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Preface

"Suppose truth is a woman...." And so it begins, rather provocatively. Or so it appears.. We could just as easily suppose that Truth is a man, as long as the man is one to be wooed. One might ask at this juncture if truth should be personified at all -- is truth something to be cajoled, persuaded, attracted, or "won"? Does the truth play hard to get?

In any case, Nietzsche believes that philosophers, as dogmatists, are incapable of capturing it. Is Nietzsche's generalization, that all philosophers are dogmatists, accurate? What does this mean, and is this the case? Is it possible that Nietzsche's anti-dogmatism is itself a kind of dogmatism? Or will he offer us a viable alternative, something we can believe in?

Part One

Why do we want truth rather than untruth? What is the drive to truth, and is it more powerful than the drive to life? What if untruth, or uncertainty, is healthier for us? Was Oedipus right to seek the truth, or rather, was the truth good for him?

At various points Nietzsche raises the spectres of Plato, Kant, Descartes, etc., and he suggests that in various ways they were dishonest, or disingenuous, or maybe even deluded. He suggests that the real interest of the philosopher is not in the "truth itself" but in honor, or pride, or whatever drives him personally -- perhaps family, money, politics, or social recognition. Nietzsche suspects ulterior psychological motives for this drive to "truth," and that real everyday truth is not its object. Are Kant's faculties for synthetic judgements just fantasies? How about Platonic "ideas"? When Descartes doubted everything, did this include lunch?

Do philosophers determine truth as they want it to be, or do they discover it as it actually is?

In section 13 Nietzsche declares that "life itself is will to power," an idea that would eventually become emblematic of Nietzsche himself. How does this idea fit in with his psychological critique of philosophy? Is his description of the will in section 19 accurate? He addresses freedom of the will in section 21. This is a perennial issue we have discussed many times in this group. Is Nietzsche's analysis appealing? Is the question of free will also a psychological one?

Cphe wrote: "Is truth in the eye of the beholder?"

I think the answer is it depends. There are simple or obvious truths. These truths are more like individual facts. They either are or they aren't. For example, today is your birthday. It either is or it isn't.

But there are other truths, more complicated truths, that people can honestly and legitimately disagree over: historical truths or psychological or political interpretations, for example. I think this truth is the truth that is hard to get (or impossible to get?) that Thomas mentions.

Of course, none of this addresses the origins of truth or, for that matter, what truth is.

Thomas wrote: "Do philosophers determine truth as they want it to be, or do they discover it as it actually is?..."

I don't know how you can separate the two.

If we have a predisposition to see "truth" a certain way, then we will interpret reality in ways that will reaffirm our truth. In other words, we will only "discover" those truths that we are inclined to seek.

Apologies for possibly straying too far from Nietzsche.

Bernard Williams says truth embodies two values: accuracy and sincerity. I thought that second value added an interesting twist. One thing I take from this is If you are inaccurate but sincere, you aren't truthful, yet you aren't lying, and where does that leave us? And if inaccuracy can't be detected, does a proposition then pass for truth?

He also pretty much says language can't exist without a large class of propositions that are true. But I question that. What if these propositions are fictions but everyone accepts them as truths? Won't the language work then? This also may imply that truth is relative -- changes from one language to another. If so, then how valuable is truth? Or can it socially be more useful for a people to agree to a fiction than to disagree over the truth?

I think there are certain kinds of truths that are problematic. They are slippery critters whose landscape is cluttered with mine fields.

[T]he time has finally come to replace the Kantian question "How are synthetic judgments a priori possible?" with another question, "Why is the belief in such judgments necessary?" -- that is to understand that for the purposes of preserving beings of our type we must believe that such judgments are true.

Isn't Nietzsche replacing one question with another by fiat, when neither can rightfully replace the other? And isn't he answering his own question without justifying it (We must believe such judgments are true to preserve our beings)? If I am understanding that correctly, and I certainly may not be, then that requires justification. As is it is an assertion. Perhaps he does so elsewhere.

[S]ynthetic judgments a priori should not "be possible" at all: we have no right to them.

Now he is answering the Kantian question, but again by fiat. He gives no reasons. Or am I missing something?

So far Nietzsche sounds both iconoclastic and dogmatic. It's just a different dogma.

Thomas wrote: "Is Nietzsche's generalization, that all philosophers are dogmatists, accurate?..."

I would say Nietzsche is wrong if he uses the word "all." Be careful of absolutes and superlatives. It depends. For example, to me positivists are all about dogma, but not James. And we do bring our personalities to our beliefs, so it will range widely.

I think Nietzsche's point about dogmatism is its rigidity, being inflexible to different ideas. I think philosophers like James aren't rigid in their thinking.

I also don't think dogmatism and rigidity are peculiar to philosophy.
It gets around, especially in the professions. Does dogmatism exist in science and humanities? I think so. Math?

Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "I would say Nietzsche is wrong if he uses the word "all." Be careful of absolutes and superlatives. It depends. "

What provokes one to look at all philosophers half suspiciously, half mockingly, is not that one discovers again and again how innocent they are -- how often and easily they make mistakes an go astray; in short, their childishness and childlikeness -- but that they are not honest enough in their work... Sec. 5

Though I think his emphasis there is not on the word "all," but on the endemic problem of dishonesty in philosophy.

Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "[T]he time has finally come to replace the Kantian question "How are synthetic judgments a priori possible?" with another question, "Why is the belief in such judgments necessary?" -- that is to un..."

(This post is longer than I anticipated. I think I've avoided anything that might be considered a "spoiler" for BGE, but I may be wrong about that.)

Walter Kaufmann, one of the leading Nietzsche scholars in the Anglophone world in the twentieth century, pointed out that Nietzsche's portrayals of earlier philosophers often aren't fair, and sometimes amount to caricatures.

(I've been re-reading his Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, and re-discovering the source of ideas I've had in mind since the late 1960s. I've been supplementing it with articles in the Blackwell A Companion to Nietzsche, which has presented me with a bunch of new perspectives, and with some articles found on-line, so what follows is not the pure Kaufmann line.)

Nietzsche's point with Kant seems to be that Kant evaded providing an answer to the question of how we are capable of doing something, with a circular formulation which amounted to the declaration that we are able to do it because we have the capability to do it. Which is definitely one way of reading Kant.

Nietzsche thought he had found a more answerable question: since we *do* make such assumptions, with or without Kant's "explanations" of how they are even possible (and Kant did not confine them to making logical judgements, but extended it to moral judgements as well), what function do such judgements serve?

Leaving aside whether they are philosophically justifiable or not, since people make them all the time without stopping to consult a philosopher.

Nietzsche in fact has changed the subject, preferring to analyze observable human behavior to engaging in metaphysics, or finding a way out of logical conundrums

It is no coincidence that he considered himself a psychologist as well as a philosopher, although this approach is probably clearer in his earlier aphoristic works, like "Human, All-to-Human," which tend to skewer human follies.

Nietzsche is also dealing with the now-obvious point that even the most independent philosopher is more or less subtly (and, with the perspective of time, usually less subtly) under the influence of the surrounding culture, and of his (with rare exceptions) own experiences. This would include even the impulse to reject one's society's values, which usually means dealing with the same categories in a different way.

But they like to tell themselves (and others) that their only concern is the (often abstract) Truth.

Nietzsche, being a determinist of sorts -- he rejected the idea of "free will," but also questioned the validity of cause and effect reasoning -- he may have been exaggerating his surprise at this observation about philosophers in particular cases, for literary effect.

And Nietzsche didn't really explain why he was any different from earlier thinkers. Except, perhaps, that, like Socrates, he recognized his own condition, which others failed to acknowledge in themselves.

(view spoiler)[ These ideas all tie in to two doctrines which don't really appear in "Beyond Good and Evil" -- which makes the book a whole lot clearer as a stand-alone text.

These are the Eternal Recurrence of all things, which is ultimately cosmological, and the Overman (superman), who is somehow able to free himself from the values of his society, and create new ones that make life more meaningful.

Exactly how those two ideas cohere is more difficult to explain, but Nietzsche felt strongly about both of them, and perhaps avoided, like others before him, the built-in contradictions in his new dogma.(view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

Prologue
Truth is to woman as dogmatist philosophies are to the truth, ie., clumsy and inappropriate. I like this metaphor, not for the implications one could derive for women, but for the fact that no philosopher so far has derived a verifiable "grand unified truth". If one had acttually done it, philosophy would be at an end and all of those tough questions would have answers, but they don't. It does prompt the question, do we need a non-dogmatic philosophy and what would that look like? It prompts another question, if a philosophy actually got to the truth, what would that philosophy look like; would it be dogmatic or non-dogmatic, or would it go from being a philosophy to knowledge of all things with certainty? Are not truths necessarily dogmatic?

Nietzsche also suggests that all the philosophies so far are expressions of their creator's wishes rather than "the truth", and they are all built up on unquestioned foundations like a shaky house of cards. How will Nietzsche's philosophy escape this same charge that he levels against all others? It seems a hypocritical assumption, because Nietzsche, I suspect, will just be giving us one more philosophy that is an expression of someone else's wishes; his own.

Patrice wrote: "xan, belief has not much to do with truth. if someone believes the holocaust didn’t happen they are believing a lie. evidence determines truth. there is
endless evidence for the holocaust. i don’t..."

Did I say that?

Patrice wrote: "we have a non dogmatic philosophy in science, yes there are dogmatic scientist but science itself opposes that. it is not idea based but evidence based. it does not depend on group think. ten thous..."

I mostly agree. An important part of science is about correction. As we learn more we correct what needs to be corrected. And the more data points we have converging on an answer the more confident we are of that answer. All of this is the antithesis of dogma.

But I also believe there is dogma in the family. Isn't reductionism dogma? It is a method some scientists never question and materialists swear by.

Why the references to the Holocaust?

Patrice wrote: "didn’t you say holocaust denial was truth to some? i don’t think a false belief can be called any kind of truth.

could you expand on reductionism? i’m not clear on that."

Hi, Patrice. No, that wasn't me.

My understanding is reductionism is a method of scientific analysis. It is the breaking down of something complex into its constituent and atomic parts to determine each part's functionality. Then the parts (functionalities) are put back together to explain the whole.

Anybody who disagrees with my definition please speak up.

Actually, I just thought of a more encompassing example. If I remember correctly Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" exposes a number of science dogmas.

David wrote: "Nietzsche also suggests that all the philosophies so far are expressions of their creator's wishes rather than "the truth", and they are all built up on unquestioned foundations like a shaky house of cards. How will Nietzsche's philosophy escape this same charge that he levels against all others? It seems a hypocritical assumption, because Nietzsche, I suspect, will just be giving us one more philosophy that is an expression of someone else's wishes; his own."

I was wondering the same thing.

I have no idea what Nietzsche is driving at. Is it truth? Is it pure relativism? He has this über-elitist tone, and unless you are enlightened like him, you're just a measly plebeian. At this point am rather amused wondering if I should take him seriously.

Reading it in German, I did have to laugh out loud a couple of times, his word-constructions are superb. (For those not familiar with German, you can make compound words any which way you like to say with one word what otherwise would take a sentence of two). His sarcasm is well-honed.
I am glad I don't have to translate it!

In so many ways Nietzsche is telling us that all philosophies or world views in the history of mankind are figments of the imagination. None of it is true. My reaction to this is, there have been countless well-educated men and women over the 2+ millennia since Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and none of them were as enlightened as he? Oh boy!

As I mentioned elsewhere, some have argued that Nietzsche is alluding to / responding to the preface of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Specifically this (emphasis mine):

it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic
Time was, when she was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her object-matter, this title of honour. Now, it is the fashion of the time to heap contempt and scorn upon her; and the matron mourns, forlorn and forsaken, like Hecuba:
Modo maxima rerum,
Tot generis, natisque potens...
Nunc trahor exul, inops.
—Ovid, Metamorphoses. xiii

At first, her government, under the administration of the dogmatists , was an absolute despotism. ... Thus metaphysics necessarily fell back into the antiquated and rotten constitution of dogmatism, and again became obnoxious to the contempt from which efforts had been made to save it. At present, as all methods, according to the general persuasion, have been tried in vain, there reigns nought but weariness and complete indifferentism—the mother of chaos and night in the scientific world, but at the same time the source of, or at least the prelude to, the re-creation and reinstallation of a science, when it has fallen into confusion, obscurity, and disuse from ill directed effort.

If that is the case, the insulting metaphor of woman to “thot�� is not arbitrary �� Nietzsche is talking about the fall of “the Queen of all the sciences��, or Kant’s labour to iron out that situation (and possibly making fun of Kant’s random assignment of the female gender to Metaphysics).

While the sciences and empiricism found firm foothold in the modern intellectual world, this (once) highest form of access to “truth�� or “knowledge�� is now cast out. And IF that is that case, there’s also a good chance that by “dogmatism��, Nietzsche is also specifically talking about whatever Kant meant, and not, um, dogmatism as such? (Sorry)

Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "Actually, I just thought of a more encompassing example. If I remember correctly Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" exposes a number of science dogmas."

Kuhn exposes the way histories of science present how scientific discoveries are made, confirmed, and accepted, which usually show lack of knowledge of how to research history, or lack of working experience in one of the sciences. (Sometimes both.) Or which try to fit the facts to an accepted explanation of how theories are discarded and replaced by better ones, usually due to better information persuading scientist to change their views.

Such histories are tend to be accepted by scientists as dogma, learned in their earliest introduction to the subject, and without a close look at evidence -- unless someone's priority is in question.

(Roughly, this is the "then X discovered Y, and then everyone accepted theory Z" explanation.)

Kuhn shows, or tries to show, that in fact the change from one "model" of the world (he uses the term paradigm) to another is not caused so much by new facts which contradict it, but by changes in the way the problem is approached in general.

What question you think to ask may determine what you get as an answer, and how you interpret it when you get.

Kuhn came up with a lot of examples of this, but his main exhibit was the Copernican revolution, and the rejection of the old, familiar, model of the universe: Kuhn had previously written a book on that subject.

Nietzsche, by the way, liked to consider himself a "new Copernicus."

Scientists are people, not logical machines, and stick to "outmoded" theories, as if they were facts, or just reject new ones, for a long time. Sometimes the controversies are played down in general histories of science, or particular sciences, except perhaps for some striking episodes.

For a relevant example, Nietzsche rejected the belief in atoms

This was not a personal eccentricity, but followed a then-active trend in physics to claim that the atoms and molecules described by chemists were merely mathematically useful models, not reality.

(Rather like the Ptolemaic model of the universe, which for a long time gave reasonably accurate predictions, within the limits of naked-eye observation.)

For an account of one aspect of the controversy, the embattled career of Ludwig Boltzmann, a physicist who did accept the atomic theory of matter, see the article on him on Wikipedia:

It immediately gives a brief explanation of what Boltzmann did with the theory, but I lost track of that after the first paragraph. I just don't have the mathematics to follow where it gets specific.

Of course, further investigation showed that even the atoms were *not* the ultimate units of matter, but that realization involved developments in physics, by physicists who had accepted that the atoms were there, in the first place.

Patrice wrote: "anyone think of catcher in the rye while reading this? phonies, they are all phonies. it feels a bit adolescent to me."

Oh I agree, that’s partly why I said I perceived a ... hint? Of Ovidian rhetorics in Nietzsche.

Nietzsche also repeatedly argued whatever “mistakes�� in philosophy up to that point is simply the discipline expressing its youthful energy.

I have a footnote explaining that in the preface, after saying “suppose truth is a woman �� WUT??�� Is (Nietzsche) self-representing as being startled and distracted by that suggestion.

Ovid did something like that �� early in his career he depicted himself as being played by Cupid (or Eros), he’s made to be “hard and soft�� by turn �� with the verse cadence to go with it! Later in his career he depicts himself as talking to Cupid’s mother, having control and mastery over eros, promoting elegiac to a whole new (and newly popular and respectable) level. Vaguely, I think Nietzsche is doing something very similar, writing in cocky, exuberant style, depicting himself as being startled and distracted by the mere mention of women, while discussing a youthful “mistake�� in philosophy. I suspect, like Ovid, he’s trying to establish something like a new genre, new meter, new “language�� as philosophy “matures��.

TL;DR: I think that insufferable, jocoserious, mocking, irreverent, passionate, somewhat funny style is meant to project youthfulness.

Thomas wrote: “Why do we want truth rather than untruth? ... He suggests that the real interest of the philosopher is not in the "truth itself" but in honor, or pride, or whatever drives him personally -- perhaps family, money, politics, or social recognition.��

So, then, Nietzsche might not be saying we actually want truth?

Or at least, if we do want truth rather than untruth, that will, that drive to get truth, is moderated by something else �� some psychological reasons, something practical, useful for us. Like that scary sounding will-to-power.

If you doubt your lunch, Thomas, I’ll be happy to process it for you and tell you whether it’s real or not!!

Lia wrote: "While the sciences and empiricism found firm foothold in the modern intellectual world, this (once) highest form of access to “truth�� or “knowledge�� is now cast out."

I always thought that the idea of wisdom - Sophia - as female in the poetic imagination of antiquity as rather lovely. Isn't true wisdom beautiful? Isn't there an alluding charm?

The sciences of the post enlightenment and empiricism have edged out the poetic imagination, no question. Instead we have Sargent Friday, "Just the facts, Ma'm, just the facts."

Kerstin wrote: "I always thought that the idea of wisdom - Sophia - as female in the poetic imagination of antiquity as rather lovely. Isn't true wisdom beautiful?"

I’m still holding a grudge that you get to read Nietzsche in German ;__; I’ve heard people rave about how beautiful and artistic Nietzsche’s prose is, but how would I know? Must I learn German? Will I become crazy if I try to learn German by reading Nietzsche?

I guess we do have Keats affirming all ye need to know. (The trouble is, is that Keats�� will-to-power leaking, randomly asserting something as Truth and getting us to accept it by seduction, because of the beauty of his language, when he probably simply invented that?)

Back to Dogmatism and Science. IF Nietzsche is indeed addressing Kant, and if, by Dogmatism, Nietzsche means whatever Kant meant, then Kant’s stance is ... interesting.

This critical science is not opposed to the dogmatic procedure of reason in pure cognition; for pure cognition must always be dogmatic, that is, must rest on strict demonstration from sure principles a priori—but to dogmatism, that is, to the presumption that it is possible to make any progress with a pure cognition, derived from (philosophical) conceptions, according to the principles which reason has long been in the habit of employing—without first inquiring in what way and by what right reason has come into the possession of these principles. Dogmatism is thus the dogmatic procedure of pure reason without previous criticism of its own powers, and in opposing this procedure, we must not be supposed to lend any countenance to that loquacious shallowness which arrogates to itself the name of popularity, nor yet to scepticism, which makes short work with the whole science of metaphysics. On the contrary, our criticism is the necessary preparation for a thoroughly scientific system of metaphysics which must perform its task entirely a priori, to the complete satisfaction of speculative reason, and must, therefore, be treated, not popularly, but scholastically. In carrying out the plan which the Critique prescribes, that is, in the future system of metaphysics, we must have recourse to the strict method of the celebrated Wolf, the greatest of all dogmatic philosophers. He was the first to point out the necessity of establishing fixed principles, of clearly defining our conceptions, and of subjecting our demonstrations to the most severe scrutiny, instead of rashly jumping at conclusions. The example which he set served to awaken that spirit of profound and thorough investigation which is not yet extinct in Germany. He would have been peculiarly well fitted to give a truly scientific character to metaphysical studies, had it occurred to him to prepare the field by a criticism of the organum, that is, of pure reason itself. That he failed to perceive the necessity of such a procedure must be ascribed to the dogmatic mode of thought which characterized his age, and on this point the philosophers of his time, as well as of all previous times, have nothing to reproach each other with. Those who reject at once the method of Wolf, and of the Critique of Pure Reason, can have no other aim but to shake off the fetters of science, to change labour into sport, certainty into opinion, and philosophy into philodoxy.

Here, Kant defines for us what dogmatism is (for him,) and curiously, Kant explicitly states he’s not against dogmatism in science. I suspect it’s only when people try to take it too far, and demand their non-scientific assertions of “X-is-true�� to be universally accepted, that dogmatism becomes a problem.

Or maybe I’m reading too much Nietzsche into Kant...

Wahrheit, Veritas, and aleutheia are all feminine nouns.. so "truth is a woman."
What N. is saying is that philosophers have all been dorks.
"Neckbeards." Living in their moms' basements.
Their attempts to woo the truth have not been seductive enough for truth to be won.

Christopher wrote: "Wahrheit, Veritas, and aleutheia are all feminine nouns.. so "truth is a woman."
What N. is saying is that philosophers have all been dorks.
"Neckbeards." Living in their moms' basements.
Their att..."

That’s... profound. This explains everything!

Is Nietzsche gonna be the PUA guru out to teach us (well, them) how it’s done?

I enjoy Nietzsche's evocative metaphors, here as elsewhere. While I consider myself both Christian and Platonist in some sense, and for all its flippancy, I think his critique is worth hearing. Ironically, as Kerstin hinted, the idea of truth or wisdom as female can be traced back to Plato and the Bible. It's a strangely Platonic response to the rationalism of Kant and his successors.

As a further layer of irony, Nietzsche's personal ill-fortune with the opposite sex is notorious.

There is something of the crusty adolescent about Nietzsche. It is also a characteristic of at least some of his most notable followers. I am rather fond of Ernst Jünger, but his delighted battle-lust is at once worldly and strangely juvenile. This attitude reaches ludicrous heights in the Futurists. I'd be happy to share some quotes if anyone is interested, though perhaps that's better done in the background thread.

Cphe wrote: "Those would be universal - but then there are truths that are believed only by the individual, e.g those that believe that the holocaust didn't happen. Believed by a few but not believed by the majority. "

So if a person believes something it suddenly becomes a "truth"?

It depends on how one defines the concept of truth? What is Nietzsche's definition?

Tamara wrote: "If we have a predisposition to see "truth" a certain way, then we will interpret reality in ways that will reaffirm our truth. In other words, we will only "discover" those truths that we are inclined to seek. "

I think that expresses perfectly the psychology that Nietzsche identifies here. He implies that we reverse engineer our philosophies, starting with what we desire -- power, or a sense of self-righteousness -- and then we create a "truth" to justify our position. What we call "truth" is in this case a fantasy built to support the ego.

At this point it's a negative critique without a positive alternative, but his goal seems to be the erosion of belief in any given school of thought, arguing that the confidence of a philosopher is based in psychology, not reality. Or maybe it isn't erosion necessarily, but just an identification. Perhaps he will argue that a philosopher must understand her own psychology, her ulterior motives, before she can know "truth"?

But then I wonder what need is there of truth, especially if it isn't beautiful. Somewhere Kierkegaard says that "only the truth that edifies is the truth for you."

What would Oedipus say?

Lia wrote: "If you doubt your lunch, Thomas, I’ll be happy to process it for you and tell you whether it’s real or not!! "

Cogito, ergo consumo.

The introduction calls to my mind Borges' musings about Dante's Greek & Roman greats (of which Dante is sixth) in Purgatorio, the abscence of God: "they are magisterial in the exercise of their art, yet they are in Hell because Beatrice
forgets them."

Not to be too tongue-in-cheek off Rex's points.

What does everyone make of the end of the introduction, where Nietzsche addresses his work to "we, who are neither Jesuits, nor democrats, nor even sufficiently Germans, we good Europeans, and free, very free spirits ... " -- why this emphasis?

Thomas wrote: "At this point it's a negative critique without a positive alternative, but his goal seems to be the erosion of belief in any given school of thought, arguing that the confidence of a philosopher is based in psychology, not reality. Or maybe it isn't erosion necessarily, but just an identification. Perhaps he will argue that a philosopher must understand her own psychology, her ulterior motives, before she can know "truth"?

This ties in with what I've been thinking. What is Nietzsche's motivation? What is his ultimate purpose? Just to throw out "outdated" philosophies?
It is part of the human condition to define the world around us, to make sense of our existence. Whenever one world view falls out of favor you already have the successor in the wings to take over. There is never a time when humans believe in nothing. There is always something that is our highest good, God, Darwinism, environmentalism, materialism, etc., etc.

Cphe wrote: "That is, we have the perceived truth and then work backwards to validate that truth, how we arrived at it."

We start with what is familiar to us, but if we discover that this is not the whole story, then we abandon our perceived truths for a more enlightened understanding. (In the Ethics, Aristotle calls the familiar "what is known to us" and the more enlightened understanding "what is known simply." The philosopher's goal is to get to "what is known simply" through a process of dialectic, questioning and distinguishing and refining our understanding.)

I think Nietzsche is suggesting that philosophers aren't interested in honest dialectic if it poses a threat to their identity or achievements. Imagine working a lifetime on a project, only to discover at retirement that it was all a mistake. Most philosophers would fight for their achievements over admitting that their life's work was a big waste of time... that's simply human, isn't it?

Kerstin wrote: "What is his ultimate purpose? Just to throw out "outdated" philosophies? ..."

Would it be naive to take Nietzsche’s claim at face value?

“But we who are neither Jesuits nor democrats, nor even sufficiently German, we good Europeans and free, very free spirits �� we have it still, the whole need of the spirit and the whole tension of its bow! And perhaps also the arrow, the task and, who knows? the target…��

The preface seems to tell us what he’s trying to do in BGE. So he’s saying, Europeans inherited a kind of intellectual genealogy, the result is tension and a string of reactions to that: religion, enlightenment, German Idealism (or do I mean neo-Kantianism?) These therapeutic doctrines give us “healthier sleep,�� and we shouldn’t be ungrateful (Sounds like Ovid in Pyramus and Thisbe!), but Nietzsche is inviting those who don’t wish to loosen that tension, but rather, use that productive tension to shoot for some target ... i.e. to participate in some kind of ... futurism?

I hope we’re not about to be Odysseus coming home to shoot at pigs.

Thomas wrote: “Perhaps he will argue that a philosopher must understand her own psychology, her ulterior motives, before she can know "truth"?

Maybe Nietzsche thinks there’s no such thing as pure and unadulterated Truth. I read the heading of Part One “On the Prejudices of Philosophers��, not as attacks on historical philosophers, but merely as “exhibit A�� for his assertion that those Universal Truths �� we once accepted as neutral were motivated, or modified, by prejudices, by the agent’s mood or sensation (eg the anatomy of will he depicted in §19). That “prejudice�� somehow always get excluded from the picture. Maybe he will not insist we go forth to forge new-and-improved neutral Truths�� , maybe he just wants his readers to aim for “truths�� with value/moral judgment/ prejudice in sight.

Kind of like how Aristotle said the practical wisdom component of the soul is guided by another intellectual component that decides what is worth aiming for (to shoot! That bow metaphor again!)

Thomas wrote: “But then I wonder what need is there of truth, especially if it isn't beautiful. Somewhere Kierkegaard says that "only the truth that edifies is the truth for you."

What would Oedipus say?��

“The horror! The horror!��
Or,
“E�ɷɷɷɷ���

"Is there not ground for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been dogmatists, have failed to understand women--that the terrible seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for winning a woman?"

What does N exactly mean by dogmatic philosophers?
System thinkers maybe?

And who are, according to N, pragmatic philosophers?

One of Nietzsche's assertions in Part one concerns cause and effect.

People should not mistakenly reify "cause" and "effect" the way those investigating nature do (and people like them who nowadays naturalize their thinking --), in accordance with the ruling mechanistic foolishness ...

He goes on to say people should use cause and effect only as a conventional fiction to communicate and not to explain. I'm not sure what the difference between the two is, but evidently Nietzsche thinks there is. But since he's using the phrase "conventional fiction," perhaps he means cause and effect should only be used metaphorically?

I don't know if he's going Hume on us or not, but at least Hume explains his reasons for questioning a (tight) binding between cause and effect. Nietzsche at this point explains nothing, but seems to be saying either we rely too much on cause and effect or cause and effect doesn't exist at all. I suppose being provocative has its merits, but doesn't Nietzsche understand how central and fundamental to our thinking, and even existence, cause and effect is? Chucking cause and effect is not as easy as rolling up a piece of paper and tossing it in the trash.

Unlike some who have said they find Nietzsche easy to read, I find him hard to understand, and I'm wondering if I have completely misunderstood what he's saying about cause and effect. Any help would be appreciated.

PS: One good thing that will come out of this discussion is I will never misspell 'Nietzsche" again.

Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "I don't know if he's going Hume on us or not, but at least Hume explains his reasons for questioning a (tight) binding between cause and effect..."


You know how in the Preface, Nietzsche talked about “healthier �� sleep�� (possibly in jest?)

��...when that has been overcome, when Europe breathes again after this nightmare and can enjoy at any rate a healthier �� sleep, we whose task is wakefulness itself have inherited all the strength...��

Some commentators have pointed out he is alluding to/ snarking Kant’s (somewhat famous) claim about Hume awakening him from his “dogmatic slumber.��

If anything, it sounds like he’s saying, Hume woke Kant up from his comfortable dogmatic sleep, he went to work, but then went back to sleep, tsk tsk.

Lia wrote: "You know how in the Preface, Nietzsche talked about “healthier �� sleep�� (possibly in jest?)..."

When Nietzsche talks about sleep here, and elsewhere, it may be more than just another metaphor.

Those who look to find autobiography in Nietzsche, beyond the ironic self-portrait of "Ecce Homo," could see in his choice of words here a reflection of Nietzsche's personal experience, even though it is applied figuratively to Europe.

For most of his adult life he suffered from migraines, with associated nausea, and severe insomnia. (He once wrote that the thought of suicide "helps get one through the night.")

Doctors couldn't do much, if anything, about these problems (and even now lack safe and reliably effective treatments for migraine, and treatments for insomnia can be dangerous in the long run).

So Nietzsche took opiates to deal with the migraine pain, and the very dangerous chloral hydrate to sleep. (See the Wikipedia article on its uses, misuses, and dangers: )

The latter he obtained in Italy by writing prescriptions from "Dr. Nietzsche," and letting pharmacists assume that he had an MD, rather than a PhD.

Despite all of this, and failing eyesight, he wrote voluminously, filling notebook after notebook with ideas, some quickly discarded, some contradicted in later notes, and some which served as first drafts for parts of the books he was writing.

Patrice wrote: "when he doubts truth, isn’t he moving us into the modern, relativistic age? today people speak of my truth and your truth as though truth is personal to the individual. maybe thats why he writes in..."

I think we need things to agree on if we are to succeed as a social animal. Agreement and truth are not the same thing, but objective facts, simple truths, and more complex truths, to the extent we can show them to be true, are things we can agree on. It can't all be relative, unless we intend to live individual and separate lives.

To the extent Nietzsche disagrees with the need for facts, simple truths, and more complex truths to function as a social being, I think he is wrong.

Ian wrote: "Despite all of this, and failing eyesight, he wrote voluminously, filling notebook after notebook with ideas, some quickly discarded, some contradicted in later notes, and some which served as first drafts for parts of the books he was writing."

This comment touches on two of the major issues we face when trying to get a grip on Nietzsche's philosophy.

First, his published works are only the tip of the iceberg – I read one scholar (Dr Martin Ruehl) say that Nietzsche's notebooks make up around 90% of his writings.

Secondly, Beyond Good & Evil is still part of Nietzsche's later "punk phase" – let's tear it all down and stick two fingers up at all those crusty old metaphysicians �� and his grand rebuilding project for a radical new philosophical framework ("the transvaluation of all values") was unfortunately cut short by madness.

Patrice wrote: "when he doubts truth, isn’t he moving us into the modern, relativistic age? today people speak of my truth and your truth as though truth is personal to the individual. maybe thats why he writes in..."

So far, it seems to me that this is the direction he is heading, but this just brings me back to the oft-asked question: if "there is no truth" is the "truth" then doesn't that defy the laws of self-contradiction?

I think you can trace a thread from Nietzsche's comments on truth (perspectivism) to French poststructuralists like Derrida and what's today more broadly called postmodernism. At the extreme, there are even those today that see scientific truth as nothing more than a mere perspective being used as a tool of oppression.

Nietzsche doesn't seem to be talking about scientific truth; instead, his attack appears more focused on overarching metaphysical truths, or grand moral frameworks. There's one particularly acute psychological insight that I like from this first part of Beyond Good & Evil, with Nietzsche commenting on the prejudices of philosophers:

"They all pose as if they had discovered and reached their real opinions through the self-development of a cold, pure, divinely unconcerned dialectic (as opposed to the mystics of every rank, who are more honest and doltish—and talk of “inspiration��); while at bottom it is an assumption, a hunch, indeed a kind of “inspiration”—most often a desire of the heart that has been filtered and made abstract—that they defend with reasons they have sought after the fact."

Nietzsche's perspective here seems to be in line with the modern school of thought on behavioural science and psychology (viz. Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" and Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind") that suggests our moral and political views are at core emotional and instinctive, and that reason acts like a lawyer brought in by our brain to defend those views.

Thomas wrote: "I think Nietzsche is suggesting that philosophers aren't interested in honest dialectic if it poses a threat to their identity or achievements. Imagine working a lifetime on a project, only to discover at retirement that it was all a mistake. Most philosophers would fight for their achievements over admitting that their life's work was a big waste of time... that's simply human, isn't it? ..."

As Jimi Hendrix says, "it goes a little deeper than that."

What N. does is sketch a portrait of someone who IS devoted to the search for truth, or motivated by it,- as second rate:

To be sure, in the case of scholars, in the case of really scientific men, it may be otherwise��"better," if you will; there there may really be such a thing as an "impulse to knowledge," some kind of small, independent clock-work, which, when well wound up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT the rest of the scholarly impulses taking any material part therein. The actual "interests" of the scholar, therefore, are generally in quite another direction—in the family, perhaps, or in money-making, or in politics; it is, in fact, almost indifferent at what point of research his little machine is placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a good philologist, a mushroom specialist, or a chemist; he is not CHARACTERISED by becoming this or that. In the philosopher, on the contrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and above all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE IS,—that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature stand to each other.

(This is Zimmern, btw. I challenge anyone reading Kaufmann to compare versions)

Thomas wrote: "In section 13 Nietzsche declares that "life itself is will to power," an idea that would eventually become emblematic of Nietzsche himself. How does this idea fit in with his psychological critique of philosophy? Is his description of the will in section 19 accurate? He addresses freedom of the will in section 21. This is a perennial issue we have discussed many times in this group. Is Nietzsche's analysis appealing? Is the question of free will also a psychological one?"

I'm having a little trouble pinning down what he means by "will to power". In section 19 he says that senses, thinking, and emotion are involved in the will with emotions underlying and supporting the other two aspects. So when he says our underlying instinct is "will to power", he is just saying that we sense power (I.e. we observe it in others or something?), we think about power, and emotively want power?

And what kind of power is he talking about? I don't think he is talking about power over self because he ridicules that about the Stoic?? So is he talking about power over others? Over anything and everything?

And if we are both commanding AND obeying, then are we at the same time having power and yet powerless?? Does the idea of obedience in the will negate the power we want?? I'm not even sure if this makes sense, but there it is.

Genni wrote: " I don't think he is talking about power over self because he ridicules that about the Stoic?..."

I don't think he necessarily ridicules the Stoics for 'self-tyrannizing,' so much as for *pretending* that this self-tyranny was 'living in accordance with nature,' as opposed to casting nature in a Stoic mold.

More Zimmern:

In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise—and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves—Stoicism is self-tyranny—Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature?... But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.

On the contrary, I think Nietzsche is calling Stoicism a prime example of Will to Power.

Patrice wrote: "my thought was that he’s talking about dominance. the alpha male, and it does seem male to me. but how often do we hear about empowerment as the goal today? everyone wants to feel empowered. that w..."


That is what I wanted to think instinctively, but then I wondered about the role of obedience??

Christopher wrote: "Genni wrote: " I don't think he is talking about power over self because he ridicules that about the Stoic?..."

I don't think he necessarily ridicules the Stoics for 'self-tyrannizing,' so much as..."

Thanks, I think you're right. I was misreading it.

Lia wrote: "The preface seems to tell us what he’s trying to do in BGE. So he’s saying, Europeans inherited a kind of intellectual genealogy, the result is tension and a string of reactions to that: religion, enlightenment, German Idealism (or do I mean neo-Kantianism?) These therapeutic doctrines give us “healthier sleep,�� and we shouldn’t be ungrateful (Sounds like Ovid in Pyramus and Thisbe!), but Nietzsche is inviting those who don’t wish to loosen that tension, but rather, use that productive tension to shoot for some target ... i.e. to participate in some kind of ... futurism? "

In the Preface, I read that Nietzsche is comparing the 'philosophy of the dogmatists' (mostly Plato, it seems) to astrology--something that was a stage in our growth. I'm not exactly sure what Nietzsche means by dogmatism, but I'm reading that as a subscription to hard and fast rules about the Truth, the nature of the universe, etc. etc.


Anyway, he then says that the most dangerous error was a dogmatist error--the invention of the Pure Spirit and the Good in itself. "But now that it has been surmounted" (my italics), those of us whose duty it is to continue searching out answers (as opposed to the common fellow who can sleep peacefully now that these old pernicious ideas are gone), "are the heirs of all the strength which the struggle against this error has fostered"

So, what it seems to me that Nietzsche is saying is that while overcoming this drastic error of the belief in the soul that Europe of that time had built up a kind of intellectual arsenal to fight that battle. Now that the battle was won, there was still the energy, the tension, the arsenal left over. Nietzsche wants to use this arsenal rather than demilitarize--the two attempts he identifies as methods for reducing this energy, Jesuitism and Democracy, might work, might reduce the distress of man's spirit--but for those of us who "are neither Jesuits , nor democrats, nor even sufficiently Germans, we good Europeans and free, very free spirits"--we still have both the spiritual distress and the energy to do something about it. And then Nietzsche leaves off on a cliffhanger, implying, to me, that we need first to determine what the goal is to aim at.

So to me, it seems like the purpose of the book is to use the intellectual energy that he saw around him of the civilization of that time that to push forward and find a new way of understanding the world.

@67 Christopher wrote: "'....and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves—Stoicism is self-tyranny—Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over:...'"

How fascinating! The use of "'Bedlamite' hope" here.... I am wondering what was the German word/expression N used.