Nietzsche, Epicurus, and the Unmasking of Philosophical Artifice

Aphorisms from Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil #6

I would like to continue commenting on aphorisms from Beyond Good and Evil (1886). We continue with the first chapter of his book: “Prejudices of Philosophers.”

As a reminder, you can find the previous posts on the following page: Nietzsche.

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How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more stinging than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense, and on the face of it, the word signifies “Flatterers of Dionysius” — consequently, tyrants’ accessories and lick-spittles; besides this, however, it is as much as to say, “They are all ACTORS, there is nothing genuine about them” (for Dionysiokolax was a popular name for an actor). And the latter is really the malignant reproach that Epicurus cast upon Plato: he was annoyed by the grandiose manner, the mise en scene style of which Plato and his scholars were masters — of which Epicurus was not a master! He, the old school-teacher of Samos, who sat concealed in his little garden at Athens, and wrote three hundred books, perhaps out of rage and ambitious envy of Plato, who knows! Greece took a hundred years to find out who the garden-god Epicurus really was. Did she ever find out?

There is a point in every philosophy at which the “conviction” of the philosopher appears on the scene; or, to put it in the words of an ancient mystery: Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus. (Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Helen Zimmern, The Project Gutenberg, 2003)

I have included here the following two aphorisms from Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. The German philosopher refers to the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BC).

Epicurus called Plato and his followers “Dionysiokolakes.” The word, a compound of Διόνυσος (Diónysus) and κόλαξ (kólax, meaning “flatterer”), is literally translated as “flatterers of Dionysus”. It implies that Plato and his followers were flatterers who were engaged in theatrical or performative behavior rather than being committed to authentic philosophical research. The term also carried the connotation that they were like actors who lacked sincerity in their approach to philosophy.

Nietzsche uses this attack by Epicurus to criticize the core of philosophical inquiry as embodied by Plato and his followers. The idea is to suggest that they were not merely lovers of knowledge or lovers of wisdom, rather they were driven by something that had little to do with philosophy. To attack Plato is of course, for a philosopher like Nietzsche, to attack the field at its heart, at least at one of its hearts.

It is also interesting to note that Plato’s grandiose style is more or less described as bringing him a lot of attention, which was not true of Epicurus’ modest attitude. Such a point is not without relevance for us moderns to see a parallel with the way social media works: Make noise and get noticed!

Of course, Nietzsche’s attack on inauthenticity is more fundamental. It touches on the question of what underlies philosophical thought. According to him, every philosophy, every philosophical system, eventually reveals its own bias. “Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus” (The ass arrived, beautiful and very strong) writes the philosopher; a phrase that comes from the medieval Christian Feast of the Ass (celebrating the travel to Egypt). The “ass” seems to personify the assumptions and prejudices that supported a philosopher’s arguments.

Philosophers have convictions or beliefs (something that is expressed by the singular German name “Überzeugung”), which may be unconscious or not, but can be seen in the way these philosophers present themselves to the world.

To be continued…

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