The second of these passages will raise the issue of the relation between art and science as Nietzsche sees it. Nietzsche’s “An Attempt at Self-Criticism” (quoted on the reading guide for last time) suggested that the issue of the relation between art and science was important for his thinking about The Birth of Tragedy. But the first selection in this assignment raises the broader, and perhaps more interesting, question of the place of reason or rationality in art. So be sure to think about the idea of “esthetic Socratism” from you own point of view (and you might think again about what Hume says about the importance of good sense in a critic in “On the Standard of Taste”—see ¶ 22).
• HK 539-544 (§12). Here think about the connection Nietzsche makes between Euripides and Socrates and the distinction he makes (HK 541) between the dreams and ecstasies of the Apollonian and Dionysian art on the one hand and the thoughts and passions of Euripidean tragedy on the other. Finally, think about the idea of “esthetic Socratism” (HK 543f).
You might suppose that the distinction between thought and Apollonian dreams is analogous to the distinction between the conceptual or discursive on the one hand and the visual on the other that you’ve encountered in a number of philosophers. You should think then how Nietzsche might be intending to distinguish between “passions” and Dionysian “ecstasies.”
• HK 550-554 (§14 from “If, therefore, we must assume ...”—§15). The description of the theoretical man provides Nietzsche’s approach to the issue of the relation between art and science. The references to Nietzsche’s own time at the end point towards speculations (in later sections not included here) about a “rebirth of tragedy.” Nietzsche appears to associate this with the efforts of the composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) to recast opera as a synthesis of all the arts. When Nietzsche speak of the “music-practicing Socrates,” HK 554, he might have Wagner in mind, but Nietzsche was an amateur composer, and it has been suggested that he might have had himself in mind. In this connection, you should remember again his later self-criticisms.
For discussion, I’ll suggest you think about the requirement that art be intelligible—i.e., the demand that Nietzsche describes as “esthetic Socratism.” Nietzsche applies this idea chiefly to drama, saying that this Euripidean or Socratic approach to drama focuses interest on the thought and passions of the characters since these provide the basis for making their actions intelligible. What might the alternative approach—the one which preserves the Apollonian and Dionysian—be in the case of drama? Is an analogous distinction possible with other arts?