107 Whenever you reach a decision, close your ears to even the best objections: this is the sign of a strong character. Which means: an occasional will to stupidity.
278 – Wanderer, who are you? I watch you go on your way, without scorn, without love, with impenetrable eyes – damp and downhearted, like a plumb line that returns unsatisfied from every depth back into the light (what was it looking for down there?), with a breast that does not sigh, with lips that hide their disgust,with a hand that only grips slowly:who are you? What have you done? Take a rest here, this spot is hospitable to everyone, – relax! And whoever you may be: what would you like now? What do you find relaxing? Just name it: I’ll give you whatever I have! – “Relaxing? Relaxing? How inquisitive you are! What are you saying! But please, give me – –” What? What? Just say it! – “Another mask! A second mask!” …
213. It is difficult to learn what a philosopher is, because it cannot be taught: you have to “know” by experience, – or you should be proud that you do not know it at all. But nowadays everyone talks about things that they cannot experience, and most especially (and most terribly) when it comes to philosophers and philosophical matters. Hardly anyone knows about them or is allowed to know, and all popular opinions about them are false. So, for instance, the genuinely philosophical compatibility between a bold and lively spirituality that runs along at a presto, and a dialectical rigor and necessity that does not take a single false step – this is an experience most thinkers and scholars would find unfamiliar and, if someone were to mention it, unbelievable. They think of every necessity as a need, a painstaking having-to-follow and being-forced; and they consider thinking itself as something slow and sluggish, almost a toil and often enough “worth the sweat of the noble.” Not in their wildest dreams would they think of it as light, divine, and closely related to dance and high spirits! “Thinking” and “treating an issue seriously,” “with gravity” – these belong together, according to most thinkers and scholars: that is the only way they have “experienced” it –…
Vorausgesetzt, daß die Wahrheit ein Weib ist — , wie? (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1885)
This is the first sentence of the book Beyond good and evil by Friedrich Nietzsche. I want to use this short text to illustrate how difficult it is to interpret what a philosopher wants to say. Like always, I looked up the different translations to English, and you can see for yourself that even the translators can’t agree what these few words suppose to say when translated to English.
Beyond good and evil, Part 8 people and fatherland, 249. Every nation has its own ” Tartuffery,” and calls that its virtue. —One does not know—cannot know, the best that is in one.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Nochrisis
By Friedrich Nietzsche
First chapter.
PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS.
5.
That which causes philosophers to be regarded half-distrustfully and half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeated discovery how innocent they are—how often and easily they make mistakes and lose their way, in short, how childish and childlike they are,—but that there is not enough honest dealing with them, whereas they all raise a loud and virtuous outcry when the problem of truthfulness is even hinted at in the remotest manner. They all pose as though their real opinions had been discovered and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, divinely indifferent dialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics, who, fairer and foolisher, talk of “inspiration”); whereas, in fact, a prejudiced proposition, idea, or ” suggestion,” which is generally their heart’s desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them with arguments sought out after the event. They are all advocates who do not wish to be regarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of their prejudices, which they dub ” truths,” —and very far from having the conscience which bravely admits this to itself; very far from having the good taste of the courage which goes so far as to let this be understood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence and self-ridicule. The spectacle of the Tartuffery* of old Kant, equally stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic by-ways that lead (more correctly mislead) to his” categorical imperative”—makes us fastidious ones smile, we who find no small amusement in spying out the subtle tricks of old moralists and ethical preachers. Or, still more so, the hocuspocus of mathematical form, by means of which Spinoza has as it were clad his philosophy in mail and mask—in fact, the “love of his wisdom,” to translate the term fairly and squarely—in order thereby to strike terror at once into the heart of the assailant who should dare to cast a glance on that invincible maiden, that Pallas Athene**:—how much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray!
* hypocrisy
** ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, handicraft, and warfare
Translated by Helen Zimmerm
1909
Nochrisis
By Friedrich Nietzsche
First chapter.
PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS.
4.
The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing; and we are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic judgments a priori* belong), are the most indispensable to us; that without a recognition of logical fictions, with out a comparison of reality with the purely imagined world of the absolute and immutable, without a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not live—that the renunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation of life, a negation of life. To recognize untruth as a condition of life : that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has: thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil.
Translated by Helen Zimmerm
1909
*
Nochrisis
By Friedrich Nietzsche
First chapter.
PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS.
3.
Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, and having read between their lines long enough, I now say to myself that the greater part of conscious thinking must be counted amongst the instinctive functions, and it is so even in the case of philosophical thinking; one has here to learn anew, as one learned anew about heredity and “innateness.” As little as the act of birth comes into consideration in the whole process and continuation of heredity, just as little is ” being-conscious ” opposed to the instinctive in any decisive sense; the greater part of the conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly influenced by his instincts, and forced into definite channels. And behind all logic and its seeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, or to speak more plainly, physiological demands, for the maintenance of a definite mode of life. For example, that the certain is worth more than the uncertain, that illusion is less valuable than “truth”: such valuations, in spite of their regulative importance for us, might notwithstanding be only superficial valuations, special kinds of niaiserie*, such as may be necessary for the maintenance of beings such as ourselves. Supposing, in effect, that man is not just the “measure of things.” . . .
*silliness
Translated by Helen Zimmerm
1909
Nochrisis
By Friedrich Nietzsche
First chapter.
PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS.
2.
” How could anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of 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 a different origin, an origin of their own—in this transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in the lap of Being, 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 which metaphysicians of all times can be recognised, this mode of valuation is at the back of all their logical procedure; through this “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 belief in antitheses of values. It never occurred even to the wariest of them to doubt here on the very threshold (where doubt, however, was most necessary); though they had made a solemn vow, ” de omnibus dubitandum” For it may be doubted, firstly, whether antitheses exist at all ; and secondly, whether the popular valuations and antitheses of value upon which metaphysicians have set their seal, are not perhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provisional perspectives, besides being probably made from some corner, perhaps from below—” frog perspectives,” as it were, to borrow an expression current among painters. In spite of all the value which may belong to the true, the positive, and the unselfish, it might be possible that a higher and more fundamental value for life generally should be assigned to pretense, to the will to delusion, to selfishness, and cupidity. It might even be possible that what constitutes the value of those good and respected things, consists precisely in their being insidiously related, knotted, and crocheted to these evil and apparently opposed things—perhaps even in being essentially identical with them. Perhaps ! But who wishes to concern himself with such dangerous ” Perhapses ” ! For that investigation one must await the advent of a new order of philosophers, such as will have other tastes and inclinations, the reverse of those hitherto prevalent—philosophers of the dangerous ” Perhaps ” in every sense of the term. And to speak in all seriousness, I see such new philosophers beginning to appear.
Translated by Helen Zimmerm
1909
Nochrisis
By Friedrich Nietzsche
First chapter.
PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS.
I.
The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, the famous truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this will to truth not laid before us! What strange, perplexing, questionable questions! It is already a long story; yet it seems as if it were hardly commenced. Is it any wonder if we at last grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn impatiently away? That this sphinx teaches us at last to ask questions ourselves? Who is it really that puts questions to us here? What really is this “Will to Truth” in us? In fact we made a long halt at the question as to the origin of this Will—until at last we came to an absolute standstill before a yet more fundamental question. We inquired about the value of this Will. Granted that we want the truth : why not rather untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the value of truth presented itself before us—or was it we who presented ourselves before the problem? Which of us is the Oedipus here? Which the Sphinx ? It would seem to be a rendezvous of questions and notes of interrogation. And could it be believed that it at last seems to us as if the problem had never been propounded before, 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 there is no greater risk.
Translated by Helen Zimmerm
1909
Nochrisis 