The Unfaithful Nietzsche II (Twilight of the Idols)

I rather liked this piece of Nietzsche, especially in regards to his commentary on the real and the really-real. Those are the terms that I use; his terms are the 'apparent' and the 'real' worlds. The evolution of these opposed worlds is made clear by the classification of the senses as deceivers bent on confounding us with continual misinterpretation. "Now they all [philosophers] believe, even to the point of despair, in that which is. But since they cannot get hold of it, they look for reasons why it is being withheld from them, 'It must be an illusion, a deception which prevents us from perceiving that which is: where is the deceiver to be found?' - 'We've got it,' they cry in delight, 'it is the senses!... it is they which deceive us about the real world" (45).

If we declare our senses to always be deceiving, to always be hindering us from seeing what is going on around us we ultimately must subscribe to two different worlds. This is the problem that caused Plato to go on about the forms. The pragmatic consequence of this type of world view is that we seek to diminish the value of the apparent and, in so doing, "...we revenge ourselves on life by means of the phantasmagoria of 'another', a 'better' life" (49).

I agree with Ryan on his thoughts, at least pertaining to Socrates. However, worthy of note, is that Nietzsche did see in Heraclitus (a pre-socratic philosopher) some merit. He holds this esteem for Heraclitus because he rejected the common ideas of the day, that being and unity exist in the world.

I hate to cut this short but I just found out I got accepted to grad school and have to call about 200 people.