Nietzsche’s
immensely valuable, yet ridiculously little-known opus on pre-Socratic
philosophy, bearing the title Philosophy
During the Tragic Age of the Greeks, closes with an important summary on
the pessimism of the pre-Socratic Greek thought while introducing Socrates
ushering in an era of unartistic quasi-religious optimism of a very special
kind. Here is that sketchy concluding passage from Nietzsche’s 1873 work. Nietzsche's text is in blue; my comments are in red:
Greek thought during the tragic age is
pessimistic or artistically optimistic. Their judgment about life implies more.
(Artistic
optimism is surely the most beautiful kind of optimism. Can we call it also
“aesthetic optimism”? May there be art eternal, and may the devil take a life
without art. In other words, it is “life
for art’s sake, and there is nothing wrong with that… or is there? At least
such an attitude justifies and exonerates pessimism as such. Now, does Nietzsche have in mind Schopenhauerian pessimism, somehow
equating it to the artless pessimism of the pre-Socratics? It is most
likely that such a thought had indeed
crossed his mind, but he is not too eager to substantiate it by moving in this
direction…)
The One, flight from the Becoming. Aut unity,
aut artistic play. (Either God or Art? I would not
put it this way. But I am ready to agree, if Nietzsche has it in mind, that art
as unity and immortality, as being, rather than becoming, is either an
alternative, or more likely a complement to God, whereas our flight from Becoming
is indeed our flight from the transitoriness and frustrating mortality of life.)
Deep distrust of reality: nobody assumes a
good god, who has made everything optime. (Is it a distrust or merely fear of life ending
in death? See how brilliantly Nietzsche reminds us that in our distrust, or
fear, we refuse to give credit to God for making the world in the best possible
way. In other words, our fear of life, or our fear of death, is greater than
our trust in the goodness of God…)
Democritus : the world without moral and
aesthetic meaning, pessimism of chance. (Say no to the science and the philosophy of
teleology, or even etiology, for that matter. This is by no means Democritus
alone, he just happened to be the first to start thinking in that direction…)
If one placed a tragedy before all these, the
three former would see in it the mirror of the fatality of existence,
Parmenides a transitory appearance, Heraclitus and Anaxagoras an artistic
edifice and image of the world-laws, Democritus the result of machines. (Very provocative and
very complicated, as there is a lot in it hidden under the obvious surface. I
want to explore Nietzsche’s angle on this and on all of these at a later, more
opportune time.)
With Socrates Optimism begins, an optimism no
longer artistic, with teleology and faith in the good god; faith in the
enlightened good man. Dissolution of the instincts. (In other words, Socrates
is the father of… Christian teleology?! At any rate, I disagree with Nietzsche
who denies irrationalism [instinct] to Socrates. I also think that in some
other places of Nietzsches Werke, Nietzsche
surely too, disagrees with this his own evaluation of both Socratic rationalism
and the absence of parallel irrationalism… Let me think more about it at
another time…)
Socrates breaks with the hitherto prevailing
knowledge and culture; he intends returning to the old citizen-virtue and to
the State. (Socrates the totalitarian statist? Welcome!)
Plato dissociates himself from the State, when
he observes that the State has become identical with the new Culture. (Plato the totalitarian
anti-statist? I don’t think so! But Nietzsche’s point is very well taken. There
is a State and a State, a good State and a bad State. Disassociating himself
from the bad State, Plato creates his Politeia…)
The Socratic skepticism is a weapon against
the hitherto prevailing culture and knowledge. (No wonder in that case that Plato was
a follower of Socrates: they were both fighters against the bad State! Which
brings us to this key general point: not every fighter against the State is an
anti-statist or an anarchist. Some of the fighters are actually more consistent
totalitarians and statists than any of the defenders of the bad State. An
exceptionally deep thought, with numerous earth-shaking repercussions…)
I
shall be providing even more commentary on this fascinating passage in the time
to come…
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