Nietzsche and Other Exponents of Individualism

Nietzsche · en
According to Nietzsche, the history of philosophy from Plato to his
own time is a progress of the idea that objective truth (a conception
of "the true world") is not only not attainable, but does not exist
at all. He expresses this idea in his Twilight of the Idols (English
edition, pp. 122-123) under the caption, "How the 'True World' Finally
Became a Fable," which describes the successive stages as follows:


      "1. The true world attainable by the wise, the pious, and
      the virtuous man,--he lives in it, he embodies it.

      "(Oldest form of the idea, relatively rational, simple,
      and convincing. Transcription of the proposition, 'I,
      Plato, am the truth,')

      "2. The true world unattainable at present, but promised
      to the wise, the pious, and the virtuous man (to the
      sinner who repents).

      "(Progress of the idea: it becomes more refined, more
      insidious, more incomprehensible,--it becomes feminine, it
      becomes Christian.)

      "3. The true world unattainable, undemonstrable, and
      unable to be promised; but even as conceived, a comfort,
      an obligation, and an imperative.

      "(The old sun still, but shining only through mist and
      scepticism; the idea becomes sublime, pale, northerly,
      Koenigsbergian.)

      "4. The true world--unattainable? At any rate unattained.
      And being unattained also unknown. Consequently also
      neither comforting, saving nor obligatory: what obligation
      could anything unknown lay upon us?

      "(Gray morning. First dawning of reason. Cock-crowing of
      Positivism.)

      "5. The 'true world'--an idea neither good for anything,
      nor even obligatory any longer,--an idea become useless
      and superfluous; consequently a refuted idea; let us do
      away with it!

      "(Full day; breakfast; return of _bon sens_ and
      cheerfulness; Plato blushing for shame; infernal noise of
      all free intellects,)

      "6. We have done away with the true world: what world is
      left? perhaps the seeming?... But no! in doing away with
      the true, we have also done away with the seeming world!

      "(Noon; the moment of the shortest shadow; end of the
      longest error; climax of mankind; _Incipit Zarathustra!_)"

The reader will ask, "What next?" Probably afternoon and evening, and
then night. In the night presumably "the old sun," i. e., the idea of
Plato's true world, which (according to Nietzsche) grew pale in the
morning, will shine again.