by Roy Jackson
The festival was due to begin on 13 August with the first complete performance of the The Ring of Nibelung. The Ring consists of a lengthy prelude, followed by three musical tragedies: a 14-hour saga in total. The inspiration for this new myth derives from a number of old sagas, medieval German retellings and contemporary commentaries. Wagner’s stated aim was to present his ‘musical drama’ (he was clear that this was not an opera, which he considered to be an example of how decadent art had become) to the Volk, an audience that would participate in the emotional purpose of the drama. He presented a vision of the Greek masses streaming in their thousands into the Athenian amphitheatre, and he imagined the same for Bayreuth. As it turned out, however, the first performance consisted of just the kind of people who would attend an opera: emperors, kings, barons and the upper-middle classes. Not surprisingly, this audience were hardly prepared to let their hair down to engage in ecstatic, mystical union.
Nietzsche, for his part, could have been at the centre of the whole enterprise if he had so wished, but he preferred to remain on the sidelines. He did sit through the first complete Cycle, but gave his tickets away for the rest of the festival – the second Cycle in late August and the third in early September. Nietzsche was later to write that his morose behaviour during the festival was because of his awareness that Wagner was not to be the saviour, after all. However, although disillusionment with Wagner was most likely a factor, Nietzsche’s increasing ill health at that time would not have suited the activities of a music festival.
The influence of Schopenhauer
‘I came across this book in old Rohn’s second-hand bookshop, and taking it up very gingerly I turned over its pages. I know not what demon whispered to me: “Take this book home with you.” At all events, contrary to my habit of not being too hasty in the purchase of books, I took it home. Back in my room I threw myself into the corner of the sofa with my booty, and began to allow that energetic and gloomy genius to work upon my mind.’
Friedrich Nietzsche, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe (Munich: Beck, 1933), III, pp. 297–8
Nietzsche’s final meeting with Wagner was in Sorrento, Italy, in 1876. Their meeting was brief and polite but it was obvious to both of them that the friendship was over. That year, with the completion of his Untimely Meditations, also marked Nietzsche’s split from the influence of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860).
To understand Schopenhauer’s and, indeed, Nietzsche’s philosophy, it helps to have a brief account of the main philosophical themes that acted as a backdrop to German philosophy of the time. In all his writings, Nietzsche’s assumes that his reader is already familiar with philosophy. This can often make reading Nietzsche very difficult if you wish to appreciate him at a deeper level. Only a brief outline of the major philosophers and their views can be presented here, but no thinker comes up with ideas in a vacuum. The importance of past thinkers on Nietzsche’s philosophy must always be borne in mind. Nietzsche, in his writings, makes constant references to people like Kant, Schopenhauer, Plato and so on. Often, he is critical of them, but he is also indebted to them.
The influence of Plato
Much of ancient Greek philosophy, most notably the works of Plato (c.428–348 BCE), questioned the nature of existence: is what we can see with our senses (sight, touch, taste, hearing, feeling) actually what is? For example, you see trees and birds outside your window, but can you be sure that they really exist and that they are what we see them to be? Plato held that the world that we perceive with our senses is only appearance. Things are not as they appear to be and we are often deceived into thinking that we distinguish something when, in fact, we do not. In other words, our senses are unreliable. However, humankind has the gift of reason and it is with our rational capacity, our intellect, that we can determine what really exists.
This view that there are two worlds, the world or appearance and the world of reality, has also existed in many of the great religions and, inevitably, it has led to speculation over what the ‘real’ world consists of and how, if at all, it is possible to enter this real world. It is a view that is known in philosophy as dualism. For Plato, we gain access to the real world through the exercise of reason; for many religions, it is through faith or ritual practice. Plato was, therefore, a supporter of rationalism: he believed that the power of reason provides us with important knowledge about the world.
Descartes and Spinoza
The French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) expressed this dualism in a simpler manner; there are only two existent things: thinking substance (soul) and extended substance (matter). Descartes, however, was not overly concerned with which is ‘more real’ than the other, and nor did he satisfactorily address the important issue of how two very different kinds of substance can possibly interact with each other. The Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) responded to Descartes’ dualism with his pantheism. For Spinoza, soul and matter are not ‘substances’, for there is only one substance in the whole universe, and that is God. Soul and matter, therefore, are merely expressions of God.
Locke and Berkeley
The debate between Descartes and Spinoza took on another form with the British philosophers John Locke (1632–1704) and Bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753). Locke is regarded as the founder of the philosophical school known as empiricism: our knowledge comes from our experience of the world; the mind at birth is a complete blank. In direct opposition to rationalism, Locke argued that all of our knowledge of the world comes through experience of the material world. There are just two sources of knowledge, ideas of sensation and ideas of reflection:
• Ideas of sensation are, at the basic level, when the mind, through the senses, perceives an object – its colour, shape, size and so on.
• Ideas of reflection are when the mind reflects upon the object that is perceived. This goes beyond mere perception, in which the subject forms associations with other objects that are either present or from memory, and is able to exercise his or her imagination.
The point Locke is making here is that the ‘ideas’ of mind, whether ideas of sensation or ideas of reflection, have their basis in the material world; they are not innate. Berkeley wrote in opposition to sceptics such as Locke by raising the question that, if, as Locke argues, our knowledge of the material world rests upon the ideas that we have in our heads, then why should we suppose that there is anything but the ideas in our heads? The material world would be unnecessary. If it did not exist, then it would not change our ideas one bit. Berkeley, therefore, concludes that there is no such thing as matter, only mind. This conclusion makes Berkeley the founder of the philosophical school of modern idealism: the position that gives a key role to the mind in the constitution of the world as it is experienced.
The question arises, however, as to where the ideas in the mind come from, if not from matter. Berkeley states that the ideas from the mind come directly from God. For Berkeley, too, there are two kinds of ideas:
• Those that we have no control over – for example, sights and sounds that are forced upon our consciousness; as these are not a product of our will, then they must be a product of some other will, which is God
• Those that we do have control over – for example, reflecting upon our ideas or exercising our imaginations.
Hume and Kant
The Scottish philosopher and empiricist David Hume (1711–76) asserted that our mind consists of impressions and ideas:
• Impressions are what Locke called ‘ideas of sensation’: objects, colours, sounds and so on, of the material world.
• Ideas are images of impressions that are formed from thinking and reasoning.
We can, therefore, have no ideas of anything unless we first receive an impression. For example, you may have an impression of fire and an impression of heat, so you then form the idea in your mind that fire causes heat. However, Hume argues, the causation does not exist in reality, only in our minds. Causation is based upon past experience
, but that does not mean that fire will cause heat in the future. At best, we can only suppose that it will.
When the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) read Hume, it changed his life and he set about developing the foundation of modern German philosophy that had a direct influence upon Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Kant agreed with Hume that there are no innate ideas, but he did not accept that all knowledge is derived from experience. Whereas empiricism argues that our knowledge must conform to experience, Kant turned this around and argued that our experience must conform to our knowledge.
For example, an empiricist would argue that if you experience a stone falling to the floor many thousands of times then you suppose, based upon that experience, that it will fall to the floor the next time. It may not, of course, but it is the only knowledge we have to go on: our minds create the ‘idea’ that the stone will fall. Now, Kant is notoriously difficult and technical at the best of times but, put simply, he asks why we impose causation upon the stone. That is, why do we suppose that letting go of the stone will cause it to fall to the ground? Causation is not derived from the senses, and here Kant agrees with Hume, but then where does it come from? Kant argues that we humans impose an order upon the world; we impose causation, quantity, quality and so on, so that we may understand it. There are, therefore, two worlds:
• the world of phenomena or ‘appearance’
• the world of noumena or ‘reality’.
It is rather like wearing irremovable spectacles that make you see the world in a certain way. However, this is not how the world really is. The world of the noumenal we cannot see because we are limited in our perceptions. The inevitable conclusion Kant reached is that there is the world of appearance that we impose through our ‘irremovable spectacles’ and there is the world as it really is, which we cannot perceive.
Schopenhauer accepts Kant’s view that there is a phenomenal world and a noumenal world. However, he believed that it is possible to know the noumenal:
• He equates the world of phenomena with Berkeley’s ideas in the mind. Therefore, the world as it is perceived is the creation of the mind that perceives it. In other words, ‘the world is my idea’.
• As Kant argues that if there is an ‘apparent’ world there must also be a real world, Schopenhauer equates the real world with the ‘I’ who has the idea.
Our knowledge of ourselves is obviously different from the knowledge we have of anyone or anything else. We know ourselves objectively in the same way that we know other phenomena in the world; that is, as a physical object, a body. We also have subjective knowledge, our inner consciousness, our feelings and desires. It is our inner selves that Schopenhauer calls ‘will’. Therefore, the body is part of the phenomenal world, the world of appearance, and the will is in the noumenal form, the world of reality. We can sum this up thus:
• Ideas = appearance = body and other objects
• The ‘I’ that has the idea = reality = will.
The world is a duality. All things have both Will and Idea, even a stone. However, in the case of the stone, its Will has not attained a state of consciousness. Schopenhauer’s concept of ‘Will’ should not be understood in the common sense as simply wanting something for oneself, for it is much more than that. It is the essence of what it means to be human.
Previous to Schopenhauer, much of the philosophical tradition places humankind as the thinking animal, as a rational, conscious being, but Schopenhauer saw consciousness as the mere surface of our minds. Under the conscious intellect is the unconscious Will, which is a striving, persistent force. On appearance it may seem that the intellect drives the Will, but it is, in fact, the other way round. When you desire something it is not because you have found a good reason to desire it, but, rather, that you desire something first and then establish reasons to cloak those desires. Therefore, it is pointless to appeal to people through logic. Rather, you must look to their desires, their self-interests.
Case study: Schopenhauer’s pessimism
In Schopenhauer’s view, every person embodies Will and the nature of Will is to survive. In the Darwinian sense of survival of the species, every individual is striving against the Will of others in a self-interested way. This inevitably results in conflict and suffering. Schopenhauer therefore sees the Will as essentially evil, and the only way out of this suffering and evil is the denial of the Will, a refusal to take part in the egotistical contest for domination of others. This can be achieved through the power of the conscious intellect, which is able to comprehend the nature of the Will and its effects. The result, by denying the Will (which is the only reality) and being left with ideas (which are not real), is extinction of the self. This philosophy now enters the realms of ascetic sainthood, and Schopenhauer reveals the influence of Buddhism upon him.
‘…[O]nly the will is thing in itself… It is that of which all representation, all object, is the phenomenon, the visibility, the objectivity. It is the innermost essence, the kernel, of every particular thing and also of the whole.’
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation vol. 1 (New York: Dover Publications, 1966), p. 110
Nietzsche, like Wagner, initially accepted the view that we should deny the Will, although he was later to doubt the practicality of such an activity. In fact, Schopenhauer himself was hardly the best model of the ascetic, for he loved the material pleasures that life had to offer.
Ultimately, the most important influence of Schopenhauer on Nietzsche amounts to three things:
1 Like Schopenhauer, Nietzsche presented the picture of the philosopher who will stop at nothing in the search for truth, however painful that might be.
2 Schopenhauer’s style of writing, perhaps more than the content, had an influence on Nietzsche’s own style and provided a demonstration that one can write philosophy and also write well.
3 Nietzsche seemingly (see Chapter 6 for the debate on this) adopted the primacy of the Will as the motivating force, and this became his famous doctrine of the will to power.
However, Nietzsche’s will to power is in many respects different from Schopenhauer’s Will, and Nietzsche was much more materialistic (that is, ‘down-to-earth’) in his philosophy than Schopenhauer’s almost mystical views. Both Wagner and Schopenhauer, therefore, played an important part in Nietzsche’s early works, but this influence dwindles as Nietzsche develops his own voice.
Key ideas
Dualism: the philosophical position that there are two worlds: the physical and the non-physical
Rationalism: the philosophical position that reason, the intellect, forms the basis for much of our knowledge
Empiricism: the philosophical position that we can acquire knowledge of the world through direct experience of the senses
Idealism: the importance of the mind in understanding what we can know about the world: at the most extreme, it argues that there is only the mind, no external world
Noumena: metaphysical beliefs about the soul, the cosmos and God, which are matters of faith rather than scientific, empirical knowledge
Phenomena: in Kantian terms, the world of everyday things that we can detect with our senses
Things to remember
• Nietzsche’s interest in philosophy was initially inspired by reading Schopenhauer, who had an influence on his doctrine of the will to power.
• Nietzsche was good friends with the German composer Richard Wagner, who proved to be a huge influence on his early writings.
• The Death of Tragedy (1871) is the work that shows the most intense influence of Wagner on Nietzsche’s ideas. Thereafter, Wagner’s influence waned as Nietzsche grew disillusioned with both his ideas (including his anti-Semitism) and the man himself.
• Other philosophers who influenced Nietzsche were Plato, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant, although he contested many of their ideas.
• Like Schopenhauer, Nietzsche developed a poetic style of writing philosophy that was very different from the dry a
cademic tone adopted by most of his contemporaries.
Fact-check
1 Who was the greatest influence on Nietzsche’s first major work The Birth of Tragedy?
a Plato
b Kant
c Schopenhauer
d Wagner
2 Which one of the following is not a Wagner opera?
a Tannhauser
b Lohengrin
c Romeo and Juliet
d Tristan and Isolde
3 Which small town premiered Wagner’s Ring Cycle?
a Bath
b Bayreuth
c Berlin
d Brighton
4 Which one of the following was an ancient Greek philosopher?
a Locke
b Spinoza
c Plato
d Descartes
5 What is empiricism?
a The philosophical position that we can acquire knowledge of the world through direct experience of the senses
b The philosophical position that reason, the intellect, forms the basis for much of our knowledge
c The philosophical position that there are two worlds: the physical and the non-physical
d The philosophical position that there is only the mind, no external world
6 What is rationalism?
a The philosophical position that we can acquire knowledge of the world through direct experience of the senses
