Friedrich Nietzsche on the Philosophy of Right and the State

Notes

Notes  Translator’s Preface 1. See Peter Bien, “Kazantzakis’ Nietzscheanism,” Journal of Modern Literature 2 (1971–72): 245–266, for a close examination of Kazantzakis’ dissertation project on Nietzsche, which he wrote while in Paris in 1910 and before he came under the partly countervailing influence of Bergson. 2. See O Friederikos Nitse en ti Filosofia tou Dikaiou kai tis Politeias, op. cit. Introduction 1. Peter Bien, Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 1989, p. ix. 2. Ibid. 3. Lewis Owens, “‘Does This One Exist?’ The Unveiled Abyss of Nikos Kazantzakis,” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 16 (1998): 331–348. 4. Peter Bien, Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. ix. 5. Ibid. 6. Lewis Owens, “‘Does This One Exist?’ The Unveiled Abyss of Nikos Kazantzakis,” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 16 (1998): 331–348. 7. More on the same theme in James Lea, Kazantzakis: The Politics of Salvation (University of Alabama Press, 1979), 63. 8. See Andreas Lou Salome, Friedrich Nietzsche in seinem Werke (Frankfurt : Insel, 2000). 9. The following biographical details are based on Dr. Patroklos Stavrou’s Preface to the recent edition of the authentic text of the dissertation: O Friederikos Nitse en ti Filosofia tou Dikaiou kai tis Politeias, edited by Patroklos Stavrou (Athens: Ekdoseis Kazantzaki, 1998). 10. For those interested in further details about the fate of Kazantzakis’ dissertation on Nietzsche’s political philosophy, I am citing a lengthy passage from Patroklos Stavrou’s Preface to the recent edition of the text of the dissertation in 67 Greek, O Friederikos Nitse en ti Filosofia tou Dikaiou kai tis Politeias, edited by Patroklos Stavrou (Athens: Ekdoseis Kazantzaki, 1998). The translation is mine. It is most likely that the dissertation was rejected, on account both of its subject matter and the revolutionary ideas of its author. It is uncertain whether it was even submitted in the first place. Demetres Xyritakes, practitioner of law from Irakleion who has researched and written on the subject, wonders why Kazantzakis keeps silence on this dissertation and never mentions it in the chapter on Nietzsche of his autobiographical Report to Greco. As plausible explanation he offers: “the unfair judgment of his teachers had caused bitter feelings.” 1. Prolegomena 1. I have placed within brackets ([]) words or phrases that are not in Kazantzakis’ text but are implied, embedded in the context, carried over from preceding sentences or from the earlier part of the same sentence, or are required to make sense of the text. With only one exception, Kazantzakis does not annotate. His quotations from Nietzsche’s work are in his own translation. Often, words, phrases or entire sentences are omitted without indication; when this is the case, I have supplied the missing part, if necessary for Kazantzakis’ point, within brackets; or I have indicated the absence [. . .]. References to Nietzsche’s work are by aphorism number, or essay number for the Untimely Meditations and Genealogy of Morals. References to Thus Spake Zarathustra are to part and chapter. References to Twilight of the Idols are by title of the section, followed by essay number. Earlier works of Nietzsche are annotated by references to pages in recent editions, as specified in my endnotes. 2. Paradoxolo;goõ: literally, someone who either enjoys or cannot help thinking and speaking in paradoxes. 3. See Beyond Good and Evil 26, where Nietzsche denounces cynicism as the manner in which ignoble souls approach intellectual honesty. But contrast his self-congratulation on his books’ occasional cynicism, “the highest achievement on earth,” in EccHomo, “Why I Write Such Good Books,” 3. 4. Nietzsche often singles out the skeptics for praise among anicnet thinkers [e.g., Ecce Homo, “Why I Am So Clever,” 3; Antichrist 12], but this, of course, does not mean that he endorses formulaic, affected, or fashionable forms of skepticism. 5. See below for Nietzsche’s übermensch, and the reasons for rendering this word as Übermensch. An interesting source on Nietzsche’s stormy early influence on at least one continental culture, see Steven E. Anschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992). The George Kreis, revolving around the poet Stefan Georg, was one of the very first to form around a remystified, romanticized view Nietzsche. In a perverse twist of irony, Nietzsche’s early admirers saw him as a martyr, in spite of his exhortation to the contrary: See Ecce Homo, “Why I Am a Destiny,” 1: “I have a terrible fear that one day I will be...