Socrates (16 page)

the real antithesis – the
degenerated
instinct which turns against life with subterranean vengeance. . . and a formula of
supreme affirmation
born out of fullness, of superfluity, an affirmation without reservation even of suffering, even of guilt . . . This ultimate, joyfullest, boundlessly exuberant Yes to life is not only the highest insight, it is also the
profoundest
, the insight most strictly confirmed and maintained by truth and knowledge . . . Recognition, affirmation of reality is for the strong man as great a necessity as is for the weak man, under the inspiration of weakness, cowardice and
flight
in the face of reality – the ‘ideal’ . . . They are not at liberty to know:
décadents need
the lie – it is one of the conditions of their existence – He who not only understands the word ‘dionysian’ but understands
himself
in the word ‘dionysian’ needs no refutation of Plato or of Christianity or of Schopenhauer –
he smells the decomposition
.

(80)
¹⁴

The language of sickness and decomposition takes up the theme of the essay on Socrates in
The Twilight of the Idols
, written earlier that year. Nietzsche begins with Socrates’ last words, which he interprets as an expression of thanks for release from the sickness of life (see above). But the world-weariness which this expresses is itself the sickness from which Socrates suffers along with all so-called sages who theorize about morality and value.

‘Here at any rate there must be something
sick
’ – this is
our
retort: one ought to take a closer look at them, those wisest of every age! . . . Does
wisdom perhaps appear on earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

(39)
¹⁵

Socrates and Plato are ‘symptoms of decay . . . agents of the dissolution of Greece. . . pseudo-Greek . . . anti-Greek’, in that their theorizing involves a negative attitude to life, in opposition to the triumphant affirmation of the Dionysian man with whom Nietzsche has identified himself.

But Nietzsche does not stop at the characterization of Socrates as a typical (perhaps the archetypal)
décadent
; in five astonishing sections (3–7) he mounts a ferocious attack on the individual personality of Socrates, in terms expressive of a loathsome snobbishness which even slips into anti-Semitism. Socrates belonged to the lowest social class: he was riff-raff. His ugliness was a symptom of a foul and dissolute temperament. Was he even a Greek at all? Dialectic is a malicious device by which the rabble defeat their betters, people of finer taste and better manners. It is a weapon of last resort in the hands of those who have no other defence. (That is why the Jews were dialecticians.) Socrates was a buffoon who got himself taken seriously.

Reading this stuff with hindsight, in the knowledge of Nietzsche’s imminent breakdown, one is inclined to dismiss it as pathological raving. Yet this violence, pathological though it may be, is itself an expression of Nietzsche’s deep ambivalence towards Socrates. In section 8 he says that what has gone before indicates the way in which Socrates could repel, which makes it all the more necessary to explain his fascination. So sections 3–7 present an adverse reaction to Socrates, leaving it ambiguous how far Nietzsche himself shares it. In some sense, no doubt, the reaction is his, but then so is what follows. The grotesque caricature of those sections is counterbalanced by a dignified portrait of Socrates as someone who attempted, misguidedly indeed, but seriously and with benevolent intent, to cure the ills of his
age by subjecting the dangerous Dionysian impulses to the control of reason. Nietzsche does not withdraw his negative evaluation; Socrates ‘seemed to be a physician, a saviour’, but his faith in rationality at any cost was error and self-deception: ‘Socrates was a misunderstanding:
the entire morality of improvement, the Christian included, has been a misunderstanding
.’ Yet the change of voice is most striking, and the return to the theme of Socrates’ death in the final section has a genuinely elegiac tone:

Did he himself grasp that [sc.
that so long as life is ascending, happiness and instinct are one
], this shrewdest of all self-deceivers? Did he at last say that to himself in the
wisdom
of his courage for death? . . . Socrates
wanted
to die – it was not Athens, it was
he
who handed himself the poison cup, who compelled Athens to hand him the poison cup . . . ‘Socrates is no physician,’ he said softly to himself: ‘death alone is a physician here . . . Socrates himself has only been a long time sick . . .’.

(44)

Even to the end, it appears, Nietzsche fought against Socrates because he was so close to him.

Chapter 6
Conclusion

Every age has to recreate its own Socrates. What is his significance for a post-Christian, post-idealist epoch for whom neither the figure of a precursor of Christ nor that of the embodiment of the world-spirit in its development of a higher form of consciousness has any meaning? One answer is to view his significance historically, as a pioneer of systematic ethical thought, as a central influence on Plato, as the focus of Socratic literature, and so on. But the historical importance of Socrates, unquestionable though it is, does not exhaust his significance, even for a secular, non-ideological age such as ours. As well as a historical person and a literary persona, Socrates is in many ways an exemplary figure, a figure which challenges, encourages, and inspires. To take the most obvious instance, Socrates still presents a challenge to those whose way into philosophy, and more generally into systematic critical thinking, is via the Socratic dialogues. Even in a world where the study of the ancient classics has lost its cultural pre-eminence, many find that those dialogues, whose comparative absence of technicality and conversational vividness draw the reader into his or her own dialogue with the text, provide the best introduction to philosophy. Again, virtually everyone whose business is teaching finds some affinity with the Socratic method of challenging the student to examine his or her beliefs, to revise them in the light of argument, and to arrive at answers through critical reflection on the information presented. But the critical method is no mere pedagogical strategy; it is, in real life as
much as in the Socratic dialogues, a method of self-criticism. The slogan ‘The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being’ (Pl.
Apol
. 38a) expresses a central human value, partly constitutive of integrity: namely, the willingness to rethink one’s own assumptions, and thereby to reject the standing tendency to complacent dogmatism. Carried to excess, self-examination can be paralyzing, but Socrates stands as an example of a life in which it is a positive force on a heroic scale, since it produces the confidence to adhere, come what may, to those ideals which have withstood the test of self-criticism. As long as intellectual and moral integrity are human ideals, Socrates will be an appropriate exemplar of them.

References

1
.
A History of Greek Philosophy
, iii (Cambridge, 1969), 372.

2
. See Pl.
Gorg
. 473e, with commentary by E. R. Dodds,
Plato
Gorgias (Oxford, 1959), 247–8.

3
. For details see J. Barnes, ‘Editor’s Notes’,
Phronesis
, 32 (1987), 325–6.

4
. For details see P. A. Vander Waerdt, ‘Socratic Justice and Self-Sufficiency: The Story of the Delphic Oracle in Xenophon’s
Apology of Socrates’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy
, 11 (1993), 1–48.

5
. For a useful summary of the evidence see C. H. Kahn,
Plato and the Socratic Dialogue
(Cambridge, 1996), ch. 2.

6
. I argue briefly for this general claim in
Plato
, Protagoras (2nd edn.; Oxford, 1991), pp. xiv–xvi, and more fully for specific instances of it in ch. 4 of this volume.

7
. The objection is urged by G. Vlastos in ‘Socrates on “The Parts of Virtue”’, in his
Platonic Studies
(2nd edn.; Princeton, NJ, 1981).

8
. The example is borrowed from T. C. Brickhouse and N. D. Smith,
Plato’s Socrates
(New York and Oxford, 1994), 69–71.

9
. For further information see I. Alon,
Socrates in Mediaeval Arabic Literature
(Leiden and Jerusalem, 1991).

10
.
Lectures on the History of Philosophy
, tr. E. S. Haldane (London, 1982).

11
.
The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates
, tr. H. V. Hong and E. H. Hong (Princeton, NJ, 1989).

12
.
Concluding Unscientific Postscript
, tr. D. F. Swenson and W. Lowrie (Princeton, NJ, 1941).

13
.
The Birth of Tragedy
, tr. W. Kaufmann (New York, 1967).

14
.
Ecce Homo
, tr. R. J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth, 1992).

15
.
The Twilight of the Idols
, tr. R. J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth, 1990).

Further Reading

Ancient Sources

All the dialogues of Plato cited in this book are available in numerous English translations. The most accessible translation of the Socratic writings of Xenophon is that by H. Tredennick and R. Waterfield,
Xenophon, Conversations of Socrates
in Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth, 1990), which has an excellent introduction and notes. The Socratic works are also available as part of the Loeb Classical Library edition of Xenophon (Greek with facing English translation),
Memorabilia
and
Oeconomicus
translated by E. C. Marchant (London and New York, 1923),
Symposium
and
Apology
translated by O. J. Todd (London and Cambridge, Mass., 1961). Diogenes Laertius’
Lives of the Philosophers
is also available in the Loeb edition (2 vols., tr. R. D. Hicks (Cambridge, Mass., 1925)). Aristophanes’
Clouds
is translated by B. B. Rogers (London, 1916 (repr. 1924 as part of the complete Loeb edition of Aristophanes)) and by W. Arrowsmith (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1962). The edition of the play by K. J. Dover (Oxford, 1968, abridged edn., 1970) contains a comprehensive introduction which is very useful even to those who have no Greek.

Most of the fragments of the minor Socratic writers are available in Greek only; the standard edition is that by G. Giannantoni,
Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae
, 4 vols. (Naples, 1991). The principal fragments of Aeschines are translated in G. C. Field,
Plato and his Contemporaries
(London, 1930), ch. 11.

J. Ferguson,
Socrates, A Source Book
(London, 1970) contains a comprehensive collection of passages of ancient works (in English translation) referring to Socrates.

Modern Works

The modern literature on Socrates is vast. T. C. Brickhouse and N. D. Smith,
Socrates on Trial
(Oxford, 1989) contains a useful guide to it (pp. 272–316). This note restricts itself to major works in English.

Comprehensive Survey

Guthrie, W. K. C.,
A History of Greek Philosophy
, iii, part 2 (Cambridge, 1969). Published separately 1971 under title
Socrates
.

Biography

Taylor, A. E.,
Varia Socratica
(Oxford, 1911).

Critical and Analytical Works Concentrating on Plato’s Presentation of Socrates

Brickhouse, T. C. and Smith, N. D.,
Plato’s Socrates
(New York and Oxford, 1994).

Irwin, T.,
Plato’s Ethics
(New York and Oxford, 1995), chs. 1–9.

Santas, G. X.,
Socrates
(London, Boston, and Henley, 1979).

Vlastos, G., Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge, 1991).

——,
Socratic Studies
(ed. M. Burnyeat) (Cambridge, 1994).

Works on Socrates’ Trial

Brickhouse, T. C. and Smith, N. D.,
Socrates on Trial
(Oxford, 1989). A heavy work of scholarship.

Stone, I. F.,
The Trial of Socrates
(London, 1988). A lively presentation, unreliable in places.

Collections of Articles

Benson, H. H. (ed.),
Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates
(New York and Oxford, 1992).

Gower, B. S. and Stokes, M. C. (eds.),
Socratic Questions
(London and New York, 1992).

Prior, W. T. (ed.),
Socrates
, 4 vols. (London and New York, 1996). A comprehensive collection.

Vlastos, G. (ed.),
The Philosophy of Socrates
(Garden City, NY, 1971).

Works on Socratic Literature

Kahn, C. H.,
Plato and the Socratic Dialogue
(Cambridge, 1996), chs. 1–4.

Rutherford, R. B.,
The Art of Plato
(London, 1995).

Vander Waerdt, P. A., (ed.),
The Socratic Movement
(Ithaca, NY and London, 1994).