Nietzsche’s Critique of Western Metaphysics and Culture
Explanation of the Terms Underlined
Unit: This means that reality, the world, has a single principle from which it originates. While our senses can perceive many different things in reality, all are reduced to the unit, be it *physis* (nature), substance, etc. All philosophers who believe that the unit exists deny the reality of movement. However, that is precisely what is expressed by the other concept.
Becoming: A term that designates the self as a process, and that includes every change: movement, change, generation, corruption, etc. From Greek philosophy, to speak of being branded as becoming is the opposition to the concept of being as something static. The affirmation of becoming, of being mutable, is identified with a dynamic conception of reality, a unique design that, according to Nietzsche, picks up its true historical nature.
Thematic Exhibition of the Text
In this excerpt from “The Twilight of the Idols,” Nietzsche lays the foundations of his critique of metaphysics and Western culture in general. Since Plato, philosophy became a dual structure of reality: a supersensible world, the world of ideas, enduring, immutable, and divine, and a sensible world, erroneous and mutable. The first world was real; the second was an imperfect copy of the world of ideas.
Heraclitus appears in the text, who was also unfair to the senses and also belonged to the Eleatic philosophical school of Elea. One of its most prestigious members of this school was Parmenides. For Nietzsche, the senses only show the true being of things, that is, pure becoming. The traditional error does not come from the senses but of reason. The interpretation that reason makes of the testimony of the senses, describing the evidence of deception or illusion, and inventing the “real world.” The game of Nietzsche with the Platonic terminology is clear and continuous, repeating the duality “apparent world” and “real world.” But to say it does exactly the opposite: what until now has been deemed apparent is the real; the real is a pure invention.
Justification of the Text from the Author’s Philosophical Position
Nietzsche criticizes Western culture on three fronts: metaphysics, morality, and science. He criticizes the metaphysics that began with Socrates and Plato, establishing the “dogmatic error” to believe that there are “things in themselves.” This idea was picked up by Christianity. Socrates and Plato pervert the original Greek spirit.
In the moral critique, the words “good” and “bad” at first referred to the wealthier classes and the vulgar classes, respectively. However, the vulgar classes changed the meaning given to “good” values and “bad” values of the upper class so that values such as suffering and poverty became “good.” This involved disrupting the way we understand values.
The critique of science is directed at mechanism and positivism. Nietzsche is against any conception that understands that you can capture life’s concepts. Life is much broader and more complex.
Nietzsche’s contributions were very provocative, as well as his criticisms. He moves from the death of God, “God is dead.” This appears in several of his works, such as “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” The topic is discussed in “The Antichrist.” This means that the great Western values have fallen; no one believes in the promises of the West, into a decadent morality that Nietzsche also criticized.
Nihilism is the understanding that there is no compass in this life, no values. This can be negative or positive. Negative because you can miserably take advantage of the situation. Positive because understanding that there are no values is the step to creating a new way of understanding life. Nietzsche thinks that this is dangerous and can cause ideological wars.
This makes positive nihilism appear in the Superman. According to Nietzsche, the Superman must be an excess over man, who is somewhere in between. The Superman should be the real man who must learn to say yes to life, contrary to the man full of bitterness. The Superman will come when the three transformations of which Nietzsche speaks occur: the camel becomes a lion, and the lion becomes a child. The camel is the man with the moral burden, the lion is the man capable of taking positive nihilism, and the child is the Superman that is associated with life happily.
The prospect of the Superman is expressed as “will to power.” The will to power is the impetus of being. Everything tries to be, to create, to live. The will to power is the affirmation of the principle of life.
The will to power is the creation and acceptance of the Eternal Return (a fundamental concept in Nietzsche’s philosophy). The Eternal Return is the idea that everything will be repeated as we are living it now. Wanting to live life so that everything happens again.