Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900; Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900 -- Criticism and interpretation; Philosophy
It is well to speak here of truth as Nietzsche conceived it. We have
seen how he denied its absolutism and declared it to be relative. But
in his present work he goes further and contends that the feeling of
the increase of power is the determining factor in truth. If, as we
have seen, the "truths" of science are merely those interpretations
which grow out of the scientists' will to power, then truth itself must
be the outgrowth of this instinct. That which makes for the growth and
development of the individual--or in other words, that which increases
the feeling of strength--is necessarily the truth. From this it is easy
to deduce the conclusion that in many instances truth is a reversal of
facts, for preservation very often consists in an adherence to actual
falsity. Thus, the false causality of certain phenomena--the outcome of
logic engendered by a will to power--has not infrequently masqueraded
as truth. Nietzsche holds that this doctrine contains the only possible
definition of truth; and in this doctrine we find an explanation for
many of the apparent paradoxes in his teachings when the matter of
truth and falsity are under discussion.
The second part of the first book relates to the will to power in
nature, and contains the most complete and lucid explanation of
Nietzsche's basic theory to be found anywhere in his writings.
This section opens with an argument against a purely mechanical
interpretation of the world, and a refutation of the physicists'
concept of "energy." The chemical and physical laws, the atomic
theory and the mechanical concept of movement, he characterises as
"inventions" on the part of scientists and researchers for the purpose
of understanding natural phenomena and therefore of increasing their
feeling of power. The apparent sequence of phenomena which constitutes
"law" is, according to Nietzsche, only a "relation of power between
two or more forces"--a matter of interdependence, a process wherein
the "procession of moments do _not_ determine each other after the
manner of cause and effect." In these observations we see the process
of reasoning with which Nietzsche refutes the current methods of
ascertaining facts and the manner in which he introduces the principle
of will to power into the phenomena of nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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