Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

SUBSCRIBE NOW

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Nietzsche Past & Future

Two Famous Philistines of Philosophy

Christopher Devlin Brown sees similarities and differences in Nietzsche’s and Plato’s critiques of art.

Received wisdom says that the philosophical projects of Nietzsche and Plato are about as diametrically opposite as any two philosophical projects can be. This impression is not without justification. Plato is the philosopher of otherworldly order who argued that our senses do not reveal any valuable or fundamental truths. Nietzsche is a self-proclaimed inverter of Platonic philosophy, denying and damning all that is eternal, perfect, and transcendent. However, an overlooked parallel between Nietzsche and Plato in their aesthetic ideas shows they have some unexpected common ground.

…