On Truth and Lies in an Nonmoral Sense - Friedrich Nietzsche
http://www.scribd.com/doc/425654/Friedrich-Nietzsche-On-Truth-and-Lies-in-a-Nonmoral-Sense
At 05:20 AM 2/1/2009, you wrote:
Philosophy.
a. an extreme form of skepticism: the denial of
all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth.
Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing) is a
philosophical position that argues that
existence is without objective meaning, purpose,
or intrinsic value. Nihilists generally assert
that objective morality does not exist, so
subsequently there is no objective moral value
with which to uphold a rule or to logically
prefer one action over another. Nihilists who
argue that there is no objective morality may
claim that existence has no intrinsic higher
meaning or goal. There is no reasonable proof or
argument for the existence of a higher ruler or
creator, or posit that even if higher rulers or
creators exist, humanity has no moral obligation
to worship them. There are no known sources that disprove the above claim.
The term nihilism is sometimes used synonymously
with anomie to denote a general mood of despair
at the pointlessness of existence.[1] Movements
such as Futurism and deconstructionism,[2] among
others, have been identified by commentators as
"nihilistic" at various times in various
contexts. Often this means or is meant to imply
that the beliefs of the accuser are more
substantial or truthful, whereas the beliefs of
the accused are nihilistic, and thereby
comparatively amount to nothing (or are simply
claimed to be destructively amoralistic).
Nihilism is also a characteristic that has been
ascribed to time periods: for example, Jean
Baudrillard and others have called postmodernity
a nihilistic epoch,[3] and some Christian
theologians and figures of religious authority
have asserted that postmodernity[4] and many
aspects of modernity[2] represent the rejection
of God, and therefore are nihilistic.
-wiki
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi
Polemicist, socialite, and literary figure,
Jacobi was an outspoken critic, first of the
rationalism of German late Enlightenment
philosophy, then of Kant's Transcendental
Idealism, especially in the form that the early
Fichte gave to it, and finally of the Romantic
Idealism of the late Schelling. In all cases,
his opposition to the philosophers was based on
his belief that their passion for explanation
unwittingly led them to confuse conditions of
conceptualization with conditions of existence,
thereby denying all room for individual freedom
or for a personal God. Jacobi made this point,
in defence of individualism and personalistic
values, in a number of public controversies, in
the course of which he put in circulation
expressions and themes that resonate to this
day. He was the one who invited Lessing, who he
thought was walking on his head in the manner of
all philosophers, to perform a salto mortale (a
jump heels over head) that would redress his
position and thus allow him to move again on
the ground of common sense. He was also
responsible for forging the concept of
nihilism -- a condition of which he accused
the philosophers -- and thereby initiating the
discourse associated with it. His battle cry,
which he first directed at the defenders of
Enlightenment rationalism and then at Kant and
his successors, was that consistent philosophy
is Spinozist, hence pantheist, fatalist and
atheist. The formula had the effect of
bringing Spinoza to the centre of the
philosophical discussion of the day. In the
face Kant and his idealistic successors, Jacobi
complained that they had subverted the language
of the I by reintroducing it on the basis of
abstractions that in fact negated its original
value. They had thus replaced real selfhood
with the mere illusion of one.-stanford
Some scholars regard Nietzsche's 1873
unpublished essay, On Truth and Lies in an
Nonmoral Sense (Über Wahrheit und Lüge im
außermoralischen Sinn) as a keystone in his
thought. In this essay, Nietzsche rejects the
idea of universal constants, and claims that
what we call truth is only a mobile army of
metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms. His
view at this time is that arbitrariness prevails
within human experience: concepts originate via
the transformation of nerve stimuli into images,
and truth is nothing more than the invention
of fixed conventions for practical purposes,
especially those of repose, security and
consistency. Viewing human existence from a
great distance, Nietzsche further notes that
there was an eternity before human beings came
into existence, and believes that after humanity
dies out, nothing significant will have changed
in the great scheme of things.-stanford
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Disclaimer: To quote Sgt. Schultz from Stalag 13, "I know nothing!"
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