Altona is a philosophically complex play about lies, inauthenticity, and bad faith. Similar to Sartre’s much earlier No Exit, the play explores the idea of “hell being other people.” However, Altona is far more politically charged. While it is the only play in which Sartre explicitly mentions the Nazis, the themes were very relevant to the Algerian War of Independence that was ongoing at the time. French audiences would feel compelled to consider their own complicity and perhaps bad faith towards what was happening in North Africa in their names.

Key Facts About The Condemned of Altona (1959)

The Condemned of Altona (1959), also known simply as Altona or sometimes Loser Wins (an idea frequently expressed in the final act), is distinguished by being Sartre’s final completely original play and his only play to mention the Nazis directly.

Altona centers around an enormously wealthy family of German industrialists. They were rich and powerful before the war, profited during the war, and are now richer and more powerful fifteen years later.

The play showcases several key Sartrean ideas, including responsibility, authenticity, and bad faith.

The complex and complicated dynamic between the characters is established in the first two acts of the play, and these are by far the most philosophically interesting. The fourth act is the pay-off when various ideas come to a head, and the third and fifth acts are very short. Accordingly, in this article, we will concentrate mainly on the first two acts.

The First Act: Setting the Scene

The curtain opens to reveal a German drawing room furnished with “pretentious ugly furniture.” There is a staircase leading up to a landing where a door can be seen. Upstage, on the left and right, are two large doors. Stage right are two French windows through which trees can be seen.

There are three people onstage: Leni, Werner, and Johanna. Leni and Werner are siblings. Johanna is Werner’s wife; she is a former movie star now retired. The three are waiting for Leni and Werner’s father, who has called a family meeting. It is clear that there is a great deal of tension in the family.

When the father arrives, he makes the others swear on the Bible to follow his wishes. He has cancer and only six months to live. He insists that Werner, his son, take over the family business after his death.

Leni appears indifferent, but Werner and Johanna are distraught. We discover that Werner is desperate for his father’s love and approval, but does not want to run the company. Johanna does not want him to run it either; she wants to escape the claustrophobic Altona mansion.

During the first act, we learn that there was another son, Franz, who died in Argentina. Had he survived, he would have been the natural choice to take over after his father’s death. However, the first big twist in the play is that Franz is not dead but shut up in his room and has been for years. He is behind the door visible on the landing.

The First Act: Franz

We learn more about Franz through flashbacks. During these, we also learn more about the family and their role during the war. It turns out that the father was complicit with the Nazis and sold them a piece of land knowing it would be used as a concentration camp.

He was not ideologically a Nazi but profiteering off the new regime. Later, he will justify his actions with the argument that if he had not sold land to the Nazis, someone else would have.

Through flashbacks, we see Franz outraged by his father’s act, and we also learn that Franz sheltered an escaped prisoner in his room. This puts Franz in danger and his father “helps” his son by phoning Goering personally and making a deal. They arranged to hand over the prisoner and for Franz to serve in the military rather than get into trouble. However, when Nazi officers come for the prisoner, they beat him to death in front of Franz.

When Franz returns home after the war, he intervenes when an American soldier attempts to rape his sister Leni. She hits the man with a glass bottle, but Franz takes the blame. The father once again steps in to shield his son. He hides his son in his room and tells everyone he is dead. Here, Franz has stayed for fifteen years, never leaving. His only visitor is his sister Leni, who brings him his meals.

A key aspect of the play is that Franz will only see Leni, and he keeps his door locked from the inside. Only when he hears a secret sequence of knocks, known only to Leni and himself, will he open the door.

The First Act: Father’s Plan

To recap, the father is dying, and he wants his son, Werner, to take over the business in six months. Werner is a weak man, desperate for his father’s approval, which he does not receive; he also does not want to run the family business. His wife, Johanna, wants nothing more than to leave the mansion and live their own lives elsewhere in Hamburg.

The father does not really care about the business, which can run itself. Werner would only be a figurehead, not an actual leader. What the father really wants is a meeting with Franz, who has refused to see him. Werner, weak and easily manipulated, agrees against his own wishes to obey his father despite Johanna begging him to leave with her and to live their own lives.

Later, the father catches Johanna spying on Leni to discover the secret knock to gain access to Franz. He talks her into visiting Franz to persuade his son to meet him before he dies of cancer. In return, he will release Werner from his obligation to run the company. Reluctantly, Johanna agrees to go along with the plan.

The Second Act: The Crabs

The second act takes place entirely in Franz’s bedroom. It is a small room with a bricked-up window and an attached bathroom. On the wall, there is a portrait of Hitler and hand-written signs with slogans such as DO NOT DISTURB, and FEAR IS FORBIDDEN. The bed has blankets but no mattress, and on the shelf there is a tape recorder and its reels. The room is a mess with rubbish strewn everywhere.

The scene begins with Leni tidying the room while Franz finishes a speech he is making to “the crabs.” He believes that these crabs, also known as “the masked inhabitants of the ceiling,” are sitting in judgment on the human race. In his mind, they are from the thirtieth century and are looking back in judgment on the humans of the twentieth century; Franz has taken it upon himself to defend the people of his time.

Leni does not contradict her brother and often encourages him in his delusions. Shockingly, we also discover that Franz and Leni have had incestuous relations while she has been visiting him in his room. When she brings this up, Franz denies it to the crabs.

The Second Act: Enter Johanna

Leni has been trying to get her brother Franz, to listen to her. She is worried that the others in the family will do something to him. In an attempt to get him to listen to her, she tells him Allied soldiers are coming to take him away. Franz, though, is more interested in pleading his case to thirtieth century crabs.

Some time after Leni has gone, Franz hears the secret knock. However, it is not his sister but his sister-in-law Johanna. At the father’s request, she is wearing makeup and a pretty dress. She is a former movie star and is still very beautiful. A child during the war, Johanna, must be in her twenties now.

Franz is not shocked at Johanna’s sudden arrival because he is in the middle of a hallucination or flashback when he opens the door.

Franz’s Flashbacks

After Leni leaves, Franz delivers a frenetic and confusing monologue to the crabs. Afterward, as Franz is resting, the door to his attached bathroom opens, and Sergeant-Major Hermann emerges.

The German soldier marches towards Franz and salutes smartly. He informs Franz of partisans in the area. When asked how many, he replies that there are about twenty, with two captured. Franz responds: “You know my orders. Dismiss!” The soldier marches away as Franz’s head droops.

Suddenly, Franz jumps up and screams: “No! Heinrich! Heinrich! I said no!” Franz then resumes his speech to the crabs, sitting in judgment on the twentieth century. It is at this point that Johanna uses Leni’s secret knock to access the room.

In another flashback in Act Four, Franz sees an old woman. He is escaping from Russia through Germany and has come across a village in ruins, the only survivor being the old woman who is leaning against a wall with her legs blown off.

She blames Franz and the whole of Germany for not fighting hard enough to win the war. She says that the victors were willing to kill and butcher the enemy, but the Germans were not. Her accusation is that the German soldiers prioritized military honor over a victory that would protect the German people. When Franz asks if she knows about the extermination camps, she replies that she does. He asks if she would be proud of her brother, who died in Normandy, if he had been a camp guard, and she says yes because that would mean he did everything he could to help Germany.

There is also a detailed flashback showing what happened to the Russian partisans held captive in the barn. A Lieutenant Klages tells Franz that he is powerless to stop the Sergeant-Major from torturing the prisoners.

The Second Act: Johanna Versus Leni

Franz does not realize that Johanna is not his sister because he is preoccupied with his flashback and defending himself to the crabs. However, he is not mistaken for long and soon realizes that Johanna is not Leni.

While Franz chides Johanna for tricking her way into his room and repeatedly asks her to leave, he makes no serious effort to reject her. The subject of Johanna’s beauty comes up, albeit with her denying that the beauty is actually hers but more something she has been cloaked with by others.

Franz’s only contact with the outside world has been with Leni, who has told him lies and supported his delusions about contemporary Germany. Now he has Johanna, who can offer a different story that contradicts Leni’s. However, Franz is deeply suspicious and believes her to be an enemy agent of some sort sent to discredit his sister. But he also sees Johanna not as a former movie star nor a character on screen, but as a real person.

Franz makes Johanna feel seen for who she really is, and he says she is beautiful. This has a powerful effect on Johanna because it makes her feel genuinely beautiful rather than painted to look so. She agrees to see Franz again. She still wants him to meet his father so she and Werner can be free, but she is also drawn to Franz. There is now a twisted “love” triangle between Franz, Leni, and Johanna.

The Final Acts

The short third act of the play reminds the audience of the complex threads linking the different characters’ motives together. It also introduces the idea of Werner becoming jealous of his wife’s visits with his brother.

The father thinks that if Franz leaves his room, he will quickly adjust and be better off. But Johanna is worried that when confronted with reality, Franz will take his own life. It is important to Franz that Germany be in a state of ruin and collapse, and it would be devastating for him to learn the country is doing well.

In the fourth act, we see the truth come out. Franz reveals a dark secret that torments his soul. We learn that he was “the butcher of Smolensk” who had ordered the torture of Russian peasants and partisans alike. For years, he has been lying to himself. In a further twist, in the fifth act, when Franz finally meets his father, we learn that the old man had known the truth for years. Two former German soldiers visited him, attempting blackmail, that the father arranged to fake his son’s death.

The last revelation is the father’s secret, what he has been planning all along. Despite what he told Johanna about Franz feeling better once leaving his room, he knew his son would seek to destroy himself. This is exactly what the old man wanted. Afraid of dying alone from cancer, he arranges for his son to want to die alongside him. The play ends with father and son leaving the mansion and driving the father’s Porsche off the road, ending their lives.

The Final Tally: Lies, Guilt, and Suicide

All the characters in Altona are living lies of some sort. The father pretends that his actions during the war have no consequence and that if he had not profited from the Nazi regime, someone else would have done. Leni lies to her brother because she wants to keep him all to herself.

Johanna formerly saw herself as nothing but a kind of doll to be dressed up and manipulated by others, but came to see herself through Franz’s eyes. He was a mirror through which she saw herself, but the mirror broke when she learned he was the butcher of Smolensk.

Franz, the most complex character, cannot live with the knowledge of his crimes. He clings to the idea that he left home a kind of hero, the protector of an escaped concentration camp prisoner and the savior of his sister. But he did not save the prisoner who was killed in front of him, and Leni killed the rapist, not Franz. Worse, he knows he is no hero but a butcher.

Franz needs the idea that Germany is in ruins, the people starving as a punishment for their crimes during the war. He tells himself that if Germany as a whole is guilty, then all Germans are guilty and not just particular individuals. When Franz discovers that Germany is not suffering, only he, he is forced to confront his guilt. This he cannot do, and so he chooses suicide.

Roland Barthes was a specialist in the signs at play in language, media, and everyday life. When he turned his attention to photography, he developed a profoundly subjective and nuanced philosophical approach to this medium. His approach allows us to engage with photos beyond their purely formal elements and introduces the subjective nature of our encounter with the medium in our ways of thinking about such images.

The Search for the Essence of Photography

Renowned for his approaches to literary texts and the nature of language, Roland Barthes had to change his approach when considering photography as a medium. While he drew analogous connections between language and photographs, he found that the medium itself evades a purely objective or scientific approach, as found in his earlier works. This approach is not concerned with the history of photography but rather attempts to engage with the photo as it exists in our everyday experience. His project is an attempt to figure out what photography is “in-itself,” that is, which specific essential feature defines the photograph and makes it distinct from all the other images in our visual culture.

He embraces a more phenomenological approach to photography, grounded in his experience as a spectator and as someone with a relationship to specific photographs. He emphasizes the position of looking at photographs rather than the photographer’s intentions and reasons for capturing such an image. As such, he makes a distinction between the Spectator, that is, the bodily experience of looking at the photo, and the Spectrum, which is the object captured in the image.

A distance in time opens up between the Spectator and the Spectrum, where the person or object captured in the photograph will always be further back in time or lost compared to the photograph itself. Even when a person is captured in a photograph, the photo itself renders that person into an object to be looked at. The photo is never a metaphor. It always captures something as it really existed. This is what Barthes refers to as the noeme of the photograph: the image refers simply to the real-world object that it has captured in time.

Decoding the Studium and the Cultural Image

Barthes’s account of the photo encompasses both the more objective elements of the image and our subjective experience of it. The first element of the image that he makes note of is the studium, which is the more objective and social side of the image. The studium is the set of cultural signifiers and references through which we understand and interpret a photograph.

This is the field through which we experience a sort of cultural training that allows us to demonstrate a general interest in a photograph, even if it doesn’t quite capture our attention. As such, it allows us to recognize a range of cultural, historical, or political meanings within the image itself.

The photograph arouses a certain passive interest in us, even if we are not actively distracted by it. We may not be gripped by the image in front of us, but we can still recognize and “read” what visual content is being presented to us. In fact, we might actively like the photo in front of us, but it may not resonate with us on a profound level as some other images do. The image can be understood, but it does not affect us in any strong way.

The photographs that function in the domain of the studium tend to attempt to convey specific cultural significations. For example, images of political figures operate within the studium: famous politicians or those depicted in uniforms convey specific cultural meanings.

Photographs in newspapers and on websites are supposed to quickly and concisely convey specific content to us dependent upon the studium. This is why Barthes refers to the studium as always being “coded,” in that we have to have a cultural context and understanding to be able to read the image itself.

The Punctum and the Subjective Sting

The studium is contrasted to the more subjective experience of the punctum. The punctum is a detail that “pricks” us, a minor element within a photograph that affects us and enables us to develop a relationship with the image. The punctum may be a minor detail that is of no interest to anyone else, and so noting what has caught our attention in a photograph makes us reveal something about ourselves. Barthes himself gives examples of shoes or bad teeth.

As such, we cannot actively search for a punctum within an image. Instead, we have to let it linger in our minds and memories and then, possibly, a punctum may make itself known to us. Barthes emphasizes that this is not a conscious process. Rather, we have an uncontrollable emotional response or resonance with some detail within the image itself, which we may not even consciously process at first. The punctum of an image finds the spectator and affects them without any effort on the spectator’s side of the experience.

With this distance between the object captured in the image and the lingering presence of the photograph, time itself functions as a form of punctum, eliciting an emotional response. Having captured something in the world, the photograph acts as a “living image of a dead thing.” There is a quality to the image which depicts that “this-has-been,” something real has been in the world, and as time passes, the photograph proves to be the only evidence of this moment.

This awareness can be extended to portraits of people: we know that time has passed, and the person captured in front of us may no longer be alive. Knowledge of their death affects us in a way that causes this emotional response to occur.

The Winter Garden Photograph and the Truth of the Image

Barthes’ approach to images demonstrates an inevitably personal element, evident in our own relationships with photographs. As such, his investigation is driven by an autobiographical impulse: the death of his mother. Sifting through photos of his lost mother, Barthes attempts to find one in which he can definitively “recognize” her, to find whether there is an image that definitively captures some essential feature of his mother through which he finds her.

He eventually comes across a particular photograph, namely The Winter Garden Photograph. Despite never having known his mother when she was this young, Barthes recognizes something in the photograph that definitively allows him to identify her. The photo depicts his mother as a child, standing with her brother in a Winter Garden. For a book illustrated with assorted photographic examples, this is the one image which Barthes discusses but does not reproduce for the reader, precisely because it would not have the same effect upon us. It would lack the fundamentally subjective punctum and cannot serve as a “visible object” in scientific study.

In this sense, the photograph captures a particular truth about the world, or the particular “air” of a person that defines them. It demonstrates the capacity for the image to capture a specific truth or essential characteristic of a person beyond simply depicting them through a particular resemblance. This air is the energy that animates people in their lives. Someone’s air remains a difficult notion to pin down concretely precisely because it captures that animating element of the individual, their “soul” of some sort.

How to Use Barthes’ Approach

Despite being able to capture the air of a person, photographs still fundamentally lack depth. Rather than a camera obscura, which shows us the world and expands our perceptions, Barthes considers photos as “camera lucida.” This device allowed people to simultaneously view the worldly object and its representation, much as a photograph depicts an object that has existed and its current absence.

This is why Barthes argues that the photo demonstrates a certain hallucinatory quality. Beyond the formal elements of images, the photograph elicits emotional engagement, which we must consider when examining the medium. Discovering the “air” of his mother in the Winter Garden photograph entailed that he “entered crazily into the spectacle,” and the intensity of this experience is what defines the medium.

Barthes helps us understand how our encounters with images reveal aspects of ourselves and how this is a necessary element of the medium. We can look at images beyond the concerns of the studium (that is, the cultural codes by which we understand an image) and understand the more subjective element of the punctum, that one detail which develops our relationship with a photograph. As he emphasizes, we cannot simply pick up on the punctum initially, but when an image captures you, then the possibility of a punctum can foster your engagement with particular photographs.

The question of what that punctum may be reveals both your interest in the photo and your relationship to the world. This becomes even more useful in the context of contemporary social media. Since Barthes wrote his text in the early 80s, photographs have become ever-present in our lives, and our relationships with such images have become even more complex. However, he offers us an approach for considering these relations.

Does everyone get a say when it comes to political discourse? Do we even realize when certain groups are left out of important social discussions? For the philosopher Jacques Rancière, politics is not simply a question of ideas and ideologies, but rather an issue that reaches the very nature of our perception. This is a question of social perception: who do we recognize as political subjects, and do we take on board what they have to say about the issues that affect them?

A Philosopher of Politics and Art

Rancière is a thinker who emerged from the political and theoretical volatility of mid-20th century France. As a philosopher, Rancière’s background lies in his work with Louis Althusser and his revisiting of Marx’s writings. However, the political upheaval of May 1968 led Rancière to distance himself from Althusser and academic political philosophy, which seemed too far removed from people in the streets.

Since then, Rancière has developed two main strands of thinking that are largely intertwined: one concerns a radical notion of democracy, while the other engages with art in ways that highlight its political nature.

For Rancière, both democracy and art demonstrate a radical equality among people, which promises a better future. Democracy is understood here as presuming an equality among all people and communities prior to any political activity.

This equality is constrained by larger social structures that establish certain hierarchies, but it remains present. In the presence of such equality, Rancière highlights the contingent nature of social hierarchies and the way they are constructed by people rather than being institutions or traditions that remain untouchable or permanent.

While developing these concerns for equality and democracy, Rancière has touched upon art and aesthetics as fields deeply entwined with them. Throughout history, art has played an important role in communities and in how we talk to one another, as well as in showing us different ways we could live. Art demonstrates a capacity to experiment with how we experience the world, which, for Rancière, brings it into contact with the same concerns for community as in politics.

Politics According to Rancière

One element of Rancière’s work is his reassessment of everyday terms such as “politics” and “democracy” to challenge our presumptions about how we talk about social issues. For example, we tend to hold presumptions about the nature of politics, even about its very nature. We may tend to think of politics as the institutions and practices by which we organize society, or we may understand it as more of a purely ideological discourse.

By returning to ancient philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, Rancière develops a particular understanding of the nature of politics. For Rancière, political activity is fundamentally a practice that brings about equality within a community. What politics deals with is this radical democracy that is already implicit among people.

By engaging in politics, we are disagreeing with a given social order and demonstrating the fact that all social structures are, ultimately, constructed and contingent. As such, politics is the act of asserting oneself as an equal in the face of social hierarchies, challenging the hierarchical structures of a given social situation.

Connected to this notion of politics is a particular understanding of what Rancière calls the “police.” Again, Rancière develops this concept beyond our usual presumptions about the police as a law-enforcement body. For Rancière, the police encompass not just law enforcement but also any institutions that play a role in the broader organization of society.

These are not just legal systems but also the various social institutions that organize and govern communities, exercise power over others, and distribute people according to particular social roles. Rancière’s “police” are any systems that establish hierarchies to impose upon the radical democracy already implicit between people.

What Is the Distribution of the Sensible?

Politics is more a question of how people communicate with one another and how we recognize one another as members of a collective. Rancière reframes politics in terms of our perceptual experience of the world, demonstrating that the political domain shapes how we encounter our environments.

Central to his thinking here is a concept he refers to as the “distribution of the sensible”, referring to how such social institutions shape our sensory experience of the world. Fundamentally, this determines who can partake in shared communal resources – be they material resources, political representation, or even just the space to make one’s voice heard. As such, politics is concerned with what can be seen in our world and what can be said about it.

Rancière emphasizes how our social institutions shape who we recognize as having a say in political matters and whether we take their speech to have any meaningful content. In his account, politics shapes us at the level of such basic human sensory encounters as this. As such, social institutions “distribute” people throughout society and shape how they are perceived and interact with others.

This is why Rancière refers to this distribution as a system of “self-evident facts” that shape our sensory experience of those around us in the communities in which we live. Social institutions impact how we recognize one another and may even lead us to overlook this radical equality that exists between us.

We can understand the distribution of the sensible as an attempt to highlight how social institutions and political systems shape our perception of the world, and to make them appear as fundamental elements of the world that cannot be challenged.

The Link Between Politics and Aesthetics

Since politics shapes our perception of the world, it maintains an intimate relation with the field of aesthetics. Beyond confining aesthetics to the study of art alone, Rancière returns to a more expanded understanding of the field as concerned with the very nature of human perception itself. This is how the distribution of the sensible links politics to aesthetics: political organization fundamentally permeates our sensory experience of the world.

Where the institutions of “police” may determine how we recognize one another and experience ourselves as a community, art offers the potential for new ways of seeing the people around us. While much art is explicitly political, this does not mean that all art lacks a political dimension. It is precisely because art can shape our subjective experience of the world that it maintains an inherently political capacity to help recognize a shared equality.

However, art can also experiment with how we perceive the world, and, as such, implicitly contributes to political discourse by opening new ways of experiencing our environments. This is evidenced by the ways in which new voices can be championed across different art forms, showing how different groups of people may approach artistic themes from new, potentially somewhat unique angles.

Art and Aesthetics in the Modern World

Rancière outlines a particular history of art, divided into different “regimes” or eras, that reflects how our ways of perceiving the world change over time.

In the earliest writings on art stemming from Ancient Greece, Rancière argues that we find the “ethical” regime in which art is tied up to questions of how we live alongside one another and as communities. Art from this era takes on a particular educational capacity, aiming to evoke moral responses and to develop ethical lessons in the spectator. Such art is immersed within communities and plays a role in them, as plays do in Ancient Greek festivals.

Emerging out of this era is what can be called the “representative” or “poetic” regime of art. In this period, art is concerned with how it imitates the world and represents a world beyond artworks. Art is understood as a distinctive system of classifications that determines which methods of creation are considered “art.” This is where notions of mimesis, or how the world represents itself, come to the forefront of our opinions about what we consider to be art.

Our contemporary experience of art is what Rancière calls the “aesthetic regime.” In this situation, art is removed from everyday life and held in art galleries. This removes art from its communal dimension but also offers a promise of equality among spectators. By developing their own interpretation of an artwork, the spectator demonstrates the “free play of the senses” inherent in all of us. This offers a glimpse of a truly egalitarian experience of the world precisely because it is a universal capacity shared by us all and shows how we can all engage critically and creatively.

Politics and the Media

All of this seems somewhat abstract, but Rancière’s thinking is evidenced more than ever in our media-saturated societies. Contemporary news media and digital media, for example, demonstrate how our political systems can shape how we perceive the world and those around us. The tendency for implicit biases to emerge within news media, such as news reports that “other” a group by failing to recognize them as people with their own complications, exemplifies the concerns raised by Rancière’s thinking.

When we see such examples of othering in media, we can see a reflection of how our perception of society is shaped by institutions. The media can determine who provides comments or is given time to speak on a particular topic, which may affect them, reflecting the way in which society is organized in particular ways.

While he maintains strict divisions between news media and art, Rancière also shows how art shapes our everyday experience. Such media may continue to show new considerations on how we relate to one another within communities and how we organize society.

Without reducing art to politics (or vice versa), Rancière shows how the two operate on the same level of sensory experience. As such, his writing can help us understand how media shapes our experience of the world and remind us that we are active spectators, able to critically interpret what we consume and draw on the implicit promise of equality inherent in art.

We think of ourselves as singular and unitary. But do we thirst, get angry at ourselves when we give in to our desire, and trace the logical structure of an argument with the same part of ourselves? This article will introduce you to Plato’s psychology as formulated in Book IV of the Republic. Plato uses the word psuche (ψυχή), which is translated as “soul.” However, it can be meaningfully understood as the mind today without committing to a non-material entity that survives death.

A Prefatory Warning: The Shorter of the Two Roads

Let us set the scene: Glaucon and Socrates have just established the virtues of each class of citizens in their ideal city: moderation, courage, and wisdom. Socrates further states that justice is the virtue of each person doing what is best suited to their individual nature. Glaucon is eager to accept this proposition without qualification. However, Socrates impresses upon him the need for further demonstration by turning our gaze from the city back to the individual. If they find the same forms in the individual soul that were found in the city, then they can be confident in their conclusions.

Before discussing the parts of the soul, Socrates warns Glaucon that they will never get a precise answer to this question through the current means of argumentation. He mentions a “longer and fuller road” that would furnish these answers, but notes their current methods do provide answers that satisfy their level of rigor thus far.

It is easy to take Plato’s discussion on the soul here as expounding a system. Comments like the one above remind us that the “answers” given here are not intended as a full picture. It is a fruitful inquiry that serves a purpose for the present, but requires a more rigorous methodology known as dialectic, as proposed in the section below, which discusses the divided line.

Why “Divide” the Soul?

In a previous dialogue on the soul, the Phaedo, Plato paints a dualistic portrait. On the one hand, we have an incorporeal soul: rational and divine-like, and on the other, a corporeal body and its irrational desires. Death is a liberation of the immortal soul from its bodily prison. A philosopher is someone who goes as far as possible to purify themselves by turning away from the body and toward the soul.

In the Republic, this dualism is developed into a more complex form. The opposition between soul and body remains, but rather than the soul being fully rational, the soul is “divided” into three “parts”: the appetitive, which desires, the spirited, which is the source of passion, and the rational, which calculates. Irrational elements are now attributed to the soul itself. The philosopher’s purpose changes from denial of the body to harmony of the soul.

Why three and not one? In perhaps the earliest version in the Western tradition of the principle of noncontradiction (Adam, 1905), Socrates states we will never find the same thing acting or acted upon in opposite ways at the same time and in the same way. If it seems something is behaving in this way, then we can be certain that they are two separate things. He gives two very different examples to elaborate: a man and a top.

A man standing and moving his head or hands is not moving and still at the same time, but some parts are moving, and others are still. A top spinning in one spot is moving with respect to its circumference, and still with respect to its axis. The first example treats the soul as divisible parts, the second as abstractions of a continuum.

The Appetitive: To Epithumetikon (τὸ ἐπιθυμητικων)

The appetitive part of our soul is the largest and most powerful part; its size and scope are proportionate to the number of activities through which we seek gratification. This creates a certain difficulty in choosing just one name for all of them. In the end, Socrates chose appetitive (to epithumetikon) because its essential function is to desire.

It is tempting to say bodily desire, as in most cases it takes the form of physical gratification. However, as John Sallis notes: “In the entire discussion of the relation of the individual man to the city, Socrates treats man as though… he had no body” (Sallis, 1975). Plato has many chances to say “the body desires,” but always speaks in terms of the soul desiring. We will see later why he may have avoided using the body directly in this passage.

Socrates then establishes that where there is appetite, there is will, and where there is no appetite, there is no will. Using thirst as an example, Socrates draws from experience to say some thirsty people do not want to drink. From the principle of noncontradiction as formulated earlier, it cannot be the same part both wanting and not wanting to drink at the same time. One part of the soul wants to drink while another part forbids it. Socrates again draws from experience and claims the cause is the calculation of the consequences of drinking: an activity of our rational element.

The Spirited: To Thumoeides (τὸ θυμοειδές)

Socrates then turns to the spirited part of the soul. Throughout the Republic, Plato identifies it as a kind of energy or passion that gives rise to things like courage, honor, and anger. Is this a third, distinct part, or do these activities belong to one of the two just mentioned? Glaucon thinks it could belong to our appetitive nature, prompting Socrates to propose a counterexample quite odd to the modern reader.

He recalls a story of a man named Leontius who saw corpses lying at the feet of an executioner. He desired to look at them, but at the same time felt repulsed and turned away. Caught between these conflicting impulses, he eventually gave in. He ran toward them and screamed: “Look for yourselves, you evil wretches, take your fill of the beautiful sight!”

He uses this story to propose that our soul is at war: the rational against desire, with the spirited allying with the rational. Our spirited nature is deeply connected to our moral beliefs. Leontius becomes angry and curses his eyes because he feels shame in violating a kind of moral obligation. He desired to look, knew that he ought not to, and his shame is in response to his giving in to his desire over his rationality.

An important feature of our spirited nature is its indignation toward injustice. Provided we have a good character, we understand the consequences we face as a result of wronging someone and do not get angry. However, if we believe ourselves to have been wronged, we become angry and endure pain or even death in the fight for justice.

The Rational: To Logistikon (τὸ λογιστικόν)

While our spirited nature is shaped by our moral principles, our rational nature is the source of these principles themselves. We know it is distinct from spiritedness from the examples Glaucon and Socrates provide. Glaucon notes that children become angry and aggressive, though they lack a developed rationality. Socrates uses an example from Homer raised earlier in Book III as exemplary of endurance. Odysseus is plagued by a burning passion for revenge, but quells his anger by reasoning with himself “in the division of mind and spirit” (The Odyssey, ca. 8th century BC/1967, Book xx, Lines 10-20). This shows spiritedness not only conflicts with appetite, like in Leontius, but also with rationality, though on its own accord, not on the side of appetite.

While both the appetitive and the spirited parts of us can be motivated to satisfy their own ends without regard for the other parts, rationality is incapable of operating in this way. It alone looks to the advantage of each part and the soul as a whole. In this way, Socrates and Glaucon have established that the structure of the ideal city they have created resembles the structure of the individual soul.

Both the city and the individual are tripartite and share the same virtues. With wisdom, the reasoning part governs with the good of the whole in view; with courage, the spirited part fights to protect the soul and the city under the guidance of its ruler; and with moderation, the appetitive desires within the limits set by its rulers. Externally, in the city, justice is a harmony of the three classes functioning according to their nature. Internally, in the individual, justice is a harmony of the three parts of the soul functioning according to their nature.

Tripartite Division or Continuum?

One possible misinterpretation from using words such as “parts” or “division” is to understand the rational, spirited, and appetitive as three separate entities (figure 1). However, they’re better understood as existing on a continuum beginning with appetite and culminating in reason (figure 2 below) (Dorter, 2006, p.116). Acts born out of desire often have elements of calculation (to attain satisfaction) or spiritedness (frustration from lack thereof). Spirited acts can be calculative (planning revenge) or appetitive (the feeling of satisfaction). Even rational acts contain elements of desire and spiritedness. Many scholars are driven by passion, a desire for learning. The phrase “a thirst for knowledge” describes the experience of a rational kind of appetite analogous but not reducible to bodily appetite. This may be the reason why Plato held off on qualifying the appetitive as “bodily” desire.

The Republic itself suggests the soul is continuous rather than containing distinct divisions. Socrates compares the three parts of the soul to the high, low, and middle registers of music. A person becomes a harmonious being by bringing them, and any others there may be in between, together and thereby becoming whole. Although we can easily identify some notes as belonging to one or another register, and despite the utility of a musical staff, we cannot ignore the fundamental continuity and ambiguity of music itself.

In the same way, Plato’s explanations provide a useful tool for analysis. Many acts recognizably originate from one or another point along the continuum. Thus, it makes sense to speak about the soul as if it contained three distinct parts, even though they are not divisible parts (the man), but essential abstractions of a continuum (the top).

Exemplars of the Just and Unjust Soul

We’ve seen from this small introduction to Plato’s tripartite soul that he uncovers our threefold nature: a war within between our reason and insatiable appetite, with our spirit allying with reason. We’ve also noted how all three elements are present to some degree at every stage along the continuum of lower to higher conscious activity, from the appetitive to the rational. Lastly, Plato’s philosophy produces two corresponding archetypes of the soul: one in harmony and one in discord. Though by nature, reason is best suited to rule because of its interest in the whole, it can be enslaved by the appetite to serve its own ends without regard to the whole of the soul. Thrasymachus and Socrates can be seen as exemplars for each archetype.

In Book I of the Republic, Thrasymachus attempts many times to interrupt Socrates’s refutation of Polemarchus’s argument, but is barely kept silent by his companions. Eventually, he can be restrained no more and lets loose his anger upon Polemarchus and Socrates. As a sophist, Thrasymachus is driven by his appetite for money. His anger is uncontrollable because his spirited and rational natures are subservient to this desire, which knows no limit: subverting the entire structure of the soul.

Socrates, though quite passionate, possesses the internal harmony and self-control Thrasymachus lacks. He endures the insults and, despite being frightened by Thrasymachus, answers his call to debate. His body trembles, but his wisdom regarding what is and what is not to be feared (courage) allows him to speak. His dedication to looking toward the form by which things are what they are (wisdom) guides his speech. Lastly, placing his desires under the rule of his rational and spirited natures (moderation), he achieves an internal harmony (justice).

Sources

• Adam, J. (1905). The Republic of Plato. Cambridge University Press Warehouse. (1902)
• Dorter, K. (2006). Transformations of Plato’s Republic. Lexington Books.
• Homer. (1967). The Odyssey of Homer (R. Lattimore, Trans.). Harper & Row. (Original work published ca. 8th century B.C.E.)
• Sallis, J. (1975). Being and Logos: The Way of Platonic Dialogue. Duquesne University Press.
• Plato. (1961). The Republic. E. Hamilton & H. Cairns (Eds.), The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Including the Letters (P. Shorey, Trans.; pp. 575–844). Princeton University Press. (Original work published ca. 375 B.C.E.)

On the Genealogy of Morality is one of the most studied of Nietzsche’s texts. This is probably due to the fact that the text itself consists of three connected long-form essays rather than a collection of aphorisms. This makes the sudden appearance of Mr. Nosy Daredevil and his journey down into the workshop in which ideals are fabricated rather unsettling. What purpose does this strange story serve, and why did Nietzsche include it?

Why “Genealogy” and Not “Evolution” of Morality?

It is interesting that Nietzsche uses the term “genealogy” rather than evolution. The reason for this is that Nietzsche is not really interested in how human beings evolved into animals with a sense of morality. Rather, he wants to show that morality is more like a social institution than a biological phenomenon.

Think of a family tree; here we typically see marriages and births. Marriage is an institution, a kind of legal agreement. People get married for many reasons, and these reasons change over time as social rules change.

Nietzsche is interested in how morality came to be the social institution that it is today. He is not really interested in how a sense of morality might have evolved over time due to sexual selection. What he wants to show is how the social practice of morality developed over time from the first moral rules in primitive societies to the all-consuming idea of morality today.

By preferring “genealogy” over “evolution,” Nietzsche is showing that his concern is with the institution of morality rather than the science of morality.

We need to be very careful here. There is more going on here than might first appear. Nietzsche is not offering a disinterested account of how the institution of morality might have come to be. Rather, he seeks to undermine morality, and in particular Christian morality, by offering alternative accounts of the origins and development of morality to those found in Christianity.

Who Is Mr. Nosy Daredevil?

Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality consists of three essays. As a very simple overview, we can say that the first essay is about the origin of good and evil; the second essay is about guilt and bad conscience; and the third essay is concerned with what Nietzsche calls “the ascetic ideal.” In this article, we are interested in Mr. Nosy Daredevil. He appears in section 14 of the first essay.

In the original German, he is called Herr Vorwitz und Wagehals. This has been translated into Mr. Nosy Daredevil, but other translations have gone with Mr. Inquisitive and Foolhardy or Mr. Rash and Curious. It does not matter much which translation you prefer. We can see that each has the idea of curiosity, inquisitiveness, or nosiness, and there is an element of rashness, foolhardiness, or daredevilry!

So, who is he?

Mr. Nosy Daredevil is actually you, the reader. Or at the very least, he is a reader imagined by Nietzsche who is taken by him on a brief tour of the “dark workshop” where human ideals are fabricated.

Section 14 of the first essay is rather peculiar because it is nothing like sections 13 or 15. Nietzsche tells this strange, myth-like story about a place where ideals and morality are created out of lies and self-deception. Mr. Nosy Daredevil is sent or taken there by Nietzsche to look around and see for himself. Nietzsche encourages Mr. Nosy Daredevil to describe what he sees and experiences. Reading this section is a little like reading A Christmas Carol when Scrooge is taken somewhere by one of the ghosts, although it is unlikely Nietzsche actually intended us to think of Dickens.

Genealogy, First Essay, 13: The Weak Are Good and the Strong Evil

Mr. Nosy Daredevil’s section is very different from the preceding and following sections. The previous section deals with the origin of the idea of “good.”

Nietzsche argues that the weak in society, the downtrodden and the oppressed, cannot be anything other than weak. They make virtues out of things they must do through necessity because they are too weak to act in any other way. Such things include meekness and turning the other cheek, patience and self-denial, hiding away, and asking little from life.

Those that do not have these “qualities,” that is, the strong, are deemed by the weak to be “evil.” Since weakness is the opposite of strength and good is the opposite of evil, the weak consider themselves to be good and the strong to be evil.

We said above that Nietzsche is more interested in undermining Christian morality than seeking out the true origin of the ideas of good and evil. It is clear, reading Nietzsche, that those things considered good by the weak are the same kind of things that in Christian societies form the basis of what most of us consider morality to be all about.

The key point in section 13 of the first essay is that morality, as we know it, has its origins not in altruism but in resentment fueled by animosity towards the strong.

Genealogy, First Essay, 15: Christian Resentment and Revenge

In section 15, the one immediately after Mr. Nosy Daredevil’s section, Nietzsche directly challenges the idea that Christian morality is concerned with love, faith, and hope. To make his point, he references Thomas Aquinas and offers a lengthy quote (in Latin) from Tertullian. Let us first look at Aquinas.

For Nietzsche, Aquinas has let slip the dirty secret of Christian morality. Rather than being motivated by love, Aquinas reveals a desire for revenge. On Nietzsche’s understanding, a reward awaiting the weak, for a life lived in accordance with Christian values, is a front row view of the suffering and torment of the strong. Nietzsche draws attention to the delight in Aquinas’ words in his Summa Theologiae. The Catholic saint is not just saying that evil people will suffer, but that their suffering is something the good will relish and enjoy in the Kingdom of God.

Tertullian was a Christian apologist who lived and worked in the 2nd century. He was the first Christian theologian to write in Latin. Nietzsche reproduces a lengthy passage from Tertullian’s text De Spectaculis. Here we read about Christians enjoying watching those who persecuted them being tortured in the flames of Hell.

Genealogy, First Essay, 14: Mr. Nosy Daredevil

Nietzsche begins section 14 by asking his readers who among them has enough courage to see how “ideals are fabricated.” Someone volunteers, a person to whom Nietzsche gives the nickname Mr. Nosy Daredevil.

The picture painted by Nietzsche is of a dark, stifling workshop populated by a multitude of miserable whispering weaklings. The longer Mr. Nosy Daredevil lingers in this environment, the more desperate he becomes to escape. The stench of the place causes him to hold his nose and cry out “Bad air! Bad air!” But Nietzsche will not let him leave until he has told him everything there is to see.

What, exactly, is down there?

In every nook and corner, there are “rumor-mongers” turning weaknesses into “accomplishments” through lies. Mr. Nosy Daredevil also sees “impotence” being turned into “goodness” and “timidity” into “humility.” This is a dramatic portrayal of something we have already seen in section 13. Indeed, Mr. Nosy Daredevil tells Nietzsche that what he is seeing is “just like you said.”

There is also a new idea. In this mythical workshop, we see, through the eyes of Mr. Nosy Daredevil, the fabrication of obedience and subservience to authority.

Submission to the strong is deceitfully re-imagined as obedience to a higher power. “Not being able to take revenge” is rebranded as “not wanting to take revenge” or “forgiveness.” This is obedience not to the strong but to God. The weak, seen cowering and huddling together in the workshop, consider themselves to be God’s chosen people. To them, their suffering is not imposed but a choice; a choice to serve God.

Soon, Mr. Nosy Daredevil can take no more, and he begs to leave.

Why Did Nietzsche Make Up the Character of Mr. Nosy Daredevil?

The “ideals” that Mr. Nosy Daredevil sees fabricated in the stifling workshop are the ideals of justice and godliness. Nietzsche’s point is that these are not ideals but vicious lies. This leads into section 15, in which, as we have seen, Nietzsche argues that what we take to be altruistic moral ideas are actually malicious ideas fueled by resentment.

We mentioned earlier that Nietzsche is not attempting to offer anything like a scientific account of how morality and ideals came to be essential to human society. Rather, he is more interested in undermining faith in the Christian moral ideals. This is not done by offering rational arguments against Christian ethics but by suggesting an alternative account.

By offering a different view of ideals such as meekness and humility as aggressive and fueled by resentment, Nietzsche questions ideas that, during his time, were rarely, if ever, questioned. But why did he create the fantastical story of Mr. Nosy Daredevil?

The answer to this question is probably that Nietzsche was deliberately drawing attention to the use of myth to clarify religious ideas. By creating the character of Mr. Nosy Daredevil and a workshop that fabricates ideals, Nietzsche mythologizes his own account of morality. He is saying something like “this is my story of the origins of morality – how does it stack up against the Christian story?”

By doing so, he draws attention to the fact that the idea of morality we take for granted might just be a story. And if this is the case, why should we prefer the Christian story of morality over Nietzsche’s?

The clever thing is that even if we side with Christianity, we have, if for just a moment, entertained the idea that Christian morality is just a story.

All of us experience negative episodes in our lives, and almost certainly most of us have negative episodes in our futures we have yet to endure. But endure these we must because if we do not, we cannot continue. A well-known way of looking at the negative is to say something like “that which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” It is a way of turning a negative into a positive. However, few would hope for bad things to happen even if they thought they would come out stronger.

Introducing Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols

Many of us have heard the phrase “what does not kill me makes me stronger,” and some have encountered it in Kelly Clarkson’s song “Stronger,” but few realize that it comes from Friedrich Nietzsche. The full quote, taken from his text Twilight of the Idols (1889), reads, in English, as follows:

“From life’s school of war. – What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

The meaning of this maxim is quite easy to grasp, which is one reason why it is so popular, but the questions for today concern where and how this idea fits within Nietzsche’s philosophy as a whole. To answer these questions, we first need to look at where Nietzsche’s maxim was originally published.

Twilight of the Idols was written by Nietzsche in 1888 and published in 1889. This makes the text one of his last works and representative of his mature philosophy. Nietzsche intended the book itself as a kind of primer for his current ideas. He intended that those unfamiliar with his philosophy could read Twilight of the Idols and quickly catch up.

This is, as anyone who has tried reading Nietzsche can readily attest, a massively over-ambitious endeavor! It is extremely difficult to imagine someone unfamiliar with Nietzsche’s philosophy reading Twilight of the Idols and getting the kind of quick overview of key Nietzschean ideas the author was hoping for.

However, this does not mean all is lost or that the text is a failed work. On the contrary, for those already invested in his philosophy, Twilight of the Idols is indeed an extremely useful primer.

Maxims and Arrows

To understand exactly what Nietzsche was attempting with this text, we should first look at its full title, because the subtitle is illuminating, as is usually the case with his works. The full title is: Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer.

The idea of philosophizing with a hammer is evocative and might put many readers in mind of a violent way of thinking that smashes older ideas. Nietzsche was indeed highly critical of contemporary philosophy, but he actually had something else in mind. The hammer alluded to is the kind used to tune musical instruments, not the kind used to smash things up. His idea here is of testing idols by tapping them with a tuning hammer to see if they ring hollow.

The text itself is broken up into short chapters, the first of which is titled “Maxims and Arrows” (sometimes translated as “Epigrams and Arrows”). The idea commonly expressed as that which does not kill me makes me stronger is maxim or “arrow” number eight of forty-four.

So what exactly is a maxim, and why does Nietzsche fire these like arrows? A maxim is a general, pithy saying designed to express a truth. Nietzsche intends the idea that what does not kill us makes us stronger to be understood as an expression of a general truth. That is, we should accept the idea that what does not kill us makes us stronger as a simple fact of life that he will no doubt elaborate upon later.

But what about the idea of Nietzsche firing this idea at us like an arrow?

Coupled with the idea of arrows is the maxim that originates from “Life’s school of war.” Clearly, Nietzsche is taking a combative approach: he is referencing a military idea and “firing” it at readers as “arrows.”

Radical Acceptance of the Negative or Something More?

Simply focusing on the maxim itself, we can see that the idea expressed is one of acceptance and moving on with life strengthened after a negative experience.

“What does not kill me,” refers to a negative event of a kind that it is possible to overcome. Such events must be taken seriously since there is the suggested threat of death. After all, threats to our lives and existence are usually taken very seriously; and so whatever it is that “does not kill us” (but comes close) must be a very serious and very unpleasant episode. Clearly, Nietzsche is referring to an event that should not be very welcome in our lives.

However, Nietzsche goes on to say that this unwelcome event “makes me stronger.” And so, he is saying that rather than being wholly negative, unpleasant events can in some way make survivors more resilient. That is, unpleasant and unwelcome as they are, these horrible episodes in our lives leave us stronger and, in fact, better off for having experienced and survived them.

What we have here is something like what is known today as “radical acceptance,” but with one crucial difference. Typically, radical acceptance involves accepting the negative aspects of life without judgment. Here, accepting something is not necessarily approving of it.

However, as we shall see, Nietzsche wants us to love the negative aspects of life (see: amor fati).

Nietzsche’s Opening Salvo

When Nietzsche says that what does not kill us makes us stronger, he does not intend his readers to receive this as some novel idea of which he is the inventor. Rather, this is an idea that most of us are familiar with and take for granted.

The question is: why is Nietzsche “firing” the idea at us as soon as we open the text?

As mentioned above, the maxim “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” is part of a salvo of forty-four “arrows” fired at the reader in the first chapter of Twilight of the Idols.

Nietzsche not only wants his readers to have these ideas in the forefront of their minds while reading the text as a whole, but he also wants us, in some way, to feel overwhelmed by what we might call today “truth bombs.”

Nietzsche and the Eternal Return

We have seen that “that which does not kill us, makes us stronger” is an idea concerned with how well disposed we are to negative and unpleasant episodes.

A key passage that tackles this idea is found in Nietzsche’s Gay Science (1882). The text is a collection of aphorisms, with number 341, probably his most famous. In this aphorism, Nietzsche introduces the now-infamous thought experiment: if you learned that life endlessly repeats itself in the same way, would you be overjoyed or overcome?

This idea is known as the eternal return (sometimes eternal recurrence). Nietzsche begins by imagining a demon tells you that:

“This life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh and everything unspeakably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence.”

Would this revelation leave you overjoyed or crushed? For many, the thought of having to repeat the most painful moments in life would be crushing. But for someone who loved and welcomed “that which did not kill them,” they might be overjoyed at the prospect.

What Nietzsche really wants readers to ponder is: “how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to long for nothing more fervently than for [the eternal return]?”

Aphorism 341 has perplexed many, but if we focus on the final question, Nietzsche’s meaning is quite clear. For him, to have a positive attitude towards ourselves, we must not merely accept unpleasant episodes but also love them, even long for them. This longing is what he has in mind when he affirms, “what does not kill me makes me stronger.”

Nietzsche is infamous for his opposition to morality. He saw it as a way for the majority of the people, the weak and unexceptional, to not only make themselves feel better about their lack of power but to actually convince the elite to give up their strength. The danger in this, as Nietzsche saw it, is that only exceptional people, the elite, have what it takes to be great, and without greatness human existence is impoverished. Of the main moral theories, utilitarianism explicitly caters to the needs of the masses.

Utilitarianism 101

Put simply, utilitarianism is a moral theory concerned with maximizing the greatest good for the greatest number of people. In other words, when we want to determine the morally right course of action in a particular circumstance, utilitarians argue for the action that does the most good for the most people.

The founder of utilitarianism was the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), he argued that happiness or pleasure are the only things good for their own sake. However, it was a follower of Bentham, John Stuart Mill, who popularized the term “utilitarian.”

John Stuart Mill was an English philosopher who greatly admired Bentham. In 1861, he published Utilitarianism, first as three separate articles and then later as a single work in 1863. Mill agreed with Bentham on the utility principle, that maximizing happiness ought to be the ethical goal of humanity, but he also had some disagreements with his mentor. Notably, Bentham believed that all pleasure is of the same value and only differs in quantity, whereas Mill claimed that some pleasures are more worthy than others.

A third famous utilitarian of the time was the Anglican clergyman William Paley. He promoted a kind of theological utilitarianism. He believed that God wants the greatest happiness for humanity, and so actions that maximize happiness are the ones we ought to pursue.

It is interesting to note that Bentham, Mill, and Paley are all English. When Nietzsche refers to “the English” in Twilight of the Idols, he is, in fact, referring to utilitarians.

Nietzsche’s Objection to Utilitarianism

There are many objections to utilitarianism, but what, in particular, is Nietzsche’s objection to this moral theory? While it is always difficult to pinpoint Nietzsche’s views precisely, we can point out several features of utilitarianism that he might take issue with.

The first and perhaps most obvious is that utilitarianism, taken at face value, seems to treat everyone as having equal worth. Nietzsche is anything but an egalitarian. The one-sentence account of utilitarianism is: “the greatest good for the greatest number.” This can only rub Nietzsche the wrong way. For the “greatest number” always refers to the masses, the average, and what Nietzsche refers to as “the herd.”

Nietzsche believes that most moral theories are always aimed at “the herd.” When we think of herd animals, we see that the benefit of living in a herd is that the group protects the greatest number.

If we imagine a typical society, the “greatest number” will be people living perfectly ordinary lives, largely indistinguishable from their neighbors and benefiting from a system of rules that make the lives of the average person as easy as possible.

Nietzsche, however, is an elitist. For him, the greatest good for everyone is that which is best for a select group of elite individuals rather than the “greatest number.” But are the interests of the elite and the masses mutually exclusive?

What Is Wrong With Allowing the Majority to Live Easier Lives?

The question, therefore, is: why does Nietzsche object to the masses benefiting?

Nietzsche believes that what is best for a tiny elite of individuals is best for societies as a whole. However, he also believes that what is considered good for the masses is actually harmful to the elite and society. We need to be careful here.

There is a difference between what is considered good and what is actually good. A child, for example, might believe it is a good thing if they get to eat candy for dinner, can go to bed whenever they like, and does not have to brush their teeth. However, as adults, we know better.

As far as Nietzsche is concerned, the masses are in a similar situation. That is, what they think is good for them is not actually good for them. Nietzsche’s problem with moral theories like utilitarianism is that they endorse what the masses erroneously take to be good.

The Idea of Good and Evil From the Perspective of the Weak

In Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality (1887), he talks about the “morality” of lambs versus that of the large birds of prey that feed on them. Lambs, he observes, would quite reasonably bear a grudge towards the birds that prey on their number.

Nietzsche imagines them saying to each other, “These birds of prey are evil; and whoever is least like a bird of prey and most like its opposite, a lamb, – is good, isn’t he?”

On the other hand, the birds themselves would not have similar feelings towards the lambs. Nietzsche imagines them saying, “We don’t bear any grudge at all towards these good lambs, in fact we love them, nothing is tastier than a tender lamb.”

While it is understandable that lambs would consider their predators evil and themselves good, this does not necessarily make it so. It is one thing for the lambs to bear a grudge against the birds of prey, but it is quite another for them to suggest the birds ought to be like them.

They cannot reasonably say “we are lambs and we are good because we do not eat other lambs; if birds of prey want to be good they must refrain from eating lambs just as we do.” The lambs have no choice about whether or not they eat lamb, but neither do the birds of prey. Part of being a lamb is being herbivorous, just as being an eagle also means being carnivorous.

Nietzsche is using these animals to represent the weak (lambs) and the strong (eagles). For him, the weak have no choice but to be weak. The lambs’ moral theory is just a way of making them feel better about being weak. The same is true, he goes on to say, for human moral theory.

Morality as a Way for the Weak to Attack the Strong

Just as he imagined lambs getting together to discuss their lamb-centered moral theory, Nietzsche imagines the oppressed saying the following in On the Genealogy of Morals:

“Let us be different from evil people, let us be good! A good person is anyone who does not rape, does not harm anyone, who does not attack, does not retaliate, who leaves the taking of revenge to God, who keeps hidden as we do, avoids all evil, and asks little from life in general, like us who are patient and upright.”

It is very important to be clear that Nietzsche is certainly not saying that he approves of violating or harming anyone. His point is that when the weak say these things are evil, they are not opposing the things themselves, but the strong.

The strong could, if they wanted, physically harm others (this does not, of course, mean that they should), but the weak cannot. Nietzsche refers to the weak using their “cunning vindictiveness”; their “morality” is a way of attacking the strong, labeling them evil while calling themselves good.

It is no coincidence that Nietzsche chose lambs to represent the weak. This is a swipe at Christian morality. In John 1:29, John the Baptist announces Jesus as “the lamb of God” who has arrived to take away the sin of the world. One of the major questions in Nietzsche’s Genealogy is how Christianity (and the morality of the weak) became the dominant religion in Rome (converting the strong).

The Idea of Happiness for the Weak

We have been asking why a moral theory that focuses on the happiness of the masses would be seen as bad by Nietzsche. In our discussion of the morality of the weak, we saw that those in society who constitute “the weak” for Nietzsche (the downtrodden and the oppressed) are the majority. The masses or “the greatest number” whose happiness utilitarianism seeks to maximize are then the weak.

In the discussion, we also saw that Nietzsche is interested in the Christianization of Rome. Here, he sees moral force, Christianity, aimed specifically at “lambs” or “the weak,” triumphing over the strong and becoming the dominant religion. How did this happen? The answer is that the weak managed to convince the strong to eschew their strength and strive to be more like the weak. Of course, they would not refer to themselves as “the weak” but as “the good.”

For Nietzsche, you cannot have a moral theory that seeks to cater for the weak, as he believes utilitarianism does, without it also seeking to diminish the strong. By labeling weakness as good and strength as evil, you are encouraging the strong to weaken themselves. If utilitarianism is successful, the strong elite will seek to abandon what makes them strong and join the ranks of the masses.

Nietzsche believes great men and great women are motivated by challenge and the desire to overcome; their very strength itself calls to be exercised and put to use. In contrast, unexceptional people seek only comfort and the avoidance of conflict. This is what happiness means to them.

If utilitarianism encourages everyone to pursue the happiness of the majority, then those few with the potential for greatness turn their backs on greatness and join the masses, and humanity will be worse off.

When considering ancient philosophy, we typically discuss the big three: Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates. But what about women? Although often overlooked in both official academia and written historical records, this does not mean they were voiceless. Indeed, far from it. They debated with men, taught both sexes, disproved theories, and provided inspiration for great philosophical texts. Whether one looks toward the ancient foundations of Vedic wisdom or the subsequent development of Pythagorean mysticism, there have always been women who influenced philosophical thought, though in subtle ways one might not even notice.

Women in Ancient Philosophy: Myth, Mystery, and Margins

Women were more often found in myth than philosophy among early Greek thinkers. They featured as goddesses, muses, or priestesses; as embodiments of wisdom, mystery, and inspiration. Athena symbolized strategy and the rational side of war. Muses gave poets and thinkers insights. But what about real women? They are nearly invisible in official philosophical texts.

Even the pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Thales and Heraclitus, do not see women as thinkers. Women are apt to be found in the background, if at all, or as metaphors for things other than philosophy. It seems that this newfangled thing called philosophy is for men only.

Even so, it wasn’t easy to tell where early philosophy stopped and myth began. Some of what thinkers said about the way the world is ordered, or how fate works, sounded like very old stories, especially because these tended to feature women.

Consider Diotima in Plato’s Symposium. She gives Socrates a lesson on love and beauty that leads him to the concept of a godly being who loves everything. But did she exist? There are people who think so. They say she was a philosopher from Mantinea, a real town known for wise men. Others reckon Plato made her up. But whether she is fact or fiction, it makes no difference for our purposes: within male-authored texts of this period, we find women profoundly influencing some of its central ideas.

Pythagorean Women Philosophers: Harmony and the Cosmos

In antiquity, only a handful of philosophical institutes permitted women to their ranks. One notable exception was the Pythagorean community. Established by Pythagoras sometime during the 6th century BC, it offered an alternative way of life, one which championed harmony, balance, and moral probity as much as number-crunching. Women had an active role to play in his vision.

Theano, who some think was married to Pythagoras, was just one woman associated with the school who contributed to fields including ethics, mathematics, and the nature of the soul. She stressed the importance of self-control plus benevolence, both key Pythagorean virtues.

Perictione (potentially Plato’s mother) wrote about the duties of women and how the psyche might help bring cosmic consonance. Phintys also took up ethical matters, especially as they related to her sex, showing that living a life of virtue wasn’t only a male’s pursuit. The men weren’t the only ones who thought this way; these women did too. They believed that everything in the world followed a pattern, including an order and a moral code.

Thus, music and human conduct also reflected deeper cosmic trends. Like their male counterparts, they felt living rightly meant living in accordance with the universe. While most women of their era were not heard from on such matters, female Pythagorean philosophers had no qualms about making their views known. They teach today just as in bygone days. Wisdom and logic are not the exclusive province of any one sex; rather, they are attributes of those who dare to seek truths for themselves.

Socratic Circles and the Silenced Influence

Athens’ great interrogator Socrates didn’t leave a single written word, but at all times, he was surrounded by thinkers, some of whom were women. Aspasia, Xanthippe, and quite possibly Diotima prove that women were part of his world, even if they have not always been given credit in history books.

Aspasia was the partner of Pericles, renowned for her clever conversation, persuasive abilities, and influence within Athenian society. It seems likely she took part in the kind of chitchats that helped shape both political decisions and philosophical ideas. Xanthippe is generally thought of as somebody who was hard to get along with. She may well have been just that, but it’s also possible she used her keen intelligence to argue with Socrates in private. Then there is also Diotima. In Plato’s Symposium, she teaches Socrates about the ladder of love, which leads to an idea of enduring beauty. Do we take her as real or symbolic? Maybe we cannot really know. Nevertheless, the ideas are deep.

It seems these female voices either got hushed up straightaway or toned down by philosophers of a later date. But if we admire Socrates’ spirit of questioning everything (including himself), then shouldn’t we also ask whether their work has been sidelined unjustly for centuries on end?

Hypatia of Alexandria: A Philosopher and Martyr

In the ancient world, few women philosophers are known by name, let alone considered great thinkers. Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 360–415 AD) was, however, both.  She was a respected teacher who worked in the Neoplatonist tradition and attracted students from around the Roman Empire. In their classes, they grappled with ethics, astronomy, and mathematics as well as the ideas of Plato (c. 427-347 BC) and Plotinus (c. 205-270 AD).

What made Hypatia really special was not just that she was a woman in a man’s world, but that she embodied qualities that were valued by both sexes then, such as rationality, boldness, and independence of mind.

When tensions escalated between followers of the two religions, Christian and Pagan, her popularity turned her into a target. One year, in 415 AD, she was set upon by a rampaging mob and brutally killed. The murder is often held up as a dreadful emblem of intolerance and of how classical philosophy may have been dying out at this time. Plotinus had his eyes on mystical elevation. Augustine swiveled towards Christian theology instead. But Hypatia continued to believe in reason alone, and in teaching and investigating with a completely open mind.

Today, she is remembered not simply as somebody exceptionally learned, but as a brave thinker who died for her love of wisdom. Her existence is a powerful reminder that philosophy has never belonged exclusively to men.

Women in Eastern Ancient Philosophy: India and China

Women were usually excluded from philosophy in ancient Greece, but in some Eastern societies, they played a major role. Two such women in ancient India were Gargi and Maitreyi, both of whom appear in the Upanishad texts. Gargi had a famous debate with the sage Yajnavalkya about the nature of reality and the eternal self (Atman), and she more than held her own. Maitreyi also had some profound things to say when she asked whether it was possible to be really happy if you were rich, or even become immortal through wealth.

If anything, their inquiries into these areas were even more searching and challenging than those of many men in the same period. Certainly, they were of no less philosophical value. In ancient China, Daoism created an opening that was larger and more inclusive. Two early sages of Daoism, Lady Wei and Sun Bu’er, taught about spiritual transformation, balance, and harmony.

They taught that existence is non-dual in nature: meaning that things such as light and dark, male and female, are part of a single flowing whole. This view is akin to the Dao itself; always present, always changing, and impossible to pin down.

In comparison with Greek women philosophers, these Eastern thinkers often had more spiritual power but not necessarily the same social status. They believed in being at one with nature, free from inner constraints, leading simple lives. These were women who pondered the meaning of life in forest hermitages or mountain retreats just like their male counterparts. And like them, they too were not prepared to say, “This is only for men.”

Why the Voices of Female Ancient Philosophers Still Matter

Throughout history, philosophy has largely been the domain of men, a pattern the discipline’s own past often reflects. Their absence must be questioned to achieve a true understanding of how different our intellectual landscape could look if contributions from all groups were taken into account.

Hypatia, Theano, Gargi, and Diotima are cases in point. Far from being also-rans in the world of ideas, these individuals dealt with profound issues surrounding selfhood, authenticity, and ways of living; questions that continue to preoccupy us today.

An awful lot of what we study in the Western philosophical tradition was formulated at a time when women were barely allowed through the door of either formal learning or public debate spaces, let alone both. Today, feminist philosophers are revisiting old texts and posing new questions, revealing overlooked insights that are still valuable. Scholars such as Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, and Angela Davis have questioned long-accepted beliefs, stressing the importance of perspective.

When we listen to women, both now and in the past, philosophy becomes fuller, more truthful, more humane. Wisdom is for everyone; it does not lose value if you share it. On the contrary, ideas gain strength when they are discussed from different angles because they have a lot to offer us. The same goes for truths. They can be told in many ways.

Over 7,000 human languages have been identified on Earth. This means that human cognition has naturally developed to use 7,000 systems of communication to exchange information and thoughts. Yet they are often unintelligible to one another and have strikingly different features. Given the complexity of the human communication system, one may wonder whether language influences thought, and, more specifically, whether the language one speaks can influence the way one thinks. This quest is at the heart of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also known as the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also known as the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis, was originally formulated by the two 20th-century linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf. At its heart, the idea is that the language one speaks can set limits on the concepts one can think of. Hence, according to this hypothesis, language plays an incredibly significant role in determining the objects and modalities of one’s thought.

For a practical example, think of words for colors. Color words differ across languages, with some having numerous lexical items that discriminate among several core colors (e.g., crimson or lilac), and others having as few as two lexical items to discriminate between light and dark colors.

Hence, according to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, not having a word for a color in one’s native language would prevent one from thinking discretely about that color or from perceiving it distinctly in thought. Therefore, speaking a language that does not have a word for “green” might prevent one from distinctly imagining and perceiving “green” as different from “blue” or “yellow.”

Similarly, not all languages have the same words for emotions. Hence, not having a word to describe an emotion one feels might lead one to struggle to identify and distinguish it from others, consequently making it difficult to think of it as distinct from other emotions.

The Success of the Hypothesis

While suffering from several fallacies, the hypothesis remains among the best-known findings in linguistic research among non-linguists. Exploring whether a human artifact, such as language, may have the power to limit one’s thought ability is undeniably fascinating. It is bound to generate great interest even among laypersons.

However, in addition to the appeal of the topic, the hypothesis can also achieve some theoretical success if it performs well during testing. The main thing we want to check is whether there is a measurable difference in the discrimination of objects with certain labels between the two groups: the one with a good command of such labels, and the other without such a command. Technically speaking, labeling objects and concepts is a way to identify and distinguish them from similar or dissimilar items. In philosophy of language and semantics, this is called reference or denotation.

For example, the lexical item “child” denotes a human of any gender under the age of 13, whereas “teenager,” “adult,” and “elderly person” denote humans of any gender but in different age groups. In this example, the lexical items clarify that one is not simply referring to any human of any gender, but to any human of any gender within a specific age group. Being able to avail oneself of those labels allows one to recognize the existence of each group and to discriminate between them.

It is easy to imagine that if the labels for each group did not exist, one would necessarily struggle to identify them as separate and would rather think more easily of humanity as a whole.

The Problems With the Hypothesis

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, however, goes beyond advocating for denotation and rather states that thinking about, or even perceiving, entities that do not have a name in one’s language is impossible.

Think, for example, of the German word “Schadenfreude,” which describes the concept of rejoicing or being happy for the misfortune or failure of others. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis not only argues that having a word to name and denote the emotion allows one to picture it more clearly and perceive it in contrast with other emotions of the same kind, but also claims that one would not be able to think about, feel, or perceive this emotion overall. Hence, the hypothesis claims that the ability to think about the feeling of rejoicing at someone’s misfortune is more limited among English speakers than among German speakers.

A similar example could be made when thinking of colors. Italian distinguishes between dark blue, associated with the color of the sea or a night sky, and named “blu,” and light blue, associated with the color of the sky on a sunny day and named “azzurro.” Those two colors do not act as shades of one another, any more than, for an English speaker, “pink” or “orange” are shades of “red”; they are colors in their own nature. It might be possible to claim that not having a name to discriminate between dark and light blue could increase the difficulty in perceiving them as clearly distinct. However, it is undeniable that the language used cannot limit one’s power to think about a darker blue and a lighter blue.

What Does Linguistics Say?

While the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has generated considerable debate, modern linguists widely reject linguistic determinism (the idea that language determines what we can think) many contemporary researchers accept a weaker version known as linguistic relativity, which demonstrates that language can influence cognitive biases and perception.

Languages are constantly evolving, but language change is never independent of human agency. Languages are tools for human communication and, as such, are shaped by the needs of human communicators. Hence, languages, by nature, develop and evolve according to the communicative needs of their users.

This entails that languages automatically develop lexical items and expressions for things that need to be communicated. When new experiences bring language users to face new thoughts and perceptions, or when they feel the need to denote a particular instance of an experience in contrast with others of the same kind, they would develop a way to do so.

To provide a practical example, imagine moving to a very faraway country and tasting the local food. The flavors that you would experience would necessarily be incredibly different from the ones you are accustomed to, and you might feel the need to avail of a new word or periphrasis to describe them.

The new flavors consist of a new experience and a new perception, which, once experienced and perceived, may require you to adapt your language to describe a wholly new sensation. However, the fact that your language might not have had a way to describe that flavor does not entail that you could not perceive it, and that you cannot think back about it. Instead, the language adapted itself to your newly arisen need for expression.

It follows that language does not come before thought but rather serves as a tool for communicating thoughts. Hence, arguing that language can determine thought would entail misunderstanding the influence that thought has over language and the derivational process that joins experience, perception, and thought to language.

What Does Philosophy Say?

While linguistically challenging, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is bound to generate further debate in the field of philosophy, particularly in the philosophy of mind. Philosophy of mind is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with cognition, i.e., the functioning of the mind, and the way we perceive, understand, and communicate. Part of its endeavor is also to investigate the nature of cognitive relations and exchanges between individuals, a matter that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis directly challenges.

A very relevant issue presented by the hypothesis is that, by accepting it, one would have to argue that humans have overall different systems of cognition that are ultimately incompatible.

At the risk of simplifying the hypothesis, it would follow from the fact that over 7,000 languages have been identified in the world, that humanity has developed over 7,000 systems of cognition, shaped by the languages associated with them. Claiming that humans do not share a cognitive system, but rather have several cognitive systems, each slightly or deeply different from the others, inevitably raises additional questions about communication and understanding.

The Destiny of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

This much can be safely concluded: since its initial formulation, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has generated great interest and fed numerous debates both within and outside of the academic world.

As pointed out in the previous sections, its claims are too strong and ultimately inconsistent with the nature of cognition. So, the hypothesis is wrong.

The hypothesis has made some interesting predictions that have prompted academic interest in the relationship between language and cognition and inspired multiple insightful studies on the issue. Hence, while the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been widely investigated and revised better to reflect the actual nature of the human cognitive system and enhance its potential accuracy, it has also been criticized for making inaccurate predictions.

Considering that this would not have been possible without the initial formulation of the hypothesis, its value remains unobjectionable for the interest that it has generated in the study of the relation between language, thought, and cognition.

During his ten years of wandering and solitude, al-Ghazālī lived austerely and forewent ordinary comforts. He authored many of his important works during this period and sought spiritual advancement through Sufi practices. In his final years, he immersed himself in contemplation and became a revered master of Sufism. Every moment of his life, until the end, was filled with acts of devotion in preparation for his union with the Beloved.

The Mysterious Last Morning of an Islamic Luminary

Ahmad, al-Ghazālī ’s younger brother, recounts his death: On a quiet Monday morning in December 1111 AD, in the Persian city of Tus, al-Ghazālī performed his ablutions and offered prayers. He then asked for his burial shroud, kissed it, and pressed it against his eyes, saying, “I hear and obey the call to go to the King.” He then rested his feet pointing toward Mecca and was taken up to the heavens by God.

According to a well-known spiritual tradition, al-Ghazālī told his companions that three men would come out from the Iraqi desert; two of them would wash his body, while the third would offer the funeral prayer. After the prayer, the men vanished as mysteriously as they had appeared. 

His followers later discovered a poem he had composed on his final night, either beneath his pillow or beside him. Titled Qul li-ikhwani (“Say to My Brothers”), it contains his final words on life and death.

The Radical Message of the Verse Found Beneath the Pillow

The opening lines of the poem called upon his companions to cease their mourning and weeping. The translation by Dr. Martin Lings, who was taught by C.S. Lewis at Magdalen College, Oxford, reads as follows: 

Say unto brethren when they see me dead,
And weep for me, lamenting me in sadness:
“Think ye I am this corpse ye are to bury?
I swear by God, this dead one is not I.” 

Al-Ghazālī vividly describes his body as a “talisman of dust,” an imprisoning shell, a temporary garment, and a broken birdcage from which his true identity had been freed. 

Islamic teaching prescribes how to prepare for death and how bodies are to be readied for burial. These observances include, among others, the reverential washing of the body with clean water and soap or ground lotus leaves (Sidr); shrouding the body in a white cotton or linen cloth (Kafan); performing the funeral prayer prior to burial; observing burial customs and grave placement; and observing the three-day mourning period (Hidaad), as well as visiting graves to pray for and remember the deceased. 

Imagine the shock al-Ghazālī ’s readers must have felt when he urged them not to grieve for him or mourn his passing (reminiscent of Socrates’ final words in the Crito). Al-Ghazālī recommended sleeping on one’s right side, following the practice (Sunnah) of the Prophet Muhammad, while facing the qibla, thereby anticipating the body’s positioning in the grave according to Islamic rites. He also advised reflecting on mortality and the impermanence of the body. Like other Sufi mystics, he passionately contemplated and meditated on death, viewing life as a pilgrimage toward unending life with God. 

Challenging Orthodox Views on Death and the Afterlife

While exegetes offered various interpretations and engaged in debates, orthodox medieval Islamic scholars often held a literal and legalistic view of the afterlife. Drawing on sacred and cosmological models, they envisaged the Seven Heavens as vertically nested celestial spheres for the righteous, and the Seven Hells as descending in tiers for the unrighteous, corresponding to the severity of their crimes. 

Philosophers such as Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) and al-Ghazālī (though they disagreed on philosophical matters as well) focused on the importance of cultivating intellectual and moral habits of virtue in this life—specifically, those of contemplation. By doing so, the self-subsisting substance of the soul is polished and purified, allowing it to avoid the spiritual anguish of bodily attachment and effortlessly attain disembodied continuous spiritual communion with the Divine. Al-Ghazālī believed the afterlife was a state of union with God for the repentant, the supreme spiritual delight of which was the Beatific Vision. 

In his deathbed poem, al-Ghazālī declared that he was effectively dead while alive and would gratefully attain true life in his death (again, reminiscent of Socrates’ teaching that philosophy is preparation for death). Although not all their teachings align, the 12th-century Persian philosopher and mystic ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt similarly experienced a crisis of certainty. Like al-Ghazālī, he regarded the human intellect and senses as blind when it came to perceiving the realm transcendent to this one. ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt was imprisoned in Baghdad on charges of heresy and publicly executed in his hometown of Hamadan on May 6/7, 1131, at the behest of Sultan Maḥmūd ibn Malikshāh. 

Both thinkers believed in a higher form of intuitive knowledge acquired through inner insight, through the heart, implying that an inward path, and not exclusively ritual observance, is the true way to God. 

The Final Triumph of Mysticism Over Legalism?

Al-Ghazālī ’s lifelong intellectual effort lay in synthesizing Islamic jurisprudence and Sufism. He clearly did not think of them as opposites, but facets of the same jewel. Yet his final words give prominence to Sufism and its concept of Fana, describing the stages of the ego’s dissolution to attain unveiled proximity to God. 

The legacy of this poem endures, having alchemized a moment of somber mortality into a celebrated lyrical work of ultimate liberation.