Nietzsche and the Ancient Greeks: Philosopher-Artist as Founder of the Noble Culture

Abstract

Ancient Greek culture, philosophy, and art are very important to Nietzsche. Despite his highly critical and radical view of the entire Western cultural tradition, he always praises ancient Greek culture as the noblest human culture. His attention to the ancient Greeks is largely a consequence of Nietzsche's central concern: the “crisis of nihilism”. Nietzsche seeks to eliminate nihilism through the creation of a Noble culture. His underlying idea of culture is Goethe's idea of “harmonious manifoldness” or “unity in diversity”. He emphasizes that in any era, a fundamental unifying factor can be the founder of a healthy culture; in his view, saints, philosophers, and artists are the main candidates for the foundation of culture. In this article, we try to show that in his first theoretical attempt to create a Noble culture, Nietzsche chooses an aesthetic perspective (thesis), but this perspective isn't satisfactory, so he changes his perspective and looks at culture from a philosophical perspective (antithesis). The opposition and at the same time, the coexistence of these two perspectives leads to a "synthesis": the harmonious alliance of philosophy and art to create a culture. The embodiment of this synthesis is the “philosopher-artist”; one who has “knowledge” and “creativity” at once; “future philosopher”; a creator of new values! In this paper, we try to show that this synthesis doesn't lead to a third thing, different from thesis and antithesis, in which contradiction and conflict have been settled; instead, this synthesis is exactly the same simultaneous opposition and harmony of these forces. This unity of contradictory forces is a recurring concept in Nietzsche's thought.

Keywords

• friedrich nietzsche
• art
• ancient greeks
• tragic knowledge
• modern culture crisis
• noble culture