Monday, August 15, 2005
Brian Leiter is a chair at a university in Texas and a critic of book reviews. I last heard of him in a book review in The Economist:
Yesterday, Mr. Leiter had a go at William Vollmann's review of the Curtis Cate's biography of Nietzsche:
Now, I pointed out once, on the occasion of Mr. Leiter's disparaging remarks following the death of Derrida, that there was some hint of jealously because Derrida was a successful writer--you can walk into a bookstore and find his books--and Mr. Leiter is not. I suspect much the same is behind Mr. Leiter's remarks about Vollmann. And Vollmann can also write well enough to live from the proceeds. Now he's not the easiest weriter to read, and his themes can be harsh--I don't think I'd let my daughter date Mr. Vollmann--, but a dozen his books sit on my shelves. Onwards to Mr. Leiter's critique of the review.
He concludes:
A while ago [Mr. Leiter] hit on a solution to the question of how to rank philosophy departments. Defining and measuring philosophical output is a challenge, to put it mildly. Mr Leiter's answer was to ask philosophers themselves which departments were best. Out of their answers, after a statistical working-over, he built a league table, which he regularly updates. It is called the Philosophical Gourmet and you can see it on the web.This resulted in Mr. Leiter's petulant letter to the Economist, which they sadly no longer carry, but there is a Leiter Reports websites for those that can't get enough of Mr. Leiter's bruised ego and self-apotheosis. I had a look at the Philosophical Gourmet and as far as I can tell, the intersection between what it and I consider philosophy is almost an empty set. Well, to each his own. Our differing understandings of what is philosophy being like the difference between the term metaphysics as understood by bookstores and by someone who knows what they are on about:
Although plenty of philosophers consult the Gourmet, it makes others of them cringe. Two years ago close on 300, including some from top-ranked New York University and Rutgers, wrote an open letter complaining that Mr Leiter's table measured reputation, not excellence, and that it was driving good students away from middle-rank colleges in a race for the top.
“Where is your philosophy section?” you ask.But we digress.
“It’s all philosophy. Anything specific?” says the shaggy haired weirdo at the counter.
“Anything on metaphysics?”
“All these are metaphysical books. This is a metaphysical bookstore. Any authors come to mind?”
“Edmund Husserel or Martin Heidegger?
“Who are they?”
Yesterday, Mr. Leiter had a go at William Vollmann's review of the Curtis Cate's biography of Nietzsche:
Although Curtis Cate's biography of Nietzsche appeared nearly two years ago, just today the Times has run a lengthy review of the book by the writer and novelist William Vollman, who, best I can tell, has no expertise in the subject, and who certainly displays none in the review.Hmmm, the biography was published in 2005. What the heck, appearances deceive. Perhaps two years is how long Mr. Leiter has been trying to get someone to publish his review.
Now, I pointed out once, on the occasion of Mr. Leiter's disparaging remarks following the death of Derrida, that there was some hint of jealously because Derrida was a successful writer--you can walk into a bookstore and find his books--and Mr. Leiter is not. I suspect much the same is behind Mr. Leiter's remarks about Vollmann. And Vollmann can also write well enough to live from the proceeds. Now he's not the easiest weriter to read, and his themes can be harsh--I don't think I'd let my daughter date Mr. Vollmann--, but a dozen his books sit on my shelves. Onwards to Mr. Leiter's critique of the review.
Our first hint that Mr. Vollmann is well out of his depth comes early on, when he praises Cate's summary of "the relevant aspects of Schopenhauer, Aristotle and others by whom Nietzsche was influenced and against whom he reacted."Phyrro? Is he serious? The other difference between Mr. Vollmann and Mr. Leiter, is that apparently Mr. Vollmann--who, to be honest, is a know-it-all poly-math type--knows more about philosophy than Mr. Leiter. If we look up Nietzsche in the encyclopedia we find in the second paragraph:
Aristotle?
Many figures from antiquity--Thales, Thucydides, Socrates, Plato, Phyrro--loom large for Nietzsche (as both targets and inspirations), but as every serious student of Nietzsche knows, Aristotle is notable for his almost total absence from the corpus. There are a mere handful of explicit references to Aristotle in Nietzsche's writings (even in the unpublished notebooks), and no extended discussion of the kind afforded Plato or Thales. And apart from some generally superficial speculations in the secondary literature about similarities between Aristotle's "great-souled man" and Nietzsche's idea of the "higher" or "noble" man--similarities nowhere remarked upon by Nietzsche himself--there is no scholarship supporting the idea that Aristotle is a significant philosopher for Nietzsche in any respect.
In addition to the influence of Greek culture, particularly the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle,...No mention of Phyrro there, mind you. And when I fetch Nietzsche's lectures on Rhetoric from my library, I find that the lecture course consists of Nietzsche comparing what Aristotle had to say on the subject to other classical writer's remarks. Really, how can one begin to understand Nietzsche's contributions to metaphysics and his Will To Power without Aristotle's Metaphysics? "No scholarship", eh? Trying reading Nietzsche! Or not. A wise man once said:
From all that has been suggested, it should be clear that one cannot read Nietzsche in a haphazard way; that each one of his writings has its own character and limits; and that the most important works and labors of his thought, which are contained in his posthumous writings, make demands to which we are not equal. It is advisable, therefore, that you postpone reading Nietzsche for the time being, and first study Aristotle for ten to fifteen years.To cap off this inanity, one finds that Mr. Leiter is the author of several books on Nietzsche. Books which, I expect, his students probably had to buy (Amazon.com Sales Rank: #589,078). And no one asked him for his learned opinion on this biography (sniff, snivel)!
--Martin Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking?, Lecture VI
He concludes:
The public culture in the United States is debased enough that one might be forgiven for entertaining the modest hope that a high-profile review of a book on a philosopher might be written by someone who knows something about the philosopher and his philosophy.Looking at Mr. Leiter's picture on the faculty web page, one appreciates where that hopelessness originates, and reading his misinformed remarks, one understands that, as they say in the great state of Texas, he is all chair and no philosophy. ¶ 10:28 PM
But perhaps Sartre is right, and we must live without hope.
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Great post. I keep halfway thinking about buying Leiter's book on Neitzsche just because it sounds like such a different reading. Yet the guy annoys me enough that I'm never sure whether I'd enjoy it. I'm told he takes Nietzsche as almost a positivist, which just sounds wrong somehow.
Have you read his book? If so, what did you think?
Have you read his book? If so, what did you think?
Haven't read his book. I mainly come across his opinions when his posts appear on "Butterflies and Wheels"; somewhat connected with "The Philosophers’ Magazine". It's never clear whether they agree with him, or whether they find his stuff amusing, as they tend to pick up the more polemical ones.
To be honest I have read a few posts on Nietzsche by him on his blog I liked. But his polemics are so shrill and often silly that the 90% of the rest of the stuff on his blog turned me off. And that's not even a comment on his politics, which I disagree with. If anything I enjoy reading those I disagree with more so as to find holes in my own reasoning. But with him it was just painful.
The philosopher with the most index entries in Nietzsche's lectures is, drumroll, Aristotle!
And then there's Kaufmann: "Aristotle's conception made a tremendous impression on Nietzsche, whose opposition to Christianity can scarcely be seen in proper perspective apart from Aristotle's ethics."
And then there's Kaufmann: "Aristotle's conception made a tremendous impression on Nietzsche, whose opposition to Christianity can scarcely be seen in proper perspective apart from Aristotle's ethics."
# posted by 
: 9:40 PM
: 9:40 PM
You guys don't have to read his blog if you don't want to (I find it amusing), and I can't defend the snarky tone of the review, but I think Leiter's book (we're talking about Nietzsche on Morality, I assume; I think the others are editions) is pretty good (I've only read parts of it). It's a good, clear intro for students. He does push the naturalism pretty hard though, plus he's dismissive of continentals. The view itself is very much like Maudemarie Clark's article in Janaway's Schopenhauer as Nietzsche's Educator, so try that instead (also her book) if he bugs you. I don't want to agree with them (if they're right Nietzsche becomes less interesting, for me anyway), but they make some good points. I had been missing the Schopenhauer angle in my reading, and certain famous passages look very different against a Schopenhauerian background (darn). Anyway, it makes sense for perspectivists to consider alternate perspectives, right?
As for Aristotle, I agree 100% with the second half of the Kaufmann quote that anonymous cites (the part after the comma); but that doesn't mean there was much of a direct influence, and neither does Heidegger's advice, or yours. Of course Nietzsche was a classical scholar, so it stands to reason that he knew Aristotle fairly well, but you certainly don't see much discussion of Aristotle in the published writings. (For instance, the index to Kaufmann's edition of the Genealogy has only one reference to Aristotle: a citation to a secondary work on the Rhetoric in one of Kaufmann's notes.) Could it be that simple, that some people look askance at the unpublished material while others worship it?
And are you really making fun of Leiter's picture??
Dave M.
As for Aristotle, I agree 100% with the second half of the Kaufmann quote that anonymous cites (the part after the comma); but that doesn't mean there was much of a direct influence, and neither does Heidegger's advice, or yours. Of course Nietzsche was a classical scholar, so it stands to reason that he knew Aristotle fairly well, but you certainly don't see much discussion of Aristotle in the published writings. (For instance, the index to Kaufmann's edition of the Genealogy has only one reference to Aristotle: a citation to a secondary work on the Rhetoric in one of Kaufmann's notes.) Could it be that simple, that some people look askance at the unpublished material while others worship it?
And are you really making fun of Leiter's picture??
Dave M.
Dave,
My basic point is that Leiter is way out of line in his critique of Vollmann's review.
(1) Vollmann's is entitled to his opinion of the biography,
(2) based on the references to Nietzsche scattered through his work, the NY Times made a reasonable decision in asking him to write the review (this is not intended to defend the NY Times Book Review which has declined in quality over the years), and
(3) Leiter is in fact incorrect in his criticisms.
I'm not going to fisk Leiter's review line by line, but his first and main criticism regarding Aristotle is factually incorrect, for the reasons already listed. You are absolutely correct that as a classical scholar Nietzsche would quote Aristotle extensively, and most of the references to Aristotle are, in effect, "Aristotle says...". That's because Aristotle is the chief source of so much classical philosophy, for example, the Pre-Socratics. Leiter is completely incorrect in saying Aristotle is absent for the Nietzsche corpus. In fact, the opposite is the case, and Aristotle may be the most cited philosopher if one were to tally the citations in all of Nietzsche works. However, my money would be on Socrates if it came to a bet.
Now, I'm not saying that Nietzsche was an Aristotelean, but beyond the quantity of references to Aristotle in Nietzsche's works, Aristotle may also be the Nietzsche's principle philosophical foil, at least as far as aesthetics and metaphysics are concerned--Plato, or Socrates via Plato, if all philosophical domains are considered.
It's also worth noting that in many of his later works Nietzsche barely cites anyone. He's not writing scholarly philosophy papers, but instead writing about his views on culture and other matters. And in some cases his writings were collected and published by others; e.g. his sister.
Heidegger certainly makes a good case that Nietzsche's metaphysical thinking was developed in the context of Aristotle's. "Will to power" can be explained by contrasting it to the discussion of both power and will in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Although "God is dead" is usually considered to be about the Judeo-Christian God, it can also be explained in terms of Aristotle's discussion of god as the prima causa of being in (book theta, I believe) of his Metaphysics.
That Vollmann's read Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the second's studies of the first is apparent from references scattered through out his novels. So, all in all, Vollmann is not off the mark in citing Aristotle as an influence, and Leiter's critique emerges as a misinformed fit of pique.
And his picture. Well, that's personal. He reminds me of my sixth grade PE teacher.
My basic point is that Leiter is way out of line in his critique of Vollmann's review.
(1) Vollmann's is entitled to his opinion of the biography,
(2) based on the references to Nietzsche scattered through his work, the NY Times made a reasonable decision in asking him to write the review (this is not intended to defend the NY Times Book Review which has declined in quality over the years), and
(3) Leiter is in fact incorrect in his criticisms.
I'm not going to fisk Leiter's review line by line, but his first and main criticism regarding Aristotle is factually incorrect, for the reasons already listed. You are absolutely correct that as a classical scholar Nietzsche would quote Aristotle extensively, and most of the references to Aristotle are, in effect, "Aristotle says...". That's because Aristotle is the chief source of so much classical philosophy, for example, the Pre-Socratics. Leiter is completely incorrect in saying Aristotle is absent for the Nietzsche corpus. In fact, the opposite is the case, and Aristotle may be the most cited philosopher if one were to tally the citations in all of Nietzsche works. However, my money would be on Socrates if it came to a bet.
Now, I'm not saying that Nietzsche was an Aristotelean, but beyond the quantity of references to Aristotle in Nietzsche's works, Aristotle may also be the Nietzsche's principle philosophical foil, at least as far as aesthetics and metaphysics are concerned--Plato, or Socrates via Plato, if all philosophical domains are considered.
It's also worth noting that in many of his later works Nietzsche barely cites anyone. He's not writing scholarly philosophy papers, but instead writing about his views on culture and other matters. And in some cases his writings were collected and published by others; e.g. his sister.
Heidegger certainly makes a good case that Nietzsche's metaphysical thinking was developed in the context of Aristotle's. "Will to power" can be explained by contrasting it to the discussion of both power and will in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Although "God is dead" is usually considered to be about the Judeo-Christian God, it can also be explained in terms of Aristotle's discussion of god as the prima causa of being in (book theta, I believe) of his Metaphysics.
That Vollmann's read Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the second's studies of the first is apparent from references scattered through out his novels. So, all in all, Vollmann is not off the mark in citing Aristotle as an influence, and Leiter's critique emerges as a misinformed fit of pique.
And his picture. Well, that's personal. He reminds me of my sixth grade PE teacher.
"So, all in all, Vollmann is not off the mark in citing Aristotle as an influence, and Leiter's critique emerges as a misinformed fit of pique."
Agreed. However, I would say that Leiter is strictly speaking correct about direct references to Aristotle in his published works about morality (and of course a reference to the pre-socratics that begins "Aristotle says [...]" is not really to the point). On the other hand, again, Aristotle's work is indeed highly relevant *for us* in discussing Nietzsche (virtue, being, etc.); I'm not sure that even Leiter was disputing that (I sure wasn't). Be that as it may, my own basic point was that Leiter's scholarly work is not just stupid, and he really is a real philosopher (albeit one whose committed naturalism strikes me as misguided and pernicious).
Agreed. However, I would say that Leiter is strictly speaking correct about direct references to Aristotle in his published works about morality (and of course a reference to the pre-socratics that begins "Aristotle says [...]" is not really to the point). On the other hand, again, Aristotle's work is indeed highly relevant *for us* in discussing Nietzsche (virtue, being, etc.); I'm not sure that even Leiter was disputing that (I sure wasn't). Be that as it may, my own basic point was that Leiter's scholarly work is not just stupid, and he really is a real philosopher (albeit one whose committed naturalism strikes me as misguided and pernicious).
I missed all the above posts until Duck pointed them out to me.
I think though that Enowning raises a good point about Leiter's polemic. It is one thing to wax hyperbolic and shrill when pontificating about political matters. It seems that when it creeps into ones philosophical work though it is problematic. (And I say that recognizing that I'm but an amateur who can but wish to be as well educated on the subject as Leiter)
It seems to me that Leiter made some highly exaggerated (i.e. wrong) criticisms while slamming a reasonable interpretation. This reflects on Leiter and sadly, whenever Leiter writes on his blog on something I can judge, seems typical. Recognizing that my own capabilities are limited.
Having said that though, it does seem that treating Nietzsche as a thoroughgoing naturalist is questionable. (And I've not read Leiter on this so I'm speaking from ignorance) I tend to agree with commentators who see his death of God allegory to reflect as much on those who adopt a de facto God of some absolute scientific knowledge as the God of religion of Hegel. And given that I'm not sure but what "naturalism" wouldn't be treated as just an other God by Nietzsche.
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I think though that Enowning raises a good point about Leiter's polemic. It is one thing to wax hyperbolic and shrill when pontificating about political matters. It seems that when it creeps into ones philosophical work though it is problematic. (And I say that recognizing that I'm but an amateur who can but wish to be as well educated on the subject as Leiter)
It seems to me that Leiter made some highly exaggerated (i.e. wrong) criticisms while slamming a reasonable interpretation. This reflects on Leiter and sadly, whenever Leiter writes on his blog on something I can judge, seems typical. Recognizing that my own capabilities are limited.
Having said that though, it does seem that treating Nietzsche as a thoroughgoing naturalist is questionable. (And I've not read Leiter on this so I'm speaking from ignorance) I tend to agree with commentators who see his death of God allegory to reflect as much on those who adopt a de facto God of some absolute scientific knowledge as the God of religion of Hegel. And given that I'm not sure but what "naturalism" wouldn't be treated as just an other God by Nietzsche.
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