Wisdom And Philosophy

Nietzsche and the Ancient Greeks: Philosopher-Artist as Founder of the Noble Culture

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Amin Dorosti 1
Ahmad Ali Heidari 2

1 PhD Student in Philosophy, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

2 Professor of Philosophy, Allameh ‎Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22054/wph.2023.72486.2141
Abstract
Ancient Greek culture, philosophy, and art are very important to Nietzsche. Despite his highly critical and radical view of the entire Western cultural tradition, he always praises ancient Greek culture as the noblest human culture. His attention to the ancient Greeks is largely a consequence of Nietzsche's central concern: the “crisis of nihilism”. Nietzsche seeks to eliminate nihilism through the creation of a Noble culture. His underlying idea of culture is Goethe's idea of “harmonious manifoldness” or “unity in diversity”. He emphasizes that in any era, a fundamental unifying factor can be the founder of a healthy culture; in his view, saints, philosophers, and artists are the main candidates for the foundation of culture. In this article, we try to show that in his first theoretical attempt to create a Noble culture, Nietzsche chooses an aesthetic perspective (thesis), but this perspective isn't satisfactory, so he changes his perspective and looks at culture from a philosophical perspective (antithesis). The opposition and at the same time, the coexistence of these two perspectives leads to a "synthesis": the harmonious alliance of philosophy and art to create a culture. The embodiment of this synthesis is the “philosopher-artist”; one who has “knowledge” and “creativity” at once; “future philosopher”; a creator of new values! In this paper, we try to show that this synthesis doesn't lead to a third thing, different from thesis and antithesis, in which contradiction and conflict have been settled; instead, this synthesis is exactly the same simultaneous opposition and harmony of these forces. This unity of contradictory forces is a recurring concept in Nietzsche's thought.

Keywords

Friedrich Nietzsche
Art
Ancient Greeks
Tragic knowledge
Modern culture crisis
Noble culture
Subjects
  1. Works by Nietzsche

Human, All Too Human I. Translated by G. Handwerk. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (1997).

On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense. In Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870’s. (1993).

Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870’s. Edited & translated by D. Breazeale. Amherst: Humanities Books. (1993).

Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks. Translated with an Introduction by Marianne Cowan. Gateway Editions; Reprint edition. (1996).‎

The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings. Translated by R. Speirs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1999).

The Gay Science. Translated by W. Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books. Random House. (1974).

The Philosopher: Reflections on the Struggle between Art and Knowledge. In Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870’s. (1993).

The Philosopher as Cultural Physician. In Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870’s. (1993).

The Pre-Platonic Philosophers. Translated and edited by Greg Whitlock. University of Illinois Press. (2006).

The Struggle between Science and Wisdom. In Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870’s. (1993).

Untimely Meditations. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1983).

  1. Secondary Literature

Berry, J. N. (2013). “Nietzsche and the Greeks”. In K. Gemes & J. Richardson (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 83-107.
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199534647.013.0005

Breazeale, D. (1975). “The Hegel-Nietzsche Problem”. Nietzsche-Studien. 4(1): 146–164. 10.1515/9783110244243.146

Burnham, D. (2019). The Nietzsche Dictionary. London: Bloomsburry.

Diethe, Carol. (2007). Historical Dictionary of Nietzscheanism. Maryland: Scarecrow Press.

Heidegger, Martin. (1991). Nietzsche Vol. I (The Will to Power as Art). Trans. by David Farrell Krell. New York: Harper Collins.

Müller-Lauter, W. & Schacht, R. (1999). Nietzsche: His Philosophy of Contradictions and the Contradictions of His Philosophy. Translated by D. J. Parent. University of Illinois.

Raimond Daniels, Paul. (2014). Nietzsche and The Birth of Tragedy. Routledge.

Steel, S. (1998). Nietzsche’s Understanding of Socrates. Ontario: McMaster University.

Biblography

Deleuze, Gilles. (2011). Nietzsche and philosophy. Translated by Adel Mashayekhi. Tehran: Ney Publishing. [in Persian]

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1983). Beyond good and bad. Translation by Dariush Ashouri. (5th edition: 2011). Tehran: Kharazmi. [in Persian]

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1999). Philosophy in the tragic age of the Greeks. Translated by Majid Sharif. Tehran: Jami. [in Persian]

Nietzsche, Friedrich (2002). The sunset of idols. Translation by Dariush Ashouri. (8th edition: 1392). Tehran: Agah. [in Persian]

Nietzsche, Friedrich (2011). Philosophy, knowledge and truth: a selection of Nietzsche's notes on epistemology, philosophy and culture. Translated by Morad Farhadpour. (5th edition: 2011). Tehran: Hermes. [in Persian]

Nietzsche, Friedrich (2016). Birth of Tragedy and some other writings. Translated by Reza Valiyari. Tehran: Markaz Publications. [in Persian]. *

 

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Wisdom And Philosophy
Volume 19, Issue 73
Winter 2023
Pages 59-82

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