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HOW TO AVOID GETTING KILLED BY A STATUE: SOME LESSONS ON TEACHING AND LYING FROM NIETZSCHE'S THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 December 2021

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Abstract

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra Nietzsche explores the nature of teaching and learning and concludes that a teacher can do more harm than good in a student's life if she allows her students to become her ‘disciples’. A disciple assigns too much authority to a teacher and thus loses the ability to think independently; this is what Zarathustra means when he warns his students, ‘Beware that you are not killed by a statue!’ In this article I argue that Zarathustra's solution to this problem is to undermine his own authority by performing several different variations of the Liar's Paradox in parts 2 and 3 of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Institute of Philosophy

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References

Nietzsche, F. (2006) Thus Spoke Zarathustra, ed. A., Del Caro and Pippin, R., trans. A., Del Caro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar