. But ugliness, in itself an objection, is among the Greeks almost a refutation. Was Socrates a Greek at all? Ugliness is often enough the expression of a development that has been crossed, thwarted by crossing. Or it appears as declining development. The anthropologists among the criminologists tell us that the typical criminal is ugly: monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo. But the criminal is a decadent. Was Socrates a typical criminal? At least that would not be contradicted by the famous judgment of the physiognomist which sounded so offensive to the friends of Socrates. A foreigner who knew about faces once passed through Athens and told Socrates to his face that he was a monstrum that he harbored in himself all the bad vices and appetites. And Socrates merely answered: You know me, sir! [25]

And: Ugliness signifies the decadence of a type, contradiction and lack of coordination among the inner desires signifies a decline in organizing strength, in will, to speak psychologically. [26] v. On the basis of the considerations he brings forth in Part I of his Chapter 13, at the outset of Part II Kaufmann claims that we may expect the point to be at hand when Nietzsches passionate admiration should have been shaken by a Brutus crisis a deliberate attempt to maintain independence of the soul by turning against the idolized Socrates (p. 398). And as evidence for this, what he regards as the most distinctive vicissitude in Nietzsches personality, Kaufmann reproduces the following ostensibly re vealing passage: Socrates, to confess it frankly, is so close to me that almost always I fight a fight against him (Ibid). Yet, as Kaufmann insists, this quest for self-identity in no manner contradicts the fact that Socrates is the very embodiment of Nietzsches highest ideal: the passionate man who can control his passions. As it should be anticipated, however, such men live, more often than not, on the threshold of what Nietzsche called decadence (p. 399). Negation: Nietzsches disdain for Socrates moral and metaphysical inclinations must not be perfunctorily interpreted as necessarily implying that he also abhorred the latters personal character and public demeanor. On the contrary; he not only highly esteemed but even emulated some of Socrates more prominent comportmental qualities. To be certain, Nietzsche adopted neither pesty questioning of, nor engaged himself in any rhetorical fencing

with, the German intelligentsia, as did that dialectical despot when communicating not only with the Athenian literary and artistic celebrities but even with the populace in the agora. Nevertheless, in his writings Nietzsche virtually naturaliter assumes the role of a philosophical enfant terrible, a Viehbremse upon the necks of men. Indeed, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in an evidently autobiographical passage, we cannot fail to notice a parallel between his relationship with his academic colleagues and that of Socrates with the professional community of his time: We [Zarathustra and scholars] are alien to each other, and their virtues are even more distasteful to me than their falseness and their loaded dice. And when I lived with them, I lived above them. That is why they developed a grudge against me. They did not want to hear how someone was living over their heads; and so they put wood and earth and filth between me and their heads. Thus they muffled the sound of my steps [....] [27] Clearly, it is only as a way of establishing himself as a history-altering iconoclast in his own right that we can properly grasp what Nietzsches almost constant fight against Socrates was about. We may, moreover, agree with Kaufmann that Nietzsche did in fact admire Socrates resolute endurance in disciplining his passionate propensities. After all, a quality such as fortitude in character, i. e., reconciling the mutual extraneousness of reason and the instincts, is of course an indispensable prerequisite for the objectification of the wholeness of the idea with which his own philosophy culminates the bermensch. These few considerations notwithstanding, however, one simply cannot cogently make the case, as attempts Kaufmann, that Nietzsches pointedly unflattering language concerning Socrates represents his (Nietzsches) undergoing a Brutus crisis. Not only the shrill tone but even the sheer volume of that revilement speak plainly against any such notion. Indeed, there is a host of evidence which, in my opinion, should render null and void the idea that Nietzsche ever experienced this type of crisis. First, it is highly questionable whether, as Kaufmann proposes, Nietzsche in fact idolized Socrates. Certainly Nietzsche himself nowhere says so. Nor can the point be properly conjectured. Surely, it would be an error to view Xs admiration of certain traits of Ys personality as an idolization of Y. Of course one could well advance that the disparity between Kaufmanns idolized and my esteemed is only a matter of subjective interpretation. But perhaps not; for if we accept the lexical definition of idolization as the extreme form of estimation, then, evidently, Kaufmann has resorted to a hyperbole. Second, it is quite unlikely that Nietzsche could without grossly compromising (indeed, contradicting) his own philosophical position have idolized Socrates. Insofar as he was convinced that it is primarily the suppression of the sexual urges that leads to a pronounced sense of morality, and to such artificial conceptions as the soul and a supraterrestrial province, Nietzsche could do (as he did) nothing other than repudiate both Socrates metaphysics and his taedium vitae, which was poignantly expressed in the latters last words to his wills executor: Crito, we ought to offer a cock to Aesclepius. [28] It is difficult to determine precisely what it could have been that prompted Kaufmann to think that it is possible to reconcile Nietzsches formula: as long as life is ascending, happiness equals instinct, with his (Nietzsches) appraisal of the moral philosopher as an avowed enemy of the earth and everything earthly: Concerning life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is no good [...] Even Socrates said, as he died: To live that means to be sick a long time. [29]

vi. In search of support for his governing thesis, Kaufmann next appeals to a few fragmentary passages from some of Nietzsches more noteworthy writings. Thus, from the Untimely Meditations he quotes Nietzsche as enlisting Socrates on his (Nietzsches) side regarding the then-existing socioacademic circumstances: the conditions for the origin of genius have not improved in modern times, and the aversion to original men has increased to such a degree that Socrates could not have lived among us (p. 400). From Human, All Too Human or, more precisely, from The Wanderer and His Shadow Kaufmann brings to our notice a rather lengthy block which proposes that the time will come when, to develop oneself morallyrationally, one will take up the memorabilia of Socrates rather than the Bible. After all, contrasted to Jesus, Socrates is distinguished by not only the gay kind of seriousness and that wisdom full of pranks, but also by the fact that he had the greater intelligence (Ibid). While in the several passages in the Dawn, which merely in passing refer to Socrates, Kaufmann discerns a sonus of respectful critique, in The Gay Science he says that Nietzsches admiration for Socrates reaches its apotheosis (p. 401). And, as it may be expected, from the latter-named work he quotes: I admire the courage and wisdom of Socrates in all he did, said, and did not say (Ibid). As such, insists Kaufmann, these and other, similar passages should render absurd any claim that Nietzsche really detested Socrates (p. 400). Negation: Whereas there is nothing inappropriate in Kaufmanns citation from the Untimely Meditations though I cannot understand in what respect (if any) the statement Socrates could not have lived among us points to Nietzsches positive attitude toward the same Athenian his reference to Socrates memorabilia (from Human, All Too Human) is at once misinterpreted and misleading. First, Kaufmanns persistently selective mode of quoting from Nietzsches writings is deceptive on two counts: (a) As I have pointed out in my immediatelyabove paraphrasis of his text, the passage in question does not quite come from Human, All Too Human, as Kaufmann claims that it does, but from The Wanderer and His Shadow. It is of course true that in later editions we find the text of Der Wanderer und sein Schatten, along with Vermischte Meinungen und Sprche and Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, appearing under the last title. When Kaufmann quotes the above, only ostensibly laudatory remark and then identifies its source as being Human, All Too Human, however, he is implicitly attempting either to negate or at least to balance all of the other, unpropitious pronouncements that are to be found in the essay which goes under that heading. (b) Correlatively, Kaufmann misstates the aim of his Chapter 13, wherein he claims to subject to inquiry all of Nietzsches references to Socrates. For if he did intend to do literally that indeed, even if he meant to address only Nietzsches more significant remarks concerning Socrates then he proved himself to be quite careless in the realization of that task, insofar as he overlooked to explicate the meaning of at least one (among several) relevant, hardly obscure, and conspicuously vitiating passage(s): With the Greeks, things go forward swiftly, but also as swiftly downwards; the movement of the whole mechanism is so intensified that a single stone, thrown into its wheels, makes it burst. Such a stone was Socrates, for example; in one night, the development of philosophical science, until then so wonderfully regular but, of course, all to swift, was destroyed. [30]

Surely these words cannot justifiably be regarded as reflecting an even remotely idolizing disposition on Nietzsches part toward Socrates. Second, Kaufmann has misinterpreted the passage under consideration. When Nietzsche observes that in order for one to develop oneself morallyrationally one may well wish to select Socrates memorabilia over the Bible, he is not quite recommending that choice but merely reporting a fact. Indeed, to determine oneself morally-rationally one not only may but in fact ought to prefer Socrates to Jesus. After all, not only (a) did the former emphasize a host of cogent, rational justifications for his metaphysics and morality, whereas the latter consistently appealed to blind faith, but, moreover, (b) he (Socrates), not Jesus, may well be taken as the principal moralo-philosophical compass, the high priest, as it were, of the Christian movement worldwide a twofold reason for choosing Socrates. Proceeding to the Dawn: Kaufmanns claim that in this book one finds Nietzsche being engaged in a respectful critique of Socratic doctrines is questionable at best. For that characterization, respectful critique, sounds entirely out of harmony with Nietzsches own depiction (in the same writing) of Socrates and Plato as the two most noteworthy heirs to that universal madness and presumption that there exists knowledge as to the essential nature of an action [31]. Regarding Kaufmanns citation from The Gay Science: I admire the courage and wisdom of Socrates in all he did, said and did not say, we should indeed be cautious against perfunctorily embracing its out-of-context message. For upon closer inspection of the passage itself which in Kaufmanns eyes represents as striking a tribute as Nietzsche, or any one else, ever paid to anyone [32] and the text from which it is extracted, we observe that what this admiration of Nietzsches is directed at is nothing other than Socrates fortitude in both mind and word, a point we have granted already. Of much more pressing importance (even requirement), however, should have been for Kaufmann to find in Nietzsches writings and to bring forth at least several choice passages which would provide unqualified support to his declared (above-quoted) objective namely, the view that Nietzsche merely admired the man Socrates while hating the outlook he embodied is untenable. But such contextual assistence cannot be properly derived from Section 340 of The Gay Science, the Section wherein this Nietzsches admission of respect for Socrates is to be found. It is here that Nietzsche in fact deplores the Athenians abovecited, last statement to Crito the one pronouncement which immediately encapsulates his (Socrates) lifelong weariness with the earth and his hope for the otherworldly: Is it possible that a man like him, who had lived cheerfully and like a soldier in the sight of everyone, should have been a pessimist? He had merely kept a cheerful mien while concealing all his life long his ultimate judgment, his inmost feeling. Socrates, Socrates suffered life! And then he still revenged himself with this veiled, gruesome, pious, and blasphemous saying. Did a Socrates need such revenge? Did his overrich virtue lack an ounce of magnanimity? Alas, my friends, we must overcome even the Greeks! [33] vii. Although Thus Spoke Zarathustra comprises no specific references to either Socrates or Socratism, Kaufmann claims that two of its chapters cannot be properly understood apart from Nietzsches admiration for Socrates: On the Friend and On Free Death (p. 402). While in On the Friend Nietzsches words, one who is unable to loosen his own chains may yet be a redeemer for his friend , appear to recall Socrates claim that he was but a barren midwife, a close reading of On Free Death leaves no doubt that we are confronted with another juxtaposition of Socrates and Christ (p. 403).

Negation: But, the question at once presents itself, if Kaufmann is correct in urging that these two texts can be suitably comprehended principally in relation to Socrates, why is it that the latter is never named? Is it not rather odd to believe that Nietzsche who in virtually all of his previous writings had made numerous, and some very memorable critical references to that thinker should suddenly, for no evident reason, refrain from at least mentioning his name? that is, if it indeed were him that Nietzsche had in mind at the time he was committing those chapters on paper. Perhaps it could have been somewhat easier to approve of Kaufmanns claim if Nietzsche had therein made no explicit reference to anyone at all; for then it would have been somewhat more realistic to maintain that his mouthpieces (Zarathustras) words and/or attitude could have either indirectly concerned or at least been inspired by a certain, real, albeit unnamed person(s). In On Free Death, however as if to emphasize that he does not wish to be misunderstood, that he desires his readers to know precisely whom his argument concerns we find Nietzsche explicitly referring to (and only to) the Hebrew Jesus, i. e., the one who precipitated the worlds calamity by merely having died too early. Hence it should be much more convincing and accurate to think that at least the last-named chapter concerns none other than Jesus. But our critique here may in fact be somewhat unfair. After all, as we have quoted him above, Kaufmann does not assert that Socrates figures explicitly in these two texts, but that the latter cannot be properly understood apart from Nietzsches admiration for Socrates. Socrates significance, therefore, would be of primarily an implicit nature. Even so, however, it appears to me that no responsible interpretation of these texts could substantiate Kaufmanns position. (a) Concerning On Free Death: by asserting that here we are confronted with a juxtaposition of Socrates and Christ, Kaufmann is in effect claiming that, according to Nietzsche, the former did while the latter did not die in correspondence with Zarathustras doctrine at the right time! Since we know with certainty Nietzsches view regarding the timing of Jesus demise, we may now briefly examine whether Kaufmanns notion concerning that of Socrates is correct. As Nietzsche writes, there are several factors that determine the rightness of deaths arrival, namely: (i) when death is a spur and a promise to the survivors; (ii) death comes when the person himself/herself desires it, i. e., when he who has a goal and an heir [...], from reverence for his goal and heir [...] will hang no more dry wreaths in the sanctuary of life; and (iii) one must cease letting oneself be eaten when one tastes best [34]. Indeed, when we put the known (according to Platos Phaedo) circumstances of Socrates execution up against these standards, we are compelled to appraise Kaufmanns position as quite accurate: (i) Socrates death certainly did prove to be an impetus and a promise to a whole host of those who had survived him. As we have already cited Nietzsches apt description, Socrates influence, down to the present moment and even into all future time, has spread over posterity like a shadow that keeps growing in the evening sun. (ii) As to whether death came to Socrates at the time that he desired it, it is of course debatable. If we are to believe the Apology, he did make a rather lengthy statement to the effect that he was not quite ready to pass from existence, and yet, according to the Crito, neither would he escape from jail even when the success of that escape was virtually guaranteed. Nevertheless, in conformity with the second part of this point, Socrates did have both a goal (in the form of a philosophical system) and a horde of followers. Moreover, his message apparently was so well-structured, -received, and -propagated (primarily verbally) by those followers that his execution hardly lessened its effect. (iii) And who would seriously dispute

the idea that Socrates ceased letting himself be consumed just when he did taste the best? In the light of these criteria, then, it would appear that he did expire at the right time. There, however, arises a paradox, providing that this is indeed the course of reasoning that Kaufmann follows toward his conclusion concerning Socrates significance to Nietzsches chapter in question. Insofar as, according to the New Testament, the circumstances surrounding Jesus life immediately preceding his crucifixion should, also, meet all three of these criteria, it would follow that he as well had died at the right time. And yet Nietzsche unequivocally tells us that so far as he (Nietzsche) is concerned, that melancholic Hebrew had passed on much too early. What these points indicate, therefore, is that either Nietzsche is here conspicuously inconsistent or that Kaufmann, in his haste to demonstrate in Nietzsches written thought an affinity for Socrates, misleads us by attaching the latters name to a text that has hardly anything to do with him. But are we not here contradicting ourselves? If the above three are, as I have emphasized, the principal criteria for dying at the right time, and the tragic deaths of both Socrates and Jesus evidently do entirely satisfy all three of them, why is it that judging by Nietzsches view of the timing of Jesus demise they are nevertheless to be pronounced as having died much too early? This is a significant question, insofar as its answer points to the one element without which, from Nietzsches viewpoint, these standards would be rendered much less noteworthy. We turn to Zarathustras counsel in one of the closing paragraphs of On Free Death: That your dying be no blasphemy against man and earth, my friends, that I ask of the honey of your soul. In your dying, your spirit and virtue should still glow like a sunset around the earth: else your dying has turned out badly. It is the first part of this passage that renders valid, and thus activates, as it were, these standards. Hence it is the combination of both of these elements whereby we may properly evaluate the rightness of ones expiration. Could we, then, justifiably claim that Socrates had ceased to exist at the right time? Hardly, for his departure reportedly did not conform to Zarathustras immediately-above directive that ones dying be no blasphemy against man and earth. In fact, Socrates and Jesus may safely be regarded as comprising undoubtedly the most influential group of what Nietzsche calls preachers of slow death and of those who display great patience with the earthly [35]. Aside from his famous (or, at least to Nietzsches ears, infamous) last request, Socrates quip relating to Critos concern over how to bury the philosophers corpse, as well as his (Socrates) belief that he was about to embark for a state of heavenly happiness [36], all squarely contradict Zarathustras declaration: to earth I want to return that I may find rest in her who gave birth to me. [37] In a word, therefore, in opposition to Kaufmann, who insists upon a positive relationship between On Free Death and Socrates, I urge that if there is indeed any connection between the two, it should have to be one of implicit exemplariness; that is, by offering a radical model whereby one may properly meet ones own end, On Free Death may well be regarded as pointing to Socrates as a perfect example of how not to die. (b) But what about Zarathustras speech On the Friend? Could perhaps it, as Kaufmann emphasizes, refer to Socrates? Again, I think not. It is, I believe, hardly convincing to claim that the phrase Some cannot loosen their own chains and can nevertheless redeem their friends necessarily recalls Socrates self-appraisal as something of an infertile intellectual

midwife. Insofar as in this text Nietzsche makes numerous observations on the subject of friendship including the immediately-above one chances are excellent that some other statements of his should at least equally effectively call to mind what a whole host of other persons have said on the same topic. There is, for example, in that chapter a paragraph that bears a striking resemblance to a line from George Herberts poem Jacula Prudentum: The best mirror is an old friend. Here is a locution that would appear to be practically ad verbum comprised in Nietzsches assertion: Have you ever seen your friend asleep and found out how he looks? What is the face of your friend anyway? It is your own face in a rough and imperfect mirror. Are we, in the light of this evidence, to advance that Herberts poem in fact exerted a significant influence upon Nietzsches composition of On the Friend? According to Kaufmanns line of reasoning, we would be compelled to do precisely that. The evidence notwithstanding, however, the answer is most likely no; for this intellectual parallel is more of a sheer coincidence than an instance of actual influence. It is, in my opinion, only in this sense that this argument of Kaufmanns ought to be taken. Even if we proceeded further, however; even if, for the sake of the argument, we conceded that Nietzsches comment, Some cannot loosen their own chains and can nevertheless redeem their friends, does recall Socrates. Could we, even with that concession, accept Kaufmanns point that this chapter simply cannot be properly understood apart from Nietzsches admiration for Socrates? Not at all. It appears to me that these two texts would be equally clearly apprehended or badly misapprehended if the reader never had even so much as heard of Socrates; for they present not the latters but Nietzsches own viewpoints, which are in close harmony with the thrust of his unique, revolutionary philosophical conviction. Hence I maintain that Socrates be evaluated as essentially a tertium quid vis--vis the letter and spirit of those same writings. In view of the above considerations, therefore, I propose the following observation: that Nietzsche even implicitly refers to Socrates anywhere in Thus Spoke Zarathustra is doubtful at best. Specifically with regard to both of Zarathustras speeches in question, however, Kaufmann has steered his readers as well as himself wrong. He would have sounded somewhat more convincing, I think, had he suggested that Zarathustras speech entitled The Leech would be one section in Nietzsches magnum opus that might well make us recall Socrates. In the light of that text thereof, was not Socrates (the thinker) the very paragon of the archetype of the conscientious in spirit? Except perhaps for Jesus, has world-history or even literature ever recorded anyone stricter, narrower, and harder in matters of the spirit than Socrates? Was he not in fact a fool on his own rather than a great sage according to the opinion of others? [38] Yet, again, these characteristics should merely remind us of the person of Socrates; they must not be thus perfunctorily taken as meaning that Nietzsche is thereby necessarily referring to him. Insofar as the conscientious in spirit is only one of seven (I estimate the two kings as one) higher personalities who harbor within themselves the promise of an even higher future for the human species, we may say that Socrates could at best be subsumed under (or brought forth as a perfect example of) the archetype conscientious in spirit, but not that he himself constitutes the same. viii. As Kaufmann puts it: In the preface to Beyond Good and Evil we are told that the influence of Socrates, though it may have been a corruption, was a necessary and fruitful ingredient in the development of

Western man: let us not be ungrateful ... We must keep this programmatic preface in mind when we read Nietzsches violent objection to the Socratic identification of the good with the useful and agreeable, which smells of the plebs (190). Although Socrates, that great ironist, so rich in secrets, recognized the irrational component of moral judgments, his influence led to the misconception that reason and instinct aim naturally for the good (191) [p. 403]. [Indeed, Section 212 in Beyond Good and Evil] shows conclusively that Nietzsche has not really changed his mind about Socrates; he is still the ideal philosopher. Short of the valuecreating philosopher of the future who has never yet existed and does not live today there is none greater than Socrates [pp. 4034]. [This same Section also reveals that a true philosopher] must always stand opposed to his time and may never conform; it is his calling to be a fearless critic and diagnostician as Socrates was. And Nietzsche feels that he is only keeping the faith with this Socratic heritage when he calls attention to the dangers of the modern idealization of equality, and he challenges us to have the courage to be different and independent [p. 404]. Negation: Although in Beyond Good and Evil many of Nietzsches references to Socrates are virtually as caustic as they are in any of his other writings, here, one is compelled to concur with Kaufmann, we do in fact encounter a favorable critique of the old dialectician. Nietzsches depiction of philosophers as constantly finding themselves in opposition to their today; as disagreeable fools and dangerous question marks; as vivisectionists of the prevalent virtues of their time, are all aspects that may be correctly ascribed to Socrates reported character and self-imposed objective. And though Socrates name is merely mentioned once, it clearly figures centrally in Section 212. Yet the positive tone of Nietzsches description here is one more piece of evidence in support of the widely-held notion that he implicitly did distinguish between Socrates and Socratism. This point is reinforced by a number of passages in which Socrates philosophico-moral system is flagrantly derided. In the Preface to Beyond Good and Evil we find that Nietzsche does, as Kaufmann quotes him, indeed say let us not be ungrateful to Platos invention of the pure spirit and the good as such [39]. But Kaufmann either genuinely misunderstands or willfully contorts the meaning of the latter part of the same text when he claims that the influence of Socrates, though it may have been a corruption, was a necessary and fruitful ingredient in the development of Western man. For, more accurately, it was not Platos invention which, according to Nietzsche, constitutes the worst, most durable, and most dangerous of all errors, and one which means standing truth on her head but the vehement reaction to it that profoundly contributed to that development: [The] fight against Plato or, to speak more clearly and for the people, the fight against the Christian-ecclesiastical pressure of millennia for Christianity is Platonism for the people has created in Europe a magnificent tension of the spirit the like of which had never yet existed on earth: with so tense a bow we can shoot for the most distant goals. [40] This passage not only illuminates the error of Kaufmanns interpretation, but also verifies our above-made claim that Nietzsche regarded Socrates as the moralo-intellectual high priest of the Christian movement world-wide. As concerns Nietzsches statement let us not be ungrateful (to Platos conception of the good), while it points to its authors guarded gratitude to

the passion-curbing/sublimating element of Socrates ethic/aesthetic standards lest some of the most bestial, natural drives be unleashed to the possible detriment of all of mankind it also, and more pertinently, expresses his acknowledgment that those (including himself) whose task is wakefulness itself, are the heirs of all that strength which has been fostered by the fight against this [Platos] error [41]. The Preface in question, then, could hardly convincingly be said to comprise such positive overtones that would, as Kaufmann hopes, mitigate Nietzsches subsequent criticism of Socrates in Sections 190 and 191 of Beyond Good and Evil. As if to substantiate this point explicitly, Nietzsche writes: Indeed, as a physician one might ask: How could the most beautiful growth of antiquity, Plato, contract such a disease [the ideas of pure spirit and the good]? Did the wicked Socrates corrupt him after all? Could Socrates have been the corrupter of youth after all? And did he deserve his hemlock? [42] It is thus surprising that in spite of these revealing rhetorical inquiries Kaufmann, on the basis of that one, taken-out-of-context passage let us not be ungrateful should (a) insist to have here discovered a sanguine view concerning the great ironist, and (b) wish to characterize the Preface, the mother-text of these abrasive statements, contextually programmatic to its authors position on the same subject. Moreover, in Section 191 we come across a brief part that would appear to at once recall the closing paragraphs of Section 14 in The Birth of Tragedy and implicitly lend further support to our above-formulated distinction between Sf and Si: Socrates himself, to be sure, with the taste of his talent that of a superior dialectician had initially sided with reason; and in fact, what did he do his life long but laugh at the awkward incapacity of noble Athenians who, like all noble men, were men of instinct and never could give sufficient information about the reasons for their actions? In the end, however, privately and secretly, he laughed at himself, too: in himself he found, before his subtle conscience and self-examination, the same difficulty and incapacity. But is that any reason, he encouraged himself, for giving up the instincts? One has to see to it that they as well as reason receive their due one must follow the instincts but persuade reason to assist them with good reasons. [43] What we notice, then, is that, according to Nietzsche just as Kaufmann cites him Socrates did eventually see through the irrational element in moral judgments. Yet the fundamental point that Kaufmann apparently misses here is the same one he misses with reference to Section 14 of The Birth of Tragedy; namely, that Socrates had by himself made this momentous discovery in the end, i. e., while in prison awaiting his own execution. ix. Turning, next, to those notes of Nietzsches that appear under the editorial title of The Will to Power, Kaufmann claims that although at times they do indeed yield an unexpected meaning, they nevertheless contain no departure from Nietzsches previous position (p. 405). As concerns those notes that specifically relate to Nietzsches treatment of Socrates, Kaufmann maintains that though most of them address Socrates alleged decadence, Nietzsche, in the Preface to The Case of Wagner, explains that he himself was no less than

Wagner, a child of this time; that is, a decadent ; yet, once having comprehended this tendency, the philosopher in him resisted it (p. 406). Kaufmann interprets these lines to mean that Wagner resembled the Athenians who let themselves go, while Nietzsche emulates Socrates, the model philosopher (Ibid). This idea of the decadent philosopher who cannot cure his own decadence but struggles against it, we are told further, is developed in the Gtzen-Dmmerung. Kaufmann then proceeds to qualify his claim by sprinkling the rest of this part of his essay with disembodied terms and passages from The Problem of Socrates. Thus, for example, he quotes some of Nietzsches characterizations of the ancient philosophers as: buffoon (5), erotic (8), and of course decadent (11). Moreover, in an attempt to demonstrate the world-historical significance of Socrates lifestyle and demise, from the remaining four divisions of the same chapter Kaufmann juxtaposes (again, out of context) several choice passages to relay what Nietzsche says, if not quite what he means: Just as in Nietzsches first book, Socratism is considered dialectically as something necessary in fact, as the very force that saved Western civilization from an otherwise inescapable destruction. Socrates understood that all the world needed him his means, his cure, his personal artifice of selfpreservation (9): one had only one choice: either to perish or to be absurdly rational (10). In this way alone could the excesses of the instincts be curbed [...] Yet to have to fight the instincts that is a formula for decadence (11). Socratism itself is decadent and cannot produce a real cure; by thwarting death it can only make possible an eventual regeneration which may not come about for centuries. Socrates himself realized this: In the wisdom of his courage to die, he recognized that for himself no ultimate cure was possible except death (12) [pp. 4067]. Negation: These considerations not only provide us with a good vantage point from which to evaluate Kaufmanns understanding of The Problem of Socrates, but also afford us a glimpse at how misleadingly he quotes out of context. For right alongside these phrases which, when synthesized as they are above, would appear to convey a propitious regard of Socrates, the four divisions of the primary text in question also comprise an explicit note of disapproval an element to which Kaufmann does not draw our attention. As Nietzsche writes: I have given to understand how it was that Socrates fascinated: he seemed to be a physician, a savior. Is it necessary to go on to demonstrate the error in his faith in rationality at any price? [...] Socrates was a misunderstanding; the whole improvement-morality, including the Christian, was a misunderstanding. The most blinding daylight; rationality at any price; life, bright, cold, cautious, conscious, without instinct, in opposition to the instincts all this too was a mere disease, another disease, and by no means a return to virtue, to health, to happiness. [44] Clearly, Nietzsche is here in effect censuring Socrates for moving to the opposite extreme from the one that he had initially set out to improve; that is, for exchanging one tyrant for another by establishing uncompromising rationality in place of the unchecked expression of the instincts. As concerns Kaufmanns reference to Nietzsches notes (in The Will to Power) regarding Socrates, I believe he would have done much better not to have referred to them at all. After all, even a superficial examination of virtually any of them ought to persuade most readers of the truly unfavorable disposition that their author maintains toward the teacher of the Theory

of Forms. I also believe that Kaufmann was uncomfortably aware of exactly what these notes communicate, which is undoubtedly the reason why he did not even attempt to analyze a single one of them. He knew that to do so would turn out to be not so much futile as selfcontradictory that he would be paddling his leaky canoe upstream of Nietzsches polemic rapids. We have quoted already Kaufmanns assertion that though at times these notes do in fact yield an unexpected meaning, they nevertheless contain no departure from Nietzsches previous position concerning Socrates. Some of the notes, as Kaufmann states, do indeed possess the lively characteristic of being at variance with some of their writers conceptions that would appear to have been established already in other, previous writings. But the degree of this inconsistency is intimately related to the respective view that one holds concerning a given Nietzschean subject. Specifically with reference to Kaufmanns and my interpretation of Nietzsches attitude toward Socrates: while it is true that practically all of the notes in question would for Kaufmann yield an unexpected meaning, insofar as they explicitly contradict his position indeed he would be hard-pressed to find a single one in his favor for me they express a very much anticipated and affirmative meaning, one that is consistent with my understanding of his other works. x. Part III of Kaufmanns Chapter 13 is principally an attempt to establish Ecce Homo as Nietzsches Apology (p. 408). Thus, as we are told, it is essentially in the spirit of Socrates claim to wisdom in terms of the foolishness of his contemporaries, the leitmotif of the Apology, that we can properly grasp Nietzsches heading of his first chapter, Why I Am So Wise: Nietzsche answers his own provocative question in terms of the disparity between the greatness of my task and the smallness of my contemporaries (EH-V 1). His wisdom, he claims, consists in his opposition to his time and we have seen that he felt close to Socrates in this respect (p. 409). Similarly, Kaufmann continues, the succeeding chapter, Why I Am So Clever, throws us back to the Apology, where Socrates informs us that he scorns farflung speculations by confining his inquiries to a few basic questions of morality. Nietzsches response to this his own rhetorical question/title, according to Kaufmann, parallels Socrates self-imposed task: I have never pondered questions that are none (Ibid). Still further, Nietzsches third chapter, Why I Write Such Good Books, receives a more startling reply: There is altogether no prouder nor, at the same time, more subtle kind of book: here and there they attain the ultimate that can be attained on earth cynicism (3). We are reminded of that Socratic wisdom full of pranks which constitutes the best state of the soul of man, and of the sarcastic assurance of the great ironist who vivisected the virtue of his age. [Ibid]. Negation: Whether these chapters signify even a remotely emulative (to say nothing of an ideological) affinity of the later Nietzsche for the Socrates of the Apology is in itself an entirely far-flung speculation at best; indeed, so far as my research has discovered, it is a view that is advocated perhaps solely by Kaufmann. What, however, about those several passages that he adduces as proof of just such an affinity? But those few quotations could hardly properly be accepted as cogent or even noteworthy evidence in favor of that notion. Discovering, isolating, and then juxtaposing a small number of contextually similar passages in order to pass them off as representative of the overall texts within which they are to be found, constitutes, it appears to me, a highly inadequate, indeed a suspicious fashion whereby to convince. After all, if the latter were accepted as legitimate, one could with relative ease deceive us into looking at parallels between even ideologically mutually exclusive works; for incidental, contextually similar passages can well be found in other than only genuinely complementary literary endeavors. Yet, in order to complete his position that there are

indications of Nietzsches admiration for Socrates in all of his (Nietzsches) works, Kaufmann is here forcing a notion that cannot be justified by any hard evidence. In opposition to this idea of Kaufmanns, I propose that Ecce Homo be in effect evaluated as, au fond, the work of a profoundly distressed author. By this I do not intend to imply that the book reveals much, if anything, concerning Nietzsches imminent psychological breakdown. More to the point, I mean that Ecce Homo reveals the Qual of one who, though deeply convinced of his own mission and worth as a thinker, nevertheless feels compelled to call to public attention (as well as confess to himself) the unfortunte fact that he has remained largely unnoticed. This is why, in the Preface to this his eccentric autobiography, Nietzsche points out that since his talk with some of the educated ones has convinced him that he does not exist as an intellectual of any distinction, it now appears indispensable to openly declare exactly who he is: I have a duty against which my habits, even more the pride of my instincts, revolt at bottom namely, to say: Hear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else. [45] The respective objectives at which the writers of the Apology and Ecce Homo aim, therefore, further testify against Kaufmanns interpretation. That is, whereas Ecce Homo represents Nietzsches plea for as wide a recognition as possible, the Apology communicates Socrates attempt to clarify the publics misunderstanding and envy that just such a recognition had visited upon him. Nor does Kaufmanns idea of a similarity between the two authors selfperception vis--vis their respective contemporaries and immediate predecessors reinforce his argument, insofar as this is a parallel characteristic of merely incidental, secondary consequence. After all, history has shown that a ruthlessly truthful bias, one that is devoid of any mauvaise honte, is indigenous to the personalities of undoubtedly most intellectual pioneers in perhaps all the disciplines of knowledge. Moreover, at least two passages again, from the Preface to Ecce Homo implicitly but effectively counsel us against drawing any significant parallels between Nietzsches and Socrates philosophical persuasions; namely: I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus, and The last thing I should promise would be to improve mankind. [46] Whereas the former quotation implies that Nietzsche has firmly attached himself to the moralo-aesthetic expression that is in essence antipodal to the one that was espoused and advocated by the Platonic Socrates, the second is an explicit renunciation of all those including above all Socrates who have sought and/or seek to ameliorate mans lot through a system of supraterrestriallygrounded moral instructions. The manifestly irreconcilable ideological disparity between these two thinkers is thus still further explicated: if Nietzsche is, as he proclaims himself to be, the last to improve (in the traditionally moral sense) mankind, Socrates, according to his own declaration, would be among the first of those who would. In the latters own words to the Athenian populace: I spend all my time going about trying to persuade you, young and old, to make your first and chief concern not for your bodies nor for your possessions, but for that highest welfare of your souls. [47] In a word, then, we may safely conclude that, contrary to what Kaufmann urges, between the Apology and Ecce Homo there exists no noteworthy similarity either in message or in presentation. I have virtually punctatim examined Kaufmanns Chapter 13 of his Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist in order to lay to rest his daring but erroneous assertion that it is false to say that Nietzsche abominated Socratism, if the latter is taken to mean the

[philosophical] outlook Socrates embodied. I am inclined to believe that that objective has now been realized. At the same time, however, my insistence here that Kaufmanns interpretation of Nietzsches Socrates cannot stand, by no means attempts to negate the recognition which should be given to the much broader aim and importance of his project: to repudiate the Nietzsche-myth that had long prevented a hearing for Nietzsche in English-speaking philosophy. Charity dictates that we ought to recognize Kaufmanns creation of a clearing for many of the excellent writings that have appeared during the 1970s and 80s. Indeed, it is not unlikely that the American reception of the French retrieval of Nietzsche, deconstructionist criticism in literary studies, and the closely related end of philosophy theme associated, more recently, with Richard Rorty was also not insignificantly helped by the fact that Kaufmann had already rendered the intellectual climate more conducive to the study of Nietzsches corpus. No; my goal is not at all to undervalue Kaufmanns achievement in Nietzschean scholarship, but only to undermine his conception of a Socratic Nietzsche. In this vein, my present critique could also be appraised as something of a counterweight to other, acclaimed but decidedly innocuous Kaufmann influenced undertakings such as, for example, Schachts breathless Nietzsche and Nehamas rather elegant Nietzsche: Life as Literature which portray an all-too-sunny, Apollinian Nietzsche. Now that Nietzsche has become discussible again, care must be taken to set the record straight by attempting to save him from some of the more current, well-intentioned but overzealous and thus misleading endeavors such as that by Schacht which still insist on overcorrecting Nietzsches intellectual thought by severely blunting its socio-political implications.