Dialectics refers to a method of intellectual investigation that draws on dialogue and discussion. In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche condemns Socrates for bringing dialectical thinking into western philosophy (the Socratic method, a form of argumentative dialogue, challenges commonly held views as a way of identifying contradiction and other logical errors). Nietzsche thinks that dialectical thinking is destructive to life in that it allows lesser, weaker philosophical positions to gain traction in society. He also believes that happiness comes from instinct, not logic.
Dialectics Quotes in Twilight of the Idols
The Twilight of the Idols quotes below are all either spoken by Dialectics or refer to Dialectics. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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“Reason” in Philosophy
Quotes
To talk about ‘another’ world than this is quite pointless, provided that an instinct for slandering, disparaging and accusing life is not strong within us: in the latter case we revenge ourselves on life by means of the phantasmagoria of ‘another’, a ‘better’ life.
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Dialectics Term Timeline in Twilight of the Idols
The timeline below shows where the term Dialectics appears in Twilight of the Idols. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Problem of Socrates
5. Socrates brought dialectics—a method of intellectual investigation that draws on dialogue and discussion—to Greek philosophy. Nietzsche argues that...
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6. Nietzsche claims that dialectics are dubious and unconvincing, and that people only resort to them when they have no...
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7. Nietzsche wonders whether Socrates used dialectics as an act of “revenge” against the aristocrats. Dialectics allow the dialectician to be a...
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...would “perish” if they didn’t become “absurdly rational.” Nietzsche regards the “moralism” and subservience to dialectics of Greek philosophers from Plato onward as “pathologically conditioned.” All that “reason = virtue =...
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Expeditions of an Untimely Man
...appreciates Plato’s eroticism, for today’s philosophy is devoid of the erotic. Nietzsche also argues that dialectics came from Plato’s eroticism.
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What I Owe to the Ancients
...most scholars do, and he calls Platonic dialogue a “frightfully self-satisfied and childish kind of dialectics.” Nietzsche also thinks Plato has strayed so far from Hellenic instinct that he became a...
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