What did Nietzsche disagree with Socrates on?

Question

and why?

Why did Nietzsche not like Socrates? and why was this?

Answer 1

I suspect part of the reason why Nietzsche was so upset with Socrates may have been from a certain feeling of kinship. If Socrates was as he has been portrayed, then he would have been a very clever fellow, and popular in spite of being a rebel. These are qualities I think Nietzsche would have liked. But the direction Socrates took these things were so contrary to Nietzsche's own views, that maybe in a sense it was like being betrayed by a friend.

Take Socrates' death. Even when he was put on trial for corrupting the youth, he showed a kind of indifference to authority and wit that is respected to this day. He didn't grovel for mercy or offer insincere apologies, but threw down the gauntlet and all but dared Athens to do their worst. This is exactly the kind of style one might expect from one of Nietzsche's Ubermensch.

The problem arises later... after being sentanced, Socrates just caves in. It's revealed that his APPARENT indifference is ACTUAL indifference. He truly doesn't care whether he dies and is willing to throw his life away to people he believes to be ignorant rather than escape. He bolsters a broken system instead of having the guts to tear it down and build a better one. In Nietzsche's parlance, he proves that he is a slave and marches meekly to his own death.

That Socrates' tale echoes to this day is a testament to its influence. He was a millennial example of surrender instead of defiance. A real Ubermensch would have torn Athens apart for crossing him, not happily chug down their poisons. And societies that took Socrates example to heart could only become more weak, more servile, and less and less 'human' by Nietzsche's standards.

The rationality Socrates showed was all well and good, but a human is not reason alone. For Nietzsche, WILL was paramount. Something Socrates chose to surrender for other, disagreeable ideals.

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Answer 2

The Nietzsche-Socrates relationship is quite complex, in that Nietzsche both admired him and distrusted him at the same time. Mostly, he struggled with him, struggled to satisfy himself that he could put Socrates in a box and close the lid. He tries to dismiss him as the antithesis of the Dionysian, as the "theoretical man" the Apollonian, the man of reason, the figure who comes in when Greek culture was in decline, had become unsure of itself, etc. He distrusts him because he is a man of conscience (Socrates and his daimon that warned him against doing anything immoral). Mostly though, he believed that Socrates was a closet nihilist, because in the end he wanted to die. There is a famous remark from the opening section of Twilight of the Idols where Nietzsche says that Socrates is like all the nihilists throughout the ages (basically everybody who is not a super-man), when he says to Crito, as he was dying, "I owe a c*ck to the God Asclepius." Asclepius was the God of healers, so Nietzsche reads the remark to mean that Socrates views death as a "cure" for the illness that is life. I haven't read this in some time, but I do believe that all of the themes mentioned above come out in the first section of Twilight of the Idols.

Answer 3

Nietzsche disagreed with Socrates because Socrates had an obsession with peace, perfection and death. Before he took the hemlock he said that life was "being sick for a long time," and Nietzsche blamed the spreading of this kind of attitude for the rise of Christianity, romanticism and Kant's philosophy. Nietzsche disagreed with anything that takes value away from the earth to put it in a made-up realm of perfection.
Nietzsche also found Socrates to be full of resentment. He did not ask the Athenians his questions to improve them and make them stronger. He did so to make them weaker, to revenge himself on them because he could never match the Greek ideal in looks and strength. He wanted them to be logic junkies like him.

Edit: Not that Nietzsche did not have some admiration for Socrates in other ways. He had to hand it to Socrates that he could see the old Athens coming to a close when no one else could. He mostly objected to how Socrates went about creating new values for people.

Answer 4

It's hard to say because Nietzsche's writings are so varied and voluminous, but the belief/disbelief in the existence of God is a basic disagreement betweeen the two. Nietzsche loved Greek tragedy though. Perhaps Socrates was more interested in comedy, as he is a character in a play by Aristophanes?

Answer 5

Maybe because N. did not tolerate pessimism. I think there are more people who tolerate pessimism better than sarcasm. Nietzsche was highly rude and sarcastic. I'm almost sure Socrates would not have liked him either.

Mr. Nietzsche was a genius, a true philosopher, a lover of mankind, but he would not tolerate cowardice, so he put up a very high wall for them; sarcasm.

I would LOVE to see those two together. I think Nietzsche missed that too....LOL


Good luck!

Answer 6

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The Birth of Tragedy (1872): Nietzsche's first book, it deals with the philosophy of art, and many other things as well. Nietzsche critiques Socrates for killing Greek Tragedy by demanding that the search for truth take primacy over art, resulting in a society that hates the creative and loves death, with the prospect of starting of a new Renaissance of tragedy through Opera, particularly Richard Wagner's opera. He presents as his solution the concept of a "music-making Socrates" who embraces art even as he philosophizes.

Answer 7

Nietzsche just criticize Socrates, he is indifferent toward Socrates.
He never hate because he preach the new mentallity, that we should be flexible.

Answer 8

Socrates believed in the existance of God(s), but Nietzsche believed that God either ceased to exist or never existed in the first place.

Of course some people doubt the existance of Socrates because they think he might have been a character that was invented by Plato to illustrate his points.

Answer 9

N was a man of intuiton whereas S was man of brains...

Answer 10

Then.. Put the question in the proper place...