“Plato versus Homer”: the antagonism of lies according to Nietzsche

Abstract

Nietzsche's obsession with Plato has little parallel in the history of philosophy other than Plato's obsession with Homer. In both cases, admiration is matched by exasperation and, if we are to believe Nietzsche, even by “aversion” (KSA 11, 25 [103]). From his earliest works in Basel, Nietzsche seems to have sided with Homer, with “the whole Olympus of appearances” (GS, Preface for the Second Edition, § 4) and superficiality “out of profundity”, against Plato, “a man of many back caves and foregrounds” (KSA 11, 34 [66]). “Plato versus Homer: that is the complete, the genuine antagonism”, On the Genealogy of Morals solemnly sums up (GM, III, § 25). It sounds like a declaration of war. On the one hand, the will to truth and belief in morals ; on the other, the will to deception and beautiful, misleading images: two “natural antagonists”, two competing ideals. But how does the anti-dualist thinker of Beyond Good and Evil, who rejects any idea of real opposition, understand this antagonism? Is it really a question of pitting art against science? According to Nietzsche, the school of lies is where these formidable educators clash, their battle of models shaping European culture. “But education for what?” (KSA 12, 5 [50]). It is by learning from Homeric transfiguration and Socratic ruses that Nietzsche develops his understanding of the oppositional logic of the will to power, and raises the question of the future task of the authentic philosopher.