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We Philologists
A search for a definition of what classical culture really should be.
61 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1875
About the author
Friedrich Nietzsche
4,656 books26k followersFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24, but resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and probably vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900, after experiencing pneumonia and multiple strokes.
Nietzsche's work spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favour of perspectivism; a genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and a related theory of master–slave morality; the aesthetic affirmation of life in response to both the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism; the notion of Apollonian and Dionysian forces; and a characterisation of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power. He also developed influential concepts such as the Übermensch and his doctrine of eternal return. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome cultural and moral mores in pursuit of new values and aesthetic health. His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, music, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from Greek tragedy as well as figures such as Zoroaster, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Wagner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
After his death, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of his manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology, often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism. 20th-century scholars such as Walter Kaufmann, R.J. Hollingdale, and Georges Bataille defended Nietzsche against this interpretation, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th- and early 21st-century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, music, poetry, politics, and popular culture.
Nietzsche's work spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favour of perspectivism; a genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and a related theory of master–slave morality; the aesthetic affirmation of life in response to both the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism; the notion of Apollonian and Dionysian forces; and a characterisation of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power. He also developed influential concepts such as the Übermensch and his doctrine of eternal return. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome cultural and moral mores in pursuit of new values and aesthetic health. His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, music, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from Greek tragedy as well as figures such as Zoroaster, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Wagner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
After his death, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of his manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology, often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism. 20th-century scholars such as Walter Kaufmann, R.J. Hollingdale, and Georges Bataille defended Nietzsche against this interpretation, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th- and early 21st-century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, music, poetry, politics, and popular culture.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 4, 2024
A crazy read as I am getting closer to grad school … he confronts the field head on, in a way is painfully timely, which is perhaps the strangest part. The central ideas — the cultural and self aggrandizing of classics that sustain the field, the forces that vividly shaped the study of the ancient world - the ‘science of antiquity’ - in ways that many people (or at least me) don’t fully acknowledge simply because are not told about them, the unfortunate pressure to choose whether or not you want to ‘become’ a philologist before you even know that that means — they all are still present. I don’t know why it isn’t mandatory reading for anyone who is even tangentially related to classics. It gives a criticism of the field that is genuine, and acknowledges classics as a field that is upheld by — and upholds — modern conceptions of ourselves, politics, and values. It is impossible to effectively criticize the field without acknowledging its influence as something much more than an academic discipline, and this is the first time I have read a work that actually does so.
(Although I didn’t expect to laugh as much as I did: “I understand religions as narcotics: but when they are given to such nations as the Germans, I think they are simply rank poison”?? Pls !!!!).
I’ll be coming back to it again, but for now, it has given me a lot to think about.
——
My notes app is full of pieces from this essay, but these are some of my *favorite* quotes:
This educational power must be taken by the philologist from antiquity; and in such a case people will ask with astonishment: how does it come that we attach such value to a far-off past that we can only become cultured men with the aid of its knowledge?
Even in the best of cases, philologists seek for no more than mere "rationalism" and Alexandrian culture—not Hellenism.
The constitution of the polis is a Phœnician invention, even this has been imitated by the Hellenes. For a long time they dabbled in everything, like joyful dilettanti. Aphrodite is likewise Phœnician. Neither do they disavow what has come to them through immigration and does not originally belong to their own country.
The political defeat of Greece is the greatest failure of culture; for it has given rise to the atrocious theory that culture cannot be pursued unless one is at the same time armed to the teeth.
At what a distance must one be from the Greeks to ascribe to them such a stupidly narrow autochthony as does Ottfried Muller!
The Greek cultus takes us back to a pre-Homeric disposition and culture. It is almost the oldest that we know of the Greeks—older than their mythology, which their poets have considerably remoulded, so far as we know it—Can this cult really be called Greek? I doubt it: they are finishers, not inventors. They preserve by means of this beautiful completion and adornment.
How realistic the Greeks were even in the domain of pure inventions! They poetised reality, not yearning to lift themselves out of it. The raising of the present into the colossal and eternal, e.g., by Pindar
Everything that has been kept down by success gradually rears itself up: history as the scorn of the conqueror; a servile sentiment and a kneeling down before the actual fact—"a sense for the State," they now call it, as if that had still to be propagated!
He who does not understand how brutal and unintelligent history is will never understand the stimulus to make it intelligent.
Christianity has conquered antiquity—yes; that is easily said. In the first place, it is itself a piece of antiquity, in the second place, it has preserved antiquity, in the third place, it has never been in combat with the pure ages of antiquity. Or rather: in order that Christianity itself might remain, it had to let itself be overcome by the spirit of antiquity—for example, the idea of empire, the community, and so forth.
Ir is impossible to understand our modern world if we do not take into account the enormous influence of the purely fantastic.
Thesis: the death of ancient culture inevitable. Greek culture must be distinguished as the archetype; and it must be shown how all culture rests upon shaky conceptions.
To feel "historically" or "just" towards what is already past, is only possible when we have risen above it. But the danger in the adoption of the feelings necessary for this is very great . let the dead bury their dead, so that we ourselves may not come under the influence of the smell of the corpses.
(Although I didn’t expect to laugh as much as I did: “I understand religions as narcotics: but when they are given to such nations as the Germans, I think they are simply rank poison”?? Pls !!!!).
I’ll be coming back to it again, but for now, it has given me a lot to think about.
——
My notes app is full of pieces from this essay, but these are some of my *favorite* quotes:
This educational power must be taken by the philologist from antiquity; and in such a case people will ask with astonishment: how does it come that we attach such value to a far-off past that we can only become cultured men with the aid of its knowledge?
Even in the best of cases, philologists seek for no more than mere "rationalism" and Alexandrian culture—not Hellenism.
The constitution of the polis is a Phœnician invention, even this has been imitated by the Hellenes. For a long time they dabbled in everything, like joyful dilettanti. Aphrodite is likewise Phœnician. Neither do they disavow what has come to them through immigration and does not originally belong to their own country.
The political defeat of Greece is the greatest failure of culture; for it has given rise to the atrocious theory that culture cannot be pursued unless one is at the same time armed to the teeth.
At what a distance must one be from the Greeks to ascribe to them such a stupidly narrow autochthony as does Ottfried Muller!
The Greek cultus takes us back to a pre-Homeric disposition and culture. It is almost the oldest that we know of the Greeks—older than their mythology, which their poets have considerably remoulded, so far as we know it—Can this cult really be called Greek? I doubt it: they are finishers, not inventors. They preserve by means of this beautiful completion and adornment.
How realistic the Greeks were even in the domain of pure inventions! They poetised reality, not yearning to lift themselves out of it. The raising of the present into the colossal and eternal, e.g., by Pindar
Everything that has been kept down by success gradually rears itself up: history as the scorn of the conqueror; a servile sentiment and a kneeling down before the actual fact—"a sense for the State," they now call it, as if that had still to be propagated!
He who does not understand how brutal and unintelligent history is will never understand the stimulus to make it intelligent.
Christianity has conquered antiquity—yes; that is easily said. In the first place, it is itself a piece of antiquity, in the second place, it has preserved antiquity, in the third place, it has never been in combat with the pure ages of antiquity. Or rather: in order that Christianity itself might remain, it had to let itself be overcome by the spirit of antiquity—for example, the idea of empire, the community, and so forth.
Ir is impossible to understand our modern world if we do not take into account the enormous influence of the purely fantastic.
Thesis: the death of ancient culture inevitable. Greek culture must be distinguished as the archetype; and it must be shown how all culture rests upon shaky conceptions.
To feel "historically" or "just" towards what is already past, is only possible when we have risen above it. But the danger in the adoption of the feelings necessary for this is very great . let the dead bury their dead, so that we ourselves may not come under the influence of the smell of the corpses.
September 15, 2014
A good read.
December 9, 2020
So contemporary. Written in 2020.
June 18, 2018
Always loved rebels.
August 12, 2019
Best quick overview of Nietzsche thoughts -- happy to be getting through what I hadn't read of Nietzsche since I've been younger
May 13, 2024
"Wir Philologen " is a short summary of Nietzsche's early thoughts but mostly in the context of language from the standpoint of a philologist rather than a philosopher .
August 18, 2011
Kindle/free online book formats suck. So does a book that reads like a early 20th century blog or speech notes about education sans footnotes that explain its social or personal context.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews