Nietzsche's "There are no facts." Our needs define our senses.

DifferentiatingEgg

In Nietzsche's philosophy the will is a misnomer that sums up a multiplicity of drives/forces each fighting for dominance. These drives and forces equate to our needs as humans. Our needs change over time, and our needs is what drives the realm of facts, such that our facts change over time with our needs. (BGE 19)

What should be considered, as with the above on will, are the gradations of change. We prefer to give form to the whole of the subject of these gradations (such as the will) and to great differences in gradations (good/evil) as its easier and more calculable for us to manage. (BGE 24)

Long before morality, as with logic, came into existence, humans discovered events in which to burn their precursors of said systems into the flesh, the muscle memory, such that we created the entire constellations of thought behind morality, behind, logic, behind languages, behind math, behind science, behind philosophy, behind "man" himself... so that some could sleep soundly in a more calculable world. (BGE 9)

We see Nietzsche toying with this thought from the Birth of Tragedy to his final books. In which the Greek contrived for themselves, out of the Apollonian impulse, the Helenic Will (a multiplicity of Ideals and Gods to represent the highest forms of these ideals). In overcoming that brutal wisdom of Dionsysus and Silenus that "to die young" or "not be born at all" was the best thing in the world in a reversal that stated the best of all was to perhaps never die at all...

"Immorality! Take it! It's yours!" — Apparently Achilles at Troy

When you go through Nietzsche's books you'll find he uses the word "facts" to detail truths quite often... like, for example, in Beyond Good and Evil, he details facts (as a matter of fact, in fact, etc etc) at least 8 times by the 17th Aphorism.

Nietzsche develops this idea further in Human All Too Human, again in Joyful Wisdom/Gay Science, in TSZ&BGE, and in Genealogy, all the way through to will to power. All these various developments behind the idea are the multiplicity of concepts on the fact that facts change over time under one umbrella transformed by the "O Sancta Simplicitas!" of BGE 24 into the single simple, but awkward "There Are No Facts":

It is to be hoped, indeed, that LANGUAGE, here as elsewhere, will not get over its awkwardness, and that it will continue to talk of [Forms] where there are only degrees and many refinements of gradation... — Nietzsche: BGE 24

Nietzsche utilizes the awkwardness of the summation of these ideas in the saying "There are not facts." But fact is, Nietzsche details facts about many things, and utilizes the term fact to point out truths across different eras of time. Nietzsche was a philologists, first and foremost, who studied the evolution of ideas throughout time by examing our language.

The very few times that Nietzsche declares "there are no facts" are indeed within Aphorisms that detail very specifically what Nietzsche is determining that there are no facts about...

A lack of finesse in reading Nietzsche will lead to drivel like Russell's abysmally poor analysis of Nietzsche...

tim wood

The very few times that Nietzsche declares "there are no facts" are indeed within Aphorisms that detail very specifically what Nietzsche is determining that there are no facts about... — DifferentiatingEgg

I don't know about N's use for the word "fact," but in another thread you produced a quote that was mistranslated with the word "fact" and that did not in fact contain that word. The point here being that "fact" and "true" are two different words referring to different things - notwithstanding that often they're used as if interchangeable. Facts are historical. And thus there is no such thing as a fact. And as such, absolutely a matter of interpretation. N appears to have been smart enough not to use the word "fact" inappropriately or in error.

Joshs

↪DifferentiatingEgg

Nietzsche utilizes the awkwardness of the summation of these ideas in the saying "There are not facts." But fact is, Nietzsche details facts about many things, and utilizes the term fact to point out truths across different eras of time. Nietzsche was a philologists, first and foremost, who studied the evolution of ideas throughout time by examing our language. — DifferentiatingEgg

According to Foucault, Nietzsche details two kinds of truth, connaissance and savoir.

“…the Aristotelian model appeared to characterize classical philosophy. This model entails that the Will to know ( savoir ) is nothing other than curiosity, that knowledge (connaissance ) is always already marked in the form of sensation, and finally that there was an inherent relation between knowledge and life. The Nietzschean model, on the other hand, claims that the Will to know ( savoir ) refers not to knowledge ( connaissance ) but to something altogether different, that behind the Will to know there is not a sort of preexisting knowledge that is something like sensation, but instinct, struggle, the Will to power. The Nietzschean model, moreover, claims that the Will to know is not originally linked to the Truth: it claims that the Will to know composes illusions, fabricates lies, accumulates errors, and is deployed in a space of fiction where the truth itself is only an effect. It claims, furthermore, that the Will to know is not given in the form of subjectivity and that the subject is only a kind of product of the Will to know, in the double game of the Will to power and to truth. Finally, for Nietzsche, the Will to know does not assume the preexistence of a knowledge already there; truth is not given in advance; it is produced as an event.

This model of a fundamentally interested knowledge, produced as an event of the will and determining the effect of truth through falsification, is undoubtedly at the furthest remove from the postulates of classical metaphysics.

DifferentiatingEgg

↪tim wood

Facts are historical. — tim wood

That's exactly the point of me pointing to the fact in Nietzsche's WtP 258

My leading doctrine is this: there are no moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena. The origin of this interpretation itself lies beyond the pale of morality.

What is the meaning of the fact that we have imagined a contradiction in existence? This is of paramount importance: behind all other valuations those moral valuations stand commandingly. Supposing they disappear, according to what standard shall we then measure? And then of what value would knowledge be, etc. etc.??? — Nietzsche, WtP 258

Leads directly into Nietzsche

develop[ing] this idea further in Human All Too Human, again in Joyful Wisdom/Gay Science, in TSZ&BGE, and in Genealogy, all the way through to will to power. — DifferentiatingEgg

From the second aphorism of HATH, and I explain this in the other post also (

We can see Nietzsche discusses this very concept as early as HATH (Aphorism 2), all the way to Ecce Homo and Antichrist... Which even Peter Gast gets right in WtP... — DifferentiatingEgg

), had you read the aphorisms you'd see...

Inherited Faults of Philosophers:...A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers...there are no eternal facts, as there are likewise no absolute truths. Therefore, historical philosophising is henceforth necessary, and with it the virtue of diffidence. — Nietzsche HATH § 2

So you see, I did discuss it, just not directly point to it... but fact is, there wasn't a wrong interpretation in that other than you thinking you had me on a wrong interpretation...

↪Joshs

Nice, thank you for that additional gradation. What book is that in?

Joshs

↪DifferentiatingEgg

Its from ‘The Will to Know’

DifferentiatingEgg

↪Joshs

putting that on the ole reading list. Appreciate you.

tim wood

So you see, I did discuss it, just not directly point to it... but fact is, there wasn't a wrong interpretation in that other than you thinking you had me on a wrong interpretation... — DifferentiatingEgg

Indeed you did, in your takedown of AS in the other thread. Afaik you were right, nor did I think you were wrong. Maybe read a little better?

DifferentiatingEgg

↪tim wood

Ah, did you mean AS misinterpreted? My fault. ^_^

Nietzsche's "There are no facts." Our needs define our senses.

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