Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
Nietzsche and Objectivism

Unit Two: February 21 - March 19

Michelle Cohen's Comment on
Shawn Klein's Review Essay
"Nietzsche's Metaphysics and Epistemology"
In The Will to Power, Geneology of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil

Sent: Saturday, February 26, 2000 7:21 PM

Subject: Cyberseminar: MFC Commentary on Shawn Klein's Pt. 2 Review

[From: MICHELLE COHEN

Commentary on Shawn Klein:

I agree with Shawn Klein that Nietzsche's manner of writing makes it
very difficult to identify his metaphysical and epistemological
premises. His arguments appear to consist of allegations and assertions,
supported by bold emotional exclamations. Consider this excerpt from The
Gay Science, in the section entitled "We Fearless Ones":

"Whatever becomes conscious becomes by the same token shallow, thin,
relatively stupid, general, sign, herd signal; all becoming conscious
involves a great and thorough corruption, falsification, reduction to
superficialities, and generalization. Ultimately, the growth of
consciousness becomes a danger; and anyone who lives among the most
conscious European even knows that it is a disease." (TGS, 299-300)

Nietzsche's disregard for the structure, coherence and integration of
his philosophy is a sufficient indication that he is not a champion of
an orderly universe or of an absolute, objective truth. Still, although
he presents his ideas in short, self-contained paragraphs, they are not
isolated or disconnected from each other. They are all
characteristically Nietzsche's ideas, connected to each other by an
undercurrent thread of Emotionalism and Subjectivism. He consistently
criticizes and strives to put an end to the foundations of Science and
the scientific view of the world. Nevertheless, he is not a skeptic. He
expresses very boldly an affirmation of a certain view of the world, not
just a negation of other views. Nietzsche eloquently affirms his
metaphysics of constant change and no identity in the finale of "The
Will to Power:"

"This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a
firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that
does not expend itself but only transforms itself." (WtP, 550).

Shawn is right to point out that Nietzsche erroneously assumed that
perspectivism destroys any possibility for knowledge. Knowledge may be
limited to the perspective of the particular person who holds it, but
this limitation does not invalidate that person's knowledge. By his own
definition, Nietzsche himself had to be limited to the perspective of a
nineteenth century German man. Since he was an atheist, Nietzsche's
assumption that only "God's eye view" is a reliable perspective for
knowledge is intriguing. Why didn't he follow the road to skepticism
like David Hume? Instead, he attempted to provide himself with a
substitute for God's perspective. Genuine philosophers, he writes in
"Beyond Good and Evil," do not submit themselves before whatever has to
be known and "mirror" it. Instead, they create the knowledge: "Their
'knowing' is creating, their creating is a legislation, their will to
truth is - will to power." (BGE, 136). A genuine philosopher can create
anything, much like God, by declaring: "Let there be X."

As Shawn pointed out, for Nietzsche only knowledge of the whole can be
regarded as knowledge. Any point of view is only a part of knowledge,
so knowledge must encompass all points of view. And since new points of
view can always be created, knowledge is infinite and ever-expanding.
Like a dialectic process, the quest for knowledge consists of
"fascination of the opposing point of view: refusal to be deprived of
the stimulus of the enigmatic." (WtP, 262). Nevertheless, all these
conflicting ideas are connected to each other and make up the one whole
of knowledge. As Nietzsche writes in the preface to "Genealogy of
Morals," philosophers may not hit upon isolated truths. Rather, "our
ideas, our values, our yeas and nays, our ifs and buts, grow out of
us... related and each with an affinity to each, and evidence of one
will..." (GoM, 16). The philosopher's will can resolve the
contradictions between all ideas in order to encompass the whole of
knowledge.

I would like to conclude by touching on the issue of the herd and the
individual. Nietzsche relegates consciousness, concepts and language to
the herd rather than the individual. What, then, is left to the
individual? From all that I read, it appears that the individual's own
gut feeling is his alone, unique and free of the herd. This gut feeling,
apparently, is all that the will to power requires.

Michal Fram-Cohen


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Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
cybersem@objectivistcenter.org

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