Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
Nietzsche and Objectivism

Unit Two: February 21 - March 19

David Potts' Notes on
On The Will To Power Book 3, Part 1

[Moderator's note: David Potts and other participants from time to time
offer us notes on the reading they have been doing associated with the
Cyberseminar. I circulate these because I think some participants may find
them interesting, but they are not directly part of the cyberseminar
discussion.]

[From: David L. Potts ]

To: Cyberseminar
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2000 11:47 AM
Subject: Epitome of WP Bk 3, Part I


Epitome of _Will to Power_, Book 3, Part I.

Point 1.
We have no cognitive access to things-in-themselves (473, 479, 488, 552,
553, 555, 574). All the metaphysical notions in terms of which we understand
reality - causation, substance, thing, space, time, subject/object, mind,
matter, form, being, identity, noncontradiction - are fictions (512-517,
520-522, 524, 530-531, 549, 552, 574, 589). Causation, in particular, is a
figment having its origin in an analogy drawn from intentional action (550,
551, 554).

Point 2.
Consciousness, mind, the knowing subject, are likewise fictional (475-479,
488, 524, 526, 529, 574). We do not experience the ego (481, 483, 484, 490,
518, 523). Specific drives, thoughts, experiences, passions, occur, but no
unified subject underlies or comprises them (477, 485, 490, 529). Moreover,
the body, physical states and attributes, are better known to us than the
mental (489, 491, 518, 532).

Point 3.
The intellect is perspectival; that is, it "sees" from a specific vantage
point, in a specific way (473, 481, 555, 567, 616). Therefore, the intellect
cannot criticize its own perspective (473, 486, cf. 569).

Point 4.
Knowledge is not disembodied; as knowers we are not disinterested but seek
knowledge to preserve and enhance our lives (480, 494, 495, 498, 505, 507,
510, 513-515, 520, 521, 552, 563, 567, 579).

Point 5.
We live in a world of becoming, not being (517, 520, 531, 552, 570, 579,
580, 584, 617). This is not the phenomenal world of experience as opposed to
the world of things-in-themselves, since this distinction is invalid;
rather, it is _the_ world (488, 552, 553, 567-569). There is no identity in
reality (520, 552, 532, 536, 544).

Point 6.
There are no facts (477, 481, 556, 560, 604). Rather, we interpret the world
according to a schema of categories (such as substance and attribute, cause
and effect, subject and object, space and time, mind and matter, appearance
and reality) (477, 479, 513, 515, 517, 521, 522, 549, 584, 589). Reason
requires some such schema (487, 517, 518, 520, 522, 544).

Point 7.
In this way we _create_ the world of being (516, 517, 521, 574, 584, 586,
617). At the same time we create the bogus distinction of
things-in-themselves (or "reality") vs. appearance (552, 553, 568, 586).

Point 8.
The categorial schema is not fixed but created by powerful, creative
individuals (513, 605, 606). It could be other than it is at present (514,
600, 615). The schema determines what scientists subsequently "discover"
(521, 606).

Point 9.
We create identity by coarseness of observation, or where the tempo of
change is slow; in effect we ignore, we filter out differences (506, 521,
532, 552, 560, 580). Thus we are enabled to employ general terms and
concepts (506, 521, 569). (Identity, incidentally, is holistic; that is, any
attribute can only be specified by its effects on _other_ things (557,
561).)

Point 10.
Identity is the basis of calculability, i.e., of scientific laws,
mathematical laws, predictions of future events (515, 551, 568, 569).
Calculability is what we require for survival (480, 515, 521). The
fundamental opposition that motivates epistemology is not reality vs. mere
appearance but the calculable vs. the chaotic (566, 569, 580, 584).

Point 11.
Thus the intellect, by achieving calculability, gains mastery, power;
"knowledge" is the intellect's expression of its will to power (480, 496,
503, 505, 507, 514, 517, 552, 589, 617).

Point 12.
The will to truth is thus the intellect's will to power (495, 514, 533-534,
552, 583C). Truth can only be conceived by intellect as consisting in
identification with the "things-in-themselves" of some categorial schema
(507, 517, 539, 552, 585A). But things-in-themselves, like the schema, are
fictions (point 1, above). Thus truth ultimately is a chimera we must strive
to transcend (539, 542, 543, 578, 583-586, 592, 602, 616).


Additional Notes

Note 1.
The preceding represents my attempt to distill an epistemology from WP 3.I
which is both coherent _and_ faithful to the text. Since the text is not
fully coherent (not that, being a jumble of notebook entries never prepared
by Nietzsche for publication, there is much reason to expect it to be
coherent), this is a treacherous task. I have tried to assemble as many
citations as possible for each proposition, on the theory that any single
notebook entry in isolation need not imply much or any commitment on
Nietzsche's part, and also because single entries can often be rather
obscure. For example, section 566, cited in point 10, is brief and obscure;
together with the other citations listed there, however, I believe it fits
(and supports) the suggested interpretation. In short, with Nietzsche
context is everything so I have tried to supply as much as I could. Finally,
none of this should be taken to indicate that the contents of WP 3.I
represent "Nietzsche's epistemology." For all we know, he was dissatisfied
with it in whole or in significant chunks, which could be why he published
very little on epistemology.

Note 2.
There is a question whether the world of becoming is supposed to be external
and unprocessed. Can Nietzsche hold the world of becoming to be external? If
it is, how does he know it's a world of _becoming_ (or anything else about
it)? Moreover, wouldn't the world of becoming then be
"things-in-themselves", "reality" - a false category? Although there are
indications that Nietzsche may have sometimes approached a Heideggerian
conception of epistemology without a Cartesian subject - of no
subject/object distinction whatever - and therefore of no unprocessed world
whatever (see for example especially 552 and cf. BGE 36), I doubt whether
the text of WP 3.I fully sustains such an interpretation. Too many passages
imply the independent existence of a world that supplies material to the
senses. Also, he never suggests that the world of becoming in any way
depends on us. It is common for philosophers (e.g., Kant) to declare X
unknowable and then proceed to tell us things about X, so that is not a
strong argument against Nietzsche's holding that becoming is external.
Finally, examination of his arguments against things-in-themselves shows
that what he attacks is their supposed self-identity, their unity, not their
externality, so this also provides little reason to believe that becoming is
not external. The difference this question makes has to do with the _sense_
in which the world of becoming is unknowable: if the world of becoming is
external then it is unknowable because it is behind the veil of perception;
if it is not external (the internal/external distinction being bogus) then
it is unknowable because knowledge as such requires a categorial schema and
the world of becoming doesn't _do_ categorial schemas.

Note 3.
It may be helpful to view the outlook presented in points 1 through 12 as a
form of instrumentalism a la analytic philosophy of science. "Knowledge,"
according to instrumentalism, should be understood not as discovering truths
about a reality underlying the phenomenal world of appearance but merely as
an instrument for calculating future phenomena and thereby gaining mastery
over the phenomenal world around us. It is true that science talks of atoms
and the like as something real, but instrumentalism says these should be
thought of as fictions convenient for computing predictions, not as literal
reality. Nietzsche differs from conventional instrumentalism mainly in his
extension of these principles to _everything_ about underlying reality,
including space, time, the conscious ego, identity itself, even logic, and
his assertion that the outer world is an identityless world of becoming.
Also, Nietzsche does not regard the fictitious world of being as a wholly
benign thing, since it has been moralized and made into the realm of ascetic
values like God and truth and disinterested knowledge (583, 585A, 592; cf.
GM iii.24 and iii.27).

Note 4.
Nietzsche is never more conflicted than over the nature of truth. Sometimes
by "true" he seems to mean (A) what we should believe (483, 487, 497, 516,
517, 519, 579). But at other times he seems to mean (B) identification with
the world of being (536-539, 542, 543, 568, 585, 586, 592, 602). And at
still other times he seems to think of truth as (C) relative to a given will
or being or species (532, 535, 540, 568 third paragraph, 493). It is meaning
(B) that I have singled out in point 12 above as the critical one -
identification with the world of being. This is the sense of "truth" he
rails against in sections 583-586 as the consolation prize of thinkers too
weak to deal forthrightly, creatively, productively with the world of
becoming. This sense of truth explains otherwise paradoxical passages such
as 543: "In a world that is essentially false, truthfulness would be an
antinatural tendency." That is, since the world of being is "essentially
false" - a fiction - yet nevertheless the standard of truth, truthfulness is
"an antinatural tendency." Truth in the (B) sense is inherently false and
misleading, even corrupting, for the world of being, with which it is an
identification, doesn't exist. Therefore, "reverence for truth is already
the consequence of an illusion . Everything is false!" (602). Again, the
world of becoming is not true either, if the standard is the fictitious
world of being: "The world [of becoming] with which we are concerned is
false, i.e., is not a fact but a fable and approximation . it is 'in flux,'
as something in a state of becoming, as a falsehood always changing but
never getting near the truth: for-- there is no 'truth'" (616). Note,
finally, that truth in sense (C) is perhaps only a generalization of (B)
allowing for different interpretations of the world of becoming, ones that
diverge from our current categorial schema.

February 29, 2000

[David Potts]


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

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
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