The practice of truth

pp. 81-104

in: Katrina Mitcheson, Nietzsche, truth and transformation, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

In the preceding chapters, I have outlined the development of Nietzsche's concern with a conception of truth that aimed at the "real world" or thing-in-itself. Nietzsche attacks this conception of truth both because he considers the idea of the "real world" or thing-in-itself to be meaningless and because it is defined in opposition to and thus inherently devalues, appearance, sense experience, the corporeal and the multiplicity of perspectives that make up life. The reification of this notion of truth implies a culture that is fundamentally ascetic and life-denying. Countering this notion of a non-perspectival truth, premised on the "real world", Nietzsche considers all knowledge to be inherently perspectival. I have shown how he develops his cultural critique of the conception of truth as the "real world" in terms of an analysis of the perspectives that have required, and gained power from, this ascetic interpretation. Nietzsche develops a theory of the will to truth that, in serving various drives and interests, has been associated with the ascetic ideal. The will to truth is shaped in a contingent, historical process but also comes to influence and shape that process itself. It contains, therefore, the possibility of being transformed by, and of transforming, the context of interrelating drives in which it operates.