Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Nietzsche: On Truth And Lies In A Non-Moral Sense
Nietzsche examines why there exists a drive for truth in man. Only through the birth of truth for man does Nietzsche highlight and present a case for truth as illusion, truth as metaphor. The greater claim Nietzsche makes with truth as metaphor is the nature of the relationship between truth and the thing-in-itself as illusory.
At the centre of Nietzsche’s argument is individual man as a deceiver in the world. That fundamentally in the world there exists the drive to survive, of self-preservation, and that for the strong this drive takes form in battle, for the intelligent this drive takes form in deception.
“As a means for the preserving of the individual, the intellect unfolds its principal powers in dissimulation…This art of dissimulation reaches its peak in man.”
Nietzsche illustrates here that the highest form of deception is found in man and that man uses it to his advantage for personal survival. From the very onset man is set against man and beast within the world, and it is his superior ability to deceive that sets him higher. Nietzsche puts it to us that there does not exist in the first instance a need for truth in the man as individual, and rules out that our senses may give us truth, rather they may be deceived.
“Their senses nowhere lead to truth; on the contrary, they are content to receive stimuli and, as it were, to engage in a groping game on the backs of things.”
The stimuli that the senses receive are not truth. Stimuli, Nietzsche points out, need not be the thing in the world, or the thing in itself, any connection to truth cannot be realized. The senses have no way to distinguish stimuli that is derived from a thing in itself or a deception.
From the individual, Nietzsche’s argument moves further into the individual as he is within the society that he builds for himself. In a social consensus less energies may be spent on protecting the individual if common ground may be held, and some understanding between individuals is obtained. An intelligent individual recognizes the advantages in a social relationship with others. Now the priority, as Nietzsche sees it, has shifted from the preservation of the individual to the preservation of the society that protects its members. From here Nietzsche introduces the term designation as common deceptions that members, of a society, hold in order to communicate the same expression for a similar thing.
“a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things, and this legislation of language likewise establishes the first laws of truth.”
These designations do not form truth on their own merit but contort language into a system in which truth may come to be recognized. To use the wrong designation is not to tell an untruth but to warp the common understanding. Nietzsche continues to claim that such a misuse of a designation has not any actual consequences, but only when such a misuse leads to causing harm to the society and its members. The truth value is not that which is of importance, it is the negative effects of deception upon society which are unwanted. It is not the inherent properties of truth that show themselves to be desirable for man, rather it is the positive consequences of truth for society that are desirable.
“…he desires the pleasant, life-preserving consequences of truth…toward those truths which are possibly harmful and destructive he is even hostilely inclined.”
The constant desire of the pleasant consequences insist the presence of the same designations in the same place for as long as it creates the pleasant consequence. That is to say, for as long as the illusion gives benefit to society as being taken as true then it is. This is the first point at which truth may be understood as an illusion. Not as some readers believe, the designation as illusion, rather the place holding nature of the designation as truth is an illusion.
Continual use of the same place holder becomes enveloped within tradition and convention. At this point the illusion takes another step into metaphor; the designation no longer holds a place for truth but is directly representational as a truth. For another illusion may come to hold a place in reference to the metaphor. So what has happened under the guise of time is that what once was merely held as a common designation for a thing has in turn become a place holder for that thing and then a metaphor as the thing in itself. This forgetfulness that Nietzsche writes expresses on one level his claim to truth being a metaphor. That the metaphor, from designation, has become truth in the structure of tradition, in its constant and persistent use in the same context over many generations. As though it has always been .
Nietzsche lays claim to truth as metaphor on yet another account. That the formation of language from sensory perception must leap from sphere to sphere in a series of metaphor.
“To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor.”
Nietzsche’s point here is that there is no direct equation between each step. That the image is the result of the mind’s conjuring trick using the information from the senses. The image has no direct correlation to the world that we sense, it is merely representational. Created for our operative purposes, man will understand the image as the world. At once the metaphor is made and immediately forgotten or never realised. Again, to communicate the image to another, the conjuring trick is used to put the image back into the world. The sound that is uttered, an act of creativity, is metaphoric in the highest degree to the image in one’s mind. And yet each word becomes separated from the image and attached to a concept. So that the concept may group all alike images together and structures may be built.
“…a word becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously had to fit countless more or less similar cases…”
The point being made is that the concept may hold a universal quality. After experiencing countless stimuli and each making a similar image, the same word is attributed to the multitude of images. Then a great metaphorical leap is made. That by ignoring the differences of each image a conceptual universal image may be attached to the word. The word no longer applies to the individual that was at one point experienced in the world but applies metaphorically to a hypothetical image of universality. Nietzsche illustrates this point in the example of “honesty” and the example of the “leaf”.
Nietzsche’s claim for truth as illusion and metaphor rests largely on four accounts. Firstly the illusory use of a word as a designator for a thing in itself. Secondly the continual use of this designator in the same fashion to be mistaken as the thing in itself. Thirdly the process of stimuli transfigured into sound. And fourthly the creation of the concept from the word.
At the centre of Nietzsche’s argument is individual man as a deceiver in the world. That fundamentally in the world there exists the drive to survive, of self-preservation, and that for the strong this drive takes form in battle, for the intelligent this drive takes form in deception.
“As a means for the preserving of the individual, the intellect unfolds its principal powers in dissimulation…This art of dissimulation reaches its peak in man.”
Nietzsche illustrates here that the highest form of deception is found in man and that man uses it to his advantage for personal survival. From the very onset man is set against man and beast within the world, and it is his superior ability to deceive that sets him higher. Nietzsche puts it to us that there does not exist in the first instance a need for truth in the man as individual, and rules out that our senses may give us truth, rather they may be deceived.
“Their senses nowhere lead to truth; on the contrary, they are content to receive stimuli and, as it were, to engage in a groping game on the backs of things.”
The stimuli that the senses receive are not truth. Stimuli, Nietzsche points out, need not be the thing in the world, or the thing in itself, any connection to truth cannot be realized. The senses have no way to distinguish stimuli that is derived from a thing in itself or a deception.
From the individual, Nietzsche’s argument moves further into the individual as he is within the society that he builds for himself. In a social consensus less energies may be spent on protecting the individual if common ground may be held, and some understanding between individuals is obtained. An intelligent individual recognizes the advantages in a social relationship with others. Now the priority, as Nietzsche sees it, has shifted from the preservation of the individual to the preservation of the society that protects its members. From here Nietzsche introduces the term designation as common deceptions that members, of a society, hold in order to communicate the same expression for a similar thing.
“a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things, and this legislation of language likewise establishes the first laws of truth.”
These designations do not form truth on their own merit but contort language into a system in which truth may come to be recognized. To use the wrong designation is not to tell an untruth but to warp the common understanding. Nietzsche continues to claim that such a misuse of a designation has not any actual consequences, but only when such a misuse leads to causing harm to the society and its members. The truth value is not that which is of importance, it is the negative effects of deception upon society which are unwanted. It is not the inherent properties of truth that show themselves to be desirable for man, rather it is the positive consequences of truth for society that are desirable.
“…he desires the pleasant, life-preserving consequences of truth…toward those truths which are possibly harmful and destructive he is even hostilely inclined.”
The constant desire of the pleasant consequences insist the presence of the same designations in the same place for as long as it creates the pleasant consequence. That is to say, for as long as the illusion gives benefit to society as being taken as true then it is. This is the first point at which truth may be understood as an illusion. Not as some readers believe, the designation as illusion, rather the place holding nature of the designation as truth is an illusion.
Continual use of the same place holder becomes enveloped within tradition and convention. At this point the illusion takes another step into metaphor; the designation no longer holds a place for truth but is directly representational as a truth. For another illusion may come to hold a place in reference to the metaphor. So what has happened under the guise of time is that what once was merely held as a common designation for a thing has in turn become a place holder for that thing and then a metaphor as the thing in itself. This forgetfulness that Nietzsche writes expresses on one level his claim to truth being a metaphor. That the metaphor, from designation, has become truth in the structure of tradition, in its constant and persistent use in the same context over many generations. As though it has always been .
Nietzsche lays claim to truth as metaphor on yet another account. That the formation of language from sensory perception must leap from sphere to sphere in a series of metaphor.
“To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor.”
Nietzsche’s point here is that there is no direct equation between each step. That the image is the result of the mind’s conjuring trick using the information from the senses. The image has no direct correlation to the world that we sense, it is merely representational. Created for our operative purposes, man will understand the image as the world. At once the metaphor is made and immediately forgotten or never realised. Again, to communicate the image to another, the conjuring trick is used to put the image back into the world. The sound that is uttered, an act of creativity, is metaphoric in the highest degree to the image in one’s mind. And yet each word becomes separated from the image and attached to a concept. So that the concept may group all alike images together and structures may be built.
“…a word becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously had to fit countless more or less similar cases…”
The point being made is that the concept may hold a universal quality. After experiencing countless stimuli and each making a similar image, the same word is attributed to the multitude of images. Then a great metaphorical leap is made. That by ignoring the differences of each image a conceptual universal image may be attached to the word. The word no longer applies to the individual that was at one point experienced in the world but applies metaphorically to a hypothetical image of universality. Nietzsche illustrates this point in the example of “honesty” and the example of the “leaf”.
Nietzsche’s claim for truth as illusion and metaphor rests largely on four accounts. Firstly the illusory use of a word as a designator for a thing in itself. Secondly the continual use of this designator in the same fashion to be mistaken as the thing in itself. Thirdly the process of stimuli transfigured into sound. And fourthly the creation of the concept from the word.
Labels: philosophy
¶ 11:10 pm