Institutions of Higher Learning, Then and Now, His and Ours

The beginning of the 1872 lectures sets us toward a series of autobiographical statements that, for his listeners at the time, remained unknown to them. We have the privilege of historical distance and the entire breadth of Nietzsche’s writing and so are better able to interpret the inter-sections of the lectures and what they meant for him personally. “We are so best by serious and difficult problems that, when brought to see them right, we quickly acquire a lasting philosophical wonder…. Most often, it is a person’s own experience that brings him face-to-face with such problems” (EI 77). How did Nietzsche plan to make his experience better known, more reflectively for himself and for others? His audience most likely failed to understand just how personal the lectures were; understanding his experience was the beginning of a life-long analysis and a deepening of his psychological intuition.