Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
Nietzsche and Objectivism

Unit Two: February 21 - March 19

Stephen Hicks' Introductory Essay
on Metaphysics and Epistemology
In Friedrich Nietzsche's
The Will to Power, Geneology of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil

To: TOC Cyberseminar <cybersem@objectivistcenter.org>

Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2000 8:57 AM

Subject: Cyberseminar: S Hicks Pt. 2 Introductory Essay

Nietzsche on Metaphysics and Epistemology [Part Two of Spring 2000
Cyberseminar]

Introductory Post by Stephen Hicks

Nietzsche's metaphysical and epistemological views receive much less
attention than his views on human psychology and values. And Nietzsche has
a reputation for being an unsystematic and disorganized thinker. Yet he
seems to conceive of a philosophy organically, as all of its parts being
connected and growing from a fundamental source.

"We [philosophers] have no right to isolated acts of any kind: we may not
make isolated errors or hit upon isolated truths. Rather do our ideas, our
values, our yeas and nays, our ifs and buts, grow out of us with the
necessity with which a tree bears fruit -- related and each with an affinity
to each, and evidence of one will, one health, one soil, one sun." (GM, Preface, 2)

What then is the "soil" out of which Nietzsche's views grow?

In Unit One we investigated his views on human nature and values. We found
that he identifies, for example, slave values as an expression of a weak
psycho-biological nature. He then argues that even though the slave
morality's advocates' basic identity is to be weak, they nonetheless have a
will to power. Their will to power is what causes the slave morality to
arise. The weak cannot compete with the strong masters on the masters'
terms, and so the slave morality was a rational, calculated, long-term
strategy to defeat the masters. That strategy seems to be succeeding, and
its success is causing the decline of the species.

So the story is told in terms of identity, causality, and rational strategies.

Yet in our readings for this unit, we find Nietzsche engaged in sustained
attacks on the concepts of identity, causality, and rationality.

So our broad questions in this unit are: What are Nietzsche's metaphysics
and epistemology, and how are they related to his views on human nature and
values?

As before, please feel free to pick and choose among these questions to
address, and to add others.

1. Nietzsche is an atheist, and this tells us something of what he is
against. There is no traditional God who made us and owns us, who tells us
what to do, who cares about us, etc. If the traditional religious/Platonic
metaphysics is false, then what is true? Metaphysically, what is reality,
for Nietzsche? What in general terms is its identity? What causal
processes are to be found in it?

2. For example, Nietzsche is often interpreted as being a process thinker.
(E.g., WtP 1067) Is this accurate? What kind of process is it, if we are
to think of process as more fundamental than something engaged in a process?
What is the contrast concept to process metaphysics?

3. Nietzsche is also often interpreted as being a teleological thinker: the
will to power is not Schopenhauer's blindly striving will; it has a goal, a
direction. Nietzsche also suggests occasionally that the Zarathustras must
necessarily come one day and that the entire process will repeat itself
eternally. What kind of causal process is at work that could generate such
results?

4. Nietzsche also declares himself occasionally as being against teleology
(e.g., WtP 552; his Postcard to Overbeck in which he allies himself with
Spinoza against the teleologists). What are we to make of this?

5. The above questions depend on the concepts of identity and causality.
Yet Nietzsche explicitly rejects those concepts as false-to-reality.
Identity, he says, is a fiction (e.g., WtP 507-517), as are the usual
versions of causality (e.g., WtP 497, 545-552). One of Nietzsche's
arguments against identity is similar to the old Presocratic argument that
identity and change are incompatible with each other (WtP 520). Why so?

6. Is Nietzsche suggesting that there really is no identity or causality in
reality? Or is his position only that our versions of identity and
causality are subjective?

7. Another set of Nietzsche's arguments focus on our faculties of
consciousness. Consciousness, Nietzsche tells us repeatedly, is not a
faculty of awareness of reality (e.g., WtP 473, 479, 481, 507, 511, 513,
516, 521; GM II:16). Our faculties of sensation and conception do not
identify reality but rather impose structure upon reality (e.g., WtP 479,
507, 515-516). Are Nietzsche's arguments simply repetitions of Kant's
arguments?

8. Since sensations and concepts are not based in reality, Nietzsche
concludes that logic and reason are not based in reality but are subjective
impositions. "Truth," he says, apparently paradoxically, is an "error"
(e.g., WtP 493). So he has harsh words for those who want to rely primarily
on reason and logic. Since reason and logic are false-to-reality, what
other faculties does Nietzsche suggest that should we rely upon for
guidance? (As, e.g., at GM II:16.) Does Nietzsche suggest that those other
faculties are more reliable? If so, is it because they are more accurate?

9. On the other hand, Nietzsche also argues that even though our sensations
and concepts are false-to-reality they are nonetheless useful (e.g., GS
354). While consciousness is not a faculty of identification, it is
nonetheless functional. The standard account of consciousness is that it is
functional because it accurately identifies facts of reality. How, on
Nietzsche's view, can consciousness be functional if it is not in the truth
business?

10. Nietzsche opposes two views of consciousness: one that sees
consciousness as identifying truths about reality and one that sees
consciousness as for the purpose of effective functioning in reality (e.g.,
WtP 507). Why does he think the two views are opposed rather than
complementary? Is it because he sees the consciousness-as-identification
position as necessarily intrinsicist?

11. Is Nietzsche an early evolutionary epistemologist? See, e.g., WtP
493-498. Evolutionary epistemologists argue that we can rely upon our
consciousness because it evolved to help us survive, and if its products
weren't reliable either it or we wouldn't have survived. Are there any
significant differences between Nietzsche and the evolutionary
epistemologists?

12. Does Nietzsche anywhere address the standard paradox for skeptical
conclusions such as his: Is he saying that his philosophy is a only
functionally useful set of concepts (without being true), or is he saying
that it really tells us how it is? If the former, can he make the claim
that his philosophy is more functional than any other? If the latter, has
he contradicted himself?

13. The content of Nietzsche's philosophy attacks the concepts of identity
and causality, and the form in which he presents it is typically aphoristic.
Does this mean Nietzsche should have no systematic philosophy?

14. A question about our textual sources: We have relied heavily on WtP
for Nietzsche's metaphysics and epistemology. Yet Nietzsche did not publish
WtP. How much can we rely on Nietzsche's unpublished manuscripts as
indicating his views?

A note on discussing Nietzsche and Rand:

Since we will have all of Unit Four to compare Nietzsche's and Rand's views,
for the next two units please keep direct comparisons of the two thinkers'
view to a minimum. Each of us knows Rand's views well, and our purpose in
the first three units is to achieve a similar level of understanding of
Nietzsche's views. Making a comparison in passing to Rand's views can of
course be included if such comparisons will help us understand what
Nietzsche means, just as passing comparisons to Kant's or Hegel's views may
help us understand what Nietzsche means. But for now our focus is upon
Nietzsche, and his relationship to Rand should be saved for later.

An aspect of this is being careful not to give Objectivist answers or use
Objectivist terminology when addressing Nietzschean questions. For the
questions and issues we raise and discuss, our focus is on how or whether
Nietzsche addresses them, what the textual evidence is to support our
interpretations of what Nietzsche's answers are, and whether his answers are
any good. Then, in Unit Four we can ask of any question or issue that has
been raised: Is that also the question Objectivism asks? Is that how
Objectivism frames the issue? If not, how would Objectivism put the
question or frame the issue? And if the Nietzschean question/issue is the
same as the Objectivist one, what is the Objectivist answer to it and how
does it compare to Nietzsche's?

[Stephen Hicks]

[Moderator's note: Over the remainder of the week, as Shawn Klein and
William Dale gather their thoughts and compose their review essays for unit
two, we will be wrapping up our discussion of unit one. Participants who
wish to discuss this introduction to unit two immediately, are welcome to do
so, however.]


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Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
Moderator: William Thomas
Email: cybersem@objectivistcenter.org

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
reserved to the author. They may not be published or adapted
without permission, but may be circulated for purposes of
scholarly discussion.

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