Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsour idea in the face' (p. 143). But since it is not an id a, even thefairest Straussian idea of the universe, that has a face, but he who hasthe idea, the procedure here described consists of the followingindividual acts: Strauss opens Schopenhauer, whereuponSchopenhauer takes the opportunity to strike Strauss in the face.Strauss now 'reacts', and does so 'religiously', that is to say he strikesback at Schopenhauer, berates him, speaks of absurdities, blasphemies,infamies, even asserts that Schopenhauer was out of hismind. The outcome of this cudgelling: 'we demand for our universethe same piety as the devout of the old stamp do for their God' -more briefly: 'he loves me!' He makes things hard for himself, ourfavourite of the muses, but he is as brave as a Mameluke and fearsneither the Devil nor Schopenhauer. How much 'soothing oil'would he not use up if he indulged in such procedures veryoften!On the other hand, we realize the debt Strauss actually owes to thetitillating, jabbing and cudgelling Schopenhauer; and the followingexpress act of kindness towds him therei>re fails to occasion in usany further surprise. 'It is necessary only to leaf through ArthurSchopenhauer's writings, though one would also do well, not merelyto leaf through them, but to study them' etc. (p. 141). To whom is thechieftain of the philistines really addressing these words? - he ofwhom it can be proved that he has never studied Schopenhauer, heof whom Schopenhauer himself would have to have said: 'this is anauthor who does not deselVe to be leafed through, let alone studied'.It is obvious that he swallowed Schopenhauer the wrong way: bycoughing and spluttering he is trying to get rid of him. But so that themeasure of naive commendation shall be full, Strauss permits himselfto recommend old Kant: he calls Kant's Allgemeine Geschichte undTheone des Himmels of 1 755 'a work which has always seemed to me noless significant than his later critique of reason. If in the latter whatone must admire is profundity of insight, in the former it is extensivenessof oudook; if in the latter we see the aged philosopherengaged in securing a domain of knowledge, even if a limited one, inthe former we encounter a man filled with all the courage of thespiritual discoverer and conqueror.' This judgment of Kant on thepart of Strauss has always seemed to me no more modest than hisjudgment of Schopenhauer: if in the latter we see the chieftainengaged above all in securing the expression of a judgment, albeit avery limited one, in the former we encounter the celebrated prosewriterwho, with all the courage of ignorance, empties his vial of26