1.6.1—
Utility, Correspondence, and the "Intellectual Conscience"
In several of the passages in which Nietzsche speaks of "intellectual conscience," "intellectual integrity," and "honesty," he tells us that these philological virtues are characterized by "the demand for certainty " (GS 2.) and the demand that everything be surrendered in the service of truth (A 50). This has led prominent commentators such as Walter Kaufmann to argue that Nietzsche's consistent calls for "intellectual integrity" and the like manifest his rejection of the notion of truth as utility and his unwillingness to give up reason's desire for truth as correspondence, despite the recognition that this desire is destructive of life.[42] On the other side, Arthur Danto has taken issue with Kaufmann's
[40] See WP 481: "Against positivism, which halts at phenomena—'There are only facts'—I would say: No, facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations."
[41] Through analyses of the "Preface" to Beyond Good and Evil, both Wolfgang Müller-Lauter, in "On Associating with Nietzsche," trans. R. J. Hollingdale, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 4–5 (1992–93): 28ff., and Derrida, in Spurs, make this point. Derrida more explicitly argues that truth, for Nietzsche, must take its place within the world of semblance.
[42] Kaufmann, Nietzsche, 359–61. Admittedly, Kaufmann makes no explicit reference to "the correspondence theory of truth." Yet something like it is clearly what he has in mind. For, according to Kaufmann, Nietzsche conceives of truth as a heroic resistance to every illusion and all considerations of utility or pleasure so as to be able to state simply what is the case. This is corroborated by Mary Warnock ("Nietzsche's Conception ofTruth," 57–58 and passim ), who both expresses agreement with Kaufmann's interpretation of Nietzsche's view of truth and argues that the conception of truth ultimately presupposed by Nietzsche is a correspondence theory. Also see n. 47, below.
view. Without offering an alternative account of the notions of "honesty" and "intellectual conscience," Danto argues that Nietzsche's discussions of the life-negating results of "the will to truth" provide sufficient evidence that Nietzsche does indeed relinquish the desire for truth as correspondence and instead sanctions useful fictions insofar as they are life-promoting.[43]
This debate has become a centerpiece in the literature on Nietzsche, and each side has attracted a number of advocates.[44] Indeed, it has been suggested that, with regard to Nietzsche, "the distinction between correspondence truth and pragmatic truth. [ . . . ] deserves to be called The Official Distinction."[45] Yet, again, I think the debate is improperly framed and that, contrary to both sides, Nietzsche identifies truth neither with utility nor with correspondence. A reconsideration of the passages concerning "honesty" and "intellectual conscience" bears this out.
Kaufmann is certainly right to point out that, in these and other passages, Nietzsche argues against the notion that truth is equivalent to utility of belief. Indeed, Nietzsche seems to argue that "intellectual integrity" consists precisely in a constant "doubt," "mistrust," and "skepticism" with regard to convictions, faiths, and beliefs, especially those one holds dearest (see BGE 34, 39; GM I: 1, III:24; A P, 12–13, 54). Yet Nietzsche does not reject pragmatic criteria altogether. He simply claims that utility of belief is insufficient for the determination of truth and that, unchecked by other criteria, the pragmatic criterion of truth quickly becomes dogmatic and deceptive (see GS 113; GM III: 24; A 50; WP 456). We have seen that, taken as the sole criterion of truth, the pragmatic conception can support even the wildest metaphysical beliefs. By establishing a domain that in principle excludes every other criterion, metaphysics and morality come to sanction beliefs solely because of the strength that accrues to them due to their benefit for the believer.
[43] Danto, Nietzsche as Philosopher, 72, 99, 191ff.
[44] See n. 16 above. An interesting variant of this debate can be seen in the exchange between Jean Granier, Le problème de la vérité dans la philosophie de Nietzsche (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1966), 303–36, and Sarah Kofman, "Appendix: Genealogy, Interpretation, Text," in Nietzsche and Metaphor, trans. Duncan Large (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), discussed by David C. Hoy in "Philosophy as Rigorous Philology? Nietzsche and Poststructuralism," New York Literary Forum 8–9 (1981): 178–80, and Schrift in Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation, 166–68.
[45] John T. Wilcox, "Nietzsche's Epistemology: Recent American Discussions," International Studies in Philosophy 15 (1983): 67–77, 72.
Thus, in several passages that take up this issue, Nietzsche inveighs against Christianity and Kantianism, both of which maintain that, ultimately, reason must yield to faith (see D P:3; GS 335; GM III:12; TI "World" 2–3; A 10, 12, 50, 54). It is this that the "intellectual conscience" finds contemptible:
All these great enthusiasts and prodigies behave like our little females: they consider "beautiful sentiments" adequate arguments, regard a heaving bosom as the bellows of the deity, and conviction a criterion of truth. In the end, Kant tried, with "German" innocence, to give this corruption, this lack of any intellectual conscience, scientific status with his notion of "practical reason": he invented a special kind of reason for cases in which one need not bother with reason—that is, when morality, when the sublime command "thou shalt," raises its voice. (A 12)
What does it mean, after all, to have integrity in matters of the spirit? That one is severe against one's heart, that one despises "beautiful sentiments," that one makes of every Yes and No a matter of conscience. Faith makes blessed: consequently it lies. (A 50)
The strength and utility of a belief, then, cannot be the only criterion of its truth. "Making unhappy and evil are no counterarguments," Nietzsche writes. "Something might be true, while being harmful and dangerous in the highest degree" (BGE 39). Those who accept the pragmatic criterion of truth, he concludes, show themselves to be "unaware of the most basic requirements of intellectual honesty" (A 12).[46]
But this is not to argue for a notion of truth as "correspondence with the way the world really is." In fact, Nietzsche argues that the correspondence conception of truth bears a fundamental affinity with the pragmatic conception—that, like the latter, the former achieves its force by a "proof of strength." In §347 of The Gay Science, having ridiculed the pragmatic "proof of strength," Nietzsche goes on to argue that—no less than pragmatist "believers," who deem their dearest beliefs "true"—the "scientific-positivistic" "demand for certainty" is simply the strong belief "that something should be firm [ . . . ] the demand for a support, a prop [ . . . ] the need for a faith, a support, a backbone, something to fall back on," which is then deemed "actual," "real," and "true." That is, for Nietzsche, the conviction that there is some absolute foundation—that there are indisputable "facts," or
[46] Cf. WP 172: "That it does not matter whether a thing is true, but only what effect it produces—absolute lack of intellectual integrity . Everything is justified, lies, slander, the most shameless forgery."
some final "way that the world really is"—is nothing but a need that has been transformed into a belief or faith, which, because of its necessity and strength, comes to be considered truth itself:
Here, the sudden feeling of power that an idea arouses in its originator is everywhere counted proof of its value: —and since one knows no way of honoring an idea other than by calling it true, the first predicate with which it is honored is the predicate true . . . . How otherwise could it be so effective? [ . . . ] [I]f it were not real it could not be effective. [ . . . ] An idea that such a decadent is unable to resist, to which he completely succumbs, is thus "proved" to be true !!! (WP 171)
Of course, nowhere in these or any other passages does Nietzsche directly mention the correspondence theory of truth.[47] Yet this realist con-
[47] In a number of articles, John Wilcox ("Note on Correspondence and Pragmatism in Nietzsche"; "Nietzsche's Epistemology," 72–74; "Nietzsche Scholarship and 'the Correspondence Theory of Truth'") takes issue with the notion of the "correspondence theory of truth" in general and in Nietzsche. Wilcox argues, first, that there does not seem to be any such thing as "the correspondence theory of truth." "Too many philosophers have used the word 'correspondence,'" he writes ("Nietzsche's Epistemology," 73 ), and each of them has "construed that relation in different ways—indeed, to some extent they had to, since the relata were so different" ("Nietzsche Scholarship and 'the Correspondence Theory of Truth,'" 340). Second, he argues that "there is not much in Nietzsche's writings that might plausibly be translated as 'correspond' or 'correspondence'" ("Nietzsche Scholarship and 'the Correspondence Theory of Truth,'" 339). With regard to the first issue, I grant that there is no single, canonical, and unequivocal formulation of "the correspondence theory of truth." Nevertheless, I think the phrase is still a useful label for realist theories that hold that a statement or belief is true if and only if it matches up with some antecedent, extralinguistic, extraconceptual reality or a piece thereof. While I believe that such a view is incoherent, one can still find philosophers who hold it; and so the phrase allows one to distinguish such philosophers from those who hold other theories of truth, e.g., those according to which the criterion of truth lies in the consistency or coherence of beliefs or statements with one another or in the utility of beliefs. (Of course, such theories can themselves be realist and thus, in the final analysis, "correspondence," theories if they argue that coherence or utility is ultimately only an index of a belief's correspondence with a pregiven world.) With regard to the second issue, I note that Nietzsche does, at times, refer disparagingly to a canonical form of the "correspondence" theory of truth, namely the Scholastic notion of truth as an "adequation" between things and thought: Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus (see A. N. Prior, "Correspondence Theory of Truth," in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 2, ed. Paul Edwards [New York: Macmillan, 1967], 224). So, for instance, in "On Truth and Lies," Nietzsche asks: "Are designations congruent with things? Is language the adequate expression of reality? [decken sich die Bezeichnungen und die Dinge? Ist die Sprache der adäquate Ausdruck aller Realitäten?]" (p. 81, cf. p. 82) and concludes that "what would be called the adequate expression of the object in the subject [ . . . ] is a contradictory absurdity [das würde heissen der adäquate Ausdruck eines Objekts im Subjekt [ . . . ] ein widerspruchsvolles Unding]" (p. 86). Similarly, in a note from 1887–88, he writes: "That a sort of adequate relationship subsists between subject and object [ . . . ] is a well-meant invention which, I think, has had its day [Daß zwischen Subjekt und Objekt eine Art adäquater Relation stattfinde [ . . . ] ist eine gutmüthige Erfindung, die, wie ich denke, ihre Zeit gehabt hat]" (WP 474). This notion is somewhat more obliquely criticized in The Gay Science (373), where Nietzsche ridicules the scientific realist's "faith in a world that is supposed to have its equiv-alent and measure [Äquivalent und Maass ] in human thought and human valuations—a 'world of truth' that can be mastered completely and forever with the aid of our square little reason." See also WP 4, 625. Of course, Nietzsche never explicitly speaks of "the correspondence theory of truth" or, for that matter, of "the pragmatic theory," "the coherence theory," or any other theory of truth. But that does not mean that such theories cannot be attributed to him. Nietzsche characterizes truth in many different ways and on many different levels; and the attempt to sort out those ways and levels in terms of presentday terminology is, I think, of real value.
ception of truth is clearly one of his targets. For he is arguing against the very notion that truth could be found, that the "true world" is there somewhere awaiting adequate representation by thought or language. It is this belief that motivates both the metaphysician and the positivistic scientist. But this belief betrays an "instinct of weakness, " a "disease of the will "(GS 347), because, for Nietzsche, truth is not something given that might be found but something that must be perpetually constructed and reconstructed .[48]
Will to truth is a making -firm, a making -true and -durable [ . . . ]. Truth is therefore not something there, that might be found or discovered—but something that is to be created and that gives a name to a process, or rather to a will to overcome that has no end—introducing truth, as a processus in infinitum, an active determining—not a becoming-conscious of something that is "in itself" firm and determined. (WP 552)
Those who hold that truth is "already there" waiting to be discovered simply prove to be not up for this creative task. Instead of undertaking the difficult and endless job of constructing interpretations and campaigning for their truth, such realists put their faith in an established construction, which they take to be given in the nature of things:
Faith is always coveted most and needed most urgently where will is lacking; for will, as the affect of command, is the decisive sign of sovereignty and strength. In other words, the less one knows how to command, the more urgently one covets someone who commands—a god, prince, class, physician, father confessor, dogma, or party conscience. [ . . . ] Once a human being reaches the fundamental conviction that he must be commanded, he becomes "a believer." (GS 347)
The affect of laziness now takes the side of "truth" [ . . . ] it is more comfortable to obey than to examine . . . it is more flattering to think "I possess the truth" than to see darkness all around one—above all: it is reassuring, it gives confidence, it alleviates life—it improves the character, to the extent that it lessens mistrust . "Peace of soul," "a quiet conscience": all inventions made possible by the presupposition that truth has been found [or: that
[48] See GS 58 and the discussion of it above. See also BGE 210. This notion is discussed further below.
truth is there (daß die Wahrheit da ist )].—[ . . . ] This is the proof of strength. (WP 452; cf. WP 279)
The scientific realist, then, is just as much a "believer" as the pragmatist: both elevate their most strongly held beliefs and desires to the status of "truth." Indeed, lacking the self-consciousness of a more enlightened pragmatism, scientific realism shows itself to be the mirror image of metaphysics and theology. It, too, is inspired by a need for foundations, for what is ultimately real; and it, too, claims to have found this true world. In a section entitled "'Science' as Prejudice," Nietzsche writes:
It is no different with the faith with which so many materialistic investigators of nature rest content nowadays, the faith in a world that is supposed to have its equivalent and its measure in human thought and human valuations—a "world of truth" that can be mastered completely and forever with the aid of our square little reason. [ . . . ] That the only justifiable interpretation of the world should be one in which you are justified because one can continue to work and do research scientifically in your sense [ . . . ]—an interpretation that permits counting, calculating, weighing, seeing, and touching, and nothing more—that is a crudity and a naiveté, assuming that it is not a mental illness, an idiocy. (GS 373)
Here, we see that what is objectionable about scientific realism, for Nietzsche, is precisely what is objectionable about unchecked pragmatism, metaphysics, and theology: namely, its dogmatism .[49] And what is objectionable about dogmatism, Nietzsche argues, is that it "castrates the intellect" (GM III:12).
The claim that truth is found [or: that truth is there (daß die Wahrheit da sei)] and that ignorance and error are at an end is one of the most potent seductions there is. Supposing it is believed, then the will to examination, investigation, caution, experiment [der Wille zur Prüfung, Forschung, Vorsicht, Versuchung] is paralyzed: it can even count as sinful, namely as doubt concerning truth. . . . "Truth" is therefore more fateful than error and ignorance, because it cuts off the forces that work toward enlightenment and knowledge [Aufklärung und Erkenntnis ]. (WP 452)[50]
[49] On the dogmatism of metaphysics and morality, see, e.g., A 9, 54.
[50] Cf. WP 457: "The words 'conviction, ' 'faith, ' the pride of martyrdom—these are the least favorable states for the advancement of knowledge." On the "sinfulness," "wickedness," and "evil" of doubt, see also GS 4; BGE 212, 229–30; A 52; WP 459. Cf. also HH 630: "Conviction is the belief that on some particular point of knowledge one is in possession of the absolute [unbedingten ] truth. This belief presupposes that absolute truths exist; likewise that perfect methods of attaining to them have been discovered; finally, that everyone who possesses convictions avails himself of these perfect methods. Allthree assertions demonstrate at once that the man of convictions is not the man of scientific thought"; and HH 483: "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Dogmatism cuts off all further inquiry and questioning—and this the "intellectual conscience" cannot tolerate:
[T]o stand in the midst of this rerum concordia discors and of this whole marvelous uncertainty and interpretive multiplicity of existence [der ganzen wundervollen Ungewissheit und Vieldeutigkeit des Daseins][51]and not question, not tremble with the craving and the rapture of such questioning [ . . . ]—that is what I feel to be contemptible . (GS 2)
Here Nietzsche hints at the most important reason why dogmatism is intolerable and why further inquiry must always be promoted: that "the interpretive multiplicity of existence" cannot be successfully captured within a single interpretive framework. Dogmatism is reductionist; and this reductionism, according to Nietzsche, is ascetic and antinatural, because it denies the multiplicity, struggle, and change that are constantly manifested in the world of our experience (see WP 470, 600, 655, 881, 933). ("Everything simple [einfach ] is merely imaginary, is not 'true,'" Nietzsche writes. "But whatever is real, whatever is true, is neither one [Eins ] nor even reducible to one [Eins ]" [WP 536]).[52] One ceases to be a genuine inquirer when one becomes a "fanatic," whose inquiry is limited by "a sort of hypnotism of the whole system of the senses and the intellect for the benefit of an excessive nourishment (hypertrophy) of a single point of view" (GS 347).[53] Again referring to the dogmatism of the natural scientists, Nietzsche writes:
What? Do we really want to permit existence to be degraded for us like this—reduced to a mere exercise for a calculator and an indoor diversion for mathematicians? Above all, one should not wish to divest existence of its
[51] Here Nietzsche uses the term Vieldeutigkeit and, in GS 373, the term vieldeutigen, both of which Kaufmann renders as "rich ambiguity" and which I render, respectively, as "interpretive multiplicity" and "multiply interpretable." Whereas, in both English and German, "ambiguity" often means "unclear" or "having a double meaning" (zweideutig, doppeldeutig ), my translations serve to emphasize that Nietzsche speaks not of two (zwei -, doppel -) but of many (viel -), that, unlike "ambiguity," this sort of multiplicity does not seem to call for a resolution or clarification, and that this "multiplicity" has to do with interpretation: deuten . The point, then, is that existence, for Nietzsche, is not unclear or equivocal but rather capable of supporting many different interpretations.
[52] This text appears in the Nachlaß within a series of aphorisms titled "Maxims of a Hyperborean." It is immediately preceded by an aphorism that also appears in the "Maxims and Arrows" section that begins Twilight of the Idols: "'All truth is simple [einfach ].'—Is that not doubly [zwiefach ] a lie?" (TI "Maxims" 4; cf. KSA 13: 15 [118]).
[53] For more on this dogmatic reduction to a single perspective, see BGE P; A 9, 54. See also the discussion of "inverse cripples" in Z: 2 "On Redemption."
multiply interpretable character [seines vieldeutigen Charakters ]: that is a dictate of good taste, gentlemen, the taste of reverence for everything that lies beyond your horizon. (GS 373)
He then continues, offering a simple case in point: "Assuming that one estimated the value of a piece of music according to how much of it could be counted, calculated, and expressed in formulas: how absurd would such a 'scientific' estimation of music be! What would one have comprehended, understood, grasped of it? Nothing, really nothing of what is 'music' in it!" (GS 373).
That the "exact sciences" are plainly irrelevant for an understanding of the aesthetic, historical, cultural, and social aspects of music, Nietzsche suggests, should make it clear that the world of our experience cannot be suitably explained through a single interpretive framework. Indeed, a consideration of such examples, Nietzsche feels, should even tempt us in the opposite direction: toward a recognition of the endless variety of interpretive possibilities: "I should think that today we are at least far from the ridiculous immodesty that would be involved in decreeing from our corner that perspectives are permitted only from this corner. Rather has the world become 'infinite' for us all over again, inasmuch as we cannot reject the possibility that it may include infinite interpretations" (GS 374).[54]
Nietzsche thus pledges "to take leave of all faith and every wish for certainty" (GS 347), to have done with "a will to truth [ . . . ] that ultimately prefer[s] even a handful of 'certainty' to a whole carload of beautiful possibilities" (BGE 10). Leaving the land behind, he sets out
[54] Nehamas, "Immanent and Transcendent Perspectivism," 475ff., and David Hoy, "Nietzsche, Hume, and the Genealogical Method," in Nietzsche as Affirmative Thinker, ed. Yirmiyahu Yovel (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986), 24ff., have raised legitimate concerns about the claims of this section of The Gay Science . Nehamas focuses on the ways in which this section seems to sanction a sort of "species solipsism," insofar as "our corner" is meant to refer to "the human intellect" and the possibility of "infinite interpretations" to the possibility of "other kinds of intellects and perspectives" to which "the world" would appear fundamentally different. Hoy focuses on the ways in which this section seems to commit Nietzsche to a problematic metaphysical ontology about which Nietzsche claims knowledge while at the same time arguing that it is unavailable to us. These readings are persuasive and point to real problems in Nietzsche's language, if not his conception. However, as both Nehamas and Hoy go on to argue, Nietzsche elsewhere sanctions a different view of perspectivism, according to which there exist multiple, equally legitimate interpretive frameworks, to each of which we have access in principle and none of which is reducible to another. While acknowledging the aforementioned problems with the language of this section, I cite a portion of it above in support of this latter version of perspectivism.
onto the dangerous, open seas of interpretation in search of a new kind of knowledge (see GS 124, 283, 289, 343; BGE 23).