Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols, UC Davis Philosophy 1, G. J. Mattey

Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols
UC Davis Philosophy 1
G. J. Mattey

Twilight of the Idols Philosophy 1 Spring, 2002 G. J. Mattey	Friedrich Nietzsche Born 1844 From Germany Of poor health Professor of Classics, University of Basel (1869-1879) Friend, then enemy, of Richard Wagner Became insane in 1899 Died 1900
Nietzsche's Contributions Delivered a radical critique of the practice of Western philosophy since Socrates Declared the death of God and celebrated the eternal recurrence of all things Argued for the affirmation of life Understood human behavior in terms of attempting to enhance ones power Endorsed "noble" values and condemned pity for the weak Claimed that there are only perspectives and that there is no "real" world	Devaluing Life The wisest sages through the ages have had a negative attitude toward life Socrates proclaimed living to be a sickness that lasts a long time Is there something true in this attitude? Or does the attitude indicate something about the "wisest sages" who have it?
Declining Types Nietzsche hit on the thesis that the great wise men are declining types when researching Greek tragedy Socrates and Plato are symptoms of the decline of Greek culture The value-judgments made by philosophers cannot be true They are only symptoms of the condition of those who make them That condition has been one of decline	Socrates Socrates was ugly, and ugliness is a symptom of a decadent personality This can be seen in several ways He admitted containing the bad vices and inclinations within him His use of logic was over-developed He was nasty He hallucinated the voice of a god He is an exaggeration, but beneath this is a dark underside
Morality For Socrates, reason = virtue = happiness This formula has been adopted by most of subsequent moral philosophy But it is "the most bizarre equation that there is" How did it arise from Socratess character?	Dialectic Socrates made people take dialectic, before considered disrespectable, seriously But dialectic is a resource of last resort, creating distrust and not convincing lastingly Perhaps dialectic was a form of revenge Socrates puts the burden of proof on the opponent and makes him look foolish
Rationality Socrates claimed to have mastered his many dark cravings The role of rationality is to play the tyrant against instinctive drives This explains the fanatical devotion to rationality after Socrates The condition of Greek culture was that of an anarchical play of conflicting drives	Futility The equation of virtue and happiness with reason is supposed to provide a bulwark against the dark forces But it is doomed to failure, as hyper-rationality is just another sickness "As long as life is ascending, happiness is the same as instinct" Socrates's suicide confirms that rationality is no cure for the underlying sickness of decadence
Conceptual Mummies Philosophers have de-historicized the concepts with which they deal This takes the life from them and makes them conceptual mummies In particular, there is a prejudice against becoming and in favor of being This goes hand-in-hand with the degradation of the senses and the body	The Lie Apart from Heraclitus, philosophers have perpetuated the lie of "unity," "thinghood," "substance," "duration" Reason adds the "true world" to the "apparent" world, which we know well through the senses Natural science accepts what is given to the senses and sharpens it Formal sciences have nothing to do with reality
God Philosophy has promoted as the "highest" concepts those that are most universal and empty The good The true The perfect God, as the most real being, is the thinnest concept of all	Language Error results from the prejudice of reason Reason derives its categories of reality from language Reflecting the subject-verb structure of sentences, reason finds a world of substantial actors and their actions It finds certitude in its categories of substance, etc., and infers from this a divine origin "I'm afraid were not rid of God because we still believe in grammar"
Four Theses The "apparent" world only is real, and no other reality can be demonstrated The distinguishing marks of "true being" are the same as those of "nothing" Only revenge against this life causes us to fantasize another world The real/apparent dichotomy is a sign of decadence	The End of the "Real World" In Plato, the "real world" is thought attainable to the wise and virtuous In Christianity, its attainment is delayed In Kant, it becomes merely a consolation In positivism, it becomes pointless Finally its existence is denied If there is no real world, there is no apparent world either
The Passions We act stupidly from our passions The religious/philosophical response is to destroy the passions and more generally, life itself Spiritualization of sensuality into love is a great triumph Another is the spiritualization of enmity We need opposition to function properly	Healthy Morality All healthy morality is ruled by an instinct for life Unhealthy morality is anti-life, and in religion it makes God an enemy of life But the revolt against life is built on a lie Those who valuate life are living beings Those who deny life do so as a response to the condition of life, one of decline "Immoralists" affirm the many types of life
Confusing Effect with Cause This error is the genuine ruination of reason It bears the names "religion" and "morality" E.g., believing that a skimpy diet promotes health, when health promotes a skimpy diet In morality Virtue is the effect of happiness, not its cause, Vice is the effect of degeneracy, not its cause	False Causality Philosophers have held that the "I" has a "will" which causes actions based on antecedent motives But the "will" and the motive are mere surface phenomena of consciousness, and the "I" is a fiction "Things" are just projections of these "internal facts" This is how Kant found in "things" just what the "mind" puts in them The error also accounts for our belief in God
Imaginary Causes In our dreams, we think of our motives as causes of our thoughts But instead, they are merely the occasion of the revival of previous thoughts In the case of our common feelings, we demand a cause in something familiar, to soothe ourselves This excludes taking the alien as cause, even when it should be It is the foundation of morality and religion: bad feelings are from vice and good ones from virtue	Free Will "Free will" is a device of theologians to make people feel "responsible" Responsibility needs to be imputed for the purposes of domination and punishment So, each act had to be thought of as being the result of freely willing it "Immoralists" seek to banish the concepts of guilt and punishment Nobody is responsible for peoples qualities: not us, and not an alleged God
The Greeks Plato was an over-moralized "exalted swindle" who was really decadent His "ideal" of "the Good" is the stepping stone to Christianity, and alien to ancient Greek culture Courage in the face of reality, found in Thucydides the historian, best represents the hard factuality of the older Greeks	Dionysis The Platonic ideal of self-control represents that part of the Greek culture represented by Apollo Opposed to this is the explosive sensualism of the cult of Dionysis This cult celebrates all of life, especially sexuality, and even the pain of giving birth It is the basis of tragic poetry, which celebrates by destroying the highest types

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