Nietzsche’s Perspective on Truth, Metaphors, and Intuition
Nietzsche on Truth as Illusion
4 – In this text, Nietzsche argues that “truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that they are”, i.e., using fictions no longer considered as tales. In other words, the truth is a set of “metaphors” that express a “sum of human relations,” because things do not designate, but individuals and their relations with them from certain perspectives, which are already interpretations. Now, what happens is that using such metaphors are just setting as “firm, canonical, and binding”, that is, as true for everyone.
- Relationship with metaphors that express relationships between things.
- The truth is just a fiction.
- What is true is the consolidation of a perspective through use.
The Substitution of Metaphors for Concepts
5 – According to Nietzsche, human beings, to accept as true the majority’s fictions, “put their actions as a rational being under the control of abstractions” and thus reject the “impressions” and “intuitions”. Thus, replacing “intuitive metaphors” which refer to the multiplicity and diversity of perspectives with “concepts”.
- Relation: substitution of metaphors for concepts (main idea)
- Truth as imposition of a particular perspective.
The Scientist’s Misunderstanding of Metaphors
6 – In this text, Nietzsche argues that the scientist “forgets that the original intuitive metaphors are only metaphors and takes them for the things themselves”, i.e., forgets that metaphors are interpretations and considers that they are concepts that describe objective reality. In his view, the scientist sees reality from a human perspective, but in doing so, “part of the mistake of thinking that has these things to themselves immediately as pure objects”, when in fact there are no facts, but interpretations.
Critique of Correct Perception
7 – Nietzsche criticizes in this text the notion of correct perception. First, before two perceptions, “the question of which of the two perceptions of the world is right is meaningless” because it would take an objective and top view that are not available. Secondly, the concept of correct perception is “absurd and full of contradictions,” as the subject and object are completely different, so the subject does not replicate reality objectively, but takes a “conduct aesthetic or artistic, that is, creator of fictions, metaphors, and conventions.
- Relationship: perspectivism -> multiplicity of perspectives.
- Creating metaphors, fictions.
- Art…
Intuitive vs. Rational Man
9 – In this passage, Nietzsche compares the intuitive man with a rational man. The intuitive man rejects “abstraction” and is “irrational,” while the rational man flees intuition and is “inartistic.” But “both want to dominate life.” However, the rational man does this through knowledge (“foresight, prudence, and regularity.”) Instead, the intuitive man addresses the needs “as its real life appearance and beauty in disguise,” i.e., adopting an artistic or aesthetic attitude.
- Relation: “art and intuition are access to life, not reason and science.”
- Art -> Greek tragedy.
- Creating metaphors.
Rationality vs. Intuition in Suffering and Happiness
10 – In this text, Nietzsche opposes the attitude peculiar to the rational man and that which corresponds to the intuitive man. The first is protected from misfortune by concepts, but does not extract happiness from them, but only eliminates pain. By contrast, the intuitive man “gets longer thanks to its intentions, as well as plots of evil, the constant flow of clarity, entertainment, and liberation”, but suffers more intensely. (In short, the intuitive man is “as irrational in suffering as in happiness.”)