The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IVNietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
PhilosophyPhilosophy
The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
Nihilism (Philosophy); Power (Philosophy); Values
In this belief there _reigns_ the sensual and coarse prejudice that our
sensations teach us _truths_ concerning things,--that I cannot at the
same moment of time say of one and the same thing that it is _hard_ and
_soft._ (The instinctive proof, "I cannot have two opposite sensations
at once," is quite _coarse_ and _false_.)
That all contradiction in concepts should be forbidden, is the result
of a belief, that we _are able_ to form concepts, that a concept not
only characterises but also _holds_ the essence of a thing.... As a
matter of fact, logic (like geometry and arithmetic) only holds good of
_assumed existences which we have created._ Logic is _the attempt on
our part to understand the actual world according to a scheme of Being
devised by ourselves; or, more exactly, it is our attempt at making the
actual world more calculable and more susceptible to formulation, for
our own purposes...._
517.
In order to be able to think and to draw conclusions, it is necessary
to _acknowledge that which exists:_ logic only deals with formulæ for
things which are constant. That is why this acknowledgment would not in
the least prove reality: "that which is" is part of our optics. The ego
regarded as Being (not affected by either Becoming or evolution).
The _assumed world_ of subject, substance, reason, etc., is necessary,
an adjusting, simplifying falsifying, artificially-separating power
resides in us. "Truth" is the will to be master over the manifold
sensations that reach consciousness; it is the will to _classify_
phenomena according to definite categories. In this way we start out
with a belief in the "true nature" of things (we regard phenomena as
real).
The character of the world in the process of Becoming _is not
susceptible of formulation;_ it is "false" and "contradicts itself."
_Knowledge_ and the process of _evolution_ exclude each other.
_Consequently,_ knowledge must be something else: it must be preceded
by a will to make things knowable, a kind of Becoming in itself must
create the _illusion_ of _Being._
518.
If our "ego" is the only form of Being, according to which we make
and understand all Being: very good! In that case it were very
proper to doubt whether an _illusion_ of perspective were not active
here--the apparent unity which everything assumes in our eyes on the
horizon-line. Appealing to the body for our guidance, we are confronted
by such appalling manifoldness, that for the sake of method it is
allowable to use that phenomenon which is _richer_ and more easily
studied as a clue to the understanding of the poorer phenomenon.
Finally: admitting that all is Becoming, _knowledge is only possible
when based on a belief in Being._
519.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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