Between instinct and rationality - the supreme value for Nietzsche and Socrates

Abstract

Challenged in this paper is the general perception of how the concept of supreme value was perceived by Socrates and Friedrich Nietzsche. Socrates is usually described as an extreme rationalist while Nietzsche is referred to as a proponent of vitality and instinctive behaviour designed to increase the will to power. It follows from an analysis of Xenophon’s and Plato’s works by the author of this paper that the Athenian’s ethical intellectualism was far from dogmatic. For his real goal was to raise his interlocutors’ doubts in the discourse and stimulate critical thinking. This took often the form of a verbal agon, which actually corresponds with Nietzsche’s will to power. Yet a juxtaposition of Callicles from Plato's Gorgias with Nietzsche's thought indicates that what mattered for them both apart from pure instinctiveness was the ability to control and overcome that phenomenon. The author concludes that neither Socrates nor Nietzsche should be associated with holding customarily extreme positions, and that the value considered by both as the supreme one was possessing an "instinct of rationality", that is taking such advantage of the potential of our plastic nature which reconciles the will to power with reason.