File spoon-archives/nietzsche.archive/nietzsche_1998/nietzsche.9801, message 10


From: "John T. Duryea" <jtduryea-AT-dmv.com>
Subject: Nietzsche and Rationalism
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 08:50:03 -0600


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Twilight of the Idols, 10:

"If one needs to make a tyrant of reason, as Socrates did, then
there must exist no little danger of something else playing the
tyrant. Rationality was at that time divined as a saviour; neither
Socrates nor his 'invalids' were free to be rational or not, as
they wished- it was de rigueur, it was their last expedient. The
fanaticism with which the whole of Greek thought throws
itself at rationality betrays a state of emergency; one was in
peril, one had only one choice: either to perish or - be absurdly
rational... The moralism of the Greek philosophers from
Plato downwards is pathologically conditioned: likewise their
estimation of dialectics. Reason = virtue = happiness means
merely: one must imitate Socrates and counter dark desires
by producing a permanent daylight - the daylight of reason.
One must be prudent, clear, bright at any cost: every yielding
to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads downwards..."

I wonder if Nietzsche is not criticising here the entire European
"Enlightenment", including Darwin and Marx among others?
With the Imperium, philosophy, as such, disappears.

John T. Duryea

HTML VERSION:

Twilight of the Idols, 10:
 
"If one needs to make a tyrant of reason, as Socrates did, then
there must exist no little danger of something else playing the
tyrant. Rationality was at that time divined as a saviour; neither
Socrates nor his 'invalids' were free to be rational or not, as
they wished- it was de rigueur, it was their last expedient. The
fanaticism with which the whole of Greek thought throws
itself at rationality betrays a state of emergency; one was in
peril, one had only one choice: either to perish or - be absurdly
rational... The moralism of the Greek philosophers from
Plato downwards is pathologically conditioned: likewise their
estimation of dialectics. Reason = virtue = happiness means
merely: one must imitate Socrates and counter dark desires
by producing a permanent daylight - the daylight of reason.
One must be prudent, clear, bright at any cost: every yielding
to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads downwards..."
 
I wonder if Nietzsche is not criticising here the entire European
"Enlightenment", including Darwin and Marx among others?
With the Imperium, philosophy, as such, disappears.
 
John T. Duryea
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