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Title: Schopenhauer As Educator by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Elisco Vivas ISBN: 0-89526-950-3 Publisher: Regnery Publishing Pub. Date: March, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $8.95

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Summary: There are more recent translations
Comment: Nietzsche's SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR is an early work, available in other translations of a set of four works known as UNTIMELY MEDITATIONS or UNFASHIONABLE OBSERVATIONS. The small paperback version that I have with an Introduction by Eliseo Vivas, published by Regnery/Gateway, Inc. in 1965, was actually translated by James W. Hillesheim and Malcolm R. Simpson, with the help of Carl H. Hamburg, Department of Philosophy, Tulane University. The introduction quotes Nietzsche on how ideal education, made possible by someone with Schopenhauer's wisdom, is not merely training or inane indoctrination. "Education is rather liberation, a rooting out of all weeds, rubbish and vermin from around the buds of the plants, a radiation of light and warmth, . . ." (p. xviii). Eliseo Vivas must have looked long and hard to find anything so flowery in the works of Nietzsche, and applying such thoughts to Schopenhauer could "be open to a charge of irresponsibility," (p. vii), as the first sentence of his introduction admits.

There is a Chapter IV in this book, beginning on page 34, which has, in the middle of the chapter, a distinctive quotation from Goethe, of Jarno addressing Wilhelm Meister, which is easy to locate in the other translations which I have. I am interested in the paragraph following the quotation for a clue about the main emotions underlying philosophy.

"Thus, to be quite frank, it is necessary for us to get really angry for once in order for things to improve. And the image of Schopenhauerian man gives us courage for this. The Schopenhauerian man voluntarily takes the pain of truthfulness upon himself, and this suffering serves to kill his individual will to prepare that complete revolution and reversal of his being, the attainment of which is the actual meaning of life. This assertion of the truth appears to other people as a sign of malice, for they look upon the preservation of their imperfections and pretenses as a duty of humanity and think that anyone must be malicious to break up their childish games in this way. They are tempted to call out . . ." (pp. 43-44). A few pages later, still in the same paragraph, "He tortures himself and sees how no one else tortures himself in such a way, how rather the hands of his fellow men are passionately stretched out after the fantastic events on the political stage, or how they themselves strut about in a hundred masks, as youths, men, old men, fathers, citizens, priests, officials and merchants, thinking only of the comedy they are playing and not at all of their selves." (pp. 46-47).

My copy of J. R. Hollingdale's translation of UNTIMELY MEDITATIONS, with an Introduction by J. P. Stern (1983, reprinted 1989) does not have an index, and the Glossary of Names at the end of the book does not include Goethe, though "The man of Goethe" (p. 151) is a major topic in Chapter 4 of SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. Goethe, Rousseau, Faust, Mephistopheles, and the Devil are names that fill the paragraph in which Jarno is quoted as telling Wilhelm Meister: "You are vexed and bitter, that is very good; if only you would get really angry for once it would be even better." [In WILHELM MEISTERS LEHRJAHRE (1795-6), Book 8.] (UM p. 152). Hollingdale's translation of the next paragraph begins with:

"Thus, to speak frankly: it is necessary for us to get really angry for once in order that things shall get better. And to encourage us to that we have the Schopenhauerean image of man. The Schopenhauerean man voluntarily takes upon himself the suffering involved in being truthful, and this suffering serves to destroy his own willfulness . . ." (UM, p. 152) The part of that paragraph, "or how they strut about in a hundred masquerades, as youths, men, greybeards, fathers, citizens, priests, officials, merchants, mindful solely of their comedy and not at all of themselves." is on pages 154-155.

UNFASHIONABLE OBSERVATIONS, Translated, with an Afterword, by Richard T. Gray (Stanford University Press, 1995), was published as volume 2 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Edited by Ernst Behler. The paragraph quoted above runs from line 13 on page 203 to line 17 on page 207, which is the end of Chapter 4.

"Thus, to be quite frank, it is necessary for us to get really angry for once in order for things to get better. And the image of Schopenhauer's human being ought to encourage us in this. The Schopenhauerian human being voluntarily takes upon himself the suffering inherent in truthfulness, and this suffering serves to extinguish his individual will and to prepare the way for that complete revolution and reversal in his being whose achievement is the true meaning of life. This outspoken truthfulness appears to other human beings as an outpouring of malice, for they consider the preservation of their insufficiencies and lies to be a duty of humankind, and they believe that anyone who wrecks their games must be malicious. They are tempted to shout out to such a person what Faust said to Mephistopheles: `To the eternally active, healing, creative power you oppose the cold fist of the devil.' And anyone who wanted to live in a Schopenhauerian manner would probably resemble Mephistopheles more than he would Faust--at least to myopic modern eyes, which always sees in negation the mark of evil. But there is a kind of negating and destroying that is nothing other than the outpouring of that powerful longing for sanctification and salvation, and Schopenhauer appeared among us desanctified and truly secularized human beings as the first philosophical teacher of this principle." (UO, p. 203). Later, "or how they themselves strut about in a hundred different disguises, . . . all entirely preoccupied with their common comedy and not with themselves in the least." (UO, p. 206, lines 2-6).