Nietzsche / Truth

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Hey,

I’m writing a synoptic essay for my philosophy class over the next couple of days. I have a few notes but I’d really appreciate any help people could give.

The title is “Assess Nietzsche’s contribution to the philosophical understanding of Truth.”

And this is the plan I have so far:

[b]

Introduction State/explain plan

Section 1 Introduction to/explanation of Nietzsche’s Perspectivism

  • Prejudices of philosophers-

Section 2 Language Games – Wittgenstein

  • all truth is merely a perspective/interpretation, and it is not understood by others, due to language games
  • Atheist saying God doesn’t exist, similar to a blind person saying colours exist. The language games are different; monopoly is not judged with the rules of chess
  • Science says religion is wrong, but science is playing by their own rules, not those of religion; and vice versa
  • Religion attempts to take over the truth of the world. Everything has a part, but as soon as one person attempts to take over the whole game, things go wrong.

Section 3 Kuhn – Paradigm Shifts

  • Copernicus, Earth not at the centre.
  • Science claiming truth, but only sees truth insofar as the body will allow them; colours, sounds, inverted images
  • Marx’s ideologies
  • Need to move towards an equal society
  • Marx, religions attempting the move towards this
  • Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis
  • Nietzsche believes that humanity was at its best in the days of the ancient Greeks (supermen). i.e. Nietzsche wants us to move the opposite way.
  • Nietzsche in favour of conflict of paradigms. No need to take shelter in houses, then there would be no great architecture, clothing, buildings. No pain or sickness > no doctors. No gravity, no muscles, sport, etc.

Section 4 Assessment of Nietzsche’s Perspectivism

Conclusion So, what was Nietzsche’s contribution?

  • Nietzsche’s contribution was not to give us the Truth, but rather give us the truth about Truth.
  • On their own, these language games are fine, but Nietzsche helps us to take a step back from it all and see how all these Truths are battling each other.
  • Religion holds its own Will to Power, but some of these can be bad for us. Religion is attempting to spread too far and tries to claim a monopoly on truth – this is not possible.
  • Nietzsche wouldn’t want us to find the Truth. He believes, firstly, that it is not out there, but secondly, it would eliminate Will to Power.[/b]

(sorry for the crappy layout, i copied and pasted straight from word.)

Basically, what i’m asking for is a few pointers on the plan i’ve done, possibly a few notes on the topics i’ll be touching upon (quick notes one stuff that i should put in the essay), and (if you’ll excuse the boldness) possibly some extended, more elaborate notes on the topics

thanks in advance,
Rich

2

Yikes! I’m not going to help you with your homework - sorry. I have an observation, though. This outline would have provided me with the basics for just about my entire academic career. There’s a lot there. Could write a book fleshing this baby out. Does this look like a typical outline to all you students out there? I would have written on one or two of these bullets. And, you know, I did well. Is this how a typical outline looks? I never did outlines. Just twisted one up and got to writing.

f

3

What therefore is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, anthro-pomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which became poetically and rhetorically intensified, metamorphosed, adorned, and after long usage seem to a nation fixed, canonic and binding; truths are illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions; worn-out metaphors which have become powerless to affect the senses; coins with their images effaced and now no longer of account as coins but merely as metal. — F. Nietzsche, “On Truth and Falsity in Their Extramoral Sense”

That’s basically your answer. Add more words for flavour as you choose. Vive le homework!

4

ha, well it’s a 4000 word synoptic essay so…we have to include a lot. i think i’m the one that has the least subject matter in my plan :confused:

5

It’s not too extensive… you know, for a thesis.

6

Stay true

I’m not entirely sure that Nietzsche rejects the possibility of truth, it seems that all he does is reject the possibility of humans attaining truth. Or more specifically he desires the elimination of truth as a standard of knowledge or wisdom. IMO reducing Nietzsche to relativism does him a great injustice and misses just how radical his epistimology is.

“In the end truth is a woman: she should not be violated”

Furthermore, “eliminate Will to Power” is incomprehensible.

7

Funny, I posted a direct citation from Nietzsche and received no response yet some other people slap their dash all over the conversation (rightly or wrongly) and they get a response. What a puzzlement…

8

What were you looking for? “Thanks for the out of context quote that is probably meant to dispose me to a certain, albeit incomplete, interpretation of Nietzschean truth”.

9

Out of context? How on earth can quoting the whole comment be ‘out of context’. Oh, I refuse to read this book, it’s out of context and incomplete. It doesn’t say absolutely everything therefore it may as well say nothing. This coming from someone who quoted:
“In the end truth is a woman: she should not be violated”

Terrific…

10

My quote is rather vacuous unless someone has an understanding of Nietzsche’s use of “woman”. This is obvious.

Your quote is potentially deceptive because Nietzsche could be talking about truth in general, or truth as society defines it. The former interpretation is what one would assume, while the latter interpretation may be correct. This is hard to tell, context would clarify this, or if it’s an independent aphorism, some explanation or a disclaimer would be appropriate. The problem with quoting an aphoristic philosopher in the way that you did, is that they are wrapped up so nice and tidy that an un-read person is easily deceived.

Anyway, you got what you wanted, a response…you should be happy.

11

I find it interesting that you would appeal to the system of a philosopher who was so fundamentally opposed to system.

Or, perhaps, we could just read Twilight of the Idols, which seems to support the quote SIATD used, and come to a similar notion of truth.

12

I find it hard to accept that this post is addressed to me given that I made no reference a “system”. Perhaps you heard one time that Nietzsche was opposed to systems, and thought this would automatically entail that he himself never systematized, and as such thought this would be an appropriate time to tell us of what you heard?

There we go, you must be addressing me…

I’m well aware of what conclusions people come to after reading Nietzsche…I wish I could continue this discussion by saying something to this effect "yeah, but in Aphorism “15, 163, and 34” he comes to this notion of truth, but your cunning has paralyzed me with indecision.

Enough with the small talk, if you want to discuss Nietzsche’s notion of truth, have at it. If not, I’m going back to sleep.

13

Nihilistic,

As such is just as prone to misinterpretation as mine. Only mine is an actual passage, yours is simply one line without anything to indicate whether Nietzsche is adopting a voice, being ironic and so on…

  1. what’s the difference between ‘in general’ and ‘as society defines’ - I’d say that the two were the exact same thing
  2. Is there any aspect of this conversation that you won’t simplify ‘down’ to ‘your level’?
  3. Nietzsche isn’t talking about either of these things, he sees truth as a mobile army of metaphors

‘There are no facts, only interpretations’

There are no ‘correct’ interpretations either, particularly where Nietzsche is concerned.

No response from you makes me happy. Fortunately none of them make me sad either. I’m just confused as to what you think that you’re adding to this conversation.

14

SIATD

Like I said, it’s vacuous without previous knowledge of Nietzsche, and so doesn’t run the risk of misleading laymen.

Look, Nietzsche’s philosophy, has a theme throughout it where he denies that man has a faculty for obtaining truth. What we call truth isn’t actually truth, but rather illusion(see your quote). Now we can leave it at this and say that Nietzsche is a relativist, he doesn’t think truth exists objectively and what hitherto man has called truth has been flawed. Or we can interpret Nietzsche as meaning that their is truth, but humanity doesn’t have the capacity for discovering it. i.e. the truth in general and truth as society defines it. Leaving out consideration of methodology. I have proposed the latter interpretation, you have seemingly proposed the former.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Any simplifying I have done has been for your benefit.

So your precious quote says, but the problem proposed is not resolved by your quote, instead how we interpret your quote IS contingent on how we interpret the problem. Nietzsche recontextualized the word.

Agreed.

My posts have not been about what I understand or don’t understand…Anyway I doubt I’ll ever settle on what I think is the correct interpretation of Nietzsche.

Yes, but the offense is particularly egregious when it is meant to educate about what the author meant, rather than a particular passage that you thought was exemplar.

What conversation? Oh you mean the 4 posts before me that either had nothing to do with the topic or gave an uninterpreted quote? Something tells me not adding to such a conversation is less than a sin.

15

It appears to me, if we accept the world of mere appearance, that you are trying to make a claim about truth with a capital T. Insofar as this claim concerns Nietzsche, it is not seemingly, nor readily, apparent where one would come across, adopt, or perhaps create such a view in light of, or in the light of, his works.

My post, or rather, my gesture, was simply pointing to the highly contentious nature of your claim. It seems to me that an interpretation of Nietzsche’s Truth, with a capital T, might merit some support, say perhaps a foundation from which such a statement might come.

For Nietzsche truth is a metaphor, living metaphorically being in essence a herdlike existence. We are, in essence, at least in Nietzsche’s view, herd animals and therefore it seems a fitting that we live our lives according to the herd definition of truth. Perhaps, this would be something like common sense, even further this common sense seems to be intimately linked with a kind of “geist,” or spirit of the people. Now if one wants to live ones existence counter to common sense, one would necessarily have to adopt the position of a combattent vis a vis the rest of the herd and the state.

Read carefully the distinction, or rather false distinction, between the ‘real’ and ‘apparent’ worlds in “Twilight of the Idols,” I think the point may have been missed. The distinction between ‘real’ and ‘apparent’ worlds, or truth (little t) an Truth (big T) exists only for those who follow the path of error and seek the truth as a lie. Reason has made this false distinction from the fear of being deceived.

In a world of becomming, reason posits unity and makes all change merely apparent; there is faith in being, and distrust of becomming.
The apparent world ‘is,’ at least for philosophers, due to the fact that being is eternal and incapable on non-being, or change. It follows, therefore, at least in the minds of philosophers—some of them being amongst us at present—that the world of the senses must be only apparent with the True world lying somewhere beyond reach. However, the distinction ceases to be a distinction at all when one accepts the body and lives in the apparent world which becomes. In this case, where life is affirmed, the apparent world becomes the only true world.

The argument for truth with a capital T is counter to life, or the affirmation of life, which Nietzsche affirmed for the entirety of his life.

SIATD’s quote is my personal favorite, increadibly cogent and concise. I don’t think there is a better quote which could be offered as an example of Nietzsche’s truth. My use of the word “system” was perhaps alluding to your emphasis upon context. The context of what, the larger context of the totality of Niezschean thought. I think this emphais upon context privileges system to the detriment of actual thought. There is no “outside of the text,” no point of view where we could view the totality that is unchangingly Nietzsche.

Truth, with a capital T, would be a stretch and would have to be defended, that was what I was pointing to when I committed ecriture.

16

With the exception of truths about the illusions. Truths about conscious human perception transend the human condition; and would you look at that, that’s what spiritual turths are about; how about that!

17

I disagree; i think reason has been motivated to make the distinction because of ‘irreconcilable differences;’ fear of deception being just one of them. In the physical this presents as properties of mutual exclution. I have a feeling it has something to do with ‘inflation.’ As it is in the here and now, i think the distinction is reasonable because the perceptions of each human animal are presumably unique, owing to this propety of mutual exclusion.

Trotter, do you ever think about the distinction between Life and life?

18

I think that as soon as we make these distinctions, and I think it is “we” who make them, we are dealing with paradoxes about which there is little we may say. I think that Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, despite increadible divergences give us the means of living these paradoxes, they give us the ‘How.’

If we begin to speak of Life and life, must we not also speak of Reason and reason, or Being and being. If we are prepared to accept the capital letter, nothing more than a grammatical mark, then we must also assume the metaphysics involved. Nietzsche, and perhaps Derrida, seem to have noted the power of grammar and the metaphysics involved in its usage.

If we accept the rule of the capital L in Life, then what of life? Are we simply to deny its relevance? do we simply exist to take responsibility for the Life which lives itself through ours? Perhaps it is not a matter of distinction at all, a view which I think is Nietzsche’s, we live our life despite, or in spite o,f the existence, or non-existence of that which we can say nothing of. It is a matter of affirming life, becomming as it becomes and willing it to become as it becomes, perhaps eternally.

I am still in the process of encountering, of living alongside the thoughts of these great thinkers, dwelling alongside them, having them dwell along with my thoughts. I think to speak of truth with a capital T does violence to the thought of Nietzsche and the affirmations he was trying to make. Although Truth may be sought, and perhaps found, in Nietzsche, I think it runs counter to what he was trying to articulate.

That being said I certainly ponder the possibility of a Life/life distinction, however, I still maintain that as far as we are concerned anything we might say about Life would be absurd. There is, perhaps, only the ‘How,’ which Nietzsche and Kierkegaard point to, the differance of Derrida, The flesh of Merleau-Ponty. Each has its merits and its drawback, each begins with a kind of faith!

19

Trotter

Nietzsche’s polemics on truth aren’t about their being truth or not truth, but rather on humans searching for truth for its own sake, and thinking they actually find it. For Nietzsche, truth whether illusion or not is important only insofar as it advances society or the community. The herd definition of truth, is truth for its own sake. It’s not a matter of whether it exists or not, atleast when one does away with metaphysics. Truth is problematic not because it posits that their is infact truth, but because it is searched for as some kind of end, because people have reverence for it and will defend it at all costs i.e. convictions. Nietzsche’s genious lies not in that he denies truth, but that he relegates and trivializes truth as a tool for life. Meaning, if Truth doesn’t help us, then their is no reason for us to find it or to hold on to it. Furthermore one find’s elements to suggest that the search of truth for truths sake is not a methodology humans are capable of, and we once again go back to convictions.

Nietzsche’s conception of science will further elucidate my points. The question is whether he disdains science itself, or the way modern man has done science. The latter is the correct answer, as he speaks positively of science qua without the new passion to know.

Does Nietzsche posit that the Overman ebmraces life moreso than the Christian does. If yes, then in what sense can we call this a truth?

What is clear here is that Nietzsche’s conception of truth is far more complex than any one aphorism, and far more complex than you or SIATD are recognizing. If you want me to say that you have to read the rest of Nietzsche to properly understand that quote, then I will. If this means I’m calling Nietzsche a systematizer, then so be it.

20

Thankyou, Trotter, for your thoughtful reply.

life becomes a paradox of life and death.

While we do recognize its irrelevance, we are compelled to search for its relevance. Yes, this search generates the abyss but, it seems people are so taken by the gaping maw that they fail to see the ring of Truth that surrounds it.

The responsibility for Truth is something that the feminine aspect does naturally. This is why the masculine aspect cannot ‘hand down,’ it can only ‘offer up;’ that is what the masculine aspect is responsible for and where it has historically failed miserbly.

When you step outside of the paradoxes you see that it is the ‘willing’ that is not ours. The willing is already done; it’s not that we don’t have free will, it’s just that our will is not generative, it is self-preserving (not ego-preserving.)

People say, ‘on the shoulders of giants;’ i thnk it’s more like, ‘on the shoulders of people right about your hight.’ Speaking is a step to the moon, these are just one more step down the ladder.

I agree, and i think it’s a shame because, as i see it, he’s chosen Death.

If it weren’t for ‘the flash’ i’d probably agree with you. The flash, i think, identifies the transcendent nature of Truth; Truth is Life, truth is comfort.