Our dear friend Freddy claims that there are NO absolute truths, just perspectives.
But, ironically, the claim implies an absolute truth: that there are no absolute truths.
I want to superimpose this unto logic:
A = A
Those conniving objectivist, as i-ambiguous would say, claim logic is absolute because A is always A.
To me, this seems like a mere word game, a meaningless tautology.
Thoughts?
He claims that there are no absolute values. Versus truth he is a little more ambiguous. He mainly says very frequently that truth is “ugly”, that it is very often what has been true that has been regarded as evil; and asks if truth should still be considered desirable.
Truth is strong.
Truth is often feared.
Evil is feared.
Evil is related to strength; that what is considered both wrong and strong.
Nietzsche’s absolute truth was this:
"The world is will to power, and nothing besides - "
“A” = “A”
That is indeed a strong statement. It enforces. But it is nowhere near as strong as the truths that men fear, fear that prompts such neat and reliable formulas in defense against truth.
“There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.”
Nietzsche, Human - All Too Human.
Do you believe Logic is absolute, Fixed?
This is an issue of self reference… “no eternal facts” is one of the facts being discarded. Thus leaving you with eternal facts.
Why the “no vodka” thing… were you trying to make the point that you’re existentially qualifying something when you deny it’s existence?
Ecmandu wrote:
You reiterated/re-phrased what I pointed out initially.
It’s " Not Vodka "; a petty attempt at humor on my part…
I am under the impression that he acknowledged that his entire philosophy was a perspective, and that it is validated by affiliation.
Are you talking about Fixed or Freddy Krueger? Affiliation with what?
Do elaborate, mamacita.
That’s a statement that should be read in context:
There is no absolute truth about man, man is a historical being and his premises evolve.
Only my own.
It is a little bit more ‘layered’ - his philosophy is not merely a perspective. It is also, as he frequently said, the inevitable truth. Not absolute then, but inevitable.
The will to power axiom is absolute in this sense that it refers equally to itself (the interpretation of the world as will to power) as it does to anything else; not before did statements concur with themselves in this way. Value ontology perfects this Ouroboros-behavior.
I believe it’s consistent with Nietzsche’s philosophy that he disbelieve in absolute truths; he was very anti-atomist, anti-thingness. Absolute truth as a Judeo-Christian atomism, would it not make perfect sense for him to negate such a thing?
I don’t believe that that context precludes a sort of post-modern anti-meta-narrative-ism inherent in Nietzsche’s philosophy.
Truth is the kind of error we couldn’t live without or something.
Here’s where you have to start paying closer attention with Nietzsche to his chosen context (that to which truth is relative, non-absolute). As you say, “there are no absolute truths”, if believed, would be an absolute truth; in which case it contradicts itself. The only solution for it is to be false, and thereby be possibly true. Short, the statement is not valid in a universal context; N uses it here as a quick reminder that long standing things can break apart quickly.
On the other hand, the statement “there is no absolute truth” might be saved: “there is no absolute truth besides this one”.
Maybe there isn’t a problem after all though. If it is true that there are no absolute truths, then the truth that there are no absolute truths is not so absolute that it excludes itself as being absolute.
Sure there are absolute truths. Norfolk is a city in Virginia is absolutely true. ‘JFK was assassinated’ is absolutely true. ‘People can be bored’ is an absolutely true statement. ‘Ecmandu has a blue coat and wears it ALL THE TIME’ is an absolutely true statement. There are absolute truths everywhere.
Nietzsche’s famous dictum is more of a metaphysical issue than an epistemological one.
I think that logic is absolute in as much as any object of inquiry can be quantified.
Fixed, if Nietzsche wanted to state that there are no absolute truths vis-a-vis man, he would have clearly wrote that; but he didn’t, did he? You are worming this in via the context.
Nietzsche was chock-full of contradictions; he was pro-contradiction.
He says things, e.g., " This world is WTP and nothing besides " which implies absolute truth, but then he claims, in other spots, that there are no absolute truths.
I believe it’s imperative to look at N. from his totality; from that point of view, you will see that he was anti-absolutist in general — a perspectivist.
Nietzsche did, in that context, insinuate that there are no absolute truths in regards to man, but his claim that there are no absolute truths was not merely about man, but rather everything. Everything evolved.
The mixup occurs in logical super-imposition with word games, in that it fails to account for a differential logic. In this type of logic A=-A. (Which is to say A may not equal A; and not necessarily that A and -A are contradictory.)