Nietzsche ST - 1

Abbreviations and Citations of Friedrich
Nietzsches Works
he same citation format is utilized throughout the journal. References to

Nietzsches texts are given in the body of the articles and reviews. References
to Nietzsches unpublished writings are standardized, whenever possible, to refer
to the most accessible print editions of Nietzsches notebooks and publications:
Kritische Studienausgabe (KSA), compiled under the general editorship of
GiorgioColli and Mazzino Montinari and based on the complete edition of the
Kritische Gesamtausgabe (KGW) (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter,
1967ff ) or the electronic version published in the Nietzsche Source collection
(http://www.nietzschesource.org/eKGWB) [abbreviated eKGWB]). References
to the print editions of letters published by de Gruyter are cited as KSB (Smtliche
Briefe: Kritische Studienausgabe) or KGB (Briefe: Kritische Gesamtausgabe).
In references to Nietzsches works, Roman numerals generally denote the
volume number in a set of collected works or standard subdivision within a single
work, and Arabic numerals denote the relevant section number. In cases in which
Nietzsches prefaces are cited, the letter P is used followed by the relevant section
number, where applicable. When a section is too long for the section number alone to
be useful, the page number of the relevant translation is also provided. In the cases
in which the KGW, and KSA are cited, references provide the volume number (and
part for KGW) followed by the relevant fragment number and any relevant aphorism
(e.g.,KSA 10:12[1].37, p. 1 refers to volume 10, fragment 12[1], aphorism 37, page 1).
Abbreviations for titles of published works
AOM = Vermischte Meinungen und Sprche (in Menschliches,
Allzumenschliches II); frequently translated as Assorted Opinions
and Maxims
BGE = Jenseits von Gut und Bse; translated as Beyond Good and Evil
BT = Die Geburt der Tragdie; translated as The Birth of Tragedy
CW = Der Fall Wagner; translated as The Case of Wagner
D = Morgenrthe; frequently translated as Daybreak or Dawn
DS = David Strauss (Unzeitgeme Betrachtungen I)
GM = Zur Genealogie der Moral; frequently translated as On the Genealogy
of Morals or On the Genealogy of Morality
GS = Die frhliche Wissenschaft; frequently translated as The Gay Science
or The Joyful Wisdom
HH = Menschliches, Allzumenschliches; translated as Human All-too-Human
HL = Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie fr das Leben (Unzeitgeme
Betrachtungen II); frequently translated as The Uses and Disadvantages
of History for Life
Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Vol. 45, No. 1, 2014.

Copyright 2014 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
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Abbreviations and Citations of Friedrich Nietzsches Works
IM = Idyllen aus Messina; translated as Idylls from Messina

RWB = Richard Wagner in Bayreuth (Unzeitgeme Betrachtungen IV)
SE = Schopenhauer als Erzieher (Unzeitgeme Betrachtungen III); translated as Schopenhauer as Educator
TI = Gtzen-Dmmerung; translated as Twilight of the Idols; references to
this work also include an abbreviated section name
UM = Unzeitgeme Betrachtungen; frequently translated as Untimely
Meditations, Unmodern Observations, or Unfashionable Observations
WS = D er Wanderer und sein Schatten (in Menschliches,
Allzumenschliches II); frequently translated as The Wandererand
His Shadow
Z = Also sprach Zarathustra (part IV originally published privately); translated as Thus Spoke Zarathustra; references to this work also include an
abbreviated section name
Abbreviations for other frequently cited posthumous and private publications, authorized manuscripts, and collections of Nietzsches unpublished
writings and notes
A = Der Antichrist; frequently translated as The Antichrist or The Antichristian
BAW = Friedrich Nietzsches Werke: Historisch-Kritische Gesammtsausgabe,
ed., Hans Joachim Mette and Karl Schlechta 9 vols. (Munich:
C.H.Becksche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 193440).
DD = Dionysos-Dithyramben; translated as Dionysian Dithyrambs
DW = Die dionysische Weltanschauung
EH = Ecce Homo; references to this work also include an abbreviated
sectionname
FEI = ber die Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten; translated as On the
Future of our Educational Institutions
GSt = Der griechische Staat; translated as The Greek State
HC = Homers Wettkampf ; translated as Homers Contest
HCP = Homer und die klassische Philologie; translated as Homer and
Classical Philology
NCW = Nietzsche Contra Wagner
PPP = Die vorplatonischen Philosophen; translated as The Pre-Platonic
Philosophers
PTAG = Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen; translated
as Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
SGT = Sokrates und die griechische Tragdie; translated as Socrates and
Greek Tragedy
TL = ber Wahrheit und Lge im aussermoralischen Sinne; frequently
translated as On Truth and Lie in an Extra-moral Sense
WPh = Wir Philologen; translated as We Philologists or We Classicists
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On Homuncular Drives and the Structure

of the Nietzschean Self
Paul Katsafanas
Abstract: This article critiques three aspects of Clark and Dudricks book.
First, I question Clark and Dudricks claim that Nietzsche recognizes a distinct
will to value. Second, I argue that Clark and Dudricks analysis of Nietzschean
drives is philosophically and textually problematic. Third, I investigate their
claim that Nietzsche understands the self as a normative ordering of drives,
which they distinguish from a causal ordering. I raise some doubts about the
cogency of this distinction.
Keywords: Clark, Dudrick, Nietzsche, drives, self
f Clark and Dudrick have their way, gone will be the days of breezy writings
on Nietzsche that recruit a phrase from here, a paragraph from there, and construct an interpretation from the resultant mlange. Clark and Dudrick advocate
a meticulous, line-by-line study of Nietzsches text, with painstaking attention
not only to the broader context of his claims, but even to the precise intent of the
images and metaphors that he employs. Here, we find a level of textual scrutiny
and careful consideration of context that has been largely absent in Nietzsche
scholarship. To get a flavor of the book, consider the fact that Clark and Dudrick
spend no fewer than sixty-three pages on the preface and first four sections of
BGE. Indeed, there is a sense in which the first half of the book is devoted to an
analysis of one metaphor. The detail and precision is admirable.
The book is not only meticulousit is exceptionally rich. Though focused
on the first part of BGE, it discusses a host of topics ranging from naturalism
to physiology, philosophical psychology, will to power, realism and antirealism, positivism, sensualism, Kant and Hume on causality, Spir on dogmatism
and the relations between causal and normative claims, and Plato on the soul.
Many of these discussions are illuminating, introducing intriguing new takes
on these debates.
The book falls into two parts. The first part focuses on a metaphor that Nietzsche
employs in the preface: there, Nietzsche remarks on a magnificent tension
of the spirit that characterize[s] the current situation of philosophy (11).
Clark and Dudrick argue that we should interpret this tension as generated by
two competing forces, which they call the will to truth and the will to value
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2 Paul Katsafanas
(12). They argue against readings of Nietzsche that strive to eliminate or mitigate
one of these wills, instead proposing that Nietzsche sees a way in which these
wills can coexist productively (11339). I spend the first section of this review
investigating these claims. In particular, I am skeptical that Nietzsche would
recognize a distinct, independent will to value, and accordingly, I offer a different
reading of the relevant passages.
The second part of the book analyzes Nietzsches philosophical psychology, with a focus on his discussions of willing, drives, will to power, and the
structure of the self (or soul, as Clark and Dudrick prefer). There, they argue
that Nietzsches will to power doctrine is a doctrine of what constitutes the
human soul, what makes us persons or selves, hence what differentiates humans
from other animals (139). In particular, they maintain that the Nietzschean self
comprises various drives that stand in normative relationships to one another.
As they put it, [T]he human soul is not a naturalistic entity, but neither is it a
metaphysical one. It is a normative entity, which exists only in and through the
space of reasons (139). The second and third sections of this review address
these claims. In the second section, I argue that Clark and Dudricks analysis
of Nietzschean drives is philosophically and textually problematic. Finally, the
third section investigates their claim that Nietzsche understands the self as a
normative ordering of drives, which they distinguish from a causal ordering.
I raise some questions about the cogency of this distinction.
The Will to Value versus the Will to Truth

As I mentioned above, the preface of BGE discusses a magnificent tension of
the spirit, and Clark and Dudrick take BGE I to be an explication of this tension.
They suggest that the future Nietzsche envisions for philosophy ... depends
on the proper resolution of this tension (11). If this is right, then understanding the tension will be crucial. The key to understanding this metaphor, they
write, is to recognize that the tension in question must be produced by a conflict
between two different forces. ... We find them in the will to truth and what
we call the will to value (12). Accordingly, an overriding idea in Clark and
Dudricks book is that Nietzsche is concerned with a tension between a will to
value and a will to truth.
I have two concerns about this claim. First, the contention that the will to
value is in conflict with the will to truth seems insufficiently precise. Second,
it is not clear why Clark and Dudrick take Nietzsche to countenance a discrete
will to value.
Start with the first problem. Given the way in which Clark and Dudrick define
the will to value and will to truth, it is unclear how they can be in conflict with
one another. Clark and Dudrick write that the will to truth aims at believing
only what corresponds to the way the world actually is, whereas the will to
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Structure of the Nietzschean Self 3
value aims to represent the world in terms of what is valuable, in terms of what it
would be good for the world to be (37).1 However, Clark and Dudrick note that
the will to truth, so defined, constitutes an evaluation: they write that Nietzsche
understands the will to truth as a commitment to the value of truth (35). But
given these definitions, does not the will to truth turn out to be a species of will
to value? An agent has a will to truth if she is committed to the value of truth; so,
an agent has a will to truth if her will to value is directed in a certain wayat
truth. This entails that the magnificent tension between will to truth and will
to value would actually be a tension within the will to value. It would be a tension between particular values, rather than between value and something else.
This brings us to the second concern. What exactly is the will to value
supposedto be, and where in Nietzsches texts do Clark and Dudrick find
evidence for it? As far as I can tell, Clark and Dudrick rest their case for a will
to value on BGE 2. They note that BGE 2 investigates the motives that drive
philosophers metaphysical theorizing and claim, it is here that [Nietzsche]
introduces the will to value (37). In particular, they read BGE 2 as claiming that
a valuation stands behind one particular species of philosophy, metaphysical
philosophy, and they see the following sections as extending this point: BGE
58 argue that some such valuation stands behind all philosophy (42). Thus,
Clark and Dudrick move from the idea that
1. whenever a person engages in philosophy, some value motivates this
pursuit
to the claim that
2. the best explanation for 1 is that there exists a will to value.
The idea, I suppose, is that the will to value finds expression in philosophizing
(as well as other activities), and therefore explains 1.
My objection is that there are many ways to explain 1 without appealing to2.
For example, perhaps what motivates Kants philosophizing is a valuation of
religion. And perhaps what drives Schopenhauers is a disvaluation of suffering.
And perhaps what drives Feuerbachs is a valuation of scientific progress. And
so on. In other words, perhaps each philosopher is driven by an antecedent commitment to some particular value, rather than a commitment to an amorphous
will to value.
It might seem that there is no great difference between claiming (A) various agents have various, particular values, and (B) agents have a will to value.
However, this is a mistake: 1 and 2 are importantly distinct. On reflection, the
idea of an independent will to value is very odd. It suggests that human beings
aim at valuing things, and go about looking for ways to fulfill this aim. That is, it
suggests that I want to stand in relations of reverence and respect to something,
so I go about trying to fill in the blank. But an alternative idea is that I do not
have a blank aim of valuing things. Rather, I value particulars, and I value them
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4 Paul Katsafanas
because I have a drive toward them. I have a drive toward sexual activity, and
so value sex; I have a drive toward knowledge, and so value knowledge; I have
a drive toward sociality, and hence value social activity. This view, it seems to
me, fits much better with Nietzsches claim that each drive is a valuation. Just as
the will to truth involves a valuation of truth, so too a will to sexuality involves
a valuation of sexuality, a will to aggression involves a valuation of aggression,
and so on. But none of this implies that there is some independent, discrete will
to value that then finds expression in various particular values.
Why does this matter? What is wrong with moving from the idea that I value
X, Y, and Z to the idea that I have a drive toward valuing? Well, it is a bit like
concluding, from the fact that I am committed to taking the means toward
knowledge, sex, food, sociality, that I have a blank aim of taking means to
ends, and go about adopting ends so as to fulfill this aim. That is backward.
Rather, Iam attracted to particular things, and am thus inclined to take the
means toward them. Just so, I suggest, with the will to value. The talk of a
single will to value suggests that I have a blank aim of valuing things and
go about looking for ways to fulfill it. But this seems phenomenologically
implausible and philosophically problematic. If we had strong textual support
for the idea that Nietzsche countenances a will to value, then we might set
these problems aside; but, as I have indicated above, the textual evidence is
exceedingly thin.
Suppose this is right; suppose there is no one will to value, just many values.
Then the magnificent tension looks very different. It is a tension within the
will to truth, which tries to deny its own evaluative status. This, after all, is the
tension that Nietzsche explores in the Genealogy: the valuation of truth, when
taken seriously enough, leads us to question our grounds for valuing truth.
Nowill to value is involved in this story, just one particular value.
Drives as Homunculi
The second half of Clark and Dudricks book is concerned with philosophical
psychology, and I focus the remainder of the review on this material. I begin with
their analysis of Nietzsches notion of drive (Trieb or Instinkt). When explaining a persons actions, values, conscious thinking, and indeed the structure of
the agents self, Nietzsche appeals to drives. But when we ask what, exactly, a
drive is, puzzles arise. Nietzsche tells us that drives adopt perspectives, interpret the world, and evaluate.2 For example, in BGE 6, Nietzsche writes that
every drive would be only too glad to present just itself as the ultimate goal of
existence and as the legitimate master of all the other drives. For every drive is
desirous of ruling: and it is as such that it tries to philosophize. This language
of valuing, adopting perspectives, presenting oneself as master, and philosophizing is ordinarily used only with full-fledged agents. For this reason, some
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commentators have interpreted Nietzschean drives as homunculisubpersonal

entities that have the properties of agents.3 Clark and Dudrick wholeheartedly
embrace this interpretation, arguing at length that Nietzschean drives are homunculi (see esp. 19698).
To see this, consider the fact that Clark and Dudrick attribute extremely
sophisticated capacities to drives. They tell us that drives are aware of one
another and try to prevent other drives from getting what they want (146).
They claim that each drive systematically develops and defends an account of
reality from its point of view (146). They imagine drives commanding other
drives to carry out certain actions (183) and presenting themselves to the
other drives as having political authority, as having the authority to speak for
the whole commonwealth, ... In taking this stance toward the other drives,
they experience themselves as superior to them (183). They suggest that, just
as political rulers in a state rule not just because they are strongest, but because
they are recognized as having the authority to rule, so too one drive has a
higher rank than another not in virtue of causal efficaciousness ... but in virtue
of being recognized as having a right to win (150). In short, drives are homunculi. They are miniature agents who communicate with one another, develop
political orderings, perceive authority relations, have plans and strategies, have
experiences, develop accounts, and so on.
I have argued elsewhere that homuncular readings of Nietzschean drives are
indefensible; instead, we should understand drives as dispositions to token affective or evaluative orientations and patterns of activity.4 When Nietzsche claims
that drives philosophize, evaluate, interpret, and so on, he is remarking on the
way in which an embodied drive generates affective or evaluative orientations
in an agent; he is not committed to the idea that the drive considered in isolation
from the whole agent has these experiences. Here, I want to reiterate some of
these concerns. I think there are compelling philosophical and textual reasons
for rejecting the homuncular reading of drives.
Let us start with the philosophical problems. First, Clark and Dudrick attribute experiences, perceptions, the capacity to issue and obey commands, and
the capacity to recognize political authority to drives. It is hard to see how
this is possible without the drives being self-conscious. But surely Nietzsche
cannot imagine that each human being comprises a multitude of self-conscious
entities.
Second, it is not obvious how the homuncular view of drives could have any
explanatory power. For example, consider Nietzsches efforts to explain conscious agency in terms of drives. If drives are themselves conscious agents, what
exactly is being explained here? We want an explanation of conscious agency,
and we are told to understand a persons conscious agency as a manifestation of
the conscious agency of various drives. This is hardly informative. Rather than
explaining agency and selfhood, it simply shifts the problematic terms about,
from the level of persons to the level of drives.
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6 Paul Katsafanas
Clark and Dudrick attempt to respond to these concerns in two ways. First,
they claim that homunculi are problematic only if they are as complex as the
whole organism. They write that because these activities are simpler than the
one for which they are supposed to account, there is no problematic circularity
here (198). The activity for which drives are supposed to account is the agency
characteristic of a human being (197). So, Clark and Dudrick claim, commanding, obeying, and recognizing political authority are simpler than the agency
characteristic of us.
However, this claim is difficult to believe. In what sense are commanding,
obeying, and recognizing authority simpler than other manifestations of human
agency? Commanding and obeying, for example, require very robust cognitive
processes. After all, they require, at minimum, the presence of consciousness:
one entity must perceive another as commanding, understand the nature of this
command, be motivated to bend itself to this agents command, and then carry
out the command. How could a subpersonal psychological entity, a drive, do this?
This brings us to the second aspect of Clark and Dudricks response. They
claim that commanding and obeying cannot be understood in merely causal
terms: as they put it, we must distinguish commanding and obeying from mere
physiological strength of the drives and brute causal strength (198). Thus,
when drive A commands drive B, this involves more than A simply overpowering
B. Instead, drives issue commands when they exert political authority (198).
Drive A commands drive B when drive B recognizes and responds appropriately
to drive As authority.
What is the difference between causal strength and political authority? That
is, how do we distinguish between drive Bs being overpowered by A and Bs
submitting to As authority? In order to elucidate this distinction, and to respond
to the concern that drives are being treated as self-conscious agents, Clark and
Dudrick point out that contemporary scientists recognize political relations
or dominance hierarchies among certain animals, such as wolves and chimps
(198). These relations, Clark and Dudrick claim, are not merely causal; they are
normative. Their idea seems to be that if wolves and chimps can stand in these
normative relations, so too can drives.
Suppose Clark and Dudrick are right that the relations among drives are
analogous to the relations among wolves and chimps. Clark and Dudrick take this
analogy to assuage the concern that drives are being treated as full-fledged agents.
Iwould interpret it in exactly the opposite way: it makes it clear just how dire the
problem is. Wolves and chimps stand at the heights of cognitive s ophistication
among animals. Insofar as we attribute to wolves and chimps, but not ants and
bees, the capacity to recognize political relationships, we recognize that genuine
commanding and obeying requires tremendously more than mere ordered action.
Ants, for example, have complex, hierarchically ordered societies; but we do
not suppose that ants actually recognize political authority. Certainscientists
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do, on the other hand, attribute that capacity to chimps. Ifsubpersonal drives
are supposed to have this degree of cognitive sophisticationif psychological
processes inside of me are somehow supposed to have the mental capacities
of a chimpthen Nietzsches theory belongs in the rubble heap of outlandish
nineteenth-century biological speculations.
Clark and Dudrick do have a response. They claim that contemporary scientists take the social hierarchies exhibited by animals such as wolves and chimps
not to require that the animals in question take themselves to form a political
order; their conscious motives and intentions need not concern their political standing (199). Instead, the claim that animals stand in political relations
means only that the behavior of an individual is best explained not only in terms
of his brute strength relative to his fellows but in terms of his rank in the social
order. In saying that drives form a political order, then, Nietzsche need not take
them to be conscious of their political situationhe need not take them to be
conscious at all (199).
However, Clark and Dudricks final remark does not follow from their interpretation of the empirical data: the data that they cite claims that social hierarchies
do not require consciousness of political order, but from this it hardly follows
that social hierarchies do not require consciousness at all. A chimp that defers to
an authority figure may not be conscious of standing in a political order, but it is
clearly conscious of something (the menacing posture of the domineering chimp,
for example). So the empirical data in no way support Clark and Dudricks claim
that drives could stand in political relations without being conscious.
In sum, Clark and Dudricks analogy between drives and chimps does not
helptheir case at all. Rather than assuaging the concern that drives are being
attributed extremely sophisticated mental capacities, the analogy drives home
the concern.
It is possible that Nietzsche fell into error and endorsed this rather dubious
theory. However, this brings us to a decisive textual problem with attributing the homuncular view to Nietzsche: it is extremely difficult to reconcile
this interpretation with his other commitments. He makes it quite clear that he
wants to rethink our notion of the self: And as for the Ego! That has become
a fable, a fiction, a play on words: it has altogether ceased to think, feel, or
will! (TIErrors 3).5 And, To babble about unity, soul, person, this we
have forbidden: with such hypotheses one only complicates the problem (KSA
11:37[4]). These passages question our ordinary understanding of the self. As
Clark and Dudrick note, Nietzsche argues that once we recognize that the self
harbors multiple drives, we must rethink the nature of the self. But if drives
are homunculi, then Nietzsches rethinking of the self is a rather modest affair:
Nietzsche would simply be claiming that there are many more selves than we
thought. In other words, the homuncular interpretation assumes that we already
have a coherent concept of selfhood, and are simply mistaken as to which entities
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8 Paul Katsafanas
instantiate this concept: we thought that whole persons instantiated selfhood,

but we find that parts of personsdrivesinstantiate selfhood.
This interpretation is dubious. Nietzsche seems to be claiming not simply that
we have applied the concept of selfhood to the wrong entity (person rather than
drive), but that we do not even possess a coherent concept of selfhood. Inother
words, Nietzsche is not simply claiming that there are more selves than we think
there are; instead, he is claiming that we have a mistaken conception of selfhood.
He wants to transform our notion of selfhood, not simply to apply the notion
in a more profligate fashion. I take it that this is part of what Nietzsche means
when he writes that drives are not soul-atoms (KSA 11:37[4]).
Let me close this section by pointing out that Clark and Dudrick interpret
the atomistic need that Nietzsche rejects in BGE 12 as the need for a unit at
the microlevel that is a smaller version of the things we are familiar with at the
macrolevel (161). Though they see the atomistic need as resting on plebian
assumption[s] and grammatical errors (161), it is hard to avoid noticing that
Clark and Dudricks homuncular drives are paradigms of this needfor what
are their drives but micro versions of ordinary agents?
The Alleged Conflict between Causal

and Normative Accounts of the Self
These reflections lead us to our final concern. Clark and Dudrick rely on the idea
that the self comprises drives that are normatively or political ordered, rather than
causally ordered (139). They reject the idea that the causal order of the drives
explains the type of person one is, why the person holds her values, and why she
holds her theoretical views (149). Instead, they suggest that Nietzsche takes the
soul to be the political order of the drives and affects. ... The political order is
not just a causal order, but a normative one (150). Although they acknowledge
that Nietzsche never comes right out and says that it [the ordering of drives]
is... a normative rather than a merely causal order (155), they claim that we
can make sense of his claims only by interpreting him in this way.
I confess to being unsure what, exactly, Clark and Dudrick mean by normative
order and why they take the claim that some domain has a normative order
to be incompatible with the claim that it has a causal orderwhy think the
two kinds of orders are in conflict with one another, rather than just different vocabularies employed in describing different features of the same thing?
I lack the space to pursue this concern in detail here, though, so let me raise
more restricted points.
First, whatever we think of the tenability of the causal/normative distinction in
general, it seems to me odd to interpret Nietzsche as endorsing any such distinction. Put a bit differently, it is surprising to think that Nietzsche would endorse
a strong fact/value distinctionis he not constantly emphasizing the ways in
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which allegedly nonevaluative, affectively neutral descriptions actually presuppose and contain evaluations? Where does one find Nietzsche countenancing
such a distinction? To the extent that he writes about such a distinction, he seems
to me extremely critical of it.
Clark and Dudrick make much of Nietzsches rejection of mechanism;
they take his rejection of mechanism to involve an endorsement of the causal/
normative distinction. However, I think it is clear that Nietzsche thinks the
mechanists go wrong, not because they focus solely on the causal and ignore a
separate normative realm, but because they do not see that our account of the
causal is already, and pervasively, normative. The mechanists conception of
causes, substances, subjects, and so on already containor so Nietzsche wants
to claimevaluations.
Put a bit differently, Clark and Dudricks distinction between the causal and
the normative seems to presuppose something like this:
A. We can offer a nonevaluative or non-normative description of the
world, but if we do we will miss something crucial. The mechanists
and other clumsy naturalists go wrong because their descriptions of the
world leave out values and reasons.
Whereas I suggest that Nietzsches point is rather:
B. We cannot offer a nonevaluative or non-normative description of the
world, because our descriptions ineluctably presuppose or constitute
evaluations. The mechanists and other clumsy naturalists go wrong
because they do not realize that their descriptions of the world, which
purport to be purely factual, harbor or constitute evaluations.
But suppose I am wrong; suppose Nietzsche actually does accept A. This brings
us to a second problem. Why exactly is Nietzsche supposed to deny that the
structure of the agents drives can be given a causal explanation? Clark and
Dudrick write that the drives are arranged not merely in a causal order but
in a political one (175). They claim that the political order cannot be given a
causal explanation, because it is not merely an order of strength (189). That
is, we cannot explain the political order among the drives merely by appealing
to which drive is strongest. It seems, then, that Clark and Dudrick rely on the
following argument:
1. The drives stand in various relationships.
2. These relationships between drives cannot be explained merely by
characterizing certain drives as stronger than others.
3. Therefore, the relationships between drives cannot be explained in
causal terms.
4. Therefore, the relationships between drives must be explained in
normative terms.
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10 Paul Katsafanas
If this is the argument, though, it is unconvincing, for claim 3 does not follow
from claim 2. Suppose I want to give an analysis of a human political organization, such as a university. It is true that an analysis that merely says the president
is strongest, the dean a bit weaker, the faculty weaker still will not be very
informative and will not capture the interactions between these constituents. But
why is that supposed to be the only option? Causal explanations can be much
more refined than this; they can cite a much broader range of factors than mere
strength. The fact that a crude causal explanation fails does not entail that all
causal explanations fail.
After all, Nietzsche makes it very clear that he does not believe facts about
drives alone are going to be enough to explain a persons behavior. Just look at
Ecce Homo: there, we are told that Nietzsches diet, the climates he lived in, his
childhood experiences, and so on exerted a decisive influence in making him
who he was. So a full explanation of a persons behavior is going to include not
just drives, but environmental and physiological factors, as well as experiences
and memories.
Why not try something similar with drives? It is probably true that trying to
explain the relationship between, say, the knowledge drive and the sex drive
merely in terms of which is stronger will not be very informative. But that is not
the only option. We could instead say that the knowledge drive is dominant in
the sense that it redirects other drives, structures the persons deliberations as
well as her conceptualization of her environment, tokens affective orientations
in certain circumstances, leads to certain patterns of behavior, and so on. Even if
the simple causal story fails, this more sophisticated causal story might succeed.
Although I have raised some objections to Clark and Dudricks analyses of
the will to value, drives, and the causal/normative distinction, I want to close
by emphasizing just how valuable I take their book to be. It is an unusually
insightful work, full of nuanced analyses, valuable reflections, and challenging
objections to competing interpretations. Everyone with an interest in Nietzsche
will need to read it.
Boston University
pkatsa@bu.edu
Notes
1. Though see p. 44, where Clark and Dudrick define will to value and will to truth
differently: there, we are told that the will to truth is the will to see that world as it is and the
will to value is the will to see the world in a way that accords with [ones] values.
2. For some examples, see HH 32, BGE 6, KSA 10:24[15], KSA 12:1[58] 59, KSA 12:7[60]
139, and KSA 13:14[184].
05/03/14 9:31 AM

3. See, for example, Peter Poellner, Nietzsche and Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1995).
4. Paul Katsafanas, Nietzsches Philosophical Psychology, in The Oxford Handbook of
Nietzsche, ed. Ken Gemes and John Richardson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 72755.
5. Translations from KSA are my own. I quote Kaufmanns translation of TI, from Walter
Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche (New York: Viking, 1954).
05/03/14 9:31 AM
Nietzsches Psychology as a Refinement of Platos

Christopher Janaway
Abstract: Clark and Dudrick claim that Nietzsche takes Platos theory of the
soul to be a hypothesis, which his own psychology is an attempt to refine.
This essay accepts that claim, but argues for a more streamlined account of the
relation between Nietzsche and Plato than Clark and Dudrick give. (1) There
is no justification for their suggestion that Nietzsche diagnoses an atomistic
need as responsible for what he objects to in Platos model. (2) The claim that
reason is a motivationally inert set of cognitive capacities is not necessarily a
point of disagreement with Plato. (3) Nietzsches psychology does not require
a generalized will to value as a counterpart to the will to truth. (4) Clark and
Dudrick fail to recognize the Platonic soul elements as drives, and that the
element that for Plato should govern in the best of souls can be interpreted as
closely analogous to Nietzsches will to truth.
Keywords: soul, Plato, will to truth, reason, atomistic need
he familiar, clichd picture is this: Nietzsche, the antimetaphysician, versus

Plato, the metaphysician. But in The Soul of Nietzsches Beyond Good
and Evil, Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick portray the two thinkers as
contestants in the same arena, that of psychology, the theory of the soul. In
Beyond Good and Evil 268, Nietzsche makes a statement with which Plato
would wholeheartedly agree: A persons valuations reveal something about
the structure of his soul.1 Clark and Dudrick also agree: for them the central
notion of BGE One [the Preface and Part I] is the soul (176) and [p]hilosophical psychology can ascertain the truth about the soul only by acknowledging
values as constitutional (135). They offer an analysis of the souls internal
structure that models Nietzsches psychology on Platos. The question for Clark
and Dudrick, and for this response to their admirably dedicated and detailed
reading, is this: where precisely do Nietzsche and Plato agree about the soul,
and where do they disagree?
We can begin with BGE 12. Here, Nietzsche states that the atomism of the
soul should be abandoned as a pernicious doctrine, but that by contrast there is
absolutely no need to give up the soul [Seele] itself, and relinquish one of the
oldest and most venerable hypothesesas often happens with naturalists: given
their clumsiness, they barely need to touch the soul to lose it. But the path lies
12
JNS 45.1_02_Janaway.indd 12
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Nietzsches Psychology as a Refinement of Platos 13
open for new versions and sophistications of the soul hypothesisand concepts
like the mortal soul and the soul as subject-multiplicity and the soul as a
society constructed out of drives and affects want henceforth to have civil rights
in the realm of science. Clark and Dudrick propose that the oldest and most
venerable hypothesis here is none other than Platos tripartite model of the soul
in the Republic. They claim not that Nietzsche accepts Platos theory of the soul
but that he takes it to be a hypothesis, which his own psychology is an attempt
to refine (163). Here is their proposal: Nietzsche accepts Platos hypothesis
that human behavior is to be explained in terms of an internal or unobservable
structure, the causal properties of which are specified in terms of the interrelations of its elements. However, he takes these elements to be simply the drives
and affects. He transforms Platos appetites into drives, turns Platos spirit into
a property of all drivesthe will to powerand denies that reason provides an
independent source of motivation, rendering it as a set of motivationally inert
cognitive capacities (167). I am sympathetic to the idea that contrasting the
two structures is a route to understanding something of Nietzsches conception
of the soul in BGE. However, I believe there is much to question in the account
Clark and Dudrick offer.
The Atomistic Need

Clark and Dudrick see Nietzsches prime objection to Plato as targeting his
conception of reason. The criticism is expressed in terms of atomism: Tosay
that Platos conception of reason is atomistic is to say that he [presumably
Nietzsche?] takes it to be posited because it gratifies a craving of the mind for
similarity between the micro- and macrolevels even though it does not i lluminate
the phenomenon in question (171). But how likely is any particular mind to
have precisely this rather obscure craving for micro-macro similarity? And why
would we think that Nietzsche believes there is such a general craving? The
motivation Clark and Dudrick provide for thinking so comes in their extended
discussion of BGE 12. Nietzsche contrasts the conception of soul he wishes to
retain with an atomistic conception that should be thrown out of psychology.
He draws an analogy between the atomism of the soul and the materialistic
atomism that Boscovich opposed, in defiance of an ingrained atomistic need.
But the atomism of the soul will be harder to eradicate because of this same
atomistic need. Clark and Dudrick point out that Nietzsche says this need must
be opposed in a war of the knife [Krieg aufs Messer] and plausibly claim that
this is an allusion to Occams razor (160).
All agreed so far. The belief labeled as atomism of the soul is, not surprisingly, the belief that the soul is an atom: something indestructible, eternal,
indivisible, that it is a monad, an atomon (BGE 12). This is explicitly the
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14 Christopher Janaway
Christian view of the soul, the view of Leibniz, and implicitly that of Descartes
and a well-known modern tradition. But it is also the view of Plato sometimes.
In the dialogue Phaedo, the soul (in one of its guises) is most similar to what is
divine, immortal, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, unvarying, and constant in
relation to itself (Phaedo 80b13).2 In the Preface to BGE, Nietzsche laments
this Platonic view as a dangerous error, under the description invention of pure
spirit [Geist]. But the tripartite analysis of the soul in the Republic appears to be
a new departure for Plato, which, in the view of some commentators, is incompatible with his immortal, indivisible soul conception. At its bluntest, this view
says that the psychology of the Phaedo does not harmonize with the argument
of the Republic nor the psychology of the Republic with the argument of the
Phaedo.3 That interpretive issue is debatable; but if the Republics structured
soul is at odds with the eternal, indissoluble soul of the Phaedo (and if the latter is earlier than the Republic), then Plato has made a similar transition to the
one Nietzsche advocates and precisely cannot be accused of atomism of the
soulquite the reverse, as Clark and Dudrick are well aware: Platos theory of
the soul is not itself atomisticit is ... precisely the theory to use for inspiration
if one wants to retain the soul but reject atomism (171). Nietzsche contends
that it has been hard for people to make this move to an internally complex soul
because of their atomistic need. But on a straightforward reading this means
that they need to believe in atoms, as conceived by the long, familiar tradition
inaugurated by Democritus:4 indivisible, eternally lasting entities, simple units
of Being. His theory of Forms might suggest that Plato had such a need. But it
cannot explain his move away from the unitary soul.
Whence, then, the notion of a micro-macro similarity craving? The argument
for this rests on an analogy with the Boscovich case, read in a way peculiar to
Clark and Dudricks interpretation. They claim, plausibly enough, that the materialistic atomistic theory was hard to dislodge because there was a psychological
need to think that the subcomponents of matter were just little bits of matter
(158). They then claim that, for Nietzsche, this need is an instance of a more
widespread tendency to think that what exists at the microlevel must be like
what exists at the macrolevel (161). But the fact that there is an analogy between
Boscovichs fight against materialistic atomism and Nietzsches fight against
soul atomism does not license the conclusion that every feature of the one fight
is a feature of the other. Nothing in the text of BGE 12 requires this particular
tendency, which, I submit, is solely an artifact of Clark and Dudricks interpretation. Finally, consider that Nietzsche singles out Christianity as having taught the
atomism of the soul best and longest (BGE 12). It is not plausible that Christian
theorists believed in the eternal, monadic soul because they craved a similarity
between micro- and macrolevels. For one thing, the question arises, micro- and
macrolevels of what?to which no intelligible answer is forthcoming.
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The claim that one can arrive at Nietzsches conception of the soul by
starting from Platos theory and removing from it the element that Nietzsche
would consider an expression of soul atomism (164) is, therefore, not credible.
But perhaps the point can be made without invoking soul atomismthe point
being that Nietzsche rejects reason as an independent part of the soul (173),
or denies that reason provides an independent source of motivation (167).
Clark and Dudrick base their account of Platos notion of reason largely on
that of John Cooper,5 who sees in Platos theory a desire on the part of reason
to work out the ends of life on its own and to achieve them.6 On this view, as
interpreted by Clark and Dudrick, it is as if Plato thinks our capacity for rational calculation somehow autonomously works out what ends to pursue, and
decides on the nature of the good in the abstract, without being directed to its
object by interest or affect (173). Clark and Dudrick point to no obvious argument against this position in BGE I, though they give grounds for thinking that
Nietzsche would object to it, notably his well-known tirade against the absurdity
of disinterested, affect-free knowing by pure reason and the like in GM III:12.
However, despite the support from Coopers eminent interpretation, there are
other ways of reading Plato. I want to suggest a different interpretation that can
show not only a more pointed disagreement between Nietzsche and Plato but
one that the text of BGE I itself blatantly addresses.
Platonic Reason and the Rule of the Truth Drive

Clark and Dudrick wish to show (1) that Nietzsches soul is a refinement of
the Platonic soul hypothesis and also (2) that Nietzsches soul is a normative
order of drives that constitutes a persons values (see 141). However, I suggest
there is a superior way to argue for (1) and (2) that takes as its starting point the
thesis that Platos soul is already a normative order of drives that constitutes a
persons values. This enables a more accurate account of Platos hypothesis and
a more streamlined account of what in it Nietzsche accepts and what he rejects.
Plato introduces the elements of the soul in Republic book 4 as to epithumtikon (the appetitive part or appetite), to thumoeides (the spirited part7 or
spirit), and to logistikon (the calculating part, often, though misleadingly,
called reason). The elements initially look nothing much like the drives, or
drives and affects, that Nietzsche urges upon us. But in the extended argument
of books 8 and 9, things take on a different complexion. As G. R. F. Ferrari
puts it, we must now regard the elements of the soul as the drive toward material satisfaction, the drive to win and amount to something, and the drive
to uncover truth.8 Ferrari here reflects a long tradition in Plato scholarship.
Cornford (192930) compares the parts of the soul to modern drive psychology;
20/02/14 2:04 PM
Robinson (1970) says the souls tripartition in terms of drives is introduced. . .

in keeping with the assertion that each part of the soul has its own form of desire;
for Klosko (1986) the parts of the soul are streams of desire; for Kahn (1987)
they make reference to different types of drives, desires or impulse.9
A much-cited passage begins in Republic book 9: There are three pleasures
corresponding to the three parts of the soul ... and similarly with desires and
kinds of rule (580d). Plato is engaged with the question of which life is best
to live. The parts are now pervasive tendencies to value distinct ends that
consistently structure different lives and give rise to characteristic motivational
and affective states. Plato calls the part with the appetites for food, drink, sex,
and other things money-loving and profit-loving. He calls the spirited part
victory-loving and honor-loving. Each part is a love of something. So too is
the part with which we learn: it is clear to everyone that the part with which we
learn is always wholly straining to know where the truth lies and that, of the three
parts, it cares least for money and reputation. ... Then wouldnt it be appropriate
for us to call it learning-loving [ philomathes] and philosophical [ philosophon]?
(Republic 581b). So there is a philosophical part of the soul, which cares only
about learning, responds affectively to learning, and is always wholly straining
to know where the truth lies. It is a persisting disposition to value knowledge
of the truth as an end above all other ends. It is what we may call a pure drive
toward truth. Plato argues at length that the best human life is lived by one in
whom this pure drive to truth rules over other elements in the soul.
The first lesson of this passage is that we should refrain from summarizing
Platos position anachronistically as either reason is an independent part of the
soul or reason should rule the soul. In book 9 his message is rather: There
is a basic element in us with its own passionate interest in knowledge, an element that responds affectively to seeking and uncovering truth. The pleasure in
the pursuit of truth is the highest of all pleasures (see the extended arguments
at Republic 581c588b), and the life devoted to the pursuit of truth should be
valued most highly. Since a human beings valuations reveal something about
the structure of his or her soul, the best soul will be one that is ruled internally
by the pure drive to truth.
There is, however, a wrinkle to add to this account. When Plato first argues
for the distinctness of the souls parts in book 4, he does so in terms of conflicts
of occurrent desires: someones wanting a drink out of thirst, but not wanting
the same drink because of a rational concern with what is best; or Odysseuss
wanting to attack his rivals out of anger at the way they dishonor him, but not
wanting to attack them because of a rational concern for what will best achieve
his long-term plan of action. The conflicts could fall out either way. But in them
reason appears as a capacity to calculate. If the individual acts out of thirst
despite his or her rational desires, he or she is ruled by appetite; if Odysseus acts
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out of intemperate anger, he is ruled by spirit. If the opposite desire wins out
in either case, the individual is united and healthy because ruled by reason,
in the sense that the action he or she has calculated to be the desirable one is
the one he or she carries out. Some commentators have dubbed this the nonnormative rule of reason,10 meaning that rational calculation here does not
set any determinate value for the agent, but merely ensures that the agent acts
on those desires that are likely to bring an outcome in line with what the agent
values. If I refrain from a drink because I am following an overall plan to win
money in a bet, the overall value I pursue may be that of material acquisition.
We could say that in that case, for Plato I am normatively ruled by my appetitive
part. Yet, at the same time, the non-normative rule of my reason is instrumental
in facilitating the normative rule of the appetitive part by curbing an indulgence
of appetite that would spoil my overall plan. Likewise, if Odysseus curbs his
spirited anger, reason rules him non-normatively, but it does so in the aid of his
overall plan to avenge his honor by slaughtering his rivals and stringing them
up from the rafters. So he is normatively ruled by his spirited part, in virtue of
which he values honor most highly.
Plato describes a wealth-driven individual whose appetitive part is (normatively) king in his soul and reduces the rational and spirited parts to slaves
(553cd). This person has an active drive to discover truth, and an active drive
to honor and esteem, but [h]e wont allow the first to reason about or examine
anything except how a little money can be made into great wealth. And he wont
allow the second to value or admire anything but wealth and wealthy people
or to have any ambition other than the acquisition of wealth or whatever might
contribute to getting it (553d). So there are cases of coherent, unified lives
normatively ruled by parts other than the drive to truth. But for the best life, it
is not sufficient that calculation successfully steers the agent toward what he or
she most values; it must also be a life normatively ruled by the drive to truth,
the philosophon or philomathes, that element in us which is always straining
to know the truth.
So if, as Clark and Dudrick say, Nietzsche denies that reason provides an
independent source of motivation, rendering it as a set of motivationally inert
cognitive capacities (167), is he disagreeing with Plato? Yes and no. For Plato
too the mere capacity to calculate well so as to pursue ones own values effectively is motivationally inert. The wealth-lover can be as rational as the truthlover, but their motivation comes from what they love, not from their reason.
However, the bigger question is whether Nietzsche will allow that there is a pure
drive to discover truth, and, if so, whether it should rule the soul in the best of
human lives. Locating the issue between Nietzsche and Plato here has the virtue
of reflecting not only a more comprehensive reading of Plato but also a much
clearer concern in the text of BGE I.
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Drive to Knowledge, Will to Truth

Clark and Dudrick accept that, for Nietzsche, there is a drive to uncover truth.
His philosophy, they claim, seeks to satisfy two drives, the will to truth and
the will to value (114). Later they call these the two sides of the philosophical soul (247). Will to truth is undeniably the hot issue in BGE from the very
first words of section 1. Nor is it problematic to call will to truth a Nietzschean
drive. Nietzsche frequently uses the form will to ... to characterize one drive
or another. For example, he calls will to power the cardinal drive (BGE 13),
and philosophy this tyrannical drive itself, the most spiritual will to power
(BGE9).11 Will to value, by contrast, must be regarded as a construct of Clark
and Dudricks own. The expression itself occurs nowhere in the text, and, as far as
I can see, nowhere in Nietzsches writings, published or unpublished.12 It could,
for all that, be a useful construct. However, as Paul Katsafanas points out (this
volume), it is questionable whether a will or drive toward value as such makes
much sense. It is unclear what would be explained by positing a generalized
drive to value rather than a set of specific drives to value X or Y. Will to truth is
a prime example of a will to a specific value. It is the drive in virtue of which
we value truth; see Genealogy III:24: The will to truth is in need of a critique
[...] the value of truth is for once to be experimentally called into question.
So we do better to replace the contrast between will to truth and will to value
with the contrast between the drive that leads us to value truth and some other
drive or drives that lead us to different valuations.
I follow Clark and Dudrick in taking drive to knowledge as equivalent to
drive to knowledge of truth, and to truth drive (143). I take all these terms as
effectively referring also to the drive they call will to truth. Clark and Dudrick
accept that Nietzsche recognizes the existence of a knowledge drive, which
they note is the first drive [Nietzsche] mentions in BGE (168). But Nietzsche
is skeptical about claims concerning the primacy of this drive: I do not believe
that a drive for knowledge is the father of philosophy, but rather that another
drive, here as elsewhere, used knowledge (and mis-knowledge!) merely as a
tool. He continues that all the basic human drives (whatever those are) have
gone in foror driven (getrieben)philosophy at some point, because every
drive craves mastery, and this leads it to try philosophizing (BGE 6).13 This is
compatible with the existence of a drive for knowledge that motivates some
human behavior (and in other passages Nietzsche seems committed to such a
drive).14 But it is incompatible with there being a Platonic element of the soul
that is a pure philosophy drive, that is, a basic and irreducible part of us that is
solely striving to know the truth. If there is a knowledge drive, it is not basic in
the soul of philosophers. A more direct blow to Plato could scarcely be imagined.
Nietzsche immediately concedes a case in which a drive to knowledge
works independently in a human being, like an independent little clockwork
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mechanism in the activity of the diligent specialist scholar, or wissenschaftlicher

Mensch. But Nietzsche distinguishes this character from the philosopher. Plato
would have to agree: the drive here is utterly unlike Platos drive that strains
to know truth, because it is dissociated from the interests that really govern
the scholars life. For Plato, a philosopher is constitutionally one in whom the
drive to learn truth rules over the other drives. In Nietzsches w
issenschaftlicher
Mensch, the drive to learn governs no other drive. In Nietzsches philosopher, by
contrast, some drive must have gained mastery and ruled the othersotherwise
there would be no order of rankbut the mastering drive cannot be a pure
knowledge drive.
The will to truth, or knowledge drive, is without doubt a major preoccupation
for Nietzsche. Some of his other discussions of it raise points that are equally critical of Platos position. For example, in The Gay Science the drive to truth is not
a timeless universal constituent of humanity, but a historical development that
has always contended with other drives (GS 110); and in the well-known finale
to the Genealogy, the aspiration to be governed by a pure will to truth emerges as
deeply problematic because it stems from a partly concealed, unhealthier will,
a will to nothingness that is an aversion to life (GM III:28). In more ways
than can be discussed here, Nietzsche consistently calls into question Platos
most passionate claim, that the best human life is that of the philosopher, whose
soul is ruled internally by a pure drive to uncover truth.
Conclusion
Both Plato, the psychologist, in the Republic and Nietzsche, the psychologist, in
BGE I, are responding to the question, what drive should rule in the soul, and, in
particular, in the philosophers soul? By analyzing the soul, both are in pursuit
of the values that should govern a life. They disagree, but their disagreement
can be given a simpler, more streamlined, and better evidenced characterization
than Clark and Dudrick provide. Clark and Dudrick have a good case when they
claim that Nietzsche implicitly invokes Platos tripartite model of the soul in
BGE12, and when they claim that his picture of the soul is helpfully understood
as a refinement of Platos (albeit a refinement amounting to a serious challenge, even on their reading). However, (1) there is no need and no justification
for their suggestion that Nietzsche diagnoses an atomistic need as responsible
for what he objects to in Platos model. (2) The claim that reason is a motivationally inert set of cognitive capacities is, on a more comprehensive reading of
Plato than Clark and Dudrick give, not necessarily a point of disagreement with
Plato. (3) While Clark and Dudrick are right to recognize that, for Nietzsche,
one of the drives that compose the soul is a will to truth, it is unclear from
any of Nietzsches writings that Clark and Dudricks positing of a generalized
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willtovalue isrequired as a counterpart to the will to truth. (4) Clark and

Dudrick fail to recognize the Platonic soul elements as drives, and, in particular,
do not recognize that the element in the Platonic soul that is always wholly
straining to know the truth, and that for Plato should govern in the best of souls,
can be interpreted as closely analogous to the will to truth.
University of Southampton
cjanaway@soton.ac.uk
Notes
1. The following published translations are used, with occasional minor modifications:
Beyond Good and Evil, ed. Rolf-Peter Horstmann and Judith Norman, trans. Judith Norman
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Daybreak, ed. Maudemarie Clark and Brian
Leiter, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); On the Genealogy
of Morality, trans. Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998); The
Gay Science, ed. Bernard Williams, trans. Josephine Nauckhoff and Adrian del Caro (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2001).
2. All translations from Plato are in Plato, Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1997).
3. Norbert Blssner, The CitySoul Analogy, in The Cambridge Companion to Platos
Republic, ed. G. R. F. Ferrari (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 357.
4. The fact that Democrituss atom theory stems from a priori reasoning about Being and
Not-being, and precisely concludes that reality is not as it appears to the senses, may cast some
doubt also on Clark and Dudricks linkage of the atomistic need to the need to find at the
non-sensuous or microlevel something we can understand after the model of the things we are
acquainted with at the sensuous level, the level of appearance (160).
5. John M. Cooper, Reason and Emotion: Essays in Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical
Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
6. Cooper, Reason and Emotion, 8 (cited by Clark and Dudrick, 172).
7. Literally thumos-like. Thumos is a traditional Greek word, especially in Homer, which
may be glossed as referring to a persons spirit or heart ... the seat of anger and pride, as well
as the originator of bold actions (Ellen Wagner, Introduction, in Essays on Platos Psychology,
ed. Wagner [Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2001], 4).
8. G. R. F. Ferrari, The Three-Part Soul, in Ferrari, Cambridge Companion to Platos
Republic, 165.
9. F. M. Cornford, The Division of the Soul, Hibbert Journal 28 (192930): 219;
T.M.Robinson, Platos Psychology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), 56; George
Klosko, The Development of Platos Political Theory (New York: Methuen, 1986), 71; Charles
H.Kahn, Platos Theory of Desire, Review of Metaphysics 41 (1987): 83.
10. See George Klosko, The Rule of Reason in Platos Psychology, History of Philosophy
Quarterly 5 (1988): 34247; and Richard Kraut, Reason and Justice in Platos Republic, in
Exegesis and Argument, ed. E. N. Lee, A. F. D. Mourelatos, and R. M. Rorty (Assen: Van Gorcum,
1973), 20813. This paragraph is indebted to both discussions.
11. In the Genealogy, a list of the drives and virtues of a philosopher includes items
variously called Trieb (drive) and Wille (will) (GM III:9); and the will to power is the strongest,
most life-affirming drive (GM III:18).
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12. An electronic search of the entire Digital Critical Edition (eKGWB) using plausible vocab
ulary such as Wille zu Werth, Wille zum Werth, Werth-Wille, Wille zur Werthschtzung,
Werthschtzungswille, and so on yielded no instances.
13. The notion that all drives try to gain mastery over one another leads Clark and Dudrick
to say that Nietzsche turns Platos spirit into a property of all drivesthe will to power (167).
This is not a terribly helpful observation, since Platos trio of spirited, appetitive, and truth-seeking
elements were already in the business of becoming king over or enslaving one another, and
the like. Hence one need not remove spirit, or a drive to honor and victory, from the elements
of the soul in order to think of the elements as competing. Clark and Dudrick are careful to call
the will to power a property of all drives, rather than the goal of all drives. (This point trades on
the discussionof which Clark and Dudrick appear mindful [e.g., 145]in John Richardson,
Nietzsches System [New York: Oxford University Press, 1996], 2128.) A sex drive, a drive to
compassion, and a drive to knowledge, for example, may each be said to crave mastery over
other drives, but what makes them distinct drives is their distinct goals. But this means that in
the Nietzschean picture there could still be a Platonic thumoeides drive, a drive with the goal of
control and victory, or what Nietzsche in fact calls the striving for distinction (D 113). Such a
drive may stand in competition with, say, a drive to compassion and self-sacrifice. The drive to
compassion also craves mastery over other drives, but that cannot make it also a drive to control
and victory.
14. See D 429: our drive to knowledge has become too strong for us to be able to want
happiness without knowledge; GS 110: knowledge and the striving for the true [...] took their
place as a need among other needs. [...] The thinkerthat is now the being in whom the drive
to truth and those life-preserving errors [arising from more ancient drives] are fighting their first
battle.
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Nietzsche as Kants True Heir?

Robert B. Louden
Abstract: In this short article, I present several challenges to Maudemarie Clark
and David Dudricks bold claim that one of Nietzsches main goals in Beyond
Good and Evil is to establish himself as Kants true heir. First, I critique their
argument that the prefaces to the Critique of Pure Reason and BGE bear a striking similarity to each other. Second, I try to refute their claim that Nietzsche
in BGE 11 is positioning himself ... as the true successor to Kant. Nietzsche
does not exhibit the positive interest in the a priori that one expects from even
the most minimal Kantian, and his norms are hardly Kants. Finally, in my
conclusion, I draw some qualified connections between Nietzsches normative
project and a more naturalistic option within the history of philosophynamely,
American pragmatism.
Keywords: Nietzsche, Kant, naturalism, normativity, pragmatism
The movement back to Kant in our century is a movement back to the
eighteenth century: one wants to regain a right to the old ideals and the
old Schwrmereifor that reason an epistemology that sets boundaries,
which means that it permits one to posit as one may see fit a beyond of
reason [ein Jenseits der Vernunft].
KSA 12:9[178], p. 443
hat is Nietzsches aim in his celebrated but perplexing book Beyond

Good and Evil? Is this work simply the paradigmatic case of Bernard
Williamss claim that with Nietzsche, resistance to the continuation of philosophy by ordinary means is built into the text, which is booby-trapped, not only
against recovering theory from it, but, in many cases, against any systematic
exegesis that assimilates it to theory?1 Is it a work of dazzling obscurity, but
one so dark that we do not even know whether it has a narrative line at all?2
A mere collection of impromptu remarks ... numbered and loosely organized
into topic-related groups ... an apparently arbitrary compilation of notes which
are... presented in an artful, though idiosyncratic way?3
Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick, building in part on Laurence Lamperts
claim that Beyond Good and Evilonce we dig below its exoteric surface to
22
JNS 45.1_03_Louden.indd 22
21/02/14 6:39 PM
Nietzsche as Kants True Heir? 23
uncover the esoteric message underneathis in fact a coherent argument that

never lets up,4 maintain instead that it is Nietzsches most important work
(5;cf. 2) and, more controversially, a work in which Nietzsche does not turn his
back on the normative aspirations of traditional philosophy (9). They develop
their case for reading BGE as a work that embraces the normative aspirations
of traditional philosophy in large part by hitching Nietzsches wagon to Kant.
In BGE, we are told, Nietzsche is trying to establish himself ... as Kants true
heir (85). Contrary to first (and, for many readers, second as well as third)
impressions, Nietzsche wants to carry out Kants project (86)the project,
that is, of uncovering the normative character of our thought.
In what follows, I focus primarily on the Kantian dimension of Clark and
Dudricks ambitious undertaking. Although I believe that some of their comparisons between Nietzsche and Kant are overdrawn, I am impressed with their
carefully argued attempt to uncover a core normative message in BGE. In my
conclusion, I also offer a few brief remarks regarding some less Kantian strands of
traditional philosophy that I believe are closer to Nietzsches normative project.
Prefaces
Clark and Dudrick begin their case for reading Nietzsche as Kants rightful
heir (13) by comparing the prefaces to BGE and the Critique of Pure Reason.
On their reading,
[T]hat BGE is much more like a philosophical treatise than it appears to be is
already suggested by the striking similarity between its preface and that of Kants
Critique of Pure Reason, which is widely taken to be the greatest philosophical treatise in Nietzsches native language. Nietzsches preface certainly does
not sound or read much like Kants. It is shorter and livelier, and the writing is
brilliant. Most of all, its tone differs from Kants, which is utterly serious from
beginning to end, whereas Nietzsche begins with a joke or jibe. ... Despite these
and other stylistic differences, the content of Nietzsches prefacewhat he is
actually saying in itis very similar to Kants. Each author presents us with a story
of the history of philosophy and situates his book as its rightful culmination. (13)
Clark and Dudrick admit (and how could they not?) that the alleged striking
similarity between the two prefaces is not one of style or tone. Rather, it is
one of content: in their respective prefaces, Nietzsche and Kant both begin by
presenting readers with a story of the history of philosophy, and conclude by
portraying their own projects as the proper completion of this narrative. But
if this is what grounds Clark and Dudricks striking similarity claim, I am
skeptical. For many philosophy books, canonical and otherwise, have prefaces
or opening chapters with precisely this sort of content. Many philosophers, that
is, begin their books by surveying previous philosophical debate on their books
theme, and then try to show readers that their own position represents the rightful
culmination of this earlier discussion. Aristotle, for instance, in his Metaphysics
21/02/14 6:39 PM
24 Robert B. Louden
and elsewhere, frequently begins his discussions by surveying what philosophers

before him have said on the subject at hand before presenting his own position:
to go over their views will be of profit to the present inquiry.5 And he also tries
to show how his position solves puzzles that his predecessors theories could
not resolve: So, as we said, the difficulties which constrain people to deny the
existence of some of the things we mentioned are now solved. For it was this
reason which also caused some of the earlier thinkers to turn so far aside from
the road which leads to coming to be and passing away and change generally.
If they had come in sight of this nature, all their ignorance would have been
dispelled.6 Hume, in the opening section of his Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding (Of the Different Species of Philosophy), begins by subdividing moral philosophy, or the science of human nature, into two types, and
concludes by announcing his goal of synthesizing the best features of both types:
Happy, if we can unite the boundaries of the different species of Philosophy,
by reconciling profound enquiry with clearness, and truth with novelty!7 And
Hegel, in his famous preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, urges readers to
comprehend the diversity of philosophical systems as the progressive unfolding of truth8 (and to view his own project as precisely the culmination of this
unfolding). And so on, and so forth. In short, this sort of general resemblance
of content is much too thin a reed on which to build a convincing case that there
is a striking similarity between the prefaces of Nietzsches BGE and Kants
Critique of Pure Reason.
When one looks more closely at the contents of the prefaces of Nietzsches
BGE and Kants Critique of Pure Reason (KrV), further doubts regarding Clark
and Dudricks striking similarity claim begin to emerge. Kant, in his prefaces
to the first (A) and second (B) editions of KrV, is trying to find a way to salvage
metaphysicsto transform the accepted procedure of metaphysics, undertaking an entire revolution according to the example of the geometers and natural
scientists (B xxii). On the other hand, Nietzsche, in his preface, as Clark and
Dudrick themselves note, rejects ... Kants attempt at a critical metaphysics
(22).9 In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant is trying to convince readers that
human beings can never dispense with metaphysics (KrV A 849/B 877),10
while Nietzsche, in BGE, declares war, a ruthless war of the knife, on precisely
this famous [Kantian] metaphysical need (BGE 12).
The True Successor to Kant?

In the previous section, I challenged Clark and Dudricks opening claim that
there is a striking similarity between the prefaces to BGE and KrV. But their
case for reading Nietzsche as Kants true heir does not rest on this interpretive move alone. Their strongest claims regarding a Nietzsche-Kant connection
21/02/14 6:39 PM
occur toward the end of chapter 3 (Philosophy and the Will to Value) when
they discuss BGE 11. Many commentators interpret BGE 11 as an obvious
critique of der alte Kant (11),11 but Clark and Dudrick do not. In the course
of their detailed commentary on this pivotal section, they claim that Nietzsche
is positioning himself (in contrast to both Kants idealistic and naturalistic followers) as the true successor to Kant, the one who proposes to carry out Kants
normative project (75), that Nietzsche accepts a broadly Kantian position
concerning the justification we have for accepting a priori principles (84), that
Nietzsche is trying to establish himself ... as Kants true heir (85), and that
Kants philosophy, which did so much so much to inspire recognition of the
normative character of thought, is not mocked in BGE 11, which instead gives
us evidence that Nietzsche wants to carry out Kants project (86).
But why would an author who repeatedly distances himself from Kant (and
who aims some of his best bon mots directly at Kant) want to be seen this way?
Kant and his philosophy, Nietzsche declares elsewhere, are expressions of the
decline, of the final exhaustion of life, of Knigsbergian Chinadom (A 11).
Later in BGE, Nietzsche informs us that Kant was not even a genuine philosopher: even the great Chinaman of Knigsberg was merely a great critic (BGE
210). For genuine [eigentilichen] philosophers [...] are commanders and lawgivers; they create values (BGE 211). And Kant was no creator of values:
who would even want to introduce a new principle of all morality and, as it
were, invent [erfinden] it? Just as if, before him, the world had been ignorant of
what duty is or in thoroughgoing error about it.12 Rather, Kant claims to arrive
at the categorical imperative (and it is worth adding here that we also learn in
BGE 31 that the worst of all tastes is the taste for the unconditional) within
the moral cognition of common human reason, and he believes it is a principle
that common human reason actually has always before its eyes and uses as the
standard [Richtma] of its judging.13 So Nietzsche is surely correct when he
notes, my concept philosopher is miles and miles removed from a concept
that would include even a Kant (EH UM 3). Nietzsche does not exhibit the
positive interest in the a priori that one expects from even the most minimal
Kantian, and his norms are hardly Kants.
Given the above, it would seem that Nietzsche himself would necessarily
recoil in horror at the mere suggestion that he was trying to establish himself as
Kants true heir, that he wanted to carry out Kants project, and that he sought
to position himself as Kants true successor. Now, of course, this does not prove
that Nietzsche is not Kants true heir and successor. Perhaps it only indicates
that Nietzsche himself was unaware of what he was doing. However, while there
are certainly some philosophers who do not realize the implications of their
own statements, Nietzsche is an extremely unlikely candidate for membership
in this group, for he possesses too much genius of the heart (BGE 295) not to
know what he is saying.
21/02/14 6:39 PM
26 Robert B. Louden
Nevertheless, I do concur with Clark and Dudricks position that Nietzsche

and Kant are both centrally concerned with the normative structure of human
thought. One key Nietzschean text here is BGE 9, where Nietzsche criticizes
the Stoic doctrine that we should live according to nature, kata phusin: You
want to live according to nature? O you noble Stoics, what fraudulent words!
Think of a being such as nature is, wasteful beyond measure, indifferent beyond
measure, without aims or intentions, without mercy or justice. [...] Is life not
valuing [Abschtzen], preferring, being unjust, being limited, wanting to be different? (BGE 9). Clark and Dudrick comment on this passage in part as follows:
We take this to indicate ... that the life with which Nietzsche is concerned in
BGE One should be understood not in biological terms but in normative ones.
This life is a form of activity structured and guided by norms (5859). This
suggests that Nietzsches naturalism is a more qualified naturalism than some
have argued for14namely, a naturalism that is able to incorporate values into
it (12), a nonscientistic naturalism that embraces a nonreductionistic attitude
toward normativity,15 a naturalism that is not motivated by a horror of the
normative.16
However, a naturalism that incorporates values still does not land us at Kants
doorstep. Despite Kant and Nietzsches shared concern for the norms that structure human thought, I agree with Mattia Riccardis observation that it is hard
to see both philosophers here as embarking on the same project. One reason
why it is difficult, Riccardi continues, is that Kants move of setting limits
to empirical knowledge in order to leave room for a normative (moral) realm
is consistently rejected by ... Nietzsche.17 For instance, in Human, All Too
Human Nietzsche writes, Kant [...] desired [...] to open a path to faith by
showing knowledge its limitationswhich, to be sure, he failed to do (AOM
27; cf. D P:3, KSA 12:9[178], pp. 44243, KrV B xxx).
But there is at least one more option. Toward the end of their book, Clark and
Dudrick describe Nietzsches philosophy as a kind of neo-Kantian naturalism
(246). I would prefer Kantian with a small k here, but my main point is that
there may be more qualified ways to establish legitimate connections between
Nietzsche and Kant (even if Nietzsche would still squirm at the very thought of
being associated with the Chinaman of Knigsberg).18 In the concluding section
of my essay, I offer one brief example of this strategy.
A Kind of (American) Neo-Kantian Naturalism?

Nietzsches nontranscendental interpretation of norms is more naturalistic and
relativistic than Kants,19 and this is one reason for thinking that a closer ally
would be the American pragmatist tradition that was in its early stages of development during the time in which BGE was being written. A second reason is
21/02/14 6:39 PM
that Nietzsche himself, in several texts, expresses strong admiration for Ralph
Waldo Emerson, an early voice in this tradition.20 For instance, in The Gay
Science, Nietzsche refers to Emerson as one of only four nineteenth-century
authors whom he regards as worthy of being called masters of prose (GS 92),
and he used a line from Emersons essay History as an epigraph for the first
edition.21 Nietzsches personal copies of Emersons Essays are the most heavily
annotated books in his personal library. His marginalia are almost exclusively
eruptions of approval: Bravo! Sehr gut! Herrlich! Das ist wahr! He often
brought his Emerson volumes with him on vacation.22 In a revealing notebook
entry from fall 1881, Nietzsche simultaneously praises Emerson while wishing that he had succumbed less to the transcendentalist temptations of German
philosophy: the author of this century who is richest in ideas has until now been
an American (unfortunately made murky through German philosophymilk
glass) (KSA 9:12[151], p. 602).
A third reason is that shortly after Nietzsches death, when the American
Nietzsche vogue was first warming up, numerous American intellectuals began
to see parallels between Nietzsche and pragmatism. For instance, in a 1909
Harvard Theological Review essay titled Friedrich Nietzsche, Antichrist,
Superman, and Pragmatist, Williams College professor of philosophy and
German John Warbeke remarks, [D]oubtless it will be an interesting surprise
to many American and English pragmatists to learn that Nietzsche has anticipated
all their principal doctrines.23
One specific Nietzschean anticipation of a pragmatist doctrine that is relevant
to Clark and Dudricks argument, and which I discuss at greater length in another
essay,24 concerns Nietzsches claim in BGE 3 and elsewhere concerning the
valuations that stand behind logic: Behind all logic and its seeming sovereignty
of movement stand valuations [Wertschtzungen]. [...] For example, that the
definite should be worth more than the indefinite, appearance less than truth.
Or, as he puts in On the Genealogy of Morals, Science is far from standing
on its own [...] it requires in every respect first a value-ideal [eines WerthIdeals], a value-creating-power [wertheschaffenden Macht], in whose service
it may believe in itselfit is never value-creating [niemals wertheschaffend]
(GMIII:25, cf. GS 344). Nietzsches main point in these passagesand here
I agree with Clark and Dudricks esoteric readingis that thinking itself is
a norm-governed activity (see 60). But the point I wish to draw attention to at
present is that William James, in The Will to Believe (22),25 makes eerily
similar remarks regarding the value presuppositions of science: Science herself
consults her heart when she lays it down that the infinite ascertainment of fact
and correction of false belief are the supreme goods for man. Challenge the
statement, and science can only repeat it oracularly, or else prove it by showing
that such ascertainment and correction bring man all sorts of other goods which
mans heart in turn declares. Both Nietzsche and James, in other words, stress
21/02/14 6:39 PM
28 Robert B. Louden
that values come before facts, that values make facts possible, that thinking is
a norm-governed activity. But neither of them interprets norms and values as
Kantian a priori principles that are not revisable in the light of experience.
However, just as one needs to exercise care in drawing attention to links
between Nietzsche and Kant, so the same is true regarding Nietzsche and pragmatism. Among other things, it is very difficult to believe that someone who
is so relentlessly critical of the tirelessly scribbling slaves of the democratic
taste and its modern ideas (BGE 44) could be too close an ally of American
pragmatism.26 And of course, as many commentators have noted,27 pragmatism
too owes serious debts to Kant.28 Kant is, after all, the author of Anthropologie
in pragmatischer Hinsicht (1798),29 and Peirce draws attention to the Kantian
origins of pragmatism in his essay What Pragmatism Is when he writes,30
Some of his friends wished him to call it practicism or practicalism. ... But for
one who learned philosophy out of Kant, ... and who still thought in Kantian
terms most readily, praktisch and pragmatisch were as far apart as the two poles,
the former belonging to a region of thought where no mind of the experimentalist type can ever make sure of solid ground under his feet, the latter expressing
relation to some definite human purpose. Now quite the most striking feature of
the new theory was its recognition of an inseparable connection between rational
cognition and rational purpose; and that consideration it was which determined
the preference for the name pragmatism.31
Kant-Nietzsche-pragmatism-Kant. At this point we are in danger of going in

circles. But my main point is that in attempting to demonstrate Nietzsches
sympathy for more traditional philosophical concerns, especially normative
ones, (9) one should not try to connect him too closely to Kant, the pragmatists,
or anyone else. Independence is for the very few; it is a privilege of the strong
(BGE 29; cf. 41).
I have raised some skeptical doubts about the Kantian dimension of Clark
and Dudricks argument, but I would like to end on a positive note. There are
many perplexing passages in BGE that I have fumbled over for years, and The
Soul of Nietzsches Beyond Good and Evil sheds more philosophical light on
them than any other book with which I am familiar.
University of Southern Maine
louden@maine.edu
Notes
I would like to thank Beatrix Himmelmann and Karl Ameriks for helpful comments on an earlier
draft of this essay.
1. B. Williams, Nietzsches Minimalist Moral Psychology, in Nietzsche, Genealogy, and
Morality: Essays on Nietzsches Genealogy of Morals, ed. R. Schacht (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1994), 238.
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2. A. Nehamas, Who Are the Philosophers of the Future? A Reading of Beyond Good and
Evil, in Reading Nietzsche, ed. R. Solomon and K. Higgins (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1988), 46.
3. R. P. Horstmann, Introduction to Beyond Good and Evil, trans. J. Norman (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002), xxiii.
4. L. Lampert, Nietzsches Task: An Interpretation of Beyond Good and Evil (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 7.
5. Aristotle, Met. I.3 983b3-4; cf. EN I.4.
6. Aristotle, Phys. I.8 191b3034.
7. D. Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, in Enquiries Concerning Human
Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals [1748], ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, 3rd ed.,
revised by P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), 5, 16.
8. G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon,
1977), 2.
9. I do not mean to imply here that they regard this as Nietzsches main point in his preface.
Clark and Dudricks first chapter (Setting the Stage: Nietzsches Preface) contains a lengthy
analysis of Nietzsches two-page preface. At the end of this chapter, they write, To sum up, the
preface to Beyond Good and Evil sounds three major and interconnected themes concerning the
past, present, and future of philosophy (29).
10. Quotations from Kants works are cited by volume and page number in Kants Gesammelte
Schriften, ed. the Royal Prussian (later German, then Berlin-Brandenburg) Academy of Sciences
(Berlin: Georg Reimer, later Walter de Gruyter, 1900), 29 vols., except for quotations from the
Critique of Pure Reason, which are cited by the customary use of the pagination of its first (A)
and second (B) editions. The traditional Academy volume and page numbers (and also the A and B
pagination from the Critique of Pure Reason) are reprinted in the margins of most recent editions
and translations of Kants writings.
11. See, e.g., D. Burnham, Reading Nietzsche: An Analysis of Beyond Good and Evil
(Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2007), who begins his analysis of BGE 11 by
remarking that Section 11 is a famous critique of Kant (26; cf. Lampert, Nietzsches Task,
3940). See also KSA 11:34[82], 445, one of several earlier notebook entries that Nietzsche
reworked into what eventually became BGE 11. It is titled simply Anti-Kant.
12. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason 5:8n.
13. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals 4:403.
14. See Clark and Dudricks numerous criticisms of Brian Leiters naturalist reading of
Nietzsche. In their introduction they write, The esoteric reading we defend grants that Nietzsche
is a naturalist in an important sense. But it insists that he does not turn his back on the normative
aspirations of traditional philosophy. In particular, contrary to Brian Leiters influential reading
of Nietzsche as a naturalist, he does not claim that philosophy should follow the methods of the
sciences (9).
15. M. De Caro and D. Macarthur, eds., Naturalism in Question (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2004), 14.
16. H. Putnam, The Content and Appeal of Naturalism, in De Caro and Macarthur,
Naturalism in Question, 70.
17. M. Riccardi, review of Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick, The Soul of Nietzsches
Beyond Good and Evil, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2012): 4, 6 n. 7, http://ndpr.nd.edu/
news/35639-the-soul-of-nietzsches-beyond-good-and-evil/.
18. For a recent effort to link Nietzsche historically to Kant (while still stressing, as I have
done, their philosophical differences), see K. Ameriks, Kants Elliptical Path (Oxford: Clarendon,
2012), 30324.
19. As Clark and Dudrick correctly note, Nietzsche holds that Kant was wrong in thinking
that transcendental argument established that [...] norms are not revisable in the light of
21/02/14 6:39 PM
30 Robert B. Louden
experience. [...] [O]ur basic norms are neither transcendent nor transcendentalthough they are
none the worse for that (85).
20. For detailed discussion and references, see J. Ratner-Rosenhagen, American Nietzsche:
AHistory of an Icon and His Ideas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012). In what follows,
I am indebted to Ratner-Rosenhagens documentation of the Nietzsche-Emerson connection.
However, I do not always share her own interpretations of Nietzsches philosophy.
21. See W. Kaufmann, Translators Introduction, in F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans.
W.Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), 78.
22. Ratner-Rosenhagen, American Nietzsche, 6; cf. Kaufmann, Translators Introduction, 7.
23. J. Warbeke, Friedrich Nietzsche, Antichrist, Superman, and Pragmatist, Harvard
Theological Review 2 (1909): 378. However, regarding Nietzsches relation to Kant, Warbeke
notes, For him [viz., Nietzsche] moral sanctions become a function of willindividual willthe
exact antipode of Kants categorical imperative (372). For many more examples of perceived
similarities between pragmatism and Nietzsche, see Ratner-Rosenhagen, American Nietzsche.
24. See Values Behind Science: Nietzsche and James, in R. B. Louden, Are Moral
Considerations Underlying?, in Should We Always Act Morally? Essays on Overridingness, ed.
S. Schleidgen (Marburg: Tectum, 2012), 11737, esp. 12328.
25. W. James, The Will to Believe, in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular
Philosophy (New York: Longmans Green, 1897).
26. This holds especially for the Deweyan strand of pragmatism, which views democracy as
the truly human way of living and the best means so far found, for [...] the development of
human personality. J. Dewey, Intelligence in the Modern World: John Deweys Philosophy, ed.
J.Ratner (New York: Modern Library, 1939), 401, 400.
27. See, e.g., H. S. Thayer, Meaning and Action: A Critical History of Pragmatism
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968).
28. As does Emerson. In The Transcendentalist, for instance, Emerson remarks that the
Idealism of the present day acquired the name of Transcendental from the use of that term by
Immanuel Kant. Emerson, The Complete Essays and Other Writings, ed. B. Atkinson (New York:
Modern Library, 1950), 93. However, biographer Gay Wilson Allen believes that Emersons debt
to Kant was slight and indirect (through Coleridge and Carlyle, who had reinterpreted Kant in
their own way). G. W. Allen, Waldo Emerson: A Biography (New York: Viking, 1981), 39192.
29. For new English translations of Kants anthropological works, see Kant, Anthropology
From a Pragmatic Point of View [1798], trans. and ed. R. B. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006); Anthropology, History, and Education [17641803], ed. G. Zller
and R.B. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Lectures on Anthropology
[177289], ed. A. Wood and R. B. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
30. C. S. Peirce, What Pragmatism Is, Monist 15 (1905): 16181, 163.
31. Cf. KrV A 824/B 852, Groundwork 4: 41617, 419.
21/02/14 6:39 PM
Advancing the Agn: Nietzsches Pre-texts

and the Self-Reflexive Will to Truth
Helmut Heit
Abstract: This article argues that Clark and Dudricks study of Beyond Good
and Evil, despite numerous qualities and the correct conclusion that Nietzsche
pursued a normative project, remains dissatisfying for two main reasons: First,
the methodological distinction between esoteric and exoteric doctrines, problematic as it is from the outset, would require a detailed genetic reconstruction
of Nietzsches ways of obscuring his real views and of translating them into a
new language. Clark and Dudrick, however, seem to use that distinction mainly
to accommodate Nietzsche to their understanding of good philosophy. Second,
their reconstruction of empiricist and idealistic epistemologies, given in terms of
exclusive opposites, fails to appreciate how Nietzsche tries to replace such false
contradictions with gradational differences and how he dialectically distributes
approval and criticism to both through the composition of his aphorisms.
Keywords: esoteric-exoteric, context, textual genesis, truth, science, opposites
ver since Aristotle cryptically mentioned the

(Physics 209b) and proposed they differ significantly from the
explicit statements in the published Platonic dialogues, these so-called unwritten doctrines were objects of speculation. Given Platos notorious distrust in
unprepared readers and the uncontrollable vulnerability of published writings to
all kinds of misunderstandings, the existence of esoteric teachings seems plausible. Like his most prominent ancient counterpart, Nietzsche displays severe
reservations against hasty readers, too, and his usage of literary devices and all
kinds of masks, as well as his explicit advice to a reader, how I deserve him
(EH Books 5), indicate we might not always have to take him at face value.
He made use of a multitude of literary devices, hid behind several masks, and
was explicit about it: I am one thing, my writings are another (EH Books1).
One could even argue that Nietzsche is the first to transform esotericism
into an exoteric doctrine.1 Consequently, a range of authors, from Giorgio
Colli, Josef Simon, and Leo Strauss to Lawrence Lampert, Marc de Launay,
and Adrian Del Caro, distinguish esoteric and exoteric aspects in Nietzsches
works. Even Walter Kaufmann employed this distinction in a contribution to
Nietzsche-Studien in 1978.2 Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick now add a
31
JNS 45.1_04_Heit.indd 31
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32 Helmut Heit
new take to this tradition. Their book on Beyond Good and Evil counters the
widespread naturalistic reading of Nietzsche among analytically minded philosophers, including some of Clarks earlier views. They argue that Nietzsches
notion of the magnificent tension of the spirit (BGE Preface) does not merely
state an opposition to Platonism but introduces two drives: the will to truth and
the will to value. These wills are conflicting, but the tension between the rational scientific drive to knowledge, which leads to naturalism, and the normative
drive to valuing must be kept alive and strengthened if philosophy is to proceed.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to do justice to this insightful and inspiring book. Clark and Dudrick dedicate 263 pages almost exclusively to the
Preface and the twenty-three aphorisms of the first part, On the Prejudices
of Philosophers, uncovering unexpected connections and offering innovative
readings. The Soul of Nietzsches Beyond Good and Evil is impressive evidence
for the richness of Nietzsches text and provides the most elaborate account of
BGE I to date. In terms of depth and detail, their study may be compared to Peter
Hellers treatment of the first chapter of HH or Werner Stegmaiers meticulous
study on GS Book V,3 though the differences from such studies should not be
underestimated. Clark and Dudrick wrote neither a commentary nor a contextual
interpretation; their ambition was to make sense of Nietzsche in light of contemporary Anglo-American scholarship. But for this purpose, they engage in a
close reading and begin to use Nietzsches contemporary sources such as Spir,
Teichmller, and Lange to make sense of his ideas. This brings them closer to
international Nietzsche research. Their normative interpretation of Nietzsches
philosophical project proves something initially plausible, namely that methodological naturalism and postmodern relativism are not the only possibilities.
Despite the selective discussion of alternative interpretations and the lack of
engagement with any non-Anglophone secondary literature, the study may help
to bridge gaps between contextual, source-genetic, philological, and interpretational approaches and the variety of those who focus on Nietzsches potential
contribution to current debates. The book is rewarding and illuminating to read
for any Nietzsche scholar, even though, first, I see a complex methodological
problem and, second, I disagree with several interpretations.
Methodological Obstacles of Esoteric Readings

There is little doubt that BGE admits of an esoteric reading (243); h owever,
the methodological obstacle of unwritten doctrines is that they are even harder to
decipher than written ones. How could we reconstruct esoteric content, especially
since alternative approaches obviously lead to different readings, as Clark and
Dudricks strict demarcation from Lampert (and Strauss) illustrates? Esoteric
readings may turn speculative because they invite assumptions about the author
and the authors secret thoughts and hidden motifs. The ambition to figure out
21/02/14 6:49 PM
pre-texts and the Self-Reflexive Will to Truth 33
what Nietzsche stands behind (57) burdens a philosophical interpretation with

vexing psychological questions. The Tbingen interpretation of Platos unwritten doctrines illustrates this danger: it occupies a somewhat esoteric place in Plato
scholarship itself, since there is no secure access to his unpublished thoughts.
But unlike with Plato, Nietzsche scholars do at least have lots of personal materials and private notes to draw upon, and it therefore seems methodologically
advisable to refer to these in order to reconstruct what Nietzsche meant but did
not say in public. Giorgio Colli stated that in fact, the coexistence of exoteric
presentation [...] and of esoteric, secret, and personal deepening of his own
thought can nowhere be found so clearly in Nietzsche as in the notebooks from
the Nachlass.4 This must neither suggest a rehabilitation of the Nachlass as
Nietzsches supposedly true philosophy (which it is not) nor attribute any priority
or authenticity to it while ignoring the published text, which would indeed be
a bad strategy (212). But if one denies that Nietzsches publications could be
taken at face value and assumes he esoterically held different views, the Nachlass
becomes methodologically important. Unless we presume that Nietzsche was
hiding his true commitments on the issues at hand (57) even from himself in
his private notebooks (cautiously anticipating that they might be published at
some point and read by the unprepared), it seems reasonable to work through his
drafts and earlier versions to reconstruct how Nietzsche translated his thoughts
into the new language (5263). Thanks to the critical edition of Nietzsches
notes, outlines, plans, and revisions, the different stages of textual genesis of
BGE can be reconstructed in detailed fashion.5 These textual transformations
from preliminary private notes to final proofs and printed books should occasionally illustrate how Nietzsche obscured his thoughts, and at least a few examples
should confirm Clark and Dudricks esoteric interpretation. They make no effort,
however, to provide such confirmation.
The few cases of textual genesis in BGE I checked indeed indicate that
Nietzsches revisions sometimes made his text harder to understand, but none
of them suggest he was concealing an esoteric doctrine along the lines of Clark
and Dudricks reading. In an earlier version of BGE 10, for example, Nietzsche
gave names of the anti-realists: Kant and Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer
and what grew out of them (cf. KSA 14, p. 349), but while preparing the final
manuscript, he deleted this reference. Without this deletion, it would have been
easier to think of Teichmller, Drossbach, Lange, or Spir (70). The draft of
BGE 27 explains what gangasrotogati and kurmagati means (KSA 12:3[18],
p.175). His revision of what became BGE 17 replaces the word Grammatiker
with Logiker (cf. KGW IX, p. 55). The first version of BGE 6, which dates back
to summer 1883 and therefore proves Nietzsches usage of earlier (supposedly
immature) material to compose BGE, shows only minor stylistic revisions
(cf. KSA 14, p. 348).6 The fact that the composition of BGE 6 falls in the time
of Nietzsches Zarathustra project also helps to understand his alternative soul
hypothesis. Nietzsche read Wilhelm Roux in 1883 and adopted his idea that a
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34 Helmut Heit
living body is a pluralistic organization of competing forces; he even adopted

Rouxs political metaphors to describe these processes.7 Within this framework
the political and normative order of the soul is neither reducible nor opposed
to naturalism, but is continuous with it. So I agree with Clark and Dudricks
insistence (against Brian Leiter) that human beings are not merely causal
but normative (128), that the soul is a normative-political commonwealth
(150), and that philosophy should certainly not become a branch of natural
science (154). But I reject their tendency to pose a strict opposition between
normative and natural orders (15556), between psychology and physiology
(170), between authority and strength (175), and between normative life [...]
rather than biological life (214). Processes of evaluating, of telling eatable
from poisonous, friendly from dangerous, good from bad, are essential to living
beings and continuous with nature, as much as political authority is continuous
(though not identical) with power and force. With respect to will to power,
a comparison between notes and published texts suggests that Nietzsche was
much more assertoric and doctrinal in his notes, apparently experimenting with
the idea, while most appearances in BGE have hypothetical and conditional
markers like in BGE 36, as Clark and Dudricks thorough interpretation of the
passage emphasizes (239).8 The French niaiserie in BGE 3, which Clark and
Dudrick take as a crucial sign of esoteric writing (57), stems most likely from
Nietzsches reading of Hippolyte Taine in summer 1884, and appears at several
occasions from that time onward in published and unpublished writings. Despite
Nietzsches obvious practice to obscure some content and context, I do not see
how these textual findings would generally support Clark and Dudricks reading.
This objection is not meant to suggest Clark and Dudrick pursue a different
project and do philological work using the diplomatic edition of Nietzsches
late notes in KGW IX instead of their inspiring philosophical interaction with
Nietzsche. But for methodological concerns, some knowledge of the textual
genesis of BGE seems indispensible if one aims to reconstruct Nietzsches true
positions and if one is concerned with whether Nietzsche endorsed what he
wrote. However, Clark and Dudricks criterion to tell Nietzsches supposedly
esoteric doctrines apart from his only exoteric texts is neither his pre-texts nor his
personal statements. They seem to suggest that what Nietzsche stands behind
(57) must be rationally satisfying and interesting to certain late twentieth-century
philosophers. And since it lacks minimal plausibility (49) to put the value
and possibility of truth into question, Nietzsche could not have done so. One
function of Clark and Dudricks distinction between esoteric and exoteric
therefore seems to be to explain away whatever opposes their interpretation.
Lanier Anderson has elsewhere questioned the methodological demand that an
interpreter attribute the most reasonable or the truest possible view to the text.9
Such a principle of charity (53) may well be anachronistic, if not idiosyncratic,
since the standards of most reasonable or truest possible could vary between
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philosophers, especially if they are separated by more than a hundred years. Some
apparently obvious objections were not present in nineteenth-century debates,
and some terms carried different meanings. The notion of logic, for example, was
not restricted to formal procedures concerning how to preserve truth in inference (59). Nietzsche applies the term to those philosophers in the Parmenidean
tradition, who regard logos as the single privileged tool to understand reality,
assuming that thinking and being are essentially the same and that the world is
structured in accordance with our rules of thought. This is why he could regard
Socrates as a logician par excellence in BT 14; and this is why he understands
the belief in the existence of a uniform, stable, and autonomous, that is, atomistic,
ego as a superstition of the logicians (BGE 17). Nikolaos Loukidelis showed
that BGE 17 refers to Descartes and Lichtenberg and that the logicians under
attack include Teichmller, Spir, Drossbach, Lange, Widemann, and Lotze
none of them a logician in the modern sense.10 According to Nietzsche, logic is
not merely a formal procedure without empirical content, it is, as the paraphrase
of fictions of logic shows, the process of measuring reality against a purely
invented world of the unconditional and self-identical (BGE 4). Understood
in this way, logic could indeed falsify. Awareness of these terminological differences helps to solve some of the puzzles concerning Nietzsches criticism of
logic, though not all, without the need for esoteric readings.
Clark and Dudricks strategy of esoteric reading, however, is less concerned
with textual genesis and the context of Nietzsches work; they use the gaps
in our understanding as heuristics instead. Such gaps are plenty, sometimes
even literally. Nietzsche makes use of aposiopetic rhetoric on many occasions;
he leaves things out, does not finish sentences, and forces his readers to fill in
the ellipses. The problem is that there are always many ways to fill them in.
With respect to the five final dots of BGE 3, Clark and Dudrick effectively read
them as double negation: Assuming, that is, that it is not just man who is the
measure of things ..... (BGE 3). The ellipsis is taken to deny the negative
sentence, so that Nietzsche, contrary to exoteric appearance, esoterically states
man is indeed the measure (57). They make a good case for this reading since
it matches their interpretation of other aphorisms and their account of African
Spir; but alternatives are available. If we emphasize not just [nicht gerade]
Nietzsche might invite a standard beyond the just current, decadent modern
people, for whom such niaiserie [...] may be necessary [noth tun mag]. This
not just man could be stronger natures, the philosophers of the future, or the
overman. There is another famous aposiopetic ending to a section in BGE I,
which certainly leaves a gap in our understanding. However, the last sentence
of BGE 15 is not discussed anywhere in the book, even though other parts of
the section are repeatedly treated in detail (98112). But BGE 15 seems to end
with a double negation very similar to BGE 3: Consequently, the external
world is not the work of our organs? Unlike the obscure ellipsis of BGE 3
21/02/14 6:49 PM
36 Helmut Heit
Nietzsche even adds a question-mark to the dash. Clark and Dudrick (in this
regard as much as Nadeem Hussain) neglect this ending, even though it raises
concerns with their tendency to ally Nietzsche with empiricism. But read as a
double negation it would cause serious puzzles, too. I suggest this aposiopesis
indicates that Nietzsche does not confuse reductio ad absurdum with negative
proof of the opposite. Sensualism is a useful regulative hypothesis, but the pros
and cons of idealism are not sufficient to establish empiricisms absolute validity. In my reading of BGE I, Nietzsche avoids siding exclusively with one of
these alternative camps.
A last methodological concern relates to the function of esoteric teaching.
One might wonder why Nietzsche would take the trouble to hide his true intentions and positions if the details of his secret doctrines boil down to the most
reasonable position Clark and Dudrick can think of. Is it really necessary to
prevent the unprepared and less careful reader from insights like metaphysics failed, truth is achievable, relativism is self-refuting, causation is a
synthetic cognitive norm, science has explanatory power, or will to power
only applies to humans? Are these the dangerous truths Nietzsche reserves
for the philosophers of the future? Clark and Dudrick give a strong answer to
such questions, namely that only the practical agn with Nietzsches exoteric
and esoteric writings can educate philosophers to affirm the magnificent tension, because Nietzsche cannot simply tell readers to have stronger wills to
truth and to valueany tactic that does not engage the drives is useless (257).
Nietzsche engages his readers in the erotic of dialectics. This, I think, is an
impressive and very Nietzschean idea (and might bring Clark and Dudrick a
step closer to Nehamass Life as Literature), but it does not establish the details
of their account. At many times I agree with their particular reconstructions,
but think they need not rely on complicated tools of esotericism. To see that
philosophy is indeed, at least according to Nietzsche, not driven by a love for
wisdom alone but represents the world according to needs and values, and to
see that philosophy in BGE is an essentially normative discipline (65), could
be and has been convincingly argued without any such references, for example
by Paul van Tongeren.11 Nietzsche knew what Max Weber, Robert Merton,
and others later showed, namely that the will to truth as much as any scientific
research implies value judgments (cf. GS 344). At other times I disagree with
the content of their esoteric reading, in particular when they operate with only
apparently conclusive opposites.
Beyond False Alternatives

It seems obvious to most readers of BGE that Nietzsche aims to overcome the
faith in exclusive alternatives and to replace apparent contradictive values, like
good and evil, by a continuum of degrees. Clark and Dudrick share this view(46).
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However, my impression is that their fear of postmodernist or antiscientific

readings causes them to pigeonhole Nietzsche and to force him into a tight corset
of false alternatives. Since they associate idealism with dogmatism, metaphysics, and speculation, while empiricism is associated with skepticism, reason,
and science (19, 22, 29, 87), they seem to miss how Nietzsche distributes praise
and blame to both in BGE 1017. Their suggestion that modern science is based
solely on the rejection of speculative elements in favor of empirical methods
(87) resonates with what Karl Popper called the Baconian myth that all science
starts from observation and then slowly and cautiously proceeds to theories.12
Scientific progress is a less simple enterprise; and Nietzsche emphasized that
some of the most important achievements such as the Copernican revolution
were accomplished against the judgment of our senses (BGE 12). If we mean to
preserve and enhance productive tensions in favor of intellectual progress, should
that not apply to the apparent opposition between idealism and empiricism,
too? Clark and Dudrick seem to think that intellectual honesty and skepticism,
truthfulness and criticism of truth claims, respect for scientific findings and
questioning of science, could not simultaneously exist in a single sober mind.
I must admit that I have a different reading of Nietzsches mode of criticism,
which I take to be a criticism from within the philosophical tradition.13 I suggest
that we should read his statement that we ourselves are also learning from this
Sphinx [i.e., the will to truth] to pose questions (BGE 1) as a further step in
our culturally achieved and developing will to truth, which turns self-reflective
and self-critical precisely as a consequence of truthfulness. In his 1886 preface
to Daybreak, Nietzsche explains more clearly that in this if in anything we
too are still men of conscience: namely, in that we do not want to return to that
which we consider outlived and decayed, to anything unworthy of belief, be
it called God, virtue, truth, justice, charity (D P:4). The lack of self-reflective
conscience is the target of his assault on the prejudices of philosophers. Clark
and Dudrick, however, argue that Nietzsche is not critical of prejudices after
all, because they are value judgments and express an essential will to value
(48). While it seems correct to me that philosophy is inevitably evaluative, the
underlying analysis of prejudice does not. A Vorurteil (prejudice) is neither
necessarily false, as Lampert suggests, nor is it a valuation, as Clark and Dudrick
want to convince us (42). My native speakers intuition and Grimms lexicon
of nineteenth-century German is clear about it: a Vor-Urteil is a judgment
made before any serious investigation and questioning of its conditions and
justifications. Being uncritical about unproven judgments is embarrassing for
honest philosophers, and I, therefore, disagree that the term prejudice refers
not to something problematic that philosophers must overcome but to the values
(or prejudgments) that are essential to all philosophy (42). Nietzsche does not
criticize what he points out, namely that all great philosophers express valuations and an order of rank (BGE 6), but that they are pretentious about it: that
they are advocates who do not want to be seen as such; for the most part, in
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38 Helmut Heit
fact, they are sly spokesmen for prejudices that they christen as truthsand
very far indeed from the courage of conscience that confesses to this fact, this
very fact (BGE 5). Nietzsche is not demanding that we stop valuating; rather,
he demands honesty.
Such a reading of Nietzsches task may also help to reconcile his will to
truth and his questioning of truth as achievable and ultimately valuable. Most
students of Nietzsche think that BGE 1 puts the origin and value of the will to
truth into question, while Clark and Dudrick state this is only apparently the
case, because they do not see Nietzsche proposing a negative response to such
questions. However, an explicit answer Nietzsche gives in BGE 34 is not mentioned in The Soul of Nietzsches Beyond Good and Evil: It is no more than a
moral prejudice that the truth is worth more than appearance; in fact, it is the
worlds most poorly proven assumption (BGE 34). The main reason for their
suggestion that Nietzsche introduces the will to truth in BGE 1 but that he does
not mean to question it (35) is they take it to be self-refuting to question truth.
But skepticism about traditional notions of truth need not collapse into absolute
relativism; Simon Blackburn has argued that reasonable and reasonably conceptualized less lurid kinds of relativism avoid the recoil of self-contradiction.14
However, Clark and Dudrick agree with Charles Larmore that it is incoherent
and ultimately impossible for somebody to endorse a judgment while simultaneously knowing it to be false, because if a person insists that a proposition is false
and yet claims to believe it, that person is either lying or utterly confused (51).
They even suggest that someone who does not consider falsity an objection to
a judgment is not in a position to believe anything and therefore to think at all
(52). According to Clark and Dudrick, the quest for truth is ultimately rooted
in the human condition, because human life involves thought and thought is
impossible without the commitment to preserving truth in making inferences
(79). Consequently, Nietzsches statement that falsity is not an objection (BGE
4) must mean something completely different.
Clark and Dudrick quote David Velleman to argue that we cannot believe a
proposition unless we aim at getting the truth right with regard to that proposition (51). Unless you conventionally define believing along these lines,
Iam not particularly impressed by this armchair psychology. Why can millions
of religious people not earnestly believe in their god, gods, or spirits, while
Nietzsche believed that god is dead? None of them is in the position of getting
the truth right with regard to that proposition. Similar considerations apply to
the origin and validity of our norms of thought. Kant agrees with Hume that we
can neither derive nor justify the notion of causation from empirical knowledge.
We only observe the regular coincidence of events, but we do not observe causation. Speaking of the cause involves a bit of fictionalizing (96), as Clark
and Dudrick phrase it, but we successfully apply causal explanations to natural
events nonetheless. We are therefore justified in applying, using, and believing
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the principle of causation. But as contemporaries of Nietzsche such as Ernst

Mach (as well as the later members of the Vienna Circlethe godfathers of
scientific philosophy) would argue, whether causation itself truly exists or not
is an unsolvable, meaningless, and ultimately unscientific question. We could
know that we do not know. Honesty is a pragmatic condition of successful
communication, but the conviction that truth is achievable is not. Assuming fallibilism and the impossibility of proving truth does not undermine our reasonable
and useful practices.
A way to label these ideas is perspectivism, and contrary to Clark and Dudricks
suggestion, Alexander Nehamas need not agree that to speak of true from a
perspective [...] immediately leads one into paradoxes of self-reference (7).
Even within the natural sciences perspectival interactions with nature, conscious
abstractions, idealizations, simplifications, and useful fictions are commonplace.
We calculate planetary movements as if planets were perfect shapes of mass
points; we assume the existence of ideal gases, rational agents, ideal markets,
perfect vacuum; we operate with all kinds of models within experimental or
theoretical settings. Science itself tells us that scientific models are not literally
true representations but sufficient and successful idealizations; and sufficiency
and success are defined by relevant values or needs of empirical accuracy,
explanatory power, mathematical simplicity, predictive success, and the like.
A perspective is an interaction between object and a perceiver who forms an
image of the object on the basis of her physiology, culture, requirements, and
preferences. We assume that the world is colored; and we cannot but experience it like that, even though we could know that the trichromatic perspective
is a widely shared, species-specific trait among humans,15 while the objects
of physical theory are not colored. Ronald Giere, certainly no enemy of science, therefore argues that the practice of science itself supports a perspectival
rather than an objectivist understanding of scientific realism and recommends
intellectual honesty, that is, a more modest way of maintaining knowledge
claims.16 Nietzsche does not fault epistemic practices that are necessary for the
survival of our species, but he invites us to change our self-understanding and
our epistemic attitude. Instead of pretending to only passively figure out matters
of fact, human beings could and should accept their active and creative role in
our processes of world making.
This request for a different epistemic attitude may also help to account for
BGE 22. According to Clark and Dudrick, Nietzsche presents will to power
not as a power physics, that is, as an alternative to physics, but as an alternative
to a particular interpretation of physics, of the lawlike generalizations he grants
physics discovers about the course of nature (224). The notion of physics seems
not entirely clear here, since they add, Physics itself is no mere projection
[...] but the laws-of-nature-interpretation of physics is (225). Do they mean
to separate physical science itself and philosophy of physics; or does the
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40 Helmut Heit
distinction indicate that physics itself refers to nature and not to a scientific
discipline? Regarding nature, Nietzsche indeed argues in BGE 22 in a way that
is compatible with ontological realism; but this does not imply epistemological
realism, nor is there any evidence that Nietzsche means nature when he says
physics. Is it advisable to pose a questionable opposition between a rationalizing account of the course of nature and purely causal, mechanistic explanations (226), as if the latter were not rational accounts, that is, interpretations?
Would it not be sufficient to assume that Nietzsche employs an idea that later
became known as the Duhem-Quine thesis: scientific theories are necessarily
underdetermined by a given set of empirical data, and it is always possible to
construct alternatives equally consistent with the same nature and the same
phenomena (BGE 22)? But, as Clark and Dudrick might be eager to object,
this is only another interpretation.
As I have said, it is hardly possible to do justice to their impressive project,
and I have mainly picked up on those ideas that seem to me question begging.
Since Clark and Dudrick offer a bold interpretation, one could disagree with
several claims, but some objections may seem petty. Much like Nietzsches BGE,
Clark and Dudricks book challenges the readers to fight back (253), and
this is a particularly difficult task since they developed such a meticulous and
acute argument. The Soul of Nietzsches Beyond Good and Evil truly represents
the erotic spirit of philosophical agn.
Technische Universitt Berlin
Helmut.Heit@tu-berlin.de
Notes
I am grateful to Anthony Jensen, Matthew Meyer, and Andreas Urs Sommer for helpful remarks
on an earlier version of this article. Quotations from BGE follow the translation given by Clark
and Dudrick. Translations of Nietzsches other texts are my own.
1. Stanley Rosen, The Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsches Zarathustra (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), 248.
2. Cf. Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche als der erste groe Psychologe, Nietzsche-Studien 7
(1978): 26187; Giorgio Colli, Distanz und Pathos. Einleitung zu Nietzsches Werken. (Frankfurt
am Main: Europische Verlagsanstalt, 1982); Josef Simon, Der gewollte Schein. Zu Nietzsches
Begriff der Interpretation, in Kunst und Wissenschaft bei Nietzsche, ed. Mihailo Djuric and Josef
Simon (Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann, 1986), 6274; Laurence Lampert, Nietzsches
Task: An Interpretation of Beyond Good and Evil (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2001); Marc B. de Launay, Ars vitae, Ars tacendi, Revue Germanique International 11 (1999):
10921; and Adrian Del Caro, Grounding the Nietzsche Rhetoric of Earth (Berlin: De Gruyter,
2004), who provides a discussion of further authors dealing with the esoteric-exoteric distinction.
3. Cf. Peter Heller,Von den ersten und den letzten Dingen: Studien und Kommentar zu
einer Aphorismenreihe von Friedrich Nietzsche (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1972); Werner Stegmaier,
Nietzsches Befreiung der Philosophie. Kontextuelle Interpretation des V. Buchs der Frhlichen
Wissenschaft (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012).
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4. Colli, Distanz und Pathos, 12526 (my translation).
5. Beat Rllin reconstructed significant parts of the textual genesis of BGE in Nietzsches
Werkplne vom Sommer 1885: Eine Nachlasslektre. Philologisch-chronologische Erschlieung
der Manuskripte (Munich: Fink, 2012).
6. Nietzsche wrote the first version of BGE 6 in summer 1883 on pages 90 and 91 of his
notebook M-III-4 and revised it in June 1885 in preparation for the publication of BGE; see
Helmut Heit, Lesen und Erraten: Philosophie als Selbstbekenntnis ihres Urhebers, in Texturen
des Denkens. Nietzsches Inszenierungen der Philosophie in Jenseits von Gut und Bse, ed.
Marcus A. Born and Axel Pichler (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 13536.
7. Cf. Wolfgang Mller-Lauter, Der Organismus als innerer Kampf. Der Einfluss von
Wilhelm Roux auf Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche-Studien 7 (1978): 189235; Helmut Heit,
Was man ist ... Zur Wirklichkeit des Subjekts bei Nietzsche, Nietzscheforschung 20 (2013):
17392. I assume that reference to Roux is more useful for understanding Nietzsches notion of
organization than George Ainsles concept of limited resources (220).
8. Not all appearances of the will to power are phrased hypothetically in BGE, namely BGE
186, 198, 211, or 259 are more propositionalnone of which are discussed by Clark and Dudrick.
9. R. Lanier Anderson, Overcoming Charity. The Case of Maudemarie Clarks Nietzsche on
Truth and Philosophy, Nietzsche-Studien 25 (1996): 308.
10. Nikolaos Loukidelis, Es denkt. Ein Kommentar zum Aphorismus 17 aus Jenseits von Gut
und Bse (Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann, 2013).
11. See Paul van Tongeren, Die Moral von Nietzsches Moralkritik. Studie zu Jenseits von
Gut und Bse (Bonn: Bouvier, 1989); Paul van Tongeren, Reinterpreting Modern Culture. An
Introduction to Friedrich Nietzsches Philosophy (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press,
2000).
12. Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: On the Growth of Scientific Knowledge
(London: Routledge, 1958), 137.
13. Cf. Helmut Heit, Erkenntniskritik und experimentelle Anthropologie. Das erste
Hauptstck: von den Vorurtheilen der Philosophen, in Friedrich Nietzsche. Jenseits von Gut
und Bse (Klassiker Auslegen), ed. Marcus A. Born (Berlin: Akademie, 2014).
14. Simon Blackburn, Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Penguin, 2005), 71.
15. Ronald N. Giere, Scientific Perspectivism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006),
3334.
16. Ibid., 6, 7.
21/02/14 6:49 PM
Introduction
Jessica N. Berry
hree papers included in this issue were presented to the North American
Nietzsche Society (NANS) in San Francisco during the Pacific Division
Meeting of the American Philosophical Association. Participants were invited by
the NANS program committee to address the theme, Nietzsche and Antiquity.
The session, held on March 31, 2010 and chaired by R. Lanier Anderson
(Stanford), included papers by Nickolas Pappas (CUNY), who proposes to
shed new light on BT by examining some peculiar distortions in Nietzsches
presentation of the god Apollo; Joel E. Mann (St. Norbert College), who delves
insightfully into Nietzsches medical posture and his allusions to Hippocrates
and ancient medicine in D; and Wilson H. Shearin (University of Miami), who
looks closely at remarks in which Nietzsche identifies himself with Epicurus
and asks what new light can be shed on both thinkers by considering their shared
opposition to teleological thinking.

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18/01/14 1:41 PM
Nietzsches Apollo
Nickolas Pappas
Abstract: Nietzsches account of Apollo and the Apollinian in The Birth of
Tragedy contains underappreciated distortions. Apollinian moments in some
tragedies are described as Dionysian. The Apollo seen in BT fails to interpret
dreams (indeed this book renders dreams impervious to interpretation) and
scarcely prophesies. Most important, Nietzsches vision of the Apollinian as
surface and bounded plane image denies Greek uses of sculpture in just the
opposite way, namely to effect communication between the visible and invisible
realms. It is improbable to suppose that Nietzsche is ignorant of such a prominent
aspect of Greek culture, or that he simply wants to keep his aesthetic categories
neatly demarcated. More likely, he represses the communicative Apollo in a gesture against modern Europes nostalgic treatment of antiquity. Thus the familiar
question of BTs accuracy sheds unexpected light on the familiar question of its
relationship to nostalgia.
Keywords: Nietzsche, Apollo, sculpture, tragedy, nostalgia
The Problem of Identifying Apollo
wo great evaluative questions about The Birth of Tragedy ask how accurate
the book is about Greeces tragic age, and how nostalgic it is for that age.
Wilamowitz raised the question of accuracy as soon as the book was published,
and the issue has never gone away. As for nostalgia, even without accepting
extreme versions of the charge, you can still worry that BT portrays Socrates as
such a calamitya monstrosity, and therefore a freakish birth, something that
did not have to happenas to invite the pious wish that he had never come along,
and that the tragic age of Greece could have lived a little longer.
Both evaluative questions are implicated in a perennial interpretive question:
who is Nietzsches god Apollo? It is a difficult question to treat productively.
Onewants to begin with the contrast between Apollo and Dionysus, but Nietzsche
treats the two so differently that the comparison is never symmetrical. In the case
of Dionysus, the reader has numerous passages to hunt through, early and late
and down to the last line that Nietzsche approved for publication, Dionysus
against the Crucified (EH Destiny 9).1 Figuring out who Apollo is calls for

43
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44 Nickolas Pappas
reconstruction on the basis of few references, and he risks being taken for no
more than his little brothers foil. As Tracy Strong says, the question What is
the Apollinian? is rarely asked.2 For Strong that question matters because he
finds the Apollinian relevant to Nietzsches much later concept of the will to
power. But even if we keep our focus on BT, it is worth pressing Strongs question as a fresh strategy for addressing the scholarship on BT and the nostalgia
that may or may not occupy the bookfor beginning to ask how BT treats its
own opportunities for nostalgia.
A Standard Reading of Apollo

In BT, as in Greek religion generally, Apollos domain is culture in the broad
sense. Along with Dionysus he is a god of the fine artsalso, as no one else
is, a god of sculpture. Apollo also represents a moral dimension that might
seem unrelated to his sponsorship of the arts, though Nietzsche goes a long
way toward unifying the moral and the artistic in his portrayal of Apollo.
The measured restraint (BT 1) that the Greeks called sphrosun (BT 15), the
sense of a limit to the individual (BT 4) and boundaries between individuals
(BT9), all result from the Apollinian Schein that Walter Kaufmann sometimes
translates as appearance and sometimes as illusion (BT 1).3 The yearning
after form that leads to forceful and pleasurable illusions (BT 3), that finds
satisfaction in lucid dreaming (BT 1) and phantasm (BT 3), and in what BT
mock-Platonically calls mere appearance of mere appearance (BT 4) and the
mirror of illusion (BT 5): This disciplined sensuality and impulse toward
beautiful appearance permits appearances to work as a boundary, most of all
as a boundary between individuals and their Dionysian insight into chaos and
horror. This is why the Apollinian article of clothing is the veil; it is what you
look at but also what stops you from looking further, not to mention that it is
a disciplinary vestment and strikes modern taste as prudish.
The question about Nietzsches Apollo will concern this disciplinarian side
of the god that keeps Dionysian cults out of the Doric Peloponnese and stops
the sensualists eye from penetrating into Dionysian depths. Another linking of
attributes has already taken place before this move from appearances to restraint,
when BT 1 unites dreaming and sculpture. It is quite a paradox that dreams,
made of nothing, should belong together with statues made of marble. What
does the experience so private that Nietzsche says Greek dreams are unavailable to moderns have to do with the durable public artifacts that signify ancient
Greece in museums today?4 In both phenomena, Nietzsche finds the Schein that
lets him call Apollo the god of illusionswhich means god of the protective
illusion (BT 3, 5, 9, 17).
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Nietzsches Apollo 45
In moving from dream to sculpture by way of illusion, Nietzsche has l iterary

evidence on his side. Passages in two of the best-known Greek tragedies,
Aeschyluss Agamemnon and Euripidess Alcestis, compress the same three
phenomena together; and both times Apollo is the main god at work. Early in
the Agamemnon, its chorus speaks of Agamemnons brother Menelaus, sitting
bitterly in the palace from which his wife has run off with Paris. Three kinds
of visitation keep reminding Menelaus of Helen: (1) his dreams of her, (2) the
phantoms that rule their palace, and (3) the figurines or statues that he sees in
their home and that conjure up the absent Helen: A phantom [phasma] will seem
to govern their home, and the grace of well-formed kolossoi is repugnant to the
husband.5 Then, he says, Dream-visions will seem to appear, bearing an empty
grace.6 The sculpture, the phantasm, and the dream all evoke that smile of
Helen that BT treats as an emblem of Apollinian comfort and s ensuality (BT 3).7
Apollo belongs behind this particular play, in light of his role in Cassandras
life. And Cassandra, who arrives in Argos alongside Agamemnon, helps to seal
his fateproof of his disrespect for their marriage, Clytemnestra says. Of course
Cassandras misgivings could not have stopped Agamemnon from returning
home to his death, because no one believes Cassandra. That is Apollos doing
too, his curse when she refused his advances. And as the play approaches its
hopeless outcome, Cassandra prays to Apollo, repeating his name.8 Thanks to
the prophetic powers she received from Apollo in the first place, Cassandra
understands that he has brought about the explosion of violence that will destroy
her together with Agamemnon, and whose aftershocks will continue in the next
generation.
The story behind the Alcestis is even more Apollos story. He debates Death
in the prologue. He made it possible for Admetus to postpone his death if anyone
volunteered to die in his place, and Alcestis did volunteer, which is why she is
dying. In the passage relevant to BT, a dying Alcestis asks Admetus not to take
another wife. He says he will mourn even better than that: no entertainment in
the house, no women for him. With luck, he will see Alcestis in his dreams, in
images she sends to him from Hades. There will be phantoms [phantasmata].
He will have his cleverest craftsmen make a figure [demas] of Alcestis to lay
in their matrimonial bed. Admetus will throw his arms around this figure and
call it Alcestis. This will be a chilly delight [psuchron terpsis], but it will tide
him over until they meet again in Hades.9
No doubt facilitated by Aeschyluss influence on Euripides,10 this passage
reinforces the cooperation among these Apollinian traits. Admetus speaks as
if sculptural figures and dreams belong together in the category of phantoms
or illusions, as the Agamemnons chorus grouped them together for Menelaus.
Nietzsche speaks with these tragedies when he glides between dreams and
statues.
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46 Nickolas Pappas
Where Nietzsche Misrepresents Apollo

Here, however, is the catch: BT shows how conscious Nietzsche is of the two
plays in question, and yet he sees both as illustrations of the Dionysian. When
Nietzsche calls Attic tragedy at once Antigone and Cassandra (BT 4) he
means the genre is both Apollinian and Dionysian, with Apollo represented by
Sophocless Antigone and Dionysus by the Cassandra of the Agamemnon.11
Cassandra is Apollos priestess, and Apollo is the god to whom she dies praying.
How can BT turn her into the representative of Dionysus?
As for the Alcestis, Nietzsche alludes to it at some length, recollecting how
Admetus felt as he mourned his wifes passing, consuming himself in her
spiritual contemplation, when suddenlyas Nietzsche tells ita similarly
formed, similarly walking womans figure is led toward him. Nietzsche treats
this as an image of Dionysian experience, an analogy with what the spectator
felt in his Dionysian excitement when he saw the approach on the stage of the
god (BT 8). It is strange: here is Apollos friend watching his wife come back
across the border from death thanks to Apollos intercessionsand Nietzsche
reads him as Dionysian.
Something is either blocking Nietzsche from seeing Apollo in these tragic
passages, or else blocking him from acknowledging that he sees Apollo. And
what filters Apollo out of his literary readings seems also to be at work when
Nietzsche addresses other Greek cultural phenomena. For example, Nietzsche
introduces Apollo as the god of dreams and plays down dream interpretation,
although to Greeks in the tragic age dreams meant communications from the
gods more than they meant anything else.12 BT conceives of dreaming as lucid
dreaming, all surface and no thought of interpretation. This is more or less what
Jocasta tells Oedipus that young boys Oedipal dreams are like, but Sophocles
does not treat Jocastas theory of lucid dreaming as a possibility worth considering. The possibility of dreams unconnected with reality is a hope to which she
clings vainly, as vainly as the uncle of Xerxes in Herodotus scoffs at his nephews
dreams. Dreams often do no more than distill the preceding days thoughts,
Artabanus says to Xerxes, until a dream makes him recant this skepticism.13 The
story resolves itself in the direction of dreams meaningfulness and not with the
visual appeal of meaningless dream sights. The dreamer wants to go on dreaming,
but only because the dream brings a truth. You see yourself sleeping with your
mother, and you know you will return to Athens.14 For Nietzsche to define the
Apollinian in terms of entertaining images is to defy the Greek understanding
of Apollo and every ancient tradition pertaining to dreams.
BT also nearly omits Apollos most famous role in Greek life, as oracle. The
word Orakel occurs three times in BT, but never in proximity to Apollos name.
Where Nietzsche does mean the Delphic oracle he attributes to the oracle the
act of praise rather than communication about the future; the oracle at Delphi
honored Archilochus (BT 5) and called Socrates the wisest man (BT 13). The
third occurrence of the word in BT denies Apollo outright. The satyr chorus of
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tragedy speaks with oracles and wise sayings [Orakel- und Weisheitssprche]
(literally, wise and oracular words) (BT 8). Dionysuss effect on the chorus is
to usurp Apollos oracular power.15
In general BT casts Apollo in the role of barrier or obstacle, not only between
individuals but also between any one individual and the truth of things. Section1
does call Apollo the soothsaying god (BT 1), and in German as in English the
word for soothsaying (wahrsagende) contains the word for truth. But in spite
of this concession, Apollinian appearance stands in truths way. Thanks to the
(Apollinian) image of Olympian gods, the wisdom of Silenus is withdrawn from
sight (BT 3). Nietzsche says that the world of the day [die Welt des Tages] is
veiled in the Apollinian dream state (BT 8); he opposes the Apollinian picture of
tragedy, as a story experienced by humans, to the truth [Wahrheit] that Dionysus
is tragedys hero (BT 10). Other passages imply the same opposition. To be able
to dream with Apollinian joy, the dreamer must have completely lost sight of the
waking realityor in flatter, more literal language, must have fully forgotten
the day [den Tag [. . .] vllig vergessen haben mssen] (BT 4). The Apollinian
artist is characterized by the pure contemplation of images [das reine Anschauen
der Bilder]; such an artist lives in these images and only in them (BT 5).
The readers of Nietzsche who take issue with his portrayal of Apollo have
tended to downplay his emphasis on superficial image. Silk and Stern say that
Nietzsche distorts both Apollo and Dionysus, but they dwell on Apollo the moralizing god, and the prophetic and ecstatic Apolline cult that contradicts the
serenity in Nietzsches description.16 Marcel Detienne problematizes the image
of a morally pure Apollo by foregrounding associations between the god and
acts of slaughter.17 Such replies miss the opportunity to examine Apollo qua
alleged god of the beautiful surface. As James Porter has said, Apollinian art is .
. . ignorant of any dimension of reality beyond the immediately visible; and this
characterization of Apollo, as Porter sees it, rather than the gods discipline and
calm, defines him for Nietzsches aesthetic theory in BT.18 The sense of Apollos
superficiality is also the greatest distortion in BT because it denies the communicative dimension of Apollos persona. In Aeschyluss Eumenides, to pick one
example, the priestess of Apollo calls him examiner of omens [teraskopos], the
one who interprets marvelous events.19 Pindar describes divination as hearing the
voice [phnan akouein]in this context Apollos voicethat does not know
how to lie [pseuden agnston].20
Apollo and the Communicative Sculpture

Of course Nietzsche is talking about art, not about dreams or oracles. Apollo
most matters to his argument as a god of statuary. But this is the domain in which
BT reinterprets Apollos attributes the most radically. The book links Apollo
with statues and never mentions the communication that statues were thought
to make possible between the living and the dead.
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48 Nickolas Pappas
Take the kolossoi that torment Menelaus in the Agamemnon and the demas
with which Admetus says he will mourn Alcestis. These are Apollinian by every
criterion, but not artifacts of beguiling surface whose appearance arrests the
viewer. They belong in the category of eidla, presentations of someone absent
and promises of communication with the absent person. They are, in Charles
Picards words and as analyzed by Jean-Pierre Vernant, replacement-figurines,
go-betweens at work in instances of death and disappearance.21 Vernants defining example of such statuary is the kolossos, not a large sculpture but one that
is fixed in the earth and upright, an effigy set up as a grave marker or as the
surrogate corpse for a missing body. Without even resembling the lost person
this marker stood in the persons place. A lost play by Euripides dramatizes the
magical workings of these figurines. Protesilaus dies at Troy, and his widow
Laodamia makes a little wax effigy; the gods pity her and let the effigy come
to life, so that Laodamia can enjoy visits from her husband. This Apollinian
sculpture does not separate individual beings from one another but brings them
back together.22
These sculptures in myth belong in the same conceptual universe that informs
the Greeks everyday treatment of their graveyard sculptures, such as the marble
stlai that marked graves. The stlai could be simple upright rectangles, but
often they were engraved with figures in high relief, sometimes with freestanding sculptural forms. They could be treated as if the stone itself were the dead
person. The stl was washed and rubbed with oil on the festival of the dead.23
Ancient drawings depict mourners symbolically dressing a stl with woolen
ribbons that they wound around the stone. Tellingly in some of those drawings the
deceased is standing nearby (denoted by a tiny soul overhead)24 to demonstrate
the success of the connection that this wrapping effects between the living and
the dead. Dress the stone and the dead feel themselves addressed.
Food and drink were brought to the stl. Iphigenia in Tauris describes a
drink offering being poured onto a grave as soothing for the dead [nekrois
thelktria].25 Mourners left olive oil by graves in flasks. From the other side
the stones communicated replies. One womans headstone instructs her husband,
Kiss my family for me.26 The dead could use the words on their marker to
tell passersby what happened to them. Thus one inscription of a young woman
says, The sma [sign] of Phrasikleia. I will be called kor [maiden] forever.27
The word sma is telling. While typically it means sign, it also carries the
meaning tomb. Plato plays with this ambiguity in the Cratylus, when Socrates
calls the body [sma] both the grave that the soul is in and the sign of the soul,
that by which the soul signifies what it signifiesas if what proves that the
soul lies buried inside the body is not that the body stands there expressionless
but rather that it serves as the medium for the souls communications.28 Sign
language is already seen to be the language of the grave and by means of grave
markers. Phrasikleia speaks in sign language just as Apollo does, especially if
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you believe Heraclituss account of him (an account you might have expected
Nietzsche to trust): The king whose oracle is at Delphi neither says [legei] nor
hides [kruptei] but signifies [smainei].29
Nietzsches Apollo seems to have lost his ability to sponsor sculptural communication, just as he lost his oracular power. Apollo does signify impenetrable
screens and impenetrable self-control, and he is indeed the far-away god
compared to his brother Dionysus who forever says, Im coming. But Apollo
also marks that grand distance between gods and mortals with his own movement through it: benevolently when he communicates through oracles, otherwise
when he unquivers his arrows to send a communicable disease out of nowhere.
The movement does not contradict Apollos faraway distance but presupposes it,
and in the tradition the distance is regularly accompanied by movement through
the distance. Thus Solon, securely archaic (predating tragedy), says in one poem
that Apollo, who works from afar, can make a man a seer; and if the gods are
with him, Solon goes on to say, he sees a distant evil coming.30
How Nietzsche Uses the Apollo of Surfaces

For Nietzsches very partial Apollo to be a mistake, Nietzsche would have to have
forgotten or never noticed Apollos preeminence in Agamemnon and Alcestis,
forgotten that Apollo spoke through the oracle, never noticed that Greek dreams
called for interpretation as divine communiqus. He would have to have failed
to know that Greek history, tragedy, and painting all attest to ancient uses of
statuary not as pure visibility and apparition as such but as signs of invisible
forces behind appearance.
Even if nothing more powerful than ignorance explained why Nietzsche
excluded meanings from his conception of Apollo, that exclusion would still
be worth identifying. Commentaries on BT that ask only whether Apollo was
really the serene god of Nietzsches imagining, and not whether he was patron
of the illusionistic surface, are neglecting the attribute of the Nietzschean Apollo
that matters most to the book. But suppose ignorance is not the cause. Suppose
Nietzsche makes his false Apollo despite what he knows rather than on the basis
of what he does not know. In that case, he has some special need for a god of
statues that one looks at and not into or through. The omissions must be doing
some work for Nietzsche, repressing a practice or fantasy made possible by the
Apollo who communicates.
One fantasy about Apollo might be the one that begins among the relics
that survive in modern Europe and that function as tombstones of a lost age.
Nietzsche knows that nothing says ancient Greece like white marble statues,
marble temples, and the inscriptions on them. He has already seen more than
enough of the Apollo who inspires rituals of dressing and anointing the ancient
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50 Nickolas Pappas
stones in the hope of hearing from a lost antiquity. The pleasure that BT resists is
specifically the pleasure of mourning and of reaching out to touch Greeces lost
soul through its Apollinian treasures. After all it is against nostalgic fantasies,
cemetery daydreams, that Nietzsche invokes the energy that is not Apollinian,
emphasizes the boundedness and restraint in Apollo and the veiling surface of
Apollinian sculpture, and cautions how much remains unknown about the past
and will never be communicated. First of all, the Apollinian cannot be the whole
story of antiquity. This dominant theme in BT turns the modern mourner away
from the sepulcher. Even where the surviving white marbles date to a time before
tragedy, Nietzsche sees them as reactive and secondary, responding to a deeper
and earlier Dionysian experience. It follows that the students of antiquity have
been seeking antiquity in the wrong place.
Nietzsche wards off nostalgia most in the passages that refuse to let Greek
remains work as replacement figurines, for instance when he denies the hope that
motivated modern opera. With its music lost, Nietzsche says, tragedy presents
itself to us only as word-drama (BT 17). Opera extrapolates from the Apollinian
dialogue in ancient tragedy to what it merely imagines to have been the ancient
reality of tragedy. This must be seen as no more than imagining. And again
on the last page of the book the nostalgic impulse resembles an Apollinian
mourning that reads the gravestones of Greece as signs. Nietzsche hypothesizes
someone picturing himself back in tragic Greece (BT 25). This time traveler
sees (presumably whitened) Ionic columns and talks about the Olympic gods;
the scene takes place in a dream. In other words, the nostalgic moment is
Apollinian, only it is not a lucid dream aware of its own illusoriness. This is the
nineteenth centurys would-be trip to the past.
The scene ends with a wise Aeschylus figure cutting off the nostalgia. This old
man invites the curious stranger to sacrifice with me in the temple, suggesting
that sacrifice is an alternative to dreamy nostalgia. Sacrifice is active engagement
as opposed to mere fantasies about the past. And with something like this same
pair of alternatives, sance and sacrifice, Nietzsche rejects the nostalgic variety
of remembrance in a later meditation, dating to 1879. Speaking of the music
and art from earlier times, he says that art works from the past only can survive
through this, that we give them our soul; only our blood makes them talk to us.
Actual historical discourse would talk spectrally to specters [gespenstisch zu
Gespenstern] (AOM 126, emphases original).31
Talking spectrally to specters keeps the conversation in the graveyard. That
talk, historians nostalgia, is communication through the tombstone: how
Admetus plans to talk to Alcestis, how Helens smile haunts Menelaus as he
haunts his own palace. The sacrificial alternative sounds more like intoxication
anyway; it begins with heavy drinking. (What is a heavier drink than blood?) It
is sacrifice in the service of living music and Dionysian communion rather than
Apollinian communication. Less metaphorically, giving your blood to the shades
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of the past means recognizing that you are coming to them with a modern agenda
and questions, not deluding yourself into the thought that ancient Greece stands
waiting as a tourist attraction, perhaps for those who have merely wearied of
the present. Other dangers will threaten the inquirers who pour their own blood
out (the danger of becoming unscientific, for instance). But at least this is not
nostalgia. It is not modern Europe revering the whitened marbles of antiquity
and laying them in bed to call them by their forgotten names in sign language.
City College and the Graduate Center
City University of New York
npappas@ccny.cuny.edu
Notes
An earlier version of this article was presented at a meeting of the North American Nietzsche
Society in San Francisco (March 2010). Thanks go to the other participants at that session, Joel E.
Mann and Wilson Shearin, and to its chair, R. Lanier Anderson. Special thanks to Daniel McIntosh
for his conversation and encouragement.
1. Translations from Nietzsches works other than BT are my own. Quotations from BT
come from Walter Kaufmanns translation (New York: Random House, 1967). Translations from
ancient sources are my own unless otherwise indicated, and references to specific passages use
the standard scholarly notation for a given work (e.g., Stephanus pages for Plato, line numbers
for tragedies, section and subsection numbers for Herodotus, Plutarch, Suetonius, etc.). On
the preparation and printing of Ecce Homo, see William H. Schaberg, The Nietzsche Canon:
APublication History and Bibliography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 18085.
2. Tracy B. Strong, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of Transfiguration, expanded ed.
(Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 234.
3. See Kaufmanns comment on this practice in his note to BT 1, p. 34 n. 4.
4. In spite of all the dream literature and the numerous dream anecdotes of the Greeks, we
can speak of their dreams only conjecturally (BT 2, emphasis original).
5. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 41517; translation adapted from Deborah Steiner, Eyeless in
Argos: A Reading of Agamemnon 41619, Journal of Hellenic Studies 115.1 (1995): 17582.
Steiner leaves phasma untranslated; I find phantom a natural equivalent.
6. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 42021. On translating these and subsequent lines, see Mary C.
Stieber, A Note on A. Ag. 41028 and E. Alc. 24756, Mnemosyne 52.2 (1999): 15058. This
part of the discussion has been fruitfully shaped by both Stieber and Steiner, Eyeless in Argos.
7. For that matter, see Euripidess Helen (705, 1219), in whichin Apollinian stylethe
word agalma (statue) is stretched until it also applies to cloud formations and phantoms,
reinforcing the association between statuary and shades. Cf. Charles Segal, The Two Worlds of
Euripides Helen, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 102.1
(1971): 569 n. 51. Segal explores the word eidlon in Helen in ways that bring that wordplay to
bear on the issues of death and communications between visible and invisible realms.
8. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 143847 (Clytemnestra justifies killing Cassandra as insult to
their marital bed); 120212 (Cassandras refusal of Apollo and his replying curse); 1073, 1080,
1085 (Cassandra chanting Apollos name); see also 1257, 1269 (references to Apollo). It has been
plausibly suggested that when Cassandra prays to Apollo in this final scene she is addressing an
effigy of the god mounted on an altar on stage (Joe Park Poe, The Altar in the Fifth-Century
Theater, Classical Antiquity 8.1 [1989]: 135).
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52 Nickolas Pappas
9. Euripides, Alcestis 34856 (how Admetus will mourn); 36368 (their future burial
together and home in Hades). For text and accurate translation, see Stieber, A Note on A. Ag.
41028 and E. Alc. 24756, 151.
10. On parallels between the passages and especially the conjunction of statues with dreams,
see Stieber, A Note on A. Ag. 41028 and E. Alc. 24756, 15658.
11. See Kaufmanns note to BT 4, p. 47 n. 4.
12. It is significant that skeptics about dreams had to argue against treating them as divine
messages: a sign of how typically they were treated that way. See the Hippocratic On Regimen and
Aristotles On Divination in Dreams.
13. Herodotus, Histories 7.16.
14. Hippias dreamed of sexual relations with his mother and concluded that he would return
to Athens to rule again. Though his hopes for regaining his rule came to nothing, he technically
reached Athenian land again (Herodotus, Histories 6.107). Return home, especially to rule, is a
reading of the incest dream that holds steady through Greek and Roman antiquity. Artemidorus
explains the general rule (Oneirocritus I.79). On Caesars incestuous dream, see Plutarch, Life of
Caesar 32.6 and Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars 1.7.
15. There is a tradition according to which Dionysus ran the Delphic oracle during winter
months (Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, trans. John Raffan [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1985], 224). Nietzsche gives no sign of having in mind such a close brotherhood between
the gods. Instead this looks like one of the passages in which Dionysus takes over Apollinian
functions. Thus the Dionysian molds the noblest clay, the most costly marble, man (BT 1);
modern poetry without music is called the statue of a god without a head (BT 5)as if
Dionysian music could function as the most Apollinian part of that sculpture.
16. M. S. Silk and J. P. Stern, Nietzsche on Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1981), 166 (distortions in Nietzsches gods), 16869 (Apollo and morality), 183 (the prophetic
and ecstatic cult).
17. Marcel Detienne, Apollos Slaughterhouse, trans. Anne Doueihi, Diacritics 16.2
(1986): 4653.
18. James Porter, Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2001), 72.
19. Aeschylus, Eumenides 6163.
20. Pindar, Olympian Odes 6.6667. On this voice being Apollos, see Michael Attyah Flower,
The Seer in Ancient Greece (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 39 n. 48. Indirect
agreement with Pindar comes from Jocasta in Oedipus Tyrannus, when she voices an attack on
Apollos oracle stronger than any comparable sentiment in Greek tragedy. Jocasta wants to deny
the prediction from Delphi that her son would kill Laius; she cannot go so far as to reject Apollos
truthfulness, so she attributes the mendacity to Apollos servants at the oracle (Oedipus Tyrannus
70725); Flower, Seer in Ancient Greece, 13637.
21. Vernants two main articles on the subject appeared in French in 1965, in Mythe et pense
chez les grecques. In English they are Jean-Pierre Vernant, The Figuration of the Invisible and
the Psychological Category of the Double: The Kolossos, in Myth and Thought among the
Greeks, trans. Janet Lloyd and Jeff Fort (New York: Zone Books, 2006), 32132; and From the
Presentification of the Invisible to the Imitation of Appearance, in Myth and Thought among
the Greeks, 33349. For more recent discussion of kolossoi in burial practices, see Christopher
A. Faraone, Binding and Burying the Forces of Evil: The Defensive Use of Voodoo Dolls in
Ancient Greece, Classical Antiquity 10.2 (1991): 165220; and Georges Roux, Quest-ce quun
Kolossos?, Revue des tudes Anciennes 62 (1960): 540. Vernant takes the phrase replacementfigurines [figurines de remplacement] from Charles Picard, Le Cnotaphe de Mida et les
Colosses de Mnlas, Revue de Philologie 59 (1933): 34354.
22. Protesilaus is known only through surviving remarks about the play and later tellings
of the story, most famously Ovid, Heroides 13. It is not certain that the Euripidean version
has Protesilauss soul coming back to animate the effigy of him. On the story independent of
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Euripides, see Laurel Fulkerson, (Un)sympathetic Magic: A Study of Heroides 13, American
Journal of Philology 123.1 (2002): 6187. Eduard Fraenkel argues that the Protesilaus is the
source for the description of the effigy in the Alcestis (Aeschylus Agamemnon, vol. 2 [Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1950], 21920). See Stieber, A Note on A. Ag. 41028 and E. Alc.
24756, 150 n. 2.
23. Burkert, Greek Religion, 19394; cf. Derek Collins, Nature, Cause, and Agency in Greek
Magic, Transactions of the American Philological Association 133.1 (2003): 38. Collins cites
Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.24.6, on the stone at Delphi that Pausanias observed being
treated this way (Nature, Cause, and Agency, 38 n. 94).
24. One Athenian oil flask in New Yorks Metropolitan Museum of Art has such a drawing
on its side (1989.281.72). Thanks to Natalie Bell for noticing this lekuthos and photographing it.
25. Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris 166; see Robert Garland, The Greek Way of Death (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), 118.
26. Garland, Greek Way of Death, 3.
27. For discussion of the form and source of this utterance (is the girl speaking, or the stone
on her behalf?), see Deborah Steiner, Images in Mind: Statues in Archaic and Classical Greek
Literature and Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 25759.
28. Plato, Cratylus 400c. Thanks to Daniel McIntosh for pointing out the Platonic plays on
sma and sma.
29. Heraclitus, frag. B93, quoted in Plutarch, On the Pythian Oracle 404d. For a rendition and
discussion of this passage, see Charles H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus: An Edition
of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1979), 12324.
30. Quoted in Flower, Seer in Ancient Greece, 82.
31. On this passage see Silk and Stern, Nietzsche on Tragedy, 1023; Porter, Nietzsche and the
Philology of the Future, 41 n. 209.
21/02/14 7:52 PM
Prescribing Positivism: The Dawn

of NietzschesHippocratism
Joel E. Mann
Abstract: As a classical philologist, Nietzsche was extremely familiar with
the work of many ancient Greek writers. It is well known that Nietzsche made a
practice of identifying with and praising ancient thinkers with whom he felt a kinship. It is worth investigating, then, whether Nietzsches mention of Hippocrates
in D signals a sustained interest in the so-called father of medicine. I argue that
there is no evidence that Nietzsche paid special attention to Hippocrates or the
Hippocratic corpus. Instead, Nietzsches curious allusion to Hippocrates is likely
influenced in part by his reading of the Comtean positivist mile Littr. Finally,
I argue that if Nietzsche is consciously Hippocratic at all, he is so in virtue of
the medical posture he adopts in D, where Nietzsches remarks suggest his mission is to relieve humankind of the psychological suffering caused by morality.
Keywords: Nietzsche, Hippocrates, Littr, medicine, positivism
ietzsche opens D with the ironic image of a subterranean man who

tunnels and mines and undermines (D P:1).1 He works in the depths, in
the dark, deprived of light. Nietzsches description at once inverts and subverts
Platos allegory of the cave.2 In Platos story, the philosopher completes a circuit
from the depths of the cave below to the sunlit world above and back again. The
subterranean man, by contrast, disappears from the world of light into his tunnels. Having resurfaced, heNietzscherecounts his exploits and discoveries
in D, the memoir of a morality miner.
For Plato, the dark depths of the cave represent mans ignorance of transcendent reality. For Nietzsche, the darkness represents mans ignorance of himself,
the opacity of the self to itself, the obscurity of a deeper, more fundamental
psychology. The subterranean man plunges into this underground worlddamp
and earthy and therefore earthly, mortal and material. If the sunlit surface is, as
in Plato, the domain of the enlightened intellect, then the chthonic depths are
the domain of the unconscious body and its mysterious mechanisms. Nietzsche
notes that his preface could have been a funeral oration (D 2), and we are meant
to imagine ourselves standing before a corpse, the lifeless physical remains of
a man who has died despiteperhaps even because ofNietzsches surgical
explorations.
54
JNS 45.1_07_Mann.indd 54
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Dawn of Nietzsches Hippocratism 55
Daybreak is, indeed, a funeral oration of sorts (see D 520). Man the moral
being is dead, and Nietzsche has killed him by undermining the logical presuppositions of morality. The truth of moral claims and judgments depends
on the priority, efficacy, and transparency of our conscious intentions, and so
Nietzsches exposure of the unconscious psychological and physiological causes
of our actions, beliefs, and intentions threatens the prejudices of conventional
morality. Nietzsche unifies these themes in a reflection on the ancients that has
recently received considerable attention:
A model.What is it I love in Thucydides, why do I honor him more highly than
Plato? He takes the most comprehensive and impartial delight in all that is typical
in men and events and believes that to each type there pertains a quantum of good
sense: this he seeks to discover. He displays greater practical justice than Plato;
he does not revile or belittle those he does not like or who have harmed him in
life. On the contrary: through seeing nothing but types he introduces something
great into all the things and persons he treats of; for what interest would posterity, to whom he dedicates his work, have in that which was not typical? Thus in
him, the portrayer of man, that culture of the most impartial knowledge of the
world finds its last glorious flower: that culture which had in Sophocles its poet,
in Pericles its statesman, in Hippocrates its physician, in Democritus its natural
philosopher; which deserves to be baptized with the name of its teachers, the
Sophists [...]. (D 168)
Nietzsches preference for Thucydides and the sophists over Plato is well documented and much discussed, though questions linger regarding Nietzsches
rationale for including figures such as Sophocles, Pericles, Hippocrates, and
Democritus among them. I will return later to consider this question at greater
length; for now, it will suffice to point out that Pericles is known to us and
to Nietzsche primarily through Thucydidess History of the Peloponnesian
War, which contains an account of Pericless famous funeral oration. Thus,
Nietzsche subtly suggests a connection among physiology, funeral orations,
and that Thucydidean impartiality that serves as a kind of antidote to the moral
prejudices of Plato.
The present article addresses the physiological themes developed in D, specifically those developed through Nietzsches appropriation of Hippocrates. No
one, at least not to my knowledge, has yet explored this Hippocratic connection.
Scholars have, with some success, investigated the historical connections among
Nietzsche, Thucydides, and Democritus.3 Such comparative investigations are
most successful, I would contend, when they accomplish two goals (which is
not to imply that these are the only two goals of such scholarship). First, comparative investigations should discover some concrete connection between two
thinkers. Second, the comparison should illuminate our understanding of at least
one of the thinkers, usually by contributing to the resolution of some interpretive issue. D 168 gives us some evidence of a concrete historical connection
not just among Nietzsche and Thucydides and Democritus, but also between
Nietzsche and Sophocles, Pericles and Hippocrates. Nietzsches mention of
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56 Joel E. Mann
Hippocrates is especially intriguing given the physiological dimension of his

project in D. Indeed, Nietzsches biological turn has become the subject of
much debate in recent years, and we might reasonably ask whether there is
something to be learned from Nietzsches association with the ancient Greek
physician Hippocrates.
Nietzsche and Hippocrates: A Connection

The question is not as absurd as it might sound. Work by Gregory Moore and
others has demonstrated the importance of biological and medical theory to
Nietzsches philosophy, and Thomas Brobjers documentation of Nietzsches
engagement with contemporary scientific literature has revealed many of the
biological and medical sources on which Nietzsche drew.4 And we should not
infer from the fact that these sources were roughly contemporary with Nietzsche
that they were medically modern. It can be argued that medicine becomes
genuinely modern only with the widespread acceptance of the pathogenic theory
of medicine (the so-called germ theory of disease), and though the foundations
for this paradigm shift in medical thinking had been laid already in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, experimental confirmation and practical application would have to wait for the latter half of the nineteenth century.5 Indeed,
Nietzsches remarks on health and medicine betray little to no interest in or
familiarity with the pathogenic theory. If this surprises us, it will help to recall that
although the pathogenic theory appears to us today as the beginning of modern
medicine, it took hold at the end of a nineteenth-century explosion of theoretical
and practical interest in medicine, an explosion fueled in partespecially on the
European continentby a return to Hippocrates and Hippocratism.6
Nietzsche read medical literature, academic and popular, theoretical and practical.7 The medical literature in Nietzsches library often cites the ancient physician with approval. Carl Ernst Bock, whose popular Das Buch vom gesunden
und kranken Menschen (Book of the Healthy and Sick Person) became a best
seller, invokes the authority of the two-thousand-year-old Hippocratic dictum
it is nature which heals diseases.8 Unfortunately, to participate in the age-old
ritual of Hippocrates worship does not make one Hippocratic in any meaningful way. The Hippocratic corpus is a relatively diverse collection of medical
and quasi-medical treatises written roughly between the late sixth and the third
centuries BCE. It contains works of very differentoften contradictorystyles
and approaches.9 The history of its accretion and reception is the history of a
dispute over its authenticity and interpretation. Since the Hellenistic era, representatives of various approaches to medical theory and practice have laid claim to
the Hippocratic mantle. Virtually the only point of agreement over the centuries
has been that Hippocrates is the father of medicine and that his imprimatur is
somehow decisive.10 In this respect, Bocks appeal to Hippocrates is standard
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fare, a mere rhetorical trope of ancient origin; it is not Hippocratism, unless

Hippocratism amounts to nothing more than the vainly twitching vestiges of
an outdated debate.
Indeed, the nature of the corpus and its history complicate the question of
whether Nietzsche himself bears any meaningful relation to Hippocrates or
Hippocratism, and now it is appropriate to distinguish the two. I will say that
Nietzsche bears some meaningful relation to Hippocrates if his thought can
be understood as in some part a function of his direct engagement with the
ancient Greek texts of the Hippocratic corpus. By the same token, Nietzsche
will be related to Hippocratism if his thought can be understood as in some
part a function of his direct engagement with more contemporary medical writers who consciously and substantively situate themselves as heirs to theory
or practice derived from the Hippocratic corpus. I do not think that we can
know a priori whether this distinction between Hippocrates and Hippocratism
is precise enough to be useful in interpreting Nietzsches philosophy.11 Rather,
the adequacy of the distinction will depend on the success or failure of the
interpretations it grounds.
The distinction gives us the capacity at least to conclude that Nietzsche bears
no meaningful relation to Hippocrates. Nietzsches philological expertise was
wide-ranging and impressively eclectic. His early research and teaching in
classics required a firm grasp of Homer, Diogenes Laertius, Democritus, the
Presocratics, Plato, Socrates, Thucydides, and the tragedians, among others.
Conspicuously missing from this list is Hippocrates, or, rather, the Hippocratic
corpus. I am aware of no reliable evidence to suggest that Nietzsche ever made
any serious attempt to study the Hippocratic texts in their own right. The best we
can hope for, then, is to trace Nietzsches relation to Hippocratism, and this is no
simpleperhaps not even a possibletask, for the best historians of Nietzsches
medical knowledge stress the impact of biological and physiological ideas that
are strikingly modern and which, therefore, cannot have their origins in a particular reading of the Hippocratic corpus. Moore, for example, details Nietzsches
dependence on the concept of nerve force or nervous energy in his discussions of health and the body.12 Nietzsches continual obsessions with diet and
exercise are rooted in his reception of various nineteenth-century advances in
metabolic theory.13 Finally, the excessive attention Nietzsche pays to meteorological and climatic conditions aligns him with the medical climatology
movement of the late nineteenth century, which postulated a number of speculative causal connections between, for example, solar events and atmospheric
electricity and their effects on the human nervous and metabolic systems.14
In response, the Hippocratic hopeful may offer the following. While the specific content of the aforementioned medical theories is unquestionably modern,
it is possible that they nonetheless conform in general outline to a fundamentally
Hippocratic model of health and disease, at least to the extent that such a model
may be coherently described. There is, in fact, a tenuous but persistent scholarly
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58 Joel E. Mann
consensus that, on the Hippocratic account, health supervenes on the equilibrium

of liquid humors in the body. These humors are endowed with basic physiochemical causal powersusually hot, cold, wet and dryand their precise
balance depends on regulating the bodys exposure to various meteorological
and dietetic factors.15 Anyone familiar with both the Hippocratic Epidemics
and Nietzsches harangues about sluggish intestines and the virtues of dry air
(e.g.,EH Clever 2) will mark the resemblance. Though the romantic physiology to which Nietzsche subscribes replaces Hippocratic humors with quantified
forces, one could argue that much about the picture remains the same.
This, however, is only a tentative nod in the direction of potentially fruitful
connections between Nietzsche and Hippocratism.16 Moreover, these historical
connections, if they obtain, are incidental. They are ways in which Nietzsche
might have been Hippocratic without his having been aware of his own
Hippocratism; but the mention of Hippocrates in D is intentional. Nor does it
appear to contain an implicit endorsement of a specific physiology or model
of health and disease. Nor was it occasioned by even a casual study of the
Hippocratic corpus. What, then, motivated the allusion? I would like to suggest
that in D Hippocrates is identified with commitments of such general scope
that Nietzsche would have understood Hippocratism to encompass most or all
of the medical science he had encountered. In other words, Hippocratism in
this sense should be regarded more as a philosophical, as opposed to a strictly
medical, orientation.
Whatever else Hippocrates represented to the nineteenth-century mind, he
stood first and foremost as a symbol of rational medicine. Rational medicine
in this sense is not to be contrasted with some kind of empirical medicine,
but rather with irrationalthat is, supernaturalapproaches to healing. Such
approaches are described in Homer, for example, in his account of the plague
that visited the Greeks at Troy. The cause of the epidemic is divine displeasure:
Agamemnon has rebuffed Chrysess ransom request, thereby offending Apollo
and inviting his wrath.17 The mechanism of its transmission is mysterious: Apollo
fires his arrows into the Greek army, killing first the mules and dogs, and then
the men themselves.18 The epidemic ends only when the Greeks have consulted
a religious seer who knew the things that were, that were to be, and had been.19
To this we may compare the Hippocratic Epidemics. The work is essentially a
compilation of methodical observations made during the outbreak of various epidemics in different geographic areas. The author (or authors) notes the climatic
and dietetic contexts of the disease, and, in a well-known passage, writes that
... in all dangerous cases you should be on the watch for all favorable coctions
of the evacuations from all parts, or for fair and critical abscessions. Coctions
signify nearness of crisis and sure recovery of health, but crude and unconcocted
evacuations, which change into bad abscessions, denote absence of crisis, pain,
prolonged illness, death, of a return of the same symptoms. But it is by a consideration of other signs that one must decide which of these results will be most likely.
05/03/14 11:17 AM

Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future; practice these things.
As to diseases, make a habit of two thingsto help, or at least to do no harm.20
The doctor is implicitly compared to a diviner; both are tasked with knowing
the past and predicting the future on the basis of signs. But the full implication
is that the doctor replaces the diviner, at least when it comes to disease, and the
reasons for this are clear, if subtly expressed. The doctor makes his predictions
based on close observation of the physical processes presumably relevantthat
is, causally relatedto outcomes. The diviner makes his based on causally
irrelevant observations, for example, of the perceived patterns in the entrails of
birds, as in the Iliad.
If to us Hippocrates and Homer seem worlds apart in the substance of their
pathological presuppositions, so too did they seem to the scientists and philosophers of Nietzsches day. The association of Hippocrates with rational medicine
was so strong, in fact, that it inspired some editors to modify the original Greek
manuscripts. References to divine diseases or their causes were removed, forcing
Hippocratic texts such as Prognostic,21 which advises doctors first to determine
whether there is anything divine in the nature of the diseases they encounter,
into agreement with more rational treatises, perhaps best represented by the
prologue to a text titled On the Sacred Disease, in which the author declares of
epilepsy that it is not, in my opinion, any more divine or more sacred than other
diseases, but has a nature and an antecedent cause, and its supposed divine origin
is due to mens inexperience and to their wonder at its peculiar character.22
Indeed, as far back as Galen, scholars had been divided over the meaning and
import of Hippocratic references to the divine. Emile Littr, the French physician
and philologist who in 1861 completed the canonical edition of the Hippocratic
corpus, concedes that the offending reference in Prognostic is irreducibly supernatural; Prognostic must therefore have been the work of the younger, less
mature Hippocrates, writing before the peak of his intellectual powers.23
This should not surprise us, since Littr was not only a physician and philologist and editor of the standard edition of the Hippocratic corpus but also a
Comtean positivist and philosopher, the author of La science au point de vue
philosophique (Science from the Philosophical Point of View), a collection of
essays published in 1873. Nietzsche purchased and read the book in 1880, the year
before he published D. Nietzsches annotations show that he paid special attention to chapters 9 (De la physiologie, On Physiology) and 16 (De lhistoire
de la civilisation en Angleterre, par Buckle, On the History of Civilization
in England According to Buckle). In On Physiology, we find the following:
Biology is beginning to stake its claim to a doctrine of the affective and intellectual faculties. If one contests its right to this, the first response it would be
able to make is that made by Diogenes to the philosophers who denied motion:
Diogenes is walking. Biology deals with the intellect and morality of man; there
is no longer any book of physiology that doesnt dedicate a section to this topic.
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60 Joel E. Mann
Thus we find entrenched on this point, as on many others, two radically opposed
doctrines, one positive, the other theological or metaphysical.
It is without any premeditated design that biology is applied in this way.
Scientific curiosity tends to provoke these questions, which one can see dawning
already in high antiquity. They occupy Democritus, and, in the words of Fontaine
Hippocrates arrives in his time
At that which might be said to have neither reason nor sense,
Which is sought out both in man and in beast:
Which seat has reasonthe heart or the head?
Under dark shadow, sitting beside a stream,
The labyrinths of the brain occupy him. ...
These are, in effect, the labyrinths of the brain that move physiology onto the
terrain of what is referred to as the psychological school. Without worrying
about whether the theory of mental faculties finds its complete solution in the
books of the theologians and metaphysicians, indeed, without even thinking about
it, physiology has constructedled by the relationship between organs and their
functionsa doctrine independent of the received doctrines [...]. The mental
disturbances that attend upon brain lesions, the weakness of the intellect in cases
of stroke, even after recovery, delirium in cases of meningitis, stupor in cases
of concussion [or spinal compressionthe French is compression]these are
perpetual facts.24
Littr is not deferring to the judgment of Fontaine. He is well aware of the ancient
medical attempts to displace theological explanations of mental phenomena. Of
such attempts, one of the best known is contained in On the Sacred Disease (cited
above), which purports to undermine the traditional practice of attributing to
epilepsy a divine etiology by outlining its physiological causes. Magicians and
diviners, in need of a livelihood, assign particular epileptic attacks to possession
by a god based on the exhibited symptoms; terrors and delirium, for example,
are said to be the work of Hecate.25 But all this is devious fiction. Epilepsy is
congenital,26 and its cause lies in the brain.27
Could the passage from Littr be the source, or at least a source, for Nietzsches
remarks on Hippocrates in D 168? The pairing of Democritus with Hippocrates
is suggestive, since these two are perhaps the most surprising additions to
Nietzsches expansive list of sophists. But what does Littr see in them that is
transferrable to Thucydides, Pericles, and Sophocles? Are these latter positivists
in the required sense? Here it will help to understand the theological and metaphysical impulses to which Littrs positivism is opposed. These, I think, are
meant to correlate with the biological explanations of mans intellect and morality. Mans morality is conventionally assumed to operate under the governance
of divine authority, his intellect under the control of an immaterial substance.
Both God and mind, insofar as they necessarily exhibit intentionality, are
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essentially teleological. Positivism, as Littr portrays it, refuses to superimpose

such grandiose teleological structures onto nature. Mental and moral p henomena
are to be explained by reference to more modest teleologiesorgans and their
functionswithout recourse to God or mind.28 Interestingly, Littr does not
bother refuting theological or metaphysical explanations, and he even appears
to allow for the possibility that such explanations are in some sense complete,
though the clear implication is that positivism is preferable, probably because
it is grounded in empirical fact.
Platos mistake, as Nietzsche characterizes it, is to elevate one particular
perspective to the level of cosmic telos; Platos personal values become identified with the Good in itself. Opposed perspectivesthose of the Sophists, for
exampleare understood not as different, but as bad or base, which is perhaps
to say that they are not understood at all, but merely condemned and dismissed.
Thucydides does not privilege his personal perspective in the same way. He
displays greater justice, as Nietzsche writes, in that his history strives to put
into the mouths of its characters, even those with whom he disagrees, the finest
possible speeches in defense of their aims. This is most evident in the case of
Pericles, whom Thucydides actually loathed, though this did not prevent him
from attributing to the great statesman one of the most memorable speeches
of the entire History, the famous funeral oration. There Pericles sympathizes
openly with those who disdain his decision to go to war; he praises the Athenians
for their agonistic style of democracy, which does not impose upon the city a
predetermined formula for justice or prudence, but rather resolves such matters
through a public battle of ideas. The world, on the Thucydidean view, is not
intrinsically value-laden. It does not have one overarching aim, and so its parts
cannot be evaluated with respect to some absolute standard. Instead, it contains
many human aims, often incompatible and at times utterly tragic in their conflict,
as Sophocles dramatically depicts in plays such as the Antigone.
Nietzsche as Hippocrates: An Illumination

Much of the scholarly work on Nietzsches biological turn has focused on
the influence of Charles Darwin and Darwinism more generally. Here I want to
suggest, even if somewhat provisionally, that it is a turn also to Hippocratism
in the sense outlined above, that is, to a positivism that understands human feelings and actions not in theological or metaphysical but rather in physiological
terms. Nietzsches Hippocratism is used in furtherance of two distinct aims
that commentators have detected in Daybreak.29 First, it may be argued that
conventional morality is premised on the causal exceptionalism of the mental.
That is, the mind, or some faculty thereof (e.g., the will), is postulated as a cause
of physical events (i.e., actions) but not as a mere effect of physical events.
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62 Joel E. Mann
Nietzsches Hippocratism undermines morality by explaining human feelings

and the actions they provoke in strictly physiological terms:
The evil of the strong.The act of violence as a consequence of passion, of anger
for example, is to be understood physiologically as an attempt to prevent a threatening attack of suffocation. Countless acts of arrogance vented on other people
have been diversions of a sudden rush of blood through a vigorous action of the
muscles: and perhaps the whole phenomenon of the evil of the strong belongs
in this domain. (The evil of the strong harms others without giving thought to it
[ohne daran zu denken]it has to discharge itself; the evil of the weak wants to
harm others and to see the signs of the suffering it caused.) (D 371)
Nietzsches physiological explanation of evil undermines our instinct to condemn the act of violence on moral grounds. Anger and the acts that accompany it
are, at least in some cases, a product of the bodys natural response to adverse or
threatening conditions. We might as well wag our fingers at a cornered animal:
both man and animal act from physiological necessity. Neither freely chooses
to harm; the evil has to discharge itself. Consequently, it becomes impossible
even to speak of evil in the moral sense. The term is denuded of its normative
content and becomes purely descriptive: acts typically called evil because
of their objective features, namely, the production of pain or suffering in other
persons.
A second of Nietzsches major aims is to deflate the trust in the causality of
guilt and other moral sentiments that (he thinks) underpins much of our morality,
Christian morality in particular. Such causalities of guilt often, perhaps always,
involve divine actions or attitudes that find no place in a proper physiological
explanation. In this regard, consider Nietzsches analysis of Pascal:
Christian interpreters of the body.Whatever proceeds from the stomach, the
intestines, the beating of the heart, the nerves, the bile, the semenall those
distempers, debilitations, excitations, the whole chance operation of the machine
of which we still know so little!had to be seen by a Christian such as Pascal
as a moral and religious phenomenon, and he had to ask whether God or Devil,
good or evil, salvation or damnation was to be discovered in them! Oh what an
unhappy interpreter! How he had to twist and torment his system! How he had
to twist and torment himself so as to be in the right! (D 86)
Physical distress and suffering have physical, nonteleological (chance) explanations, but when ignorant of these explanations, Pascal (who, as Nietzsche must
have been aware, suffered from the sorts of physical complaints listed)30 reverted
to the Christian habit of explaining such distress by reference to metaphysical and
moral teleologies. Nietzsche cannot help but savor the irony: Pascal, famous in
part for having invented a mechanical calculator capable of carrying out an activity that had traditionally been thought the prerogative of human consciousness
and reason, did not have the courage to carry his project to its logical conclusion.
Though himself a pioneer of the mechanical, that is, nonteleological, explanation of human action, even Pascal was seduced by moral-metaphysical teleology,
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so powerful and engrained is its appeal. The result is depicted as nothing short
of torture. Pascals theoretical (and perhaps digestive or neurological?) system
is forced to contort itself, logically, to accommodate moral-metaphysical postulates that violate its mechanistic principles.
Nietzsches point is made perhaps more forcefully in another aphorism that
occurs shortly before his remarks on Pascal:
Poor mankind!One drop of blood too much or too little in the brain can make
our life unspeakably wretched and hard, so that we have to suffer more from this
drop of blood than Prometheus suffered from his vulture. But the worst is when
one does not even know that this drop of blood is the cause. But the Devil! Or
sin! (D 83)
It is significant that ignorance is a theme in both the passages just cited. In

that immediately above, the ignorance belongs specifically to the sufferer
ignorance perhaps of his own physiological state as well as of his physiology
generally. In the preceding, the ignorance in question is our general ignorance
of the principles of human physiology. Whatever the scope of our physiological
ignorance, the result is the same: the gap in our physiological explanations leaves
the door open to a God who spans that gap, imbuing our physical suffering with
moral and religious significance.
The gap in our general knowledge of physiology explains Nietzsches call
for our increased engagement in such research as well as his suggestion that
physicians will play a crucial role in establishing new ideals (see D 453). But
Nietzsches consciousness of that gap alsoand importantlyputs some distance between him and the specific physiological explanations he offers in D.
It matters not so much whether he has hit on the correct explanation in each
particular case; it is the commitment to the general mode of explanation that
is significant for Nietzsche. As a result, though his physiological explanations
may be dated, Nietzsches philosophical point is not; his critique of moral
prejudices does not hinge on the truth or falsehood of any of his particular
physiological claims. Perhaps we should hesitate even to understand Nietzsche
as committing himself to claims of this nature. Instead, we might read D as an
invitation, that is, an invitation to take up a certain positivist perspective in
relation to our actions and feelings. Could one drop of blood make the difference
that Nietzsche asserts it does? Perhaps in some cases, but this is beside the point.
Rather, Nietzsche recommends that we pursue an explanation of our feelings
and actions from this perspective.
What, then, is to be gained by adopting this perspective, if not immediate
knowledge? Why are such accounts important, even if their truth is uncertain?
First, it may be that while the truth of particular accounts is uncertain, Nietzsche
might regard the logical presuppositions of these accounts as true or at least as
free of certain pervasive falsehoods. Excessive blood in the brain may or may
not be the actual cause of my current depression. But, more important, this
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64 Joel E. Mann
explanation does not depend on metaphysical mysteries such as God, free will,
or an immaterial mind. Why should Nietzsche care whether or not our explanations invoke such entities? One possibility is that, owing to the nonexistence
of the entities in question, such explanations will turn out to be false, and our
knowledge of the world will be compromised. Some passages in D might incline
us toward this explanation, particularly the following:
The reverence we accord the aged man, especially when he is an aged thinker and
sage, easily blinds us to the aging of his mind, and it is always necessary to draw
forth the signs of such an aging and weariness out of their hiding-placedraw
forth, that is to say, the physiological phenomena behind the moral predispositions and prejudicesso as not to become the fools of reverence and injurers of
knowledge. (D 542)
Perhaps surprisingly, Nietzsche sounds here as though he is worried chiefly about

being wrong. The aged sage too easily passes himself off as a font of wisdom
with an exceptional position and exceptional rights, as though his genius
permitted him to promulgate decrees rather than demonstrate (D 542). To
grant the sage this status would be to injure knowledgethat is, it would be to
perpetuate a falsehood. However, even if Nietzsche is genuinely concerned with
knowledge for its own sake and, in turn, with the truth of our beliefs, Iwould
like to suggest that his concern lies also with the effects that certain beliefs
have on the believer. (The two concerns are not mutually exclusive, despite the
tendency to treat them as such.) In D 542, for example, Nietzsche is worried
ultimately that too much credibility will be conferred on the value judgments
of the aged sage (the evening, in Nietzsches conceit) at the expense of the
younger, stronger generation (the day). These value judgments, if absorbed by
the younger generation, will induce excessive feelings of shame. Understanding
the physiological context of such judgments, however, will erode their automatic
authority.
But what kind of believers, beliefs, and effects are important to Nietzsche?
In its most general form, this is a complicated question, and I wont pretend to
answer it here, at least not completely. I will mention only one prevalent and
highly persuasive view, namely, the view that Nietzsches overriding concern is
with the negative effect that certain conventional forms of morality might have
on the higher type of human being and, finally, on the greatness of a given
culture. This may be correct as a general account of Nietzsches philosophy,
especially his later work. However, I would like to suggest that in D the picture
is somewhat different, and I would adduce in support of this suggestion a striking feature of sections 83 and 86, quoted above. Both are couched in language
that evinces a concern for human suffering (poor mankind and, likewise, poor
Pascal, who had to twist and torment himself ). The idea is that certain beliefs
cause, amplify, or multiply our suffering, and, conversely, that the removal
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of these beliefs will alleviate it. There is, if one cares to look, a remarkable
preponderance of such language in D, and early on Nietzsche asks,
Where is he who, after they have been neglected for so long, will again take
seriously the antidotes to these sufferings and put in the pillory the unheard-of
quack-doctoring with which, under the most glorious names, mankind has hitherto
been accustomed to treat the sicknesses of its soul? (D 52; see also D 54)
Perhaps more remarkable is the relatively egalitarian, almost humanitarian, attitude that inspires such remarks. This is true, for example, of section 83, in which
(as above) the object of Nietzsches sympathy is not any sort of higher type
but mankind generally. Nietzsches project in D is to liberate mankindnot
any particular type of manfrom its moral (and metaphysical) prejudices, and
we might characterize his frequent recourse to positivist explanations, taken in
their totality as a recommendation of the physiological perspective, as implicit
prescriptions for curing us of our moral malaise. Nietzsche sometimes depicts
perspectives as antidotes or medications (e.g., D 137), and this is more than a
metaphor. Whatever his other (and perhaps larger) ambitions, in D Nietzsche
poses as the healer for all humanity, a doctor dedicated to the Hippocratic dictum:
help and do no harm.
St. Norbert College
joel.mann@snc.edu
Notes
1. English translations of D follow Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak, ed. Maudemarie Clark
and Brian Leiter, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
2. Plato, Republic 514a518c.
3. On Nietzsches relation to Thucydides, see Raymond Geuss, Thucydides, Nietzsche,
Williams, in Outside Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 21933; Brian Leiter,
Nietzsche on Morality (New York: Routledge, 2002), 4751; and, most recently, Joel E. Mann
and Getty Lustila, A Model Sophist: Nietzsche on Protagoras and Thucydides, Journal of
Nietzsche Studies 42 (2011): 5172. Nietzsches debt to Democritus is discussed by JessicaBerry,
Nietzsche and Democritus: The Origins of Ethical Eudaimonism, in Nietzsche and Antiquity, ed.
Paul Bishop (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2004), 98113; and Greg Whitlock, Translators
Commentary, in The Pre-Platonic Philosophers, by Friedrich Nietzsche, ed. and trans.
GregWhitlock (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 24151.
4. See especially Gregory Moore, Nietzsche, Biology and Metaphor (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002); Thomas Brobjer, Nietzsches Philosophical Context: An Intellectual
Biography (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008); and Thomas Brobjer and Gregory Moore,
Nietzsche and Science (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004).
5. The foundations of microbial theory were laid by figures like Fracastoro and Leeuwenhoek,
while Pasteur, Lister, and Koch, among others, were responsible for revolutionizing the field of
medicine.
05/03/14 11:17 AM
66 Joel E. Mann
6. On nineteenth-century Hippocratism, see Wesley Smith, The Hippocratic Tradition
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979), 3144; Elizabeth A. Williams, Hippocrates and
the Montpellier Vitalists in the French Medical Enlightenment, in Reinventing Hippocrates, ed.
David Cantor (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002), 15777; and Ann F. Laberge, The Rhetoric of
Hippocrates at the Paris School, in Cantor, Reinventing Hippocrates, 17899.
7. For detailed accounts, see Moore, Nietzsche, Biology and Metaphor, and Brobjer,
Nietzsches Philosophical Context.
8. Carl Ernst Bock, Das Buch vom gesunden und kranken Menschen, 12th ed. (Leipzig: Ernst
Reil Verlag, 1878), 734.
9. This is the unifying theme of the now canonical Smith, Hippocratic Tradition.
10. Again, see Smith, Hippocratic Tradition.
11. The question of Nietzsches relation to Hippocrates and Hippocratism finds a parallel in
similar questions that may be asked about Nietzsches relation to Kant and Kantianism (i.e., to
figures such as Schopenhauer and Lange).
12. Gregory Moore, Nietzsche, Medicine and Meteorology, in Brobjer and Moore, Nietzsche
and Science, 7377.
13. Moore, Nietzsche, Medicine and Meteorology, 7779.
14. Moore, Nietzsche, Medicine and Meteorology, 7986.
15. A clear sketch of the generically Hippocratic model is found in R. J. Hankinson, Cause
and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 58. For
useful general accounts of Hippocratic theory and practice, see Vivian Nutton, Ancient Medicine
(New York: Routledge, 2004) and Jacques Jouanna, Hippocrates, trans. M. B. DeBevoise
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).
16. That is not to say that they are unworthy of pursuit. I hope to address them in a future
paper.
17. Iliad 1.2242.
18. Iliad 1.4352.
19. Iliad 1.70.
20. W. H. S. Jones, ed. and trans., Hippocrates, vols. 12, nos. 14748, Loeb Classical Library
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1923). For the sake of accessibility and ease of use,
I make reference to the Hippocratic corpus by way of the volumes in the Loeb Classical Library
series. Works are cited by editor, treatise title, volume number, chapter number, and line number.
Accordingly, the current excerpt, which originates in the first volume of the series, is cited as
Jones, Epidemics 1.1.11.
21. For example, see Hippocatis opera quae geruntur Omnia, ed. Joannes Ilberg and Hugo
Khlewein (Leipzig: Teubner, 1894).
22. Jones, Sacred Disease 2.1.16. For differing but instructive views on the concept of
divinity in the Hippocratic corpus, see Ph. J. van der Eijk, The Theology of the Hippocratic
Treatise One the Sacred Disease, Apeiron 23 (1990): 87119; and R. J. Hankinson Magic,
Religion and Science: Divine and Human in the Hippocratic Corpus, Apeiron 31 (1998): 134.
23. mile Littr, Oeuvres Complte dHippocrate, vol. 2 (Paris: J. B. Bailliere, 1839), 100.
24. mile Littr, La science au point de vue philosophique (Paris: Didier et Companie, 1873),
28990.
25. Jones, Sacred Disease 2.4.3033.
28. The triad of theology, metaphysics, and positivism is almost certainly derived from
Comtes law of the three stages. The first two stages (the theological and the metaphysical)
are characterized by the postulation of an absolute (God on the one hand, universal human rights
on the other), while the last stage rejects altogether the need for an absolute. The three stages are
05/03/14 11:17 AM

described and explained in the first part of J. S. Mill, Auguste Comte and Positivism (London:
Trubner, 1865), which Nietzsche owned and read. Indeed, as far as we know, Nietzsche read little
or no Comte directly but rather learned his Comte through various Comteans, notably Littr,
Mill, and Re (see Brobjer, Nietzsches Philosophical Context, 4042, 245, 25051).
29. I am indebted on the following points to Maudemarie Clark and Brian Leiter,
Introduction to D, xixiv.
30. Nietzsche read Pascal in 1878 and 1880 (Brobjer, Nietzsches Philosophical Context, 217,
220), and it is thus likely that he possessed some command of Pascals biography and philosophy.
The numerous references to Pascal in D would seem to confirm the hypothesis.
05/03/14 11:17 AM
Misunderstanding Epicurus? A Nietzschean Identification

Wilson H. Shearin
Abstract: This article considers aspects of Nietzsches identification with the
ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, focusing in particular upon how Epicuruss
antiteleology (his denial of an ultimate metaphysical principle) was significant
for Nietzsches views on religion and knowledge. I make a case for the claim
that Nietzsches practice of philosophy, specifically his perspectivism, was
influenced by Epicuruss practice of multiple explanations, a form of scientific
explanation rooted in ethics and antiteleology. In conclusion, I examine the ways
in which Nietzsches manner of reading Epicurus may cause us to revise our
interpretations of not only the Greek thinker but also elements of Nietzsches
own identification with that thinker.
Keywords: antiteleology, Epicureanism, epoch, multiple explanations, perspectivism, Skepticism
ur acts shall be misunderstood [falsch verstanden], as Epicurus is

misunderstood! [...] I want to be misunderstood for a long time (KSA
10:7[155]).1 So proclaims Nietzsche in a notebook passage from 1883, thereby
making one of several positive claims for identification with the Hellenistic
Greek philosopher from Samos.2 Epicurus, the full remark suggests, was
untimelymisunderstood, unappreciated by his contemporariesmuch
as Nietzsche himself aims to be untimely; and this point is hardly the only
moment of convergence between the two thinkers. Although he is not quite the
most discussed Greek philosopher in Nietzsches writingPlato and Socrates
appear more frequentlyEpicurus is an undeniably persistent attraction for the
one-time Basel philologist.3 In the last of his Assorted Opinions and Maxims,
for example, where he describes eight thinkers with whom he must grapple,
whom he empowers to assign right and wrong, there appear only two figures
from antiquity: Plato and Epicurus (AOM 408). Elsewhere Nietzsche remarks
that in his day wisdom has not come a step beyond Epicurus; and often it
is several thousand paces behind him (KSA 8:23[56]). In fact, he engages with
Epicurus throughout his adult life, spending his student days laboring over the
text of Diogenes Laertiusthe ancient work that preserves the vast majority
of extant writing from Epicuruss own handand continuing to ponder the
philosopher in various forms until his final working moments in the late 1880s.4

68
JNS 45.1_08_Shearin.indd 68
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Misunderstanding Epicurus? 69
While Nietzsches attitude toward Epicurus is undeniably ambivalentthe

Greek seems to come in for almost as much criticism as praise at the Germans
handsthere is nonetheless a sense in which Epicurus consistently allows
Nietzsche to frame questions for and about himself. In discussing another set of
his writings, Nietzsche once remarked that basically they only talk about me
(EH Untimely Meditations 3); and this would not be an inept characterization
of many of Nietzsches central remarks about Epicurus.5
In what follows, without attempting to be exhaustive, I trace the contours
of Nietzsches identification with Epicurus. As I have already suggested, this
identification is only partialthe name of Epicurus appears in too broad an array
of Nietzschean contexts to answer to any single explanationbut it nonetheless
has significant implications, for at its core are two distinct yet interrelated topics, religion and knowledge, which are of undeniable importance for Nietzsche
himself. Throughout his writing, Nietzsches engagement with Epicurus remains
ambivalent, but this ambivalence is perhaps no more pronounced than that found
in his attitude toward other figures such as Socrates, who plays a noteworthy role
in what Nietzsche calls becoming what he is.6 In particular, while the present
treatment inevitably overlaps with previous investigations in the area, it suggests
distinctively how the Samian philosopher may have shaped the Germans mature
practice of philosophy. Previous literature has emphasized the heroic, idyllic
manner of philosophizing that Nietzsche assigns to Epicurus.7 This emphasis has
the virtue of placing Epicurus into dialogue with many of the Germans favorite
pre-Platonic philosophers, yet, as I hope to show, it perhaps misses fundamental
ways in which Epicurus influenced Nietzsches epistemological claims and the
perspectivism imbricated together with them.8
Religion
Religion forms the most obvious and fullest locus for Nietzsches study ofand
identification withEpicurus. It is hardly surprising that Nietzsches interest is piqued by Epicuruss well-known hostility toward traditional religion.9
In his own often-hostile confrontation with Christianity, Nietzsche, at least at
times, sees Epicurus as a forebear and even as an active ally.10 Epicurus was
famous in antiquity (and indeed long thereafter) as the one great philosophical
antiteleologist, the one thinker who felt no need to explain apparent order in the
natural world by reference to a higher metaphysical principle.11 As Lucretius,
Epicuruss most famous disciple and our fullest expositor of Epicureanism,
remarks in considering teleological explanations of human form, I am eager
that you flee this vice and, in precaution, avoid this error: do not suppose that
the clear lights of the eyes have been created in order that we may be able to
see. ... All other explanations of this sort ... put the cart before the horse, due
06/03/14 10:02 AM
70 Wilson H. Shearin
to distorted reasoning.12 One can see easily how Nietzsche, at least in moments
where he himself questions a providentialist worldview, would be drawn to such
vehemently antiteleological reasoning.13
Moreover, ancient Epicureanism adumbrates much modern scientific explanation in that it specifically eschews otherworldly, metaphysically motivated
explanations of all types. Thus, again rejecting teleological reasoning, Epicurus
comments in a broadly empiricist vein, [O]ne must not study nature through
empty postulates and arbitrary fiat, but as the things evident demand.14 Here
as we shall soon examine in greater detailas the things evident demand
is an extensive category that includes much but implicitly excludes divine
metaphysical justification. Epicuruss resistance to otherworldly explanation
also may be said to inform his attitude toward death, which aims to turn our
attention away from abstract metaphysical constructions of immortality toward
the mortal objects of this life: [A] proper knowledge that death is nothing to
us, as Epicurus writes in his Letter to Menoeceus, makes the mortality of
life enjoyable, not by adding limitless time, but by removing the longing for
immortality.15
One can see the impression these ideas made on Nietzsche in a striking comment from Daybreak:
The after death. [...] Epicurus, for his part, had believed that there was nothing
greater than ripping out the roots of this belief [the belief in punishment in Hell]:
his triumphwhich sounds its final note most beautifully in the mouth of the
gloomy-yet-later-cheerful disciple of his teaching, the Roman Lucretiuscame
too soon [...]. Only with science [Wissenschaft] was this belief [the Christian
notion of the afterlife] conquered again, and only insofar as it also fails to support every other notion of death and the afterlife. We have become in one sense
poorer: after death no longer matters for us!an inexpressible benefit, which
is still too new to have been received as such far and wide.And once again
Epicurus triumphs! (D 72)
Here, Nietzsche sounds a ringing endorsement of the worldliness of

Epicureanismeven if his language also stages a seemingly anachronistic
encounter between Epicurus and Christianity. It is perhaps not insignificant that
Nietzsche closes the passage in the present tense. I have already asserted that,
at least in certain ways, Nietzsche identifies with Epicurus, using the philosopher from Samos as a way to talk about himself; and it is abundantly clear here
that Nietzsches interest is not a purely antiquarian reconstruction of Epicurean
thought. Epicureanism triumphs in this passage because it does explanatory
work for Nietzsche himselfforecasting the conquest of Christian beliefs at the
hands of Wissenschaft. But it also is truehowever much Nietzsche seems to
identify with Epicurus in this passagethat he sounds decidedly more enthusiastic about Epicureanism in this statement than in many of his other assessments of the connection between Epicurus and Christianity. In the late work
06/03/14 10:02 AM
A, for example, Epicurus is no longer in the present tense but instead has been
relegated to the past counterfactual:
[T]hat became ruler over Rome, the same kind of religion against which Epicurus
had already waged war in its pre-existent form. One should read Lucretius to
grasp what Epicurus has fought, not paganism but Christianity, by which I
mean the corruption of souls through belief in guilt, punishment, and immortality.He combatted the subterranean cults, the whole of latent Christianity,
to reject immortality at that time was already a true salvation.And Epicurus
would have won [htte gesiegt, emphasis added], every respectable spirit in the
Roman empire was Epicurean: then Paul appeared .... [...] He grasped that he
needed the belief in immortality to remove value from the world, that the idea
Hell would again rule Rome,that with the beyond one kills life ... Nihilist
[Nihilist] and Christian [Christ]: they rhyme, they do not merely rhyme. (A 58)
To be sure, this second passage is not a condemnation of Epicureanism. First

and foremost, it reads as an indictment of Paul and the otherworldly focus
of his brand of Christianity, an indictment of a worldview that fails to affirm
this life. Yet its attention has shifted away from the vitalityand presenttense currencyof Epicureanism, a change in emphasis that is likely not accidental, for in many other comments from the mid- to late 1880s Nietzsche
prefers to read Epicureanism not in opposition to Christianity, but instead, at
least in certain limited respects, in concert with that faith.16 In GS, Nietzsche
speaks of the Christian, who in fact is only a kind of Epicurean (GS 370),
and in his Nachlass he comments that Christianity only takes up the battle
against the classical ideal, against the noble religion that had already begun
(KSA 13:11[295]). This last fragment, when read in its fuller version, not only
indicates that Epicureanism and Christianity, if in different ways, combatted
older religiona religion that was often characterized as vital and noble by
Nietzschebut also hints, as still other statements confirm, that both were
symptomatic of a decadent, moralizedage.17
Another comment from Nietzsches later Nachlass, although in fact it literally opposes Christianity (or pre-Christian moralism) and Epicureanism, casts
further light on the features that unite the two schools of thought:
The battle against the old faith, as Epicurus undertook it, was, strictly speaking, the battle against preexisting Christianity,the battle against the old world,
which had become senile and sick, already gloomy, moralized, thoroughly soured
by feelings of guilt.
Not the moral corruption of antiquity, but precisely its moralization is the
necessary precondition under which only Christianity could become its master.
Moral fanaticism (in short: Plato) destroyed paganism, in that it changed its
values and forced its innocence to drink poison.We should finally grasp that
what was destroyed then was higher in comparison with what became master!
Christianity has grown out of psychological corruption, has only taken root in
corrupted soil. (KSA 13:16[15])
06/03/14 10:02 AM
Plato is the real villain in the story told here: he is the one who introduces the
disease of moral fanaticism. Yet, it is nevertheless clear that Epicurus (or his
philosophy) shares a position structurally similar to Christianity: both, if for
different reasons and in different ways, combat the faiths that precede them in
eras already long corrupted by moralism. In Nietzsches lexicon, another way
of expressing this last ideathe notion that Epicureanism and Christianity arise
in ages of belated corruptionis, as we suggested above, to assert that both are
decadent. Indeed, examples of a sickly, decadent Epicureanism in Nietzsches
writing could be endlessly proliferated. The Epicurean, Nietzsche writes,
seeks out the situation, the persons, and even the events that fit his extremely
excitable intellectual state (GS 306). Epicurus is a typical decadent [typischer
dcadent], who suffers from a fear of pain, even of indefinitely small amounts
of pain (A 30). Yet, to say that Epicurus is a decadent is in some ways merely to
reinforce a larger point I have been makingthere exists a significant, if partial,
identification between Nietzsche and Epicurus. Nietzsche himself was not only
sickly, with a sensitive constitution, but he also calls himself a decadent. In EH
he comments, Do I need to say, after everything, that I am experienced in questions of decadence? I know it backwards and forwards (EH Wise 1).18 He
qualifies this assertion a few lines later: Granted that I am a decadent, I am also
its opposite (EH Wise 2). Yet, the same ambivalent decadence might well be
given to Epicurus, whom Nietzsche deems a decadent at the same time that he
calls him the inventor of a heroic, idyllic way of philosophizing (WS 295).19
One could trace the identification between Nietzsche and Epicuruswith
regard to religion still further. In particular, Nietzsches treatment of
Epicureanism and sufferinga topic I have only begun to broachdeserves
fuller treatment: Epicureanism is, on Nietzsches view, a philosophy of suffering, but he nonetheless disavows Epicurus for his failure to affirm suffering
adequately and fully, in properly Dionysian fashion.20 Yet even without a full
exploration of this topic, the point is sufficiently established that Nietzsche
reads Epicurus not merely as a tangential or peripheral influence but as a central
node for articulating himself vis--vis religion and Christianity in particular. If
Nietzsche is largely an antidogmatic thinker whose philosophy is characterized
by a process of employing (and sometimes abandoning) different perspectives in creating himself, then Epicuruss perspective with regard to religion
is nonetheless one to which Nietzsche constantly and regularly returns in this
process.21 Indeed, Nietzsche remarks in his Nachlass thatby contrast with
Aristotle who saw philosophy as an art of discovering truththe Epicureans
saw philosophy as an art of living [eine Kunst des Lebens] (KSA 12:9[57]),
a statement that has numerous resonances with the late twentieth-century
philosophical concerns of thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Alexander
Nehamas.22 It suggests, moreover, a point for which I wish to argue in the
next section: Nietzsche not only identified with Epicurus in considering the
06/03/14 10:02 AM
Greeks philosophical perspectives, but also identified with him insofar as he

learned, or at least recognized, in Epicuruss and Lucretiuss writing important
techniques for doing, that is, for practicing, philosophy.
Knowledge
If Nietzsches presentation of Epicuruss attitudes toward religion is at once
ambivalent and seemingly self-referential, allowing Nietzsche to both praise
and critique Epicurus in a process of articulating himself, it nevertheless paints
a portrait of Epicureanism largely familiar to any student of that philosophy:
the school is antiteleological, critical of traditional religion, and focused chiefly
on worldly concerns. By contrast, Nietzsches remarks on Epicuruss theory of
knowledge are decidedly more perplexing. At one point, for example, Nietzsche
comments, Epicurus rejects the possibility of knowledge: in order to keep
moral (or hedonistic) values as the highest ones (KSA 12:9[160]).23 Elsewhere
he speaks of a nearly Epicurean bent of knowledge that will not let go of the
questionable character of things [den Fragezeichen-Charakter der Dinge] at an
easy price (GS 375).24 A student who emerges from the pages of Epicurus to
meet such comments may be forgiven for suffering some confusion.
Traditional scholarly accounts of Epicurean epistemology emphasize their
assertion of the unassailable truth of all sensory impressions and their outright
fear of skeptical (or Skeptical) claims about knowledge.25 Perhaps the most
famous evidence for this claim is a comment in Lucretius, directed at a hypothetical skeptic who denies the possibility of knowledge from sensory information:
Now, if someone thinks that nothing is known, one thing he does not know is
whether that can be known, since he admits to knowing nothing. I shall therefore
not bother to argue my case against this man who has himself stood with his
own head in his footprints.26 Diogenes Laertius preserves the related Epicurean
belief that there does not exist that, which can refute sensations.27 Even a
cursory examination of these pieces of evidencecertainly both well known
to Nietzschemakes it difficult to assess what the German philosopher means
in claiming that Epicurus denied the possibility of knowledge.
Yet, a fuller consideration of Epicurean evidence both sheds light on these
comments and strengthens Nietzsches identification with Epicurus. As we have
noted, Nietzsche connects Epicuruss denial of the possibility of knowledge with
his moral, or hedonistic, values; and elsewhere Nietzsche extends this claim
by asserting that from the beginning onwards Greek philosophy, explicitly
including Epicurus, wages a battle against science [die Wissenschaft], as
he puts it, always for the benefit of morality [zu Gunsten der Moral] (KSA
13:14[141]).28 The place where such a claim seems to have the greatest merit is
not in Epicurean epistemology generally but in Epicurean accounts of celestial
06/03/14 10:02 AM
phenomena, a realm where their antiteleology plays a particularly prominent

role.29 In his Letter to Pythocles, for example, Epicurus writes, First off, one
ought not believe that any other end is served from knowing of celestial affairs,
whether they be discussed in a context or in isolation, than freedom from disturbance [] and secure trust [ ],30 thus giving weight
to Nietzsches claim that moralityhere the Epicurean ethical goal of freedom
from disturbance, ataraxiasomehow underlies his meteorological endeavors.
But this statement still does not amount to a denial of the possibility of knowledge, a comment that becomes only somewhat less cryptic once Epicurus and
his followers attempt to explain actual celestial and meteorological phenomena.
As Epicurus asserts elsewhere in the Letter to Pythocles, In the case of meteorological occurrences ... both the causes of their coming to be and the accounts
compatible with perceptions of their essence are multiple. ... In respect of all
things which have a multiplicity of explanations [ ] consistent
with the appearances, all things arise without disturbance when someone in
the proper way lets stand whatever is plausibly suggested about them.31 This
statement of Epicurean scientific principle may sound relatively harmless until
one observes what this principle of multiple explanations means in practice.32
Consider, for example, Lucretiuss explanation of the Nile rising in summer:
the Nile rises in summer either (1) because the etesianthat is, the annual,
summerwinds blow the water back, or (2) because sand blocks up the mouth, or
(3) because at its source there is rain, or (4) because snow melts in the Ethiopian
mountains.33 Lucretius here follows the principle articulated by Epicurusthat
for some things it is not enough to name one causeyet he also clearly shows
no interest in limiting or whittling down the number of possible causes. It is
only when Lucretius or Epicurus speaks of a phenomenonsay, lightningthat
has traditionally been given a teleological explanation (i.e., one that assigns the
phenomenon to divine causation) that we grasp better the stakes of this type of
explanatory schema. When in his sixth book Lucretius offers an explanation for
lightning, rather than merely enumerating possibilities in a serene, if questionable, scientific game, he offers an explanation and then spends over forty lines
attacking the notion that Jupiter hurls lightning bolts down at us, thus meting
out divine justice.34 In other words, there are limits to the Epicurean multiplicity
of explanationsspecifically, teleological explanations are ruled outand, as
Nietzsche suggests, moral concerns, the disturbances caused by the fear of an
angry god, do seem to trump any investment in an open-ended quest for truth.35
Thus, with regard to knowledge and science in Epicureanism, Nietzsche does
seem to have fastened upon something important and broadly correct, even if
his point does not fully amount to the denial of the possibility of knowledge.
Yet, for a Nietzsche who identifies with Epicurus and uses him in the process
of creating himself, there is perhaps something more significant to be said:
Epicurean multiple explanations seem in some, if not all, respects analogous
06/03/14 10:02 AM
to Nietzschean perspectivismhis well-known insistence that every view is

only one among many possible interpretations, including the viewpoint articulated by perspectivism itself.36 While their antiteleology clearly rules out one
perspective, the Epicureans are otherwise rather pluralist in their tolerance of
different viewpoints and interpretations. Indeed, while there is no need in the
present account to consider all of the messy evidence (preserved largely in
papyri), Epicureans wrote treatises on signs and clearly viewed interpreting
meteorology as something like a semiotic process, a process of interpretation
where, as we have been exploring, many different views or interpretations
are possible.37 Moreoverand this point may be more decisive for any argument
about Nietzsches intellectual debt to EpicureanismNietzsche himself seems
to find something like perspectivism in Epicurus. A remarkable passage in WS
describes Epicuruss response to those who are troubled by fear of the gods.
Epicurus, in effect, proposes a twofold remedy. In the first instance, hesuggests,
If gods exist, then they do not concern themselves with us. In the second,
which is for Nietzsche perhaps the more important point, whatever position an
interlocutor argues or advocates, Epicurus has ready the perspective he has honed
in his meteorology: namely, things may be so, but they may also be otherwise
(vielleicht knne es sich noch anders verhalten) (WS 7).
An additional point: Nietzsche was undoubtedly acquainted with interpretations of the Epicurean pleonachos tropos, or practice of multiple explanations,
that link it to ancient Skepticism. In History of Materialism and Criticism of
Its Meaning in the Present, a book Nietzsche read immediately upon its initial
publication in 1866, Friedrich Albert Lange discusses the Epicurean practice
with the following remarks: While the Epicurean study of nature directs itself
to the sum of the think-able, and not to certain individual possibilities, it passes
on, too, to the sum of the existing; only that in the decision as to what obtains in
our particular case, the Skeptical takes its place and resists an assertion
that goes beyond real knowledge.38 Lange here brings Epicurean thinking into
conversation with the well-known Skeptical practice of epoch, the suspension of
judgment about various (or all) beliefs.39 He interprets multiple explanations as
focusing first on the possiblethat is, the sum of all physical possibilitiesand
then, when one turns to the sum of the actual, as Skeptically suspending judgment
about which particular case obtains. His interpretation is striking in the present context because Jessica Berry recently has argued for locating Nietzsches
perspectivism in close proximity to the ancient Skeptical tradition, contending
that epoch is in fact an essential component of the Germans philosophical
praxis: Nietzsche suspends judgment, she suggests, with regard to all metaphysical claims.40 Similarly, R. J. Hankinson has observed that the first two of the
Skeptic Aenesidemuss Eight Modes against the Aetiologists, which outline
techniques for suspending judgment, are heavily Epicurean in their language
and thought.41 Indeed, these modes seem to derive precisely from an Epicurean
06/03/14 10:02 AM
philosophical characterization of multiple explanations. While no one would

fully assimilate the Epicureans to a Skeptical worldview, insofar as the Epicurean
pleonachos tropos refuses to privilege a single interpretation, it comes close
to articulating a position not unlike that at the heart of Nietzsches perspectivism. Moreover, the German thinkers deep familiarity with Lucretius, Diogenes
Laertius, and Langes Historya familiarity far more explicitly in evidence than
any with the Skeptic author Sextus Empiricusmakes it not unreasonable to
suppose that these texts were instrumental in the formulation of Nietzsches own
view.42 In the end, even if none of this evidence can prove directly or irrefutably
that Nietzsche learns perspectivism from Epicurus, its obviously central place
within his known reading and writing makes it tempting to see his encounter with
Epicurean science as a formative one, formative precisely for how Nietzsche
formulated epistemology and practiced his own philosophy.43
Conclusion: Misunderstanding Epicurus

If it is true, as I have been arguing, that Nietzsche identifies with Epicurus and
that this identification is part and parcel of Nietzsches becoming what he is,
then in conclusion it is perhaps worth recognizing a related point: if Nietzsche
becomeseven only temporarily or partiallymore Epicurean through his
engagement with Epicuruss perspectives, Epicurus in Nietzsches hands also
begins to look more and more Nietzschean. If it is Nietzsches goal, as he states
in a remark I cited at the outset, to be misunderstood like Epicurus, then his
attempts at reading Epicurus can help us understand, or perhaps misunderstand,
the founder of the Garden in a Nietzschean fashion. My aim here is not simply
to reverse the perspective I have been articulating, but rather to articulate a
different perspectivea more Nietzschean Epicurusthat may help us grasp
something about Nietzsche as well.
In WS, there appears a passage on the eternal Epicurus (WS 227). In that
passage, Nietzsche speaks of an Epicurus who has lived in every age and still
lives, unknown to those who called and call themselves Epicureans, and without
fame among the philosophers. Nietzsche writes that this Epicurus also forgot his name by himself: it was the heaviest burden that he ever threw away.
There are no doubt several ways to read this comment, but I take it as a commentary on the fixity and fossilization of interpretation. Already in antiquity,
Epicuruss name had become synonymous with dissolute pleasure and atheism,
two things thatalthough Epicurus plays a significant role in Nietzsches criticism of ChristianityNietzsche interestingly rarely mentions.44 On this view,
by forgetting his name, by ridding himself of that burden, Epicurus gains the
opportunity to invent or interpret himself anew. An interpretation of Nietzsche
06/03/14 10:02 AM
advocated by Alexander Nehamas suggests that Nietzsches philosophy is

centrally concerned with a perspectivism that allows him to create himself
through literary interpretation; perhaps in some ways Epicurus was his, or at
least a, forebear in this project.45
One of the strongest criticisms of such an interpretationone Nietzsche
might even advance himselfis that Epicurus simply was not a stylist.46 On
Nehamass view, Nietzsches different styles are seen as part and parcel of
his commitment to perspectivism. Epicurus, by contrast, is a decadent, lifeless
philosopher who is marked by an antipathy for dialectic and for all dramatic virtues [schauspielerischen Tugenden] (KSA 14:14[99]).47 This point is brought
out well by a joke that Nietzsche reports in BGE:48
How evil philosophers can be! I know of nothing more poisonous than the joke
Epicurus allowed himself at the expense of Plato and the Platonists; he called
them Dionysiokolakes. Its literal, foreground sense is flatterers of Dionysius,
thus, tyrants gear and bootlickers; but in addition to all this, it also means, they
are all actors, there is nothing real about them (for Dionysokolax was a popular
appellation of actors). And this latter sense is in fact the ill-will that Epicurus
directed at Plato: he was annoyed by the sublime manner, the staging of themselves, which Plato and his disciples knew inside and outwhich Epicurus knew
not! he, the old schoolmaster from Samos, who sat, hidden, in his little garden
at Athens and wrote three hundred books, who knows? perhaps out of anger and
ambition against Plato?
It took a hundred years till Greece discovered who this garden god, Epicurus,
had been.Did it find out? (BGE 7)
One way of reading this passage is to understand it as an indictment of Epicurus,

pointing to his lack of theatricsand perhaps to his lack of fame as a direct
consequence of this theatrical inability. It also seems to suggest that Epicurus,
far from being colored by calm and serenity, was largely motivated, at least as
a philosophical writer, by an angry jealousy of Plato. Yet there is another way
of looking at these wordsby interrogating the perspective of the comment.
The joke, as Nietzsche tells it, is preserved in only one ancient source
Diogenes Laertius, the very author to whom Nietzsche devoted most of his
published scholarly work. Moreover, to tell the joke as Nietzsche does almost
requires one to assume the perspective of a classical philologist, for if you look
in a text of Diogenesand this would have been true in Nietzsches day no less
than our ownyou find the following:
[ ]
, ,
.49
[Epicurus used to call] the followers of Plato Dionysokolakas and Plato himself
a fine fellow [lit. golden], and Aristotle [morally] dissolute, for he wasted his
inheritance serving as a soldier and selling drugs.
06/03/14 10:02 AM
The key point here is that the double entendre, at least in the order Nietzsche
presents it, is precisely not what scholars and editors of Diogenes Laertius print
in his text.50 That is, while Nietzsche asserts that the foregrounded term is
Dionysiokolakes, in available texts it is rather Dionysokolakes. With the
help of an apparatus criticusthat is, a list of variant manuscript readings
that one typically finds below the main Greek textone can piece together the
joke as Nietzsche tells it. But the very process of piecing together Nietzsches
jokeand this is my pointrequires donning the perspective of a scholar or
philologist, the latter-day descendant of the schoolmaster, Epicurus.51 In other
words, while it would be difficult to prove in any conclusive way, it is possible
to suggest that this passage is not, or not merely, a condemnation of Epicurus.
The specter of the philologist who haunts this passagethe philologist who
lies behind the joking Epicurusis perhaps yet another form of the identification between Nietzsche and Epicurus I have been tracing in this article. While
the theatrics, the mise-en-scne here given to Plato, would perhaps seem more
reminiscent of Nietzsche, the joking schoolmaster, which is on one reading the
governing perspective of the comment, may at least be another mask that the
Dionysian philosopher willingly dons.
If what is at stake in this passage is a question of style, then perhaps Nietzsche
is again closer to Epicurus than heor an initial reading of this passagewould
let on; for Epicurus, author of three hundred books, wasif not the firstone
of the most accomplished practitioners of both the letter and the pithy maxim
in antiquity.52 His Kuriai Doxai and Sententiae Vaticanae, among other works,
are possible models, in a stylistic sense, for the more aphoristic and fragmentary
portions of Nietzsches oeuvre. We began from Nietzsches sentiment that he
wished to be misunderstood in the same way as Epicurus is misunderstood
but unpacking this sentiment, which I have been trying to do in the present
analysisrequires us to misunderstand Epicurus or rather to assess how he has
been misunderstood first. If other interpreters have tended to miss Epicuruss
similarity to Christianity, his nascent perspectivism, and his style, perhaps, then,
this is all the more reason to allow Nietzsche to help us read him. And, as we
have explored throughout this article, if scholars have tended to underestimate
not the presence of Epicurus in Nietzsche but the rich resources the Samian
philosopher provides for the Germans own practice of philosophy, then perhaps each perspectiveEpicurus read by Nietzsche, Nietzsche read through
Epicurusallows us to replace complete blindness with partial insight, even if,
much as in the Epicurean pleonachos tropos, we are not in a position to decide
questions of influence with certainty.
University of Miami
wshearin@miami.edu
06/03/14 10:02 AM
Notes
1. This translationlike the others from both ancient and modern languages in the article
is my own. Key to Nietzsches comparison between himself and Epicurus is not simply that both
are misunderstood but that both are, after a fashion, long-term prophets. It is no doubt relevant,
then, that Epicurus called his own philosophy prophecy. See Epicurus, Vatican Sayings 29 and
Michael Erler, Epikureismus als Orakelphilosophie: Orakel und Mantik in der hellenistischen
Philosophie, in Orakel und Gebete: Interdiziplinre Studien zur Sprache der Religion in gypten,
Vorderasien und Griechenland in hellenistischer Zeit, ed. M. Witte and J. F. Diehl (Tbingen:
Narr, 2009), 5366. See also Fritz Bornmann, Nietzsches Epikur, Nietzsche-Studien 13 (1984):
184 n. 41, for a discussion of this passage (which points out that Schopenhauer identified with
Epicurus before Nietzsche) and KSA 12:9[76].
2. I persist in using the term identification despite the salutary caution of James I. Porter:
Identifications are risky and fluid attractions in Nietzsches writingsfleeting, mask-like,
uncertain, and functioning as virtual lures and traps for a reader (Epicurus in NineteenthCentury Germany: Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche, in The Oxford Handbook of Epicureanism, ed.
Jeffrey Fish and Kirk Sanders [New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming]). I do so not
because the term is without problems but because it allows one to see more clearly ways in which
Nietzsches practice of philosophyspecifically, his perspectivismis indebted to Epicurus.
3. See James I. Porter: Epicurus is a frequent, almost obsessive presence in Nietzsches
published and unpublished writings after 1872, his name occurring well over 150 times in
hundreds of passages (Porter, Epicurus in Nineteenth-Century Germany). Porter contrasts
the importance of Epicurus with that of Democritus, who seems to have been of much greater
significance to the young Nietzsche.
4. Nietzsches philological writings are often concerned with Epicureanism, even if they
are not first and foremost considerations of Epicurean philosophical arguments. For example,
his De Laertii Diogenis fontibus (KGW II.1, pp. 75167), which won a prize in Leipzig and
was subsequently published by Nietzsches teacher Friedrich Ritschl in the philological journal
Rheinisches Museum, argues for Diocles of Magnesia as the chief source for Diogenes Laertiuss
Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Diocles was, in Nietzsches eyes, quite partial to Epicureanism:
his spirit [animus], as Nietzsche puts it, preferred to rest in the gardens [hortulis] of Epicurus
than on the icy Porch [Stoa] (KGW II.1, p. 89). See also Marcin Milkowski, Idyllic Heroism:
Nietzsches View of Epicurus, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 15 (1998): 78 n. 9 and, for a broader
assessment of Nietzsches engagement with Diogenes Laertius, Jonathan Barnes, Nietzsche and
Diogenes Laertius, Nietzsche-Studien 15 (1986): 1640.
5. That Nietzsche sees himself, at least to some extent, in Epicurus helps to explain why he
says strikingly little about central facets of Epicureanism such as the swerve, or clinamen, that
have fascinated other students of the school at least from Cicero (first century BCE) onward.
Whatever his fascinations with science, particularly around the time of GS, few would consider
Nietzsche a philosopher of physics. Compare the remarks of James I. Porter: As Nietzsches
thinking evolved, Epicurus increasingly came to the fore as a kind of permanent touchstone ...
not the Epicurus who invented the swerve ... , but the philosopher whose views hold a variety of
implications for ethics and for life (Porter, Epicurus in Nineteenth-Century Germany).
6. Alexander Nehamass discussion of Socrates importance for understanding Nietzsches
styles provides a useful parallel for the partial identification I argue for between Nietzsche and
Epicurus (Nietzsche: Life as Literature [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press], 2434). The
original Greek source for the phrase in quotation marks is Pindar, Pythian Ode 2.72. It underlies
many passages in Nietzsches writing, perhaps most obviously the subtitle to EH (How to
06/03/14 10:02 AM
Become What You Are), although many feel that Nietzsche forcefully misconstrues the original.
See John Hamilton, Ecce Philologus: Nietzsche and Pindars Second Pythian Ode, in Nietzsche
and Antiquity: His Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition, ed. Paul Bishop (Rochester,
NY: Camden House), 5859 n. 13. I am not the first to note Nietzsches ambivalence toward
Epicurus. For instance, Howard Caygill, Under the Epicurean Skies, Angelaki 2.3 (2006): 108,
describes Nietzsches readings of Epicurus notoriously ambivalent. Others have made similar
remarks.
7. For the characterization of Epicurus as the inventor of a heroic, idyllic manner [heroischidyllischen Art] of philosophizing, see WS 295. Previous treatments of Nietzsche and Epicurus
that discuss this point include Richard Roos, Nietzsche et picure: lidylle hroique, Revue
dAllemagne 12 (1980): 497546; Milkowski, Idyllic Heroism, 9097; Andrea C. Bertino,
Nietzsche und die hellenistische Philosophie: Der bermensch und Der Weise, NietzscheStudien 36 (2008): 1014. For an old (but in some places still useful) discussion of the connection
between Nietzsche and Epicurus, see A. H. J. Knight, Nietzsche and Epicurean Philosophy,
Philosophy 8.32 (1933): 43145.
8. For a discussion of how Epicuruss heroic, idyllic philosophizing shares features
with two pre-Platonic philosophers, Heraclitus and Socrates, see Bertino, Nietzsche und die
hellenistische Philosophie, 101.
9. Perhaps the most famous statement of Epicurean hostility toward traditional religion
comes from Lucretius, who, after describing Agamemnons sacrifice of his daughter Iphianassa,
remarks, religion [or, superstition] could impel such great evil [tantum religio potuit suadere
malorum] (On the Nature of Things 1.101).
10. Julian Young has recently argued that Nietzsche is above all a religious thinker, but he
nevertheless maintains the traditional point that Nietzsche rejects the Christian God (Nietzsches
Philosophy of Religion [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006], 201). In place of
Christianity, Young contends, Nietzsche espouses a religious communitarianism. It is worth
comparing Youngs reading of Nietzsche to the Epicurean situation: members of that school also
observed cultic aspects, revering their founder as a god while rejecting traditional religion. See
Diskin Clay, The Cults of Epicurus, Cronache Ercolanesi 16 (1986): 1228.
11. For further primary source material and discussion of Epicurean antiteleology, see
Anthony A. Long and David N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press), 1:5765.
12. Lucretius, On the Nature of Things 4.82333.
13. Lucretius, too (and not only Diogenes Laertius), was well known to Nietzsche. The German
taught the Epicurean poet in Basel, and purchased a German translation of De rerum natura in
1868. In addition, as we shall explore further below, Lucretius and Epicurus are both discussed in
Friedrich A. Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung fr die Gegenwart,
which Nietzsche first read in 1866. See Thomas H. Brobjer, Nietzsches Philosophical Context: An
Intellectual Biography (Urbana: University of Illinois Press), 3236, 193, 195.
14. Epicurus, Letter to Pythocles 86.
15. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 124.
16. See James I. Porter: Perhaps Nietzsches deepest insult to Epicureanism is his assimilation
of the philosophy to Christianity (Porter, Epicurus in Nineteenth-Century Germany). See also
Bertino, Nietzsche und die hellenistische Philosophie, 10410.
17. The quoted portion of KSA 13:11[295] in the main text does not mention Epicurus, but
later in the same fragment Nietzsche writes of the cults, which were attacked by Epicurus,
locating Epicurus and Christianity in similar battles, if for utterly different philosophical reasons
and aims.
18. Literally, Nietzsche writes, I have spelled it backward and forward [Ich habe sie vorwrts
und rckwrts buchstabirt], an idiom that does not translate directly into English.
06/03/14 10:02 AM
19. In his Nachlass from 1878, Nietzsche seems to supplement this statement, writing of a
refined heroism [verfeinerter Heroismus] (KSA 8:28[15]). This remark seems to locate Epicurus
somewhere between heroism and decadence.
20. For Nietzsches remarks on Epicurus and suffering, see, e.g., WS 295, BGE 270. See also
Bertino, who comments, Nach Nietzsche war Epikur ... nicht einfach ein Kranker ... sondern
ein groer Leidender ... , und im Hinblick auf den hohen Wert, den das Leiden fr Nietzsche
hatte, hatte Epikur fr ihn besonderen Rang (Nietzsche und die hellenistische Philosophie, 100).
21. Readers will recognize that with this statement I follow in broad strokes, if not in every
detail, the interpretation of Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature.
22. See Alexander Nehamas, The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), which also considers the art of living in Michel
Foucaults late work.
23. See, too, KSA 13:14[141]: Wissenschaft bekmpft von den Philosophen [...] Wir finden
von Anfang der griechischen Philosophie an einen Kampf gegen die Wissenschaft, mit den
Mitteln einer Erkenntnitheorie, resp. Skepsis: und wozu? immer zu Gunsten der Moral ... [...]
Sokrates, Aristipp, die Megariker, die Cyniker, Epikur, PyrrhoGeneral-Ansturm gegen die
Erkenntni zu Gunsten der Moral.
24. It seems that Nietzsche is, at least implicitly, contrasting Epicureans here with Kant. The
phrase den Frage-zeichen-Charakter der Dinge echoes phrases such as the Kantian intelligibler
Charakter der Dinge, which Nietzsche discusses elsewhere. See, e.g., GM III:12.
25. For additional primary source material and discussion of the Epicurean tenet that all
impressions are true, see Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, 1:7886. I use skeptical as
a vague, general descriptor of one who is doubtful about certain claims; Skeptical, by contrast,
denotes the ancient philosophical school.
27. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.31.
28. This fragment is translated as The Will to Power 442.
29. Caygill, Under the Epicurean Skies, 10715, is the most extensive discussion of
Epicurean meteorology in Nietzsche: Nietzsches ambivalence with respect to Epicurus, he
asserts, resolves into that between the medical and the meteorological perspectives that he saw
as intrinsic to Epicuruss work (109).
32. The fullest philosophical discussion of multiple explanations in Epicureanism is now
R.J.Hankinson, Lucretius, Epicurus, and the Logic of Multiple Explanations, in Lucretius:
Poetry, Philosophy, Science, ed. Daryn Lehoux, A. D. Morrison, and Alison Sharrock (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013), 6997. There is also a literary tradition of multiple explanations
that descends from Lucretiuss poem. See Philip Hardie, Lucretian Receptions: History, The
Sublime, Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 23163.
35. See Hankinson, Lucretius, Epicurus, and the Logic of Multiple Explanations, 7175,
for a discussion of those claims that Epicureanism views as a priori (and therefore not subject to
multiple explanations).
36. The most recent detailed account of Nietzsches perspectivism is Jessica N. Berry,
Nietzsche and the Ancient Skeptical Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), chap.4,
Perspectivism and Ephexis in Interpretation. She bases her account primarily upon a textual
exegesis of GM III:12, arguing that [t]he character of perspectivism is fundamentally Skeptical
(111). The chief consequence of this view is that Nietzsche suspends judgment (i.e.,Skeptical
epoch) about metaphysical claims. I discuss related points in the main text.
06/03/14 10:02 AM
37. I have in mind chiefly Philodemuss De signis, although other Epicurean evidence may be
brought under the broader rubric of semiotics. See, for example, Giovanni Manetti, Theories of
the Sign in Classical Antiquity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), chap. 7, Inference and
Language in Epicurus; chap. 8, Philodemus De Signis.
38. Friedrich A. Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der
Gegenwart (Iserlohn: J. Baedeker, 1866), 5354. For the influence of Lange on Nietzsche, see
Brobjer, Nietzsches Philosophical Context, 3236.
39. There is debate about the scope of epoch in Pyrrhonian Skepticism: does the Skeptic
suspend all beliefs or only certain philosophical (often metaphysical) beliefs (i.e., dogmata)? For
a summary of the relevant scholarly positions, see Berry, Nietzsche and the Ancient Skeptical
Tradition, 4148.
40. Berry, Nietzsche and the Ancient Skeptical Tradition, chap. 4, Perspectivism and Ephexis
in Interpretation.
41. Hankinson, Lucretius, Epicurus, and the Logic of Multiple Explanations, 8586.
Aenesidemuss Eight Modes are preserved in an abbreviated outline at Sextus Empiricus,
Outline of Pyrrhonian Skepticism 1.18086.
42. I do not wish to deny that Nietzsche had an extensive knowledge of ancient Skepticism.
It is clear that through Diogenes Laertius (Book IX) and, to an extent that is more difficult to
determine, through Sextus himself Nietzsche had ample knowledge of the Skeptical tradition. Yet
it would be difficult to argue that the explicit, named influence of Sextus was greater than that
of Epicurus or Lange in Nietzsches writing. For a fuller assessment of Nietzsches knowledge of
Skeptical sources, see Berry, Nietzsche and the Ancient Skeptical Tradition, 2628.
43. There are numerous debated aspects of perspectivism that I do not discuss in the present
account because they are not central to the comparison with Epicureanism. For example, the
so-called falsification thesis, i.e., the view that every perspective is only partial and therefore
falsifies or distorts, which has been read by Alexander Nehamas as part of perspectivism, does
not fit as well with Epicurean multiple explanations as Berrys Skeptical account. Apart from
their obvious commitment to antiteleology, Epicureans suspend judgment or admit uncertainty
about the causes of many observed phenomena. In other words, the Epicurean view is agnostic
(rather than certain) about whether a given explanation is untrue. For further discussion of the
falsification thesis as part of perspectivism, see Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature, chap. 2,
Untruth as a Condition of Life.
44. For the portrayal of Epicureanism as a philosophy of dissolute pleasure in imperial
Roman times, see Richard Fletcher, Epicuruss Mistresses: Pleasure, Authority, and Gender in
the Reception of the Kuriai Doxai in the Second Sophistic, in Dynamic Reading: Studies in the
Reception of Epicureanism, ed. Brooke Holmes and W. H. Shearin (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2012), 5288.
45. See Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature, chap. 1, The Most Multifarious Art of Style.
46. For a canonical judgment of Epicuruss style, see the famous remarks of Eduard Norden,
Die antike Kunstprosa vom VI. Jahrhundert v. Chr. bis in die Zeit der Renaissance, 2 vols.
(Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1898), 1:123: Epikurs Schriften waren im ganzen Altertum bekannt
wegen ihres ungeknstelten Stils.
47. This fragment is translated as The Will to Power 437.
48. On this passage, see Bertino, Nietzsche und die hellenistische Philosophie, 1034.
49. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.8. I follow here the Greek text and
sigla of Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, ed. Tiziano Dorandi (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2013), 738. Dorandis apparatus criticus shows the following
variants: BPF : . The latter reading is the one Nietzsche takes
as primary. In the next note, I discuss the editions that were available to Nietzsche. In every case
Ihave been able to check, he would have needed an apparatus for his telling of the joke.
06/03/14 10:02 AM
50. As a student, Nietzsche had two main Greek editions of Diogenes Laertius available:
Diogenes Laertius, De vitis philosophorum libri X cum indice rerum (Leipzig: C. Tauchnitz, 1833)
and De vitis, dogmatis et apopthegmatis clarorum philosophorum libri decem, ed. H. G. Heubner,
2 vols. (Leipzig: C. F. Koehler, 182831). See Anthony K. Jensen, Nietzsches Philosophy of
History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), chap. 1, Philological Centaurs
(esp.n. 91). During Nietzsches lifetime, the Cobet edition (1878) of Diogenes also was published
in Paris by Firmin-Didot. Both the Cobet and Heubner texts are the same as I have printed it above.
I have not been able to see the Tauchnitz text, but it seems unlikely to be significantly different.
For Nietzsches presentation of the joke, one needs either an apparatus criticus (as I suggest) or
printed in the main text.
51. It is worth recalling here Nietzsches discussion of his background as a philologist and
professor in his description of how one becomes what one is (EH Clever 9).
52. For a more positive reassessment of Epicuruss influence as a stylist, see John Henderson,
Morals and Villas in Senecas Letters: Places to Dwell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004), 15, which claims Epicurus as a forebear for the highly rhetorical Seneca the Younger.
06/03/14 10:02 AM
Book Reviews
Werner Stegmaier, Friedrich Nietzsche zur Einfhrung. Hamburg: Junius, 2011. 212 pp. ISBN:
978-3-88506-695-8. Paper, 14.90.
The aim of Werner Stegmaiers Friedrich Nietzsche zur Einfhrung (Introduction to Nietzsche) is
to introduce readers to Nietzsches thinking without reducing it to general theses or doctrines.
Stegmaier thus provides not only an interpretation of Nietzsches philosophizing, but also a par
ticular methodological approach to his works.
The first part of the book, Nietzsches Experiences, provides a condensed account of
Nietzscheslife, including information about his family, friends, and acquaintances, his health, his
philosophical influences, and the circumstances under which he wrote some of his works. The second
part, Nietzsches Evaluations of the Significance of His Experiences for His Philosophizing, shows
that the first part is intended not only to present Nietzsches life, but also to establish ties between his
life and his thinking. Stegmaier is well aware that such an approach could be (mis)interpreted as an
effort to revive the reductively biographical tendencies that have dogged Nietzsche scholarship since
its beginning, and he stresses repeatedly that this is not his intention: [Nietzsches] self-liberation
exceeded such biographical causes; this is why one cannot understand his philosophizing without
his life, but also not by reducing it to his life (64; translations from Stegmaiers book are my own).
Instead of providing simple inferences from Nietzsches life to his work (79), then, Stegmaier
focuses on the remarks that Nietzsche makes about himself in his works, insisting that Nietzsche
very consciously brought his person, the personal conditions of his philosophizing, into play (63).
Besides indicating Nietzsches most important influences, the third part of the book offers a
broad account of the concerns of Nietzsches works, from Christianity, Hellenistic Greece, music,
philosophy, history, literature, painting, and other graphic arts, to the natural sciences and medicine,
psychology, neurology, and psychiatry (8197). Stegmaier not only summarizes these influences
and highlights their presence throughout Nietzsches work, but also shows how Nietzsche creatively
incorporates diverse elements of them into his own thinking, in the manner of something like a
philosophical autodidact.
The books pivotal point is the fourth part, Nietzsches Forms of Philosophical Writing, which
treats Nietzsches idiosyncratic techniques of presenting his thinking. Stegmaier rightly emphasizes
that Nietzsche reflects profoundly not only on what he writes, but alsoand perhaps even more
soon how he writes. As Stegmaier puts it, in Nietzsches texts [t]he forms of writing are not
external to his philosophizing (99). Stegmaier even traces this claim to Nietzsches letters, as a
[p]ersonal communication of his philosophizing (113), although he argues that these are not a
successful means of expressing Nietzsches thinking. Stegmaier offers a broad panorama of the
manifold forms of writings used by Nietzsche, but focuses on the aphorism books, since, he
claims, Human, All Too Human, Daybreak, The Gay Science, and Beyond Good and Evil are not
unorganized collections of short texts, but a form of philosophizing that reflects the rejection of an
absolute, or nonperspectival, form of knowledge.
It is unsurprising, therefore, that Stegmaier warns the reader of an uncritical use of the Nachlass,
by underlining the well-known, but often disregarded, ceterum censeo that [t]he notes which
[Nietzsche] wrote for himself should not be put on the same level as or above the (published)
works (112). One reason why the uncritical use of the Nachlass is problematic is that its Notate
lack the formal shaping of the published texts, which allows Nietzsche to, among other things,
interact playfully with his readers: In most cases Nietzsche writes here [in the notebooks]
without regard to the communication of his philosophizing and thus in the way familiar from
the systems of metaphysics (112). Indeed, Stegmaier claims that the assembling of passages
84
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Book Reviews 85
from the published works, Nachlass and letters is the mistaken means by which scholars have
been able to attribute general theses to Nietzsche and to generalize and systematize his thinking. He directs this criticism particularly against Heidegger, who reduced Nietzsches thinking
to the (in)famous doctrines of the death of god, nihilism, the overman, will to power, and the
eternal recurrence. But even if Nietzsche scholarship seems to be more careful about Nietzsches
relation to metaphysics than Heidegger, Stegmaier notes that there is still a tendency to try to
manage the irritation and frustration that his thinking creates by reducing it to theses, doctrines,
or even systems.
Stegmaier counteracts this tendency by emphasizing how Nietzsches aphoristic writing evades
such possible fixations, and, indeed, even by refusing to summarize Nietzsches works for fear of
inviting systematic interpretations (cf. 13). For Stegmaier, the aphoristic form permits Nietzsche
to present thoughts without suggesting that they are some kind of absolute truths, and Nietzsche
achieves this unsettling form of writing through a textual isolation of aphorisms, by means of which
they present incisive [prgnant] and pointed [pointiert] thoughts. By putting them into contexts
in his aphorism books, Nietzsche organizes his aphorisms in such a manner that the reader is unable
to ultimately decipher them: The aphorism avoids doctrines; on the contrary, it incisively makes
the matters it treats questionable (102). Nonetheless, Stegmaier insists that this unsettling effect
of the aphorisms need not undermine the readers orientation [Orientierung], but rather allows a
new one to be produced.
Stegmaier extracts these guidelines for reading Nietzsches texts from his works. Indeed, he
claims that [i]n two notable aphorisms [D P 5 and GS 381] Nietzsche made clear how one should
read him (114). This seems a plausible approach, especially if Nietzsches reflections on the possibilities and restrictions of language are taken into account. However, it may be objected that the
passages in which Nietzsche expresses his opinions about writing in general or about his own writing
in particular are themselves part of his rhetorical strategies for influencing his readers. Furthermore,
Stegmaiers own references to passages of Nietzsches works, Nachlass and letters (cf. 100102),
seem to conflict the methodological guidelines that he himself proposes. The quotations, taken
mostly from Nietzsches works from Thus Spoke Zarathustra onward, are not read in their context,
but assembled in the familiar way. Although Stegmaier advises against the inconsiderate use of the
Nachlass, he himself bases some of his claims on passages taken from it without reflecting on their
status (cf. 17576). Still, it must be said that Stegmaier here proposes only to outline a methodology,
and not necessarily to comply with it, and that he applies it extensively elsewhere, in his Nietzsches
Befreiung der Philosophie.1
After pointing out Nietzsches Expectations of Readers of Both Sexes in the fifth part,
the remaining parts of the book undertake to show how strongly the concept of Orientierung is
interwoven with Nietzsches thinking. At the beginning of the sixth part, Nietzsches Task and
Guiding Distinctions, Stegmaier links this concept to Nietzsche in an almost programmatic way,
by portraying Nietzsches main task as providing a new orientation in the face of all-embracing
nihilism: As a philosopher Nietzsche aimed at a decisive new orientation after what he saw as the
most severe disorientation in Europes history ... : nihilism (120). It is no accident that the first
as well as the last section of the book emphasize the importance of orientation, and that it plays a
decisive role in all of the following chapters: part 7, Nietzsches Critique of Illusory Orientations,
shows that for a new orientation to emerge, it is first necessary to question obsolete orientations
that harm life (cf. 131), and part 8, Nietzsches Reference Points and Measures of Self-Critical
Orientation, regards the search for a foothold once one has lost ones footing, a foothold that,
according to Stegmaier, one must find in oneself: A self-critical orientation, one that abandons the
illusions of a foothold outside of itself, beyond its own standpoints, horizons and perspectives, can and
must find its foothold in itself (141). The ninth part, Nietzsches Ways of Revaluation, addresses
the question of how it is possible to revalue values, a task that Stegmaier claims is no longer the
06/03/14 10:33 AM
86 Book Reviews
concern of a god, but of humans themselves and eventually of every human himself (148). After
again stressing that positive doctrines cannot be extracted from Nietzsches philosophizing in the
tenth part, Nietzsches Doctrines and Anti-Doctrines in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Stegmaier turns
to Nietzsches Affirmations in the penultimate part. There, in addressing nihilism, decadence, great
politics, amor fati, and other themes, Stegmaier emphasizes that Nietzsches affirmations involve
not only critique, but also the new values offered through revaluation (cf. 171).
The concluding part, Nietzsches Future?, raises the question of Nietzsches significance
for contemporary and future philosophizing. Despite Nietzsches extensive influence on different cultural fields and the changes in moral values that have occurred since his time, Stegmaier
emphasizes that a productive nietzscheanism is still lacking (202). In particular, he insists that,
in the light of Nietzsches insights, it is hard to understand how [contemporary philosophy]
can combine its unbounded disillusionment of our orientations with the force of its affirmations (203).
The concept of Orientierung is fundamental to Stegmaiers treatment of Nietzsche, although
he does not define it extensively here. In the fourth part of the book, he binds Nietzsches specific
form of writing closely to his own project of a Philosophie der Orientierung (cf. his Philosophie
der Orientierung).2 He claims that Nietzsches isolation and contextualization of aphorisms in
aphorism-books adopts the proven procedure of everyday orientation (104). This raises a problem
when Stegmaier states that Nietzsche brings the general, without which we cannot proceed, into
play in another way: not as something that is claimed to be true, but as something one brings into
the game to motivate others, which they can accept or not, in their own way and taking their own
responsibility (6667). Although it is undeniable that Nietzsche addresses and stimulates his readers, it may be asked whether Stegmaiers approach fully comprehends the ways in which Nietzsche
does so. In particular, Stegmaier claims for values that [o]ne can choose among them, bind oneself
more or less to them, bring them into a rank orderand revalue them: values allow a change in
values (148). But here the reader may ask whether the concept of Orientierung, however appro
priatein other respects, really captures the full rhetorical force of Nietzsches texts, and particularly
his later ones. Certainly, one chooses whether or not to read them, but the interactions of Nietzsches
works with his readers seem to be, on the one hand, more subliminal and, on the other, more violent
than the possibility of a choice suggests.
Introductions to philosophers are an ungrateful genre, and the tendency is to reduce the philosopher concerned to some key terms and theses. Stegmaiers book admirably avoids this tendency. His
well-written text not only introduces new readers to Nietzsche, but also takes a strong position in
the diversified field of contemporary Nietzsche scholarship. And that the extension of Stegmaiers
concept of Orientierung to Nietzsches philosophizing is not fully supported need not be explained
only by the brevity of the text, but also by the concept itself. Stegmaier insists that anyone who tries
to reduce Nietzsches thinking to a theory or system fails to do justice to Nietzsches works. While
claiming for any attempt to read Nietzsche systematically that so far everybody has compromised
himself with it; everybody is perceivable in the way he interprets Nietzsche (108), Stegmaier
declares that his own reading of Nietzsche too reflects its authors perspective. Indeed, the zur
Einfhrung series is meant to provide introductions in which authors give their own perspectives
on the philosophers concerned (8). If Stegmaier states that [w]hichever theory one proposes reveals
who one is; a philosophical theory is not true or false, but a symptom of something that one wants
to overcome (11), the reader might well ask what this book might be a symptom of. Thus, the
book itself offers a perspective that can be accepted as an orientation without pinning Nietzsches
versatile philosophizing to fixed terms and theses.
Marcus Andreas Born
Albert-Ludwigs-Universitt Freiburg
m.a.born@gmx.net
06/03/14 10:33 AM
Book Reviews 87
Notes
1. Werner Stegmaier, Nietzsches Befreiung der Philosophie. Kontextuelle Interpretation des
V. Buchs der Frhlichen Wissenschaft (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012).
2. Werner Stegmaier, Philosophie der Orientierung (Berlin: De Gruyter 2008).
Friderike Gnther, Angela Holzer, and Enrico Mller (eds.), Zur Genealogie des
Zivilisationsprozesses: Friedrich Nietzsche und Nobert Elias. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010. 323 pp.,
ISBN: 9783110220704. Cloth, 94.95.
In recent years, Nietzsche-Forschung has displayed an increasing interest in establishing a dialogue
between Nietzsches philosophy and other disciplines. Zur Genealogie des Zivilisationsprozesses
attempts to establish a dialogue with the sociology of Norbert Elias and thus takes an important
step toward realizing what Nietzsche himself saw as the inevitable task of philosophynamely,
a scientifically structured program of interdisciplinary research into morality. Indeed, in a wellknown footnote to section 17 of the first essay of On the Genealogy of Morals, he outlined a
project aimed at providing a comprehensive study of the evolution of moral concepts through a
comparison of the different perspectives of philosophy, history, philology, medicine, anthropology, and linguistics. Engaging Nietzsches philosophy with Eliass sociologyor, more specifically, Nietzsches concept of genealogy with Eliass concept of processis precisely such an
interdisciplinary project, as the editors themselves highlight in their introduction (1). Drawn from
a conference held in Berlin in 2008 and divided thematically, the thirteen chapters of the book
focus primarily on the relationships between the individual and society, customs and culture, and
civilization and morality.
Like Nietzsches conception of Genealogie, Eliass so-called Prozesssoziologie has the methodological aim of showing how traditional theories (such as that of Talcott Parsonss school)
are insufficient to understand the complex and intricate relationship between the individual
and society. Indeed, for this reason Prozesssoziologie cannot be considered a theory in the
strict sense, but rather a counter to sociocultural perspectives that conceive of social processes
statically. For at the core of Eliass counterperspective lies the opposition between Prozess and
Zustand, which he considers central to the observer as well as to the observed. This opposition
is intended to indicate that social changes should not be treated as states [Zustnden]that is,
as the consequences of a desired tendency for stabilitybut rather, more realistically, in terms
of movement, because society in particular and reality more generally are dynamic and do not
follow any a priori rule. For Elias, a theory of society should therefore devise and integrate a large
number of theories for the sake of a plausible and comprehensive knowledge of intrinsically
unstable phenomena.
Correspondingly, Nietzsche conceives of his genealogy as a critical methodology that takes as
strange the very elements that for moral philosophy are familiarnamely, the apparent selfevidence of moral values. Genealogy is a comprehensive guide for recovering the past from the
present (as in the case of the so-called Ahnenforschung) by recovering multiple and unconnected
events, facts (through their historical interpretation), judgments, and viewpoints (through their
psychological interpretation) that are mistakenly supposed to have a stable value. Genealogical
investigation thus always intends to reproduce the internal uncertainties of something conventionally assumed to be right, by problematizing the medium by which values generally acquire stability of meaning and use. These questions are brought to light especially clearly in the introductory
chapter by Enrico Mller, Kultur/en im Wandel denken. Zu den Voraussetzungen genealogischer
und genetischer Reflexion.
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88 Book Reviews
Two important chapters also treat Eliass reading of Nietzsche. Angela Holzers Philosoph
der Kultur und des Krieges: Zur Nietzsche-Rezeption von Nobert Elias provides a philological
exploration of Eliass posthumous writings, his critical notes on some of Nietzsches claims, and
their influence on his own work. Nietzsche and Elias as Educators: Their Role in the Writing
of Nihilism and Culture, by Johan Goudsblom, Eliass pupil and a pioneering figure in EliasForschung, deals with this reception from a philosophical point of view. This chapter recapitulates Goudsbloms dissertation, Nihilism and Culture,1 in order to show that both Nietzsches
philosophical methodology and Eliass sociology may be useful for the diagnosis of cultureand
especially for the diagnosis of nihilismif they are not arbitrarily interposed or intersected. Also
notable in regard to Eliass reception of Nietzsches philosophy, in addition to Mllers chapter, is
Christian Emdens Anthropologien der Gewalt bei Nobert Elias und Friedrich Nietzsche, which
concentrates on the concept of power as the axis by which modern forms of social organization
are articulated.
Although the concept of civilization in Nietzsches philosophy should not be taken simply
as culture, a concept coined by Elias, one can approach it (like Eliass concept of habitus) in
terms of Nietzsches genealogical analysis of historical events, in order to understand the evolution of some instruments of power that are molded into attitudes and social values. In this regard,
it is worth highlighting Werner Stegmaiers contribution, Nietzsches Mitteilungszeichen, Elias
Symboltheorie und Spielrume der Orientierung, which deals with Nietzsches and Eliass critical
views of the modes of communication, understanding, and symbolic interaction.
In the two volumes of his magnum opus, ber den Prozess der Zivilisation (1939), Elias showed
how postmedieval European standards of communication, behavior, bodily functions, etiquette,
and forms of speech were gradually transformed due to the existence of psychologically repressed
feelings, such as shame and repugnance. In this regard, Renate Reschkes Hfsche Kultur. Der
kulturkritische und soziologische Blick: Zur Differenz von Nobert Elias und Friedrich Nietzsche is
notable, for it treats the question of etiquette and courting praxis. Also in relation to the constitution
of the praxis of modern man, one must not overlook Nietszsches important definition of sittlichen
Menchen as having mastered their fear of desires (KSA 9:3[119]). This is examined by Chiara
Piazzesi in her chapter Die soziale Verinnerlichung von Machtverhltnissen. ber die produktiven
Aspekte der Selbstdisziplinierung und der Affektkontrolle bei Nietzsche und Elias, which critically
analyzes the models of self-control and the self-discipline of affects offered by Nietzsche and Elias,
in order to conceive both as productive and therapeutically oriented perspectives.
In my view, Zur Genealogie des Zivilisationsprozesses may be a first and crucial step toward
showing that it is mistaken to see sociological deficit in Nietzsches culture diagnosis, as Jrgen
Habermas does when he alleges that Nietzsches philosophy does not provide a legitimate critique
of modernity because the emancipatory potential of his critique was held back.2 In this sense, connecting Nietzsches philosophy to Eliass sociology is a wise strategy, since it makes it possible
not only to find new paths in his philosophy but also to regard it as a significant contribution to a
critical and interdisciplinary project.
Andr Luis Muniz Garcia
Universidade de Braslia
andrelmg@hotmail.com
Notes
1. Johan Goudsblom, Nihilism and Culture (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1980), first
published as Nihilisme en cultuur (Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 1960).
2. Jrgen Habermas, Der philosophische Diskurs der Modernen (Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 1988), 117.
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Book Reviews 89
Werner Stegmaier, Nietzsches Befreiung der Philosophie: Kontextuelle Interpretation des
V.Buchsder Frhlichen Wissenschaft. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012. 754 pp. ISBN: 978-3-11-026976-5.
Hardcover, 49.95.
Werner Stegmaiers new work is an extensive study of the fifth book, We Fearless Ones [Wir
Furchtlosen], of Nietzsches The Gay Science. However, it is not a mere commentary on the forty
aphorisms contained in the book (GS 34383). It is rather an entirely new interpretation of Nietzsches
later philosophy. The volume consists of two parts: first, an introduction (388) in which Stegmaier
analyzes The Gay Science in relation to Nietzsches other writingsand in particular to Thus Spoke
Zarathustraand the topics treated in the fifth book in relation to those of the four previous books;
and, second, a commentary (91640) in which the aphorisms of the fifth book are analyzed not
in the order in which they appear, but in thematic groups. Each of the two parts concludes with a
discussion of the secondary literature.
As is well known, Nietzsche published two editions of The Gay Science, the first in 1882 and
the second in 1887. The first edition comprised four books and was preceded by a collection of
epigram-like poems entitled Joke, Cunning and Revenge [Scherz, List und Rache] (also the title
of a comic opera by Nietzsches friend Heinrich Kselitz (Peter Gast), itself a translation into music
of a Singspiel by Goethe of the same title). Nietzsches original plan was for The Gay Science to be
made up of five books, like Daybreak, but in a note of August 26, 1881, he outlined the book only
in four parts, under the title For the Features of a New Way of Living (11[197], Stegmaier, 51,
all translations are my own). In the preceding notes (11[195] and 11[196]), he also jotted down
some sentences later included at the beginning of Zarathustra, indicating that the projects of The
Gay Science and Zarathustra were closely connected from the beginning.
Only later did Nietzsche decide to add a fifth book to the original edition of The Gay Science,
to make it reflect the structure of Daybreak. The first proofs of the new edition were sent to him at
Sils-Maria on June 24, 1887 (59). Besides the fifth book, this second edition included a new introduction, written along with the new introduction to Daybreak, and an appendix of poems, Songs
of Prince Vogelfrei (largely a reworking of the Idylls from Messina). The addition of the fifth book
was not a straightforward one, however. Although Nietzsche wrote some thirty new aphorisms of
major importance and rather long (55; translations of Stegmaier are my own) between the end of
September and the end of October 1886 with the intentions of adding them to the new edition, a
series of delays and misunderstandings with the editor Wilhelm Fritzsch made him consider adding
them to the second edition of Beyond Good and Evil instead (56). Once the misunderstandings were
overcome, he returned to his original plan and increased the number of new aphorisms to forty.
In this second edition, The Gay Science is an extraordinarily complex piece of work. Nietzsche
himself appears to indicate the books significance when, in a letter to Carl Fuchs of July 29, 1888, he
calls it my most central book (50). Chronologically, it encompasses Thus Spoke Zarathustrathe
four parts of which were written between 1883 and 1885and Beyond Good and Evil, published
in 1886 (60). Stegmaier draws a striking conclusion from thisnamely, that the second edition
supersedes the periods into which Nietzsches works are normally divided, thus cancelling the
distinction between a middle text (before Zarathustra) and a later one (after Zarathustra) (58).
Stegmaier further claims that the second edition of The Gay Science should be considered not only
an introduction to Zarathustra, but also the work that once again was parting from it (60). Indeed,
with his most controversial claim, Stegmaier argues that, with the addition of the fifth book, The Gay
Science becomes a sort of experimental book in which Nietzsche not only continues the criticism
of morality begun with Human, All Too Human and Daybreak, but also abandons what even today
are often considered his fundamental doctrines.
It may be doubted whether the fifth book really completes the first four in the way that Stegmaier
claims. For instance, Wolfram Groddeck has made a persuasive case for regarding the second edition of The Gay Science as a new textwith, among other things, different stylesand as one that,
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90 Book Reviews
while it does not cancel the first edition, nonetheless competes with it. For Groddeck, the fifth book
should therefore be considered an independent text, one that contrasts with the other four books
to the extent that it acts as an original text.1
But Stegmaiers view is clear: the fifth book completed what the first four had prepared (53),
since, despite the five-year gap, it pursues the concept indicated by the title, The Gay Science, and
thus opens up new prospects in Nietzsches later philosophy. Indeed, among all the unsettling
[irritierend] titles of Nietzsches works, Stegmaier suggests that we regard The Gay Science as the
most unsettling (43). For, in his view, this title does not refer to a specific object, but by referring
to an erudite poetic art from the Middle Agesthat of the troubadours of Provenceannounces
an extremely problematic change in the character of science, one that with the adjective gay
[frhlich] indicates an opposition to the earnestness [Ernst] that science attributes to itself,
as the pursuit of the truth in Western tradition. Specifically, Stegmaier claims that Nietzsches
intention is to destroy faith in the truth that found its last repository in science, a faith that is
nothing but an extreme reflection of the basic form of every faith, including faith in God. (The
aphorisms that open the third book are particularly important in this respect.) In this sense, The
Gay Science is about the death of God only in a minor sense. For, as Stegmaier puts it, with this
book Nietzsche wanted to destroy an ancient faith, not really the faith in the old God, who by
this time was already dead, but rather the shadow that he had casted and left as a legacy, faith
in the purity of science (43).
From this point of view, Nietzsches later philosophy appears in a new light and the aphorisms
of the fifth book of The Gay Science complete the previous four books by treating a unitary
themenamely, how the object of our love for knowledge, the truth, must remain always as
far away and unreachable as the loved one is for the troubadour. Stegmaier claims that a gay
science loves truth, but it also keeps away from it, and derives from this its pleasure (45), and
that Nietzsche does not define gaiety [Frhlichkeit]: it is a disposition of the spirit [Stimmung],
it shall display itself, as is shown, in the most mature way, in book V of The Gay Science
(46). Indeed, for Stegmaier, Frhlichkeit is, ultimately, the result of an Enlightenment attitude
turned against the foundation that, historically, the Enlightenment could not, or did not wish to,
undermine. The fact that Stegmaier titles the first section of his introduction Nietzsches Risky
Consequences in the Enlightenment of the Enlightenment [Nietzsches gefhrliche Consequenz
in der Aufklrung der Aufklrung] is significant: where others sought indubitable certainties
[Nietzsche] saw the risk of all certainties, that of being fooled by them. If the Enlightenment had
the courage to doubt certainties, it was not able to do the same with its own certaintiesnamely,
with what Stegmaier calls the subject certain of himself and of his knowledge, the freedom of
his will, and the laws, state, regulations, and moral values based on it (3). Nietzsches enlightenment no longer aimed at the demystification of religion, as eighteenth century enlightenment did,
but also and especially of morality, into which religion has increasingly transformed itself and
which is the basis of science, the same science on which the historic Enlightenment still thought
it could build itself (4). In this sense, Nietzsche is the heir of the limits that Kant establishes for
reason and of Socrates, whose knowing you know nothing unveils every piece of knowledge as
mere appearance, as well as the forerunner of the major critics of the Enlightenment Horkheimer,
Adorno, and Habermas (4).
For Stegmaier, if reason can still navigate a world in which there are no longer certainties, this
is because it has become frhlich. That is, it can no longer provide certainties or indicate the truth,
but it can nonetheless generate criteria that human beings can use to orient themselves in the world.
Ascience and a philosophy that have applied to themselves an artistic and gay enlightenmentwhat
Stegmaier calls die knstlerisch-frhliche Selbstaufklrung der Wissenschaft und Philosophie
aim at the renewal of human orientation in general (52). Stegmaier considers this to be Nietzsches
answer to the most insidious question raised in aphorism 7 of The Gay Science (Something for
the Industrious), that regarding whether science can furnish goals of action after it has proved that
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Book Reviews 91
it can take such goals away and annihilate them. Science, Stegmaier claims, does not proceed in
the name of a universal reason, but by following scientific perspectives subject to change, mainly
biological, physiological, psychological and sociological perspectives. This science has become
gay in the sense that its concern with orientation has become instinctive; its role is that of binding the theoretical conscience to its many orientation contexts (53). Here Stegmaier appeals to his
broader theorization of the concept of orientation, developed extensively with reference to Kant
as well as to Nietzsche in his edited volume Orientierung. Philosophische Perspektiven and in his
Philosophie der Orientierung.2
Besides giving this interpretation of the project pursued by the fifth book of The Gay Science,
Stegmaier also interprets it in the light of the successive stages of the development of Nietzsches
thought and, in particular, On the Genealogy of Morality and the so-called Lenzerheide-Fragment,
titled European Nihilism and dated June 10, 1887, immediately after the preparation of the
fifth book of The Gay Science. In Stegmaiers view, the Lenzerheide-Fragment is particularly
significant in indicating that Nietzsche abandons two of his fundamental doctrines. The
will to power is presented as tending toward a nihilistic will to nothing, against which a form
of active nihilism is required which, in the last part of the note, Nietzsche describes as the
attitude of the stronger [die Strksten], or those who do not need extreme articles of faith
(KSA 12, p. 217). In proposition 6 of the fragment, Nietzsche defines the eternal recurrence as
the extreme form of nihilism and, again, as a will to nothing, as is indicated by his further
definition of nihilism as a European form of Buddhism (KSA 12, p. 213). Stegmaier concludes
that even the thought of the eternal recurrence may be an extreme article of faith, which is not
needed by gay spirits (61).
These general interpretative claims about Nietzsches criticism of knowledge are then used by
Stegmaier in commenting on the individual aphorisms of the fifth book. Here I consider just one
particular theme in this commentarynamely, how Nietzsches criticism of truth as the foundation ofmodern science leads to his perspectivism, which can be considered the defining concept
of his later philosophy. Particularly important is Stegmaiers analysis of aphorism 374, Our New
Infinite. There, Stegmaier emphasizes that, since Nietzsche affirms the perspectival character
of existence, by which he apparently means that all existence is ... essentially actively engaged
in interpretation, Nietzsche has been supposed to attribute to it an ontology, statements on the
nature of the being in itself. Referring to notes 14[186] and 14[79] of spring 1888, Stegmaier correlates the perspectival character of existence with the will to power and concludes that, with the
term perspectivism, an ontology of the wills to power [plural] is outlined, and not of the will to
power [singular], to which Heidegger fastened Nietzsches philosophy (410). For in the two notes
Nietzsche defines necessary perspectivism as that on the basis of which each centre of force
[jedes Kraftcentrum] generates the world starting from itself and establishing its dominion over
spacethis is its will to power. Furthermore, each Kraftcentrum is for Nietzsche a quantum of
will to power, hence force must be the result of quanta that clash against each other. In contrast with
Heideggers reading, then, the will to power cannot be a principle, and even less so a metaphysical principle. Thinking an ontology intended as a positive doctrine of being in itself, observes
Stegmaier, is for Nietzsche a temptation of philosophizing that derives from the grammatical
structure of Indo-European languages, with their scheme of a basic subject to which variable
qualities are associated (411). Thus, while he undermines the mechanistic hypothesis by collapsing the cause-effect relationship, Nietzsches perspectivism also leads to the abandonment of the
will to power hypothesis.
This interpretation of aphorism 374 should be considered alongside that given of the immediately
preceding aphorism (GS 373, Science as a Prejudice). There, Stegmaier describes the paradox of
perspectivism as the idea that each perspective can know its perspective character only in another
perspective which, in turn, it can only observe in its own perspective (396). If this formula refers
to Stegmaiers preceding general discussion of perspective, then it corresponds fully with what
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Nietzsche affirms in aphorism 374 about the possibility of knowing how far the perspective character
of existence extends: We cannot look around our own corner: it is a hopeless curiosity that wants
to know what other kinds of intellects and perspectives there might be (GS 374). This means that,
given the perspectival nature of our knowledge, we cannot reach a point of view that enables us to
state that, indeed, our knowledge is perspectival. This is the supreme paradox of perspectivism, by
virtue of which science, if it abandons its claim to truth, can still indicate temporary truths that give
us orientation criteria. As Stegmaier writes in commenting on aphorism 373, [I]f science cannot
be absolutely objective, because it cannot abandon its perspective, it can still multiply its perspectives and hence gradually become objective. But sciences perspectivizing of itself makes it,
in Nietzsches sense, frhlich (316). This multiplication of perspectives makes it difficult to think
of a unitary connection or principle based on which reality can be interpreted overall. Stegmaiers
conclusion is significant: in this aphorism of the fifth book of The Gay Science, with the multiplication of interpretation perspectives, Nietzsche gives up the concept of will to power and tries to
give science new horizons (396). In this regard, it is notable that the expression will to power is
found only once in the fifth book and then only in a context that is not particularly significant (GS
349, Once Again, the Origin of Scholars).
Stegmaiers work thus depicts a Nietzschethat of the fifth book of The Gay Sciencewhose
claims and development are largely unexplored and who is concerned with themes that are perhaps
more subtle and specifically philosophical, if no less unsettling, than those often attributed to him.
Carlo Gentili
Universit di Bologna
carlo.gentili@unibo.it
Notes
1. Wolfram Groddeck, Die Neue Ausgabe der Frhlichen Wissenschaft. berlegungen
zu Paratextualitt und Werkkomposition in Nietzsches Schriften nach Zarathustra, NietzscheStudien 26 (1997): 18498, 18586.
2. Werner Stegmaier, ed., Orientierung. Philosophische Perspektiven (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,
2005); Stegmaier, Philosophie der Orientierung (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008).
Giuliano Campioni, Der franzsische Nietzsche. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009. 346 pp. ISBN: 978-311-017755-8. Paper, $77.00, 59.95.
According to an old but no longer current prejudiceresulting from the ideological exploitation
of his worksNietzsche represents German culture at its most nationalistic. Considered in this
way, the cosmopolitan character of his thought and the various influences he received from other
cultures are often forgotten. Against the background of this once widespread notion, Giuliano
Campioni seeks to remind us that Nietzsche was a thinker who embraced France and the Latin
spirit, not only influenced by the French moralists and French classicism, but also always keeping
a surprisingly close eye on his contemporary France. Indeed, Nietzsche read everything French
he could lay his hands on, from philosophy and literature to newspapers and influential journals
such as Journal des Dbats and Revue des deux mondes.
Thus, it is not difficult to imagine what a Herculean task it was to reconstruct these primary
andmostlysecondary sources and, most important, to weigh and assess the interactions between
them in Nietzsches thought. As one of the editors of the published catalogue of Nietzsches personal library, Campioni has been skillfully performing this task for many decades. Der franzsische Nietzsche is both an exemplary result and a celebration of his lifelong studies, comprising
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Book Reviews 93
contributions to seminars and conferences, mostly between 1990 and 2000. This is the German
translation of a book first published in French in 2001 under the title Les lectures franaises de
Nietzsche,1 a title that perhaps better captures its contentit is not an overview of the topic Nietzsche
and France, as the German title might suggest.
The French Nietzsche unfolds in six chapters, in which Campioni presents important new
material on Nietzsches French sources. In the first chapter, he criticizes the prejudice according
to which Nietzsche was the intellectual antipode of Descartes. Earlier scholarship from both sides
of the Rhine was based on a contrast between esprit franais and esprit allemandebetween
French logical clarity, represented by Descartes, and the German heroic mysticism proclaimed by
Nietzsche. Campioni insists that such a contrast misrepresents Nietzsches intellectual development
by focusing merely on The Birth of Tragedy and ignoring his reception and use of Descartes as the
model for developing his philosophical method from Human, All Too Human onward. Furthermore,
Campioni shows how much Nietzsches understanding of Descartes owes to secondary sources,
and in particular his readings of contemporary French writers such as Henri Joly, Lefebvre SaintOgans, and Ferdinand Brunetire.
The second chapter presents Nietzsche as the antipode of Ernest Renan. Here, Campioni underlines the parallels and differences between Nietzsches overman and Renans notion of devas
(divinities) as aristocratic responses to the crisis of modernity. Beneath the structural resemblance
between the overman and the deva, Campioni argues, there is a substantial difference: while
Nietzsches idea of the overman is a postulate for experimentation and for widening perspectives
in a strictly immanent context, Renans concept of devas remains bound to a metaphysical teleological model with Gnostic elements. Moreover, this chapter clearly demonstrates how important
not only Richard Wagner and Jacob Burchardt but also writers such as Ximens Doudan and Jules
Barbey dAurevilly were for Nietzsches reception of Renan.
The third chapter treats the differences between German culture and French civilization in terms
of the estrangement between Nietzsche and Wagner. Campioni shows here how decisive Nietzsches
attraction to French culture was for his gradual emancipation from Wagner, a fierce opponent of
French culture who was, of course, very displeased by the growing Francophile tendencies of his
former disciple.
The fourth chapter shows how Nietzsches concern with the Renaissancetaken as the inception of the Latin spiritbegan with Burckhardt, and further strengthened his bond with French
culture. Here, Campioni gives a detailed account of how the Renaissance provided Nietzsche with
a historical role model for his cultural criticism of the nineteenth century. The conservative philology of the nineteenth century, in which a stark cultural pessimism was predominant, saw in the
Renaissance an ideal epoch with a harmony and vitality that was lacking in contemporary culture.
The Renaissance individual was seen as an heir of ancient Greek civilization and as an ideal that
could serve as a pedagogical corrective to the weak mentality of the nineteenth-century individual.
Nietzsches readings of Stendhal, Hippolyte Taine, and mile Gebhart, along with Burckhardt,
enhanced his positive attitude toward the Latin spirit, and he placed special emphasis on the figure of
the poet philologist exemplified by Petrarch and Boccaccio, with whom the untimely personas of
Nietzsche and Burckhardtbrilliant philologists themselvescould very well identify. The figure
of the poet philologist stands for a free individuality with a cosmopolitan character and contrasts
with collective subjects such as nation or class, in an era of emerging nationalism.
In the fifth chapter, Campioni concentrates on Nietzsches treatment of romanticism as a seismograph of nihilism and on the lyrical configurations of individuality in the post-God era, the
dramatic and theatrical character exemplified in the literary heroes of Lord Byron, Jules Michelet,
Victor Hugo, and George Sand. Here not only the will but also the inability to act appears as the
dominating leitmotif of romanticism.
The last chapter concerns Nietzsches readings of contemporary French literature, and particularly
his treatment of the Parisian novel as revealing the typology of European decadence, a spectrum of
reactive forms from brutalism and exoticism to dandyism and naturalism. Thus Campioni shows
06/03/14 10:33 AM
94 Book Reviews
how, in Nietzsches eyes, minor and major French Romanciers such as Paul Bourget, Pierre Loti,
Gyp (pseudonym of Sibylle Marie-Antoinette de Riguetti de Mirabeau, Comtesse de Martel de
Janville), Henri Meilhac, Anatole France, Jules Lematre, and Guy de Maupassant provide the finest
instruments of psychological analysis in the late nineteenth century. In this, the best part of the book,
Campioni uses the constellation Nietzsche-Wagner-Renan-Burckhardt as his guide, which proves
to be fruitful not only in assessing the interfaces among Nietzsches sources but also in drawing out
the inner struggles between his German and French sides.
The great virtue of Campionis book is its exemplary philological accuracy, typical of the
Italian school of Nietzsche scholarship, of which he is one of the most prominent representatives.
It meticulously handles an immense volume of material in offering a panoramic view of Nietzsches
French readings, or what Campioni calls, in a slightly postmodern manner, Nietzsches extratext.
However, one might say that while this panorama is colored in rich hues, it is lacking in clear lines,
for which the reader pays too high a cost. Indeed, it often gives the impression that the material
was put together rather hastily, without considering the readings in their appropriate philosophical
contexts. Thus, although the chapters literary titles may sound charmingly old-fashioned, they
are also indicative of the books loose structure. The absence of an index also cannot go unmentionedindeed, in such a dense book about the study of sources, it is surprisingand a catalogue
of the French books found in Nietzsches library, which appears in the French version of the book,
would have been a valuable addition.
Despite these structural weaknesses, Campionis book will be extremely valuable for Nietzsche
scholars and indispensable for those writing on Nietzsche and France. The reader is exposed to a
plethora of stimuli and finds solid grounds for further inquiry. Due to the panoramic view it offers,
the book may be strongly recommended also to those with an interest in the history of European
ideas in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Manos Perrakis
Independent Scholar
manosperrakis@outlook.com
Note
1. Giuliano Campioni, Les lectures franaises de Nietzsche (Paris: Presses Univ. de France,
2001).
Carlo Gentili, Nietzsches Kulturkritik zwischen Philologie und Philosophie. Basel: Schwabe,
2010. 334 pp. ISBN: 978-3-7965-2436-3. Paper, 56.00.
Carlo Gentilis book, first published in Italian in 2001 (Nietzsche, Il Mulino), covers Nietzsches
entire philosophical production. It may be characterized as an introductory book, for some fundamental issues in Nietzsches philosophy are explained in detail. But Gentili also discusses these issues
from a very particular perspectivenamely, the criticism of culture elaborated from philological
and philosophical perspectives. The books five chapters are structured as follows.
The first chapter treats the close relation between philosophy and philology, focusing on
Nietzsches special interest in the latter, as well as on the role that philology played throughout
the 1860s and 1870s in German culture (11). Gentilis claim regarding the link between philology
and philosophy is that, for Nietzsche, each and every philological activity should be surrounded
and enclosed by a philosophical world view (30; translations from Gentilis book are my own).
For, from The Birth of Tragedy to The Antichrist, Nietzsche always took an interest in philology,
06/03/14 10:33 AM
Book Reviews 95
constantly articulated with the criticism of culture and the educational system, and from the classical perspectives that he derived from his schooling at Pforta and from debates over German
national identity of the time. The central concept here is that of Bildung, under the influences of
such figures as Wilhelm von Humboldt, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and Friedrich Schiller, and the
meaning that the notion had gradually acquired in combining concerns for German identity with
the Greek emphasis on philology, poetry, philosophy, and so on. Although here he focuses on texts
prior to The Birth of Tragedy, Gentili also emphasizes how some themes found in themsuch as
the epic poem Ermanarics Death (33) and the redemption from the past (39)also unfold in
Nietzsches late reflections.
The second chapter considers how, in pursuing his criticism of culture from The Birth of
Tragedy to the Untimely Meditations, Nietzsches critical axis shifts from philology to philosophy.
This chapter has a double structure. On the one hand, there is a critical genealogy of the figure of
Dionysus, with which Gentili indicates the sources that influenced Nietzschefor instance, Karl
Otfried Mller, Jacob Bernays, and Paul Yorck von Wartenburg (4651)along with the ways
the figure is employed in Nietzsches writings and its critical meaning. On the other hand, Gentili
underlines the criticism of culture from the perspective of untimeliness [Unzeitgemheit],
defined in the foreword to the second Untimely in terms of classical philology in our time
as the requirement to actagainst time and thus on the time and hopefully in favor of a coming time (KSA 1, p.247). This notion of untimeliness is articulated in light of the figure of the
genius. Following Humboldts model, Nietzsche claims that a genuine culture is capable of a
unity of artistic style in all expressions of life of a people (KSA 1, p. 274; Gentili, 81). It is in
this context that Gentili places Nietzsches attack on David Strauss, the Bildungsphilisterei and
the historical illness. But Gentili also highlights the importance of a culture that was facing its
Restoration, insofar as it could produce the genius, see history as an instrument for criticism,
and face the contemporary issues that Nietzsche had before him (cf. 102)a background issue of
the third Untimely and the Mahnruf an die Deutschen pamphlet. Gentilis digression relating
style and great style clearly explains the close connection that he sees between Nietzsches
early writings and later works.
In the third chapter, Gentili focuses on the idea of Nietzsche as an Aufklrer, whose supposed
turn would inaugurate a new phase of his thought (123) with Human, All Too Human. Gentili
focuses on two issues here: the function of science and the extent of Nietzsches criticism of morality. In an intensive dialogue with important treatments of the first issue, like Eugen Finks, Gentili
argues that Nietzsches enlightened reconsideration of his earlier positions is less a reversal than
a development (124), insofar as Nietzsche makes an enlightened use of science to show that
metaphysics and religion are mistakes, in anticipation of Adorno and Horkheimers Dialectic of
Enlightenment. In this respect, the influence that scientific works had on Nietzscheespecially
in 1873, but even earlier with Langeinvolves not necessarily a turn, but rather continuity
(143), such that his philosophic and aesthetic-philological interests ran parallel to science (145).
This engagement with science also prepares the ground for Nietzsches attack on morality and for
the intensification of his criticism of culture, whose ultimate form is expressed in Human, All Too
Human, although Gentili insists that this does not mean that this text represents a radical turn (155).
The chapter concludes with Gentilis reflections on the shift from a negative phase to a constructive
philosophy with Dawn and The Gay Science (173).
The fourth chapter, the most dense, complex, and refined of the book, considers Nietzsches
opposition to Christianity. The basis of this opposition is what Gentili calls the mythologizing of
theologythat is, the transformation Nietzsche makes in theology by bestowing on God a history,
to be understood both in the ordinary sense and in the sense of a narrative. Gentilis approach
here (187) is inspired by Hans Blummenbergs Wirklichkeitsbegriff und Wirkungspotential des
Mythos, whose conclusion reveals a paradox: God as a premise of the history of man proves to
be an all-too-human hypothesis that betrays its own origin, namely, that man is the premise of this
06/03/14 10:34 AM
96 Book Reviews
premise (192).1 The freedom of mythologists (196) is employed in Nietzsches criticism of
divinity, Gentili claims, in order to set up the conditions for, among other things, the announcement of the Overman, a drastic humanizing process that follows the same founding event of
the incarnation of the Christian God, the same grounding myth of Christianity (188). Gentilis
analysis of the famous words God is dead! in The Gay Science 125 also employs this notion of
the freedom of mythologists, and provides the theoretical support for him to relate Christianity,
metaphysics, and nihilism. If nihilism is no rupture, but belongs to the Western tradition as its
logic, so that the Western tradition and nihilism are ... synonymous, Christianity is only the final
stage of morality, its completion, the moment in which morality turns against itself and nihilism and
Christianity inevitably end up falling ... into one (204). The death of God also expresses the
self-suppression of truthfulness. In discussing these connections among Christianity, metaphysics,
and nihilism, Gentili also engages closely with Heideggers interpretation, as well as with Hegels.
These theoretical conditions provide the background for Gentilis study of Thus Spoke
Zarathustra;the fifth Evangelium, an analysis that indicates a final abandonment of
[Nietzsches] philological past. Gentili interprets the book in its poetic form and as the completion
of Nietzsches anti-Christianity (223), whose claim prepares the way for the announcement of
the Overman. Concerned with distancing the concept of Overman from any political slogan,
Gentili dialogues with Heidegger and Karl Lwith, and employs the three metamorphoses to
argue that the childs innocence represents the completion of Overman through the eternal return
of the same (238), a concept derived from Zarathustras dialogues, The Vision and the Riddle
and The Convalescent.
The fourth chapter concludes with Gentilis consideration of the aesthetic justification of the
worldwith which man is considered an artist, such that metaphysics, morality, religion, and science are art productsand the opposition between Jesus and Paul. Paul was the first to confer a
historical reality on Christianity, as well as to popularize it, but he was also the first interpreter
Christi to misrepresent the figure of Jesus, such as to convert his own doctrine into a Christianity
for the people. For Gentili, like Fyodor Dostoyevskys idiot, Jesus is an anti-Christian figure,
conveying much more a human praxis of life and an opposition to the abstract truths of theology.
Paradoxically, then, in relation to Pauls doctrine, Jesus would be the first Antichrist (262) and have
no connection with Christianity whatsoever.
The final chapter begins with Nietzsches longing for self-interpretationa longing already
felt in the 1886 introductions, and which culminated in the publishing of Ecce Homo (267)and
arrives at the debate over the collection titled The Will to Power. By emphasizing the posthumous
nature of Nietzsches worka self-portrait that relates well to the concept of Unzeitgemheit
Gentili emphasizes Nietzsches awareness of the incomprehensibility of his philosophy, including his Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the book that Gentili considers the high point of Nietzsches
philosophy (270). The relation between the attempt at self-interpretation and the supposed masterpiece, The Will to Power is introduced by Gentili through Ecce Homo, for there, he claims,
Nietzsche said nothing he had not already said five years earlier through Zarathustras mouth.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the final overcoming of the all-too-human, so that Beyond Good
and Evil, OnGenealogy of Morals, and Twilight of the Idols are tools for the understanding of its
content. In this respect, Zarathustra has the function of a door to the philosophy contained in
The Will to Power.
The chapter proceeds with the explanation of the concept of will to power, beginning with
the history of Elisabeth Frster-Nietzsches compilation and passing to the second NietzscheRenaissance (276) inaugurated by the Colli-Montinari edition. It concludes with an intensive
dialogue with Heidegger, Lwith, Alfred Baeumler, and Karl Jaspers over whether Nietzsche was
a metaphysician or systematic philosopher, and also over the political exploitation of the notion of
will to power. With this, Gentili concludes his discussion of the main question of the book, the
criticism of culture, by considering one of Nietzsches last topics, great politics, in close relation
with his digression about great style in the second chapter (297).
06/03/14 10:34 AM
Book Reviews 97
Gentilis book thus provides an excellent account of Nietzsches most critical concepts, as well
as a very accurate panorama of the reception of his work. Although he refrains from engaging extensively with more recent publications on the topics he discusses, probably owing to the introductory
nature of the book, he presents the various influences on Nietzsche in a manner typical of the Italian
tradition of Nietzsche scholarship, and he also introduces the canonical themes and interpretations of
Nietzsches philosophy such as Heideggers, always using original sources and providing extensive
references to the German-language literature. Now that the book has been translated into German,
it should certainly be translated into other languages as well.
Jorge Luiz Viesenteiner
Universidade Federal do Esprito Santo
jvies@uol.com.br
Note
1. Hans Blummenberg, Wirklichkeitsbegriff und Wirkungspotential des Mythos, in Terror
und Spiel, ed. Manfred Furhmann (Munich: Fink, 1971), 1166.
Jeffrey Church, Infinite Autonomy: The Divided Individual in the Political Thought of G. W. F.
Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011. 270
pp. ISBN: 9780271050751. Cloth, $64.95.
I would venture that there are few greater opportunities for interesting comparative work in the history of philosophy than that granted by Hegel and Nietzsche. This is largely due to the fact that any
careful consideration of the two will eventually lead to questions about the nature of comparative
work itself. Both Hegel and Nietzsche were profoundly concerned with the role that the influence
and legacy of thought could play in the identity of a thinker (her world-historical significance),
and, perhaps more importantly, both were heavily preoccupied with understanding the nature of
difference, identity, and how we understand ourselves in relation to others. If Deleuze, responsible
for the best known comparison of the two, got anything right about Hegel and Nietzsche (and I think
he did), it is that they were opposed on the issue of how to think of opposition itself. For Deleuze,
Hegel was the proponent of a slavish identity that consists in opposition to others; I am who I am
only insofar as I am not you. Deleuzes Nietzsche, on the other hand, was the proponent of noble
self-affirmative and unmediated identity; whether or not I am different from you is irrelevant to
who I am. Though we might not agree with Deleuzes characterization of their differences, both
Nietzsche and Hegel are undoubtedly concerned with the notion that there is a better and a worse way
of thinking about our difference to others. For those who have the courage to take on this difficult
terrain, a Hegel-Nietzsche comparison has the potential not only to tell us something interesting
about two proper names in the modern history of philosophy, but also to raise fundamental questions
about identity, difference, and comparison as such.
Of course, not every interesting comparison of the two need tackle these difficulties, and not every
Hegel-Nietzsche comparison will have such lofty ambitions. There are, at my count, three possible
aims for a good Hegel-Nietzsche comparison: enhance our understanding of either Nietzsche, Hegel,
or both, through a relevantly circumscribed comparison of their work; solve what Daniel Breazeale
(following Karl Jol) dubbed the Hegel-Nietzsche problem (to what extent and in what way are
Nietzsches thought and Hegels thought opposed or reconcilable?); or improve our thought on
aphilosophical issue with the help of a comparison of Nietzsche and Hegels approach to that issue.
Rather ambitiously, Jeffrey Churchs Infinite Autonomy sets out to meet all three of these aims.
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98 Book Reviews
With a focus on how both Hegel and Nietzsche understand individuality, and how both of them
show why individuality is good for us, Church seeks to enhance our understanding of Hegel and
Nietzsches work (particularly their understanding of selfhood, their account of the need individuals
have for communities, and their critique of late-modern politics), show us some of the significant
ways in which the two agree and disagree, and advance a model of individuality that is preferable
to other philosophies of self. These primary claims of the book are argued for most explicitly in the
final chapter (chapter 7), while chapters 1 to 3 and 4 to 6 offer the supporting readings of Hegel and
Nietzsche, respectively. Church attributes to both Hegel and Nietzsche an historical individual
model of selfhood, which consists of three claims: individuality is not an innate property but is
cultivated; it is a standard of the good life; and it is not possible without the right kind of community (34). It is this model of individuality that bears the weight of Infinite Autonomys ambitions:
explaining Hegel and Nietzsches versions of this model will contribute exegetical insight (Ineliciting this shared notion of individuality, this book contributes also to the historical scholarship on
Hegel and Nietzsche; 4), showing the similarities of their historical individual theses will show a
hitherto unacknowledged Hegelianism in Nietzsches work (My aim is to challenge the traditional
account portraying a radical opposition between these two thinkers; 4), and defending the historical
individual model will give us reason to adopt this model over others for consideration in our political
theories (see especially the concluding chapter).
Of Churchs three goals, the book is most likely to satisfy his scholarly aim to advance our understanding of Nietzsche and Hegel, given that most of Infinite Autonomy consists of textual exegesis.
The three chapters on Hegel rely heavily on the Philosophy of Right to reconstruct his criticisms of
a natural theory of individuality (attributed to Hobbes and Locke) and a formal theory of individuality (attributed to Kant and Fichte). Church gives a version of Hegels argument for the constitutive
role of community in fully realized individuality (roughly, the distinctively human individual will
be subject to norms, and community acts as the primary source for contentful norms), and argues
that corporatist political activity is the best way to engage with that community. The three chapters
on Nietzsche attribute to him the view that the distinctively human realization of the will to power
will avoid both brute animality and social conformism by living a noble life in accordance with
self-legislated norms. According to Churchs reading, Nietzsche believes that achieving such a life
would meet the post-Christian task of redeeming mundane suffering, providing reason to live both
for ourselves and for our community without religious support. Church finally maintains that, for
Nietzsche, a state-organized effort to undertake this redemption would be a mistake, and that the
project of becoming a great or noble individual, and thus redeeming suffering without religion, is
therefore to be facilitated by, but not to be achieved by engaging in, politics (thus establishing the
primary difference for Church between Nietzsche and Hegel).
Much of Churchs reading is, I think, uncontroversial. However, when Church does attempt to
engage critically with extant scholarship, he falls short of the mark. Regarding Hegel, Churchs
attempts to respond to the debate between metaphysical and non-metaphysical readings will be
found wanting (especially as Church repeatedly characterizes the metaphysical reading as attributing something spooky to Hegel). Moreover, Churchs reliance on the Philosophy of Right as
the primary statement of Hegels thought on individuality should at least be questioned in light of
William Dudleys work, which has argued persuasively that Hegel himself considered the account
of freedom in the Philosophy of Right as limited and insufficient.1 Regarding Churchs reading of
Nietzsche, much of it consists of claims that are already very familiar: Nietzsche does not advocate a return to unreflective brutishness; Nietzsche thinks that the right kind of life is lived by
aesthetic standards; Nietzsche wants us to organize the chaos within us by following a principle of
narrative unity. As Church himself notes, this last claim in particular echoes a body of literature
that began in 1985 with Nehamas, and has continued in David Owen and Aaron Ridleys work.
Contrary to Churchs scholarly aim of advancing our understanding of Nietzsche, his account of this
well-established reading does not, for the most part, add to this literature.
06/03/14 10:34 AM
Book Reviews 99
Despite the fact that much of Churchs exegesis retreads old ground, there are some moments
of insight in Infinite Autonomy that are worth further consideration. The implicit Hegelianism of
Churchs reading of Nietzsche drives the most interesting claims made in Infinite Autonomy, particularly its emphasis on the normative character of the distinctively human life, and lack of attention to
this issue in the literature means that this point is still in need of such emphasis. Churchs Hegelian
reading of Nietzsche also leads to some more controversial moments, which, although distinctive,
may need further defense. Church claims, for example, that Nietzsches great individuals realize
themselves not just through redeeming their own suffering, but also by redeeming the suffering of
all others. This means, in short, that for Churchs Nietzsche the flourishing of the few requires the
flourishing of the many (see 185). Though the argument for this is somewhat understated by Church,
it is one of the most important of the book, both because it is the most novel element of his reading
and because it could overcome a serious challenge to reconciling Nietzsche and Hegels thought.
Church tells us that Nietzsche believes a society will lift itself out of post-Christian nihilism only
if someone develops herself into a new (non-Christian and non-moral) exemplar for all to follow.
This would be, in Churchs terms, redemption of the community. He infers from this that those
who achieve Nietzsches ideal of fully realized individuality must also achieve this redemption
of a community. But the problem is that this is a questionable inference; though it follows from
Nietzsches thought about what would be best for a society that this society needs a great individual,
it does not follow that the great individual needs a society. Some might insist that the benefits for
a society are at best accidental to the accomplishment of the great individual, and that Nietzsches
ideal of flourishing does not require the redemption of the community.2 At any rate, the Hegelian
elements of Churchs reading result in some controversial claims and would have benefited from
a more detailed defense.
Church also passes over a number of questions about the viability of the theories he attributes
to Nietzsche and Hegel, questions that need to be addressed in order to properly assess the historical individual theory. Would not the corporatist politics advocated by Churchs Hegel reduce
our individuality to impoverished, functional identities? Can realizing my distinctive humanity
really amount to making high-quality bread that bears the trace of [my] identity (104)? And
why should we agree with Churchs Nietzsche when he maintains that achieving greatness means
following a standard of beauty or nobility rather than a moral standard? Church seems to take
for granted that becoming an individual must have nothing to do with being moral, and while
this might accord with Nietzsches view on the matter, Church does not attempt to show why we
should agree. The books second aim is to persuade us of the merits of the historical individual
theory, and Churchs strategy for meeting this aim is to reconstruct the versions of that theory he
finds in Nietzsche and Hegel. However, this strategy can meet that aim only if he can also show
us that we should agree with Nietzsche and Hegel, and the book could do more to convince the
reader of this.
A more detailed defense of Infinite Autonomys controversial moments would also have helped
meet Churchs third aim: to show that Nietzsche is more Hegelian than has been hitherto acknowledged. If the elements of Churchs reading that support this claim are those same elements that are
insufficiently defended, then it is unlikely that any of us who do not already think of Nietzsche as
Hegelian will be persuaded. But it is also unlikely that he can meet this aim given the literature
that has previously attempted to show the affinity between Nietzsche and Hegels thought. Though
Church intends to show us something new about Nietzsches common ground with Hegel, there is
a worry that Infinite Autonomy identifies similarities between the two already covered by Breazeale,
Houlgate, Jurist, and particularly Dudley.3 Church does not situate his reading carefully enough
within literature that has already addressed the Hegel-Nietzsche problem, and his attempt to argue
for a Hegelian reading of Nietzsche particularly lacks any real engagement with the position, put most
forcefully by Deleuze, that [t]here is no possible compromise between Hegel and Nietzsche.4 The
result is a book that claims a distinctive quality in its Hegelian Nietzsche but reaches a conclusion
06/03/14 10:34 AM
100 Book Reviews

similar to that of existing Hegel-Nietzsche comparisons, and in doing so sidesteps the serious
challenges to this conclusion presented by opponents in the literature.
There are, I suggest, good reasons to think that much more would be needed to make a significant
advance on the Hegel-Nietzsche problem and, moreover, good reasons to think that the most
interesting potential here lies not in emphasizing their similarities and reconciling their opposition,
as Church and others have done, but in consideration of their most productive differences. We might
accept that both Hegel and Nietzsche think a fully realized individuality would need communal
norms, and need a community to establish those norms. But Nietzsche would certainly challenge
Hegel to show why this community should be universal, rather than a select elite that serve not just to
constitute the rules of my game, but also to raise that game. Equally, Hegels claims about the need
for the recognition of others might raise questions about the possibility of Nietzsches independent,
untimely philosopher. Perhaps it is the case that considering the hard questions these two philsophers
raise for one another is a more productive way to respond to the Hegel-Nietzsche problem.
Matthew Bennett
University of Essex
mbenneb@essex.ac.uk
Notes
1. William Dudley, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Philosophy: Thinking Freedom (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002).
2. See, for instance, Thomas Hurka, Nietzsche: Perfectionist, in Nietzsche and Morality, ed.
Brian Leiter and Neil Sinhababu (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 931.
3. Daniel Breazeale, The Hegel-Nietzsche Problem, Nietzsche-Studien 4 (1975): 14664;
Stephen Houlgate, Hegel, Nietzsche and the Criticism of Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1986); Eliot Jurist, Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche: Philosophy, Culture and
Agency (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000).
4. Giles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Hugh Tomlinson (New York: Continuum,
1986), 195.
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Abbreviations and Citations of Friedrich

he same citation format is utilized throughout the journal. References to

Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Vol. 45, No. 1, 2014.

Abbreviations and Citations of Friedrich Nietzsches Works

IM = Idyllen aus Messina; translated as Idylls from Messina

On Homuncular Drives and the Structure

The Will to Value versus the Will to Truth

Structure of the Nietzschean Self 3

Structure of the Nietzschean Self 5

commentators have interpreted Nietzschean drives as homunculisubpersonal

Structure of the Nietzschean Self 7

instantiate this concept: we thought that whole persons instantiated selfhood,

The Alleged Conflict between Causal

Structure of the Nietzschean Self 9

Structure of the Nietzschean Self 11

Nietzsches Psychology as a Refinement of Platos

he familiar, clichd picture is this: Nietzsche, the antimetaphysician, versus

Nietzsches Psychology as a Refinement of Platos 13

The Atomistic Need

Nietzsches Psychology as a Refinement of Platos 15

Platonic Reason and the Rule of the Truth Drive

Robinson (1970) says the souls tripartition in terms of drives is introduced. . .

Nietzsches Psychology as a Refinement of Platos 17

Drive to Knowledge, Will to Truth

Nietzsches Psychology as a Refinement of Platos 19

mechanism in the activity of the diligent specialist scholar, or wissenschaftlicher

willtovalue isrequired as a counterpart to the will to truth. (4) Clark and

Nietzsches Psychology as a Refinement of Platos 21

Nietzsche as Kants True Heir?

hat is Nietzsches aim in his celebrated but perplexing book Beyond

Nietzsche as Kants True Heir? 23

uncover the esoteric message underneathis in fact a coherent argument that

and elsewhere, frequently begins his discussions by surveying what philosophers

The True Successor to Kant?

Nietzsche as Kants True Heir? 25

Nevertheless, I do concur with Clark and Dudricks position that Nietzsche

A Kind of (American) Neo-Kantian Naturalism?

Nietzsche as Kants True Heir? 27

Kant-Nietzsche-pragmatism-Kant. At this point we are in danger of going in

Nietzsche as Kants True Heir? 29

Advancing the Agn: Nietzsches Pre-texts

ver since Aristotle cryptically mentioned the

Methodological Obstacles of Esoteric Readings

pre-texts and the Self-Reflexive Will to Truth 33

what Nietzsche stands behind (57) burdens a philosophical interpretation with

living body is a pluralistic organization of competing forces; he even adopted

pre-texts and the Self-Reflexive Will to Truth 35

Beyond False Alternatives

pre-texts and the Self-Reflexive Will to Truth 37

However, my impression is that their fear of postmodernist or antiscientific

pre-texts and the Self-Reflexive Will to Truth 39

the principle of causation. But as contemporaries of Nietzsche such as Ernst

pre-texts and the Self-Reflexive Will to Truth 41

JOURNAL OF NIETZSCHE STUDIES, Vol. 45, No. 1, 2014.

The Problem of Identifying Apollo

JOURNAL OF NIETZSCHE STUDIES, Vol. 45, No. 1, 2014.

A Standard Reading of Apollo

In moving from dream to sculpture by way of illusion, Nietzsche has l iterary

Where Nietzsche Misrepresents Apollo

Apollo and the Communicative Sculpture

How Nietzsche Uses the Apollo of Surfaces

Prescribing Positivism: The Dawn

ietzsche opens D with the ironic image of a subterranean man who

IM = Idyllen aus Messina; translated as Idylls from Messina