Nietzsche
In Friedrich Nietzsche’s essay On Truth and Lying in an Extra-Moral Sense, he defines truth as “a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, anthropomorphisms, in short, a sum of human relations which were poetically and rhetorically heightened” (Nietzsche 250). This definition seems to reverse the culturally known order of doing things. Most would state that metaphors are only possible by nature of fixed meanings of words upon which the metaphor is applied. Nietzsche takes a claim on this that most others would not. He says that words in their pre-existing meanings such as “the stone is hard” or claims referring to trees, colors, and flowers are all metaphors (Nietzsche 248). If Nietzsche is right about truth then how can he speak with certainty about what things are? If he is right then wouldn’t his claims about truth being metaphors be a metaphor? If so how can he talk about this and how can we understand this paradox in his account of language? In this paper
I will attempt to explain the metaphorical basis of language, show how this relates to the birth of Greek tragedy, look at the genealogical approach to morality and explain Nietzsche’s will to power.
This is confusing and Nietzsche knew that. He knew that in him attempting to explain that he would be using what he was trying to explain in his explanations. Nietzsche has very interesting and vexing things to say about language and truth. He considers our language to be founded on illusions. He views the language we speak as being misinterpretations of our relations to reality. He explains by showing the “forgotten” origin of language and highlights this in a physical process of metaphors being made.
It is clear from the beginning that Nietzsche is unhappy with the way humanity has been living. He says that “there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge” (Nietzsche 246). He himself uses a metaphor to call man an animal. He is intentional in his word choice in saying that mankind invented knowledge rather than just discovering it. Lee Spinks explains that “Nietzsche’s work relentlessly undermines the elevation of ‘literal’ over ‘metaphorical’ truth.” What he means by that is, Nietzsche “argues that we cannot privilege literal or pure truth over metaphor because truth is itself a metaphor that has been invented” (Spinks 38). When people think of truth we understand it as that which is and always was, not something that was made by people.
The basic definition of metaphor is simply one thing that is in place of another. It could also be a transfer of meaning. When someone says “I am a bear before I drink my coffee in the morning” they are replacing themselves with a bear. Of course they are not actually a huge brown carnivorous animal, but they are using this replacement of words to make a point. When people say Helen was the “face that launched a thousand ships” they do not mean her actual face pushed the ships off the coast rather, her face was the incentive that started the Trojan War. Mankind engages in metaphor just by talking. Metaphors are one thing in place of another therefore our words are in place of the actual object we are referring to.
Every day one looks out and sees objects. When one sees an object it makes a nerve stimulus which then forms an image. This creation of an image is the first metaphor in the technical process Nietzsche attempts to grasp. After one forms this image, they go on to give that image a sound or word to make sense of it. This word is the second metaphor. This word is not the image and the image is not the actual thing rather, the word is in place of the image one made in their mind and that image is in place of the actual true object out in the world. This process is a “complete overlapping of spheres” from nerve stimulus to image to sound (Nietzsche 148). We believe we know truths about things but “what we have are just metaphors that do not correspond to the actual entities” (Nietzsche 249). This process that we do everyday is why the origin of language is forgotten. Mankind has forgotten that the words coming out of our mouths are not the actual objects and really have no fundamental truth to them. Nietzsche says that “we have forgotten or deliberately repressed the fact that the concept of truth that we willed into existence to reduce social conflict and enable the development of new forms of life” (Spinks 48). One day a man looked out and saw a tree and created an image and then decided to make the word “tree” go with that object. He could have named that object “ball” but he did not. All of language is based on this overlapping and calling of things that could have been very different. We “forgot that truth originated as a metaphor that allowed us to impose our values and perspectives upon the world” (Spinks 55). Therefore to Nietzsche we invented truths rather than truths just simply being.
Another part of this process of producing language is the transition from word to concept. What makes a word into a concept is when it is supposed to refer to multiple things. “Every word becomes a concept as soon as it is supposed to serve not merely as a reminder of the unique” (Nietzsche 249). We form these mental concepts. This one white square thin sheet is paper, but a whole stack of these are papers. Nietzsche claims that “every concept originates by the equation of the dissimilar” (Nietzsche 249). What he means by this is that we forget “the distinguishing factors” between things which gives rise to the concepts. He gives an example of a leaf. “Just as no leaf is ever exactly the same as any other, certainly the concept leaf is formed by arbitrarily dropping those individual differences…and this gives rise to the idea that besides leaves there is in nature such a thing as the leaf” (Nietzsche 249). When turning words to concepts we overlook the real and the individual. What is real are the individual things, but we create the patterns and archetypes that go along with them.
While according to Nietzsche all language is metaphor, he acknowledges that these metaphors are necessary. Without language and without our interpretations of the world it would be chaos and no one would know what was what. This idea of chaos was not new to Nietzsche. In his writings on the birth of greek tragedy he grapples with this concept. He believed that Greek Tragedy was the greatest of all art forms because it transcended the pessimism of a meaningless world. Birth of Tragedy looks at the origins of Greek Tragedy and the art impulses in nature. Art impulses in nature, Nietzsche tries to show, are a conflict between forces of nature and life. He says that these two impulses are the Dionysian and Apollonian. Dionysus in greek tradition was the god of chaos. Ancient women called the Maneds worshiped him through dance and wine. Nietzsche assigned Dionysus to the will. On the other hand, Apollo was the god of light and structure. He was assigned to the representation. There was pure chaos before word created the world. Dionysus is that chaos and Apollo is the order. Without the Apollonian everything would be chaos. We cannot live without it. Language is what brings about that order. The metaphorical nature of language is like the Apollonian. Without it nothing would make sense and we would just be speaking nonsense.
The pinnacle of this Dionysian and Apollonian idea is demonstrated in the Greek Tragedy. Greek plays had a kind of chaotic character chorus that would progress through the play. However, when one one or two actors stepped out of the chorus it provided order and structure to the play. This stepping out was the Apollonian necessity to make the play function. Tragedy gives us a metaphor for the need to give the world structure and order. In Greek Tragedy there is a debate between chaos and permanency. It is not resolved by the tragedy but, it allows us to see and recognize. Nietzsche’s description of the this “argues that Greek Tragedy did not originate in a concept or metaphysical idea, but staged an encounter of material forces that realigned Greek culture with the primal creative force of Dionysus” (Spinks 35). We do not have sophisticated nature and civilization without language. The Apollonian in a necessary illusion. Nietzsche recognizes that and does not want to get rid of that. He is simply suggesting that mankind remember the Dionysian and not shut it out. He wants us to learn it and understand it and not be confined to just the Apollonian way. While he says that, he also circles back in saying that if you go down the path of thinking about the Dionysian that you have to come back to the order and structure of the Apollonian or you will go crazy. All of this is to say that mankind needs to remember that language and truth all comes from chaos, and we need to consider that when learning and teaching. However after accepting that we need to come back to the order of things, the metaphorical way, or we will go crazy.
In his truth and lies essay, Nietzsche really hones in on the idea that “truths are illusion about which it has been forgotten that they are illusions, worn-out metaphors without sensory impact” (Nietzsche 250). He is saying that human relations are at a rhetorical level that appear binding. Nations are made by which language they speak. People identify where you are from by the mannerisms and accents spoken. All of these appear to be set ways and identifications of types of people. However he goes on to give an example of “coins which have lost their image and now can be used only as metal, and no longer as coins” (Nietzsche 250). Coins have certain values within the exchange system and give them their values. When coins wear away it is just metal. As we use coins over and over we forget the actual worth of the metal. This is to say that when we use words over and over we forget what the actual thing is we are talking about and we forget that those words are not binding. There is no law out there that I cannot call a tree a ball but that is what we all do. Nietzsche says that we “lie collectively in a style that is mandatory for everyone” (Nietzsche 250). The world would be chaos if we just all referred to things however we wanted but that is Nietzsche’s point. He realizes that “man forgets that this is his situation, so he lies in the designated manner unconsciously and according to centuries-old habits” (Nietzsche 250). He gets that we cannot function this way but he just wants people to remember that it is a possibility. We need the language and the metaphors to set us apart and not have everything just be intuitive.
Nietzsche uses metaphors to critique understanding metaphor. He gives an example of a ”cathedral on foundations that move like flowing water” (Nietzsche 251) . In doing this he is saying that there is no concrete system. The world is ever changing on water. He is saying that man only really has pragmatic truths. These are fine and we need them but they are not absolute. If you think its absolute then you can never interact with the world differently.
He then goes on to show the implications that this brings to science. Since man creates words and concepts, we created the rules of math and science and everything in between. He compares this to someone hiding an object behind a bush and the looking for it and finding it himself. We made words and concepts and then we put those together to make it make sense in our world. We never really made any discoveries that are mentionable. He says that “language as we saw and later science works at the structure of concepts” (Nietzsche 254).
Nietzsche, being a philologist, looks at texts and asks questions like which ones are legitimate and which hold truth. He looks at the value of our values. To do this he asks what the origin of our ideas of right and wrong come from. Rather than asking what things are, he asks why are we asking these questions. The asking of these questions are what he calls his genealogical approach. This genealogical approach is very unique to Nietzsche. Nietzsche traces the ideas of philosophy and morality back to the concept of good and bad. He looks at masters and slaves. “Good” is a concept created between masters and slaves. Masters create the concept of good to describe their own way of life. The good are those who are noble or aristocratic and the bad are the common or low born people. There was this kind of herd instinct to go with this. .
Nietzsche went a step further to show that his genealogical approach was a way to make us not forget how concepts hold power over us. In the case of morality Nietzsche wants to make clear that the very concept of morality is false and made up. Nietzsche says that his genealogical approach “rejects the idea of morality as an innate or natural capacity”. What is meant by this is that “moral concepts are produced by successive reinterpretations of life created by dominant forces and interests” (Spinks 73). This is to say that morals are followed because those with dominant interests impose their ways on everyone else over and over again making it so we have to go along with it and know no other way. Because we have gone along with it for so long we have given it more power than it needs. What is meant by this is that those who hold positions have the power to make these concepts. Back in the day when the ideas of morality came to be those in power said what was good and what was bad and no one tried to object to that and thus through chain reaction we have the morals we follow today. Nietzsche does not want to get rid of these concepts he just wants us to recognize that there is a problem with us blindly accepting them without every questioning them as false. He wants us to be able to decipher the things we call moral truths. The world would be in constant dionysian chaos without some kind of rules but he wants us to consider his genealogical approach and try to understand.
Nietzsche not only looks at the genealogy of morals but also of philosophy. His strategy is that “he considers existing philosophy as a phenomenon of something that has been made and is unmistakable actuality” (Ijsseling 105). He was fascinated in why the philosophers before him were asking the questions they did. Nietzsche looked at the genealogy of philosophy as “an interpretation ascribing central importance to the precise definition of formulation and the role of language” (Ijsseling 106). In looking at philosophy, rhetoric played a crucial role in his analysis of the function of philosophy. Nietzsche found that “the Greeks had a deep appreciation for rhetoric” and that for them “rhetoric was an art”. He emphasized it further in saying that rhetoric’s “power gradually centered upon the skill of the orator and then was most probably her downfall” (Ijsseling 107). This can be connected to the idea that those who had influence over culture made us adapt in certain ways to believe certain things and accept things as truth or not. However, through his genealogical approach he still comes to the conclusion that nothing is concretly true in the realms of our human minds.
In the truth and lies essay, truth is labeled as a fallacy. Man wishes to exist socially with the herd so therefore we just forget the origins of what we are following and we accept truths. All language is suggested to be lies. The moral command of society is to lie with the heard. That is to say we all speak languages we created, we all follow laws of science and math created by us, and we all follow moral concepts again created by us. We all are lying to ourselves and others and forget that we are doing that. In Nietzsche’s genealogical approach to all of this his focus is on the morality part. Those who pursue ascetic ideals embody the resentment associated with slave morality. Atheists and believers both have the same herd lying idea like in truth and lies. Just like language is a lie so is truth and so is morality. We give too much power to these things and allow them to govern our lives. Those in power like in the government or religion make these rules that everyone in the world follows and that no one questions. To the priests their moral set of codes are the way the world should be and they impose their power on everyone. The same goes for every other institution. This is the problem that Nietzsche identifies and wants us to understand. He wants us to look at the world differently and question these things instead of blindly accepting false truths.
This leads to his idea of the will to power. The will to power is not only essential to life but it is also the source of our values. It unites all life by a common striving for power. Values do not come from God. Nietzsche claims that God is dead. This is the belief that nothing has any inherent importance and that life lacks purpose. Christian morals provide people with values and a belief in God but Nietzsche criticizes people for clinging to the idea of God. His god is dead principle explains his claim that metaphysics, the understanding of the world, is also dead too. Nietzsche describes this will to power concept as interior to life rather than a metaphysical concept. Nietzsche not only thinks that our values do not come from God but, he also says they do not come from pleasure or from another true world beyond this one. He says that values are just the expression of will to power. If we are to have values, we must have and express our will to power. Nietzsche sees the will to power as “the most important factor in explaining the factum of philosophy and acts as the ultimate criterion of justification of an interpretation” (Ijsseling 113). However, in Nietzsche saying this he is in a contradiction that goes back to truth and lies.
In Nietzsche creating the philosophy of the will to power he is using his words and concepts and wills his power upon us to make this make sense. Like he already established, all words are metaphors and we are all following the heard by using these languages and concepts. Nietzsche understands that there is the rational man, the apollonian, and the intuitive man, the dionysian, and “both desire to master life” (Nietzsche 256). He suggests that men do this with their wills to power but in order to do these we use our metaphors and language.
Nietzsche in On Truth and Lying in an Extra Moral Sense grapples with the idea of truth and morals and how humans forget these things. He explains these ideas of truth, language, and morality as metaphors and how they have implications on science and philosophy. His sense of metaphor and language are clearly linked to Greek Tragedy and his genealogical approach to critiquing morality and philosophy. Ultimately it comes full circle in that the way we live our lives is necessary but, Nietzsche needs us to remember that the Dionysian exists and that sometimes we need to listen to our intuitions and not follow the crowd.
Works Cited
Ijsseling, Samual. Rhetoric and Philosophy in Conflict: an Historical Survey. Springer
Netherlands, 1977.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, et al. Friedrich Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language. Oxford
University Press, 1989.
Spinks, Lee. Friedrich Nietzsche. Routledge, 2004.
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