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Friedrich Nietzsche
(470–399 B.C.E.) Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher. One of Nietzsche’s central purposes in Twilight of the Idols is to challenge and discredit the philosophers, moralists, and ideals that history has placed on a pedestal, and Socrates receives the brunt of Nietzsche’s ire. Indeed, Nietzsche dedicates an entire section of the book, “The Problem of Socrates,” to airing his grievances against Socrates for introducing dialectics into western philosophy via the Socratic method, a form of intellectual investigation that draws on dialogue and discussion. Nietzsche believes that Socrates’s fixation on logic and rationality—which has shaped the trajectory of western philosophy—has allowed weaker philosophical positions to gain traction and, correspondingly, stifled more vital philosophical positions. Socratic philosophy has also instilled in humanity an immense skepticism toward the physical world, and Nietzsche believes that this skepticism has devalued human life and, as such, is to blame for the decadence and nihilism that characterizes modernity. He believes that a central flaw of Socratic philosophy (and its descendants) is its mistaken belief that logic—not instinct—causes happiness.
Socrates Quotes in Twilight of the Idols
The Twilight of the Idols quotes below are all either spoken by Socrates or refer to Socrates . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Problem of Socrates
Quotes
In every age the wisest have passed the identical judgement on life: it is worthless. … Everywhere and always their mouths have uttered the same sound—a sound full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness with life, full of opposition to life.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Judgements, value judgements concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms—in themselves such judgements are stupidities. One must reach out and try to grasp this astonishing finesse, that the value of life cannot be estimated.
“Reason” in Philosophy
Quotes
All that philosophers have handled for millennia has been conceptual mummies; nothing actual has escaped from their hands alive.
We possess scientific knowledge today to precisely the extent that we have decided to accept the evidence of the senses—to the extent that we have learned to sharpen and arm them and to think them through to their conclusions.
To talk about ‘another’ world than this is quite pointless, provided that an instinct for slandering, disparaging and accusing life is not strong within us: in the latter case we revenge ourselves on life by means of the phantasmagoria of ‘another’, a ‘better’ life.
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Socrates Quotes in Twilight of the Idols
The Twilight of the Idols quotes below are all either spoken by Socrates or refer to Socrates . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Problem of Socrates
Quotes
In every age the wisest have passed the identical judgement on life: it is worthless. … Everywhere and always their mouths have uttered the same sound—a sound full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness with life, full of opposition to life.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Judgements, value judgements concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms—in themselves such judgements are stupidities. One must reach out and try to grasp this astonishing finesse, that the value of life cannot be estimated.
“Reason” in Philosophy
Quotes
All that philosophers have handled for millennia has been conceptual mummies; nothing actual has escaped from their hands alive.
We possess scientific knowledge today to precisely the extent that we have decided to accept the evidence of the senses—to the extent that we have learned to sharpen and arm them and to think them through to their conclusions.
To talk about ‘another’ world than this is quite pointless, provided that an instinct for slandering, disparaging and accusing life is not strong within us: in the latter case we revenge ourselves on life by means of the phantasmagoria of ‘another’, a ‘better’ life.
