The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV — John Shaqi
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
_Form, species, law, idea, purpose_--the same fault is made in respect
of all these concepts, namely, that of giving a false realism to a
piece of fiction: as if all phenomena were infused with some sort of
obedient spirit--an artificial distinction is here made between that
_which_ acts and that _which_ guides action (but both these things are
only fixed in order to agree with our metaphysico-logical dogma: they
are not "facts").
We should not interpret this _constraint_ in ourselves, to imagine
concepts, species, forms, purposes, and laws ("_a world of identical
cases_") as if we were in a position to construct a _real world_; but
as a constraint to adjust a world by means of which _our existence_
will be ensured: we thereby create a world which is determinable,
simplified, comprehensible, etc., for us.
The very same constraint is active in _the functions of the senses_
which support the reason--by means of simplification, coarsening,
accentuation, and interpretation; whereon all "recognition," all the
ability of making one's self intelligible rests. Our _needs_ have made
our senses so precise, that the "same world of appearance" always
returns, and has thus acquired the semblance of _reality._
Our subjective constraint to have faith in logic, is expressive only
of the fact that long before logic itself became conscious in us, we
did nothing _save introduce its postulates into the nature of things:_
now we find ourselves in their presence,--we can no longer help
it,--and now we would fain believe that this constraint is a guarantee
of "truth." We it was who created the "thing," the "same thing," the
subject, the attribute, the action, the object, the substance, and
the form, after we had carried the process of equalising, coarsening,
and simplifying as far as possible. The world _seems_ logical to us,
because we have already made it logical.
522.
_Fundamental solution._--We believe in reason: this is, however, the
philosophy of colourless _concepts._ Language is built upon the most
_naïf_ prejudices.
Now we read discord and problems into things, because we are able to
_think only_ in the form of language--we also believe in the "eternal
truth" of "wisdom" (for instance, subject, attribute, etc.).
_We cease from thinking if we do not wish to think under the control
of language_; the most we can do is to attain to an attitude of doubt
concerning the question whether the boundary here really is a boundary.
_Rational thought is a process of interpreting according to a scheme
which we cannot reject._
(_f_) Consciousness.
523.
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