nm5144: okay mm we were er going to consider to start with mm er Bell Brigit and Ruth the figure of Socrates er anything you want to say first nm5143: well in ca-, in just casting my mind over over this list this morning i see well we've got three figures today Socrates Goethe and Dionysus i don't know if they namex you've you've been trying this out you've meant to make a kind of progression but we do start out with somebody that Nietzsche is very opposed to then we get on to somebody that Nietzsche is quite that is Socrates er then we get on to Goethe somebody Nietzsche's really quite enthusiastic for oh yes he does say that Goethe never actually did understand the Greeks he's got a little bit of reservation there and then on to Dionysus which is a figure that er Nietzsche to some extent recuperates from from er the Greek period but also in a sense in-, invents as a kind of symbol or or something to stand for all the er life affirming values that he er is seeking to er impart really er so there is there is a kind of there is a kind of progression and today we'll sort of follow that progression through er i i wonder if we should we should give it over right now to Brigit and and Ruth sf5145: are you happy with sf5146: yeah i'm fine sf5145: er i'm going to do the first two questions that reference to the sheet and Brigit is going to do the second two nm5143: oh right okay sf5145: er why is dialectic a sign of Greekness wisdom is traditionally linked with the idea of escaping life and death because it's an end to a feeling of worthlessness and hostility as a result and a quote from section one of er Socrates does wisdom maybe appear on earth as a scavenger bird excited by a little sight of rotting meat wisdom is associated with decline Socrates is a great historical figure with continuing intellectual influence Nietzsche sees Socrates and Plato as symptoms of decay and as anti-Greek Socrates felt that it was necessary to take hold of the belief that the value of life had to be assessed which Nietzsche strongly criticises in the making of value judgements about life Nietzsche claims that they attributed and another quote from section two question marks attached to their wisdom or unwisdom nm5144: mm sf5145: philosophers mistakes about their views were that they made value judgements about life whilst they were merely symptoms of it such judgements were stupidities Nietzsche nm5143: can you see can you slow down just a little bit sf5145: yeah er nm5143: i'm noticing that people i see are writing down see sf5145: Nietzsche believes that because man philosophers are living as symptoms of life they could not be wise to begin with because they can't reflect back on it er dialectic is a sign of weakness because with Socrates enters a shift from noble taste to that of the rabble Socrates ushers in dialectical manners which were basically that one was to distrust open exposure of reason Nietzsche associates the dialectic with mistrust it is authoritarian so that one avoids having to give reasons it is a deceiving act and Nietzsche likens Socrates and also associates his repulsiveness at the same time to a clown whom the people unfortunately took seriously the dialectician is a form of self-defence Nietzsche admits this is a weapon which can be easily wiped away it is ordinarily weak but he claims that Socrates moved to prevent this by strengthening his claims through force he is manipulative and cunning and he likens him to Reynard the Fox the metaphor of a clown er this is another quote who got people to take him seriously that's from section five is a clever one as one of the rabble Socrates opposes the noble through laying on his opponent the burden of proving that he is not an idiot that's also another quote thereby angering and paralysing through the instrument of resentment Socrates disempowers the intellect of his opponent Nietzsche names the dialectic as a as sorry i can't read my own writing as a form of revenge founded on what should have been an undefendable form of self-defence however the weakness of the dialectic was strengthened by one force and that is that it drove straight into the heart of the noble Greeks via their main defence which was their intellect nm5143: mm mm sf5145: and then er i went on to consider in what ways Socrates repulsive and what makes him an object of fascination nm5144: mm mm sf5145: Socrates ugliness was merely a further expression of his monstrous soul Nietzsche deduces that the typical criminal is ugly and this is a quote monstro in fronte monstro in animo which is monster in the face monster in the soul his ugliness is for Socrates evidence of development in decline Nietzsche's analogy of him as a criminal reveals that his repulsiveness reflects the vices and cravings in his soul namely that Nietzsche attributes to him decadence and vulturous scavenging over life as decline and worthlessness Socrates' physical repulsiveness is a mirror of his mental repulsiveness revenge is the vice that drives the soul which is which is what at the same time makes him so fascinating his fascinating element is derived from the fact that he led a new form of attack on the noble he stimulated them which engaged and appealed to their intellect what he stimulated was the combative drive of the Hellenes he used the erotic by introducing a and this is a quote variant into the wrestling match between young men and youths what made him fascinating was that he managed to adulterate the nobles intellect through the physical driven urge of that which even the rabble could understand at least feel and that was the erotic Socrates revenge channelled in a two-way interchangeable form the physical into the mental and the mental into the physical nm5144: mm sf5145: okay nm5143: er sf5145: what do you want to do nm5143: should we well how wh-, wh-, what would be most comfortable for you would you like to present your material and then open discussion up maybe that would be best sf5146: right nm5143: okay sf5146: so for Nietzsche Socrates is a decadent figure and he describes him as a symptom of decay he is decadent because he's overly logical he's too rational Nietzsche thinks it's just as decadent to suppress and fight against instincts as it is to give in to all instincts er i think he says there's a quote here it's just altering the expression of decadence to try and escape it by fighting the instincts it's not getting rid of the decadence it's just decadence under another form so the strict rationality of Socrates is a sickness it's not the way to achieve health and happiness as he sees it his choice as the means to fight decadence is just what we need to a calm life over the rational and such rationality is absurd it's just a formula for decadence er that's all i've got to say about that really er but the Greeks' crisis was that as far as i could see they were either going to be destroyed by their commitment or they were going to become absurdly rational er and it's Socrates rationalism that they think will save them from decadence which is why Socrates is seen as a saviour he's er but he's an extreme case of the general crisis which is that people are letting their instincts turn against each other so yeah he seems to be saying it because his teachings are one that one should not give in to the senses but er this is seen to be a rescue from decadence but for Nietzsche this is not true it's just another form nm5144: that's where you finish sf5146: mm nm5144: thanks very much let's just pick up that last moment er er in what is the crisis i mean er a certain sense is lying behind all this er Socrates seen as er a a by Nietzsche as operating at a certain period in history which is in some sense crisis you identify Brigit crisis as sf5146: no Ruth did that nm5144: sorry as one where all the in where the instincts are turning against each other i don't know what you or indeed anyone how you understand that sf5146: yeah it says the general crisis the fact that noone was master of himself anymore and each were turning against each other nm5144: and what did that mean and maybe perhaps a way of bringing that out is do you think that applies to today and would could the same description apply today i i i think that might be a way back to discovering whether we understand what that means if it means anything anyone we needn't just pressurise Brigit on this sf5146: i don't think so i hadn't really thought about it i i don't think there is there seems to be kind of a culture of er the individual and the needs of the individual and the kind of giving in to what you want nm5144: mm mm sf5146: i hadn't given this much thought but i don't think there is a lot of rationalism particularly in today's society or that nm5144: no so you're saying if there was a crisis in today's society the Socratic solution doesn't look as if it's prepared for er right thank you well i'm just wondering what people understand the crisis of Greek society to be er i mean the reason why i'm asking whether it's now is we're just trying to get clear about what the claim is or from what you know from what we did earlier this term when we looked at the Symposium whether you can identify any features of what you read there which matter or interest you in terms of what's being said either positively or negatively either in support or against it nm5143: another way of getting at this is just to think er what what Nietzsche says in in section ten er just for er they were in danger they had to make this choice either to be destroyed or to be absurdly rational so as i understand it we're we're seeking to just identify what was this condition that forced them into making a choice which as Nietzsche says is between either being destroyed or to be you know in the direction of Socrates absurdly rational sf5147: could you see it as a sort of er exemplified by er er Alchibiades' in opposition to Socrates' view of love and so if Alchibiades is sort of the immediate expression of his feelings whereas Socrates is sort of more tending to rationalize the feelings and to tend to go away from the everyday and to go into the more heavenly realm er i don't know whether you'd say that was a sort of a suppression of the feelings it's er because there's a sort of analogy between the er more erotic side of love and then there's the the relationship between the older men and the younger men where there's the more rational bit they have the the birth of knowledge in the other in the partner nm5144: mm mm sf5147: its rather than the erotic side of love nm5144: that sounds plausible er but just take a look at the end to follow this up let's just take a look at the end of that section ten that namex drew your attention to because the question one needs to ask is why on Nietzsche's account and i'm sure you're right in picking out the Alchibiades as an example er is claiming the result of a pathological condition right that's second paragraph in section ten i-, on page sixteen er they felt that we have to imitate Socrates and produce a permanent daylight against the dark desires the daylight of reason we have to be cunning sharp clear at all costs every acquiescence to the instincts to the unconscious leads downwards now its that last sentence clause that i'm interested in the context in which he sees a crisis was reason was er being absurdly rational was an antidote though he thinks in fact an unsatisfactory antidote is where the perception in the culture is that acquiescence to the instincts of the unconscious leads downwards one needs something to rule them one needs something to rule oneself it says er er when one finds it necessary to make a tyrant out of reason there must be no small danger that something else should play the tyrant what is that something else it looks as if that something else is instincts which could lead downwards now why just go back to thinking about Alchibiades' case and the case of the Symposium what in er that context seems to be the problem about the instincts sf5147: that er more in the light of what happens to Alchibiades nm5144: sure sf5147: in the days after be killed in war and er have lots of disasters and er nm5144: yes sf5147: could be seen as a result of his rejection from Socrates who he's in love with nm5144: er er mm sf5147: and he's sort of letting his feelings run away with him nm5144: yeah sf5147: whereas Socrates is sort of seen as the opposite extreme nm5144: okay nm5143: but they're aren't they in Nietzsche's terms sf5147: yeah i don't i guess so nm5143: i mean Alchibiades is either to be Alchibiades represents the either to be destroyed option and Socrates is the absurdly rational nm5144: right now what okay what's common to those such that they could possibly probably both be called decadence on Nietzsche's account the clue i think is actually given in that passage that was just read out or part of something that was actually read out aloud if i was to mention the word tyrant i mean it looks as if what he's saying here is you've got a you've got a problematic situation where you need a tyrant now certainly you have the tyranny of reason and that is seen by Socrates as decadent but there's a danger of another tyranny to which that is opposite what would the tyranny be the tyranny of a certain type of instinct why is that perceived as a tyranny and that comes right back to what's supposed to be the problem here i think part of what the problem here is a lack of a lack of belief in a lack of confidence in living the life without a tyrant right where something's gone wrong with the form of life which involved er well what's the opposite of tyranny freedom involved a form of freedom in life an allowance of the different instincts to play their own role in other words a context where to pick up on what namex said no sorry what what namex er what er what er er i think er nm5143: namex nm5144: namex said er thanks er where the instincts turn against each other it's no longer the case that the instincts are working in positively in harmony and so you need something to rule right er nm5143: er this er distinction of kinds of instincts or different ways instincts function er you know it was brought out clearly in four and also in in to some extent in nine in section nine it talks about the instincts were in anarchy and that was the problem and that's what leads to this necessity to make a choice nm5144: er mm mm nm5143: and in four the first line there's again these anarchic instincts nm5144: er mm nm5143: as opposed to the very last line of section four yeah nm5144: er mm nm5143: the instincts of the older er Hellenes which which were unified and therefore er a reliable er source for for living in for ascending life as it were nm5144: okay now let's put another sf5148: but is nm5144: go on go on sorry sf5148: er in ten the bottom of section ten er is saying that you know reliance a reliance on the instincts and the unconscious leads downwards is that sort of based on what Nietzsche says in the Genealogy of Morality saying that er that Socrates is in is in fact er part of he's he's ignoble he's part of the common nm5144: he's rabble sf5148: he's he's yeah he's definitely part of the rabble nm5144: it connects i wouldn't say it was based on it it is certainly connected with it but i think what you're pointing to is an interesting question what is the evaluative force of saying that he's rabble or that leading downwards is something to be resisted sf5148: yeah nm5144: right and that picks up something er that er Ruth mentioned at the start that i thought we ought to ought to pick up you said Ruth and you were citing er er the text that part of the problem was that at least i think you said that you couldn't reflect back on your own situation can you enlarge a bit on what you meant by that or what you were referring to sf5145: er i was talking about er Socrates and Plato's wisdom nm5144: yeah sf5145: and that they saw themselves as being able to make judgements nm5144: yeah sf5145: and then sort of judge that there was a decline that there was a decay but they could not in fact because they were still living their life which meant that they were merely symptoms nm5144: right and what does Nietzsche think about his own situation again er just looking at the text that you've been studying i'm thinking particularly at the moment of paragraph two the middle of the second paragraph sf5145: basically that you can't assess the value of life nm5144: that then what do you think that does to Nietzsche's own claims about the acceptability or otherwise of shall we say decadence sf5148: i i think Nietzsche what i think Nietzsche did was the fact that he's only offering he's in he's interpreting he's not he's not offering values he might be trying to get rid of values but he's not well by get getting rid of values he's im-, im-, sort of implicitly going to put other values in place but that's not what he's intending to do sf5145: but you can't say that can you sf5148: yeah but he will do and we'll see that he does i would say i don't think you can say that Nietzsche doesn't doesn't have any values at all that's sort of like an indirect result of what he's trying to do sf5145: but i don't think that he he would want to make it in the same way that Socrates or Plato would make sf5148: no no no no that's not what i'm saying i'm saying he tries to get away with all values but implicitly in doing the getting away with all values he in places his own values because that's just the way it works but he's not saying these are the values that you should live your life by and these are the values that you should er sort of evaluate with that that's not the kind of values they are but i think he does nm5144: keeping your thumb or finger or pencil in that particular place turn over to page twenty-eight has everybody got this text we're all working no you've all got this text right section five right look at the end of the first paragraph of section five on page twenty-eight and then the following paragraph do you see that Helen as bearing on what you've just been saying sf5148: er yeah apart from he wouldn't think he was weak he would say he was strong nm5144: mm mm sf5148: er yeah i mean the degeneracy of life needs needs a a more a more creditable value to work with nm5144: when we speak of values we speak under the inspiration under the optics of life this goes back to the whole business of seeing everything in terms of a particular perspective which one can only speak and think from a perspective the perspective of life life itself is forcing us to posit values life itself is valuing by means of us when we posit values when namex said look not establishing values attempting to establish values in the way Socrates did er by dialectic you say that's right in a different manner i wondered whether this threw some light on the ways in which Socrates er Nietzsche thinks that values may be posited sf5148: er i think sort of values yeah what am i trying to say er if they're life-affirming nm5144: mm mm sf5148: i think that's kind of Nietzsche's the values Nietzsche is affirming the ones that come out of life of itself the ones that are just forced from life from us out into the world and into an interpretational perspective like you said nm5144: mm mm sf5145: it's like it's like he's a spectator rather than like a legislator like here you're looking at phenomenology in a way nm5144: mm mm sf5145: he would probably say that Socrates was a legislator and he was a spectator nm5144: mm mm sf5145: because he only discusses symptoms which doesn't force him like it forced Socrates and Plato to take the stance through making judgements that life was in decline nm5144: mm mm sf5145: he merely observed the symptoms as opposed to er form like direct opinions or develop those opinions nm5144: mm mm sf5148: and so these er moralities which have been posited and the value of life which has been from Socrates onwards through sort of like down through the Greeks to the Christians finally to to Kant the sneaky Christian which i quite like is er sort of they're they're anti-life they're anti the the natural force the will or strength of life because they're positing something that's it's degenerative because they're saying it's it's kind of it's going against the natural the natural will the power of the will because it's saying there's there's something better it's not all here there's nm5144: mm mm mm mm it looks as if nm5143: does Nietzsche nm5144: go on go on nm5143: well does does Nietzsche imply where one can find the sort of values he does seem to stand for i mean if you read the book if you read this text you can it's so difficult to distill as it were the sorts of things Nietzsche stands for right does he suggest anywhere here where that where those can be found what does he mean by saying that Socrates the way it asks the question is what does he mean by saying that Socrates is anti-Greek i thought Socrates was Greek i thought he stood for everything that Greece stood for ancient Greece stood for what does he mean by saying that Socrates was anti-Greek sf5145: because they stand opposed to the sort of the negative life-force they don't like the Greeks they don't move with and accept and live through what is terrifying they're standing opposed to it nm5143: who's they sf5148: Dionysus sf5145: yeah i'm talking about like the birth of tragedy the sort of thing we talked about in the birth of tragedy nm5143: who do you mean who do you mean by they sf5145: well nm5143: do you mean Socrates and sf5145: Socrates yeah nm5143: okay so you don't mean the Greeks sf5145: no i mean they as opposed to the Greeks nm5143: right sf5145: the traditional views of the Greeks nm5143: right and Nietzsche's Greeks sf5148: are Dionysian they're Dionysian nm5143: yes i mean this is looking ahead to the Dionysus material that we'll get to but it's already present here isn't it when he said that Socrates is anti-Greek right he's making that distinction sf5148: is there was just a point when you were doing your presentation and it was saying er Nietzsche was arguing that er Socrates is overly logical overly rational and du du du du er er but he sort of what Nietzsche wants is something which is not rational which is goes on the instincts which is bodily which is physical nm5144: mm mm sf5148: er you know hence you know the intoxication later on which we'll get onto you know it's all-consuming it's like very important that it's physical and yet he gives Socrates this physicality and admits that he had this physical driven urge dimension and this eroticism and i just wondered how that stood with with Nietzsche himself and is has Nietzsche actually moved that far away from the dialectic nm5143: what does sf5148: its not a dialectic in the sort of set sense of Socrates' dialectic but isn't Nietzsche still being provocative isn't he still trying to entice an answer out of you know he's always engaged Nietzsche's philosophy doesn't work in boom boom boom boom boom properties of one du du du so that you can follow it logically his philosophy works in enticing you provoking you to a response sf5145: i'd say that it offers like an ideal something far more appealing in something that you could dream about almost nm5144: mm mm sf5148: so but i mean has he moved that far away from the dialectic that's my question nm5143: wha-, what do other people think sf5148: i'm not i'm not saying that he isn't he is the the same as Socrates but just the way that he can be i don't think sf5147: do you mean you're sort of giving a legislation in condemning things sf5148: no i'm just wondering about Nietzsche's own style whether he has moved that far away from the style of the dialectic in his philosophy that's my question and i don't know the answer other than i know i think Nietzsche teases you and plays with you and is provocative and tries to get you to give him nm5143: well he is to that extent er rhetorical if we might take that just broadly to say th-, that he is asking things of us of readers and so on er in that sense every text is to some extent every argument functions rhetorically sf5148: he's quite explicit though nm5143: so how how would it function how do you see it functioning er in terms of dialectic more sort of narrowly conceived or defined the sort of dialectic that we saw going on in in the er the Symposium Socrates is sf5148: this is [laugh] nm5143: his interlocutor interlocutors sf5148: i don't i don't think it just wasn't something which sat right when we read the sections and i don't know all this stuff about dialectic as such that's just a question mark nm5144: well i think this text gives a bit more er er more hints er remember we noticed last time that Twilight of the Idols in in a certain sense has a structure to it in which the er the end balances the beginning and you can move two stages in and the problem of Socrates is balanced by what i owe to the ancients so if you look over to what i said over to the ancients which is pages eighty-seven eighty-six rather onwards right and er he draws on page eighty- seven er having been rude er about the Greeks er on page eighty-six er he draws a distinction between Plato and with it Socrates and Thucidides bottom of page eighty-seven er my recreation my predilection my cure for all Platonism has always been Thucidides and also perhaps Machiavelli now what is it that he is pointing to here their unconditional will to fabricate nothing and to see reason in reality and not in reasonable morality and then down on page eighty- eight the end of that section er Thucidid-, er Greek philosophy was the decadence of Greek instinct Thucidides is the great summation the final appearance of that strong stick strict hard factuality that was a matter of instinct for the older Hellenes which of course picks up precisely what Michael John picked up from the earlier bit and he's just been talking about the culture of the Sophists which it appears to be he for right er courage in the face of reality is in the final analysis the point of difference in natures such as Thucidides and Plato er Thucidides has control over himself consequently he also has control over things now what's going on there control over himself that suggest a model whereby you don't need some tyrant to dominate your er to dominate your er instincts or your life you are able to do it yourself whoever yourself may be right in other words it's a notion of the opposite of tyranny as a form of self-control self-creation in context with truthfulness courage in relation to reality that looks like the model that is implicit in this what i er the problem of Socrates and is brought out in what i owe to the ancients who seem to me to lead directly into the positive account that's given of Goethe later on do you think namex we might move to that nm5143: mm mm mm nm5144: who was going to be dealing with er Helen Helen and Siobhan wasn't it you were going to be thinking about the figures of Goethe and Dionysus er and how have you carved this between you sf5148: in no particular way nm5144: it's not that one of you's identified with Goethe sf5149: no no we haven't no we just nm5144: and the other one is going to put on the garlands of Dionysus sf5149: no nm5144: what a shame okay er sf5148: yes Siobhan is going going to get into a little frenzy in the corner [laughter] nm5144: i would hope so absolutely nm5143: yes nm5144: which of you would like to go get into your frenzy first sf5148: i don't mind do you want us to go straight to to Goethe or do you want us to look at nm5144: i think Goethe would be the next thing to look at in the light of where we've just got to at the moment don't you think sf5148: no er okay er are we going to come back to the nm5144: oh yes you bring in anything that you wish from the earlier part either now or in discussion we don't need to leave it all behind by any means these things all integrate sf5148: right er it'll be page eighty-three sorry Michael John perception er Goethe er for Nietzsche he is the last German that he says he respects but he also says that he's not a German event but a European and he's trying to return to nature er and that he's trying to overturn everything that the eighteenth- century sort of stood for and therefore he's he's going against sort of everything so he's sort of a figure whi-, which will stand out for for Nietzsche which he can identify with but he's in contrast to to something which he's within and he says i think he sort of thinks Goethe's got quite a lot of integrity because he says he carried his strongest instincts in him sentimentality ideology of nature the anti-historical idealistic unrealistic and revolutionary instincts nm5144: mm mm sf5148: and but he's sort of he admires Goethe because he sort of puts his life into his work there's it's it's a returning to nature it's being sort of true to yourself it's following the instincts it's not following rational and unlike sort of Kant and everyone that's there around at the time who like trying to separate and box sort of different emotions and moods and er sort of saying that we work on a physical level and a spiritual level Goethe is although he would acknowledge i would say all those separate things he's putting them all together he's into the wholeness he wanted totality that's what he says at the bottom of of page eighty-three nm5144: what he wanted was totality sf5148: yeah nm5144: he fought against the separation of reason sensation emotion and will preached with the most horrifying scholasticism by Kant sf5148: er nm5144: he disciplined himself yes go on sf5148: yes so so i think there's some important things already coming out of the fact that Goethe wants the whole the fact that it's it's disciplined it's taking strength nm5144: mm mm sf5148: er it's instinctual nm5144: mm mm sf5148: it's out of life and it's against the Christian Kantian morals of having separate identity sf5149: it's life affirming rather than than being negative rather than it just being a formal sort of constraint it's something that nm5144: so it arises out of life sf5149: yeah nm5144: not sf5148: yeah nm5144: is apart from life sf5149: yeah sf5148: yeah sf5149: yeah nm5144: yeah and what do you make of that word at the bottom of page eighty- three he created himself sf5148: in that he's got the strength to keep himself together sf5149: together sf5148: in a wholeness and that he's got some kind of balance in in this totality that he's created that out of his will is that right ish nm5144: yes i mean er creation i think is a dynamic notion and the way you were putting it first sounded as if it were static just holding himself together sf5148: oh yeah nm5144: it's more than that it's actually sf5148: yeah because it's i mean it's it's a battle isn't it nm5144: yeah that's right sf5148: it's always with sort of the will it's no it's not straight-forward it's nm5144: that's right sf5148: it's fighting against yourself nm5143: do you want to finish your presentation a bit i mean just carry carry it a bit further before we maybe we should do that before we sf5148: er so er er list the fact that it's it's positive and life-affirming which Siobhan is saying is really apparent if you look over on on page eighty- four he says yes to everything that was open to him and this: he had no greater experience than the most real being and sort of this is this is i think this is probably the most important thing is that for that Nietzsche sees Goethe as saying yes and for Nietzsche to say yes that's the most affirmative thing you can do it shows complete er strength of will to be able to say yes to everything and i think that's that it Martin pulling a face i i that's what i would say okay er then he then he goes on to say Goethe conceived a human being who was strong highly cultivated skilled in everything bodily with self-control and self-respect a human being who was al-, allowed to dare to accept the entire scope of natural he was strong enough for his freedom he was strong enough for his freedom that's out of strength they don't need constraint they don't need some moral imposing ordered they don't need a tyrant basically nm5144: yeah er sf5148: and that's not would make an average nature perish you need strength for this it's not it wouldn't work for the weak-willed it wouldn't work for the rabble er nm5144: so you don't say yes to the rabble sf5148: you have to say yes to the rabble is you're going to say yes to yourself nm5144: okay sf5148: [laugh] sorry so er okay so it's there's this wholeness which affirms itself and it says yes to everything and this is the natural this is the strong and therefore by saying yes to everything you attain your freedom from these constraints i would say and and and this is what he calls he's baptised it in the name of Dionysus so Goethe is in some sense the Dionysian figure not strictly but in some sense do you want to sf5149: er i don't know really it's probably better to talk about Dionysus because it's kind of that's what kind of brings it together doesn't it nm5143: yeah sf5149: i don't know if you want to nm5144: would you like to talk about Dionysus then sf5149: i can do i don't know if you want to talk about nm5143: okay yeah okay nm5144: what do you think namex nm5143: well i think this yeah there's probably more things to say about Goethe maybe but but maybe you should nm5144: are there is there anything you want to say about Goethe that hasn't been touched on sf5149: er i wanted to ask you about the the he created himself does he say is that is that because he doesn't need an ideal that because he's sort of made his own ideal like with er the person whose name i can't pronounce a bit later where he says er i know Plato's a coward in the face of reality so he leads into an ideal which is which is what people do nm5144: mm mm sf5149: that's that's to do with the tyrant thing isn't it nm5144: well it certainly if an ideal is seen as something other than oneself to which one seeks to conform oneself then clearly there is a contrast here it's er then the ideal becomes to use the term that Helen was using a tyrant er but it's not of course to say that he is er opposed to ideas or ideals in some senses of those words er so this is why i wanted to just to stop and think about 'created himself' er i-, it's it's the notion of self-creation bear in mind we'll talk about it later that's in a certain sense where the whole of twilight ends doesn't it with that use of the sculptor's hammer to create but it's also partly a form i think possibly at least of self-creation er and 'created himself' it's self-reflexivity again it's picking up what we've been talking about earlier: how can you reflect back upon yourself how can you create yourself who's doing the creating clearly a form of self-transformation is going on that appears to be part of what he's very positive about right sf5148: is that because Goethe's nm5144: sorry sf5148: is that because Goethe's an artist nm5144: it's partly because he's an artist it's partly er er i mean partly this is an idealised Goethe quite plainly er Goethe in fact in his early work as you you'll know because you did European novel last year in the Sorrows of Young Werther is er very much in touch with those romantic strains and that of course is picked up here er he er er he er he was a a great attempt to overcome the eighteenth century by a return to nature that sounds like er like Rousseau and he talks about carries his strongest instincts sentimentality which was sentiment and so on but it goes beyond it and in his later work you find him using the Roussean romantic approach and disciplining it and re-forging it in a much richer conception of er of what some people would even call classical if you think about his his late works in other words he forms himself and he forms his way of thinking and he forms his way of writing in terms of patterns and modes of living which are richer than those which have gone before because they incorporate that which he chooses to say yes to the reason i pulled a slight face you're dead right when you said yes to everything is er in Thus Spake Zarathustra which of course is where this text ends he er Zarathustra has with him two companions one is the ape and the other is the donkey and each of them think they represent Zarathustra and the ape is negative and says no to everything and the donkey is positive and life affirming and says yes to everything and he is equally er scathing about both the ass he calls stupid because of course there are some things to which he is going to say no in er whilst it maybe he doesn't always say no to rabble he certainly does say no partly to anything else to decadence he in other words wishes to be life affirming but to be life affirming is in some sense not to be death affirming sf5148: yeah but he maybe maybe i'm thinking of the wrong Nietzsche but nm5144: no go on sf5148: strength of will nm5144: yes sf5148: is in affirming everything that went before nm5144: yes yeah yeah sf5148: is going to go you know past present future nm5144: mm sf5148: all in one nm5144: mm sf5148: so everything that is negative you have to you just encompass it within affirming instinct encompassed with air nm5144: mm sf5148: and so yes you don't sort of of you wouldn't focus nm5144: mm sf5148: on decadence as being the starting point of your affirmation but nm5144: that's right sf5148: you can't not not affirm it i would say sf5145: what does he think of madness nm5144: would you like to enlarge that question sf5145: because i it could either be the most perfect example of what Nie-, Nietzsche wishes or the worst one nm5144: yeah sf5145: as far as i can make out and i can't understand nm5144: well this is where we move thus both your responses point is outside this text because this text points out itself anyhow let's take Ruth's point first er in the Genealogy of Morals and in other works there is a distinction that is drawn which in English is usually drawn as a distinction between bad and evil and the projection of the distinction between good and evil is a projection that he sees arising out of and out of er Platonism and Christianity and indeed what he thinks of as decadence and he wishes to overcome it er and so he can glorify hi-, himself in his evil instincts but in the genealogy of morals that is seen as a negative feature a negative way of thinking in reaction against the earlier Hellenes the earlier Greeks who thought in terms of good and bad and good is associated with success and beauty and all that is positive and bad with what is ugly and disgraceful and cowardly sf5148: and fallen nm5144: and sf5148: and fallen nm5144: tell me about fallen sf5148: would you not say that one of the most important things in the opposition is that good is literally that er no okay nm5143: go on go on sf5148: good good as in good and noble nm5144: mm mm sf5148: is from an elevated position that is literally what it means nm5144: yep yeah sf5148: whereas the bad is just that which is not nm5144: it may it may not have fallen though it may have fallen it may just be it's never got to that it may be that you were born rabble and remain rabble er but that actually brings out part of that association that you find in the problem of Socrates where it says look: ugly in face ugly in mind that separation between the mental and the physical that you actually found in the Symposium and that's brought out by the Silenus statue with these beautiful things inside is resisted on that projection that to some degree the way you live your total being and who you are and what you look like and all the rest of it and the grace of your life is all part of one which may be positive or negative so he's operating there with implicitly in that problem of Socrates that older scale of values and so when you said Ruth you know does he want what does he think about badness i think it depends a bit sf5145: i meant madness nm5144: sorry sf5145: madness nm5144: oh madness i misheard you madness is something that we'll come back to when we look at Dionysus i think because that precisely is er you know will map on to that with respect to the issue that you raised Helen let's go back to er le-, let's go back to that business about judgements and value judgements can in the final analysis never be true right that's on page thirteen what he is doing is aligning himself with a form of creative creativity a form of yea- saying which is affirmative and so you say Helen look if you're fundamentally affirmative sure you have to be affirmative about everything including that which is negative sf5148: nm5144: yeah go on and that certainly is what comes out in other texts in particular er where the test of the Overman is precisely can you actually respond positively to the thought that everything will return the eternal recurrence of everything just as it is and was including the most ignoble sf5148: mm mm nm5144: and in his diaries er Nietzsche or in a letter actually Nietzsche says i've tried it myself aach [laughter] you know it's the final test which Zarathustra is presented as overcoming so in one sense that's right er the affirmative has to affirm everything including negativity including decadence that suggests that there are different levels of yea-saying and nay-saying remember what we looked at last time all truth is simple is that not doubly a lie there are truths about values which are both must be affirmed and must be rejected and what we have here is a form of hierarchy whereas the strongest confir-, affirm every affirm everything but that necessarily involves also affirming certain negations so there is a degree of complexity here and he sees Goethe as exemplifying it more or less though not wholly and then he identifies himself as a disciple of the god Dionysus but you said is not exactly mapping onto Goethe and that's right but Dionysus as a figure has now become more rich than in the earlier writings such as the ones you studied last year in the Birth of Tragedy i wonder if we should look at Dionysus now nm5143: mm mm sf5148: so how affirming would you say Goethe is nm5144: would i say Goethe is or would Nietzsche say Goethe is sf5148: both if you like nm5144: the questions how let's reformulate it the question for how affirmative i would say Nietzsche is i would like to absorb in the question how affirmative we would say er Goethe is and that i would like us to put on the pending tray until next term when we're going to be studying Goethe and some of you will have noticed that we have these texts in non-chronological order and we thought it would be interesting given the sort of praise Nietzsche is giving Goethe to use one OF to use Goethe's greatest text as a means of interrogating Nietzsche and we thought that okay Nietzsche has problems with self-interrogation don't we all let's use his great figure of affirmation and use that figure of affirmation in one of his writings as providing pers-, perspective so let's leave that on the pending tray okay i think it's a perfectly proper question but for i read we how positive does Nietzsche think Goethe is er i think he sees him as very positive though limited in that he didn't didn't understand the Greeks though as Nietzsche goes on to say i didn't like the Greeks and they made no impression on my mind and then of course goes on to talk about the Greeks sf5147: but does it matter that he doesn't understand the Greeks because er because he says at one point the the weak the weak are underestimated because they have disintelligence nm5144: yeah yeah sf5148: so you don't necessarily need to understand come to an understanding of everything to be to be a strong person nm5144: i think that's right sf5148: in fact in complete intelligence his intelligence leads to suspicion and cunningness and stuff nm5144: yeah i think that's exactly right and of course there's complications what he means by the Greeks we've already seen he's used the word in in different ways already er no i think he sees Nie-, Goethe as limited but he sees his as the greatest exemplar available to him of what the affirmative spirit can be and can make and provides a model a very interesting model of what it might be to move towards being a uberman rather than the sort of models other models he sometimes used essentially military figures like Julius Caesar er Goethe was certainly er not a distinguished military man let's put it that way even though he did once meet Napoleon what about Dionysuser Siobhan do you have thoughts about Dionysus sf5149: yes i just won't be a second er er i think it's already been said by Goethe that the Dionysian state is er is the most natural state it's going back to sort of primordial instincts nm5144: mm mm sf5149: and he makes a distinction on page fifty-six between er apollonian and Dionysian er i don't know ways of perceiving things er and the Apollonian is Apollonian sorry is to do with er is it to do with like form and and shapes sort of the rational nm5144: yes yes sf5149: it's finding things beautiful and nm5144: mm mm sf5149: out of nm5144: mm mm sf5149: out of the world so that we've got something to sort of almost to aspire to nm5144: yes sf5149: something that makes everything look a not lot nicer so that everything terrible that's going on we can we can sort of dismiss whereas the de dealings that's sort that's concerned with visual art i think whereas the Dionysian is more with with music and rhythms and in you know the sort of baser instincts nm5144: mm mm sf5149: er mm so i was nm5144: well basically the sense is more primitive perhaps sf5149: yeah nm5144: yeah sf5149: yeah primitive that was that was what i was going to say because the reality's not nm5144: mm mm sf5149: er and yeah so he says that that's and that's more natural to us nm5144: mm mm sf5149: that that is er like what he was saying about Kant that was and er nm5144: mm mm sf5149: the whole nm5144: mm mm sf5149: formal aspect of how we think about things nm5144: mm mm mm mm sf5149: is is a move away from the way we actually you know we actually feel and and maybe want to act i don't know er but it's it's through the Dion-, the Dionysian that he it's because it's supposed to be like a rebirth isn't it nm5144: ah yes go on sf5149: in that it this is this is sort of bringing in a bit from the Birth of Tragedy as well nm5144: yes sf5149: but to er because Dionysus it was it was to do with hi-, it was it was something to do with complete destruction isn't it nm5144: that's right sf5149: you have to reach into the lowest point before you can be reborn into something else so it's kind of take it's completely the opposite of the formal nm5144: mm mm sf5149: sort of way of looking at things into the most natural and by doing that that's how you you find a new way of looking at things nm5144: mm mm sf5149: does that make sense nm5143: yeah nm5144: and you notice just in relation to that on page fifty-seven that passage you're there the end of that first paragraph they're talking about the Dionysian human beings they penetrate every skin every emotion they constantly transform themselves and that transform themselves sf5149: mm mm nm5144: picks up that what you were saying and also about that self creation of Goethe sf5149: yes i don't know there was a bit there was a bit later on i didn't understand a reference to him pulling Ariadne's ears that i didn't know what that was about nm5144: er shall we sf5149: i couldn't really work that out nm5144: shall we turn to it what page are we on sf5149: er that's on sixty-two but the section's on sixty-one section one here nm5144: right sf5149: i just i just literally didn't know what it meant i didn't know what it was trying to get at nm5144: er you didn't find the er footnote of much help sf5149: er not really i don't know nm5144: it is well look look at the context then er er do any at the bottom of page eighty-six sixty-one do any of us know what we look like in the eyes of a higher judge of taste [sniggering] now clear theres the certainty of comedy the higher judge of taste has long donkey's ears right okay er outrageous maybe even funny maybe a little arbitrary er why are you pulling my ears i find a sort of humour in your ears why aren't they even longer now there are several things going on there sf5149: er nm5144: first it's a question of perspective we think of someone having long donkey's ears as comic here you have someone who has actually been for a punishment given a donkey's head actually being amused by people not having donkey's ears so that partly brings out the sf5149: hmm nm5144: whole business of perspective secondly however it brings out the notion of ears being important do you remember how the preface start er er right back at the preface those who have ears even behind their ears is using that very notion of listening as a way of er being perceptive and er what the and the and if his footnote er points out go-, going back to other work of of Nietzsche the er the the thought was you need to have extended ears in this particular case rather than ears behind the ears to really hear right at the bottom of page sixty-two you have small ears you have my ears let a clever word into them er in other words the suggestion is be clever Ariadne have longer ears so i'm going to pull them it's a bit of a joke sf5149: mm mm nm5144: right sf5148: is Nietzsche look-, giving like an importance to nm5144: sorry sf5148: is Nietzsche kind of giving an importance to ears well a privilege to hearing in that er and again therefore privileging the Dionysian over the Apollonian because nm5144: mm mm sf5148: you need you need to hear nm5144: that's right sf5148: to get this complete intoxication to get the rhythm to get into the primordial urge to breaks to get nm5144: i think that's right i think there are two things here first er conventionally we think of the ear as the eye as being the most discriminating what the eye of course picks out is form right sf5148: which is nm5144: which is precisely Apollonian er Apollonian right whereas in the Dionysian model music as as Siobhan quite rightly said is the primary exemplar and that you hear and this is again a shift in perspective normally one might think of having particularly good eyes to discern it here he says particularly good ears to discern it he is changing the standard metaphor he is changing the standard perspective so partly it's shaking up ones normal way of thinking but is doing so with an agenda the agenda being that the Dionysian has a certain priority over the Apollonian sf5148: mm mm nm5144: though our culture tends to prioritise sight which is has gives priority to the Apollonian so i think all that is there too and also there is of course the element of comedy sf5147: i'm just wondering you know you're sort of er privileging er rhythm over form in a sense nm5144: yes sure sf5147: but isn't isn't it instinctual to to focus on form and also it's also quite instinctual to focus on reason as well nm5143: why why do you say why do you say that sf5147: what to reason nm5143: why do you say it's instinctual yeah sf5147: i just think it is i think it's sort of i think it's quite innate really to nm5144: that human beings have the language instinct sf5147: yes yeah nm5144: and reason arises out of language sf5147: huh nm5144: that sort of model sf5147: er huh sf5148: oh there's a nice quote there's a nice quote that ah god i don't know where it is our reason and language oh what a tricky old woman she is nm5144: yeah sf5148: i'm afraid we're not afraid of god because we still believe in grammar nm5144: yeah nm5143: how would you use it [laughter] sf5148: i just wanted to use it i think it says something quite nice about language and our our faith in language nm5144: mm mm sf5148: as long as we have language we're going to nm5144: mm mm nm5143: okay but you're saying that that's a kind of er what Nietzsche saying there about thing you're pointing to is that language is actually a symptomatic of a kind of false consciousness we shouldn't have so much confidence in it right sf5148: no nm5143: yeah i mean we shouldn't i mean it's one of the idols he's trying to sf5148: to nm5143: to to break but but but namex is saying the opposite right you're saying actually to reason is is sf5147: i'm not saying that nm5143: instinctual sf5147: i'm saying reason is instinctual but i'm not saying that language can necessarily represent everything that we think and feel nm5143: right sf5147: as it because actually so but i do think yeah i think we have i mean isn't Nietzsche using his reason when he's talking about these things nm5144: yes sf5147: i mean nm5143: one er er certainly i mean er er we have to discriminate between sort of our or maybe work a little bit harder at what we understand by Dionysian right because Dionysian doesn't mean just the life of un-, unreflecting er passions yeah sf5147: mm mm nm5143: certainly it's erotic certainly it has to do with the orgiast-, orgiastic and that that sort of element that is but i mean this is why the example of Goethe is im is important because Goethe is actually a cultured person right he's not just Joe Bloggs who lives for his to to satisfy a sexual appetite right he's a cultured person he's and he's self-cultivated even nm5144: yeah nm5143: so i i think we have to feed those into our understanding of Dionysian nm5144: mm mm nm5143: so that the though it is it i i i involves the this kind of instinctual energy without a kind of task-master like reason involved directly sf5147: mm nm5143: yeah but that's but there but there is a kind of er self-mastery maybe that's involved sf5147: isn't Dionysian sort of an escape from the rational into the sort of primordial forces that's that that's how i understood it nm5143: well i think that he i think he's saying that that's where it that that's where it begins and its its yeah sf5147: it begins as an escape from the rational do you would you nm5143: yeah but i mean he he's not saying you know we should old go live like animals in the woods or something right he's saying the the early Greek culture was great because it was in touch with this basic kind of you know fire of er energy or something that was yeah you know they were in touch with and not suppressing it sf5147: mm nm5144: mm sf5148: isn't er i mean the way it works in the Birth of Tragedy is that you need so maybe we could look how how it's moved on in here perhaps that you need to experience the Dionysian that brings you back it draws you back into the primordial flux nm5144: mm mm sf5148: and sort of nearly organic state yet you need this element of self- control and that's where the Apollonian is so essential nm5144: er sf5148: so that you are not completely destroyed nm5143: er er that sounds like a kind of dialectic doesn't it like we need a little bit of Socrates in ourself or something sf5148: and and is this is this nm5143: that's not that's not quite what nm5144: maybe he said sf5147: i'm not sure how the Birth of Tragedy relates to this because i know it changes doesn't it nm5143: yes it's much earlier sf5147: i'm i'm sort of confused about what the difference is er between the dionysian and apollonian distinction in in the Twilight of the Idols because i understand it in the Birth of Tragedy but i don't understand i don't know how it works in this nm5144: mm mm nm5143: well Martin you're better placed here to nm5144: well i mean it er i i think you're quite right to be puzzled er because er we've already Siobhan has drawn our attention to that passage which er does draw the distinction between the Dionysian and the Apollonian very much in the sort of way that you found in the Birth of Tragedy that was er the page er fifty-six that you drew our attention to but by the time you get to the end of the er the text er towards the end of what i owe to the ancients a great deal seems to being built into the figure of er Dionysus er and what we have here er look on page ninety er in the er about just over a third of the way down the page only in the Dionysian mysteries in the psychology of the Dionysian condition does the fundamental fact of the Hellenic instinct express itself it's will to life now will to life is not entirely clearly what you will get out of the Birth of Tragedy and this picks up of course on what Helen was saying about the ultimate notion of the affirmative er what we have here is er at the end of this paragraph for the to the eternal joy of creation which is associated with the Dionysian for the will to life to affirm itself eternally which is Dionysian there must eternally be the torment of the child-bearer that is that model of tearing oneself to pieces or allowing oneself to be torn to pieces or wounded so that one may grow stronger that whole notion of reformulation and that seems to include all the elements in other words the er the Apollonian now seems to be a model for a form of control that resists being broken open the Dionysian is a form of self-control that allows being broken open in order for new springs new possibilities to become available and affirmed and so you find absorbed into that figure of the Dionysian some elements that one might earlier find in the Apollonian and in Beyond Good and Evil which is a a different text er plainly but written a little not very long before this Nietzsche speaks of the philosophers of the future as needing to have been all sorts of things including scholars and so on including exemplifying the Apollonian but the those who are truly affirmative those who on this model would be Dionysian incorporate all that and go beyond it by allowing themselves in a certain sense to be broken open again and it's er what's being presented you say is not Nietzsche using his reason of course in one sense he is er but he's he's using his reason in the service of er attempting to be to use his own image a Pied Piper to attract us to a vision which goes beyond what is available to us or to our culture but we can er it is possible to affirm which includes what you called madness sorry Helen you want to come in sf5148: i was going to say er that you can't criticise him for using the language because how else can he convey sf5147: but he's criticising reason and he's using it so it's nm5143: well he's criticising to he's criticising er reason in the sense of ty-, a tyran-, tyranny sf5148: yeah nm5143: yes sf5148: an over reliance nm5143: or language in the sense being an island sf5147: isn't he really just using a different kind of reason and er nm5143: well sf5147: and er it's the sort of pure logic he's kind of he's using reason to sort of say how like er reason can con-, conflict with itself he's not saying that reason can fit into these logical structures he's saying that there are many logical structures nm5143: sure sf5145: is like he's meshing on top of each other different historical points it's not a linear development that he's creating is it it's sort of like a a mesh a grid of different points nm5143: er yes a plural a plurality sf5145: yeah nm5143: bu-, but that what you're what you're what's sort of coming out of this corner is you know a criticism that's that that can be made of all of Nietzsche and that is how can you be consistently deconstructive how you can consist-, be consistently deconstructive because whenever you say well everything is all from different perspectives for example you know the that you know Nietzsche develops er well in that there there is there's no there are no sort of hard and fast rules well that itself is a hard and fast rule right sf5148: yeah nm5143: so that's an existing that's sf5147: harmonodian kind of because it seems to be the case and it is the case for you and er because there's no objective truth anymore nm5144: mm mm sf5147: and how how do you prevent that going beyond like into the madness thing nm5144: yep sf5147: er nm5144: no i think that's quite right and its indeed what you're going to talk about next time isn't iti see that you Bell are going to be talking about the reason illusion and the problem of language er but just to pick er to pick up on what you've just been saying is he not using reason in a different sense here i think the answer is plainly yes and i think that that's actually marked in your text by the fact that er you have in the section that immediately follows the problem of Socrates page eighteen look at its title reason in philosophy and reason has gone into inverted commas and they're Nietzsche's inverted commas er nm5143: i see on on our list we don't have reason in inverted commas nm5144: oh no er nm5143: so this is this is the clue this is a hint nm5144: [laugh] nm5143: er but if you put reason in inverted commas that does suggest that er the term reason is being used to use a phra-, a term er made famous by Heidegger and er and then er Derrida under erasure you use the term because you don't have a better term for it but you don't want it to carry all the baggage so when you put it in inverted commas you're saying that's how it's conventionally used without suggesting now that that implies there may be a way in which i am prepared to use it or affirm it but it may be very difficult to articulate it hence indeed the the passage that Helen quoted to us with such delight er er is er what what a deceptive female she is er er quite right so i mean it seems to me that this is er in a certain sense pointing directly forward to where we need to go er to go next time can i just put this one one last thing because it has come up which was er the the way Nietzsche presents his arguments and the question that Helen raised was what is he actually er er working with a kind of dialectic or not just on page eighty-six the bottom of the first the first er section er he's saying is oh pardon me all that is relevant and if one wishes to believe me noble heart ex-, excellence i'm not interested in you know what he's trying to assert there i'm not i'm interested in this if one wishes to believe me er does Socrates ever say if one wishes to believe me sf5147: he said at one point er you may look at it this way and he says i use we in the polite sense [laughter] nm5143: yes that's right that's right nm5144: yes nm5143: okay well there he is his is being he is being you know er assertive i mean i think Nietzsche is assertive but there is this i don't know just a i wonder i want to think about this not now but maybe but maybe next time: if one wishes to believe me is is Nietzsche instead of being a kind of dialectician saying trying to draw you in you know inextricably into a into his own position where you have to agree with him is he saying here it is take it or leave it sf5147: mm mm sf5148: no i don't think he is nm5143: and if you do take it you have to take it all you have to take everything nm5144: you seek followers seek zeros nm5143: [laugh] sf5148: on page twenty-one says you will be thankful to me if insight make it easier to understand and i dare you to contradict it i think that's nm5144: yeah nm5143: right sf5148: but be er nm5144: no nm5143: okay nm5144: it comes back doesn't it to that notion of tyranny that you raised i think right at the beginning er is er the dialectic is objected to because in a certain sense it's it's tyrannical it's authoritarian it forces you it necessitates you into certain types of position and what is being presented here is a if it's a model of reason at all something that is challenging how much truth does a spirit dare rather than in a certain sense compelling you let me just tell you one la-, final thing the Greek word for necessitation that Aristotle uses for the necessitation of the necessary conclusion following from premise is also the word that you can use in Greek when you are being frog- marched off to the jail you are necessitated to the jail you are necessitated to a conclusion and that notion of necessitation is perhaps on Nietzsche's account tyranny it's a thought anyway nm5143: okay so next week er yeah er er er on Monday we'll hear from er namex and namex yes on reason illusion and the problem of language and from er Gary and Sarah who aren't here on the history of error er laughs nm5144: depending if you nm5143: if any of you see them yes remind them that we're expecting them on the history of error [laughter] on Monday okay nm5144: thank you very much every every om5150: can you sign that for me nm5144: right nm5143: yeah om5150: thank you nm5144: okay om5150: thank you everybody