Nietzsche on Reality, Art, and the Errors of Philosophy
**Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Embracing Reality Through Art**
For Nietzsche, reality is vital. Therefore, life becomes the object of his philosophy and the source from which arises all that is concrete and changing; that is real. If reality is pure *becoming*, it cannot be grasped by the concept, but by the metaphor, since this does not provide an unambiguous meaning (objectivity) but accepts the plurality and subjectivity of the same (perspective). Therefore, art, for Nietzsche, is the only appropriate tool for understanding life. It asserts the multiplicity and subjectivity of reality (becoming) using metaphor and not the concept.
Nietzsche believes that tragedy is the highest form of art, as it coincides with Dionysian art, that is, the assertion of reality and of man himself as they are. The tragic artist is Dionysian because he does not intend targets or sources out of this world, but affirms reality, life as it appears to us, even in its most enigmatic, irrational, terrible, and painful aspects. The tragic artist, selecting and correcting reality, does not hide or deny it, but accepts and assumes it while embellishing it (Apollonian-Dionysian dialectic). This acceptance of life in all its glory makes the tragic artist the true “philosopher.”
Philosophy, for Nietzsche, is the tragic vision of life, and he who accepts it as it is can turn his life into a work of art, which is all that Nietzsche gives real value and meaning to human existence. Therefore, the tragic artist is the paradigm of the human being, above the saint, the philosopher, or the scientist.
**Key Concepts in Nietzsche’s Thought**
Causa Sui: A Latin expression, in scholastic terms, applied only to God, being given existence itself, or existing because of its very nature. It is to be subsistent in itself because otherwise, there is another. It is an exception to the universality of the principle of causality, according to which everything that exists has a cause.
Supreme Concepts: An expression that refers to the rational categories that dogmatic philosophers have used to refer to the “true” reality of the intelligible world. These concepts seek to designate the characteristics of the ‘real world’: being, substance, unity, identity, cause. But for Nietzsche, these “highest concepts” do not refer to anything real but are terms that our reason makes to refer to a world invented by our jealousy and cowardice before the reality of becoming, which cannot be characterized by those concepts but through sensible intuitions to capture adequately the sensible reality.
Belief: Nietzsche uses this expression in a sense very close to that of Hume. What the dogmatic philosophers, following Plato, described as true knowledge, knowledge of the highest truths of reason, are really beliefs, habits of reason.
Decadence (Descending Life): For Nietzsche, the man of Western culture since Socrates has defended values antithetical to life and believed in an objective world, the true, immutable, rational world that supports those values. The “decadent life” is the life of those who believe in these values over the values of the earth, of becoming, and based on a “real world” invented in opposition to the real world of becoming. Everything that opposes the values of existing, biological, and instinctive is decadent. “Being on the need to fight the instincts—hence the formula for decadence [decay]” (Twilight of the Idols). “Philosophy, religion, and morality are symptoms of decadence” (Posthumous Fragments).
Dehistoricize: The process by which the followers of the dogmatic, Parmenidean-Platonic philosophy eliminate the dynamic nature of reality. History cannot be understood here as a science or as the succession of events to humans, but in a broader sense, as the continuing evolution of the real. To say that being is history and history is another way of saying that it is evolution. Therefore, to state that reality is immutable, identical to itself (Parmenidean being, Platonic Ideas, or Cartesian substances) and that what changes is only appearance, dogmatic philosophers have “dehistoricized” reality. But since they act with the mistaken notion that reality is immutable, they believe that by “dehistoricizing,” they are giving something “honor” in the real framing. They think they are doing something positive.
Devenir (Becoming): A term that designates the process of being or being as a process, and that includes all types of change: movement, change, generation, corruption. From Greek philosophy, to speak of being as ‘becoming’ marks opposition to the conception of being as “static” being. It is generally considered that the philosophies of Heraclitus and Parmenides are representative of the two positions, respectively. The affirmation of becoming, of mutable being, is identified with a dynamic conception of reality, the only conception that, according to Nietzsche, receives its true “historical” nature. So in paragraph 2 of the text, we read: “I put to one side, with great reverence, the name of Heraclitus.” Nietzsche frames the other authors within the heirs of Parmenides.
Dionysian/Apollonian: Terms introduced by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy, which initially characterized artistic expressions: the Apollonian (modeled on the god Apollo) represents the ideal of beauty and finished forms, measure, order; the Dionysian (modeled on the god Dionysus) represents excess, clutter, the unfinished, representing the values of the earth, the characteristics of life. Both poles are necessary and mutually stimulate each other: extent and excess are the essence of all art. The clash between the two is victorious, and its ultimate expression is Greek tragedy. But this Apollonian-Dionysian unity will be truncated from Socrates onward. The dissociation of these values is the basis of Western culture and involves the subjugation of life to an outsider because of the Dionysian (life) to the Apollonian (reason), leading to the dissolution of both in the last resort. These two concepts are also the two trends that inhabit humans. But only those who know how to unite them achieve the artistic dimension in their lives, reaching beyond good and evil. Thus, aesthetic reflection appears as a model of philosophical reflection.
Egyptianism: A metaphorical image with which Nietzsche sets the trend to remain static, timelessness, the petrification of traditional dogmatic philosophy, that is, their tendency to deny the main feature of reality: to be becoming. He uses this image because human representation in Egyptian sculpture and painting is characterized by the “hieratic,” lack of expression, and movement to emphasize the solemnity of the image. With this resource, Egyptian art wanted to capture eternity and immortality of the soul of the deceased.
Eleatics: Originally, a group of pre-Socratics among which are Xenophanes, Parmenides (exponent), Zeno, and Melissus of Samos. Their central thesis is what Nietzsche criticizes: a static conception of being, rational deduction of their categories, and, therefore, the denial of the sensible. “Eleatic” refers to the place around which the lives of these authors take place, Elea (then at Magna Graecia, now south of Naples). But Nietzsche also uses the term in a broader sense, defined as “Eleatic” to all philosophers who have accepted this concept of static being.
Empiricism: All that comes from sensible experience. Empiricism comes from here.
Ens Realissimum: An expression of scholastic philosophy which means “very real entity.” “Entity” refers to any existing thing, and therefore “very real entity” refers exclusively to God as being maximally perfect, real, necessary, and cause of itself (causa sui). Other beings, being created and having an existence dependent on God, are contingent and thus not maximally real as God is. For Nietzsche, this ens realissimum neither exists nor can exist, because the reality we know is always caused. There is nothing with the characteristics of that absolute being. This concept is nothing more than an empty fiction.
**Nietzsche’s Critique of Language and Philosophy**
Fetish: Figuratively understood as idolatry and superstitious excessive veneration. With the term “fetishism of language,” Nietzsche refers to the process by which the part of speech of the subject of the proposition projects onto our experience of reality, creating the deception, the false belief that in reality there are subjects (identical beings, consisting of free, which act as causes) and predicates (accidents, however, attributes, qualities of these beings are subject to change). That is, the fetishism of language is to confer a power that it does not have. Therefore, the “fetishism of the metaphysics of language,” leaving the metaphorical language, is a metaphysical use of grammatical structures.
Philosophy, Philosophers: Nietzsche uses this expression in a very specific pejorative sense. It refers to the dogmatic philosophers who maintain a static conception of reality. ‘Philosopher’ is synonymous with Plato for Nietzsche (broadly defined), and the philosophy of “Platonic philosophy.” Therefore, when Nietzsche describes some philosophy or philosopher, he is launching an attack.
Idiosyncrasy: The character, individuality, and distinctive characteristics that define anything. Nietzsche uses this term to describe the characteristics that define dogmatic philosophers, traditional, ‘Platonic’ peculiarities that are reeling over this chapter of Twilight of the Idols.
Idolatry (Idolatrous): In the religious sphere, idolatry is the worship of idols understood as objects that are considered sacred and that cause an attitude of devotion and worship. In the text, Nietzsche makes a metaphorical use of the term, applying this meaning to supreme religious concepts. Dogmatic philosophers love concepts that were shaped by reason because they represent “true” reality, the essential reality of being in itself, which is unique, eternal, immutable, and the object of true knowledge. But these supreme concepts, for Nietzsche, these “idols” of reason, are mere appearance that neither concern nor designate anything really existing; they are conceptual mummies.
Moral-Optical Illusion: Nietzsche characterizes the intelligible world of traditional metaphysics as a moral-optical illusion. The “true” world of traditional metaphysics is an unreal world that exists beyond reason, inventing it (for that is an illusion). But this illusion is caused because our perspective of reality (our ontological perspective) is determined by a derogatory and sinful consideration (moral) of the sensible world, of being as becoming. If the real world (becoming) is bad, it cannot be “true.” Therefore, reason invents a world where none of the features that make it bad are given: change, aging, pain, death.
Conceptual Mummies: This metaphor should be understood in the context of paragraph 1. According to Nietzsche, the concepts that dogmatic philosophers have used to refer to the “true” reality (unique, eternal, and immutable) invented for reason are hollow, empty concepts, do not contain anything alive, anything real (like mummies). By Egyptian mummification, it was intended to preserve the body so that his soul could continue to exist and could revive the bandaged body in the future. But that body is real only in appearance, as is apparently only real the content of the concepts of dogmatic philosophy. For Nietzsche, the concept is the tomb of intuitions: the concept mummifies thinking and reality, so this author intends to move reason and its corollary, the concept, to intuition and necessary creation, metaphor.
Monotono-Theism (Monotheism): “The ironic attribute ‘monotono-theism’ refers to the way that the guiding principles of the intelligible world make up a theology and a waiver of the earth, that is, becoming. In any philosophical system, there is an immutable principle that explains the basis for everything that is hierarchically ordered and what is considered real—changes not—against misleading becoming. This serves as the supreme principle attributed to God in different religions, though called Idea, Nous, categorical imperative, and so on. In this context, thinking is to achieve this basic philosophy, and human action is morally fit while at the same” (Beatriz Podesta, A Perspective for Thinking About the Moral Problem in Nietzsche). Thus, according to Plato, man reaches goodness when he knows the Good. According to Descartes, the moral ideal is a consequence of the basic principles of metaphysics. According to Kant, only good will follow the categorical imperative.
People: In this text, the term people are in quotation marks because it refers to common knowledge (the chained in Plato’s cave) of those who claim to be real and true to what their senses show them. Dogmatic philosophers separate themselves from what the “people” say; they claim that superior knowledge is typical of detached reason and the senses. The senses are a source of error, so the majority (the people) are wrong (they live in the shadows), and therefore, philosophers and Christian priests after them must reveal to the people the truth of an intelligible, transcendent, and divine world so that, at least, they believe in him and live according to it. In On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), Nietzsche analyzes moral concepts and discovers that in principle, the concept of “good” referred to the noble, the aristocratic (morality of lords), and the concept “bad” was synonymous with simple, vulgar, plebeian (slave morality). For Nietzsche, the Jews and later Christians make bad into good and call the noble “evil.” The unnatural morality of Christianity is the result of the rebellion of the slaves (the people) and is a product of resentment toward life as it is. Western morality creates resentment and hate; it is the cause of the weak, cowardly, and mediocre toward real life. It is also a cause of Western nihilism, which can only be overcome by the appearance of the Superman to revive the aristocratic values of the affirmation of life as it is, of joie de vivre.
Sub Specie Aeterni: An expression taken from Spinoza by Nietzsche (1632-1677), an outstanding exponent of Cartesian rationalism. According to him, all that exists is a manifestation that necessarily comes from God. Therefore, the highest knowledge that man can get from reality is achieved when he “recognizes” that reality necessarily comes from God. That is precisely what is meant by “sub specie aeterni” or “aeternitatis” (from the perspective of eternity or the eternal perspective), that is, knowing reality in relation to God. When you get that knowledge, man will realize that reality cannot be otherwise because it is a necessary consequence of divine action. To “recognize” their connection to the divine plan, man will know the reality of things. Nietzsche criticizes this rationalist position because, when considering reality as necessary, it eliminates its historical and contingent character.
Surreptitiously: An adverb that refers to what is done in a surreptitious manner, that is, it is done or taken secretly and in secret. The text can understand this term as “hidden” and even more accurately “unconsciously,” as the assertion of the self as a thinking substance is a deeply rooted belief that we affirm its existence uncritically and without being aware of its possible irrationality; substantial prejudice is to be branded as the Cartesian cogito, in general, to rationalism.