Only through a knowledge of the present can one acquire an inclination for the study of classical antiquity

(translated from my Chinese blog)

This is my new project, “Nietzschean Philology”. In each installment, I’ll read a passage from Nietzsche’s original writings. By practicing text analysis, we can enhance our ability to understand the world.

In "We Philologists" Section 7, Nietzsche raises what he calls the “antinomy of philology”: The study of the ancient is meant to help us better understand the contemporary. Yet, it’s impossible to understand the ancient without taking into account the insights of the contemporary world. Nietzsche proposes breaking this cycle by destroying our notion of having a complete understanding of any era or world. It’s impossible to “completely understand” any world. All true understanding is partial, because it’s impossible for humans to adopt an objectively neutral holistic perspective. Nietzsche goes on to say that a true philologist must have rich experience of contemporary life. They must draw intellectual inspiration from their own lives and project their contemporary experiences onto the ancients, thereby uncovering the hidden connections between the two eras.

Philology as the science of antiquity does not, of course, endure for ever; its elements are not inexhaustible. What cannot be exhausted, however, is the ever-new adaptation of one's age to antiquity; the comparison of the two. If we make it our task to understand our own age better by means of antiquity, then our task will be an everlasting one.--This is the antinomy of philology: people have always endeavoured to understand antiquity by means of the present--and shall the present now be understood by means of antiquity? Better: people have explained antiquity to themselves out of their own experiences; and from the amount of antiquity thus acquired they have assessed the value of their experiences. Experience, therefore, is certainly an essential prerequisite for a philologist--that is, the philologist must first of all be a man; for then only can he be productive as a philologist. It follows from this that old men are well suited to be philologists if they were not such during that portion of their life which was richest in experiences.

It must be insisted, however, that it is only through a knowledge of the present that one can acquire an inclination for the study of classical antiquity. Where indeed should the impulse come from if not from this inclination? When we observe how few philologists there actually are, except those that have taken up

philology as a means of livelihood, we can easily decide for ourselves what is the matter with this impulse for antiquity: it hardly exists at all, for there are no disinterested philologists.

Our task then is to secure for philology the universally educative results which it should bring about. The means: the limitation of the number of those engaged in the philological profession (doubtful whether young men should be made acquainted with philology at all). Criticism of the philologist. The value of antiquity: it sinks with you: how deeply you must have sunk, since its value is now so little!

"We Philologists" 7, Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by J. M. Kennedy 

The first sentence builds upon the last sentence of the previous section: Philologists “must have a clear understanding of their actual goals.” What are these true goals? Is it simply to objectively reveal the ancient world once and for all? If so, the potential of the field of philology would be quickly exhausted—perhaps it already has been. But if the goal of philology isn’t to understand the ancient world, but rather to “use the ancient world to better understand our own time,” then philologists possesses everlasting potential.

But this leads to a troubling prospect. The core issue that Nietzsche raises in this passage is what he calls the “antinomy of philology.” On the one hand, the goal of philology is to understand the ancient through the medium of the modern (since the modern is the only tool available to philologists). On the other hand, it’s impossible to understand the modern without referring to the ancient. If the goal of philology is to reveal some objective, universal truth of history (assuming he still believes in such a thing), then although philology is limited, it’s still stable and based on objective standards. But if one doesn’t believe in any objective truth or standards, and if different eras can interpret the same ancient texts in completely different ways, even contradictory ways, then we’re trapped in a vicious cycle: should we use the ancient to explain the modern, or the modern to explain the ancient? The foundation of understanding is thereby destroyed.

For Nietzsche, the most important question regarding antiquity is the origin of morality. After rejecting all metaphysical explanations, humans exist first and foremost as part of nature, as animals. But other animals have no concept of morality. So why do humans have morality? Where does this human uniqueness come from? We always live in the “present era,” and what we call “morality” refers to the moral concepts of our time. But from a historical perspective, since the world is temporal and everything has its causes and effects, then contemporary moral concepts must also have their origins in some point in history. We don’t know how humans lived before morality existed, nor how this transition from nothing to something was accomplished. After all, our lives are based on moral concepts, so it’s hard to imagine a world without morality. On the contrary, we need to understand our own moral lives by considering the pre-moral world of antiquity. This creates a vicious cycle.

The question of the origins of morality is just one of countless questions related to ancient times. There are countless similar questions. No matter which of these issues philologists choose to study, they will inevitably encounter what Nietzsche called the “antinomy of philology”. Nietzsche’s solution to this problem is as follows:

The reality of the present is the foundation for all understanding. We’ve always tried to understand the past through the lens of the present. But in doing so, we can only comprehend a small portion of the past—that is, those aspects that are still connected to the present. The rest remains forever lost. Yet, by using this small portion of the past, we can better understand the present.

If a philologist seeks a comprehensive understanding of either the ancient or the contemporary age, he inevitably falls into the antinomy of philology. But if he doesn’t seek such a comprehensive understanding, if he’s satisfied with even a partial understanding rather than complete ignorance, then the antinomy disappear. Nietzsche believed that this latter approach represents a “better” definition of philology. Under this definition, the past is no longer seen as a mirror that reflects everything, but rather as a “distiller” of knowledge—that is, it provides us with only a small portion of insights. The efficiency of this “distillation,” or the amount of insight that can be extracted, in turn depends on the philologist’s own contemporary experiences. Thus, after addressing the issue of the antinomy, Nietzsche shifted his focus to experience: only those who have rich life experiences, namely the elderly, are qualified to be linguists.

On the surface, philologists seem to be people who are fascinated by the ancient world. It’s as though some people are born with a certain sensitivity or talent that makes them particularly interested in a particular field. This is similar to the belief that, at the age of three, a child can determine its future career based on what it draws: if it draws a abacus, it will become an accountant; if it draws pens and paper, it will become a writer. * Nietzsche would certainly reject such myths. Innate tendencies cannot take shape unless they’re confronted with real-life situations. The problem with studying the ancient world is that no one actually lived in those times (the ancient people also only lived in their own “modern times”). Therefore “the impulse for antiquity hardly exists at all.” Since a philologist is first and foremost a human being with his own biases and interests, there’s no reason to believe that he can remain completely objective in his studies of the ancient world. His concerns and blind spots will inevitably stem from his own real-life experiences.

Philologists cannot possibly care about the lives of ancient people, unless they share certain life experiences in some way. People who possess this kind of insight—those who can see the similarities between their own lives and those of ancient people—are extremely rare. As a result, the vast majority of philologists are simply earning a living, without any real interest in ancient studies. Further evidence is that, since Nietzsche, classical philology has become increasingly irrelevant. With the decline of humanities and liberal education, there’s even less interest in philology today. The society's“will to pay” for philology is shrinking. Therefore, anyone who really wants to work in the field of philology must be willing to accept the consequences of this decline—perhaps by spending decades in obscurity. It seems that only those who truly understand the essence of ancient cultures would be willing to bear such costs.

Nietzsche called for limiting the number of people who could engage in the philological profession, the criticism of philologists, and finally the acceleration of the decline of ancient studies, in order to filter out those few individuals who truly had an impulse for research. Only such people met Nietzsche’s criteria: those who had a “clear perception of their actual goals.” Nietzsche believed that only these people were worthy of considering themselves superior to others, of exploiting the illusion of equality that characterized this era, and of striving for excellence at the expense of the masses.

* This is a widely accepted practice among Chinese people, called "三岁抓阄".