1001Philosophers

Friedrich Nietzsche vs Plato

Nietzsche treated Plato as the most consequential of his philosophical enemies. The Birth of Tragedy already presents Socrates and Plato as the figures who began the philosophical decline Nietzsche traces through Christian morality to nineteenth-century European nihilism, and almost every later work returns to the same diagnosis.

At a glance

Friedrich NietzschePlato
Dates1844 – 1900428 BC – 348 BC
NationalityGermanGreek
EraModernAncient
Movements Existentialism, Continental Philosophy Platonism, Ancient Greek Philosophy
Profile Friedrich Nietzsche → Plato →

Where they agree

Both held that the ordinary opinions and values of their contemporaries rest on a mistake, both held that philosophical writing is a higher art capable of shaping civilizations, and both treated the philosopher as the figure responsible for the deepest questions of human life. Nietzsche frequently acknowledges the depth of his disagreement with Plato as a measure of Plato's stature.

Where they disagree

Plato held that philosophy aims at knowledge of the eternal Forms — the unchanging realities of justice, beauty, and the good — and that the philosophical life is the contemplative ascent of the soul toward them. Nietzsche held the opposite: there are no Forms, no other world behind appearances, and the very idea of a stable transcendent realm is a symptom of life-denial. The Platonic ascent is for Nietzsche the original act of metaphysical revenge against the world of becoming, and the project of his mature philosophy is to undo it. Christianity, on Nietzsche's reading, is Platonism for the people.

Representative quotes

Friedrich Nietzsche

  • “Postcard to Franz Overbeck , Sils-Maria (30 July 1881), tr. Walter Kaufmann , The Portable Nietzsche (1954)”

    I am utterly amazed, utterly enchanted! I have a precursor , and what a precursor! I hardly knew Spinoza : that I should have turned to him just now , was inspired by "instinct." Not only is his overtendency like mine—namely to make all knowledge the most powerful affect — but in five main points of his doctrine I recognize myself; this most unusual and loneliest thinker is closest to me precisely

  • “Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.”

    Letter to Elisabeth Nietzsche, Bonn, 1865-06-11, [ specific citation needed ] quoted as epigraph in Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic (1961)

  • “Letter to Elisabeth Nietzsche, Bonn, 1865-06-11, [ specific citation needed ] quoted as epigraph in Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic (1961)”

    Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.

Plato

  • “The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

    The beginning in every task is the chief thing.

  • “Philosophy begins in wonder.”

    155d, The Dialogues of Plato , Volume 3, 1871, p. 377

  • “I shall assume that your silence gives consent .”

    435b

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