If there are no facts, only interpretations, as Nietzsche has it (though the quotation is not exact), then what is interpretation? Even if you don’t agree that there are no facts, only interpretations, how do you conceive interpretation in this sense? What’s your interpretation—of interpretation?
See: Dewey and Peirce and classical pragmatism. It makes a good companion to Nietzsche. Looking online for quotes or references (wikipedia here I come!) as I am currently without most of my books.
Interpretation is at the crux of a Heraclitean Weltanschauung. This due to the destruction of the subject by a view of the world which recognizes the existence of no things. If no things exist, then no subject exists, too. This is the portrayal of a world where everything is actually only an interplay of quanta’s of forces.
“Critique of Mechanism. Let us here remove the two popular concepts,
“necessity” and “law”: the first introduces a false coercion,
the second a false freedom into the world. “Things” do not behave
regularly, according to a rule: there are no things (they are
our fiction). . . . There is no law: every power draws its last consequence
at every moment. . . . A power quantum is characterized
by its effect [Wirkung] and by that which it resists. The
adiaphorous is lacking, though it would be thinkable theoretically
. . . Not self-preservation: every atom affects all being—it is
thought away when one thinks away this radiation of power
will. Therefore I call it a quantum of “will to power”: thereby
that character is expressed which cannot be thought away out of
the mechanical order, without thinking that order itself away.
. . . Mechanics as a doctrine of motion is already a translation
into the sense language of man [634].
We require “units” to be able to calculate: one must not suppose
for that reason that there are such units. We have derived
the concept of the unit from our “ego” concept—our most ancient
article of faith. . . . Two fictions: the concept of motion
(taken from our sense language) and the concept of the atom
(i.e., unit, derived from our psychical “experience”) . . . No
things remain but dynamic quanta in a relation of tension to
all other dynamic quanta: their essence consists in their relation
to all other quanta, in their “affecting” [“Wirken” auf] them.
The will to power is neither a being nor a becoming, but a pathos
—it is the most fundamental fact from which becoming and affecting
result [635].”
Since the world is the will to power, and nothing but, all existence is subsumed in this eternal and
infinite sea of power exchanges. As Nietzsche states above there are no “units” in nature. They are our invention, fiction, and, that upon which all our mathematics and science are based. Science (and our conventional view of reality) is based upon a methodology that states that if something occurs x number of times, then it must be true, i.e. factual. Science requires something to occur at least 95% of the time to be considered true, a fact. (It’s that other 5% that contaminates and disproves the whole enterprise.) Science would rather deal in absolute truth, but even it admits that it is not so. Everything is contingent, subject to change, not an absolute eternal truth.
Yes, I know all that. Of course I could not assume that you knew I knew, but anyway: now you do.
Whoa! Is this not already interpretation?
This, too, seems to me to be interpretation: I’ve never heard anything like this. Are you suggesting there are only interpretations because nothing occurs at least 95% of the time?
5% (that is, 5.000…%) or more would “contaminate” and disprove it, yes. Anything less than 5% would not, according to what you said above.
But what is interpretation?
Facts are the measurable and/or quantifiable attributes of a thing, (or alleged thing). Interpretations are what we make of them given our prior beliefs, and the context in which the thing, (or alleged thing) instantiates.
Fact:
There is a 100 puond bomb falling at 100 feet per second which will land on a neighborhood killing 20 and injuring 116.
Interpretation: The bomb sucks, (or not depending on whether you like the people).
and the fact is the “measurements” are nothing but interpretations of apparent items against apparent scales of measure…
-Imp
Skepticism about whether an inch is an inch is the kind that can be properly ignored.
Interpetation is a lot. It is the filter of the individual - it is perspective. It is the world as will and idea, it is the arrow and not the target. It’s the stew but not the recipe, for we cannot eat recipes.
That’s the best I can do until I smoke some weed. It’seen a busy day.
properly ignored because the circular definition of inch is transcendent truth?
-Imp
It might as well be.
Interpretation shall be the creation of meaning from within a perspective for the purposes of its will. Internal interpretation is inextricably associated with understanding, though is often equally a self-serving delusion and enforces no necessary preconditions of truth; external interpretation is communicated meaning, expressive and a form of rhetoric to be reinterpreted- thus our words are never identical to our thoughts. Indeed, there is and must be some degree of existential utility perceived in the creation of any meaning, individual or collective-if not inherently then as a means to a further end-else it would not been created in the first place; that a creation may be deemed irrational or a ‘mistake’ is no argument against it; and that individual and collective perceptions are perpetually evolving and changing merely reflects the transient nature of all experience.
Thus speaks my external interpretation of interpretation in the present moment-
Interpretation, part of the structure of the understanding, is an essential part of all systems of knowledge. Intepretation would appear to be a kind of appropriation, sometimes operating violently, which bends and distorts the given in an attempt to fit it within the rules of a particular way of engaging with the world.
Could we then not rephrase Nietzsche’s claim that there are no facts, only interpretations, as follows?
“This world is interpretation—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also such interpretation—and nothing besides!”
[adapted from Nietzsche, The Will to Power, section 1067.]
I see no reason not to.
Where does his Will to Power fit into that scheme? The will to another interpretation?
In this reading does the “Will to Power” not appear to be simply the inevitable clash of interpretations?
My suggestion is that interpretation—interpreting—is will—willing (noun)—to power.
=D>
“Whatever I create and however much I love it—soon I have to oppose it and my love: thus will my will have it” (Zarathustra)
This movement of interpretation itself is an endless one, constatly overcomming itself.
In other words the movement, or work, of interpretation is never finished.