[Topics: Culture, Epistemology, Philosophy of Language, Truth]
Truth and Lies in a Genealogical Sense:

Tracing Friedrich Nietzsche’s Discussion of Truth through his Life (by Considering Two of his Texts)

 

Friedrich Nietzsche Sketch by M.R.P. - On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense - On the Genealogy of Morality

Caricature Sketch by M.R.P.

Introduction:

Friedrich Nietzsche’s writing is constantly concerned with tracing the development of ontological and epistemological phenomena as the result of interactions among humans. His conclusions often paint the developments he observes as being rendered inevitable by the nature of human will, knowledge, and consciousness. Because of this fascination with the developmental history of concepts, Nietzsche is always in the mode of thinking which may be termed genealogical.

Indeed, well before his explicit discourse tracing the source of intellectual constructs and moral underpinnings in On the Genealogy of Morality, the early Nietzsche is thinking along the same lines, if not in precisely the same terms, in, for instance, his essay, “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense.” Despite the aforementioned observable inevitability in Nietzsche’s account for the rise and implementation of the concept of truth, Nietzsche is never forgiving or conciliatory toward humanity for its unwillingness to discard their basic assumptions, nor even to acknowledge them as such. This is in spite of Nietzsche’s apparent awareness, as evidenced in Ecce Homo, that he is a singular thinker whose example and legacy will be no small task to parse. Yet the treatment of truth in these texts is not identical.

Whereas in the earlier essay Nietzsche is more interested in the exact method by which truth is constructed, the later work underscores instead the dangers of appealing to truth as the justification for one’s pursuits; meanwhile, both works are concerned with envisioning the sort of person who faces reality without traditional truth as its basis, in the former termed the “intuitive man” and in the latter the “thinkers” (contrasted with adherents to an ascetic ideal).

Continue reading

[Topics: Culture, Epistemology, Philosophy of Language, Truth]
Truth and Lies in a Genealogical Sense:

Tracing Friedrich Nietzsche’s Discussion of Truth through his Life (by Considering Two of his Texts)

was last modified: October 10th, 2022 by Daniel Podgorski