Pre-Owned Schopenhauer as Educator: Nietzsche's Third Untimely Meditation (Paperback) 1503386317 9781503386310

My partial translation of Nietzsche's Third Untimely Meditation - covering all of sections I-V, which actually deal with Schopenhauer, but not sections VI-VIII, which move on to other things - was not initially prepared for my own benefit at all, or with any thought of publication, but only for my students at Colgate University, to whom I wanted to give a sense of Nietzsche's beautiful diction as I hear it having grown up with the language. It was a labor of love, in other words, a reverential act towards Nietzsche, and an expression of commitment to a particularly fine group of students.
In light of that blameless genesis, I am all the more saddened by how certain armchair critics have seen fit to malign the work, and slander me, by making it sound as if I were suppressing something vital, or even censoring a thinker and writer I admire. Absurd charges with deplorable results, not least for those potential readers who might have benefited from this version of the text, but who cannot go to the original to verify how faithful it in fact is to Nietzsche's German and therefore end up being misled by crude noises from self-appointed defenders of the faith.
Nothing has been willfully falsified; all I have done is to make an informed decision about the much greater pertinence of the earlier sections to the subject announced in the title, namely Schopenhauer as an educator. Those who cannot see the clear break in the argument where I leave off, or who do not feel qualified to make such a call, I commend for their restraint, so long as it expresses true intellectual humility; but to cry foul at the very thought of such judgements in order to draw attention to one's own superior wisdom is another matter altogether. Not for nothing does Zarathustra warn his devotees to beware lest a statue slay them. One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.
Nietzsche's essay is not only a homage to Schopenhauer, but also a reflection on education in the most comprehensive sense. Many of Nietzsche's writings aimed at instructing the modern world on how to philosophize with a sledgehammer, but the premise of the Third Meditation is altogether more tender, namely the singular marvel that is every human being. True educators help us to identify the uniqueness that makes us special, but they can only point the way: "No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don't ask, walk!"
(Since this translation went into print in 2014 it has been repeatedly revised and corrected. The current edition was last updated in early 2022.)