"Encontro das Aguas," Amazonas, Brazil

This is where the Rio Negro meets the Rio Salimoes, near Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. They flow parallel--the dark water gradually mixing with the the light brownish water--for miles. Once united, they flow to the Atlantic at Belém.

Superparadise Beach, Myconos, July, 1990

Donde comenzó todo!

House, West Island, Massachusetts

House in Alcantera de Xuquer, Valencia

Camping in Maine, 2006

Blanca Motera

Jerusalem, 1989

José Luis Rodriguez and his wife Pamela

Trip South on La Blavita, Summer, 2007

Petra, Jordan, 1999

Bangkok, 1987

Hume's Tomb, Edinburgh

Crossing the Gulf of Aqaba to Nuweiba, Egypt

Marlin, Quepos, Costa Rica, 1989

Review of Zeitlin's NIETZSCHE: A RE-EXAMINATION

{The following appeared in Volume 96, Number 2 (Spring 1997) of the APA Newsletters.}

Irving Zeitlin. Nietzsche: A Re-Examination, Polity Press, 1994, 178pp. Reviewed by: Rick Hogan, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

     The resurgence of interest in Nietzsche during the last thirty years has resulted in a veritable Zauberberg of literature that is at the disposal of instructors who teach courses on him or that include him. In addition to a number of first-rate monographs and some excellent collections of articles (2), there is virtually an unlimited number of other, usually more specialized, books on Nietzsche. And there is no lack of presentations of his thought that are accessible to undergraduates.(3) Therefore in order to merit serious attention from Nietzsche teachers, new materials must be of very high quality.
     Irving Zeitlin is a sociologist, whose book discusses a number of the central themes in Nietzsche's philosophy. The cover says that the book "will be essential reading for second-year students and above, plus professionals in the areas of philosophy, social theory, and political thought." Regrettably, the claim on the cover is wrong. Prof. Zeitlin's book is an extremely poor introduction to Nietzsche for students, and it makes no important contribution to scholarship on Nietzsche.
     The book's defects are numerous. First, Zeitlin's avowedly critical aim takes the form of presenting a number of hackneyed criticisms of Nietzsche (e.g., that he rejects any notion of truth, reason, or knowledge (4), that he committed the "genetic fallacy," that he endorses grossly immoral actions, that he presents no support for his views, that his position is "just a matter of taste" etc.).
     Zeitlin thinks it is quite obvious that these criticisms are correct; so he offers little defense of them himself. He seems to suppose that merely presenting the criticism is enough to deliver a knock-out blow. He is apparently completely unaware of the post Kaufmann/Hollingdale scholarship on Nietzsche (the book contains no bibliography), which, if anything, has shown that the issues are much more complicated than many previous writers on Nietzsche allowed. He makes no attempt to consider what a sympathetic reader might see in Nietzsche and the ways in which such more dispassionate critics have tried to defend him from the usual charges.
     In sum, Zeitlin's presentation of Nietzsche is extremely crude, unsympathetic, philosophically naive, and ignorant of current scholarship.
    Another rather strange feature of Zeitlin's book is his inclination to provide summaries of marginally relevant material: on the relation between the ancient Hebrews and Egypt; on Alcibiades; on Archaic and Classical Greek history; on the Hebrew prophets. Zeitlin makes little detailed attempt to integrate these discussions directly into his account of Nietzsche other than simply pointing out that his material furnishes examples of points that Nietzsche makes. This approach reminds one of an undergraduate anxious to fill up space.
    The book's claims to originality do not pass muster. For example, Zeitlin's comparison between Nietzsche and the "immoralist" antagonists of Socrates (Callicles in the Gorgias, Thrasymachus in Republic I) was the subject of the well known appendix to E.R. Dodds' edition of the Gorgias.(6). The discussion of Darwin, in addition to containing a number of mistakes, repeats points made many times in the recent literature. The chapters on Stirner and Dostoyevsky contain virtually no analysis that would justify including them in a book on Nietzsche. The material on the Greeks and the Hebrews provides additional examples of phenomena ("master" and "slave" morality) already sufficiently illustrated by Nietzsche's own texts.
     Finally, Zeitlin's presentation consists in large measure of paraphrases, but often amounts to almost verbatim reproduction of Nietzsche's text, without indication that this is what is occurring. Sometimes Zeitlin does not tell the reader which translation he is using. Occasionally he introduces his own infelicities, e.g., when he imports "superman" into Kaufmann's translation of Zarathustra.
    Zeitlin also plagiarizes from Hollingdale's Nietzsche. Although he has a footnote (p.16) informing the reader that he "rel[ies] on Hollingdale's splendid study for these details about Nietzsche's childhood and his intellectual development," he doesn't let the reader know when he appropriates Hollingdale's diction, sentence structure, and judgements. Although there are several, properly footnoted quotations, other specific borrowings remain unacknowledged according to standard scholarly conventions. I was surprised and dismayed to find that such a book could be published in the mid-1990s.

Notes:

 1. E.g., Richard Schacht, Nietzsche (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983); Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1985); Maudmarie Clark, Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); John Wilcox, Truth and Value in Nietzsche (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1974).
2. E.g., R. Solomon, ed. Nietzsche: A Collection of Critical Essays (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980); R. Solomon and K. Higgins, eds. , Reading Nietzsche (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); R. Schacht, ed., Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). 3. E.g. Michael Tanner's "Past Masters" Nietzsche (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
 4. One of the most important issues in contemporary scholarship on Nietzsche is his views on truth, knowledge, and objectivity. These are, to say the least, complicated. But he has recently had some able defenders, who claim that the mature Nietzsche retains a commitment to truth and the possibility of knowledge. See, e.g., Clark: "The Nietzschean ideal of affirmation does not require us to abandon logic, argument, or the commitment to truth," p.23. See also Schacht, Nietzsche; B. Leiter, "Perspectivism in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals," in R. Schacht, ed. Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality. Zeitlin shows no awareness of any of the scholarship on this issue.
5. Nietzsche is defended against the charge of "genetic fallacy," by, inter alia, R. Schacht, Nietzsche; R. Solomon, "One Hundred Years of Ressentiment," in R. Schacht, ed. Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality.
6. E.R. Dodds, Plato: Gorgias (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), Appendix, "Socrates, Callicles, and Nietzsche," 387ff. Zeitlin is apparently unaware of this essay.

Review of T. Irwin, PLATO'S MORAL THEORY

Terence Irwin. Plato's Moral Theory: The Early and Middle Dialogues. Oxford. Clarendon Press, 1977. Pp. 376 + xvii. $21.00.

Irwin's book is an extremely important contribution to the literature on Plato. It painstakingly reconstructs a systematic picture of the moral positions of Socrates and Plato as they emerge from the early and middle dialogues. Irwin considers these positions philosophically important and at least partially worthy of defense. He will have nothing to do with facile refutations and offhand dismissals; he insists that we take Plato seriously. In the execution of this project, Irwin displays sensitivity to problems of classical scholarship combined with a high degree of philosophical sophistication. The result is worthy of extended study.

Although the main exposition, interpretation, and evaluation is to be found in the text (where all Greek is either translated or transliterated), another extremely valuable part of the book is the fifty-eight pages of notes, which contain interesting discussions in support of particular interpreta­tions and a consideration of recent scholarship. There is a bibliography that lists 278 items, a general index, and an index locorum.

One feature of Irwin's approach calls for comment. While he is definitely claiming to interpret Plato, he does not hesitate to "read into" the text certain consequences or implications or to suggest a line of argumentation that does not have explicit textual support (p. 3). Part of the reason for this is Irwin's feeling that "the character of a Platonic dialogue itself leaves us unsatisfied" (p. 3). Irwin also admits that he is often "charitable" to Plato in that he minimizes certain "flaws and obscurities" (p. 3). While this approach will not recommend itself to everyone, it certainly seems justified in that it enables us to take Plato seriously as a philosopher, rather than merely as an intellectual museum piece.

The main line of interpretation that Irwin advances runs as follows. Socrates and Plato both hold certain paradoxical theses in moral philosophy, such as the unity-of-virtue doctrine and the claim that virtue must be in the agent's interest. In addition, Socrates holds that virtue is craft knowledge only. Like any craft, its value for a rational practitioner lies in the production of an independently desirable product. For Socrates, presumably, both virtuous and nonvirtuous persons agree on what this desirable end is, so that it could be defined in undisputed terms; the virtuous person would differ from the nonvirtuous only with respect to the means of achieving it. Thus, for Socrates, the virtues are of instrumental value only. Irwin admits (e.g., p. 7) that the Socratic dialogues offer no satisfactory account of this final good that is taken to be the product of virtue, although in the Protagoras it is definitely specified as the agent's pleasure. Furthermore, the Socratic denial of akrasia relies upon the assumption that the end product or final good is some­thing we all want and that therefore we will never fail to exercise our virtue-craft. Thus, virture requires only a cognitive component; no affective component is necessary.

The claim that virtue is a craft knowledge only and the denial of akrasia are rejected by Plato, although he substitutes equally paradoxical doctrines in their place, for example, the thesis that virtue must be good in itself and that the virtuous person must have knowledge of the Forms. Plato begins to reject Socratic claims in the Gorgias and Meno; he rejects them even more deci­sively in the Phaedo and Republic. His espousal of the doctrine of recollection and of the theory Forms is important in that it involves a rejection of the craft analogy (CA). Plato now sees that there can be no definition of the good in undisputed terms, as demanded by the CA. Since moral properties are not definable in terms of nonmoral ones, as Socrates had thought, morality cannot be merely a craft. Therefore, morality "can be learnt only through the elenchos. by the method of recollection" (p. 7). In theory, for Socrates, the final good should be discoverable independently of the elenchos. But "Plato denies that the elenchos can be replaced by a craft: he allows moral knowledge only through mutual support and coherence of beliefs about the virtues and about the good, with no appeal to an external standard, indentifiable without disputed moral terms, prom­ised by the CA" (p. 9).

In addition to rejecting Socrates' view of moral knowledge, Plato also rejects the denial of akrasia (Gorgias, Phaedo, Republic IV); this results from Plato's recognition of good-independent desires.

The abandonment of these central Socratic doctrines creates certain difficulties for Plato. In the first place, the CA had provided an excellent account of how morality is rational: it is a craft that produces a desired product. Now that Plato rejects this view he needs to supply an alternative justification for morality. In place of Socrates' claim that virtue is an instrumental good, Plato holds that virtue is a good in itself and benefits the agent. This raises the question of whether the commonly recognized virtues (especially justice) are in fact beneficial to the agent (a claim Soc­rates had defended with respect to temperance and courage). In the Republic Plato takes on the task of defending justice independently of Socratic assumptions about moral knowledge. He tries in Republic I-IV to defend his view that justice in the sense of psychic harmony is beneficial to the agent. The problem of how psychic harmony would involve concern for others Plato attempts to solve with his theory of rational desire and love (Symposium, Phaedrus). "He claims that the development of rational desire results in love for the Form of Justice and other moral properties, and in the desire to propagate them in other people. Since it will be in someone else's interest to become just, the just man will be concerned with other people's interests" (pp. 10- I I).

Irwin spends the final chapter (8) giving a critical examination of Plato's position. He discusses criticisms based upon Plato's ethical egoism and upon his teleology. He argues that whatever there is of importance in the criticism of egoism ultimately reduces to problems with teleology. He argues, furthermore, that these criticisms are not obviously decisive, although Plato's position does involve him in certain unacceptable positions with regard to human rights and freedom.

Detailed critical discussion of Irwin's main theses is impossible within the space available here. However, let me briefly isolate several of the most controversial and debatable of his claims.

Irwin's view that Socratic knowledge is craft knowledge only (p. 72, p. 84, et passim) is potentially misleading in that it underemphasizes the apparent fact that Socrates is looking for the account of a universal and an essential cause (Euthyphro 5d. 6d-e: cf. Hippias Major 287c-d, 289d), something with an objective existence independent of human cognition about it. The knowledge of such an eidos or idea seems to be just as "theoretical" and independent of the production of a product as the knowledge that twice two is four. although admittedly this latter proposition can be employed within the context of a craft. It should be noted that Irwin rejects (p. 296, n. 28) Gould's view that Socratic knowledge is only a "knowing how," so that he need not think that craft knowledge lacks the "bit of theory."

Irwin holds that the hedonism in the Protagoras is genuinely Socratic (p. 10.3) . rather than simply part of an ad hominem strategy. He thinks that the hedonism is necessary for the cogency of Socrates' argument and is completely consistent with and in fact demanded by other features of Socrates' theory, especially the CA. He seems to underestimate, however, the problem of the absence of hedonism from the other early dialogues. If hedonism is such a natural answer to Socrates' problems, why do we hear of it only in the Protagoras? There is not so much as a hint of it in other early dialogues (as Irwin seems to admit, p. 103), and one might surely argue that their general spirit is incompatible with hedonism (cf. Apology 30a-b, 38a, 41e; Crito 49b, et passim).

Irwin suggests that when Plato rejects Socrates' CA in the middle dialogues. he accepts the implication that since there is no final good that is specifiable in non disputed terms, there is no external standard for correctness of views about morality. "Plato rejects the external standard; moral beliefs cannot be tested for correctness except by the procedure of the elenchos, which may yield a systematic, coherent account of moral judgments, but may not link them to any external standard. When Plato rejects Socrates' guarantee of objectivity for moral beliefs, and offers no substitute, he rejects the demand for such a guarantee as illegitimate" (pp. 159-60). Irwin also claims that there is no reason to ascribe to Plato the view that Forms are intended as "absolute standards," the cognition of which (perhaps by some sort of direct acquaintance) issues in height­ened moral certainty (p. 321, n. 47). But surely the talk of the unhypothetical first principle (Republic 510b, 511b, 533c-d), and the need for it in order to convert hypotheses into knowl­edge, shows that Plato would not have been satisfied with mere consistency. unanchored to an external standard (see Cratylus 436c-d). And does not the whole theme of Books VI-VIII, the need for the philosopher kings to reach an apprehension of the Good (conceived of as an indepen­dently existing standard), clearly illustrate Plato's view that the direct apprehension of Forms does indeed issue in heightened moral certainty (see Republic 520c)? To abandon this yiew is, one might argue, to abandon the very core of Platonism.

Irwin holds that "the Good is not some further being besides the Forms; when we have correctly defined them, connected in a teleological system, we have specified the Good, which just is the system" (p. 225). But the "logic" of the of the Sun simile (as revealed e.g. by 508b-e. 509b) seems to tell against this interpretation; 507b5-7 seems direcectly to imply that the Form of the Good is one among the other Forms.

There are other places where Irwin offers provocative interpretations, such as his analysis of the Symposium's "ascent" passage (pp.209ff.) and its relevance to the problem of connecting Platonic justice with concern for the interests of others.

As Irwin says in his preface, he has "not tried to play safe" (p. viii). The result is an exciting book that challenges a number of orthodoxies in the interpretation of Plato's moral philosophy. Defenders of these received views will find that Irwin gives them much to think about.

RICHARD HOGAN

Review: Grube's Plato Translations

[Note: The publication of this review led to a relationship with Jay Hullett, of Hackett Publishing, which turned out to be one of the most satisfying aspects of my professional life. For a happy ending to the story of the Grube translations, see my review of Plato: Complete Works, posted below.]

Published in TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 2, No.3-4 (1977-8), pp.386-7.

G. M. A. GRUBE. The Trial and Death of Socrates. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1975, 58 pp. $1.25, pbk. G. M. A. GRUBE. Plato's Meno. In­dianapolis: Hackett Publishing Com­pany, 1976, 33 pp. $.95, pbk. G. M. A. GRUBE. Plato's Phaedo. In­dianapolis: Hackett Publishing Com­pany, 1977, 67 pp. $1.45, pbk.

     Grube's The Trial and Death of Socrates (Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and the "death scene" from the Phaedo), Meno and Phaedo continue the project of translation begun with the Republic (see the review in TP 1 :2). These editions are quite inexpensive and are intended to recommend themselves for use by stu­dents.

     Grube aims at a high degree of literalness in his renditions, but unfor­tunately, this is very often bought at the price of extreme awkwardness in the English. We are frequently given English with Greek syntax, long sentences which are not broken up, and deviant punctua­tion. All this creates a general impression of clumsiness. Some examples are the following:

Euthyphro 5D7 (p. 7). "Tell me then, what is the pious, and what the impious, do you say?"

Euthyphro 15C5-6 (p. 19). "Do you then not realize that when you say now that that what is dear to the gods is the pious?"

Crito 49B2-5 (p. 49). "Above all, is the truth such as we used to say it was, whether the majority agree or not, whether we must still suffer worse things than we do now, or will be treated more gently, nonetheless, wrongdoing is in every way harmful [sic: kakon] and shameful to the wrongdoer." (Two misprints corrected.)

Meno 96A-B3 (p. 28). "Can you men­tion any other subject of which those who claim to be teachers are not, such as the teachers of other subjects, recognized as such, but not to have knowledge of it themselves, and are thought to be poor in the very matter which they profess to teach, or any other subject of which those who are recognized as worthy men at one time say it can be taught and at other times that it cannot?"

Phaedo 76D7-E4 (p. 27). "If those realities we are always talking about exist, the Beautiful and the Good and all that kind of reality, and we refer all our sense perceptions to them, and we discover that it existed before and we had knowledge of it, and we compare our perceptions with it, then, just as they exist, so our soul must exist before we are born."

Phaedo 80C2-7 (p. 31). "You realize, he said, that when a man dies, the visible part, the body, which exists in the visible world, which we call the corpse, for which it would be natural to dissolve, fall apart and be blown away, does not immediately suffer any of these things but remains for a fair time, in fact, quite a long time if the man dies with his body in a suitable condi­tion and at a favourable season?"

Phaedo (88A1-B3 (p. 38). "For if one were to concede to a man using that argu­ment even more than you do, if one were to grant him not only that the soul exists in the time before we are born, but that there is no reason why the soul of some should not exist and continue to exist after our death, and thus frequently be born and die in turn, if one were to grant him that the soul's nature is so strong that it can survive many bodies, but if, having granted all this, one does not further agree that the soul is not damaged by its many births and is not, in the end, altogether destroyed in one of those deaths, he might say that no one knows which death and dissolution of the body brings about the destruction of the soul, since not one of us can be aware of this."

     Presumably, the primary benefit of such literalness is the achievement of ac­curacy. But Grube often fails on this score as well. There is a plethora of annoying mistakes and mistranslations, of which the following are representative.

Euthyphro 6E3 (p. 8). "Tell me then what form itself is ... " leaves out a very important "this." Perhaps this is a misprint. Euthyphro 7 A8 (p. 9). The superlative enantiotaton is translated simply as "op­posite."

Euthyphro 8A10 (p. 10), 0 thaumasie is translated as "you surprising man," which fails to capture the irony of the Greek. At 8011 (p. 11), the same phrase is not translated at all.

 Apology 17A1 (p. 22). et passim. Grube translates andres Athenaioi as "gentlemen of the jury," which it ob­viously does not mean. The translation obscures the fact that Socrates deliberate­ly refrains from employing the most customary mode of address to a jury, and renders pointless his emphatic change of address (to andres dikastai) at 40A2, after he has determined who among the jury are true judges.

 Apology 37A5 (p. 39). The translation has" I am convinced that no man willing­ly does wrong," which makes the reader perk up at an explicit mention of the famous Socratic paradox. But this is a mistranslation; the medena at 37A5 is clearly accusative and the line means that Socrates has never willingly done anyone an injustice.

 Crito 53A3-5 (p. 53). Aneu nomon at 53A5 means "without laws," and not, as Grube has it, "if its laws do not."

Meno 87B2-C3 (p. 21). "So we can say about virtue also, since we do not know either what it is or what qualities it possesses, let us investigate whether it is teachable by means of a hypothesis, and say this: if among the things existing in the soul virtue has a certain quality, would it be teachable or not? Or, as we were saying just now, can it be recol­lected? First then, if it is other than knowledge-for let it make no difference to us whichever term we use-but can it be taught?"

   In addition to being extreme­ly awkward and ungrammatical, this translation involves a transposition of lines at B6-8, giving a totally different turn to the meaning.

Phaedo 650 (p. 14). Grube capitalizes the names of the Forms of the Just, the Beautiful and the Good. Yet at 65E, we find "size, health, strength," without capitalization, although these latter are surely Forms also, as the remaining part of the line makes clear.

Phaedo 100A4 (p. 50). "Theory" for logon is overly specific.

   Other inaccuracies occur at Euthyphro 3C, 50, 5E, 8C9, 9Cl, l1E2, 14C3-4: Crito 43B3-4, 54C7; Meno 71B4, 7608-9, 76E3, 88A6, 98A7; Phaedo 61A8-Bl, 65A9-Bl, 74E, 101D7.

   Moreover, Grube's remarks in his brief Introductions and notes are at times misleading and inaccurate. Often difficult points in the text which call for comment or explanation are ignored.
   There are a number of misprints in these books and the lopsided, hand-drawn diagrams illustrating the "slave boy" episode in the Meno do not help matters any. Perhaps they are intended to remind us of the imperfection of sensible par­ticulars.

   On the whole these editions are marred by a considerable number of infelicities. It is to be sincerely hoped that the publisher will see fit to revise and correct them, especially in view of the need for inexpen­sive versions of these dialogues for use in the classroom. However, until such a revi­sion is made, I cannot recommend them for use by students.

Richard Hogan
SOUTHEASTERN MASSACHUSETTS UNIVERSITY

Nietzsche--Review of Three Books

Teaching Philosophy 10./I, March /1987 Nietzsche, Richard Schacht Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. 1985. 546pp. $17.50 pbk. Nietzsche: Life as Literature, Alexander Nehamas Harvard University Press, 1985, 261pp. $17.50 . Nietzsche: The Man and His Philosophy, R. J. Hollingdale Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1985, 196pp. $8.95 pbk. RICHARD HOGAN Today, interest in Nietzsche among professional philosophers is intense. Walter Kaufmann (Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, 1950) led the way by showing that Nietzsche should not be blamed for World War II, and Arthur Danto (Nietzsche As Philos­opher, 1965) showed analytic philosophers that there was much in Nietzsche that was philosophically worthwhile. American philosophers have responded to this stimulation. The North American Nietzsche Society was created in 1979 and now has over 400 members. A glance at the Review of Metaphysics resumes of doctoral dissertations for the past five years shows that many young philosophers have decided to focus their attention on Nietzsche. Books and articles on Nietzsche continue to be produced at a rapid rate.

This interest has surfaced in the classroom; there are currently many institutions that offer a course dedicated wholly or in part to Nietzsche. And there is now a wealth of high caliber material in the form of translations, books, and anthologies that can contribute to the success of such courses.

I know from experience in my own course on Nietzsche that he can be extremely effective in sparking the interest of students who might not respond to less flamboyant philosophers. One can use Nietzsche as "bait" to get students interested in a wide range of traditional philosophical issues.

Schacht's and Nehamas' books represent the very best in contemporary Nietzsche schol­arship; they resemble Danto's book in that they are the products of first-rate philosophical minds grappling with Nietzsche. Both of these books could be used by advanced under­graduates, and they will certainly prove extremely valuable in helping faculty prepare lectures.

Schacht's large book presents a systematic reconstruction of Nietzsche's philosophical views and aims at making these views intelligible and attractive to people within the English­speaking philosophical tradition. Schacht is convinced that Nietzsche can be interpreted as a basically consistent thinker who has interesting views on a number of standard philosophical topics. Schacht does not hesitate to draw heavily on the Nachlass (and in particular The Will to Power); nor does he have any qualms about "stripping away" Nietzsche's hyperbolic rhetoric when this facilitates the extraction of his philosophical position. Schacht's interpretive stance also includes virtually ignoring Zarathustra. In short, we get a very "toned down," academically respectable Nietzsche: a Nietzsche with whom contemporary American philos­ophers might converse with little feeling of strangeness.

The book is organized thematically, each chapter discussing a major strand in Nietzsche's thought and drawing on his treatment of the issue in various, widely-scattered texts. Schacht has chapters discussing Nietzsche's views on "Philosophers and Philosophy," ''Truth and Knowledge," "Metaphysical Errors," "The World and Life," "Man and Men," "Value and Values," "Morals and Morality," and "Art and Artists."

At the center of Schacht's interpretation is his reconstruction of Nietzsche's position on truth and knowledge. The interpretation of Nietzsche on this issue has been at the forefront of debate among scholars for the last 20 years or so. Schacht himself has been a major figure in the debate, having written a well-known article ("Nietzsche and Nihilism," 1973) disputing Danto's claim that Nietzsche is a nihilist (someone who claims that there is no truth).

Schacht's interpretation hinges on the claim that Nietzsche's remarks about truth and knowledge are to be taken as belonging to different levels of analysis and that if we are to see him as having a coherent position, it is imperative to keep these levels distinct. On some occasions when Nietzsche talks about truth and knowledge, his intention is to analyze these notions as they are commonly used. When so taken, truth is fundamentally a matter of correspondence against a background of coherence, and knowledge is primarily a matter of making the unfamiliar familiar. On this level of analysis, we might say, for example, that "There's a buffalo in the hall" is true because it corresponds with what we experience. However, on other occasions, Nietzsche takes up a vantage point from which he tries to assess our ordinary ways of taking truth and knowledge. It is from this point of view that Nietzsche often claims that our "truths" are really errors. What he means here is that our most fundamental concepts-our whole linguistic-conceptual scheme-But if this is indeed Nietzsche's position, is not clear that he is entitled to hold it. For presumably "aptness" must be analyzed primarily in terms of correspondence to facts, and it is not clear why Nietzsche should be allowed an exception to his denial of any independently existing structure in the world that could form the basis of such a correspondence. If Nietzsche's general position is that there are no facts independent of particular conceptual schemes, it is not clear why his own conceptual scheme should be granted epistemic superiority as an account of the real nature of the world and human life.

This is perhaps the most controversial issue in interpreting Nietzsche and could easily form the core of a course on his philosophy; students working on this issue will learn a good deal of epistemology. Students should compare Schacht's interpretation with Danto' s as well as with that of Nehamas, who denies that Nietzsche has a general theory of truth at all.

Nehamas' book derives inspiration from both Continental and American scholarship. It penetratingly discusses Nietzsche's main philosophical claims: the will to power, the eternal recurrence, the attack on morality, etc. The unifying theme is provided by two central features of Nietzsche's work: his perspectivism (the view that there are only interpretations) and his "aestheticism" (the tendency to view the world as a literary text and pcople, including himself, as literary characters.) It is the illuminating treatment of this latter theme that constitutes the book's chief novelty. And it is the emphasis on the latter theme that makes Nehamas' book such a useful complement to Schacht's. For while Schacht virtually ignores Nietzsche's style, the literary aspect of his work is at the forefront of Nehamas' interpretation. Nehamas suggests that the key to solving a number of puzzles in the interpretation of Nietzsche lies in the realization that Nietzsche thinks of thc world on the model of a literary text, something amenable to treatment from many point of view (perspectives). It is his aestheticism, Nehamas argues, that partially motivates and renders intelligible a number of Nietzschean positions. It is also by appeal to Nietzsche's aestheticism that a sympatheic interpreter might attempt to respond to the paradoxes generated by the perspectivism. For example, Nietzsche's aestheticism helps to explain the c1aim~entral to the "will to power" doctrine-that "things" are simply the sum of their effects. Just as a literary character is nothing "in itself' over and above his or her doings as depicted by the author, so a "thing" is nothing in itself over and above its effects on other things. Further-to take an example of the connection between the aestheticism and perspectivism-Nehamas argues that Nietzsche does not present a "positive" morality, a recipe for the iibermensch. What he does it to construct himself through his texts-using a number of disparate literary styles-as a literary character. Since this character is a unique "individual," Nietzsche can present positive views without succumbing to the dogmatism and claims to universality that he finds so objectionable in previous philosophers. And his use of many styles reinforces his perspecivist position by keeping the reader aware that it is Nietzsche's position that is being presented. From this basic understanding, Nehamas goes on presuasively to interpret other difficult Nietzschean doctrines. For example, when Nietzsche issues the injunction "become who you are," he is not contradicting his claim that there is no being, only becoming. Becoming who one is involves the on-going construction of a coherent self, a task-never completable­that involves the unification of diverse elements. And a coherent, unified self need not necessarily be morally praiseworthy (just a as a successful literary character need not be morally praiseworthy). Finally, the doctrine of the eternal recurrence, Nehamas claims, is not a cosmological thesis. It involves the notion that if one were to live again, one would have to live exactly the same life as one is living now. People, like literary characters, have only essential properties; if someone were to have a different property, he or she would be a different person. The eternal return is thus "a view of the ideal life. " Does one accept his or 'her life enough to be able to will its exact repetition (along with the exact repetition of the world of which this life is an inseparable part)?

Whether or not one finds Nehamas' starting point compelling, his book is full of brilliant insights and provocative readings of individual passages. Together with Schacht's book, it reflects the high level that Nietzsche studies have now attained.

Hollingdale's book in an altered re-issue of Nietzsche: The Man and His Philosophy, 1965. The original book presented Nietzsche's thought within the context of his life. The present version deletes a major portion of the material on Nietzsche's philosophy and is thus purely biographical. In my view, this is a pity, since it renders the book unusable as an elementary introduction to Nietzsche's thought for an undergraduate course. Richard Hogan, Philosophy, Southeastern Massachusetts University, North Dartmouth, Massachusetts 02747 USA

Sancho Panza

This was done by Maria Serradilla, a member of Blanca's fifth=grade class, in conjunction with their study of DON QUIJOTE (2005).

Review, PLATO: COMPLETE WORKS

The following appeared in Volume 98, Number 1 (Fall, 1998) of the American Philosophical Association's Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy Reviewed by Richard Hogan University of Massachusettes, Dartmouth Plato: Complete Works। Hackett Publishing Co., 1997. $42.50. Translated by John Cooper.

In the case of Plato's writings, Fate has been good to us: we appear to possess all of the works that Plato composed. These were collected, edited, and arranged by the first century A.D. Alexandrian scholar Thrasyllus, who divided them into nine "tetralogies," or groups of four. This gives us 36 works (counting the Letters as one work), although very few scholars accept all these dialogues as genuinely Platonic. Thrasyllus appended eight dialogues that had come down under Plato's name but were generally considered spurious. Plato: Complete Works presents translations of all the material in the collection of Thrasyllus, along with some doubtfully Platonic poetic epigrams.

The publication of this volume marks the completion of a 25-year project by the Hackett Publishing Company. Here, for the first time in this century, readers of English have access, under one cover, to the whole of Plato's oeuvre, in high quality translations by leading scholars, meticulously edited and produced.

The Hackett collection will surely rapidly replace the only other currently available collection with any pretensions to wide coverage, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, edited by Hamilton and Cairns. This volume, many of whose translations are now outdated, does not include a significant number of the dialogues in Thrasyllus' tetralogies and completely omits the spuria.

Many of the translations have been previously published by Hackett, but all have been revised for the present collection. Included in this group are a number that have established themselves as "standards." Grube's Republic, and Levett's Theaetetus are examples. Many translations that appear for the first time and a few older, non-Hackett (but revised) pieces complete the roster of Thrasyllus' nine tetralogies: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo (G. Grube), Cratylus (D. Reeve), Theaetetus (M. Levett, revised by M. Burnyeat), Sophist (N. White), Statesman (C. Rowe), Parmenides (M. Gill and P. Ryan), Philebus (D. Frede), Symposium (A. Nehamas and P. Woodruff), Alcibiades (D. Hutchinson), Second Alcibiades (A. Kenny), Hipparchus (N. Smith), Rival Lovers (J. Mitscherling), Theages (N. Smith), Charmides and Laches (R. Sprague), Lysis (S. Lombardo), Euthydemus (R. Sprague), Protagoras (S. Lombardo and K. Bell), Gorgias (D. Zeyl), Meno (G. Grube), Greater Hippias (P. Woodruff), Lesser Hippias (N. Smith), Ion (P. Woodruff), Menexenus (P. Ryan), Clitophon (F. Gonzalez), Republic (G. Grube, revised by D. Reeve), Timaeus (D. Zeyl), Critias (D. Clay), Minos (M. Schofield), Laws (T. Saunders), Epinomis (R. McKirahan) and Letters (G. Morrow).

One of the most significant achievements of this volume is the inclusion of translations of all the spuria. These are: Definitions (D. Hutchinson), On Justice (A. Becker), On Virtue (M. Reuter), Demodocus (J. Barnes), Sisyphus (D. Gallop) Halcyon (B. Inwood), Eryxias (M. Joyal), Axiochus (J. Hershbell). Associate editor D. S. Hutchinson (University of Toronto) was responsible for overseeing the translations of the spuria and doubtful works, and for writing the introductions to them.

The volume is ably edited by John Cooper, who supplies a general introduction that discusses the Thrasyallan canon, the chronological ordering of Plato's works, the dialogue form, and suggestions on reading Plato. Cooper stresses the fragility of the evidential basis for the division of the dialogues into "early," "middle," and "late," if these categories are taken as strictly chronological. He urges that readers not prejudge questions of chronology before open-mindedly examining the dialogues themselves. Printing the dialogues in Thrasyllus' original order-as opposed to arranging them according to some putative chronology-facilitates this approach. Likewise, says Cooper, the dialogue form suggests that readers should approach the work in a questioning spirit rather than in the expectation of seeing Plato dogmatically set out his philosophy.

Translation is, of course, a highly tricky business. Plato's status as a philosopher as well as a consummate literary artist has provoked all manner of approaches to the project of rendering him into English. Some translators emphasize philosophical accuracy, others the reproduction of the beauty and multifaceted power of Plato's style. Cooper sets out the ideal of translation that he, as editor, has striven to encourage:

"The aim should be to find a way, while adhering to normal English word order and sentence construction, to say as precisely as possible in ordinary English-where necessary, ordinary philosophical English-just what an educated contemporary of Plato's would have taken the Greek being translated to be saying(p. xxiv). "

Readers will, of course, approach Plato with different needs and from differing points of view. And they will not always agree with every decision made by a particular translator. But here they will encounter work that reflects a high degree of success in achieving Cooper's stated aim and a sustained level of accuracy and competence on the part of the team of translators.

Cooper and Hutchinson supply excellent short introductions to each dialogue. (These are surely a welcome improvement over the often quaint remarks in the Hamilton-Cairns volume.) There are helpful footnotes and a 55-page index.

The relatively low price of the volume ($42.50) will put it in reach of most philosophy majors and graduate students, and will allow its use as a text in wide variety of courses in philosophy. It can also be recommended to the general reader as an investment that will furnish a lifetime of pleasure and instruction.

Philosophers, scholars, and teachers should be extremely grateful to the publisher, the editors, and the translators for making this volume possible. I am sure that George Grube, who first started translating Platonic dialogues for Bill Hackett 25 years ago, would be delighted with the results of a project that--unbeknownst to him--began with his efforts.

Nietzsche In the Jungle

[I put this up here because frequently people who learn how much I like Nietzsche ask me for a quick sketch. This text was the basis for a talk I gave, under the title of "Nietzsche in the Jungle"). I'm conscious that it is crude on a number of points, e.g., it might give the erroneous impression that Nietzsche did not believe in any form of truth, a "postmodernist" interpretation that I think is mistaken. And I need to replace the footnotes , which have dropped out of the text as posted.]

                                     Nietzsche In The Jungle

    I must confess to a certain disingenuousness with my title. You all were undoubtedly expecting me to talk about Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), the great German philosopher famous for his doctrines of "the Superman," "the will to power," "the revaluation of all values," "Beyond good and evil," and the eternal return. In fact, however, the "Nietzsche" of my title is the philosopher's sister, Elizabeth, a diminutive women, two years his junior, who, with her thoroughly loathsome anti-Semitic husband, planted a “Aryan” colony in the wilds of Paraguay. I recently visited the place; hence the “jungle” in my title. In the end, however, my deception has been venial, since my intention is indeed to spend most of my time talking about the philosopher, and to return to Elisabeth only at the end. So first, let me say something about him.

Nietzsche’s Life

--Born October 15, 1844, in Rocken (Saxony, Prussia). Father (Ludwig Nietzsche) was a Lutheran minister; mother (Franziska) was the daughter of a Lutheran minister. N.'s father died when he was 5 (of "softening of the brain"). His mother moved the family to Naumberg, where N. grew up with his sister Elizabeth, his mother, his grandmother and 2 aunts. (N.'s misogyny is often traced to his early experiences in a house full of women.)

1858: enters the venerable gymnasium Pforta (stays for 6 years); receives a classical education.

1864: graduates and goes to study at University of Bonn (theology and classical philology). Joins a fraternity, but soon quits. Soon gives up theology. (At this time no longer a believing Christian.)

1865: moves to Leipzig with his philology teacher Friedrich Ritschl. During this period N. discovers the philosopher Schopenhauer. Meets and begins to fall under the influence of Wagner. [Wagner (1813-1883): nationalist and anti-semitic genius; composer of vast "music dramas." W. was to play an important part in N.'s life.]

1869: call to Basel (N. just 24 and without a doctorate). N. stays at Basel for 10 years ( until 1879).

1870: Service in Franco-Prussian War as medical orderly. (N. had been hurt during his previous military training in 1867 when he suffered a riding accident.) Return to Basel.

Wagner at Tribschen (N. a frequent visitor; becomes intimate with Wagner and his wife Cosima.) His relationship with Wagner during this period seems to have been a major catalyst for his own work. N. later broke with Wagner, and wrote several polemics against him.

1872: THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY. Persistent health problems.

1879: Resigns from the university because of ill health and begins a life of wandering around Italy, Switzerland, and Germany. The next ten years are the most productive in N.'s career as a writer; it is to this period that his most important works (DAWN, GAY SCIENCE, ZARATHUSTRA, BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL, THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS, THE CASE OF WAGNER) belong. "Affair" with Lou Salome (1861-1937)

1889: becomes insane on a street in Turin. Cause of N.'s illness? "All we can say is--and all sober and unsensational medical treatments of the subject seem agreed on this--that Nietzsche very probably contracted syphilis" (Kaufmann, Nietzsche, p.69). N. taken to an insane asylum, but was then removed to his mother’s house.

1897: N.'s mother, who had been taking care of him, dies; Elisabeth moves him to Weimar.

1900: N. dies.

III. N.'s philosophy.

(1) N. as philosopher of value.

N. is squarely in the Greek tradition in that his central question is: how should human beings live best? Virtually all of N.’s philosophical interests have a close connection with his central preoccupation with human value.

(2) Critique of previous morality. A substantial part of N.'s philosophical endeavor is directed to showing that the moral values which have guided Western Civilization are no longer acceptable. This is part of the "negative" task to which his thought is directed. It is a project which one might call "making the world unsafe for morality." (N. himself often refers to his own "immoralism.") To this end, N. attacks--in a variety of ways--our traditional moral values as well as those institutions, beliefs, doctrines, etc. that have, in the past, provided props for morality. “The problem of the value of pity and of the morality of pity . . . seems at first to be merely something detached, an isolated question mark: but whoever sticks with it and learns how to ask questions here will experience what I experienced—a tremendous new prospect opens up for him, a new possibility comes over him like a vertigo, every kind of mistrust, suspicion, fear leaps up, his belief in morality, in all morality, falters—finally a new demand becomes audible. Let us articulate this new demand: we need a critique of moral values , the value of these values themselves must be called into question . . . “ (Genealogy of Morals, Preface #6, Kaufmann, ed. Basic Writings of Nietzsche, p.456.)

(3) Christianity. Obviously, one of the main sources for the dominant moral values which have shaped Western civilization has been the Christian religion.

(a) God. And N. holds, emphatically, that Christian values cannot be maintained independently of the belief in the Christian God. But it is of course one of his most famous views that the belief in God cannot be sustained: God is dead. As he puts it in a passage from the Gay Science: "Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: 'I seek God! I seek God!' . . . 'Whither is God?' he cried; 'I will tell you. We have killed him--you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? . . . Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? . . . God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him . . . There has never been a greater deed" (GS, 125).
(b) Further criticisms.

The rejection of the existence of God opens the way for further criticisms of Christian values. Christian ethics has, for example, set forth an "altruistic" code of morality, in which self-sacrifice, pity, benevolence, meekness, humility, chastity, and associated values have been emphasized; it has--at least in theory--considered all people as equal (the equality of all souls before God); and has held that the same code of morality should apply to everyone. All this has prevented the cultivation of “higher” types of human being. Also associated with this morality are notions such as sin, guilt, bad conscience, and duty. This whole system—based on decadence, weakness, and resentment--has poisoned humanity and has lead to nihilism. Further, it is aesthetically objectionable; it rests upon a number of falsehoods (e.g., the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, freedom of the will, the possibility of selfless action). A great deal of Nietzsche's effort is expended on unmasking and attacking the value system of Chistianity, sometimes in the most uninhibited fashion:

ANTICHRIST #62 [VPN, p.656]: "I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great innermost corruption, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means is poisonous, stealthy, subterranean, small enough--I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind."

(4) Metaphysics. While Christianity has been an explicit source of values for the Western tradition, it, and other similar moral systems have often drawn comfort from metaphysics. Philosophers have often tried to ground their moral doctrines in "the nature of things": they have tried to show that the values they espouse are, in a sense, part of the "furniture of the universe." This maneuver has frequently involved making a distinction between "this world" (the world of change, impermanence, and imperfection, in which we live) and the "real" world. This "real" world, identified with the Forms by Plato, "Heaven" by Christianity, and the noumenal world by Kant, is then favorably contrasted with our world, which is then claimed to be deficient, corrupt or "apparent." Nietzsche claims that such metaphysics is motivated by a desire to slander life and to propagate anti-life values and that this hatred of life is itself grounded in the physiology of its authors. Nietzsche's work is filled with criticisms of the metaphysicians; in his later work he decisively rejects the distinction between the "real" world and the "apparent" world.

(5) Truth. Radical as his rejection of metaphysics might appear, N. is not yet finished with his critical, destructive project: he goes after the presuppositions of the old morality at an even deeper level. A central presupposition of the old morality is the belief in truth; this too must be called into question. N. appears to claim that there is no truth in the sense of a correspondence between our beliefs or assertions and reality as it is in itself. He holds this view because he thinks that there are no facts; there are only an indefinite number of "interpretations" ("perspectives"), none of which are "true." (N. thinks that even the most basic features of our general view of the world--seeing the world as made up of "things," which have qualities and interact with one another; interpreting the world in terms of causes and effects and scientific laws; thinking the world amenable to mathematical description--are totally conventional and without "objective" foundation.) They are simply the ways in which an ephemeral species has found it useful to organize its experience. (But of course there might be indefinitely many other ways to organize it.)

“That the value of the world lies in our interpretation (--that other interpretations than merely human ones are perhaps somewhere possible--); that previous interpretations have been perspective valuations by virtue of which we can survive in life, i.e., in the will to power, for the growth of power; that every elevation of man brings with it the overcoming of narrower interpretations; that every strengthening and increase of power opens new perspectives and means believing in new horizons—this idea permeates my writings. The world with which we are concerned is false, i.e., is not a fact but a fable and approximation on the basis of a meager sum of observations; it is ‘in flux,’ as something in a state of becoming, as a falsehood always changing but never getting near the truth: for—there is no ‘truth.’” (Will to Power #616.) Therefore, the old morality cannot be defended on the ground of its truth.

(6) N. "positive" morality.

 Now that N. has demolished--to his own satisfaction--the old morality and its props, he begins--at least according to many commentators--his positive, constructive thinking. This consists of his doctrines of the Ubermensch, eternal return, and will to power.

     (a) Ubermensch.

N. suggests that now that we don't have any religious, metaphysical or philosophical dogmas to tell us how to live, we must decide this for ourselves. What are we to make of ourselves? What kind of human being do we want to produce? N. dubs his ideal human being the Ubermensch: the superior type of human being that will function as an ideal. This ideal is, presumably, a compound of many traits that N. admires (physical strength, creativity, self-control, harmony of diverse instincts, etc. etc.). To some extent, we can probably construct the Ubermensch by supplying the opposite traits to those admired by Christianity. N. appears that humanity should strive for the production of the Ubermensch. Coming down from the mountains, N.'s Zarathustra proclaims: "I teach you the Ubermensch. Man is something that shall be overcome." It must be admitted, however, that Nietzsche is quite vague and unhelpful about exactly what the Ubermensch is supposed to be like and how he is to be produced. Perhaps this is because the production of a superior person is an act of creativity and invention and there can be no blueprint for the kind of genius required for this task.

(b) Eternal Return. N. claims that everything that happens, has happened, and will happen, has already happened an infinite number of times. One should live in such a way that one would not only accept, but be joyful about, living one's life an infinite number of times: amor fati. The joyful acceptance of having to live one's life infinitely many times is another touchstone of N.'s ideal human beings. “The Greatest weight.—What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in your lonliest lonliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sign and everything unutterably small and great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence in turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!’ Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.’ If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, ‘Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?’ would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?” (Gay Science #341.)

     © Will to Power.

N. suggests that everything (organic and inorganic) is will to power: force incessantly striving to expand and engulf whatever surrounds it. Values, philosophy, psychology, etc. are all explained in terms of will to power.

“Suppose, finally, we succeed in explaining our entire instinctive life as the development and ramification of one basic form of will—namely, of the will to power, as my proposition has it; suppose all organic functions could be traced back to this will to power and one could also find in it the solution of the problem of procreation and nourishment—it is one problem—then one would have gained the right to determine all efficient force univocally as—will to power. The world viewed from inside, the world defined according to its ‘intelligible character’—it would be ‘will to power’ and nothing else--.” (Beyond Good and Evil #36.)

IV.Elisabeth and the N. Legend

With this background, let me return to Elisabeth.

In 1885, Elisabeth had married Bernhard Forster, a prominent anti-Semitic agitator and nationalist. There seems little reasonable doubt that N. was opposed to anti-Semitism and to his sister’s marriage. This comes out most clearly in some of his letters. Consider the following letter, written to his sister in Paraguay, 1887: "One of the greatest stupidities you have committed--for yourself and for me! Your association with an anti-Semitic chief expresses a foreignness to my whole way of life which fills me ever again with ire and melancholy . . . . It is a matter of honor to me to be absolutely clean and unequivocal regarding anti-Semitism, namely opposed, as I am in my writings" (quoted by Kaufmann, p.45).

After getting into trouble for his provocative behavior, Forster hit upon a plan of founding a colony in Paraguay. He traveled to South America in order to explore the possibilities. And he wrote a book about his researches.

In 1886, He and Elizabeth led a founding party of colonists to the spot about 150 miles north of Asuncion, which they christened Nueva Germania.

Forster had made a deal with the Paraguayan government that involved his pledge to settle a large number of families in the colony before the title to the land was granted. This he was not able to do. And it turned out that he had lied to the colonists about this and about many other facets of the colonial enterprise. Things began to close in on Forster as he sank deeper into debt. He lapsed into despondency, and poisoned himself in the Hotel Del Lago, in San Bernardino, near Asuncion.

After Forster's suicide, Elisabeth returned to devote full time to her brother.

The Nietzsche “legend.” Once back home. Elisabeth began to use her energy and talents for propaganda to shape what has come to be known as the “Nietzsche legend.”

--When N. went insane (in January, 1889), his writings were at last beginning to attract attention in academic circles. E.g., Georg Brandes (1842-1927) lectured on N. in 1888 in Copenhagen; N.'s fame began to spread.

--N.'s sister Elisabeth realized this and attempted to use her brother to further her own ends (nationalism, anti-Semitism). Her attempt to graft her brother’s philosophy onto her late husband’s anti-Semitic nationalism is nicely symbolized by her changing her name to “Forster-Nietzsche.”

--With her brother insane, she became the self-appointed guardian of his thought. She obtained copyrights for N.'s works and letters. She founded the Nietzsche Archiv, her "official" institution to guard her brother's thought. She thus established herself in a position where her authority as an interpreter of her brother's thought was hard to challenge; after all, she had access to documents that no one else had. She wrote several popular biographies of her brother as well as a flood of articles. (She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times.)

--Elisabeth's shaping of the public image of her brother was perhaps accomplished most successfully by her handling of N.'s Nachlass, the unpublished mass of notes and manuscripts that N. left behind when he died. She held back important material. E.g., she did not publish ECCE HOMO until 1908.

--Most important in this regard was her creation (1901, 1904, 1906), out of notes and incomplete sketches, of what she announced as N.'s magnum opus: the so-called The Will to Power. She arranged N.'s notes according to a 4 line draft that N. had in fact discarded.

--It was Elisabeth who later attempted to persuade Hitler that Nietzsche was an important philosophical precursor of Nazism. And it was she who persuaded Hitler to visit the Nietzsche Archiv (where H. posed by a bust of N. in a famous picture). The Nazis appointed several scholars [Oehler, Baumler] to "interpret" Nietzsche, which they often did by quoting him out of context and by excising words without indicating that this is what they were doing. It was by such unscholarly methods that the claim that Nietzsche was a German nationalist and racist was supported.

Nueva Germania

Nueva Germania is still there. I visited Paraguay during the Christmas break. From Asuncion, I took a five hour bus ride to the small village of Santa Rosa, on the road to the Brazilian border. From there another bus took me 20 kilometers to Nueva Germania.

The place is extremely attractive, despite the often stupifying heat ; it is framed by two beautiful rivers. And it filled with Germans. When I got into town, I poked around looking for a place to sleep. I stopped at a Brigett Kuch’s general store to inquire, and the first thing I encountered was an old woman giving German lessons to a young boy.

Most of the current inhabitants—some of whom I met and talked with--are descended from immigrants that came after Forster, although there are several descendents of original colonists left.

There seems to be little precise memory about the origins of the colony, although they have instituted an annual celebration of the colony’s foundation, part of which involves the submission of historical essays by school children. I got my hands on one, and it still associates Forster with Nietzsche’s ideas. Elisabeth had, after all, done a superb job. It’s a shame that it was a lie.

"Taking Risks" (about my father)

[I wrote this for a class at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, in 1988.] Taking Risks The willingness to take risks is part of a particular mind-set and approach to the world, one which is expressive of optimism and a certain measure of cosmic security. The risk-taker sees life as a gamble, whose stakes are whatever life, at its best, has to offer. It is not a common attitude, and its acquisition by a child should never be taken for granted. It is learned, like so much else, primarily by exposure to favorable examples at an early age. It was just after the War, and my father was attempting to start up a business. He was laboring under several severe constraints, the most salient of which was a lack of capital. And on the positive side, he was armed with an eighth-grade education and experience as a purchasing agent for an aircraft company doing war work.

It was afternoon, and he was perusing the Wall Street Journal, when he noticed a small ad announcing the sale of a warehouse full of surplus tape in New Jersey. He got in his car and went directly over to look at it. Upon being told what was wanted for the tape, he made a ridiculously small counter-offer. The executive in charge of the plant said he had no authority to make any deal but would put my father through to the main branch office in California. Speaking to the Vice President of the company, my father repeated his extremely small offer. After a long pause, the voice at the other end of the line responded: "Mr. Hogan," you've just bought yourself some tape." Hearing his orders, the New Jersey executive was plainly stunned.

By now it was late afternoon, as my father fought the traffic back into the City. He went straight away to see a new acquaintance, Abraham Kraditor, the head of a law and accounting firm and a man of some importance in public affairs.

"Abe," my father said. "I've just bought a warehouse full of surplus tape, but I have a problem: I haven't any money to pay for it." Kraditor, who had substantial connections at the bank, promised to arrange a loan. "Abe," my father continued," I have another problem: where will I put the tape?" Early the next week, my father and Kraditor found an old Borden Milk Company depot in Edgemere, Long Island, and were able to lease it immediately.

For the next week a caravan of trailer trucks plied their way between New Jersey and Long Island, carrying hundreds of thousands of rolls of tape to the old stable that used to house the horses that delivered Borden's milk. When they were finished, mountains of tape in card board cartons filled the cavernous building. It was the beginning of Hogan Industrial Supply Company and of years of rewinding, slitting, and selling every conceivable type of tape one could imagine. The investment in the tape was the basis of many years of successful business, business whose history was punctuated by various other entrepreneurial coups.

I heard this story (and other similar ones) told over and over again as I was growing up, especially at dinner when my father was in an expansive mood and responded to our pleas to tell "business stories." These tales, no doubt somewhat exaggerated, became part of a mythology surrounding my father, which played an important role, I think, in my life. For when I try to sum up--especially in times of conflict or disappointment--what it was that my father gave me, the answer that always comes to the fore is: a willingness to take risks and to see life as opening its rewards to anyone with energy and chutzpah. This attitude was a kind of Horatio Alger equivalent of Erikson's notion of "basic trust." And it was a valuable legacy.

Iron Butt

Morgan's Wedding

See Peggy's journal piece, a few posts back.

Morgan's Birth

[This is Peggy's journal entry about Morgan's birth, which was a peak experience in our lives. I'll try to edit the text back into its original form as soon as possible.

In the event, Morgan turned out spectacularly well! She was an elite swimmer at Barrington High, majored in neuroscience at Harvard, and got her Ph.D (in neuroscience) from Cambridge. She married Wayne Pommen, who was an Olympic class rower and did a Ph.D at Cambridge in political economy. They visited Blanca and me in Spain several years ago. And I was the first person on earth to see her come down the chute!]

Journal Entry Margaret Miller, Southeastern Massachusetts University

March 21, 12:25 a.m. Diane is 6 em. dilated now; she's on Demerol and is sleeping between contractions. It brings back memories, but not vividly-- I remember floating through those hours, so different from the blood, sweat, and groaning to come. I do love her, and would like to touch her hand lightly to let her know I'm with her, but I fear above all to disturb her concentration or her rest. I wonder how Jack has the confidence to rub her arm during contraction.

She said hello to me just before the last contraction, and with this one I held her hand, oh, so lightly.

Twenty minutes to go before she can push--she's been irritable and panicked, which I feel with her totally. I told her, "This is the worst time--you feel it will never end." " But it will , won't it," she said. And yet she's holding on--no whining, no loss of control. We are so alike--I feel her skin is mine. This baby will be very special to me.

Jack wants so much to be able to help--it gives him a sweet officiousness. He wants to be doing it too, when the truth is that all he can do is to be there. 23rd March After I wrote that, she was finally able to push, which she did for, a couple of hours. The time seemed interminable--I had that boredom which comes with the prolongation of an intolerable situation in which you are impotent--like I felt watching Linda die.

I even dozed off, vaguely ashamed of myself. Then the doctor came in and examined her--he told her that the baby's head was tilted to one side, that she'd been pushing all those hours without effect. To me he said; "It's been strange all along--from the start the baby was in phase three, and it hasn't moved since." There was general confusion. I was worried about Diane's morale, about what would happen next--we could all see him edging towards the mention of a c-section as he explained why forceps are no longer recommended, due to an increase in risk to the baby. Diane is on her side by now, trying a different position despite increased pain. Jack has tears in his eyes. Then he starts to argue with the doctor--he's on one side of Diane, the doctor on the other, and they cross ego-swords over her body. Jack's angry/hurt/logical/argumentative, the doctor's cautiously defensive. Then Diane cries out, in anguished irritation, "Jack, please, don't!" He walks out of the room, stiff and hurt. Rick slides into his place beside Diane, jerks his head from me to Jack, and I follow him out of the room.

Such mixed feelings. Sympathy for Jack--I am as appalled, he is, at the thought of Diane slit open, at how we too have been led down the chute to this slaughter, despite our confidence that we would know how to resist the coercion when it came. But the coercion takes a different shape than I had thought--it also con­sists of Diane's pain and exhaustion, concern for the baby (did he exaggerate the risks?), a sense of no time to be lost, a sense that the doctor is the expert we had to, had agreed to, trust. And then, despite my terrible sympathy for his feelings, irritation that Jack could allow himself, at this moment, to have any feelings, hold on to any positions, that would make it harder for Diane. It wasn't that I wanted a macho man, but what I think of, perhaps unfairly, as a peculiarly female sort of supportive strength that says, whatever I feel at this moment will be put away to be faced later, while I efface myself to be a pure support for you. Irritation at him for seeing the c-section loom so large, when the whole picture makes it relatively insignificant--concerns for his beloved wife's belly (and yet, how much he loves her!) looming larger than the questions of life, death, health. And yet, maybe his masculine assertion is what she needs now; maybe it's the only thing that can effectively intervene in what seems like an inexorable process. Maybe my touch is too light.

So I talked to him, trying to pour into him through the tone of my voice the certainty of what I felt was needed from him at that moment. He expressed his pained.anger--"They always want to cut them open!"--and we discussed the options. Some of his points sounded good--maybe I'm caving in too quickly--he should talk to the doctor, I said, but in the hall. "Diane needs for you to be calm," I said. he said. "She's panicked, at the end of her rope." "Yes," he said. So back we go. Dr. Lowe is working with Diane, so Jack stays in the hall to talk with the other doctor. Diane turns over; "Where's Jack?" she asks, tears in her voice. "In the hall talking to the doctor." She's reassured by the truth. Lowe discusses the options with me. About forceps he ays,"If it were my baby, I wouldn't do it." I believe in his concern.

Jack comes back in. Diane says to him, "I need for you tobe strong. I can't be unless you are." Lowe has backed off from the c-section, says he'll let her push some more, in different positions, in a last attempt to dislodge the baby. She's on her knees, face buried in the sheets. Then someone--Jack? the doctor?--suggests squatting. "Get up," the doctor tells her. She's been pushing for hours. She's drained of strength to move, to push, to bear more pain--the pain of pushing is worse than that of transition. open me up." How can she possibly do it, not say, "I give up."

Earlier in the evening both Jack and Rick had talked of her "heroism." I didn't like the word. I didn't want her to feel that she needed to be stoic to conform to some image we had of her, and besides, every decision she had made had seemed to me to be inevitable, given who she was. You bear pain because you have no choice--the choice to forgo the whole experience and let them haul it out of her was no more available to her than it would have been to me, had she any strength left. What I had felt, all along, was that Diane was confirming her identity to me, that as things progressed she revealed herself more and more nakedly, and that I knew her. As her flesh became more and more tortured--as her face grew red, her hair lank, her lips puffed and cracked with a yellowish line around the opening; as the calm, almost ladylike quiet control of her Lamaze breathing gave way to grunts, admissions of pain, total collapse between contractions; as the sweet, familiar, female smell filled the room--I felt like her flesh melted away for me and that I saw her naked soul, and she was my beloved sister. But could she do more, with no strength left?

Without a word she lifted herself from the bed an~ assumed a squatting position at the end, grabbing hold of the bedpost. Rick is on one side--supporting her, brushing her hair back protecting her forehead from the post--Jack is on the other, and Nancy, the labour 'nurse, is at her ass. "Push my hand away," says Nancy, as the contractions each start. I see her rectum blossom like a tiny purple rose. I take a couple of pictures (how can I pull myself into detachment at a moment so intense? How can I record what might turn out to be futile? But Jack, seeing me with the camara, nods, so I shoot); then I stand by her head, whisper my cheers, bear down with her, lending her my fresh abdominal strength, as we all were. We do this for a moment which could have lasted hours. Flurry. They'll be giving her a spinal in case they have to move to a c-section; first they'll try forceps. "The baby!" Dianewhisper/cries. I bend over her: "I've talked to the doctor. He'll do what's best for the baby--don't worry." Jack objects to the spinal". "Forceps hurt," says Christine, the nurse. They wheel her away to the delivery room. Jack is called in. I'm sure we won't be, but several minutes later a nurse fetches us for the delivery. We're hustled into a corner, told to stay there. It's a shock to see Diane; after the dim-cave experience of the birthing room, she's stretched out for sacrifice in the bright lights of the delivery room--arms strapped down, legs in stirrups--nothing but the imperatives of this moment would make her submit to such a posture, but she's beyond protest. The forceps look so big, and as they go in she says they hurt--it's all too quick, but pain is rendered irrelevant as the doctor gives a cry of satisfaction. She's turned the baby around, spun the little critter into position out of sheer grit. He pulls the baby out and presents her, feet-first, to Diane. "It's a girl!" she sobs with relief and happiness. "Look at her vagina!"

Someone sobs next to me, echoing my own as I see the baby laid on her belly--it's Rick, choking on his mask, arm around Jack, who's cry­ing too. The rest was a piece of cake. Morgan's purple color faded quickly, and she cried only once or twice before settling down next to Diane, blinking at the world.

I snuck around to see the afterbirth, and her vagina was wide open, dripping bright blood, wonderfully empty--it needed to look like that after what had just happened. I thanked the doctor for not shutting us out. "You were a big support," he said. It's true; we were. You need all the love and self-forgetful support you can get at such a moment. She said she would never forget the sight of my face over her at moments during that night.

I loved Rick for the effectiveness of his love for Diane, for the way he'did what was needed and was totally with her. I loved Jack for letting us see him naked and for trusting us with this experience. "This baby will be special to us," I told him--"apart from all the other reasons why it will be." Morgan has beautiful long fingernails and lips like Diane's, the ones I kissed, as I said goodbye to her, told her she was heroic (I give up--it's the only word we have).

Cuba