On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
by Friedrich Nietzsche 
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"On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense") is an (initially) unpublished work of Friedrich Nietzsche written in 1873, one year after The Birth of Tragedy. It deals largely with epistemological questions of truth and language, including the formation of concepts.Every word immediately becomes a concept, inasmuch as it is not intended to serve as a reminder of the unique and wholly individualized original experience to which it owes its birth, but must at the same time fit innumerable, more show more or less similar cases-which means, strictly speaking, never equal-in other words, a lot of unequal cases. Every concept originates through our equating what is unequal.According to Paul F. Glenn, Nietzsche is arguing that "concepts are metaphors which do not correspond to reality." Although all concepts are human inventions (created by common agreement to facilitate ease of communication), human beings forget this fact after inventing them, and come to believe that they are "true" and do correspond to reality. Thus Nietzsche argues that "truth" is actually:A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms-in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.These ideas about truth and its relation to human language have been particularly influential among postmodern theorists, and "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" is one of the works most responsible for Nietzsche's reputation (albeit a contentious one) as "the godfather of postmodernism." show lessTags
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This was a GREAT essay. It broached on the nature of truth and how it relates to perception of the world, but it did so with aplomb and great poetic-- and verbal, mastery. The essay was an absolute pleasure to read and I feel as if I have been bettered through carefully considering it.
5 stars.
5 stars.
me parece que este es una critica a la teoria de formas, que de cierta manera reconoce la utilidad de estas como bloques primarios con las que el hombre se guia para interacturar en el mundo, sin embargo deja en claro que tales abstracciones no son la realidad, sino dicha herramienta.
plantea ademas otro tipo de hombre que no interactua de esta manera; un hombre irracional que prescinde de estas altas abstracciones y que interactua con el mundo tal cual es, esto ultimo me recuerda a el discurso que da Sartre en la nausea sobre las cosas y sus propiedades
plantea ademas otro tipo de hombre que no interactua de esta manera; un hombre irracional que prescinde de estas altas abstracciones y que interactua con el mundo tal cual es, esto ultimo me recuerda a el discurso que da Sartre en la nausea sobre las cosas y sus propiedades
ნიცშეა კლასიკური - ძალიან კარგად და დალაგებულად ამბობს რა არ არის ჭეშმარიტება და რა (არ) არის სიცრუე... რომ ადამიანი და მისი სამყარო მეტაფორები და აბსტრაქციაა... მაგრამ, მერე რა უნდა ქნა, პასუხი არ აქვს
This paper contains some thought-provoking ideas, but his writing is self-defeating considering the topic. It should've been written as simple and accessible as possible.
Andrebbe utilizzato come testo introduttivo per leggere Nietzsche. Uno scritto breve, ma fondamentale.
Jun 21, 2023Italian
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The son of a Lutheran pastor, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born in 1844 in Roecken, Prussia, and studied classical philology at the Universities of Bonn and Leipzig. While at Leipzig he read the works of Schopenhauer, which greatly impressed him. He also became a disciple of the composer Richard Wagner. At the very early age of 25, Nietzsche show more was appointed professor at the University of Basel in Switzerland. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Nietzsche served in the medical corps of the Prussian army. While treating soldiers he contracted diphtheria and dysentery; he was never physically healthy afterward. Nietzsche's first book, The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music (1872), was a radical reinterpretation of Greek art and culture from a Schopenhaurian and Wagnerian standpoint. By 1874 Nietzsche had to retire from his university post for reasons of health. He was diagnosed at this time with a serious nervous disorder. He lived the next 15 years on his small university pension, dividing his time between Italy and Switzerland and writing constantly. He is best known for the works he produced after 1880, especially The Gay Science (1882), Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-85), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), The Antichrist (1888), and Twilight of the Idols (1888). In January 1889, Nietzsche suffered a sudden mental collapse; he lived the last 10 years of his life in a condition of insanity. After his death, his sister published many of his papers under the title The Will to Power. Nietzsche was a radical questioner who often wrote polemically with deliberate obscurity, intending to perplex, shock, and offend his readers. He attacked the entire metaphysical tradition in Western philosophy, especially Christianity and Christian morality, which he thought had reached its final and most decadent form in modern scientific humanism, with its ideals of liberalism and democracy. It has become increasingly clear that his writings are among the deepest and most prescient sources we have for acquiring a philosophical understanding of the roots of 20th-century culture. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne
- Original title
- Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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