“…do not mind whether the teachers of philosophy are good or bad, but think only of philosophy herself. Try and examine her well and truly, and if she be evil seek to turn away all men from her…but if she be what I believe that she is, then follow her and serve her…” -Socrates
“There are no philosophies, only philosophers.” -Nietzsche
Nietzsche aimed a lot of his philosophical wrath at Socrates, in various ways. Maybe I will do a post about that at some point (especially how Nietzsche viewed dialectics, the most Socratic thing, as the ultimate wretchedness). But for this post I just want to pose those two quotes above against each other, because I think it sets up a crucial distinction between them.
The first quote by Socrates is the very last line in the dialogue Euthydemus. In that dialogue, Socrates talks to two sophists (wisdom merchants), Euthydemus and Dionysodorus. They are extremely skilled at rhetorical tricks, argumentative skills, and so on. They are verbally dazzling and can out-talk anyone, even Socrates himself. At the end of the dialogue, Socrates is kind of doing a post-mortem about all of it with his good friend, Crito, and he says the quote above: “do not mind whether the teachers of philosophy are good or bad, but think only of philosophy herself.” Basically, he is admitting that Euthydemus and Dionysodorus were douchebags (does anyone use that term anymore? They should!), but that just because they suck, it doesn’t mean that you should judge all of philosophy along with them. He says to think only of philosophy itself, and not of the individual teachers of philosophy. Philosophy should be thought of as an objective thing over and above the people who do it—philosophy is more important than philosophers.
Nietzsche takes the exact opposite viewpoint. As the quote above says: “There are no philosophies, only philosophers.” This means that every philosophy not only should be judged by the philosopher who creates it—but it can only be judged that way. The idea that there can be an objective, free-floating philosophy, in the way that Socrates thought, makes no sense for Nietzsche.
For Nietzsche, philosophy must be painfully and carefully brought into this world by individuals. It doesn’t simply exist out there in the world as something to do, as Socrates thought.
So philosophy is brought into the world by individuals, and it can be for good or bad reasons. Weakness and resentment may often be at the root of why a philosopher creates a philosophy—in Nietzsche’s view this was all too often the case! Even in his own philosophy, this was probably the case (I think he would admit that, and he struggled against it—it was why he was so obsessed with strength, joy, etc.).
The problem is that philosophies created by philosophers for negative reasons (weakness, resentment, hate, etc.) are so much more interesting—or at least better able to avoid banality. The territory of negativity is so vast and rich—so much to explore in the world of pessimism, cynicism, etc. Nietzsche’s own philosophy is usually described this way, although there is perhaps growing awareness that he prioritized lightness and joy as well.
The paradox of all of this is that a positive person, joyful and light in spirit, would hardly be compelled to bring a philosophy into the world at all. So perhaps Socrates’ view, that we should ignore philosophers and focus on philosophy itself, is correct—philosophy enters the world through philosophers, never for good reasons, yet that doesn’t mean that philosophy itself is always bad. Nietzsche, always focused on individuals, and material circumstances through which things come into being in the world, could never separate concepts from their material origin—everything always got dragged down into the mud for him, despite his talk about lightness, joy, and positivity.
This is the weird challenge of Nietzsche—to be a strict materialist, who looks the reality of the world in the face at every moment, and never indulges in ethereal mystification—yet to never become heavy in the course of doing all that. Nietzsche’s enemy is gravity—the spirit of heaviness—yet he was also a materialist. How to be a materialist who overcomes gravity…that’s the ultimate riddle…
by grace alone