Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 21:35:54 -0700
From: Steve Callihan <callihan-AT-callihan.seanet.com>
Subject: Re: "Platonism for the Masses"


At 10:50 AM 8/6/98 +0100, Laurence Paul Hemming wrote:

>I wonder if anyone might be good enough to help me track down a reference of
>Heidegger's to Nietzsche.
>
>On page 80 of the Niemeyer edition of GA40 (Einfuehrung in die Metaphysik)
>Heidegger quotes Nietzsche, saying "Nieztsche sagt daher mit Recht:
>Christentum ist Platonismus fuers Volk" (Therefore Nietzsche rightly says:
>Christianity is Platonism for the masses").
>
>My Nietzsche is a bit rusty.  Does anyone know where Heidegger is quoting
>from?  I would be grateful for either a German or an English reference.

Is is from Nietzsche's Preface to Beyond Good and Evil:

"But the fight against Plato or, to speak more clearly and for "the
people," the fight against the Christian-ecclesiastical pressure of
millenia -- for Christianity is Platonism for 'the people' [_Platonismus
f=FCrs =ABVolke=BB_] -- has created in Europe a magnificent tension of the spirit
the like of which had never yet existed on earth: with so tense a bow we
can now shoot for the most distant goals."

I seem to recall that the phrase occurs somewhere else as well, but may be
mistaken.

Steve C.





     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---