Cover of Leo Strauss on Nietzsche's
Leo Strauss on Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"
by Leo Strauss, edited by Richard L. Velkley
University of Chicago Press, 2017
Cloth: 978-0-226-48663-5 | Paper: 978-0-226-81679-1 | Electronic: 978-0-226-48677-2
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.001.0001

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ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Although Leo Strauss published little on Nietzsche, his lectures and correspondence demonstrate a deep critical engagement with Nietzsche’s thought. One of the richest contributions is a seminar on Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, taught in 1959 during Strauss’s tenure at the University of Chicago. In the lectures, Strauss draws important parallels between Nietzsche’s most important project and his own ongoing efforts to restore classical political philosophy.
           
With Leo Strauss on Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” eminent Strauss scholar Richard L. Velkley presents Strauss’s lectures on Zarathustra with superb annotations that bring context and clarity to the critical role played by Nietzsche in shaping Strauss’s thought. In addition to the broad relationship between Nietzsche and political philosophy, Strauss adeptly guides readers through Heidegger’s confrontations with Nietzsche, laying out Heidegger’s critique of Nietzsche’s “will to power” while also showing how Heidegger can be read as a foil for his own reading of Nietzsche. The lectures also shed light on the relationship between Heidegger and Strauss, as both philosophers saw Nietzsche as a central figure for understanding the crisis of philosophy and Western civilization.

Strauss’s reading of Nietzsche is one of the important—yet little appreciated—philosophical inquiries of the past century, both an original interpretation of Nietzsche’s thought and a deep engagement with the core problems that modernity posed for political philosophy. It will be welcomed by anyone interested in the work of either philosopher.
 

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) was one of the preeminent political philosophers of the twentieth century. He is the author of many books, among them The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, Natural Right and History, and Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, all published by the University of Chicago Press. Richard L. Velkley is the Celia Scott Weatherhead Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University and the author, most recently, of Heidegger, Strauss, and the Premises of Philosophy.

REVIEWS

“Nietzsche had a significance for Strauss that far exceeds the volume of his published comments. In these lectures on Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Strauss does with Nietzsche what he did with Plato, Maimonides, Machiavelli, and other major figures in the Western philosophical tradition. He gives a detailed commentary on Nietzsche’s most important book, allowing Nietzsche his own manner of expression and working to understand why Nietzsche wrote this way. The result is an important contribution to our understanding of Zarathustra, a meticulous laying out of Nietzsche’s teachings made possible by Strauss’s determination to follow the drama of this most unusual book.”
— Laurence Lampert, author of The Enduring Importance of Leo Strauss

"In Leo Strauss on Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the greatest philosopher of the 20th century shares his thoughts on the greatest philosopher of the 19th. . . . it is a deeply rewarding work."
— Claremont Review of Books

"The overall effect of [the University of Chicago Press's Leo Strauss transcript series] is similar to the effect of the ongoing publication of courses and manuscripts by Martin Heidegger: we have something 'new' long after this seemed possible. The specific impact of Strauss’s volume on Zarathustra, moreover, goes beyond what it teaches us about Nietzsche: we are reminded again of the breadth of Strauss’s comprehension of the central figures of political philosophy, and of the depth of his understanding of the human soul."
— The Review of Politics

TABLE OF CONTENTS


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0001
[natural right;existentialism;modernity;historicism;virtue;Plato;subjectivism]
Leo Strauss introduces the 1959 lectures by detailing Nietzsche’s response to the declining belief in natural right. Recapitulating and elaborating his argument from Natural Right and History, Strauss finds Nietzsche initiating the “third wave of modernity,” which abandons not only nature but all universality from the moral orientation. Strauss asserts that, by understanding Nietzsche, we shall understand the deepest objections to natural right which exist in the modern mind. But Nietzsche is not a straightforward historicist or an opponent of nature. Nietzsche revisits the Platonic account of the natural hierarchy of virtues, in which philosophic virtue is the peak, although he also circumvents the Platonic account of nature with an appeal to the creativity of historical individuals. He therefore attempts to find a way back to nature, but on the basis of the modern difficulty of conceiving of nature as the standard. In this context Strauss also considers the existentialist interpretation of Nietzsche’s hermeneutical subjectivism. Strauss suggests that the existentialist interpretation fails to see its basis in Nietzsche, for the existentialists lacked Nietzsche’s admiration for the Greeks and their belief that the goal of man must have its root in nature.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0002
[nature;science;historicism;overman;atheism;modern crisis]
In this chapter, Strauss introduces Thus Spoke Zarathustra within the context of Nietzsche’s other writings. He gives special emphasis to “The Advantage and Disadvantage of History,” where Nietzsche attempts to restore nature as an ethically guiding concept, as opposed to the ethically neutral and therefore deadening “nature” of modern science. Strauss interprets the Prologue as a deep analysis of modern times: modern man finds himself at the parting of the way, either the way of the last man or the superman. Strauss discusses Nietzsche’s choice of Zarathustra as his spokesman, and interprets “God is dead” as a statement of “historical atheism” marked by an element of gratitude for the sun and nature (as expressed in the slogan: “Remain loyal to the earth”). Man is the transcending animal, so he can only remain loyal to what he is by pointing beyond himself toward the superman as his natural end. Strauss discusses the significance of the fact that in the Prologue Zarathustra deals mainly with dead companions and realizes that he needs living companions. This search for living companions occupies the speeches of Zarathustra, which navigate the threat of lifelessness and aimlessness in the condition of modern man.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0003
[last man;creativity;virtue;passion;chaos;meaning;self;body;truth]
In this chapter, Strauss covers the first eight speeches of Part 1. Strauss interprets Nietzsche’s “last man” as a historical condition. When the last man dominates, the so-called creativity of man persists, but only within a horizon of production and consumption, and therefore art loses its original meaning. The first four speeches state the problem as the fundamental condition of man as a creative, bodily being. The next four speeches draw the practical conclusion that virtue cannot be simply opposed to passion. Nietzsche holds that the superman’s virtue is rooted in the chaos of the soul, which is needed for the creation of new values. Nietzsche’s argument leads from God to “the creative self” as the originator of meaning. The self is not merely the abstract cogito, but the body of man. The ego belongs to the sphere of convention, the world of names and universals that are common to all men, whereas the creativity of the self belongs to nature. But is the truth about this creativity itself an uncreated, natural truth? In this connection Strauss contrasts Nietzsche with Freudian psychoanalysis and discusses the elusiveness of being. Strauss ends by anticipating Nietzsche’s conception of creative contemplation.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0004
[individuality;the state;society;solitude;love;highest goals;badness;Volk]
In this chapter Strauss interprets the next seven speeches in Part 1. This is framed by the question: Does the awareness that values and standards are mere creations of the will itself supply man with a standard for how to live? Speeches 9-12 are devoted to the most important forms of contemporary badness. Strauss interprets the Volk as being deeper than the state, which is a mere surface phenomenon. Strauss suggests that the relation between the universality of the state and the uniqueness of the Volk is precisely the same relation as that between the ego and the self. Nietzsche extends his criticism of the state to society and provisionally recommends the virtue of solitude. Then Strauss turns to what he calls the ten speeches on love, in which the community formed from true individuals, familiar with solitude and fundamental experience, proves deeper than the society based on a mere community of opinion. “On the Thousand and One Goals” shows that values and goals are created rather than discovered. But there is currently lacking a highest goal for mankind. Strauss suggests that the creation of this highest goal is the purpose of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0005
[the fact value distinction;eschatology;eternal return;art and science;solitude;creativity;overman;historicism]
In this chapter, Strauss discusses truth, nature, and eschatology in the final seven speeches of Part 1. He begins by discussing Nietzsche’s problematic affinity to what became known as the hard distinction between facts and values in social science. Nietzsche holds the nonrelativistic premise that we have an awareness of human greatness. Strauss interprets the final speech in Part 1, when Zarathustra returns to his solitude, as a parody of the New Testament. The final division of the speech discloses Nietzsche’s eschatology, which underlines the importance of creativity for the new teachers who will usher in the “great noon” of knowledge, a peak that will pave the way for the coming of the superman. Strauss interprets the eternal return as an “infinity of historical processes” (as opposed to the single historical process presupposed by Hegelianism and Marxism) which restores certain premodern conceptions of history. Strauss argues that the eternal return is not a cosmological doctrine, but a moral postulate necessitated by the death of God. Strauss ends by characterizing Nietzsche as the father of all those who think of art as the supplement to science, a theme that is further developed in later chapters.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0006
[interpretation;God;the given;knowledge;Darwin;creativity;subjectivism;National Socialism;truth;intelligibility]
In this chapter Strauss turns to the first twelve speeches of Part 2 and tackles the problem of interpretation. In the first speech, “The Child with the Mirror,” Zarathustra realizes that his enemies have misinterpreted and even distorted his teaching. In the second speech Zarathustra argues against the reality of a timeless God because there can be no creativity beyond time and becoming. He also argues that there cannot be any uninterpreted knowledge of the given, for all receptivity presupposes creativity and interpretation. In the following speech Strauss returns to the question of Darwin and evolution, showing that the Darwinian interpretation of evolution is only a reflection of Darwin’s moral understanding of man as a competing animal. By contrast, Nietzsche regards creativity and the will to power as the causes of evolution. Strauss observes that, for Nietzsche, the question is not objectivity versus subjectivity, but narrow and poor subjectivity against broad and rich subjectivity. Concerning Nietzsche’s subjectivism, Strauss concedes: “this may be true of our social science and therefore it might not have the dignity and the compelling character of the truth.” Strauss ends by discussing the connection between Nietzsche and National Socialism.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0007
[self-overcoming;will to power;scholarship;poetry;truth;life;Rilke]
In this chapter Strauss continues his interpretation of Part 2. The three songs in Part 2 express what has been lacking in previous philosophies: the fullness and depth of life. In “On Self-Overcoming” Strauss first encounters a major theme of the lectures: Nietzsche posits that the will to truth is a form of the will to power, which in turn is the fundamental character of all beings. But is the doctrine of the will to power meant to be objectively true or is it a creation? Of special interest is Strauss’s interwoven interpretations of “On Scholars” (which Strauss calls “particularly unpleasant to read for people like myself”) and “On Poets.” According to Nietzsche, scholarship means rethinking the thoughts of others. Through this reconstructive rethinking, the original thought loses its seminal power. But what marks the original depths of the original thinkers if not the arbitrary assertion of their selves? Does not truth become poetry? Therefore, Nietzsche must make clear the difference between Zarathustra and the poets. The poets are overly idealistic and therefore divorced from the earth. Strauss suggests that certain post-Nietzschean poets like Rilke may have corrected this error by penetrating and revealing the depth of the earth.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0008
[positivism;existentialism;Plato;the creative self;contemplation;eros;knowledge;nature;the past]
In this chapter Strauss reviews the themes already developed. He begins by questioning whether contemporary schools of thought can derive any authority from the mere fact that they are contemporary. Strauss focuses on two contemporary schools: positivism and existentialism, which are connected by related notions about modern science. Strauss argues that Nietzsche seeks in Zarathustra to achieve the highest unification of creation and contemplation, or of history and nature. Something akin to the Platonic hierarchical ranking of contemplation as the highest good must be achieved by the creative will, which replaces eros. Nietzsche attains this in the willing of the eternal return, which involves not merely the intellect but the whole man. Strauss also discovers the clearest formulations of what Nietzsche means by knowledge and philosophy: knowledge is the will to power turning against itself, and philosophy is such a will that imprints itself on the meaningless given. Strauss maintains that Nietzsche has to find a formula for nature which accounts for evolution. The whole problem of nature is concealed in the problem of time and the past. By adopting this path, “Nietzsche somehow succeeds, without obvious internal contradiction, to solve the question of knowledge and the question of nature.”


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0009
[positivism;existentialism;Greek philosophy;Christianity;eternal return;life;will to power;death;self-consciousness;knowledge]
In this chapter Strauss concludes his discussion of Part 2. Strauss considers the major problem of positivism—the fact that the scientific method cannot ground itself—and treats existentialism as a response to this difficulty, being essentially grounded on the abyss. Existentialism tries to free Nietzsche from apparent relapses into a universal doctrine, especially his return to pre-historicism and his teaching concerning the will to power. Nietzsche holds that, through his doctrine of the will to power, life has for the first time become conscious of itself. The awareness that all ideas are creations constitutes the highest peak of knowledge. Previously the highest peak occurred in early Greece, and it was Christianity that achieved “the highest flight of man.” Both of these peaks were characterized by a rebellion against nature as temporal, as coming into being and perishing. Accordingly, Strauss suggests that the highest reconciliation of concern to Nietzsche is that of Greek and biblical wisdom, and that this is the source of both the depth and the paradoxical structure of Nietzsche’s thought. In the latter half of the chapter, Strauss anticipates his interpretation of the eternal return as Nietzsche’s potentially inconsistent meditation on death.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0010
[eternal return;historical consciousness;nihilism;creativity;revenge]
In this chapter Strauss interprets the first thirteen speeches of Part 3, focusing on the doctrine of the eternal return. Strauss begins by considering the lack of political solutions in Nietzsche’s thought. Nietzsche was less concerned with identifying institutional solutions than he was with creating a new culture, based on new structures of belief and commitment, in which a novel form of nobility might be able to emerge. The historical consciousness belongs indeed to history but to a privileged place, because it is the self-consciousness of history. But this knowledge paralyzes because one can no longer believe in values if one knows that they are creations. The first consequence of this is what Nietzsche calls nihilism. There is no future because there is no longer creativity. How then can there be a future after this self-consciousness of history has been achieved? Only if the self-consciousness of the grounds of historical change is itself a creative act, and in fact the highest creative act. The eternal return changes man radically if it is accepted: it changes man from man, with his spirit of revenge, to superman. The eternal return is therefore an overcoming of the spirit of revenge.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0011
[modernity;political philosophy;rationalism;Socrates;nihilism;historicism]
In this survey chapter Strauss locates the significance of Nietzsche’s eternal return within the history of political philosophy. Classical political philosophy holds that man is ordered toward the perfection of his rationality. The first wave of modernity lowers the standards of political philosophy to hedonism, but preserves the notion of man as a rational animal. In the second wave of modernity, beginning with Rousseau, rationality is hardly harmonious with nature: With Rousseau we find a conventional and non-natural genesis of reason itself, emerging through the history of the human race. The third wave makes the first radical break with rationalism; the fundamental premises of thought are declared to be historical rather than rational. In Nietzsche there is an ultimate appeal to nature, but not an appeal to reason. For Nietzsche it becomes necessary, in order to save the possibility of truth, to transcend history, to integrate history into a transhistorical whole which Nietzsche calls the eternal return of the same. The eternal return is not a rational doctrine, but an enigmatic vision; and neither is it theistic, for the willing of the eternal return is the response to the death of God that transforms the nihilistic thought into an affirmation.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0012
[Heidegger;Socrates;natural hierarchy;good and evil;theodicy]
In this chapter Strauss covers the first twelve speeches of Part 3. How is it possible to live in the awareness of the deadly truth that all values and ideas are subjective creations? Only by creatively interpreting the objective truth as infinitely life-affirming, which amounts to asserting the goodness of the whole and becoming at home on earth. Nietzsche’s clear understanding of the goodness of certain alleged evils, such as sexual lust and selfishness, would not have been possible without a previous enigmatic vision of the whole. In this chapter Strauss also considers Heidegger’s critique of Nietzsche. Is not the very doctrine of the eternal return characterized by a revolt against the past, against time? Strauss also asks: What is the countermovement to the development toward the last man? Just as Plato before him, Nietzsche believed that the good society is the society in which the hierarchy corresponds as much as possible to the natural hierarchy. But the modern conquest of nature entails the conquest of the natural hierarchy. By affirming the goodness of the whole Nietzsche is able to affirm the natural hierarchy, and with it the goodness of supposed evils like lust and selfishness.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0013
[creative contemplation;The Convalescent;poetry;science;overman;nausea;spirit of revenge]
In this chapter Strauss interprets Nietzsche’s ideal of “creative contemplation” and its relevance for the speech “The Convalescent.” In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche laments the fact that Socratic rationalism subordinates poetry and tragedy to politics and philosophy. Not until Schopenhauer is this subordination reversed: Not reason or science but art reveals the true character of reality. Schopenhauer’s thesis was prepared by modern science, which led to the inevitable distinction between the world disclosed by theoretical physics and the human world in which we live (a distinction Strauss calls “the basis of all later philosophic study”). But ultimately for Nietzsche, the life-giving truth is the deadly truth of science, if freed from the spirit of revenge and the spirit of gratitude. The highest form of the will to power overcoming itself is acceptance of the whole—contemplation must be creative contemplation. In “The Convalescent” Zarathustra encounters nausea in the face of the eternal return, which demands that he must will even the lowest forms of man. The very possibility of the superman rests on the overcoming of this nausea. The greatest suffering which man can inflict upon himself is the condition for the greatest bliss possible.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486772.003.0014
[science;The Leech;fear;Socrates;will to power]
In this final chapter, Strauss offers a “general theory” of Part 4. Nietzsche shows how Zarathustra affects the best men of his own generation, long before the superman. Strauss focuses on the two speeches about modern science, “The Leech” and “On Science.” In “The Leech” Zarathustra encounters a scientist who specializes only on one thing: the brains of leeches. Strauss observes that by the very nature of this kind of scientific study, definitiveness is altogether impossible. He has a small island of knowledge surrounded by a black and dark eternity. In “On Science” Zarathustra rejects the scientist’s suggestion that science is merely a civilized form of fear, and Zarathustra comes very close to praising science as the greatest courage. But just before finishing this pronouncement Zarathustra falls silent; for science itself, according to Strauss, “is replaced by Zarathustra.” The end of Part 4 develops “the enigmatic vision of the whole” that Strauss elucidated in the previous few chapters. In this chapter Strauss offers further reflections on the relationship between Nietzsche and Socrates. He also comments on Nietzsche’s starting points, noting that Nietzsche starts from the will to power, “from which I believe one should not start.”

Book published by University of Chicago Press, 2017. Page maintained by BiblioVault.