Beyond Good and Evil · Chapter
Chapter 210 explained
The chapter defines the philosophers of the future as more than skeptics or critics; they are experimenters who employ rigorous, often cruel, intellectual methods.
What happens
The chapter defines the philosophers of the future as more than skeptics or critics; they are experimenters who employ rigorous, often cruel, intellectual methods. They reject truth that pleases or elevates, disdain reconciliations of their age, and see critics as mere instruments, not philosophers themselves.
Themes in this chapter
The Philosopher of the Future
Defined as experimenters, rigorous critics, and dissectors who reject comforting truths and the conciliatory nature of their century.
Critique of Traditional Philosophy
Explicitly rejects the definition of philosophy as merely 'criticism and critical science—and nothing else whatever!'
Characters to notice
- The Narrator
Ventures to baptize and define the philosophers of the future, drawing distinctions from contemporary thought.
- Immanuel Kant
Referenced as 'the great Chinaman of Königsberg' and a great critic, whose view of philosophy as criticism is implicitly rejected.
- The Philosopher of the Future
Described as rigorous spirits, experimenters, and critics in body and soul, who disdain democratic taste and emotional truth.
- The French
Their Positivists, along with Germans, are noted as approving the view of philosophy as merely critical science.
Key passages
“they will be men of experiments”
They are fundamentally experimenters.
Core definition of their method.
“they will avow among themselves a delight in denial and dissection, and a certain considerate cruelty”
They take a cruel, surgical joy in analysis and negation.
Describes their intellectual temperament.
“they will rather have little faith in 'truth' bringing with it such revels for the feelings”
They distrust truth that is valued for its emotional payoff.
Rejection of idealistic, feeling-based truth.
“critics are instruments of the philosopher, and just on that account, as instruments, they are far from being philosophers themselves!”
Critics serve philosophers but are not philosophers.
Key distinction elevating the philosopher's role.