Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationswanted to say: 'For a thought-monger like this to profane our historyor natural sciences would be the last straw! Away with him!' Thenthey totter back into their own uncertainty and perplexity: they reallydo want to get a little natural science into their possession, perhapslike the Herbartians in the shape of empirical psychology, they reallydo want a little history as well - then they can act, at least in public, asthough they were engaged in scientific undertakings, even though inprivate they would like to consign all philosophy and science tothe devil.But granted that this troop of bad philosophers is ludicrous - andwho will not grant it? - to what extent are they also harmful? Theanswer, in brief, is: to the extent that they make philosophy itselfludicrous. Aslong as this officially recognized guild of pseudo-thinkers continuesto exist, any effectiveness of a true philosophy will be brought tonaught or at least obstructed, and it will suffer this fate through nothingother than the curse of the ludicrous which the representativesof that philosophy have called down upon themselves but which alsostrikes at philosophy itself. That is why I say it is a demand of culturethat philosophy should be deprived of any kind of official oracademic recognition and that state and academy be relieved of thetask, which they cannot encompass, of distinguishing between realand apparent philosophy. Let the philosophers grow untended,deny them all prospect of place and position within the bourgeoisprofessions, cease to entice them with salaries, more, persecutethem, show them disfavouryou will behold miracles! The poorseeming philosophers will flee apart and seek a roof wherever theycan find it; one will become a parson, another a schoolmaster, athird will creep into the shelter of an editorial jo b on a newspaper, afourth will write instruction manuals fo r girls' high schools, the mostsensible of them will take up the plough and the vainest will go tocourt. Suddenly it will all be empty, everyone will have flown thenest: for it is easy to get rid of bad philosophers, one only has to ceaserewarding them. And that is in any event more advisable than for thestate publicly to patronize any philosophy, whichever it may be.The state never has any use for truth as such, but only fo r truthwhich is useful to it, more precisely for anything whatever useful to itwhether it be truth, half-truth or error. A union of state andphilosophy can therefore make sense only if philosophy can promiseto be unconditionally useful to the state, that is to say, to set usefulnessto the state higher than truth. It would of course be splendid fo rthe state if it also had truth in its pay and service; but the state itself190