[MD] The Art of Philosophy

[david buchanan]

dmb said:

If you believe Plato, then the answer is “yes”. If all of philosophy is a footnote to Plato, then the artists have been subordinated to the philosophers for about 25 centuries. According to Plato’s Republic, especially the last section, the artists present a danger to society and to your soul. Two of my favorite thinkers disagree with Plato and Socrates on this point. Friedrich Nietzsche and Robert Pirsig both make a case that there is something terribly wrong with this Platonic legacy. In one of Nietzsche’s earliest works, The Birth of Tragedy, he asks us to consider the consequences of the Socratic idea that virtue is knowledge, that all sins arise from ignorance, and only the virtuous are happy. As a consequence, Nietzsche says, the “virtuous hero must henceforth be a dialectician” because virtue and knowledge are necessarily connected such that “Truth” is the highest good.

Marsha asked about the last sentence:
Read the sentence.  It's a statement of what Nietzsche SAYS, and WHY he says it.  If Nietzsche ever stated that any kind of truth "is the highest good" then I would like to read the original text that supports this paraphrasing.  You did not write "Nietzsche ironically says", nor did you present the WHY (because) as your (dmb's) conclusion.  So again, if this second half of the sentence was paraphrasing where is the original text.  If not who's conclusion is it?  ...I am just requesting the original text (not book) where you've paraphrase "because virtue and knowledge are necessarily connected such that “Truth” is the highest good."

dmb says:
Oh, now I see what you're asking. Your question is predicated upon a misreading or misunderstanding. As you read it, Nietzsche is advocating the Platonic legacy rather than attacking it and complaining. Even though I say explicitly that Nietzsche is making a case "that there is something terribly wrong with the Platonic legacy" and I say explicitly that "the consequences of the Socratic idea that virtue is knowledge", you've somehow managed to confuse Plato view with Nietzsche's.

Nietzsche and Pirsig are both OPPOSED to the idea that "Truth is the highest good". Nietzsche is OPPOSED to the idea that, as he puts it, "the virtuous hero must henceforth be a dialectician". It is Socrates, not Nietzsche, who thinks the dialectic is "the highest exercise of man’s powers, nature’s most admirable gift" such that all moral accomplishments, noble deeds, and heroism is "ultimately derived from the dialectic of knowledge". This is Nietzsche describing the PROBLEM, not his own position. 

The sentence you're asking about begins with the phrase, "as a consequence" and that phrase is being used to connect with the previous sentence, which says that Nietzsche is asking us "to consider the consequences of the Socratic idea that virtue is knowledge". Even further, the sentence you're asking about is followed immediately by a block quote from Nietzsche wherein he twice names Socrates as the culprit!

“[E]ver since Socrates the mechanism of concepts, judgements and syllogisms has come to regarded as the highest exercise of man’s powers, nature’s most admirable gift. Socrates and his successors, down to our own day, have considered all moral and sentimental accomplishments — noble deeds, compassion, self-sacrifice, heroism, even that spiritual calm which the Apollonian Greek called sophrosune — to be ultimately derived from the dialectic of knowledge, and therefore teachable.” — Nietzsche

Let me repeat that. Socrates and Plato are the problem BECAUSE they are the ones who think the dialectic is "the highest exercise of man’s powers, nature’s most admirable gift" such that all moral accomplishments, noble deeds, compassion, and heroism is "ultimately derived from the dialectic of knowledge".  

Again, your question never needed to be asked in the first place. It only serves to show what a careless reader you are. How is it even possible to miss this point? What the heck do you think it means when I say these two thinkers "disagree with Plato and Socrates on this point"? Is there something cryptic or mysterious about the claim that "Friedrich Nietzsche and Robert Pirsig both make a case that there is something terribly wrong with this Platonic legacy"? 

“Plato’s hatred of the rhetoricians was part of a much larger struggle in which the reality of the Good, represented by the Sophists, and the reality of the True, represented by the dialecticians, were engaged in a huge struggle for the future mind of man. Truth won, the Good lost, and that is why today we have so little difficulty accepting the reality of truth and so much difficulty accepting the reality of Quality, even though there is no more agreement in one area than in the other.” -- Robert Pirsig

“It’s been necessary since before the time of Socrates to reject the passions, the emotions, in order to free the rational mind for an understanding of nature’s order which was as yet unknown. Now it’s time to further an understanding of nature’s order by reassimilating those passions which were originally fled from. The passions, the emotions, the affective domain of man’s consciousness, are a part of nature’s order too. The central part.” — Robert Pirsig  

They're both reaching back into the origins of philosophy, finding the same problem and reacting to it in very similar ways too. Even if this weren't explicitly stated, how is it even possible to miss this point? Pirsig's philosophical journey takes us back to this point of origin and he's horrified. In ZAMM, he calls Aristotle an asshole, want to "rub him out" Chicago-style. He calls Socrates a liar and Plato a vicious slanderer. And why? It's all about the dialectic, the great usurper. Since the only requirement here is to read Pirsig's books, I think it's reasonable to expect that every moqer would already know this, at least be vaguely aware that the story leads to back to the Sophists and rhetoricians. I would have thought that you could, at least, distinguish the good guys from the bad guys in this story. I mean, your question is even worse than I thought. You're asking me to provide textual evidence for a claim that nobody made, to produce quotes that support the very opposite of what I actually. And you did this even though my actual claims were immediately followed by the textual evidence from Nietzsche. It hard to understand how anyone can be so preposterously confused. It's like some weird game. some philosophical version of "opposite day", where the goal is to be as wrong as possible.