2017 Taylor & Francis. Throughout his career as an author, Nietzsche regularly challenged the philosophical authority and standing of Socrates. 1 Despite admiring the courage and wisdom of Socrates in everything he did, said-and did not say (GS 340), Nietzsche evinced an abiding skepticism, bordering on irreverence, with respect to the teachings for which Socrates is best known. Deeply suspicious of the dominant philosophical reception of Socrates, and of the supposedly noble ideal of the dying Socrates, Nietzsche mounted a persistent campaign to come to grips with his enigmatic predecessor. As several scholars have noted, moreover, this campaign was apparently integral to Nietzsches understanding of his own philosophical project. 2 As such, the task of solving the problem of Socrates may have struck Nietzsche as prerequisite to the task of refining the focus of his own philosophical labors.
