Vater, Michael

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Marquette Universitye-Publications@MarquettePhilosophy Faculty Research and Publications Philosophy, Department of4-1-1995Review of Nietzsche on Knowledge and Wisdom byKeith MayMichael VaterMarquette University, michael.vater@marquette.eduPublished Version. Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 33, No. 2 (1995): 354-356. DOI. © 1995Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc. Reprinted with permission by The Johns HopkinsUniversity Press.354 J O U R N A L  OF T H E  H I S T O R Y  OF P H I L O S O P H Y  33:2 A P R I L  1995 Each provides a generaI overview of  the contents and argument  of  the text and also singles out one or  two short, interesting sections (e.g., the master and slave section of  the Phenomenology and the Being/Nothing/Becoming triad from the Science of Logic) for more detailed commentary. This is a happy solution to the vexing problem of  how to give beginners some sense o f  both the systematic scope and concrete riches of  Hegel's texts. Besides the Phenomenology, Science of Logic, Encyclopedia, and Philosophy of Right, Rockmore also discusses in some detail the Differenzschrift, which is justified by his historical and thematic focus. However, the decision to ignore Hegel's posthumously edited and published lectures on art, religion, the history of  philosophy, and the philosophy of  history, given their profound later influence, is less understandable in a work that tries to take account of  the historical influence of  Hegelianism. Rockmore provides a fine treatment of  the problematic "necessity" of  the movement f rom one "shape o f  consciousness" to the next in the Phenomenology--a process that he helpfully compares to the historical development from one scientific theory to the nex t - - and  a clear-headed discussion of  what "absolute knowledge" i s - -and is no t - - fo r  Hegel. The  brief chapter on the reception of  and reactions to Hegelianism over the past century and a half is largely successful. Rockmore's discussion of  Kierkegaard and Marx are models o f  concision and good sense and clearly demonstrate his more gen- eral claim concerning the pervasive influence of  Hegel. On the other hand, it is hard to see why Nietzsche is included in this chapter, and Rockmore's attempt to link Nietz- sche's rejection o f  the entire Western (Platonic) philosophical tradition to a rejection of  Hegel is unconvincing. Inevitably, scholars will quarrel with specific points of  Rockmore's interpretation and will challenge claims made in passing (and, given the brevity of  this work, almost all of  the claims have to be made simply en passant). In its main lines, however, this work fully succeeds in accomplishing the difficult and unique task it sets for itself. Its broadly "historical" approach to the problem of  introducing readers to Hegel's thought is very much in "the spirit o f  Hegel" and is, I believe, preferable to other introductory strate- gies. There  is no other book quite like this in English, and for this reason alone Before and after Hegel can be recommended to anyone seeking entrance into what so often seems to be the self-enclosed and impenetrable Hegelian fortress. DANI EL BREAZEALE University of Kentucky Keith M. May. Nietzsche on the Struggle between Knowledge and Wisdom. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. Pp. xv + J93- Cloth, $49.95. This unusual  and thoughtful study, which is more a sustained Nietzschean meditation than a piece of  scholarship about Nietzsche, is inspired by an 1875 note referring to "the struggle between science and wisdom displayed in ancient Greek philosophy." As a classical philologist Nietzsche concluded that in the ancients wisdom once essentially pitted itself against knowledge. As a philosopher he argued that wisdom--personal,  incomplete, perspectival, perhaps idiosyncratic--ought once again to challenge knowl- BOOK REVIEWS  3 5 5  edge (Wissenschaft, the stuff of  academia). May identifies with Nietzsche's post-Kantian redefinition of  the task of  thinking as the resolute interpretation of  being. He also identifies with the ancients', particularly the Presocratics', impulse to know and mea- sure the value o f  soul or  psyche. He argues, eruditely and succinctly, to the militantly Nietzschean conclusion that wisdom or strength of  soul surpasses knowledge in value, and tragedy and virtue as well. May brings to this conclusion the fervid belief in individuality that characterizes the creative artist, the one who crafts the aletheic Word where image and meaning embrace. This is the nineteenth-century cult of  genius again, plausible still, I suppose, for one like May who comes to Nietzsche and to argumentative philosophy from the literary domain. Yet his analysis o f  ancient literatures and philosophies is so clear and compelling, his taste for the central argument  in a writer so accurate, that one readily takes May as a philosopher, i.e., as one who speaks in the social domain of  public "truths" or  of  hypothe- ses that pass as tested and warranted. When he finally claims as his own the thesis of  the utterly individual nature of  truth and meaning, he seems to advance a notion of  truth so private and one o f  authority so elitist that they seem obnoxious. He is speaking in the voice o f  the Promethean artist, however, and assumes the unique authority of  Heideggerean poet, the culture-founding primal speaker: My (personal) vision is truer, more steadfast than your (hopelessly plural) sciences and disciplines. May's argument  for this view is well-crafted. If, in the tradition that goes from Kant's phenomenalism to Nietzsche's perspectivism to the aestheticism of  the later Heidegger, there is no privileged moment where knowledge overlays reality, then knowledge, say as the assemblage of  academic domains of  discourse, is but a social creation, and objectivity disappears. I f  one stops here and privileges scepticism, the weak nihilism ensues which Nietzsche correctly diagnosed as the spiritual malady of  late modernity. From the perspective of  will to power, however, public knowledge can still be "true" as an instrument, a tool used by the "strong soul" possessed of  personal wisdom. What is this use? As obstacle or challenge, it is the object of  Socratic logical skirmish. What is this controlling wisdom? "The quality is personal, or preferably, singular and consists in the persistent exploration of  one path. For example, Par- menides guides himself by a sort of  negative image of  the Way of  Truth,  an under- standing that culture is by definition truthless" (175). May's touchstone, oxymoronic to my mind, is personal truth. It smacks more of  Heidegger than of  Nietzsche, but it is Heidegger in plain English. This book is composed from diverse essays, some better than others. "Knowledge and Wisdom in the Tragic Age" explains Nietzsche's advance to the metaphysics of  will to power as a personal appropriation of  the legislative (rather than argued) insights of  the Presocratics. From Anaximander he takes the view that the universe is ceaselessly undergoing alteration, from Heraclitus, the view that the universe is a "monster of  energy." Nietzsche's metaphysics is Parmenidean in that it insists that nothing is imper- fect, since every passing shape is fettered to the whole. He could be said to follow Anaxagoras in that will to power universally imputes purposiveness or nonmechanical meaning to each constellation. Nietzsche's "wisdom" is as personal, selective, or stylis- tic, argues May, as that of  his sources. 356 J O U R N A L  OF T H E  H I S T O R Y  OF P H I L O S O P H Y  3 3 : 2  A P R I L  1 9 9 5  May's essay on Socrates is similarly compelling. On the one hand, Socrates is pic- tured as pursuing thought  for its own sake, not the conclusions at which it arrives. On the other hand, and more importantly, he urges restraint of  the drive for knowledge, acknowledging the limitations of  its origin in social authority. Under  Socratic scrutiny, the social myth of  "expertise" is unmasked as the rule of  convention, sanctioned by merely local criteria and definitions. May's Socrates, whose wisdom rules his thirst for knowledge, is more a Heideggerean hero than the "monster of  reason" celebrated and denounced in Twilight of the Idols. May's chapter on Aristotle and Nietzsche is disappointing, working from the single point of  the externality of  Aristotle's first mover to what is moved. His interpretation of  "Ariadne's Complaint," one of  the Dithyrambs of Dionysus, is haunting and evocative. Ariadne, the modern soul, trembles with anxiety over the thought of  a huntsman-god who has targeted her. The  god, says May, is our belongingness to nature; Ariadne's anxiety is caused by the delusion of  her independence, the failure to acknowledge that the god is internal to her. Cut free of  Christianity, argues May in Nietzsche's voice, immortality is not lost for soul; Ariadne is still supremely valuable, sought, because needed, by the god. This is a deep and erudite book, worthy of  a leisurely read by professional philoso- phers. Few will find its views correct, or easy to endorse, but most will find their automatic allegiance to public knowledge and the community of  the believers-and- scholars challenged. MICHAEL G. VATER Marquette University Robert W. Burch and Herman J. Saatkamp, editors. Frontiers in American Philosophy. Vol. I. College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press, 1992. Pp. xx + 366. Cloth, $49.5 ~ . Based upon a major symposium at Texas A & M University in June,  1988, the publica- tion o f  this first o f  a promised two volumes of  proceedings in characterized by co- editor Herman Saatkamp as both a retrospective on "the origins and plurality of  the American intellectual heritage" and as a prospective "through the major developments presently shaping future philosophical inquiry in the United States" (ix). Groupings o f  essays move from "Whitehead and Mead" to "Technology and the Public Good," to separate sections on "Mead" (again), "Royce: Hermeneutics, Loyalty, and Religion," and "Peirce: Unexplored Issues." A broad and fairly representative sampling of  Ameri- can philosophers is encompassed in these pages: from mainstream figures like Hilary Putnam, Joseph Margolis, and Nicholas Rescher; encompassing distinguished main- stays in the "American Philosophy" establishment, like John Lachs, Beth Singer, Don- ald Sherburne, and Charlene Seigfried; through elder statesmen and dons like H. S. Thayer  and the late Irwin Lieb; to a new generation of  American philosophers repre- sented by Kathleen Wallace and Vincent Colapietro. This is an unusual anthology, and may reveal even more about the current state of  

Review of \u3cem\u3eNietzsche on Knowledge and Wisdom\u3c/em\u3e by Keith May

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Review of \u3cem\u3eNietzsche on Knowledge and Wisdom\u3c/em\u3e by Keith May

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