Brief Summary
"Beyond Good and Evil" by Friedrich Nietzsche is a critique of traditional philosophy and morality, advocating for a re-evaluation of values and the embrace of a new kind of philosopher. Nietzsche challenges the assumptions of past thinkers, emphasizing the role of psychology and the will to power in shaping our understanding of the world.
- Critique of traditional philosophy and morality
- Emphasis on psychology and the will to power
- Advocacy for a re-evaluation of values
- Vision of a new kind of philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche, who died in 1900, has become increasingly influential in modern thought, impacting philosophy and various other subjects. Born in 1844 in Prussia, he studied classical philology and later became a professor at Basel. He resigned due to health issues and lived as an independent writer, publishing books like "Beyond Good and Evil" in 1886. In 1889, he suffered a mental breakdown and died in 1900. Nietzsche's writing style is characterized by aphorisms, poetical images, and enigmatic questions, making his arguments ambiguous and open to interpretation. His central theme in "Beyond Good and Evil" is an assault on traditional European morality, which he views as superficial due to philosophers' flawed assumptions, linguistic errors, unconscious motivations, and limited historical understanding.
In the prologue, Nietzsche declares the end of philosophical dogmatism, dismissing such systems as childish games based on ignorance. He criticizes Plato's concept of "the good as such," which Christianity adopted. Nietzsche suggests that truth is elusive and that philosophical dogmatism has failed to win it over. He hopes that dogmatism will soon be seen as a rudimentary game. He points out that grand things often appear in distorted forms, like the Vedanta doctrine and Platonism. While acknowledging the negative aspects of dogmatism, such as Plato's invention of the purely spiritual, Nietzsche recognizes the tension created by the fight against Platonism and Christianity, which has enabled new directions for the European spirit.
Nietzsche questions basic philosophical assumptions, such as the opposition between truth and falsity, and challenges the value of truth over appearance. He argues that philosophers have blindly accepted societal beliefs instead of questioning them. He claims that falsifications are necessary for human life because we lack direct access to the truth, relying instead on interpretations that provide different perspectives. Nietzsche extends this idea to science and the belief in cause and effect, asserting that philosophical perspectives arise from unconscious desires. Philosophers create systems that cater to their needs and then retroactively invent reasons to support their claims, presenting their interpretations as discovered truths. Nietzsche applies his psychological understanding to unmask philosophers' truth claims, critiquing their assumptions about thinking and willing. He dismisses immediate certainties and the concept of free will, asserting that introspection contradicts these assumptions. He concludes by emphasizing the importance of psychology, free from moral beliefs, in understanding the complexity of the human mind.
Nietzsche questions the will to truth, asking why truth is preferred over untruth, uncertainty, or ignorance. He suggests that the value of truth is a problem that philosophers must confront, implying a dangerous risk in pursuing it.
Nietzsche challenges the idea that truth can arise from error or selfless action from self-seeking, deeming such origins impossible. He asserts that things of high value must have appropriate origins, separate from the deceptive world. This prejudice, typical of metaphysicians, underlies their logical procedures and beliefs about truth. Nietzsche questions the opposition of values, suggesting that it may be a temporary perspective. He proposes that appearance, deception, self-interest, and desire might hold higher value and be intertwined with undesirable things. He calls for a new style of philosopher willing to confront this dangerous possibility.
Nietzsche asserts that conscious thinking, even in philosophy, is largely instinctual. He dismisses the significance of consciousness as separate from instinct, arguing that a philosopher's thinking is secretly led by instincts. Logic is driven by evaluations of worth and physiological demands for preserving a particular way of life. These evaluations, such as valuing certainty over uncertainty, may be necessary for beings like us but are not necessarily universal truths.
Nietzsche claims that the falsity of a judgment is not an objection if it sustains or creates life. He asserts that the falsest judgments, including synthetic a priori judgments, are indispensable for human beings to live. Without logical fictions and constant falsification, humans could not survive. Giving up false judgments would mean renouncing life itself. A philosophy that dares to concede the fictional nature of life stands beyond good and evil.
Nietzsche criticizes philosophers for their lack of honesty, noting that they often defend pre-assumed principles with reasons sought after the fact. He accuses them of being advocates who disguise their judgments as truths and lack the courage to admit their biases. He mocks the hypocrisy of philosophers like Kant and Spinoza, who present their philosophies as objective and disinterested while defending their own heartfelt wishes.
Nietzsche states that every great philosophy is a self-confession and unintentional memoir of its originator. He argues that the moral intentions within a philosophy form the essential seed from which the entire system grows. When examining metaphysical claims, it is important to ask what moral aim the philosopher is pursuing. Nietzsche believes that the drive to knowledge is not the primary motivation for philosophy but rather a tool for another drive. All drives, including those considered base, have practiced philosophy and sought to present themselves as the ultimate purpose of existence. Unlike scholars, a philosopher's morality reveals their innermost drives and their rank ordering.
Nietzsche reflects on the maliciousness of philosophers, citing Epicurus's joke against Plato and the Platonists. Epicurus called them "dionysio colickies," implying they were actors and flatterers of Dionysus. This jab targeted Plato's magnificent manners and self-presentation, which Epicurus found irritating. It took a century for Greece to realize who Epicurus was, suggesting his ambition and rage against Plato fueled his work.
Nietzsche observes that every philosophy has a point where the philosopher's conviction takes center stage, likening it to the arrival of an ass in an old mystery play.
Nietzsche critiques the Stoics' call to "live according to nature," arguing that nature is extravagant, indifferent, and without purpose. He questions how one can live in accordance with such indifference, as living implies appraisal, preference, and injustice. He suggests that the Stoics' imperative is a form of self-deception, where they attempt to impose their morality on nature. Nietzsche asserts that philosophy is a tyrannical drive, a spiritual will to power that seeks to create the world in its own image.
Nietzsche observes the enthusiasm and subtlety with which Europeans approach the problem of the true and apparent world, suggesting that there is more than just a will to truth at play. While some may genuinely seek certainty, stronger thinkers appear to be motivated by something different. They question appearances and mention perspective, indicating a mistrust of modern ideas and a desire to reclaim something from an earlier faith. This mistrust and scorn for positivism drive them away from modern reality, not necessarily backward, but away.
Nietzsche notes that people are trying to direct their gaze away from Kant's real influence, particularly his pride in the table of categories and the discovery of synthetic judgments a priori. He questions Kant's answer to how synthetic judgments a priori are possible, suggesting it is merely a repetition of the question. Nietzsche proposes replacing Kant's question with "Why is the belief in such judgments necessary?" He argues that belief in synthetic judgments a priori is necessary for preserving beings like us, even if they are false. German philosophy, influenced by Kant, has provided a "vertus dormitiva" (sleep-inducing virtue) that has lulled people into a superior way of putting the senses to sleep.
Nietzsche states that materialistic atomism has been refuted, and few scholars still take it seriously. He credits Boscovich for challenging the belief in the final thing that made the earth stand firm: atomic particles. This was the greatest triumph over the senses. Nietzsche calls for war against the atomistic need that persists in metaphysics and against the atomism of the soul taught by Christianity. He suggests new versions of the hypothesis of the soul, such as mortal soul or soul as a social structure of drives, should be considered. The new psychologist is preparing an end to superstition and pushing himself into a new desert and mistrust.
Nietzsche argues that physiologists should reconsider the drive to preserve the self as the cardinal drive in organic beings. He asserts that living itself is will to power, and self-preservation is merely a consequence. He warns against extraneous teleological principles, such as the drive for self-preservation, which he attributes to Spinoza's inconsistency.
Nietzsche suggests that physics is only an interpretation of the world for our benefit, not an explanation. It relies on faith in the senses and appeals to plebeian taste through appearance and tangibility. The reluctance to accept obvious evidence of the senses was the magic of the Platonic way of thinking. The enjoyment in overcoming this world and interpreting it in Plato's manner differs from today's physicists, Darwinists, and anti-teleologists. Where there is nothing more to look at and grip, there is nothing more to seek out.
Nietzsche asserts that physiology must hold to the principle that sense organs are not phenomena in the idealistic sense and cannot be causes. Sensualism is a regulative hypothesis. The idea that the outer world is the work of our organs leads to a reductio ad absurdum, as it implies our organs are the work of our organs. Therefore, the exterior world is not the work of our organs.
Nietzsche dismisses the belief in immediate certainties, such as "I think" or "I will," as superstitions. He argues that immediate certainty and the thing in itself are contradictory terms. He urges people to free themselves from the seduction of words and recognize that "I think" presupposes a series of assertions that are difficult or impossible to ground. This "I think" does not have any immediate certainty. Instead, the philosopher encounters metaphysical questions about the origin of thinking, belief in cause and effect, and the right to speak of an "I" as a cause.
Nietzsche emphasizes that a thought comes when it wants to, not when "I" want it. He argues that it is a falsification to say that the subject "I" is the condition of the predicate "think." The "it" in "it thinks" is an interpretation of the event, not part of the process itself. Following grammatical habits, we conclude that thinking is an activity belonging to someone who does the action, similar to how older atomists looked for the atom where force was located. Stronger heads have learned to cope without this "it," and logicians may one day do the same.
Nietzsche suggests that the fact that a theory can be disproved is part of its charm, attracting finer minds. The theory of free will, despite being refuted, owes its continuing life to this charm.
Nietzsche challenges the common understanding of the will, arguing that it is not a simple, well-known entity. Willing involves a multiplicity of feelings, including the feeling of a condition away from which and towards which, as well as muscular feelings. Thinking is also an ingredient of willing, with a commanding thought inseparable from the act. The will is an effect of the commander, with freedom of the will being the feeling of superiority over the one who obeys. Willing involves giving orders to something within oneself that obeys or is thought to obey. The strangest thing about willing is that we are both the one ordering and the one obeying, leading to mistaken conclusions and false evaluations. The person willing believes that willing is sufficient for action and ascribes success to the will itself, enjoying an increase in the feeling of power. Freedom of the will is the enjoyment in the person willing who commands and identifies with what is carrying out the order. All willing is a matter of giving orders and obeying on the basis of a social construct of many souls.
Nietzsche argues that philosophical ideas are not spontaneous but develop in relationship with each other, forming a system. Philosophers, under an invisible spell, run around the same orbit, driven by an inborn taxonomy and relationship of ideas. Thinking is less a discovery than a recognition, a remembering of ideas from a primordial collective household of the soul. Practicing philosophy is a form of atavism. The similarity of Indian, Greek, and German philosophy is due to the common philosophy of grammar, which prepares for a similar development of philosophical systems. The spell of grammatical functions is the spell of physiological judgments of value and racial conditions.
Nietzsche calls the "causa sui" (something being its own cause) the best self-contradiction, a logical rape and perversity. The demand for freedom of the will, in a metaphysical sense, is an attempt to pull oneself into existence out of nothingness. He invites those who reject free will to also reject the unfree will, which leads to an abuse of cause and effect. Cause and effect should be used merely as conventional fictions for indicating and communicating, not as explanations. In itself, there is no causal connection, necessity, or unfreedom. We fabricate causes, causal sequences, relativity, compulsion, number, law, freedom, reason, and purpose. The unfree will is a myth, and in real life, it is simply a matter of strong and weak wills. The problem of the unfreedom of the will has been seen from two contrasting points of view: those who want to retain responsibility and those who want to shift blame.
Nietzsche criticizes physicists for their "conformity to nature," arguing that it is an interpretation, not a text. He sees it as a humanitarian emendation that caters to democratic instincts and disguises hostility to privilege and autocracy. He suggests that someone could interpret nature as the tyrannical enforcement of power claims. This interpreter would assert that the world has a necessary course, not because of laws, but because of the total absence of laws.
Nietzsche argues that psychology has remained hung up on moral prejudices and fears, failing to understand itself as the morphology and doctrine of the will to power. Moral prejudices have damaged and distorted the spiritual world. A true physical psychology must fight against unconscious resistance. Even a doctrine of the interdependence of good and bad drives creates distress in a hearty conscience. Taking effects of hate, envy, greed, and ruling as determining life causes an orientation in judgment as if one were seasick. There are good reasons to stay away from this realm of dangerous discoveries. However, if someone ends up here, they must keep their teeth clenched, eyes open, and hand firm on the tiller, moving directly over morality and smashing apart amorality. This will reveal a more profound world of insights, and psychology will be recognized as the mistress of the sciences.
Nietzsche describes the characteristics of new philosophers who can accept the fictional nature of truth and the biological facts of human existence. These free spirits must be strong and secretive, masking themselves to conquer traditional morality. They will live knowing that life is based on appearance and deception, with the only reality being the world of desire and passions. This knowledge will emancipate them, making them creative spirits able to generate new insights. Nietzsche hypothesizes that this world of desires and passions can be traced back to a single will: the will to power. His assumptions about human beings are rooted in biology and instincts rather than free will or rationality. The strongest individuals act on their will to power, constantly experimenting and creating their own truths without imposing them on others. Nietzsche distinguishes these free spirits from free thinkers wedded to democratic or socialist ideals. His philosophers of the future will move into an uncharted world beyond good and evil, not championing modern political and social ideas.
Nietzsche reflects on how human beings live in a simple and counterfeit way, marveling at how we have made everything bright, free, and simple around us. We give our senses free license for superficiality and our thinking a divine craving for erroneous conclusions. We maintain our ignorance to enjoy freedom, safety, carelessness, and merriment in life. Scientific knowledge rises on the foundation of ignorance, with the will to know based on a more powerful will not to know. Language continues to speak about opposites where there are only degrees, and even knowledgeable people understand how the best scientific knowledge wants to hold us in this simplified world, loving error because it loves life.
Nietzsche warns philosophers and friends of knowledge to protect themselves from martyrdom and suffering for the sake of truth, as it corrupts innocence and neutrality. He advises them to stand aside, retain their masks, and choose good solitude. Long wars make us poisonous, and long fear makes us personal. Those persecuted become sophisticated avengers. The martyrdom of a philosopher reveals how much of an agitator and actor he contains. People should be clear about what they are going to see in such cases: only a satter play, a farcical epilogue.
Nietzsche observes that every special human being strives for their own castle and secrecy, saved from the crowd. However, a person who seeks knowledge must eventually say that the rule-bound man is more interesting than the exception. The study of the average man, requiring disguise and bad company, is a necessary part of the philosopher's life. Cynics, who recognize the animal and meanness in themselves, provide shortcuts to understanding common souls. The higher man should open his ears to cynicism and think himself lucky when a shameless clown or scientific satter announces himself. The lover of knowledge should pay attention wherever people talk without indignation, as the indignant man is more ordinary and less instructive.
Nietzsche reflects on the difficulty of being understood, particularly when one thinks and lives differently from others. He does everything to make himself difficult to understand and appreciates goodwill in interpretation. He advises giving good friends a recreation room of misunderstanding or getting rid of them altogether.
Nietzsche discusses the difficulty of translating the tempo of a style rooted in the character of a race. He notes that Germans are almost incapable of "presto" (quick tempo) in their language and thus lack the nuances of free-spirited thinking. While solemn and lengthy styles are developed among Germans, figures like Aristophanes and Petronius are untranslatable. Lessing is an exception due to his play-acting nature and flight from Germany. The German language cannot imitate the tempo of Machiavelli or Petronius, who present serious affairs in a boisterous tempo.
Nietzsche asserts that being independent is a right of the strong, and attempting it without compulsion indicates exuberance. Such a person enters a labyrinth, increasing the dangers of life, and may come to a bad end far from men's understanding.
Nietzsche states that our loftiest insights must ring out like foolishness or crimes when they reach unsuitable ears. The exoteric view sees matters from underneath, while the esoteric sees them from above. There are heights of the soul from which tragedy ceases to have a tragic effect. What serves the higher kind of men as nourishment must be poison to a lower kind. The virtues of the common man amount to vices in a philosopher. A higher kind of person, if degenerating, acquires characteristics for which people in the lower world honor him as a saint. Books have opposite values for the soul depending on whether the lower or higher soul makes use of them. Books for the whole world smell foul, and one shouldn't go into churches if one wants to breathe clean air.
Nietzsche observes that in their youth, people worship and despise without subtlety, atoning with difficulty for bombarding men and things with yes and no. The worst taste, the taste for the absolute, is parodied until people learn to put art into their feelings. The anger and reverence of the young do not ease up until they have sufficiently distorted men and things. Youth is fraudulent and deceives. Later, the young soul turns back against itself, raging and taking revenge for its self-deception. In this transition, people punish themselves through mistrust, torment their enthusiasm with doubt, and take sides against the young. A decade later, they understand that all this was also still youth.
Nietzsche contrasts the prehistoric age, where the value of an action was derived from its consequences, with the last 10 millennia, where the value is determined by its origin. This shift was a great improvement, influenced by aristocratic values and faith in origins. However, it led to a new superstition: interpreting the origin of an action as an intention. Nietzsche questions whether we should now make a fundamental shift in values, moving beyond morality. He suggests that the decisive value of an action may lie in what is unintentional, with intentionality being merely a surface layer. Morality based on intentions has been a prejudice that must be overcome.
Nietzsche calls for a questioning of feelings of devotion, self-renunciation, and disinterested contemplation. He suggests that these feelings may be seductions and demand caution.
Nietzsche asserts that the falsity of the world is the firmest thing we can apprehend. He questions whether thinking itself is responsible for this falsity and whether it has played a trick on us. The innocence of thinkers is touching, but their belief in immediate certainties is a moral naivety. The philosopher has an absolute right to a bad character as the being who has always been fooled the best. He has a duty to be suspicious and glance around maliciously. It is a moral prejudice that truth is worth more than appearance, as there would be no life without appearances and perspectives. The world we are concerned with could be a fiction, and it is not forbidden to be ironic about the subject, predicate, and object. The philosopher should rise above a faith in grammar.
Nietzsche mocks humanity's nonsense about the truth, stating that seeking truth only to do good will yield nothing.
Nietzsche proposes that if our world of desires and passions is the only reality, we can understand the mechanical world on the basis of this given. He suggests understanding the mechanical world not as an illusion but as a more primitive form of the world of effects. This attempt is demanded by the conscience of the method. The question is whether we acknowledge the will as something efficient and believe in its causal properties. If we do, we must hypothesize that the causality of the will is the single causality. Will can only work on will, and wherever we recognize effects, will is working on will. If we could explain our instinctual life as a development of the will to power and trace all organic functions to it, we could designate all efficient force as will to power. The world, seen from inside, would be will to power and nothing else.
Nietzsche sarcastically responds to the idea that his theory disproves God but not the devil, questioning who is forcing such common language.
Nietzsche reflects on how the French Revolution was misunderstood by noble posterity, suggesting that this misunderstanding made looking at the past tolerable. He questions whether we are not this noble posterity and whether this is the moment when it is over.
Nietzsche asserts that happiness and virtue are not arguments for truth, but causing unhappiness and evil are also not counter-arguments. Something could be true even if it is harmful. The strength of a spirit might be measured by how much it can endure of the truth. Evil and unhappy people are more likely to discover certain parts of the truth. Toughness and cunning provide more favorable conditions for the strong mind than good nature. A good philosopher needs to be dry, clear, and without illusions, like a banker who has made a fortune.
Nietzsche states that everything profound loves masks, and the most profound things hate images and allegories. The right disguise for a god should be something opposite. There are processes that should be buried in something crude to make them unrecognizable. After actions of love and generosity, it is advisable to thrash an eyewitness to cloud his memory. Shame is resourceful. It is not the worst things that make people feel the worst shame. Behind a mask, there is not only malice but also goodness in cunning. A person with something valuable to hide might roll through life as coarse as an old wine barrel. A person whose shame is profound runs into his fate on pathways few reach. His mortal danger and confidence hide from those closest to him. A person who conceals himself wants a mask of him to wander in the hearts of his friends. Every profound mind needs a mask, and a mask continuously grows around it due to shallow interpretations.
Nietzsche asserts that a person must test himself to see if he is meant for independence and command, evading no tests. He should not get stuck on a single person, fatherland, pity, or science. He should not get stuck on his own detachment or virtues. One must learn to preserve oneself, the sternest test of independence.
Nietzsche describes a new sort of philosopher, whom he calls "attempters." This name is merely an attempt and a temptation.
Nietzsche questions whether these emerging philosophers are new friends of the truth, noting that all philosophers have loved their truths. However, they will not be dogmatists, as it goes against their pride and taste for their truth to be for every man. A philosopher of the future will say, "My opinion is my opinion, someone else has no casual right to it." One must rid oneself of the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. Good is no longer good when one's neighbor utters it. There is no common good, as what is common always has little value. Great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, and everything rare for the rare.
Nietzsche states that these philosophers of the future will be free spirits, but not merely free spirits. He feels a duty to blow away an old prejudice about free spirits, who are often misused and confined. These falsely named free spirits are eloquent slaves of democratic taste and modern ideas, lacking solitude and depth. They see old societies as the cause of human misery, turning the truth on its head. They strive for the universal green pasture happiness of the herd, with security and comfort for everyone. Their songs are equality of rights and pity for all who suffer. Nietzsche and his free spirits, by contrast, have opened their eyes to where the plant man has grown most powerfully: under opposite conditions, where danger is great and the will for living intensifies into a will for power. Hardness, violence, slavery, danger, seclusion, and devory serve for the ennobling of the species. Free spirits are not the most talkative and do not want to give away every detail of what a spirit can free itself from. The formula "Beyond Good and Evil" protects them from being confused with liberales, poncer libery, and other advocates of modern ideas. They are at home in many countries of the spirit, full of malice against dependency, thankful for poverty and sickness, curious to a fault, and ready for any job demanding astuteness. They are sworn friends of loneliness.
Nietzsche reflects on how human beings live in a simple and counterfeit way, marveling at how we have made everything bright, free, and simple around us. We give our senses free license for superficiality and our thinking a divine craving for erroneous conclusions. We maintain our ignorance to enjoy freedom, safety, carelessness, and merriment in life. Scientific knowledge rises on the foundation of ignorance, with the will to know based on a more powerful will not to know. Language continues to speak about opposites where there are only degrees, and even knowledgeable people understand how the best scientific knowledge wants to hold us in this simplified world, loving error because it loves life.
Nietzsche warns philosophers and friends of knowledge to protect themselves from martyrdom and suffering for the sake of truth, as it corrupts innocence and neutrality. He advises them to stand aside, retain their masks, and choose good solitude. Long wars make us poisonous, and long fear makes us personal. Those persecuted become sophisticated avengers. The martyrdom of a philosopher reveals how much of an agitator and actor he contains. People should be clear about what they are going to see in such cases: only a satter play, a farcical epilogue.
Nietzsche observes that every special human being strives for their own castle and secrecy, saved from the crowd. However, a person who seeks knowledge must eventually say that the rule-bound man is more interesting than the exception. The study of the average man, requiring disguise and bad company, is a necessary part of the philosopher's life. Cynics, who recognize the animal and meanness in themselves, provide shortcuts to understanding common souls. The higher man should open his ears to cynicism and think himself lucky when a shameless clown or scientific satter announces himself. The lover of knowledge should pay attention wherever people talk without indignation, as the indignant man is more ordinary and less instructive.
Nietzsche reflects on the difficulty of being understood, particularly when one thinks and lives differently from others. He does everything to make himself difficult to understand and appreciates goodwill in interpretation. He advises giving good friends a recreation room of misunderstanding or getting rid of them altogether.
Transcript
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0:00 Beyond Good and Evil Prelude to a philosophy of the future by Friedrich Nietzsche introductory note on Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Nietzsche died in 1900 at the dawn of the new century and since then many people have seen something significant in the date for as the century progressed Nietzsche's work largely ignored in his own day became increasingly well known indeed in the past 50 years at least Nietzsche's work has grown so influential that it is associated with many of the most important trends of modern thought not merely in philosophy but in a very wide range of subjects so much so that it is almost impossible to participate in modern intellectual discussions without some familiarity
0:46 with his writings Nietzsche was born in 1844 in roken by ludson in Prussia after graduating from school he studied classical philology at universities in Bonn and Leipzig and in 1869 took up a position as professor of classical velology at Basel after serving as a medical orderly during the franco-prussian war 1870-1871 he began to suffer from a number of serious ailments which a few years later became so serious he had to resign his position at Basel for most of the rest of his life Nietzsche lived as an independent writer traveling a great deal throughout Europe mainly in Italy and Switzerland publishing several books including Beyond Good and Evil in 1886 and
1:31 republishing some of the writings from his university days his work however received relatively little attention in 1889 Nietzsche began to suffer from a serious mental deterioration his friends and family took charge of him especially his sister Elizabeth but he never regained his sanity and died after a bout of pneumonia 10 years later interpreting nature makes special demands mainly because he presents his ideas not in the rational systematic way traditionally associated with philosophical writing a series of aphorisms combined with energetic and frequently very sweeping assertions and he is very fond of poetical images and enigmatic questions he typically offers his thoughts in sequences of numbered paragraphs but the
2:18 connections between these are frequently difficult to understand as a result his argument is often ambiguous and requires further interpretation as he himself points out in addition Nietzsche has a unique tone by turns serious sarcastic scathing friendly humorous assertive self-deprecating candid secretive admiring cryptic and dismissive given this shifting and frequently ambiguous style it is often difficult to tell just how one is supposed to take a particular statement or interpret a particular image the central thrust of Nietzsche's thinking in Beyond Good and Evil is however clear enough he is launching an assault on
3:03 traditional European thinking about morality in his view past attempts to define the truth about morality have been superficial because the philosophers proposing various systems have all started by assuming the essential points which need to be explored at the outset and because they have been seduced into error by the nature of language by their own unconscious motivation and by their limited understanding of the history of moral thinking prologue Nietzsche makes his intentions clear in the opening prologue in which he announces the death of all philosophical dogmatism that is all systems of thinking which claim absolute truth
3:49 these he asserts have been simple childish games based on erroneous assumptions and ignorance Plato is especially culpable for his invention of the good as such something Christianity borrowed and popularized however the attempt to combat these claims has created a splendid tension in the European Spirit which makes possible new and better directions at least for a few people suppose truth is a woman what then wouldn't we have good reason to suspect that all philosophers in so far as they were dogmatists had a poor understanding of women that the Dreadful seriousness and the awkward pushiness with which
4:35 they so far have habitually approached truth were clumsy and inappropriate ways to win over a woman it's clear that truth did not allow herself to be won over and all forms of dogmatism nowadays are standing there dismayed and disheartened if they're standing at all for there are mockers who assert that they have collapsed that all dogmatisms are lying on the floor even worse that they're at death's door speaking seriously there are good reasons to hope that all dogmatism in philosophy no matter how solemnly conclusively and decisively it has conducted itself has been merely a noble and rudimentary childish game and the time is perhaps very close at hand when people will again and again understand
5:21 just how little has sufficed to provide the foundation stones for the lofty and unconditional philosophical constructions of the sort dogmatists have erected up to now any popular Superstition from unimaginably long ago like the Superstition of the Soul which today in the form of the superstition about the subject and the ego has still not stopped stirring up Mischief perhaps some game with words a seduction by some grammatical construction or a daring generalization from very narrow very personal very human all to human facts the philosophies of the dogmatists were one hopes only a promise which lasted for thousands of years as the astrologers were in even earlier times
6:08 in their service people expended more work gold and astute thinking than for any real scientific knowledge up to that point we owe to them and their super terrestrial claims the grand style of architecture in Asia and Egypt it seems that in order for all great things to register their Eternal demands on the human heart they first have to wander over the Earth as monstrously and frighteningly distorted faces dogmatic philosophy has been such a Grimace for example the vedanta doctrine in Asia and platonism in Europe we must not be ungrateful for it even though we must also concede the truth that the worst most protracted and most dangerous of all eras up to now has been
6:54 the era of a dogmatist namely Plato's invention of the purely spiritual and of the good as such but now that has been overcome and as Europe breathes a sigh of relief after this nightmare and at least can enjoy a more healthy sleep those of us whose task it is to stay awake are the inheritors of all the forces which the fight against this era has fostered to speak of the spirit and the good in this way as Plato did was of course a matter of standing truth on its head and even of denying the basic condition of all life perspective indeed one could as a doctor ask how did such a disease get to Plato the most beautiful plant of antiquity did the evil Socrates really
7:40 corrupt him could Socrates have been a corrupter of Youth after all did he deserve his hemlock but the fight against Plato or to put the matter in a way more intelligible to the people the fight against the thousands of years of pressure from the Christian church for Christianity is platonism for the people created in Europe a splendid tension in the spirit something unlike anything seen on Earth before with such a tensely arched bow from now on we can shoot for the most distant targets naturally European man experiences this tension as a state of emergency already there have been two attempts in the grand style to ease the tension in the bow the first time with jesuitism the
8:27 second time with the Democratic Enlightenment through which with the help of the freedom of the prayers and reading newspapers a State might in fact be attained in which the spirit itself is not so easily experienced as need Germans invented gunpowder all honor to them but they made up for that when they invented the printing press but those of us who are neither Jesuits nor Democrats nor even German enough we good Europeans and free very free Spirits we still have the need the entire spiritual need and the total tension of its bow and perhaps we also have the arrow the work to do and who knows the target
9:14 June 1885. part one on the prejudices of philosophers in part one on the prejudices of philosophers nature launches his attack on traditional philosophy and in the process offers some of his most incisive and influential insights for a start he questions the basic assumptions philosophers make who says that there is an opposition between truth and falsity or between different values like Good and Evil how do we know that appearance deception and falsity are not more valuable in human life than whatever it is we call truth philosophers have all assumed the
9:59 answers to these questions when they should have paused before simply accepting what they or their society wanted to believe in this opening discussion Nietzsche makes the Apparently startling claim that because something is not true does not mean it might not be valuable since human beings need constant falsification of the world in order to live as human beings such falsifications are essential because we have no text of the world no way of accessing directly the truth of things all we have are various interpretations which give us different perspectives on the world such perspectives are all false they are foreground beliefs but human living
10:45 requires such falsification these remarks Nietzsche points out in what has turned out to be a highly influential and contested claim apply as much to science as to any other belief system even to our belief in cause and effect moreover the perspectives provided by philosophers stem from their unconscious desires in effect they create a system which answers to their unconscious needs and then invents the reasons after the fact and Proclaim that they have discovered the truth once their system is in place they demand the world answer to it to their truth but they have not discovered the truth they have merely invented a new interpretation of the truth one more
11:31 foreground perspective here Nietzsche is applying his extremely subtle understanding of human psychology to unmask the truth claims philosophers make and it's worth noting just how astute Nietzsche's command of modern psychological ideas is and this is well before the work of Sigmund Freud this astutinous is clear too in Nature's discussion of thinking and willing his dismissal of immediate certainties and of the free and unfree will philosophers have assumed they know that thinking and willing are simple voluntary activities governed by an eye an error encouraged by The Accidental characteristics of grammar but the simplest introspection reveals
12:18 that this basic assumption does not answer to the facts and the existence of the personal pronoun I in our grammar is no sufficient reason for establishing the truth of the Soul or the autonomous agent of thinking and willing Nietzsche ends this section by paying tribute to the importance of psychology once it has freed itself from moral beliefs before making assertions about what the human mind is and how it works philosophers from now on will need to understand the full complexity of what they are talking about 1. the will to truth which is still going to tempt us to many a daring exploit
13:03 that celebrated truthfulness of which all philosophers opt to now have spoken with respect what questions this will to truth has already set down before us what strange serious dubious questions there is already a long history of that and yet it seems that this history has scarcely begun is it any wonder that we finally become mistrustful lose patience and in our impatience turn ourselves around and learn from this Sphinx to ask questions for ourselves who is really asking us questions here what is it in us that really wants the truth in fact we paused for a long time before the question about the origin of this will until we finally remained
13:50 completely and utterly immobile in front of an even more fundamental question we asked about the value of this will suppose we want truth why should we not prefer untruth and uncertainty even ignorance the problem of the value of Truth stepped up before us or are we the ones who stepped up before the problem who Among Us here is Oedipus who is the Sphinx it seems to be a tryst between questions and question marks and was it possible to believe that we are finally the ones to whom it seems as if the problem has never been posed up to now as if we are the first ones to see it fix our eyes on it and to DARE confronted
14:35 for there is a risk involved in this perhaps there is no greater risk two how could something arise out of its opposite for example truth out of error or the will to truth out of the will to deception or selfless action out of self-seeking or the pure Sunny look of the wise man out of greed Origins like these are impossible anyone who dreams about them is a fool even worse things of the highest value must have another appropriate origin they cannot be derived from this ephemeral seductive deceptive trivial World from this confusion of Madness and desire their bases must lie by contrast in the
15:20 womb of being in the immortal in Hidden gods in the thing in itself and nowhere else this way of shaping an opinion creates the typical Prejudice which enables us to recognize once more the metaphysicians of all ages this way of establishing value stands behind all their logical procedures from this belief of theirs they wrestle with their knowledge with something which is finally in all solemnity christened the truth the fundamental belief of the metaphysicians is the belief in the opposing nature of values even the most careful among them has never had the idea of raising doubts right here on the threshold where such doubts are surely most essential even
16:06 when they praise themselves for believing de Omnibus jupitandum it is necessary to doubt everything for we can doubt first whether such an opposition of values exists at all and second whether that popular way of estimating worth and that opposition of values on which the metaphysicians have imprinted their seal are perhaps only evaluations made in the foreground only temporary perspectives perhaps even A View From a corner perhaps from underneath a frog's Viewpoint as it were to borrow an expression familiar to painters for all the value which the true genuine unselfish man may be entitled to it might be possible that a higher and more fundamental value for everything in life
16:53 must be ascribed to appearance the will for deception self-interest and desire it might even be possible that whatever creates the value of those fine and respected things exists in such a way that it is in some duplicitous way related to tied to intertwined with perhaps essentially the same as those undesirable apparently contrasting things perhaps but who is willing to bother with such a dangerous perhaps for that we must really await the arrival of a new style of philosopher the kind who has a different taste and inclination the reverse of philosophers so far in every sense philosophers of
17:38 the dangerous perhaps and speaking in all seriousness I see such new philosophers arriving on the scene three after examining philosophers between the lines with a sharp eye for a sufficient length of time I tell myself the following we must consider even the greatest part of conscious thinking among the instinctual activities even in the case of philosophical thinking we must relearn here in the same way we relearned about heredity and what is innate just as the act of birth merits little consideration in the procedures and processes of heredity so there's little point in setting up Consciousness in any significant sense as something opposite to what is instinctual
18:25 the most conscious thinking of a philosopher is Led on secretly and forced into particular paths by his instincts even behind all logic and its apparent Dynamic Authority stand evaluations of Worth or putting the matter more clearly physiological demands for the preservation of a particular way of life for example that what is certain is more valuable than what is uncertain that appearance is of less value than the truth evaluations like these could for all their regulatory importance for us still be only foreground evaluations a particular kind of niesery stupidity necessary for the preservation of beings precisely like us that's assuming of
19:10 course that not just man is the measure of things 4. for us the falsity of a judgment is still no objection to that judgment that's where our new way of speaking sounds perhaps most strange the question is the extent to which it makes demands on life sustains life maintains the species perhaps even creates species and as a matter of principle we are ready to assert that the falsest judgments to which a priori synthetic judgments belong are the most indispensable to us that without our allowing logical fictions to count without a way of measuring reality against the purely invented world of the unconditional and self-identical without
19:58 a constant falsification of the world through numbers human beings could not live but if we managed to give up false judgments it would amount to a renunciation of Life a denial of life to concede the fictional nature of the conditions of life means of course taking a dangerous stand against the customary feelings about value a philosophy which dares to do that is for this reason alone already standing Beyond Good and Evil 5. what's attractive about looking at all philosophers in part suspiciously and in part mockingly is not that we find again and again how innocent they are how often and how easily they make mistakes
20:43 and get lost in short how childish and childlike they are but that they are not honest enough in what they do while as a group they make huge virtuous noises as soon as the problem of truthfulness is touched on even remotely collectively they take up a position as if they had discovered and reached their real opinions through the self-development of a cool pure god-like disinterested dialectic in contrast to the mystics of all ranks who are more honest than they are and more stupid with their talk of inspiration while basically they defend with reasons sought out after the fact an assumed principle an idea an inspiration for the most part some heartfelt wish which has
21:28 been abstracted and sifted they're all Advocates who do not want to call themselves that indeed for the most part they are even mischievous pleaders for their judgments which they baptize as truths and very remote from the courage of conscience which would admit this even this to itself very remote from that brave good taste which would concede as much whether to warn an enemy or friend or whether to mock themselves as an expression of their own High Spirits that equally stiff and well-behaved tatuferi hypocrisy of Old Kent with which he enticed us onto the clandestine path of dialectic leading to or more correctly seducing us to his categorical imperative this dramatic performance
22:15 makes us discriminating people laugh for it amuses Us in no small way to keep a sharp eye on the fine tricks of the old moralists and preachers of morality for that sort of mathematical Hocus Pocus with which Spinoza presented his philosophy in the last analysis the love of his own wisdom to use the correct and proper word as if it were armed in metal and masked in order in this way to intimidate from the start the courage of any assailant who would dare to cut an eye on this invincible virgin and Palace Athena how much of his own shyness and vulnerability is betrayed by this masquerade of a sick hermit six gradually I came to learn what every
23:02 great philosophy has been up to now namely the self-confession of its originator and a form of unintentional and unrecorded Memoir and also that the moral or immoral intentions in every philosophy made up the essential living seed from which on every occasion the entire plant has grown in fact when we explain how the most remote metaphysical claims in a philosophy really arose it's good and shrewd for us always to ask first what moral is it is he aiming at consequently I don't believe that a drive to knowledge is the father of philosophy but that knowledge and misunderstanding have functioned only as a tool for another drive here as
23:47 elsewhere but whoever explores the basic drives of human beings in order to see how far they may have carried their game as inspiring Geniuses or demons and goblins will find that all drives have already practiced philosophy at some time or another and that every single one of them has all too gladly liked to present itself as the ultimate purpose of existence and the legitimate master of all the other drives for every Drive seeks Mastery and as such tries to practice philosophy of course with Scholars men of real scientific knowledge things may be different better if you will where there may really be something like a drive for knowledge some small independent clock
24:32 mechanism or other which when well wound bravely goes on working without all the other drives of the scholar playing any essential role the essential interests of Scholars thus commonly lie entirely elsewhere in the family or in earning a living or in politics indeed it is almost a matter of indifference whether his small machine is placed on this or on that point in science and whether the promising young worker makes a good philologist or expert in fungus or chemist whether he becomes this or that does not define who he is by contrast with a philosopher nothing is at all impersonal and his morality in particular Bears a decisive and crucial
25:19 witness to who he is that is to the rank ordering in which the innermost drives of his nature are placed relative to each other seven how malicious philosophers can be I know nothing more poisonous than the joke which epicurus permitted himself against Plato and the platonists he called them dionysio colickies the literal meaning of that what stands in the foreground is flatterers of Dionysus hence accessories of tyrants and licks bittles but the phrase says still more than that they are all actors with nothing true about them before dionysiocolax was a popular description
26:04 of an actor and that last part is the real maliciousness which epicurus hurled against Plato the Magnificent manners which Plato along with his pupils understood the way they set themselves in the scene things epicurus did not understand that irritated him the old Schoolmaster from Samos who sat hidden in his little Garden in Athens and wrote 300 books who knows perhaps out of rage and ambition against Plato it took a hundred years until Greece came to realize who this Garden God epicurus was did they realize eight in every philosophy there is a point where the conviction of the philosopher
26:49 steps onto the stage or to make the point in the language of an old mystery the ass arrived beautiful and most Valiant 9. do you want to live according to Nature oh you Noble stoics what a verbal Swindle imagine a being like nature extravagant without limit indifferent without limit without purposes and consideration Without Pity and Justice simultaneously fruitful desolate and unknown imagine this indifference itself as a power how could you live in accordance with this indifference living isn't that precisely a will to be something different from what this
27:35 nature is isn't living appraising preferring being unjust being limited wanting to be different and if you're imperative live according to Nature basically means what amounts to live according to life why can't you just do that why make a principle out of what you yourselves are and must be the truth of the matter is quite different while you pretend to be in raptures as you read the Canon of your lore out of nature you want something which is the reverse of this you weird actors and self-deceivers your pride wants to prescribe to and incorporate nature this very nature into your morality your ideal you demand that nature be in accordance
28:21 with the stower and you'd like to make all existence merely living in accordance with your own image of it as a huge and eternal glorification and universalizing of stoicism with all your love of Truth you have forced yourselves for such a long time and with such persistence and hypnotic rigidity to look at nature falsely that is stoically until you're incapable of seeing nature as anything else anymore and some abysmal arrogance finally inspires you with the lunatic hope that because you know how to tyrannize over yourselves stoicism is self-tyranny nature also allows herself to be tyrannized is the stoic then not a part of nature but this is an ancient
29:07 Eternal story what happened to them with the stoics is still happening today as soon as a philosophy begins to believe in itself it always creates a world in its own image it cannot do anything different philosophy is this tyrannical drive itself the spiritual will to power to a creation of the world to the causa Prima first cause 10. the enthusiasm and the delicacy I might even say the cunning with which people everywhere in Europe today go at the problem of the true and the apparent World make one think and listen and whoever hears only a will to truth in
29:54 the background and nothing else certainly doesn't enjoy the keenest hearing in single rare cases such a will to truth some extravagant and adventurous Spirit a metaphysical ambition to hold an isolated post May really be involved something which in the end always still prefers a handful of certainty to an entire wagon full of beautiful possibilities there may even be Puritan Fanatics of the conscience who prefer to lie down and die on a certain nothing than on an uncertain something but this is nihilism and the indication of a puzzled deathly tired Soul no matter how Brave the gestures of such virtue may appear
30:39 but among stronger thinkers more full of life still thirsty for life it appears to be something different when they take issue with appearances and already in their arrogance mention the word perspective when they determine that The credibility of their own bodies is about as low as they rank The credibility of appearance which asserts that the Earth stands still and as result in an apparently good mood let go of their surest possession for nowadays what do we think is more secure than our bodies who knows whether they don't at bottom want to win back something which people previously possessed with even more certainty something or other of the old ownership of an earlier Faith perhaps The Immortal Soul perhaps the
31:26 old God in short ideas According to which life could be lived better that is more powerfully and more cheerfully than according to Modern ideas it's a mistrust of these modern ideas it's a lack of faith in everything which has been built up yesterday and today it's perhaps a slight mixture of excess and Scorn which can no longer tolerate the bric-a-brack of ideas coming from different places of the sort so-called positivism brings to Market these days a discussed of the discriminating taste with the fairground colorful patchiness of all these pseudo philosophers of reality in whom there is nothing new or Genuine other than these Motley colors in my view we should in these matters
32:12 side with today's skeptical anti-realists and microscopists of knowledge their instinct which forces them away from Modern reality is irrefutable what do we care about their retrogressive secret paths the fundamental issue with them is not that they want to go back but they want to go away with some more power flight courage and Artistry they'd want to move out and not backwards 11. it strikes me that nowadays people everywhere are trying to direct their gaze away from the real influence which can't exercised on German philosophy that is cleverly to slip away from the value which he ascribed to himself
32:58 above everything else Kent was first and foremost proud of his table of categories with this table in hand he said that is the most difficult thing that ever could be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics but people should understand this could be he was proud of the fact that he had discovered a new faculty in human beings the ability to make synthetic judgments a priori suppose that he deceived himself here but the development and quick blood of German philosophy depend on this pride and on the competition among all his followers to discover if possible something even prouder at all events New faculties but let's think this over it's time we
33:44 did how are synthetic judgments a priori possible Kant asked himself and what did his answer essentially amount to thanks to a faculty however unfortunately he didn't answer in four words but so laboriously venerably and with such an expenditure of German profundity and curlicues that people fail to hear the comical nieseri alamond German stupidity inherent in such an answer people even got really excited about this new faculty and the rejoicing reached its height when Kant discovered yet another additional faculty a moral faculty in human beings for then the Germans were still moral and not yet at all political realists
34:31 that was a honeymoon of German philosophy all the young theologians of the tubing and Seminary went off right away into the bushes all looking for faculties and what didn't they find in that innocent Rich still youthful time of the German spirit in which Romanticism that malicious fairy played her pipes and sang a time when people did not yet know how to distinguish between finding and inventing above all a faculty for the super sensory shelling christened this intellectual contemplation and in so doing complied with the most heartfelt yearnings of his Germans whose Cravings were basically pious the most unfair thing we can do to this entire rapturously enthusiastic movement
35:18 which was adolescent no matter how much it boldly dressed itself up in Gray and antique ideas is to take it seriously and treat it with something like moral indignation enough people Grew Older the dream flew away there came a time when people rubbed their foreheads people are still rubbing them today they had dreamed first and foremost the Old Cant by means of A Faculty he had said or at least meant but is that an answer an explanation or is it not rather a repetition of the question how does opium make people sleep by means of A Faculty namely the virtus dormitiva sleeping virtue answered that
36:05 doctor in Moliere because it has the sleeping virtue whose nature makes the senses sleep but answers like that belong in comedy and the time has finally come to replace the cantian question how are synthetic judgments a priori possible with another question why is the belief in such judgments necessary that is to understand that for the purposes of preserving beings of our type we must believe that such judgments are true although of course they could still be false judgments or to speak more clearly crudely and fundamentally synthetic judgments a priori should not be possible at all we have no right to
36:50 them in our mouths they are nothing but false judgments of course it's true that a belief in their truth is necessary as a foreground belief and appearance which belong in the perspective Optics of living in order finally to recall the immense influence which German philosophy you understand I hope it's right to quotation marks as exercise throughout Europe there shall be no doubt that a certain vertus dormitiva virtue of making people sleep was a part of that people among them Noble loafers The Virtuous the mystics artists three-quarter Christians and political obscurantists of all nations were delighted to have thanks to German
37:36 philosophy an antidote to the still overpowering sensuality which flowed over from the previous Century into this one in Short to have a census a superior way of putting the senses to sleep 12. so far as the materialistic atomism is concerned it belongs with the most effectively refuted things we have and perhaps nowadays in Europe no scholar remains so unscholarly that he still ascribes a serious meaning to it other than for convenient hand and household use that is as an abbreviated way of expressing oneself thanks primarily to that Paul boscovich who together with the Paul Copernicus has so far been the greatest and most Victorious opponent of
38:23 appearances for while Copernicus convinced us to believe contrary to all our senses that the Earth did not stand still boscovich taught us to renounce the belief in the final thing which made the earth stand firm the belief in stuff immaterial in what was left of the Earth in atomic particles it was the greatest triumph over the senses which has ever been achieved on Earth so far but we must go even further and also declare war a Relentless War to The Bitter End against the atomistic need which still constantly carries on in a dangerous afterlife in places where no one suspects like that celebrated metaphysical need
39:10 we must at the start also get rid of that other and more disastrous atomism which Christianity has taught best and longest the atomism of the Soul with this phrase let me be permitted to designate the belief which assumes that the soul is something indestructible Eternal indivisible like a monad like an atomon we should rid scientific knowledge of this belief just between us it is not absolutely necessary to get rid of the Soul itself and to renounce one of the oldest and most venerable hypotheses as habitually happens with the clumsiness of the naturalists who hardly touch upon the soul without losing it but the way to new versions and
39:57 refinements of the hypothesis of the Soul stands open and ideas like Mortal soul and soul as the multiplicity of the subject and soul as the social structure of drives and emotional effects from now on want to have civil rights in scientific knowledge while the new psychologist is preparing an end to Superstition which so far has flourished with an almost tropical lushness in the way the soul has been imagined at the same time he has naturally pushed himself as it were into a new desert and a new mistrust it may be the case that the older psychologists had a more comfortable and happier time finally however he knows that in that very process he himself is condemned to invent things and who knows perhaps to
40:44 discover something 13. physiologists should think carefully about setting up the drive to preserve the self as the Cardinal Drive in an organic being above everything else something living wants to release its power living itself is Will To Power self-preservation is only one of the most frequent and indirect consequences of that in short here as everywhere beware of extraneous teleological principles the drive for self-preservation is one such principle we have Spinoza's inconsistency to thank for it for the essential principle of economy must hold that's what method demands
41:33 14. nowadays in perhaps five or six heads the idea is Dawning that even physics is only an interpretation and explication of the world for our benefit if I may be permitted to say so and not an explanation of the world but to the extent it rests upon a faith in the senses it counts for more and must continue to count for more for a long time yet that is as an explanation physics has eyes and fingers on its side it has appearance and tangibility on its side that works magically on an age with basically plebeian taste persuasively and convincingly indeed it follows instinctively the Canon of truth of
42:18 eternally popular sensuality what is clear what is explained only whatever lets itself be seen and felt every problem has to be pushed that far by contrast the reluctance to accept obvious evidence of the senses constituted precisely the magic of the platonic way of thinking which was a noble way of thinking perhaps among human beings who enjoyed even stronger and more discriminating senses than our contemporaries have but who knew how to experience a higher Triumph in remaining master of these senses and to do this by means of the pale cool gray conceptual Nets which they threw over the colorful confusion of sense the rabble of the senses as Plato called them
43:04 that form of enjoyment in overcoming this world and interpreting the world in the manner of Plato was different from the one which today's physicists offer us as well as the darwinists and anti-teliologists among the physiological workers with their principle of the smallest possible force and the greatest possible stupidity where human beings have nothing more to look at and to grip there they have also no more to seek out that is of course an imperative different from the platonic one but nonetheless for a crude diligent race of mechanics and Bridge Builders of the future who have nothing but rough work to do it might be precisely the right imperative
43:50 15. in order to carry on physiology in good conscience people must hold to the principle that the sense organs are not phenomena in the sense of idealistic philosophy as such they cannot in fact be causes and so sensualism at least as a regulative hypothesis if not as a heuristic principle what's that and other people even say that the outer world might be the work of our organs but then even our bodies as a part of this outer world will be the work of our organs but then our organs themselves would in fact be the work of our organs it seems to me that this is a fundamental reductio ad absurdum an absurd conclusion provided that the idea
44:35 of causa sui something being its own cause is something fundamentally absurd and consequently the exterior world is not the work of our organs 16. there are always still the harmless observers of themselves who believe that there are immediate certainties for example I think or like schopenhauer's Superstition I will just as if perception here was able to seize upon its object pure and naked as the thing in itself and as if there was no falsification either on the part of the subject or on the part of the object However the fact is that immediate certainty together with absolute cognition and thing in itself contains
45:22 within itself a contradictio in adjective contradiction in terms I'll repeat it a hundred times people should finally free themselves of the seduction of words let folk believe that knowing is knowing all of something the philosopher must say to himself when I dismantle the process which is expressed in a sentence I think I come upon a series of Daring assertions whose grounding is difficult perhaps impossible for example that I am the one who thinks that there must be some general or something that thinks that thinking is an action and effect of a being which is to be thought of as a cause that there is an eye and finally that it is already established what we
46:09 mean by thinking that I know what thinking is for If I had not yet already decided these questions in myself how could I assess that what just happened might not perhaps be willing or feeling in short this I think presupposes that I compare my immediate condition with other conditions which I know it myself in order to establish what it is because of this referring back to other forms of knowing it certainly does not have any immediate certainty for me thus instead of that immediate certainty which the people may believe in the case under discussion the philosopher encounters a series of metaphysical questions really essential problems of intellectual knowledge as follows where
46:57 do I acquire the idea of thinking why do I believe in cause and effect what gives me the right to speak of an eye and indeed of an i as a cause finally even of an eye as the cause of thinking anyone who dares to answer those metaphysical questions right away with an appeal to some kind of intuitive cognition as does the man who says I think and know that at least this is true real and certain such a person nowadays will be met by a philosopher with a smile and two question marks my dear sir the philosopher will perhaps give him to understand it is unlikely that you are not mistaken but why such absolute truth
47:43 17. so far as the superstitions of the logicians are concerned I were never Tire of emphasizing over and over again a small brief fact which these superstitious types are unhappy to concede namely that a thought comes when it wants to and not when I want it so that it's a falsification of the facts to say that the subject I is the condition of the predicate think it thinks but that this it is precisely that old celebrated I is to put it mildly only an assumption an assertion in no way an immediate certainty after all we've already done too much with this it thinks this it already contains an
48:31 interpretation of the event and is not part of the process itself following grammatical habits we conclude here as follows thinking is an activity to every activity belongs someone who does the action therefore with something close to this same pattern the older atomists in addition to the force which created effects also look for that clump of matter where the force was located out of which it worked the atom stronger heads finally learned how to cope without this remnant of Earth and perhaps one day people including even the logicians will also grow accustomed to cope without that little it
49:16 to which the good old eye has reduced itself 18. it's true that the fact that a theory can be disproved is not the least of its charms that's precisely what attracts finer Minds to it apparently the theory of Free Will which has been refuted hundreds of times owes its continuing life to this very charm alone someone or other comes along again and again who feels he's strong enough to refute it 19. philosophers habitually speak of the will as if it was the best known thing in the world indeed schopenhauer let it be known that the will was the only thing really known to us totally known understood without anything taken away
50:02 or added but still it always seems to me that schopenhauer in this case has also only done precisely what philosophers customarily do he's taken over and exaggerated a popular opinion willing seems to me above all something complicated something which is Unified only in the word and popular opinion simply in hears in this one word which has overmastered the caution of philosophers which is always inadequate so if we are for once more careful if we are unphilosophical then let's say firstly that in Every Act of willing there is a multiplicity of feelings namely the feeling of the condition away from which a feeling of the condition towards which the feeling of this away
50:48 and towards themselves then again an accompanying muscular feeling which comes into play through some kind of habit without our putting our arms and legs into motion as soon as we will something secondly just as we acknowledge feelings indeed many different feelings as ingredients of willing so we should also acknowledge thinking in Every Act of will there is a commanding thought and people should not believe that this thought can be separated from the will as if then the will was something left over thirdly the will is not only a complex of feelings and thinking but above all an effect and indeed an effect of the commander what is called freedom of the will is
51:35 essentially the feeling of superiority with respect to the one who has to obey I am free he must obey this awareness in hears in every will as does that tense attentiveness that direct gaze fixed exclusively on one thing that unconditional value judgment do this now nothing else needs to be done that in a certainty about the fact that obedience will take place and everything else that accompanies the condition of the one issuing commands a man who Wills gives orders to Something in himself which obeys or which he thinks obeys but now observe what is the strangest thing about willing about this many faceted thing for which the people have
52:21 only a single word insofar as we are in a given case the one ordering and the one obeying both at the same time and as the one obeying we know the feelings of compulsion of pushing and pressing resistance and movement which habitually start right after the act of Will and insofar as we by contrast have the habit of disregarding this Duality and deceiving ourselves thanks to the synthetic idea of I a whole series of mistaken conclusions and consequently false evaluations of the will have attached themselves to the act of willing in such a way that the person doing the Willing believes in good faith but willing is sufficient for action because in the vast majority of cases a person only Wills something where he may
53:07 expect his command to take effect in obedience and thus in action what is apparent has translated itself into a feeling as if there might be some necessary effect in short the one who is doing the Willing believes with a reasonable degree of certainty that will and action are somehow one thing he ascribes his success the carrying out of the will to the will itself and in the process enjoys an increase in that feeling of power which all success brings with it freedom of the will that's the word for that multifaceted condition of enjoyment in the person willing who commands and at the same time identifies himself with what is carrying out the order as such he enjoys the triumph over
53:52 things which resist him but in himself is of the opinion that it is his will by itself which really overcomes this resistance the person doing the Willing thus acquires the joyful feelings of the successful implements carrying out the order the serviceable underworlds or under souls for our body is merely a social construct of many souls in addition to his joyful feeling as the one who commands the effect is I what happens here is what happens in every well-constructed and happy commonality the ruling class identifies itself with the successes of the community all willing is simply a matter of giving orders and obeying on the basis as mentioned of a social construct of many
54:39 souls for this reason the philosopher should arrogate to himself the right to include willing as such within the field of morality morality that is understood as a doctrine of the power relationships under which the phenomenon living arises 20. that individual philosophical ideas are not something spontaneous not things which grow out of themselves but develop connected to and in relationship with each other so that no matter how suddenly and arbitrarily they may appear to emerge in the history of thinking they nevertheless belong to a system just as much as do the collective members of the Fauna of a continent that point finally reveals Itself by the way in which the most diverse philosophers reliably keep filling out again and
55:26 again a certain ground plan of possible philosophies under an invisible spell they always run around the same orbit all over again they may feel they are still so independent of each other with their critical or systematic Wills but something or other in them leads them something or other drives them in a particular order one after the other that very inborn taxonomy and relationship of ideas their thinking is in fact much less a discovery than a recognition a remembering again a journey back home into a distant primordial Collective household of the soul out of which these ideas formally grew to practice philosophy is to this extent a form of atavism of the highest order
56:12 the strange family's similarity of all Indian Greek and German ways of practicing philosophy can be explained easily enough it's precisely where a relationship between languages is present that we cannot avoid the fact that thanks to the common philosophy of grammar I mean thanks to the unconscious Mastery and guidance exercised by the same grammatical functions everything has been prepared from the beginning for a similar development and Order of philosophical systems just as the road to certain other possibilities of interpreting the world seems sealed off there will be a greater probability that philosophers from the region of the Ural altaic language in which the idea of the subject is most poorly developed will look differently into the world and will be found on other Pathways than
56:58 indo-germans or Muslims the spell of particular grammatical functions is in the final analysis the spell of physiological judgments of value and racial conditions so much for the repudiation of Lock's superficiality in connection with the origin of ideas 21. the cause of sui something being its own cause is the best self-contradiction which has been thought up so far a kind of logical rape and perversity but the excessive pride of human beings has worked to entangle itself deeply and terribly with this very nonsense the demand for freedom of the will in that superlative metaphysical sense as it unfortunately still constantly rules
57:45 in the heads of the half-educated the demand to Bear the entire final responsibility for one's actions oneself and to relieve God the world ancestors chance and Society of responsibility for it is naturally nothing less than this very cause of sui and an attempt to pull oneself into existence out of the swamp of nothingness by the hair with more audacity than Munchausen suppose someone in this way Gets behind the boorish Simplicity of this famous idea of the Free Will and erases it from his head then I would invite him to push his Enlightenment still one step further and erase also the inverse of this idea of Free Will from his head I refer to the
58:30 unfree will which leads to an abuse of cause and effect people should not mistakenly reify cause and effect the way those investigating nature do and people like them who nowadays naturalize their thinking in accordance with the ruling mechanistic foolishness which allows causes to push and shove until they have an effect people should use cause and effect merely as pure ideas that is as conventional fictions for the purpose of indicating and communicating not as an explanation in the in itself there is no causal connection no necessity no psychological unfreedom and hence no effect of the
59:16 cause no law holds sway we are the ones who have on our own made up causes causal sequences for one another relativity compulsion number law Freedom reason and purpose and when we fabricate this world of signs inside things as something in itself when we stir it into things then we're once again acting as we have always done namely mythologically the unfree will is a myth in real life it's simply a matter of strong and weak Wills it is almost always already a symptom of something lacking in a thinker himself once he senses in all causal connections and psychological necessity some purpose
1:00:02 necessity inevitable consequence pressure and unfreedom that very feeling is a Telltale giveaway the person is betraying himself and if I have seen things correctly the problem of the unfreedom of the will has generally been seen from two totally contrasting points of view but always in a deeply personal way some people are not willing at any price to let go of their responsibility their belief in themselves their personal right to the credit the vain races belong to this group the others want the reverse they don't wish to be responsible for or guilty of anything and demand out of an inner self-contempt that they can shift blame for themselves somewhere else
1:00:49 people in this second group when they write books are in the habit nowadays of taking up the cause of criminals a sort of socialist pity is their most attractive disguise and in fact the fatalism of those with weak Wills brightens up amazingly when it learns how to present itself as La religion de la Sue France UMaine the religion of human suffering that's its good taste 22. people must forgive me as an old philologist who cannot prevent himself from maliciously setting his finger on the art of bad interpretation but that Conformity to nature which you physicists talk about so profoundly as if it exists only thanks to your interpretation and bad philology and is
1:01:36 not a matter of fact a text it is much more only a naively humanitarian emendation and Distortion and meaning with which you make concessions ad nauseum to the Democratic instincts of the modern soul equality before the law everywhere in that respect nature is no different and no better than we are a Charming ulterior motive in which once again lies disguised the rebels hostility to everything privileged and autocratic as well as a second and more sophisticated atheism neither God nor master that's how you want it and therefore up with natural law isn't that so but as mentioned that is interpretation
1:02:22 not text and someone could come along who had an opposite intention and style of interpretation and who would know how to read out of this same nature with a look at the same phenomena the tyrannical inconsiderate and inexorable enforcement of Power claims an interpreter who sat right before your eyes the unexceptional and unconditional nature in all Will To Power in such a way that almost every word even that word tyranny would finally appear unusable or an already weakening metaphor losing its Force as to human and who nonetheless in the process finished up asserting the same thing about this world as you claim namely that it has a necessary and calculable course but not because laws rule the world but because there is a total
1:03:08 absence of laws and every Power draws its Final Consequence in every moment supposing that this also is only an interpretation and you will be eager enough to raise that objection well so much the better 23 all psychology so far has remained hung up on moral prejudices and fears it is not dare to go into the depths to understand it as the morphology and doctrine of the development of the will to power the way I understand it no one in his own thinking has even touched on that insofar that is as one is permitted to recognize in what has been written up to now a symptom of what people so far have kept silent about
1:03:54 power of moral prejudices has driven deep into the most spiritual the most apparently cool world the one with the fewest assumptions and as is self-evident Damages limits blinds and distorts that world a true physical psychology has to fight against an unconscious resistance in the heart of the researcher it has the heart against it even a doctrine of the mutual interdependence of the good and the bad drives creates as a more refined immorality distress and weariness in a still powerful and Hearty conscience even more so a doctrine of how all the good drives are derived from the bad ones but assuming that someone takes the effects of hate Envy greed and ruling as
1:04:42 the effects which determine life as something that in the whole household of Life have to be present fundamentally and essentially and as a result still have to be intensified if life is still to be further intensified he suffers from an orientation in his judgment as if he was seasick nevertheless even this hypothesis is not nearly the most awkward or the strangest in this immense and still almost new realm of dangerous discoveries and in fact there are a hundred good reasons that everyone should stay away from it everyone who can on the other hand if someone aboard ship ends up here at some point well then come on Now's the Time to keep one's teeth tightly clenched the eyes open and the Hand firm on the tiller we're moving
1:05:29 directly over morality and in the process we're overwhelming perhaps smashing apart what's left of amorality as we dare make our way there but what does that matter to us never before has a more profound world of insights revealed itself to daring Travelers and adventurers and the psychologists who in this way makes a sacrifice it is not the sacrificio Del intelletto sacrifice of the intellect quite the opposite will for that reason at least be permitted to demand that psychology is recognized again as the Mistress of the Sciences with the other Sciences there to prepare things in her service for from now on psychology is once more the route to fundamental problems
1:06:16 part two the free spirit much of part two of Beyond Good and Evil the free spirit is taken up with describing what new philosophers will be like now that the old dogmatisms have been exposed as fictions those new spirits who can accept both the fictional nature of all accounts of the truth and the biological Facts of Life about man as an animal driven by conflicting impulses will need to be strong and secretive because what they have to say will be taken as dangerous foolishness they will thus need to mask themselves and be prepared to live in a certain isolation in order to take on the work of conquering traditional morality especially the morality of pity and
1:07:02 disinterestedness and the belief in immediate certainties they will have to live in the full knowledge that life is based on appearance and deception and that the only reality we have is the world of our desire and Passions but this knowledge will not turn them into cynics it will emancipate them making them truly free creative Spirits able to generate new insights Nietzsche here also offers as his hypothesis the possibility that we might be able to trace this world of desires and passions back to a single will what he calls the will to power and that this will to power might well form a useful explanatory principle
1:07:47 it's worth noting how firmly Nietzsche's assumptions about human beings are rooted in biology and the biological facts about human instincts rather than in any assumptions about human free will or spiritual essence or rationality the strongest and most independent human beings According to Nietzsche are those who can act on their Will To Power they will not subscribe to anyone else's system of thought instead they will constantly experiment creating their own truths without any desire to impose these on other people and thus they will be uniquely free individuals Nietzsche is careful to distinguish his vision of these free Spirits from the Contemporary notion of free thinkers
1:08:32 those who are wedded to the spread of Democratic or socialist or Anarchist ideals his philosophers of the future will move into an Uncharted World Beyond concerns for good and evil unlike those the world calls free thinkers they will not be the champions of modern political and social ideas 24. o sancta simplicitas blessed simplicity human beings live in such a peculiarly simple and counterfeit way once a man develops eyes to see this one there he can't check his amazement how bright and free and light and simple we have made everything around us how we have learned to give our senses free
1:09:18 license for everything superficial our thinking a Divine craving for wanton leaps and erroneous conclusions how we have learned ways right from the start to maintain our ignorance in order to enjoy a hardly conceivable Freedom safety carelessness heartedness and merriment in life in order to enjoy life and only on this now firm Granite Foundation of ignorance could scientific knowledge up to now rise up the will to know on the foundation of a much more powerful will the will not to know to uncertainty to what is not true not as its opposite but as its refinement for if language here as elsewhere does not cast off its clumsiness and continues to speak about opposites where
1:10:06 there are only degrees and many subtleties of gradation and similarly if inveterate tatuferi hypocrisy immorality which nowadays belongs to our Invincible Flesh and Blood turns the words even of us knowledgeable people around in our mouths here and there we understand that and laugh about how it's precisely the best scientific knowledge that most wants to Hold Us in this simplified completely artificial appropriately created and appropriately falsified world how it loves error voluntarily and involuntarily because as something alive it loves life 25. after such a cheerful start I'd like you not to miss hearing a serious word it's
1:10:52 directed at the most serious people be careful you philosophers and Friends of knowledge protect yourself from martyrdom from suffering for the sake of truth even from defending yourselves that corrupts all the innocence and refined neutrality in your consciences it makes you stubborn against objections and red rags it dulls your minds brutalizes you and puts you in a day is when in the struggle with danger malice suspicion expulsion and even dirtier consequences of your hostility you finally have to play out your role as the Defenders Of Truth on Earth as though the truth was such a harmless and clumsy character as to require Defenders and as for you unites with the sorrowful countenances my good gentleman use
1:11:39 spiritual loafers and cobweb Spinners ultimately you yourselves know well enough that it really doesn't matter if you are the ones who are right you also know that up to now no philosopher has been right and that a more praiseworthy truthfulness could lie in every small question mark which you set after your favorite words and cherished doctrines and occasionally after yourselves then in all the ceremonial gestures and Trump cards before prosecutors and courts of Justice better to stand aside run after some secluded place and retain your masks and your subtlety so that people confuse you with someone else or fear you a little and for my sake don't forget the garden the garden with the golden trellis and
1:12:24 have people around you who are like a garden or like music over water in the evening when the day is already becoming a memory choose good Solitude the free high-spirited easy Solitude which gives you also a right to remain in some sense or other still good yourselves how poisonous how crafty how bad every long War makes us when it does not let us fight with Open Force how personal are long fear makes us a long attention
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