Nietzsche and Science by Thomas H. Brobjer Gregory Moore

Author:Thomas H. Brobjer,Gregory Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781351914628
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Nietzsche and Positivism

When it comes to Nietzsche’s fundamental views on metaphysics and epistemology, what are the interpretative possibilities suggested by Nietzsche’s historical context? Recall my laundry list of labels: empiricism, materialism, naturalism, positivism and sensualism, not to mention all the varieties of neo-Kantianism. Does Nietzsche himself give us a clue as to where he might fit within these contemporary views? He supposedly does precisely this in the passage from the Twilight of the Idols entitled ‘How the “True World” Finally Became a Fable: The History of an Error’. Let me quote the final few stages of this history:

4. The true world – unattainable? At any rate, unattained. And being unattained, also unknown. Consequently, not consoling, redeeming, or obligating: how could something unknown obligate us?

(Grey morning. The first yawn of reason. The cockcrow of positivism.)

5. The ‘true’ world – an idea which is no longer good for anything, not even obligating – an idea which has become useless and superfluous – consequently, a refuted idea: let us abolish it!

(Bright day; breakfast; return of bon sens and cheerfulness; Plato’s embarrassed blush; pandemonium of all free spirits.)

6. The true world – we have abolished it. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps? But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one.

(Noon; moment of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error; high point of humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.) (TI ‘World’)

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