In the Twilight of the Idols Nietzsche calls socrates the buffoon that got himself taken seriously. What does this mean and what is Nietzsche’s support behind his claim that Socrates is a buffoon.
In the Twilight of the Idols Nietzsche calls socrates the buffoon that got himself taken seriously. What does this mean and what is Nietzsche’s support behind his claim that Socrates is a buffoon.
Remember those Socratic questions?
Socrates’s teaching method was ‘theater’ to some extent, and his
corrections, painful enough to those wedded to the ‘status quo’
to get him killed.
Nietzsche believes that questions really have answers. He thinks that there is somewhere to go. He thinks that it’s possible to figure “it” out. This is why Nietzsche disagrees with Socrates.
Personally I side with Socrates. Nietzsche can go f*ck himself.
Nietzsche seems to consider those who are adamant with argumentative conversation as “buffoons.” He states that prior to Socrates, logical argument was employed in society only as a last resort as nothing is easier to nullify, was bad manners and the presentation of one’s motives in such a way was mistrustful. Socrates successfully introduced logical arguments in a serious manner, and so, a couple thousand years later, Nietzsche has a hissy-fit about it.
read the line previous to understand the context:
Wherever authority still forms part of good bearing, where one does not give reasons but commands, the dialectician is a kind of buffoon: one laughs at him, one does not take him seriously. Socrates was the buffoon who got himself taken seriously: what really happened there?