Neurath's Boat

Did Nietzsche know he was a genius?

Clearly he believed he was a genius.  And while this is perhaps slightly more controversial, it also seems to me to have been obviously true.  But of course we all know from Plato that true belief is not enough for knowledge; though it is controversial what exactly are to count as good reasons in general, it is almost universally held that one cannot know on the basis of believing for bad reasons.  So were Nietzsche's reasons good?  Was it even possible for his reasons to have been good?  What could be good reasons for that sort of thing?

It's almost a stereotype that geniuses are misunderstood and neglected in their own times.  But the stereotype seems to have only a shaky basis in reality; quite a lot of revolutionary thinkers were wildly controversial in their own time, but they were of course centers of storms of controversy because they were also targets of enormous amounts of attention, because they were widely considered extremely important.  Those who totally escaped notice among their contemporaries to be appreciated only later seem to be pretty unusual.  On the other hand,  those who escape notice by anyone ever because they're just totally mediocre are, of course, extremely common.  So Nietzsche shouldn't have concluded he was a genius just because he was misunderstood and under-appreciated, and I don't think it's reasonable to attribute that theory to him, either.

Admittedly, being widely acclaimed in your own time is certainly not proof of genius, as there have been plenty of widely acclaimed cranks, and there have certainly been some under-appreciated geniuses, so perhaps Nietzsche should not have worried too much about not having widespread acclaim; perhaps one shouldn't appeal to that either way.  But what other evidence could their be?

Those close to someone are likely to be biased in their favor.  If they care about the person for other reasons, they're unlikely to be too critical of things that are important to the person they care about; indeed, they may genuinely value those things more than they otherwise would just because they associate the things with their author.  Also, people who share similar views are more likely to become close, so anybody who becomes close to you is likely to think you're right about more things than you are, because they're likely to be wrong about some of the same things that you are (and so think you're right about those things).  So while Nietzsche had some friends who thought fairly highly of him, it is unclear how much he could get from that.

As a student, he was hailed as a brilliant classical philologist.  However, he never did very much work in the field, so it is unclear whether he had sufficient grounds for even believing he was a genius in that area; some are far better at impressing teachers than doing independent work, so it is risky to draw conclusions from the evaluations of teachers.  And in any event, Nietzsche clearly thought he was a brilliant philosopher, not just a brilliant philologist.

So what's left?  He came up with results that seemed right to him?  But who isn't able to manage that?

Recent reading

It's gotten to be Nietzsche time for my introduction to philosophy students, so I have been engaged in one of my new procrastination strategies of reading endless material tangentially related to what I'm going to be teaching in the near future.  I was interested to note that the theory that Nietzsche died from syphilis, which I'd always repeated as fairly well established fact, is now pretty much regarded as refuted.  Apparently some of his specific symptoms don't really fit, nor does the fact that the time between his mental collapse and his death was just over ten years (advanced syphilis does not kill quickly, but it is considerably quicker than that).

Instead, the dominant modern theory is some sort of slow-growing brain tumor.  Mostly this is argued on the basis of the symptoms, as well as the fact that the diagnosis at the time was fairly uncertain; obviously at the time they couldn't give him an MRI, so this theory explains well why his doctors at the time weren't quite sure what the problem was.  It may have a further advantage which I'm surprised nobody seems to have discussed.  A disposition to such tumors may be hereditary, and Nietzsche's father died from hydrocephalus, which can sometimes be caused by such tumors.

I've also been reading about the Nietzsche/Salome/Ree situation.  I've now finally read Binion's account of the matter, in Frau Lou, and I've now also read Salome's book on Nietzsche.  Binion argues that Salome's account of the events of her relationship with Nietzsche is not to be trusted, and that somewhat surprisingly Nietzsche's sister Elizabeth gives a somewhat more accurate account than Salome.  I think he makes a good case that Salome can't be trusted, but there are points of detail where I can't agree with him.

Binion utterly disbelieves Salome's claim that her interest in Nietzsche was purely intellectual.  Just from having read Salome's physical description of Nietzsche in her book about him, I have to agree with him that there had to be some physical attraction there.  But while Binion is, I think, right to attribute mixed feelings to Salome, he mostly seems to think Nietzsche's interest in Salome was intellectual.  He's not entirely consistent on that point, admittedly, but it seems to me much more plausible to think Nietzsche also had mixed feelings throughout.  Thus, to take one of the most contentious points, while Binion thinks Salome just made up the marriage proposal story, I remain quite uncertain about the matter.

I suppose this is mostly gossip, though.  On matters of actual philosophy, the most interesting thing I've read in this flurry of procrastination via Nietzsche study is a translation of two of Paul Ree's books.  It now seems to me that some of Nietzsche's seemingly less insightful criticisms of English philosophy make much more sense if they are read instead as criticisms of Ree, who was a huge anglophile.  Thus, for example, in On the Genealogy of Morality (first essay, section 2) Nietzsche criticizes the English psychologists for the theory that the usefulness of punishment has been forgotten.  A reader familiar with the English tradition may wonder when any of them said that; none of those in the dominant utilitarian tradition ever made much of a big deal of people's ability to forget usefulness, not even Hume.  But it turns out that Ree advanced precisely this theory.  Ree is, of course, mentioned in the preface to the Genealogy, and there he is also closely connected to Darwin; Nietzsche's usually questionable criticisms of Darwin are perhaps also cases where he's really going after Ree and not being clear enough about his target.

Motley souls

In Republic, Socrates describes the democrat as a sort of patchwork, suggesting that this unruly sort, in which none of the drives are willing to be regulated, will be quite complicated and multi-colored, and even superficially appealing despite being fundamentally of no value.  Nietzsche at times echoes this portrayal in his discussion of the European, and gives a somewhat similar picture of those with the historical sense. 

Though Socrates passes a harsh judgment on the democrat and describes a far more straightforward ideal for the philosopher-king, the Socrates of the dialogues is quite a chameleon, to say nothing of Plato, who only speaks through others and so speaks with a tremendous multiplicity of voices.  It is a commonplace that only a democracy could have produce a Socrates or a Plato, and so it is often thought ironic that Plato was such a harsh critic of democracy.  But I often suspect he knew this perfectly well, and that we should be very careful in reading his discussions of democracy.

I've recently been wondering the same thing about Nietzsche.  Apparently, Maudemarie Clark believes that Nietzsche was ultimately committed to democracy, and that he even realized this.  Such a claim flies in the face of quite a number of very strong statements in Nietzsche's text, but I think there may be something to it.  Who had more historical sense than Nietzsche, after all?  Did he not frequently emphasize his status as a good European, in a Europe he saw moving inexorably toward democracy?  The motley appearance of the democrat or the European bring to mind (no doubt deliberately) the figure of the jester, with whom Nietzsche occasionally identifies (most explicitly in Ecce Homo, in the first section of "Why I am a Destiny" of all places; his consistent sense of humor is surely also notable here).

Nietzsche criticized the excessive historical sense of our times, saying it had produced intellectuals who were able to appreciate any style, however alien, primarily because they had no style of their own.  But he also suggested more than once that those who could find a way to master a seemingly overwhelming array of different forces and somehow turn them into a style of their own had the potential to be far greater than even the grand styles of simpler past ages, despite his praise of the tastes of simpler times.

I think I'll stop there, and leave my recent reflections on what it meant for Nietzsche to get beyond good and evil for another time.

Nietzsche as feminist?

I think it is known by many, though perhaps not all, that the word most commonly translated as "overman" (or "superman" in older translations) is "uebermensch," not "ubermann."  "Mensch" is German for "human being," not for "man."  In translations of Kant, for example, it is almost always translated as "human being" (since Kant's writing is so stiff and pedantic, the rather stiff and pedantic air that sprinkling "human being" all over the discussion adds fits in perfectly in Kant's writing, while it would be a bit jarring in Nietzsche's smooth prose).

Little significance is usually attached to this, since "Mensch" is simply as a matter of German idiom much more commonly used than the English "human being," and Nietzsche's well-known misogyny no doubt leads most to conclude that he's merely following German idiom (or perhaps following the practice of German philosophical writing, which tends to use Kant's terminology).

However, I've been reading some of my German texts of Nietzsche, and I turned up something interesting.  While Nietzsche almost always uses "Mensch" rather than "Mann" when talking about a generic person, I found an exception.  In his discussion of the master morality in The Genealogy of Morals, at a couple of places (such as the end of section 5 of part I) he uses "Mann" in contexts where I would initially have expected "Mensch."  He is describing the historical origins of the master morality, and specifically quite patriarchal societies (like Rome), so "Mann" seems not inappropriate, but normally he uses "Mensch" even when in fact the group under discussion is mostly or entirely male (the "higher men" in the end of Zarathustra, for example, would be higher human beings if Kantian translation practices were being followed).

Since Nietzsche is so meticulously careful with words, his choice of "Mann" on these occasions is presumably not accidental.  He is presumably intending to draw attention to the patriarchal nature of the original master morality.  But in describing his own ideal, he doesn't use "Mann."  So is Nietzsche's ideal then perhaps not patriarchal?