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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. SUPPOSING that Truth is a woman - what then? Is there not ground for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been dogmatists, have failed to understand women - that the terrible seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for winning a woman? Certainly she has never allowed herself to be won; and at present every kind of dogma stands with sad and discouraged mien - IF, indeed, it stands at all! For there are scoffers who maintain that it has fallen, that all dogma lies on the ground - nay more, that it is at its last gasp. But to speak seriously, there are good grounds for hoping that all dogmatizing in philosophy, whatever solemn, whatever conclusive and decided airs it has assumed, may have been only a noble puerilism and tyronism; and probably the time is at hand when it will be once and again understood WHAT has actually sufficed for the basis of such imposing and absolute philosophical edifices as the dogmatists have hitherto reared: perhaps some popular superstition of immemorial time (such as the soul-superstition, which, in the form of subject-and ego-superstition, has not yet ceased doing mischief): perhaps some play upon words, a deception on the part of grammar, or an audacious generalization of very restricted, very personal, very human - all-too-human facts

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819917977
Langue	English

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PREFACE
SUPPOSING that Truth is a woman - what then? Isthere not ground for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far asthey have been dogmatists, have failed to understand women - thatthe terrible seriousness and clumsy importunity with which theyhave usually paid their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled andunseemly methods for winning a woman? Certainly she has neverallowed herself to be won; and at present every kind of dogmastands with sad and discouraged mien - IF, indeed, it stands atall! For there are scoffers who maintain that it has fallen, thatall dogma lies on the ground - nay more, that it is at its lastgasp. But to speak seriously, there are good grounds for hopingthat all dogmatizing in philosophy, whatever solemn, whateverconclusive and decided airs it has assumed, may have been only anoble puerilism and tyronism; and probably the time is at hand whenit will be once and again understood WHAT has actually sufficed forthe basis of such imposing and absolute philosophical edifices asthe dogmatists have hitherto reared: perhaps some popularsuperstition of immemorial time (such as the soul-superstition,which, in the form of subject-and ego-superstition, has not yetceased doing mischief): perhaps some play upon words, a deceptionon the part of grammar, or an audacious generalization of veryrestricted, very personal, very human - all-too-human facts. Thephilosophy of the dogmatists, it is to be hoped, was only a promisefor thousands of years afterwards, as was astrology in stillearlier times, in the service of which probably more labour, gold,acuteness, and patience have been spent than on any actual sciencehitherto: we owe to it, and to its "super-terrestrial" pretensionsin Asia and Egypt, the grand style of architecture. It seems thatin order to inscribe themselves upon the heart of humanity witheverlasting claims, all great things have first to wander about theearth as enormous and awe-inspiring caricatures: dogmaticphilosophy has been a caricature of this kind - for instance, theVedanta doctrine in Asia, and Platonism in Europe. Let us not beungrateful to it, although it must certainly be confessed that theworst, the most tiresome, and the most dangerous of errors hithertohas been a dogmatist error - namely, Plato's invention of PureSpirit and the Good in Itself. But now when it has been surmounted,when Europe, rid of this nightmare, can again draw breath freelyand at least enjoy a healthier - sleep, we, WHOSE DUTY ISWAKEFULNESS ITSELF, are the heirs of all the strength which thestruggle against this error has fostered. It amounted to the veryinversion of truth, and the denial of the PERSPECTIVE - thefundamental condition - of life, to speak of Spirit and the Good asPlato spoke of them; indeed one might ask, as a physician: "How didsuch a malady attack that finest product of antiquity, Plato? Hadthe wicked Socrates really corrupted him? Was Socrates after all acorrupter of youths, and deserved his hemlock?" But the struggleagainst Plato, or - to speak plainer, and for the "people" - thestruggle against the ecclesiastical oppression of millenniums ofChristianity (FOR CHRISITIANITY IS PLATONISM FOR THE "PEOPLE"),produced in Europe a magnificent tension of soul, such as had notexisted anywhere previously; with such a tensely strained bow onecan now aim at the furthest goals. As a matter of fact, theEuropean feels this tension as a state of distress, and twiceattempts have been made in grand style to unbend the bow: once bymeans of Jesuitism, and the second time by means of democraticenlightenment - which, with the aid of liberty of the press andnewspaper-reading, might, in fact, bring it about that the spiritwould not so easily find itself in "distress"! (The Germansinvented gunpowder-all credit to them! but they again made thingssquare - they invented printing.) But we, who are neither Jesuits,nor democrats, nor even sufficiently Germans, we GOOD EUROPEANS,and free, VERY free spirits - we have it still, all the distress ofspirit and all the tension of its bow! And perhaps also the arrow,the duty, and, who knows? THE GOAL TO AIM AT....
Sils Maria Upper Engadine, JUNE, 1885.
CHAPTER I - PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS
1. The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many ahazardous enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which allphilosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions hasthis Will to Truth not laid before us! What strange, perplexing,questionable questions! It is already a long story; yet it seems asif it were hardly commenced. Is it any wonder if we at last growdistrustful, lose patience, and turn impatiently away? That thisSphinx teaches us at last to ask questions ourselves? WHO is itreally that puts questions to us here? WHAT really is this "Will toTruth" in us? In fact we made a long halt at the question as to theorigin of this Will - until at last we came to an absolutestandstill before a yet more fundamental question. We inquiredabout the VALUE of this Will. Granted that we want the truth: WHYNOT RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem ofthe value of truth presented itself before us - or was it we whopresented ourselves before the problem? Which of us is the Oedipushere? Which the Sphinx? It would seem to be a rendezvous ofquestions and notes of interrogation. And could it be believed thatit at last seems to us as if the problem had never been propoundedbefore, as if we were the first to discern it, get a sight of it,and RISK RAISING it? For there is risk in raising it, perhaps thereis no greater risk.
2. "HOW COULD anything originate out of itsopposite? For example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth outof the will to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness?or the pure sun-bright vision of the wise man out of covetousness?Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay,worse than a fool; things of the highest value must have adifferent origin, an origin of THEIR own - in this transitory,seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of delusion andcupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in the lap ofBeing, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the'Thing-in-itself - THERE must be their source, and nowhere else!" -This mode of reasoning discloses the typical prejudice by whichmetaphysicians of all times can be recognized, this mode ofvaluation is at the back of all their logical procedure; throughthis "belief" of theirs, they exert themselves for their"knowledge," for something that is in the end solemnly christened"the Truth." The fundamental belief of metaphysicians is THE BELIEFIN ANTITHESES OF VALUES. It never occurred even to the wariest ofthem to doubt here on the very threshold (where doubt, however, wasmost necessary); though they had made a solemn vow, "DE OMNIBUSDUBITANDUM." For it may be doubted, firstly, whether antithesesexist at all; and secondly, whether the popular valuations andantitheses of value upon which metaphysicians have set their seal,are not perhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provisionalperspectives, besides being probably made from some corner, perhapsfrom below - "frog perspectives," as it were, to borrow anexpression current among painters. In spite of all the value whichmay belong to the true, the positive, and the unselfish, it mightbe possible that a higher and more fundamental value for lifegenerally should be assigned to pretence, to the will to delusion,to selfishness, and cupidity. It might even be possible that WHATconstitutes the value of those good and respected things, consistsprecisely in their being insidiously related, knotted, andcrocheted to these evil and apparently opposed things - perhapseven in being essentially identical with them. Perhaps! But whowishes to concern himself with such dangerous "Perhapses"! For thatinvestigation one must await the advent of a new order ofphilosophers, such as will have other tastes and inclinations, thereverse of those hitherto prevalent - philosophers of the dangerous"Perhaps" in every sense of the term. And to speak in allseriousness, I see such new philosophers beginning to appear.
3. Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, andhaving read between their lines long enough, I now say to myselfthat the greater part of conscious thinking must be counted amongthe instinctive functions, and it is so even in the case ofphilosophical thinking; one has here to learn anew, as one learnedanew about heredity and "innateness." As little as the act of birthcomes into consideration in the whole process and procedure ofheredity, just as little is "being-conscious" OPPOSED to theinstinctive in any decisive sense; the greater part of theconscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly influenced by hisinstincts, and forced into definite channels. And behind all logicand its seeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, orto speak more plainly, physiological demands, for the maintenanceof a definite mode of life For example, that the certain is worthmore than the uncertain, that illusion is less valuable than"truth" such valuations, in spite of their regulative importancefor US, might notwithstanding be only superficial valuations,special kinds of maiserie, such as may be necessary for themaintenance of beings such as ourselves. Supposing, in effect, thatman is not just the "measure of things."
4. The falseness of an opinion is not for us anyobjection to it: it is here, perhaps, that our new language soundsmost strangely. The question is, how far an opinion islife-furthering, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhapsspecies-rearing, and we are fundamentally inclined to maintain thatthe falsest opinions (to which the synthetic judgments a prioribelong), are the most indispensable to us, that without arecognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of realitywith the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable,without a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers,man could no