NIETZSCHE ON TRAGEDY AND SOCRATES

C.C. Evangeliou

Towson University, USA

Abstract

Socrates appears to have been the perpetual target of

Nietzsche 's manie critique. His accusation of Socrates as
ultimately responsible for the untimely death of Greek tragedy
acquires both comic aspects and tragic proportions, surrounded
as it is by his speculative and mytho-poetic account of the genesis
of Greek tragedy and the addition al prophesy of its destined
rebirth in romantic Germany. Although he acknowledges the
Soera tic irony and Socrates' sen se of humour, Nietzsche feels
that he can identify Socrates' dialectic tricks in order to discern
and disclose the dangerous essence of Socratism and its
corrupting effect on noble Plato. While admiring Nietzsche 's vision
and power of the will as a classical philologist with philosophical
pretensions, he is to be held accountable for his non-philosophical
treatment of Socrates.

1.lntroduction

The Anglo-American philosophical establishment does not seem to

have taken Nietzsche seriously as a philosopher. 1 Nietzsche,
however, spoke of the need for a new "Dionysiac philosophy," and
for philosophers of ua new type." He dreamed that the
"philosophers of the future" will live and think guided by the quest
not of "truth," to be hunted down by "Socratic dialectic," th at issues
happily in "Socratic serenity" and "decadence," but of what he

1 In spite of Professor Danto's effort, it appears that those philosophers,

whose fixed conception of philosophy is that of an analytic discipline of the logic
and language of science, have ignored Nietzsche. Danto believed that, by deep
and perspective reading of his works, Nietzsche could al most emerge "as a
systematic as weil as an original and analytical thinker," but he had to confess
that "Nietzsche has seldom been treated as a philosopher at all, and never, I
think, from the perspective, which he shared to some degree, of contemporary
analytical philosophy." Nietzsche as Philosopher (New Vork: Columbia
University Press, 1965), p. 13.

18 c.c. EV ANGELIOU
poetically called "tragic wisdom," expressed in Dionysiac dance and
"ecstasy."
Nietzsche should be taken seriously, in my view, for two
reasons: first because of his claim th at he has something new, and
philosophically important, to say about the destiny of man and the
possibility of a higher culture of more suitable "values" for the
tougher world of modern science and technology. Secondly,
because in all his writings, from beginning to end, Nietzsche made
what he eonsidered as the philosophers of "deeadenee," Soerates
and Plato in particular, the target of a sustained merciless critique.
His seorn and ridicule of Socratic rationalism and Platonie idealism
is equal to the one he had used on Christianity which, in his
estimate, is merely a vulgarized and deformed Platonism of and for
the masses. Given his influence on shaping the culture of the 20lh
century, he must be taken seriously as the "immoral" thinker and
judged aceordingly.
It would seem that among serious Nietzsehe scholars,
especially among Ameriean specialists, there are those who, like
Walter Kaufmann,2 want to see Nietzsche as "an admirer of
Socrates." Others, like Alexander Nehamas 3 and Werner
Dannhauser,4 prefer to interpret him as holding an "ambiguous" and

2 Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychoiogist, Antichrist, 3rd

edition, ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968). Chapter Thirteen is
characteristically titled "Nietzsche's Admiration of Socrates" and contrasts
nicely, but somehow ridiculously, with t he previous chapter t itled " Nietzsche's
Repudiation of Christ." The fact is th at Nietzsche carefully distinguishes
Christianity from Christ, and although he repudiates organized Christianity and
its founder. For him, this was not Christ but Paul! See, The Will to Power, W.
Kaufmann and P. J. Hollingdale, trans., (New York: Random House, 1968),
Sections 150-176.
3 Alexander N ehamas, Nietzsche: Lie as L iterature (Harvard University
Press, 1985), p. 30, characterizes Nietzsche's attitude towards Socrates as
"irreducibly ambivalent," yet he a sserts t hat "Nietzsche's project is essentially
similar to and overlaps the project of Socrates" (p. 25). I suspect that Socrates
would bes urprised to hear t hat he had a "project." N ietzsche, too, would be
equally surprised to be told that his "project" was similar to the Socratic
"project," since for him "Socrates represents a moment of the profoundest
perversity in the history of values." (WP, sec. 430) He struggled all his life to
project a "value system," which he considered anti-Socratic, anti-Platonic, and
anti-Christian. For F. A. Lea, Nietzsche's "ambivalent attitude" is rather towards
Plato: ''For some things he admired him above all philosophers; for others he
detested him." The Tragic Philosopher (London: Methuen, 1957), p. 273.
4 Nietzsche's View of Socrates, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974).
Dannhauser, like Nehamas, claims that "Nietzsche's image of Socrates, toa, is
ambiguous" (p. 20). Yet, again like Nehamas, he aspires to articulate "This
[Nietzsche's] strange kinship with Socrates, which persists through the most

PHRONfMON2003 (1) 19
"complex" attitude towards the Athenian philosopher. In my non-
specialist reading of his texts, Nietzsche's opposition to Socrates
and Plato, and what he took them to represent "philosophically,"
appears clear, sustained, unambiguous and perfectly justified in light
of the "Sophist culture" and the "anti-Socratic values," which he had
chosen to espouse, defend and promote all his life. This
fundamental opposition should be considered carefully and judged
judiciously, if we want to understand correctly his urgent call for "the
revaluation of all values" and his ultimate appeal to the art of poetry,
especially the "tragic wisdom" of Classical Greek Tragedy. In this
paper, I will attempt to establish and provide ample textual support
for the thesis of the ethical opposition of Nietzsche and Socrates as
seen by the former.

2. Nietzsche as the New Accuser of Socrates

To the rule of general admiration and honor of the historie Socrates,

as expressed in the writings of men of letters, Greeks, Romans,
Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Americans, etc., there are two
notabie exceptions, Aristophanes of Athens and Nietzsche. For
these two "skeptics," Socrates is not an Athenian Achilles, the new
hero of the old Hellenic virtue (arete); nor is he the true philosopher,
as he was for Plato and Xenophon, for Crito and Cicero, and so
many other philosophers later. On the contrary, to the satirical mind
of the author of The Clouds, Socrates seemed to personify the
critical and destructive "new spirit" of Greek pedagogy, whose
constant questioning in the quest of truth knew of no limit.
Aristophanes was writing in the midst of the general misery of the
disastrous Peloponnesian war, which had seen the old ethical
traditions fading away, under the daily pressures of disease and
death. Thus he attempted to show, in his witty plays, the deleterious
effects th at the new education, the Sophistic teaching, had on the
morality of society and the Athenian youth in particular. Unfairly and
unfortunately, it would seem to us with the hindsight of millennia,
making apparently excessive use of his poetic license, Aristophanes
associated Socrates with the Sophistic turn that the pedagogy of his

extreme substantive opposition" (p. 26). But he is right on target regarding

Kaufmann's book: "Moreover, it is disappointing that in a book that is an
invitation to read Nietzsche, Kaufmann makes him seem a less shocking, but
also less fascinating, thinker than he really is" (p. 41). With this judgment, 1 fully
agree.

20 C.C. EV ANGELIOU
times had taken, and made him the target of his merciless satire in
The Clouds. 5
However, we should not forget that Aristophanes' real target
was the "sophistic rhetoric" of Protagoras, Gorgias and the other
Sophists, who were active in Athens at that time. 6 In light of the
reliable accounts of Plato's and Xenophon's, there is no doubt that
Socrates opposed courageously the declared skepticism and the
ethical relativism of the Sophists, that was undermining the
foundations of the Athenian custom-based morality. In this regard
Aristophanes, the contemporary Athenian playwright, differs
radically from Nietzsche, the German writer of the 19th century, as
an accuser of Socrates. Nietzsche's merciless attack on "Socrates,"
about two and a half millennia later, appears as much less
excusable than Aristophanes' attack. Vet it is not less tragicomic, as
we will see bellow.
As a German thinker and writer, Nietzsche is clearly
exceptional in several ways including his aphoristic and provocative
style of writing, his usually contradictory and mostly incoherent way
of thinking, and his critical and accusatory tone against many
distinguished personalities, Socrates above all. Other icons and
"idols" of European culture, such as Wagner, Kant, and
Schopenhauer for example, feit the sting of his poisonous pen at
some point of time or other. Socrates appears to have been the
constant target of Nietzsche's man ic critique from the first to his last
published work, and even in the notes th at he left unpublished. This
fact alone should have dissuaded those who were prepared to write
apologetically on Nietzsche's supposed "admiration of Socrates." He
must have seen some serious philosophical differences between his
and Socrates' values. We would do weil to try to discover and
discuss seriously these differences if we wish to understand

5 The question as to why Aristophanes chose to make Socrates "the

target" of his critique of the new Sophistic spirit in Athenian education is a
matter of speculation and scholarly debate. See on this, W illiam Arrowsmith,
ed., The Clouds, in Aristophanes: Three Comedies (Ann Arbor: The University
of Michigan Press, 1977), pp. 4-7. In my opinion, the poet either underestimated
the power of his art or he overestimated the intelligence and the discriminating
capacities of the Athenian citizens. So, Socrates had to pay the price.
6 With characteristic Attic tact, Aristophanes refrained from having
Socrates himself 0 n stage at t he moment when P heidippides, t he s on of t he
Athenian citizen Strepsiades, is persuaded to follow the broad road of Sophistry
and not the narrow path of Philosophy. The persuasion is the result of a heated
and hilarious debate of the two antagonists presented as two ferocious fighting
roosters! Op. cito pp. 66-80.

PHRONIMON2003 (1) 21
 Nietzsche and his reientIess, life-Iong attack on Socrates and
"Socratism."
But before we come to that point, we should emphasize the
fact that, in the long history of European Iiterature, Nietzsche is a
rather absurd case as a "critic of Socrates." For in the year 1870-
1871, when he began formulating his critique of Socrates, Nietzsche
was only a 26 year old pretentious and second rate romantic
musician, an admirer of Cosima and R ichard Wagner, a beginner
classica I philologist, and a failed student of theology. Above all, he
was an aspiring poet with some admittedly rare psychological
insights into the depths of the badly twisted and traumatized psyche
of the Germanic nation, which had tried historically but
unsuccessfully to reconcile t he irreconcilable, the T eutonic warrior
with the Christian saint! Yet, this young man had the temerity to try
to outdo the old accusers of heroic Socrates. For he came up with
an imaginative and most outrageous charge against the Athenian
philosopher. Deep in his guts Nietzsche feit, and dared to write, that
Socrates was not innocent at all. He was guilty of a hideous crime,
much worse than the ones of which he was officially accused and
put to death. Socrates of Athens was a bloody murderer! According
to Nietzsche's way of thinking, Socrates was ultimately responsible
for the untimely death of Greek Tragedy, that is to say, the best
aesthetic product of Athenian dramatic poetry and of Classical
Greek art in genera/!
This outrageous charge was made by the 26-27 year-old
Nietzsche in his first published book with the catchy title The Birth of
Tragedy from the Spirit of Musie. 7 In this sort treatise he does much
more than the title of the book suggests. For besides giving an
imaginative account of t he s upposed b irth of Greek T ragedy from
the Dionysiac spirit of choral music, he proceeds boldly to deciare
the alleged tragic death of Greek Tragedy in the murderous c1utches
of Socratic dialectic! As if this were not outrageous enough, the
young Romantic w riter, like a n a ncient d iviner, a ttempts to foretell
the "pending rebirth" of tragedy in the glorious Germany of his time,
that is, the victorious Germany in the Franco-Prussian war of 1871.
He dreamed that this revival of c1assical art and music would be
accomplished by the genius of Richard Wagner, inspired by his

7 "You, my friends, who believe in Dionysiae musie, also know wh at

tragedy means t 0 us. In t ragedy the tragie myth is reborn from t he matrix of
musie. It inspires the most extravagant hopes and promises oblivion of the
bitterest pain. But for all of us the most bitter pain has been the long humiliation
whieh German genius has had to suffer in the vassalage of evil dwarfs." (BO,
p.144).

22 C.C. EVANGELIOU
beautiful wife, Cosima, to whom apparently Nietzsche had been also
happily and slavishly attracted, at the time when The birth af
Tragedy was canceived in his fertile imaginatian. 8 The published
book was prudently dedicated to Richard Wagner as a token of
admiration. 9
In t his context, Nietzsche's accusation of Socrates a cquires
both comic aspects and tragic proportions, surrounded as it is by his
speculative and mytho-poetic account of the genesis of Greek
Tragedy, and the additional prophesy of its destined rebirth in
Romantic Germany. It appears that this kind of Nietzschean
mythology served somehow his prophesy, which in turn required the
sudden death of Greek Tragedy as an art form, necessitating thus
the search for a villa in to play the executioner's role. In the person of
Socrates and the "Socratic spirit," Nietzsche thought that he had
found the "reai" killer of Greek Tragedy! It wil! not be necessary for
the purposes of this paper to examine all the specifics of this
tragicomic birth, death, and rebirth of Greek Tragedy.10 It wil! suffice
to try only to con neet the alleged death of tragedy with the sustained
attack on Socrates, which was to be carried out in other more
mature works published by Nietzsche. 11

8 About Nietzsche's rather "slavish" attachment to Cosima and Richard

Wagner in the early 1870ies, especially during the time of his conception of The
Birth of Tragedy, see R .J. Hollingdale, op. cit., pp. 56-85; and, particularly,
Joachim Koehier. Nietzsche and Wagner: A Lesson of Subjugation, Ronaid
Taylor, trans., (New Haven: Yale University press, 1998), especially Chapter 4.
9 Later in life Nietzsche was to change his tune, hatred now took the
place of p revious admiration: ...... Wagner was redeemed. In all seriousness,
this was aredemption. The benefit Schopenhauer conferred of Wagner is
immeasurable. Only the philosopher of decadenee gave to the artist of
decadence-himself. To the artist of decadence: there we have the crucial
words. And here my 5 eriousness begins. I am far from looking 0 n guilelessly
while this decadent corrupts out health-and music as weil. Is Wagner a human
being at all? Isn't he rather a sickness" He makes sick whatever he touches-
he has made music sick." The Case of Wagner, 4-5, in Basic Writings of
Nietzsche, (New Vork: Modern Library, 1992).
10 The most devastating and scholarly critique of Nietzsche's book
remains the one by Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Zukunftsphilologie! Eine
Erviderung auf Friedrich Nietzsches "Geburt der Tragoedie, " (Berlin:
Borntraeger, 1073). For a discussion of the reception of the book, see also
David Lenson The Birth of Tragedy: A Commentary, (Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1987), pp. 10-16; and W. Kaufmann's Introduction, in Basic Writings
of Nietzsche), op. cit., pp. ix-xiv.
11 For a sympathetic account of Nietzsche's life and work, I refer to R.J.
Hollingdale's book, Nietzsche: The Man and His Philosophy, revised edition,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). For his relations with Jewish
people see Siegfried Mandel, Nietzsche and the Jews, Amherst, NY:

PHRONIMON2003 (1) 23
3. Socrates and the Death of Tragedy

The architectonic of the book is interesting. It seems to be

"internally" divided neatly in three parts dealing respectively with the
birth of tragedy (Chapters I-X), the death of tragedy (Chapters XI-
XV), and the prophetically foreseen rebirth of tragedy (Chapters XVI-
XXV). It appears that it was so designed that the villain "Socrates"
would occupy its very center. For he was implicated in the death of
tragedy, which, nevertheless, had died by "committing suicide" in
Nietzsche's logically inconsistent, but "dramatic" phraseology. But
how did that happen for tragedy to kill itself, and what did Socrates,
that least violent and most peaceful Athenian, had to do with such a
dramatic act? In order to answer this question, we will have to follow
a little more closely Nietzsche's speculative account first of tragedy's
birth, then of its short life and glory in the Athenian stage, and last its
"death."12
Weil, to make Nietzsche's long story short, Greek tragedy was
born from "the spirit of music." Mytho-poetically, it was the offspring
of a felicitous marriage of what he calls the "Apollonian spirit,"
expressed in lucid forms, clear images and dreamlike states, and
the "Dionysiac spirit," embodied in the powerful passions of men and
expressed in the intoxication of inspirational music, sung by a
chorus of revelers and accompanied by the flute. 13 The protagonist
on the scene and the dialectic parts exchanged between him and
the leader of the chorus are the Apollonian aspect of a Greek tragic
drama, but its heart is the chorus and the choral songs praising the
victory of the temporally ascending hero, or lamenting the suffering
caused by the final fall. In Nietzsche's view, classical examples of

Prometheus Books, 1998), a nd Weaver S antaniello, N ietzsche, G cd, and the

Jews (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1994). For extensive selected bibliographies of
Nietzsche's works and of works on Nietzsche, see R. J. Hollingdale, op. cit., pp.
263-266, and particularly W. Kaufmann, op. cit., pp. 477-502.
12According to Nietzsche's fictionalized account, the tragic death of
tragedy would be accomplished at the hands of Euripides equipped by Socratic
dialectic and "unwisely" looking for philosophieal reasons to eomprehend the
meaning of Aeschylian and Sophoelean tragedy. Having been eorrupted by
Soeratic logie even Euripides "the tragedian," like Plato the dialeetieian, eould
not comprehend or appreciate the higher tragie "wisdom," from the realm of
which, Nietzsche insisted, "the logician is excluded." (BT, XIV).
13 Nietzsche's emphasis on the Dionysiac flute is questionable in light of
the fact th at at least the young Sophocles used to act in his own plays and to
play "the Iyre" during his dramatic performances. See Vita Sophoclis in
Sophoelis Fabulae, A. C. Pearson, ed., (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), pp.
xviii-xxi.

24 C.C. EVANGELIOU
Greek tragic heroes are the Aeschylean Prometheus and, to a
lesser extent, the Sophoclean Oedipus.(BT, IX)
Euripides, whom Aristotle had characterized as "the most
tragic of the tragedian poets," is, in Nietzsche's eyes, the criminal
who killed the spirit 0 f G reek t ragedy and he had the help ot t he
dialectician Socrates in this murderous act. Behind Euripides'
dramatic innovations, he sees the Socratic rationality and morality,
which e asily a nd 0 ptimistically equated knowledge with virtue and
virtue with happiness! But let us better listen to Nietzsche
expressing himselt on these matters in his inimitable way:

Dionysos had already been driven trom the tragic stage

bya daemonic power speaking through Euripides. For in
a certain sense Euripides was but a mask, while the
divinity which spoke through him was neither Dionysos
nor Apollo but a brand-new daemon called Socrates.
Thenceforward the real antagonism was to be between
the Dionysiac spirit and the Socratic, and tragedy was to
perish in the conflict. (BT, p. 77) 14

This is the reason why the figure of Socrates disturbs us so

profoundly whenever we approach it, and why we are tempted again
and again to plumb the meaning and intentions of the most
problematic character among the ancients. Who was this man who
dared, single-handed, to challenge the entire world of Hellenism -
embodied in Homer, Pindar, and Aeschylus, in Phidias, Pericles,
Pythia, and Dionysos - which commands our highest reverence?
Who was this daemon daring top our out the m agic p hilter in t he
dust? (BT, p.84)
It is evident from the above that in Nietzsche's imagination
Socrates' personality has acquired titanic proportions and demonic
destructive powers to the detriment of Hellenism and Hellenic
culture. These powers seem to surpass even the great powers with
which the old accuser, Meletus of Athens, had invested Socrates in

14Consider also, in this connection, the following comment: "Euripides

dared to usher in a new era of poetic activity. If the old tragedy was wrecked,
esthetic Socratism is to be blamed, and to the extent that the target of the
innovators was the Dionysiac principle of the older art we may call Socrates the
god's chief opponent, the new Orpheus who, though destined to be torn to
pieces by the maenads of the Athenian judgment, succeeded in putting the
overmastering god to flight." (BT, p. 82) "Socrates against Dionysos" was the
old drama, the new drama was envisioned to be "Nietzsche [the new Dionysos]
against Socrates!"

PHRONIMON 2003 (1) 25

order to make him appear more dangerous in the eyes of the
Athens. He had argued during the trial that Socrates' corrupting
influence on the Athenian youth was s 0 9 reat that i t could not be
counter-balanced by the force of the entire city of Athens pulling in
the opposing direction and trying to morally improve the character of
the young men of Athens. 15 To return to Nietzsche, it seems that the
powerful weapon in Socrates' hands was dialectic, rationalism and
optimism. For:

Optimistic dialectics took up the whip of its syllogisms

and drove music out of tragedy. It entirely destroyed the
meaning of tragedy - which can be interpreted only as
concrete manifestation of Dionysiac conditions, music
made visible, an ecstatic dream world. (8T, p.89) If we
examine Socrates in the light of this idea [that thought,
guided by the thread of causation, might plumb the
farthest abyss of being and even conquer itJ, he strikes
us as the first who was able not only to live under the
guidance of that instinctive scientific certainty but to die
by it, which is m uch more difficult. For this reason t he
image of the dying Socrates - mortal man freed by
knowledge and argument from the fear of death - is the
emblem which, hanging above the portal of every
science, reminds the adept that his mission is to make
existence appear intelligible and thereby justified." (8T,
p.93)

Thus the triumph of what Nietzsche calls the "Socratic spirit,"

identifying it with "the spirit of science" and its faith in reason at the
expense of the "Dionysiac spirit," which he identifies with the spirit of
art and tragedy in particular, can be seen as a regrettable
development and turn of affairs. For him it appears as a degradation
of the superior ex~erience and artistic expression of the Greek
aristocracy of the 6' and early 5'h centuries. 16 However, Nietzsche is

15 For the memorabie exchange between Soerates and Meletus, see

Plato's Apology 24b-28b.
16 At other C ontexts, w here Nietzsehe wants to stress t he fundamental
differenees between what he ealls "master morality" and "si ave morality,"
Homeric Greeks would seem to fit better the role of the natural Greek
aristoeraey. This eould, then, be favorably eompared with the Greek
"decadence" of Soerates and his age, and more so later on during the Roman
"masterfui" domination of Greeee. See on this, Beyond Good and Evil,
espeeially Part Nine entitled "What is Nobie." Yet, captive Greeee captivated
Rome "art-fully!"

26 c.c. EVANGELIOU
aware th at there were then, and at the present, other and much
worse alternatives to science and rational research. He goes on to
state clearly:
Once we have fully realized how, after Socrates, the
mystagogue 0 f s cience, one school of philosophy a fter
another came upon the scene and departed; how
generation after generation of inquirers, spurned by an
insatiable thirst for knowiedge, explored every aspect of
the universe; and how by that ecumenical concern a
common net of knowledge was spread over the whole
globe, affording glimpses into the workings of an entire
solar system - once we have realized all this, and
monumental pyramid of present-day knowiedge, we
cannot help viewing Socrates as the vortex and turning
point of Western civilization. For if we imagine th at
immense store of energy used, not for the purposes of
knowiedge, but for the practical egotistical ends of
individuals and nations, we may readily see the
consequence: universal wars of extermination and
constant migrations of peoples would have weakened
man's instinctive ze st for life to such an extent that,
suicide having become a matter of course, duty might
have commanded the son to kill the parents, the friend
his friend, as among the Fiji islanders. We know that
such wholesale slaughter prevails whenever art in some
form or other - especially as religion and science - has
not served as antidote to barbarism. (BT, pp.93-94)

It is important to note that, in Nietzsche's broad understanding of art,

even "religion and science" become forms of art, human endeavors
that same human being from the utter barbarism of war and
wholesale destruction for which they are capable. But even more
important is the fact that Nietzsche was also aware that science and
the "Socratic spirit" have had their day. He thought that the time had
come for reason to recognize its limitations and for man kind to
return once again to art for consolation . The time was ripe for the
resurrection of Dionysos, the god of ecstatic dance, music, and
tragic wisdom not in Greece this time but in Germany. As he put it:
But science, spurred on by its energetic notions,
approaches irresistibly those outer limits where the
optimism implicit in logic must collapse. For the
periphery of science has an infinite number of points.
Every noble and gifted man has, before reaching the

PHRONIMON2003 (1) 27
 mid-point of his career, come up against some point of
the periphery that defied his understanding, quite apart
from the fact that we have no way of knowing how the
area of the circle is ever to be fully charted. When the
inquirer, having pushed to the circumference, realizes
how logic in that place curls about itself and bites its own
tail, he is struck with a new kind of perception: a tragic
perception, which requires, to make it toierabie, the
remedy of art.
If we look about us today, with eyes refreshed and
fortified by the spectacle of the Greeks, we shall see
how the insatiable zest for knowiedge, prefigured by
Socrates, has been translated into tragic resignation and
the need for art; while, to be sure, on a lower level that
same zest appears as hostile to all art and especially to
the truly tragic, Dionysiac art, as I have tried to show
paradigmatically in the subversion of Aeschylean art by
Socratism. (8T, p.95)

There must be something terribly wrong, since it does not seem to

be ironie at all, with Nietzsche's characterization of Socrates as the
prototype of the modern scientists in their effort to conquer the
physical world by scientific inquiry, and thus an enemy of art. This
seems to me worse than even Aristophanes' playful error of
identifying Socrates as a "natural philosopher" and stargazer.
Certainly there were many people at Socrates' time and even before
his time, who were engaged in such inquiries, but Socrates was not
one of them. 17 The knowledge which Socrates was not of the natural
world but 0 f the h uman sou!. The Delphic p recept u Know t hy-self'
had become the emblem of his search tor wisdom. 18 And tar from

17 On this important point not only Plato and Xenophon, but also the
distant and objective Aristotle agree. Compare, for example, Apology 19b-d,
Phaedo 96a-99c, Memorabilia I, I 10-17, and Metaphysics 987b.
18 For example, in Phaedrus 230a, regarding the skeptic critique of
current myths, Socrates confessed:
"I myself have certainly no time for the business, and I wil! teil you why,
my friend. I can't as yet 'know myself,' as the inscription at Delphi enjoins, and
sa long as th at ignorance remains it seems to me ridiculous to inquire into
extraneous matters. Consequently I don't bother about such things, but accept
the current beliefs about them, and direct my inquires, as I have just said, rather
to myself, to discover whether I really am more complex creature and more
puffed up with pride than Typhon, or a simpier, gentier being whom heaven has
blessed with a quiet, un-Typhonic nature." Nietzsche as weil as his
contemporary Sophists would seem to fit perfectly the Typhonic, prideful nature

28 e.c. EVANGELIOU
been anti-artistic Socrates confessed at the end of his life th at he
had conceived of philosophy as the highest form of music, the inner
harmony of soul. 19
The declared goal of the Platonic Socrates, as he
philosophized dialectically, was to discover and to see clearly the
divine essence of the psyche temporarily encased inside the mortal
being. He wanted to try to put in the best possible order its various
and conflicting elements, so that they would ultimately harmonize
with each other. Such achieved harmony would make the Socratic
philosopher feel at home in this life and possibly in the life to come,
if it turned out that all does not end in the grave. 20
In this respect, then, Nietzsche would seem to have followed
Aristophanes without having the Aristophanic poetic licence. He is
making up a caricature of Socrates in order to have an easier target
for his critique. As we will see, the situation would not get any better
as the critic of Socrates advanced in maturity of age but not
necessarily in Socratic wisdom. But what is astonishing and, as we
will see, significant for Nietzsche's life-Iong project, is that in his
extensive c ritique 0 f h is "fictional S ocrates" he completely i gnored

deseribed here by Soerates. Regarding natural philosophy, the "scientifie"

knowledge of his time, he stated in Apology 19: "I mean no disrespect for such
knowiedge, if anyone really is versed in it-I do not want any more lawsuits
brought against me by Meletus-but the fact is, gentlemen, that I take no
interest in it." And Memorabilia I. i. 10-17.
19 In this respect, Nietzsche would seem to have misunderstood or
misinterpreted the musical and artistic Socrates, as his comments on the
possibility of the "Socratic artist" in 8T, XIV, indicate. Here he speaks of the
supposed "Socratic strategy" for the "destruction of the Dionysiac drama" and
wonders whether "art and Soeratism" are really as "diametrically opposed" as
his analysis of the death of tragedy had made them. Imaginatively he presents
Socrates talking to him-self with self-doubt and dreaming the Nietzsehean
dream of a union in holy matrimony of logic and art, science and poetry,
"Socratic spirit" and "Dionysiac spirit!"
"Have I been too ready to view w hat was unintelligible to me as being
devoid of meaning? Perhaps there is a realm of wisdom, after all, from which
the logieian is excluded? Perhaps art must be seen as the necessary
complement of rational discourse?" That there is a "form of wisdom" whieh goes
beyond logos (logic) to the higher sphere of nous (noetie apprehension, intuitive
inteliection) was a view shared by Socratic and Platonic philosophers, including
Aristotle, the most "logicai" of them all. I have shown th is in The Hel/enic
Philosophy, op. cit., Chapter 11. In "artistic Socrates" others have seen "the
archetype of what Nietzsehe himself aspires to be." M. S. Si Ik and J. P. Stern,
Nietzsche on Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 193.
This and similar views are mistaken, in light of Nietzsche's sustained anti-
Socratism.
20 See Phaedo 82e-84b, and compare to Republic 443c-444e.

PHRONJMON2003 (1) 29
and bypassed the real Socrates, the historical Socrates as he
emerges from the writing of his beloved students, Plato and
Xenophon in particular. This Socrates is the uncompromising
opponent of the Sophists of his time, of Protagoras and Gorgias, of
Thrasymachus and Callicless, and of all the other "weil born"
Greeks, who were admired by Nietzsche, as paragons and
advocates of traditional "aristocratic" Greek values.
As a Classical philologist, Nietzsche was unforgivable for his
pyrotechnic atlack on "Socrates," as the alleged forerunner of
medieval Christian morality and modern scientific mentality, while
overlooking h is real r ole in life, to f ight b Y all lawful means i n his
disposal sophistry and the degradation of life to which it inevitably
leads by its epistemological skepticism and ethical relativism. Of
course, Nietzsche was free to prefer the "Sophistic values" as
opposed to the "Socratic values," but as a classica I philologist, if not
a philosopher, he ought to have the decency to place Socrates
where he historically and traditionally belonged, that is to say, in
unyielding opposition to sophistry and the Sophists. He ought to be
judged for that reason and in that light. The fact, however, remains
that with Nietzsche's helping hand and powerful pen the twin
offspring of Protagorean sophistry, skepticism and ethical
relativism, were destined to triumph in less than a century from his
death. We should keep this historical fact in mind as we celebrate
Socrates and Nietzsche's memories.

4. The Problem of Socrates

The Twilight of the IdoIs, which was published the year before his
collapse, is one of Nietzsche' last works, in which we find the most
direct and brutal attack on Socrates and what he stood for
philosophically.21 As seen by Nietzsche, "the problem of Socrates"
has nothing to do with the so-called "Socratic problem," which has
greatly exercised modern and contemporary scholars. These
scholars have questioned and argued about the possibility of ever
knowing the historical Socrates and his philosophy, i n light of t he
fact that he wrote nothing. Besides, those who wrote about him, men

21 Between The Birth of Tragedy (1871), with its artistic or "esthetic"

critique of Socrates, and the more severe and frontal attack on Socrates, with
which Nietzsche opened one of his last books, The Twilight ofthe Idols (1888),
there are critical and mostly negative comments about Socrates (and Plato, the
worst of all Socratics) to be found in all the other books published before his
collapse in 1889. But they are sporadic attack compared to the sustained
critiques in which he engaged in these two works, especially the latter.

30 c.c. EVANGELIOU
 like Plato and Xenophon, or Aristophanes and Aristotle, seem to
have given us markedly different pictures of the Athenian
philosopher. Even those scholars, who accept the Platonic portrait of
Socrates as the most accurate or attractive, face the problem
created by the absence of a clear line showing where the philosophy
of Socrates ends and the philosophy of Plato beg ins in aPIatonic
dialogue or the whole series of them. 22
However, Nietzsche, the life-Iong critic of Socrates and the
classical philologist, does not seem to have been bothered by such
critical and philological questions at all. He speaks rather
dogmatically about "Socrates," as if he knew exactly who he was,
where he stood historically, and judges his thoughts, his deeds, and
his alleged many "misdeeds." Although he acknowledges the
Socratic irony and Socrates' sense of humor, Nietzsche feels that he
can see through Socrates and his dialectic tricks in order to
penetrate and reveal the dangerous essence of "Socratism" and its
corrupting effect on "nobie Plato." Socrates is one of the idols
targeted to be touched by the ham mer of Nietzsche's critique and
tound to be wholly hollow. In Socrates' personality and philosophy,
the critic sees accumulated all the vi ces of democratie and decadent
Greece. For him, Socrates represents the antithesis to the
aristocratie Greece with its expressed "wi/! to power" and its "healthy
animal instincts" intact and functioning. Looked at from the
perspective of Nietzschean "values," Socrates appeared to him as a
man who valued death over life, dialectic over poetry, syllogism over
music, reason 0 ver instinct, knowledge over action, dialogue over
command, and irony over heroic straight talk or aesthetic Sophist
oratory. Socrates was also "ugly" and "plebeian."23 Therefore, far
trom been "the physician" for the sickly and decadent souls of the
degenerate Athenian aristocrats of his time, he was the laughable
"buffoon," who did not deserve to be taken seriously as "a
philosopher!"
Let this be enough as a foretaste of the delicacies to be found
in Nietzsche's last book and his most brutal attack on Socrates. To

22 For more on "the Socratic Problem" and bibliography, see my "Socratic

Intellectualism and Aristotelian Criticism," in The Philosophy of Socrates, K.
Boudouris, ed., (Athens: Kardamitsa Press, 1990).
23 Nietzsche's identification of Socrates with the Athenian "proletariat" is
a-historical and toa simplistic. On this see Ellen and Neal Wood, Class Ideology
and Ancient Political Theory: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in Social Context
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978), pp. 97ff; also Keith Ansell-Pearson, An
Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997), pp. 63-83.

PHRONIMON2003 (1) 31
be more specific, we may note that the treatise opens with the
general statement that, in the judgment of "the philosophers" and the
wisest men of every age, life is "worthless." A classic example of
this melancholy, weary, and pessimistic group of people is Socrates
who had said as he was dying: "To live - that means to be a long
time sick: I owe a cock to the savior Asclepius. Even Socrates had
had enough of it."24 This consensus of the wise man points to some
truth. But "the truth," as Nietzsche sees it, is not that life is sickness,
but rather that those who have thought so, must have been
"declining types," sick, old, and tottering "decadents." Then he
boasts: "I recognized Socrates and Plato as symptoms of decay, as
agents of the dissolution of Greece, as pseudo-Greek, as anti-
Greek .... For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life th us
even constitutes an objection to him, a question-mark as to his
wisdom, a piece of un-wisdom." (TI 2, p. 30) So it turns out that the
philosophers, "the wisest men of every age," are both decadent and
"unwise," in Nietzsche's opinion!
Socrates, in particular, besides been decadent and unwise,
was also handicapped by his low, plebeian origins, and his physical
unattractiveness and ugliness. This makes Nietzsche question
whether Socrates was a Greek at all. Then he pontificates as
follows:
Ugliness is frequently enough the sign of a thwarted
development, a development retarded by interbreeding.
Otherwise it appears as a development in decline.
Anthropologists a mong c riminologists teil us the typical

24 Nietzsche does not refrain from scorning even the innocent words,
which Socrates addressed to Crito at the last moment of his life. He
sarcastically comments: "I would that he had also been silent in the last moment
of his life, --perhaps he might then have belonged to a still higher order of
intellects. Whether it was death, or the poison, or piety, or wickedness-
something or other loosened his tongue at that moment, and he said: "0 Crito, I
owe a cock to Asclepios." For him who has ears, this ludicrous and terrible "last
word" implies: "0 Crito, life is a long sickness!" Is it possible! A man like him,
who had lived cheerfully and to all appearance as a soldier,--was a pessimist!
He had merely put on good demeanor towards life, and had all along concealed
his ultimate judgment, his profoundest sentiment! Socrates, Socrates had
suffered from life! And he also took his revenge for it-with th at veiled, fearful,
pious, and blasphemous phrase! Had even a Socrates to revenge himself? Was
there a grain too little of magnanimity in his superabundant virtue? Ah, my
friends! We must surpass even the Greeks." Lately a lot of literature has been
developing around the final Socratic request with Michel Foucault as its source
and epicenter. For the details of this new development see A. Nehamas, The
Art of Living: Soera tic reflections from P/ato to Foueau/t (Berk/ey: University of
California Press, 1998), pp. 157-180.

32 c.c. EVANGELIOU
 criminal is ugly: monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo.
But the criminal is a decadent. Was Socrates a typical
criminal? (TI 3, p.30)

In this role of the diagnostician of Socrates soul and physiognomy,

Nietzsche finds that "the admitted dissolution and anarchy of his
instincts," h is "dialectical manner," as weil as" the superfetation 0 f
the logical and that barbed ma/iee, which distinguishes him," all point
in the direction of Socrates' decadence and his lack of good Greek
taste. 25
Everything about him is exaggerated, buffo, caricature,
everything is at the same time hidden, reserved, subterranean .... 26
Whenever a authority is still part of accepted usage and one does
not 'give reasons' but commands, the dialectician is a kind of
buffoon: he is laughed at, he is not taken seriously. - Socrates was

25 Furthermore, according to Nietzsche, Socrates and Plato were wrong

to insist on the connection between "right reason" and "right action," and to
equate virtue with happiness. These views were opposed to "the values" of
Greek aristocrats, who dreamed of tyranny, and were admired by Callicles and
by Nietzsche: "For this is the ignoble secret of every good Greek aristocrat: out
of the profoundest jealousy he considers each of his peers to stand on an equal
footing w ith h im, but is prepared at any moment to leap like a tiger upon h is
prey, w hich is rule over them all: wh at a re lies, murder, treachery, selling his
native city, to him then! This species of man found justice extraordinary difficult
and regarded it as something nearly incredible; 'the just man' sounded to the
Greeks like 'the saint' does among the Christians. But when Socrates went so
far as to say: 'the virtuous man is the happiest man' they did not believe their
ears and fancied they had heard something insane. For wh en he pictures the
happiest man, every man of noble origin included in the picture the perfect
ruthlessness and devilry of the tyrant who sacrifices everyone and everything to
his arrogance and pleasure." Oaybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality,
M. Clark and B. Leiter, ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999),
sec. 199, p.119.
26 The only time that Nietzsche offers wh at sounds like a praise of
Socrates is when he compares the philosopher to the founder of Christianity: "If
all goes weil, the time will come when one will take up the memorabilia of
Socrates rather than the Bible as a guide to morals and reason .... The
pathways of the most various philosophical modes of life lead back to him; at
bottom they are the modes of life of the various temperaments confirmed and
established by reason and habit and all of them directed towards joy in living
and in one's own self; from which one might conclude that Socrates' most
personal characteristic was a participation in every temperament. Socrates
excels the founder of Christianity in being able to be serious cheerfully and in
possessing that wisdom full of roguishness t hat constitutes the finest state of
the human soul. And he also possessed the finer intellect." Human, All toa
Human, R. J. Hollingdale, trans., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), WS, 86, p. 332.

PHRONIMON2003 (1) 33
the buffoon who got himself taken seriously: what was really
happening when that happened? (TI, 4-5, p.31)
For Nietzsche, the Socratic doctrine that equates reason with
virtue, and virtue with happiness, is "the bizarrest of equation and
one which has in particular all the instincts of the older Hellenes
against it." Socratic dialectic is "a last-ditch weapon in the hands of
those who have no other weapon left." The use of dialectic makes
Socrates look more like a traditional Jew rather than an Ancient
Hellene! This is distasteful to Nietzsche, and so is Socrates' uses of
irony, which he interprets as an expression of "the ressentiment of
the rabble." I f Socrates a ttracted young Athenians in spite of his
ugliness and his low class, this was to be explained simply thus:
He fascinated because he touched on the agonal instinct
of the Hellenes - he introduced a variation into the
wrestling-matches among the youths and young men.
Socrates was also a great erotic. But Socrates divined
even more. He saw behind aristocratic Athenians; he
grasped that case, the idiosyncrasy of his case, was no
longer exceptional. The same kind of degeneration was
everywhere silently preparing itself: the old Athens was
coming to an end. - And Socrates understood that all
the world had need of him - his expedience, his cure, his
personal art of self-preservation... How did Socrates
become master of himself? - His case was after all only
the extreme case, only the most obvious instance of
what had at that time begun to be the universal
exigency; that no one was any longer master of himself,
that the instincts were becoming mutually antagonistic .. ..
I have intimated the way in which Socrates exercised
fascination: he seemed to be a physician, a savior ....
Socrates was a misunderstanding: the entire morality of
improvement, the Christian incJuded, was a
misunderstanding .... To have to combat one's instincts -
that is the formula for decadence: as long as life is
ascending, happiness and instinct are one. (TI, 9-11,
pp.32-34)

In the I ast p aragraph 0 ft his merciless a ttack 0 n S ocrates and 0 n

Athens of his time, that is, the golden time of Ancient Greece,
Nietzsche went even further than this. He intimated that Socrates in
his shrewdness understood very weil that he and his faith in
"reason" to achieve happiness through self-mastery were ineffective
means and that death is the only savior for those who have reached

34 c.c. EVANGELIOU
 such low point of degenerating decaden ce. His last and presumably
considerate and mature judgements of Socrates were:
Did he [Socrates] grasp that, 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 .... ' (TI 12, p.34)27

In Nietzsche's new interpretation, it would seem that the "wisdom" of

decadent Socrates was the shrewd realization that there was no
salvation for "decadents" besides death, which might put an end to
their miserabie existence of powerlessness! Even in the notes that
Nietzsche left unpublished the picture of Socrates and "Socratic
philosophers" is very negative and compares poorly with his praise
and admiration for the Sophists, especially for great Protagoras,28
heir of pre-Socratic artful thought. Consider, e.g.:
The appearance of Greek philosophers from Socrates
onwards is a symptom of decadence; the anti-Hellen ic instincts
come to the top. The "Sophist" is still completely Hellenic - including
Anaxagoras, Democritus, and the great lonians - but as a
transitional form. The polis looses its faith in the uniqueness of its
culture, in its right to rule over every other polis.... The
"philosopher," on the other hand, is the reaction: he desires the old
virtue .... He desires the ideal polis after the concept 'polis' has had
its last day (approximately as the Jews held firm as a 'people' after
they had fallen into slavery) .... T he G reek culture 0 ft he Sophists
had developed out of all the Greek instincts; it belongs to the culture
of Periclean age as necessarily as Plato does not: it has its
predecessors in Heraclitus, in Democritus, in the scientific types of

27 Nietzsche saw Socrates' wish for death everywhere, and explained his
actual death as a case of "suicide": "The two greatest judicial murders [Socrates
and Christ?] in world history are, not to mince words, disguised and weil
disguised suicides. In both cases the victim wanted to die; in both cases he
employed the hand of human injustice to drive the sword into his breast." (H, 11,
94, p. 233). Probably in both cases, but definitely in Socrates' case, Nietzsche
is wron~ as usual. Although not afraid of death, Socrates loved life.
2 Kaufmann, op. cit., in his eagerness to show Nietzsche's "admiration of
Socrates," has conveniently overlooked his admiration for the "realist" Sophists.
Protagoras is absent from the 524 page long book.
In a footnote (p. 28t6) the Sophists are mentioned and praised for their
comparatively advanced doctrines!

PHRONIMON 2003 (1) 3S

the old philosophy; i t finds expression in, e.g., t he high culture of
Thucydides. And - it has ultimately shown itself to be right: every
advance in epistemological and moral knowledge has reinstated the
Sophists. Our contemporary way of thinking is to a great extent
Heraclitean, Democritean, and Protagorean: it suffices to say it is
Protagorean, because Protagoras represented a synthesis of
Heraclitus and Democritus. (WP, 427-428)29
Compared with such paragons of Hellenic virtues and healthy 11

instincts," poor Socrates is characterized again as "roturier" (kind of

anti-aristocrat) and as "a buffo with the instincts of Voltaire," while
Plato is "passionate in everything anti-Hel/enic!" His final verdict on
Socrates is given in the following passage, with which the case shall
rest:
In summa: the mischief has already reached its climax in
Plato 30 - And then one had need to invent the abstractly
perfect man as weil: - good, just, wise, a dialectician - in
short, the scarecrow of the ancient philosopher: a plant
removed from all soil; a humanity without any particular
regulating instincts; a virtue that 'proves' itself with
reasons. The perfectly absurd 'individuum' in itself!
Unnaturalness of the first water. - In short, the
consequence of the denaturalization of moral values was
the creation of a degenerate type of man - 'the good
man,' 'the happy man,' 'the wise man.' - Socrates
represents a moment of the profoundest perversity in the
history of values. (WP 431, p. 235)

With this last judgment on Socrates, Nietzsche has shown the

ethical abyss that separated him from the philosopher. He may live
on as a poet or a sophist, but not as a philosopher.

29 Friedrich Nietzsche: The Will to Power, W. Kaufmann, ed., translated

by the same and R. J. Hollingdale, (New Vork: Vintage books, 1968).
30 "There is something in the morality of Plato that does not really belong
to Plato but is merely encountered in his philosophy -ene might say, in spite ot
Plato: namely, the Socratism for which he was really too nobie .... Plato did
everything he could in order to read refined and noble into the proposition of his
teacher -above all, himself. He was the most audacious of all interpreters and
took the whole Socrates only the way one picks a popular tune and folk song
trom the streets in order to vary it into the infinite and impossible -namely into
all of his own masks and multiplicities." Beyond Good and Evil, in Basic Writings
of Nietzsche, W. Kaufmann, ed., and trans., (New Vork: Modern Library, 1992,
sec. 190, p. 293.

36 c.c. EVANGELIOU
 5. Conclusion

In conclusion, it should be evident from the discussion of

Nietzsche's extensive comments and his sustained negative critique
of Socrates and the Socratic spirit, th at he had no "admiration" for
the Athenian philosopher and no appreciation for what he
considered as the "decadent values" of Socratism. To these values
he included Socratic logic and dialectic, and Socratic virtue ethics
with the emphasis on equalizing individual differences and
universalizing morality by ignoring the all important for Nietzsche
master/slave dichotomy. In particular, the Socratic equations of
"knowledge with goodness" and "goodness with happiness,"
appeared to Nietzsche as repulsive and contrary to the "healthy
instincts" of aristocratic Hellenes, who lived risky lives in the pursuit
of personal pleasure and political power. Having to choose between
the "opposing cultures," respectively represented by the "unrealistic"
values of Socratic and Platonic philosophers and by the "realistic"
and naturalistic Sophists, Nietzsche opted for the later with great
enthusiasm for their supposedly "life enhancing" possibilities!
It was also noticed, albeit in passing, that this ethical
controversy over "values," the Sophistic versus the Socratic values,
rested on the metaphysical background of the more fundamental
opposition between P rotagorean "Becoming" a nd Platonic" Being."
As Nietzsche saw it, modern science had undoubtedly vindicated
Protagoras, the Sophist and faithful follower of the great pre-Socratic
philosophers, Heraclitus and Democritus. Their respective doctrines
that there is only one world, this visible and changeable world of
matter and life, of darkness and light, of sheer chance and natural
necessity were, even for the critica I Nietzsche article of faith and
beyond questioning. Thus, the Socratic and Platonic alternative
proposal, which tentatively postulated and searched for a "reai"
world of Being and stability, of design and intelligibility, of purpose
and ultimate goals, was seen as unscientific, unrealistic, and
unworthy of the attention of modern men, who were "enlightened" by
the light of contemporary science that vindicated pre-Socratic
thought.
Above all, Nietzsche's objection to "Socratism," and his battle
with him was based on aesthetic considerations. It was perceived by
him and stated boldly that the philosopher's influence on Greek arts,
especially on the Athenian tragedy, had been devastating. It was
apparent to Nietzsche that Greek tragedy had died as a result of the
pernicious influence, which Socrates and his dialectic, with its
demand for meaning and intelligibility in poetry, had on the last of

PHRONIMON2003 (1) 37
three great Athenian tragedians, Euripides. Nietzsche ignored the
possible negative influence of the pre-Socratic cosmological
speclJlations and the Sophist anthropological observations on Greek
traditional moral values and religious beliefs, on which the catharsis
function of Greek t ragedy rested. Instead he narrowly focused on
Socrates and irrationally made him responsible for the alleged
sudden death of Greek tragedy.31 In so doing, he seems to have
surpassed in audacity even the ancient accusers of Socrates. He
certainly left Aristophanes far behind.
So as we celebrate beyond Nietzsche's century, we may
admire his vision and the power of the will that sustained it and tried
to embody it in a series of books that he left behind. We may honor
the author of these works created with great pathos and wit.
However, as a Classical philologist w ith philosophical pretensions,
Nietzsche is to be held accountable for his non-philosophical
treatment of Socrates. Also he cannot be easily exonerated for
having drawn the dividing line of European culture in such a clumsy
way as to put one half of Hellenic Philosophy (and arguably the
better part in terms of "values") on the side of its and, apparently, his
own arch-enemy, Christianity. Such a division is historically
unjustifiable and philosophically problematic and questionable for
those who are not taken in by the traditional historiography of
European philosophy.32
Ironically, this oddly drawn division makes Nietzsche's task of
"radical revaluation" of European values even more difficult than it
would have been with such natural allies, as Socrates, Plato and
Aristotle, on the side of needed reform. As a Classica I philologist,
critic of culture, and evaluator of "values," he should have known
better and he should have treated such serious matters of "cultures"
and "values" with more tact. He chose to side with the Sophists and
their thirst for power and/or pleasure against Socrates and his love
for philosophic wisdom and virtue. His star was to rise and fall with
the rise and fall of Nazi political power. They thought that they found

31 He also failed to take into account the possible influence that the
prolonged and horrific Peloponnesian War might have had on the fate of
Athenian dramatic art, which had grown with the rise of Athens to hegemonie
power after the glorious Persian Wars. He seems to have been interested not in
facts but impressions.
32 On this point see my stated views in The Hel/enic Philosophy: Between
Europe, Asia, and Africa, (Binghamton, NY: Global PUblications), pp. 157-186.

38 c.c. EVANGELIOU
plenty of reasons in his writings permitting them to make him their
"star" philosopher. 33
In the long run, though, the physically robust and reasonable
Socrates wil! surely overcome the passionate and "sickly" Nietzsche,
just as he outran the smart and forceful Protagoras. Wh en future
philosophers and reasonable people come to see, as Socratic
philosophers from Plato to Boethius c1early saw, that philosophia,
the love of wisdom, as the Ancient Hellenes understood and practice
it in their lives, is above all Ua way of life" to be measured by
phronesis (practical wisdom) and ethike arete (ethical excellence
and moral v irtue), they will have no difficulty in choosing between
Socrates and Nietzsche. For philosophy has nothing to do with
rhetorica I pronouncements of the Protagorian and Sophist type, nor
with aphoristic pyrotechnics of the Nietzschean and Neo-sophist
type.
From these philosophical contests, Socrates will emerge
victorious once again in the end, because of the quality of the higher
ethical and humane values so vividly expressed in his life as
philosopher and teacher of virtue. There is no better criterion of
evaluating values.

33 For different reasons, he has also been idolized temporarily by the

pleasure seeking post-modernists of our times, but if history is any guidance to
the future, such glory cannot last for very long. But we wil! see.
For a comprehensive and weil written account of his influence, especially
in Germany between the two World Wars, see Steven E. Aschheim's work, The
Nietzsche Legacy in Germany 1890-1990 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1994). Aschheim's h istorical account of N ietzsche's relationship to the
Third Reich seems more balanced and judicious that Kaufmann's account th at
has dominated the scene.

PHRONIMON2003 (1) 39