Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Section 1 The Classical Greeks
- Section 2 Pre-Socratics and Pythagoreans, Cynics, and Stoics
- Section 3 Nietzsche and the Platonic Tradition
- Nietzsche and Plato
- Nietzsche, Nehamas, and “Self-Creation”
- God Unpicked
- Nietzsche's Wrestling with Plato and Platonism
- On the Relationship of Alcibiades' Speech to Nietzsche's “Problem of Socrates”
- Section 4 Contestations
- Section 5 German Classicism
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Nietzsche and Plato
from Section 3 - Nietzsche and the Platonic Tradition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Section 1 The Classical Greeks
- Section 2 Pre-Socratics and Pythagoreans, Cynics, and Stoics
- Section 3 Nietzsche and the Platonic Tradition
- Nietzsche and Plato
- Nietzsche, Nehamas, and “Self-Creation”
- God Unpicked
- Nietzsche's Wrestling with Plato and Platonism
- On the Relationship of Alcibiades' Speech to Nietzsche's “Problem of Socrates”
- Section 4 Contestations
- Section 5 German Classicism
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
Nietzsche read Plato differently from the way we do, and I am persuaded he read him correctly. The chief difference in Nietzsche's reading follows from a distinction he made basic but that we scholars have not generally credited. As a report on Nietzsche's view of Plato, my contribution depends on that distinction, so I shall sketch it briefly. It is expressed most clearly toward the end of “We Scholars,” the chapter in Beyond Good and Evil that distinguishes scholars from the philosopher. The long aphorisms of that chapter are a gathering argument, which peaks with aphorism 211 where two philosophers are named: Kant and Hegel, the glory of German philosophy. But Nietzsche uses those honored names to distinguish them from “genuine” philosophers. They are “philosophical laborers.” Philosophical labor reaches that high, up to Kant and Hegel as its noble models. As great and rare as they are, they lack what characterizes the still more rare genuine philosopher. As philosophical laborers they remain within the already existing value-creations of a Christianized Platonism. Philosophical labor is “an immense and wonderful task in whose service every subtle pride, every tough will can certainly satisfy itself,” but it is not the highest task.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Nietzsche and AntiquityHis Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition, pp. 205 - 219Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2004