NIETZSCHE AND THE TASK OF THE PHILOSOPHER

Nietzsche’s awareness of the inevitable tension between human nature and master morality indicates that his goal in his writings is not to move humanity beyond good and evil to good and bad, beyond slave morality to master morality, beyond Christian, democratic society to Homeric, aristocratic society.

But why, if Nietzsche is aware of the inevitable tension between Homeric culture and human nature, does he appear to advocate so loudly for Homeric culture over Christianity and for the master morality of the Homeric heroes over slave morality?^[682] Nietzsche’s awareness of the tension between Homeric religion and master morality, on the one hand, and human nature, on the other, indicates that he does not seriously intend to advocate as a practical matter a return to a Homeric culture and society. It would seem, then, that Nietzsche’s intention in his appar­ent advocacy of master morality and neo-Homeric aristocratic culture is not political but theoretical and didactic, not for the sake of the “overall development of man” but for the sake of freeing the minds of the philo­sophic few (BGE 61). By making the case for master morality and against slave morality, Nietzsche is acting not as a philosopher who strives to fulfil the political “task [Aufgabe]” of reversing “the overall degeneration of man” for the sake of a better future for humanity but rather as a philosopher who strives to fulfil the theoretical “task [Aufgabe]” of challenging “the ideal of today,” of being the “bad conscience [bose Gewissen]” of his time, in order to free the minds of his readers from the prejudices of his time (BGE 203, 212). For slave morality is, broadly speaking, the dominant morality of Nietzsche’s time. It is the morality of “the democratic movement [which] is the heir of the Christian move­ment” (BGE 202). Democratic morality and the overall “rise of democ­racy” are the result of the “the last great slave rebellion which began with the French Revolution” (BGE 245, 46). Furthermore, according to Nietzsche, the democratic movement is especially all-encompassing and especially vehement in its assertion of democratic morality in his time: “We have found that in all moral judgments Europe is now of one mind, including even the countries dominated by the influence of Europe: plainly one now knows in Europe what Socrates thought he did not know and what that famous old serpent once promised to teach - today one ‘knows’ what is good and evil” (BGE 202).

as we understand it, [is] merely one type of human morality beside which, before which, and after which many other types, above all higher moralities, are, or ought to be, possible. But this morality resists such a “possibility,” such an “ought,” with all its power: it says stubbornly and inexorably, “I am morality itself, and nothing besides is morality.” Indeed, with the help of a religion which indulged and flattered the most sublime herd animal desires, we have reached the point where we find even in political and social institutions an ever more visible expression of this morality. (BGE 202)

Nietzsche’s apparent advocacy of master morality, then, like his harsh statements that democratic morality is “herd animal morality,” is central to his task of waking up the specific audience of his contemporaries, a means to the end of the freedom of the mind in his age (BGE 202). As he explains, the philosopher “always” must challenge the ideals of “today” because the ideals of one’s day are inevitably prejudices. Accordingly, Nietzsche indicates that had he lived in an aristocratic age - for example, “the age of Socrates” among “conservatives of ancient Athens” - he would have challenged master morality with a ruthlessness comparable to that of the “plebeian” Socrates: “‘Here - we are equal’” (BGE 212). The philosopher’s “enemy was ever the ideal of today,” because

292 Homer and the Tradition of Political Philosophy unquestioned and unexamined belief of any kind in any age is “ever” the obstacle to philosophy.

When Nietzsche stresses in aphorism 212 of Beyond Good and Evil that “today, the concept of greatness entails being noble,” he appears to challenge democratic morality specifically in the name of the master morality of “noble” and “contemptible” (BGE 260).

wanting to be by oneself, being able to be different, standing alone and having to live independently. And the philosopher will betray something of his own ideal when he posits: “He shall be greatest who can be loneliest, the most concealed, the most deviant, the human being beyond good and evil, the master of his virtues, he that is overrich in will.” (BGE 212)

Nietzsche’s account of the philosopher here resembles his account of the noble human being of master morality inasmuch as both evidently believe in an “order of rank” - that is, that it is possible for some human beings to be truly greater than others (see, for example, BGE 213, 257, 260). However, Nietzsche’s account of the philosopher’s greatness differs mark­edly from his account of the noble human being he describes in aphorism 260. For the philosopher is “alone” and “loneliest” rather than a member of “the ruling group”; “concealed” rather than “truthful”; and “most deviant” rather than “reverent for age and tradition” and prejudiced “in favor of ancestors” (BGE 212, 260).^[683] The “ideal” of the philosopher that Nietzsche describes here appears as that of the life devoted to the pursuit of wisdom, shared with a few kindred souls, but apart from humanity at large. This ideal would also seem to be Nietzsche’s own ideal, insofar as he describes himself as a “hermit” but also as one who cherishes the company of other “free minds,” and insofar as he himself is one who has “lived” philosophy “among ice and high mountains” but also as one whose mature “writings are fish hooks” aimed at gathering, not disciples, but fellow lovers of wisdom (BGE 283, 289; EH Pre 3, 3. BGE.ι; TSZ ³.22.3).

Nietzsche’s sympathetic critique of plato

The account of the philosopher in Beyond Good and Evil that Nietzsche appears to embrace resembles the account of the philosopher offered by Plato’s Socrates.

but in truth his body alone is situated in the city and resides there, but his thought, convinced that all these things are small and nothing, dishonors them in every way and flies, as Pindar puts it, “deep down under the earth,” and geometricizes the planes, “and above heaven,” star gazing, and in exploring everywhere every nature of each whole of the things which are and letting itself down to not one of the things nearby.... For someone of this sort has truly become unaware of his neighbor next-door, not only as to what he is doing, but almost to the point of not knowing whether he is a human being or some other nursling. But what a human being is, and in what respect it is suitable for a nature of that sort to act or to be acted on that is different from all the rest, he seeks that, and all his trouble is in exploring it. (Theatetus 173eι-174b6)

Nietzsche’s account of the philosopher as an enemy of the ideal of today reminds one of Socrates’ account in the Republic of the political commu­nity as a cave, from which the philosopher tries to free a few of the prisoners but in which the rest of the prisoners - the citizens as a whole - strive to kill him (517a4-6). Indeed, Nietzsche explicitly cites Socrates as the only named example of a philosopher who fulfills the “task” of “being the bad conscience” of his time (BGE 212). Nietzsche’s description of his own task in the Preface, where he describes himself and his fellow free minds as “we whose task is wakefulness itself,” seems to refer quite specifically to Socrates’ description of himself in the Apology (30eι-31a7) in relation to the city of Athens:

For if you kill me, you will not easily discover another of my sort, who - even if it is rather ridiculous to say - has simply been set upon the city by the god, as though upon a great and well-born horse who is rather sluggish because of his great size and needs to be awakened by some gadfly.

More broadly, Beyond Good and Evil in a number of ways resembles Plato’s Socrates in its overall spirit. As we have seen, Nietzsche contrasts Socrates' recognition of his own ignorance of good and evil with the Europe of Nietzsche’s day that falsely claims to know what is good and evil (BGE 202; see also 208). But furthermore, the whole of the first chapter of the book would seem to be Socratic in its effort to awaken his readers to their own ignorance, for its overarching argument is to expose what philosophers claim to know as “truths” as merely “the prejudices of the philosophers” (5): for example, that humans “want truth” (1); that there exist “opposite values” (2); that “philosophical thinking” is the activity of a “pure mind,” unsullied by “instincts” (3, Pre); that there is a harmony between truth and life (4); that synthetic a priori judgments are possible (11); that physics is a genuine “world explanation” (14); “that there are ‘immediate certainties’” (16; see 34); that nature conforms to laws (22). These theoretical claims may well be true, but they are not known to be true and hence are questionable. Nietzsche’s goal here would seem to be to free the minds of his readers from these unexamined assumptions or prejudices by imitating Socrates and making his readers aware of their own ignorance. Similarly, the title of the final and culminating chapter of the book, “What Is Noble?” is not merely an example of the Socratic question par excellence - what is x? - but also the central question of a specific Platonic dialogue - The Hippias Major (2863ff.)^[684]

Finally, in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche identifies Socrates as a “skeptic” (BGE 208): as one whose wisdom is primarily knowledge of one’s own ignorance - “Socrates thought that he did not know... what is good and evil” and “Socrates’ ‘I know that I know nothing’” (BGE 202, 208); as one who questions the beliefs of all human beings, including his own - “in himself he found, before his subtle conscience and self­examination, the same difficulty and incapacity” and he “cut ruthlessly into his own flesh, as he did into the flesh and heart of the ‘noble’” (BGE 191, 212); and as one whose abiding thesis is that human greatness consists in pursuing wisdom by questioning “the ideal of today” (BGE 212). By identifying Socrates as a skeptic, Nietzsche appears to express his own affinity with Socrates. For Nietzsche virtually defines himself in the preface to Beyond Good and Evil as the adversary of dogmatism - skepticism’s ancient adversary (BGE Pre; see also 43). Moreover, in other works, Nietzsche often identifies philosophy itself with skepticism: “The more mistrust, the more philosophy” (GS 346); “The skeptics, the only honorable type among the equivocal, quinquivo- cal nation [Volk] of philosophers!” (EH 2.3). After criticizing philoso­phers as a whole, Nietzsche remarks, “I except a few skeptics - the decent type in the history of philosophy: the rest are simply unaware of the most basic requirements of intellectual honesty” (A 12). Indeed, Nietzsche goes so far as to identify all great minds with skepticism:

One should not be deceived: great minds are skeptics. Zarathustra is a skeptic. Strength, freedom which is born of strength and overstrength of the mind, proves itself by skepticism. Men of conviction are not worthy of the least consideration in fundamental questions of value and disvalue. Convictions are prisons.... A mind who wants great things, who also wants the means to them, is necessarily a skeptic. Freedom from all kinds of convictions, to be able to see freely, is part of strength. (A 54)

It is true that, in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche criticizes “soporific” (that is, seemingly dogmatic), and “gentle” forms of skepticism and confines his praise to the skepticism that exhibits “bravery [Tapferkeit]” (BGE 208, 209). However, inasmuch as Socrates exhibited, according to Nietzsche, “bravery [Tapferkeit]” in his willingness to risk and suffer execution at the hands of the Athenians for his thoroughgoing moral and religious skepticism, Socrates would seem to qualify as one of the brave skeptics Nietzsche admires (GS 340).^[685]

This apparent affinity between Nietzsche’s account of philosophy in Beyond Good and Evil and that of Plato’s Socrates^[686] raises the question, why does Nietzsche criticize Plato and Socrates so harshly in his works? How can one reconcile Nietzsche’s praise of the philosophic, Socratic life with his critique of Plato and Socrates? In order to address this large question, let us consider more carefully the Preface of Beyond Good and Evil, the one book of Nietzsche’s that opens with an attack on Plato and Socrates.^[687]

Nietzsche begins the Preface by boldly and harshly accusing “all phil­osophers” of “dogmatism,” that is, of taking for granted what is ques­tionable and of claiming to know more than they do. Their teachings take the form of simple, “definitive,” “unconditional,” and universal doctrines that are at odds with the truth (see also BGE 43).^[688] “Philosophical dogmatizing” is, he suggests, no more than “a noble childishness and amateurishness [eine edle Kinderei und Anfangerei],” a simple-minded way of thinking that presents the world as more moral than it truly is.^[689] The foundations for “such sublime and unconditional philosophers’ edi­fices as the dogmatists have built so far” are insubstantial. “The dogma­tists’ philosophy” is not based on genuine reason or thought but rather on “any old popular superstition [irgendein Volks-Aberglaube] from time immemorial.” Nietzsche goes so far as to suggest that the teachings of all philosophers resemble the bogus science of astrology. Nietzsche here accuses all philosophers of presenting doctrines that depict the world as more knowable or “definitive” - more friendly to the hope for wisdom - and more “noble” - more friendly to the hope for justice - than it truly is. But one wonders, how is it possible that “all philosophers” until Nietzsche were so simple-minded and ignorant as to equate naive, “noble childishness” with philosophy, and “popular superstition” with thought?

Nietzsche then offers a possible defense of the philosophers against his accusation: “It seems that all great things first have to bestride the earth in monstrous and frightening grimaces [Pratzen]^[690] in order to inscribe themselves in the hearts of humanity with eternal demands: the dogmatic philosophy was such a grimace, for example, the Vedanta doctrine in Asia and Platonism in Europe.” Nietzsche here suddenly suggests that all philosophers were not genuinely dogmatists but merely pretended to be dogmatists. Their dogmatic philosophy - for example, the extremely ascetic Vedanta philosophy that asserts all physical reality to be an illusion (GM 3.12, 3.17) and Platonism - was not sincerely believed in by the philosophers but rather a rhetorical device - a contrived facial expression or pose - used by them in order to inspire reverence “in the hearts of humanity” for philosophy. The philosophers presented “sublime and unconditional” doctrines to humanity because what is sublime and unconditional inspires reverence among humans more than what is not sublime and unconditional. And the philosophers based their doctrines on “popular superstitions from time immemorial” in order to persuade people as a whole to revere philosophy as something compatible with their own popular religious beliefs. But why should philosophers seek to inspire reverence for philosophy among humans who are not philosophers?

The example of philosophical dogmatism that Nietzsche examines is Platonism, which is mentioned twice in the Preface, and whose creator Plato is mentioned four times. After mentioning Platonism, Nietzsche suddenly proceeds to attack Plato quite harshly as a dogmatist who is responsible for “the worst, most durable, and most dangerous error of all errors” - “Plato’s invention of the pure mind and the good as such.” Nietzsche here refers to what (along with the doctrine of personal immor­tality) formed the doctrinal core of Platonism: the doctrine of Forms, a doctrine that holds that there are invisible and even divine beings that are pure moral beings - the Good, the Noble, the Just - that are the objects of the philosopher’s contemplation, and that are knowable to the pure,

“Grimace” therefore seems a more accurate translation; it is the very English word that Kaufmann and Norman both use the two times the word Fratze appears outside of the Preface in Beyond Good and Evil (34 and 252) and that Kaufmann uses the three times the word appears in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (2.1, 2.19, 4.3.2). The passage that sheds most light on how Nietzsche uses the word in the Preface is BGE 252. Just as Carlyle “tried to conceal [verbergen] behind passionate grimaces [Fratzen] what he knew of himself” - his incapacity for philosophy - so Plato tries to conceal his own genuinely philosophic mind behind his dogmatic Platonism - the solemn, forbidding, venerable (but perhaps from his point of view, grotesque) face or grimace he makes, as one with a “sphinx nature” who is a gifted “actor” might, and presents to the world (BGE 28, 7). For other variants of the word in Nietzsche’s works, see BT 2; HATH 2:111; D 113. disembodied mind of the philosopher.^[691] The Platonistic doctrine of Forms, Nietzsche suggests, is the most fundamental and quintessential example of philosophic dogmatizing - of “noble childishness” - since it emphatically presents the world as knowable and as moral, as more supportive of the hope for wisdom and for justice than it truly may be. Nietzsche states most sharply that Plato’s doctrine is an error, “the worst, most durable, and most dangerous error of all errors.” But what kind of error is Plato guilty of, according to Nietzsche? Is Plato guilty of a theoretical error because he sincerely believes in the untrue Platonistic doctrine of Forms? Or is Plato guilty of a rhetorical error, because he adopts Platonism as a public face - a theatrical “mise en scene [Sich-in- Szene-Setzen] ” (BGE 7) - in order to inspire reverence for philosophy but, in doing so, ultimately endangers philosophy?

Nietzsche proceeds to stress how extremely surprising it is that Plato should be a sincerely dogmatic philosopher: “as a physician, one might ask: ‘how could the most beautiful growth of antiquity, Plato, contract such a disease? Did the evil Socrates corrupt him after all? Could Socrates have been the corrupter of youth after all? And did he deserve his hemlock?” Nietzsche here explicitly raises as a question how such a singularly impressive human being as Plato could embrace and promul­gate such errors of dogmatism. The reference to Socrates underscores the question, for Socrates was put on trial not for dogmatism but for skepti­cism, for moral and religious skepticism. He was deemed “evil” for corrupting the youth by weakening or destroying their belief in the gods and laws of Athens and thereby rendering them impious and unjust. But if Plato was a devoted student of “his teacher,” the skeptical Socrates, how did he become a dogmatist (BGE 190)?

Nietzsche himself here, in this passage, seems to identify himself with Socratic skepticism, in two ways. He speaks of “we whose task is wake­fulness itself ” thereby suggesting that his task is to challenge all dogma­tism, all prejudices, and hence that his task is a theoretical one. But the use of wakefulness as a simile for philosophizing refers, as we have seen, to The Apology of Socrates in which the philosopher Socrates compares himself to a gadfly who seeks to wake up the drowsy horse that is Athens by challenging all of its beliefs. Nietzsche also exemplifies such a spirit of radical questioning by questioning philosophy itself - by daring to ask whether Socrates might have deserved condemnation to death because the philosopher corrupted his student Plato. This is most obvi­ously, of course, an anti-Socratic question, but it is also in a sense a Socratic question: Nietzsche raises it as a question, as a question one should think about for oneself rather than dogmatically taking it for granted that Socrates did not deserve this punishment. It is a question that Socrates himself - “the great ironic” who “laughed at himself,” “the old physician and plebeian who cut ruthlessly into his own flesh” - would dare to raise (BGE 191, 212).

Nietzsche’s overall account here makes one charge against Plato, that he invented Platonism, which was not only erroneous - more akin to superstition than thinking - but harmful - “the most worst, most durable, and most dangerous of all errors.” But Nietzsche offers four reasons for doubting that Plato believed in his own dogmatism, that is, that Plato was a Platonist.^[692] First, by saying that Plato adopted Platonism as a grimace or pose, Nietzsche suggests that Plato invented Platonism as a rhetorical device to inspire reverence for philosophy rather than as something he believed to be true. Second, by praising Plato so emphatically as “the most beautiful growth of antiquity,” Nietzsche invites us to wonder how he could have failed to recognize the falseness of dogmatism as a whole and the errors of his dogmas in particular. Third, by alluding to the fact that Plato was a devoted student of Socrates, Nietzsche invites us to ask how the devoted student of a skeptic could have sincerely become a dogmatist. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, by referring to Socrates’ execution by Athens for being “evil” because he corrupted the youth and also because he did not believe in the gods of Athens, Nietzsche points to a powerful reason why Plato might have invented Platonism in order to inspire reverence for philosophy among those humans who are not phil­osophers. For precisely because Socrates was a philosopher, he challenged the ideals of his society, the justice and piety of Athens, as all genuine philosophers always will, since the task of philosophy is wakefulness, that is, to awaken their fellow human beings from their dogmatic slumbers by questioning their most sacred beliefs (BGE 212). Such radical skepticism, however, inevitably provokes deadly persecution, as was suffered not only by Socrates but later by, for example, Spinoza and Bruno (BGE 25; see also UM 3.8). “[T]he bad conscience [das b∂se Gewissen]” of one’s time will inevitably be branded “evil” by one’s time, as befell “the evil Socrates [der b∂se Sokrates]” (BGE 212, Pre). Plato accordingly invented the dogmatic philosophy of Platonism, whose principal doctrines of the idea of the good and the pure mind seem to uphold morality and piety, in order to defend philosophy against the charge of immorality and impiety. He sought to present philosophy, which is at its heart moral and religious skepticism, with a moral and religious face.

Nietzsche continues to suggest in the rest of Beyond Good and Evil that Plato invented Platonism, not because he believed in the truth of its doctrines, but as a way of protecting philosophy. Nietzsche reports that, according to Epicurus, “Plato and the Platonists ” were “actors” who were expert at presenting themselves, and therefore, it would seem, phil­osophy, as something “grandiose” (7). According to Nietzsche himself, Plato was given to “secrecy,” he had the enigmatic nature of a “sphinx,” and therefore, notwithstanding his Platonistic pose as a champion of morality and piety, Plato admired the irreverent Aristophanes: “under the pillow of his deathbed there was found no ‘Bible,’ nor anything Egyptian, Pythagorean, or Platonic - but a volume of Aristophanes” (28).^[693] Indeed, according to Nietzsche, the Greek philosophers as a whole were given to secrecy and to presenting their teachings in a delib­erately enigmatic way: for the books of the Greek philosophers, as well as the Indian, Persian, and Muslim ones, contain two teachings - an inner, esoteric teaching that is “dangerous” in its moral and religious skepticism and therefore must be kept hidden from humanity at large and an outer, exoteric teaching that is not dangerous (30). In the Genealogy of Morality (3.10), Nietzsche explains that the philosophers hid themselves not only to protect society from their dangerous religious and moral skepticism but also to protect themselves from persecution: “the philosophic mind always had to disguise and cocoon itself as the previously established types of the contemplative man - as priest, sorcerer, soothsayer, as reli­gious man in general - in order for its existence to be possible at all.”

According to Nietzsche, what distinguishes Plato from the other Greek philosophers seems to be his determination to provide an exoteric teach­ing that does not merely hide the moral and religious skepticism of the philosopher behind a cloak of traditional morality and piety but redefines the philosopher for the public at large as a human being who actively leads a moral and pious life, who actively promulgates doctrines support­ive of morality and piety, and who therefore is positively deserving of popular reverence. Through his own writings, Plato attempted to give Socrates his own, “refined and noble,” Platonic “masks [Masken]” (190). It is true that, according to Nietzsche’s claim, Plato strove “to prove to himself that reason and instinct of themselves tend toward one goal, the good, ‘God’” and due to the power of Plato’s writings “since Plato, all theologians and philosophers are on the same track” in their support of morality (191). But Nietzsche’s overall account of Plato suggests that Plato merely taught exoterically that reason and faith are fundamentally in harmony and united in their support of morality in order to provide a moral and religious mask to conceal the inner, radical moral and religious skepticism of philosophy. As Nietzsche remarks in The Antichrist (23): “Truth and the faith [der Glaube] that something is true: two completely separate realms [Welten] of interest - almost diametrically opposed realms - they are reached by utterly different paths. Having knowledge of this - that is almost the definition of the wise man in the Orient: the Brahmins understand this; Plato understands this; so does every student of esoteric wisdom.”

Nietzsche’s critique of Plato, then, is not for being a genuine Platonist but for adopting Platonism as a rhetorical strategy.^[694] The error of Plato is not primarily a theoretical one but a rhetorical one. Nietzsche suggests that the defect of Plato’s strategy of redefining philosophy as a supporter of morality and religion - of fixing on philosophy a moral and religious face or mask over its moral and religious skepticism - in order to inspire reverence for philosophy among humanity at large as a champion of morality and piety is that it has been all too successful.^[695] It has led to a complete misunderstanding of what philosophy itself is down to Nietzsche’s time: “[N]owadays all the world talks of things of which it cannot have any experience, and this is most true, and in the worst way, concerning philosophers and philosophical states - exceedingly few know them, may know them, and all popular opinions about them are false” (BGE 213). In the first place, Platonism has led to a well nigh universal identification of the philosopher as a passionate partisan of morality rather than as a ruthless investigator of morality. Whereas Socrates publicly proclaimed his knowledge of his ignorance of “what is good and evil,” Platonism publicly promulgates the moral teaching of “the good as such” (BGE 202, 208, Pre). Accordingly, “[t]he moralism of the Greek philosophers from Plato on is pathologically conditioned”; a “mor­alistic and idealistic swindle [is] set loose on all sides by the Socratic schools”; and the moral skepticism of Socrates is followed by “the Philistine moralism [Biedermannerei] of the Socratic schools” (TI 2.10, 10.2, 10.3). As a result of the influence of Platonism, philosophy is identified as the endeavor, not to know the truth about nature, but - in the fashion of the Stoics or, later, Kant - to “impose your morality, your ideal on nature,” and not to know the truth about morality, but “to supply a rational foundation [Begrundung] for morality” (BGE 9, 186; see 5, 11, 188; HATH 1:19). Secondly, while “[i]n reality there exists between religion and true science neither affinity, nor friendship, nor even enmity: they dwell on different stars,” Platonism has led to a popular identification of philosophy with religion: “since Plato, all theologians and philosophers are on the same track” (HATH 1:110; BGE 191); Plato’s philosophy comes to sight, not as his thoroughgoing investigation of the world through reason alone, but as “Plato’s ideomania, his almost religious madness about the Forms [Formen-Wahnsinn]” (GS 357). After Plato and as a result of Platonism, philosophy succumbs to a dogmatic rationalism - a “fanaticism with which all Greek reflection throws itself upon rationality” (TI 2.10). It is because of its seemingly moral and religious spirit - for example, its portrayal of the philosopher as one who seeks to become purified of the body in order to contemplate with a pure mind the divine forms of the Good and the Just¹¹⁴ - that Platonism paves the way for Christianity, according to Nietzsche: “Christianity is Platonism for ‘the people’” (BGE Pre); it is Platonism “which made it possible for the nobler natures of antiquity to misunderstand themselves and to set foot on the bridge leading to the ‘cross’” (TI 10.2).^[696] Platonism, then, which seeks to protect philosophers from the fate of Socrates by hiding the true, radical nature of philosophy, ultimately hides the true, radical nature of philosophy from the potentially philosophic themselves. Platonism, then, is “the worst, most durable, and most dan­gerous error of all errors” because it endangers philosophy itself; Platonism leads to a great forgetting of what philosophy is, a belief that philosophy is dogmatic rather than skeptical, moralistic and pious rather than questioning of morality and piety: “The philosophical life is misin­terpreted. - At the moment when anyone begins to take philosophy seriously all the world believes the opposite” (HATH 2:380).

Nietzsche confides to his readers that “ [m]y recreation, my preference, my cure from all Platonism has always been Thucydides” and also, “perhaps, Machiavelli’s Principe” (TI 10.3).^[697] Nietzsche suggests here that these two famous political realists, Thucydides and Machiavelli, counteract the “dis­ease” of moralistic dogmatism - that is, the Platonistic identification of philosophy with a championing of morality - through their critical but humane analysis of morality. Thucydides in particular, the “last glorious flowering [letzten herrlichen Ausbluhen]” of Greek culture (D 168), “the last revelation of that strong, severe, hard factuality which was instinctive with the older Hellenes,” teaches explicitly through his Melian Dialogue and his account of the Corcyrean Civil War that there is a fundamental tension between nature and morality: “There exists neither a natural right nor a natural wrong” (TI 10.2; HATH 1:92, 3:31; consider as well GM ι.ιι). Thucydides also teaches through his account of the Pericles Funeral Oration and the plague that ravaged Athens, more openly than does Plato, that there is a fundamental tension between the cultivation of the human mind and political society even at its best (HATH 1:474). In this way, Thucydides openly displays a far more impressive intellectual honesty than does the Platonistic Plato: “In the end, it is courage in the face of reality that distin­guishes a nature like Thucydides from Plato: Plato is a coward before reality, consequently he flees into the ideal” (TI 10.3; see also D 168).

Yet while Nietzsche praises Thucydides and Machiavelli over Plato for the explicit critiques of morality to be found in their works, Nietzsche follows Plato rather than Thucydides and Machiavelli - and Homer - in his own explicit praise of the philosophic life. Nietzsche refers admiringly to Thucydides’ reserve in his self-presentation: “One must turn him over line for line and read his hidden thoughts [Hintergedanken] as clearly as his words: there are few thinkers so rich in their hidden thoughts [es gibt wenige so hintergedankenreicher Denker]” (TI io.2). But, notwithstand­ing his account of the lasting harm to philosophy done by Plato’s explicit celebration of philosophy and his foundation of Platonism, Nietzsche does not call for a return to the reserve regarding their own philosophiz­ing of the pre-Platonic Greek thinkers, such as Thucydides and Homer, and, later, Machiavelli. Nietzsche objects, not to Plato’s open celebration of the philosophic life, but to his way of celebrating the philosophic life. Nietzsche emphatically embraces Plato’s belief that the philosophic life must be overtly praised and encouraged, against the view of Homer, Thucydides, and Machiavelli that it is best for philosophy to be hidden from public view and quietly pointed to rather than loudly championed. Nietzsche attacks Plato quite harshly, but his attack is on the contrived face of Platonism rather than on the radically questioning, independent- minded hermit of the mind that Plato truly was. Nietzsche attacks Plato but he does so for Platonic ends, to clarify for potential philosophers what philosophy truly is, in an age that has forgotten what philosophy is due to Platonism. It would seem to be out of a desire to counteract the Platonistic identification of philosophy with morality and piety that Nietzsche goes so far in identifying himself as an immoralist - “I am by far the most terrible human being that has existed so far; this does not preclude the possibility that I shall be the most charitable [wohltatigste].... I am the first immoralist” (EH 4.1); as one who is beyond good and evil - “My demand upon the philosopher is known, that he take a stand beyond good and evil and leave the illusions of moral judgment beneath himself” (TI 7.1); and as the Antichrist.^[698] For through this rhetorical presentation of philosophy as emphatically opposed to morality and religion, he hopes to reintroduce the radical moral and religious skepticism of philosophy to a world that has lost sight of it: “How I understand the philosopher - as a terrible explosive endangering everything” (EH 3.UM.3).

Nietzsche does not, however, simply disregard the need to contrive a grimace or face or mask, however translucent, to protect philosophy from society and also society from philosophy. His statement that “[e]very philosophy also conceals a philosophy; every opinion is also a hideout, every word also a mask” also applies to Nietzsche himself; among other considerations, “ [f]or being an immoralist, one has to take steps against corrupting innocents” (BGE 289; GS 381). However casual and even flippant such a remark might seem, Nietzsche, as we have seen, does present the philosopher, intermittently but memorably, with a moral mask: as one who exhibits a noble devotion to “the overall development of man,” as one who strives heroically to prevent “the overall degener­ation of man,” as a new Homer who celebrates the noble master morality of the Homeric heroes while also deifying the greatest of humans, the philosopher.^[699] Nietzsche, then, does not entirely abandon the Platonic strategy of presenting the philosopher as a champion of morality, but rather modifies that strategy. In this way too does Nietzsche, the critic of Platonism and therefore of Plato himself, reveal his fundamental affinity with Plato.