Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Unveiling Reality, Truth, and Becoming
Nietzsche’s Philosophy
Key Concepts
Becoming
This expresses the Heraclitean view of reality as constant change, contrasting with Parmenides and Plato’s principle of identity. Life is characterized by evolution, struggle, and contradiction, while identity represents death.
Concepts
Traditional philosophy views concepts as abstractions representing objects in a general and abstract way. Nietzsche, however, sees them as empty grammatical constructs that deny reality by unifying the sensible.
Lie
Lying is a product of using the senses as evidence of reliability, despite them showing a changing and evolving world.
Science
Science, meaning knowledge from the senses, is considered valid. However, Nietzsche criticizes scientific positivism for reducing reality to the quantifiable.
Metaphysics
Metaphysics, essential to Western culture, invents a “real world” opposed to an “apparent world.” This aims to give valued things a separate origin. Nietzsche uses this term in the context of dogmatic philosophy, which prioritizes unchanging identity over becoming. What doesn’t become is considered causa sui, the origin of supreme values like “self,” “existing,” “good,” “true,” and “perfect.”
God
Nietzsche believes belief in God stems from a declining life unable to accept the world’s tragic dimension. God’s death signifies disorientation and the loss of an ultimate horizon. This experience of finitude is necessary for a new lifestyle, living without absolutes in the “innocence of becoming.”
Appearance
Appearance is the surface perception captured by the senses. Traditional metaphysics opposes it to ‘reality,’ which Nietzsche considers a hoax motivated by fear of change. He argues there is no such opposition; the ‘appearance’ is the only reality.
Substance
Following Locke, Nietzsche rejects the notion of substance as something mysterious and valuable. He criticizes the “fetishism” of calling becoming “thing,” “being,” “I,” and “substance.”
I
The ‘I’ is another instance of the substance concept. Nietzsche denies a thinking substance, attributing the belief to the metaphysics of language and reason’s fetishism.
Reason
Nietzsche rejects innate ideas and a prime power of knowledge. He views reason as deceptive, distorting sensory testimony.
True and Apparent World
The “apparent world” is the world perceived by the senses, the only real world according to Nietzsche. Traditional metaphysics posits a “real world” with qualities like immutability and perfection, which Nietzsche considers invented in resentment of this life. This distinction undervalues the real world and signifies Western decadence.