(043) Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil”, One Paragraph at a Time

These posts are my attempt to better understand this material. I encourage any corrections or criticisms in the comments.

Chapter Two: The Free Spirit

43. Will they be new friends of “truth,” these coming philosophers?

Will the “philosophers of the future” be friends of “truth”?

Very probably, for all philosophers hitherto have loved their truths.

It’s very likely they will, because all philosophers have loved their truths.

Nietzsche gives an indication that there is an element of subjectivity at work here.

But assuredly they will not be dogmatists. It must be contrary to their pride, and also contrary to their taste, that their truth should still be truth for every one — that which has hitherto been the secret wish and ultimate purpose of all dogmatic efforts. “My opinion is MY opinion: another person has not easily a right to it” — such a philosopher of the future will say, perhaps.

Because philosophers inherently deal with that which is uncommon, their opinions and judgments are necessarily less accessible to the everyman. These philosophers will certainly not be dogmatic proponents of their truths because it would be contrary to their own sense of pride. They dwell in uncommon spaces of thought.

One must renounce the bad taste of wishing to agree with many people.

A successful philosopher must not succumb to the urge to agree with the masses.

“Good” is no longer good when one’s neighbour takes it into his mouth.

An utterance or idea is no longer deemed good if it’s being adopted by others.

And how could there be a “common good”! The expression contradicts itself; that which can be common is always of small value.

Nietzsche objects to the notion that things that are common can also be good, stating that anything common has an inherently lesser value.

I’m curious what you think of this.

In the end things must be as they are and have always been — the great things remain for the great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up shortly, everything rare for the rare.

Nietzsche is preparing himself to launch into the final aphorism of Chapter Two, which will cap off his thoughts on “The Free Spirit”.

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