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Nietzsche on Thucydidean Realism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2015

David Polansky
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Abstract

It is now conventional in both pedagogical and scholarly venues to characterize Thucydides as a “realist.” Few, however, have noted that the first major writer to describe him in these terms is not Machiavelli or Hobbes (alongside whom he is frequently placed), but Friedrich Nietzsche. This article seeks to investigate the particular character of Thucydides's realism through a close reading of Nietzsche's discussions of Thucydides and his History. Three interpretations are explored: realism as a mode of investigating or understanding the world, realism as a set of ideas about the possibilities of establishing grounds for justice in the world, and realism as a matter of character.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 77 , Issue 3 , Summer 2015 , pp. 425 - 448
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2015 

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References

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14 The focus here is on Thucydides by way of Nietzsche, rather than on how Thucydides may have influenced Nietzsche's own thought. For examples of the latter, see Jenkins, Scott, “What Does Nietzsche Owe Thucydides,” Journal of Nietzsche Studies, no. 42 (2011): 32–50 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Eden, Robert, Political Leadership and Nihilism: A Study of Weber and Nietzsche (Tampa: University Presses of Florida, 1983), chap. 4Google Scholar.

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34 This comes quite close to Hobbes's conception of the state of nature, though Hobbes's “solution” is hardly congenial to Nietzsche.

35 Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 46, 49.

36 Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 125. Though cf. The Will to Power, aphorism 443.

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45 See Machiavelli, Discourses, 2.1.

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47 See Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 207.

48 Nietzsche, Friedrich, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Kaufmann, Walter and Hollingdale, R. J. (New York: Vintage Books, 1969), 119Google Scholar. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer for this reference. See also Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 117.

49 See Connor, W. R., “A Post Modernist Thucydides?,” Classical Journal  72, no. 4 (1977): 289–98Google Scholar. Though note that Nietzsche goes further in linking this perspectivism to political realism.

50 See note 37.

51 Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 117–18.

52 Contrast this austere presentation of his condition with the responses of his fellow Athenians in 2.51–53. Note also that Thucydides make no reference to supernatural causes of the plague, as compared with 2.54.

53 See also Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorisms 41 and 284, particularly in light of Thucydides's exile.

54 Nietzsche may have been the first writer to explicitly label Thucydides a sophist.

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62 For an extended discussion that traces a consistent line of thinking about power from the oldest Hellenic writings through the sophists to Thucydides, see Crane, Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity, chap. 3.

63 This idea is central in both Orwin, The Humanity of Thucydides and Connor, Thucydides.

64 See Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, I §7.

65 See also the entire chapter entitled “The Problem of Socrates,” which is produced earlier in the same work.

66 Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 46.

67 See also, Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 197. Of course, how much one accepts this interpretation will likely be affected by how one views the authenticity of 3.84 in Thucydides.

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70 Kirkland, “Nietzsche's Tragic Realism,” 56. Mark Philp also makes this claim in his discussions of realism, but he associates it with Bernard Williams rather than Nietzsche (or Thucydides) in “Realism without Illusions,” Political Theory 40, no. 5 (2012): 640.

71 Though cf. Dienstag, Joshua Foa, “Pessimistic Realism and Realistic Pessimism,” in Political Thought and International Relations: Variations on a Realist Theme, ed. Bell, Duncan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 159–76Google Scholar.

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73 Bernard Williams, Shame and Necessity, 163–64.

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76 Lebow, Tragic Vision of Politics, 43, 364.

77 Ibid.; Carr, Edward Hallett, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations (London: Macmillan, 1946), 101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 See Oakeshott, Michael, “Scientific Politics,” Cambridge Journal 1 (1947–48): 347–58Google Scholar. See also Rengger, Nicholas, “Tragedy or Skepticism? Defending the Anti-Pelagian Mind in World Politics,” in Tragedy and International Relations, ed. Erskine, Toni and Lebow, Richard Ned (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 53–62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

79 The speeches of Pericles are especially knotty when it comes to this theme. He specifically rejects pious hopes as a factor in political outcomes (2.62), yet nonetheless maintains that the Athenians’ fortitude and daring (so close to Machiavellian virtù) will allow them to prevail—which is to say he paradoxically expresses a species of hope. See also Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, 174.

80 Strauss, Leo, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 292Google Scholar.

81 Cornford, Francis Macdonald, Thucydides Mythistoricus (London: Edward Arnold, 1907)Google Scholar; Lebow, Tragic Vision of Politics. Nietzsche does not classify Thucydides as a tragedian, but it is striking how his praise of Thucydides echoes his praise of the Greek tragedians.

82 Bernard Williams, Shame and Necessity, 165.

83 Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 42.

84 Zumbrunnen, John, “‘Courage in the Face of Reality’: Nietzsche's Admiration for Thucydides,” Polity 35, no. 2 (2002): 237–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Zumbrunnen, however, does not treat courage as being of a part with realism, instead contending that Nietzsche's reading prefigures “constructivist” interpretations of Thucydides. See also Lebow, “Thucydides the Constructivist.”

85 See Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 35.

86 Ibid., 49, 93, 121.

87 Though the purpose of this paper is to clarify what Nietzsche reveals about Thucydides, not vice versa, it would be useful to consider how Nietzsche's appreciation for Thucydides in turn clarifies what is unique to Nietzsche's mature thought. It might even be that one cannot fully appreciate Nietzsche's concept of the new philosopher until one has fully thought through the importance of Thucydides for him.

88 E.g., Ober, Josiah, “Public Action and Rational Choice in Classical Greek Political Theory,” in A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought, ed. Balot, Ryan K. (New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 70–84 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89 E.g., Foster, Thucydides, Pericles, and Periclean Realism.

90 See Ahrensdorf, “Thucydides’ Realistic Critique of Realism,” 254.