ACHTUNG! philosophers

2 December 2010 — 10.26pm | Dylan Nickelson

Trust Nietzsche to hit you with this, fifth fragment into his Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future:

Nietzsche

Nietzsche (ca. 1875)

“What goads us into regarding all philosophers with an equal measure of mistrust and mockery is not that we are struck repeatedly by how innocent they are — how often and easily they err and stray, in short, their childish childlikeness — but rather that there is not enough genuine honesty about them: even though they all make a huge, virtuous racket as soon as the problem of truthfulness is even remotely touched upon. They all act as if they had discovered and arrived at their genuine convictions through the self-development of a cold, pure, divinely insouciant dialectic (in contrast to the mystics of every rank, who are more honest than the philosophers and also sillier — they talk about “inspiration” —): while what essentially happens is that they take conjecture, a whim, an “inspiration” or, more typically, they take some fervent wish that they have sifted through and made properly abstract — and they defend it with rationalizations after the fact. They are all advocates who do not want to be seen as such; for the most part, in fact, they are sly spokesman for prejudices that they christen as “truths” — and very far indeed from the courage of conscience that confesses to this fact, this very fact; and very far from having the good taste of courage that also lets this be known, perhaps to warn a friend or foe, or out of a high-spirited attempt at self-satire.”

Just when you’re jogging along; out of nowhere, a parked car. Achtung! philosophers.


References

Nietzsche, F 1886 [2002], Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. J Norman, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

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