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The Reality Of Language And Truth

Posted by Ashley Encabo (she/her) on

Nietzsche’s essay, “On Truth and Lying In A Non-Moral Sense”, challenges the overall concept of human intelligence and the conventional meanings of truth. Nietzsche begins his essay by explaining how the human kind, as a whole, places itself at a higher status in comparison to any other living creature. We believe that without the existence of humans, the universe could not continue. Humorously, Nietzsche compares this idea to a midge, in which if seen from their own point of view would believe in its own importance to be as significant as humans do (172). Nietzsche then goes on to explain how little humans truly know. This led to his arguments on the overall ideas, concepts, and meanings of “truth”. Nietzsche explains that truth is something we do not truly experience, but is merely a deception created in our minds to make us believe that that very “thing” we think is true actually is the truth. An example being how there are so many things we dismiss to be “common sense”, yet we do not fully understand the whole veracity of it. His main argument lies within the universal ideas of language. Language itself is an arbitrary invention made by humans, and if humans can’t fully understand and reach the level of truth that they often believe they do, what truth is there in the words we speak? The thing about language, as discussed by Nietzsche, is that it is incredibly vague and overused. This is the whole reason as to why certain words or phrases are considered to be hackneyed and repetitive. A word can mean a single concept within a language, yet take a unique physical form in reality. Specifically, Nietzche discusses the idea of a leaf. The word “leaf” describes the general idea of a plant connected to a tree. However, if no two leaves can ever be identical, how can they then classify something to fall under the idea of what a “leaf” really is. Going back to the fact that language is merely created by humans, each human has their own perspective of reality that can only be viewed by themselves. This makes the overall definition of a word obsolete. Given the example that there are two individuals, A and B, looking at a bench by which both individuals agree that the bench is painted red. However, individual A sees the color red to be what individual B actually sees as the color purple, a completely different color than what individual B believes to be seeing. Since neither individual is able to see the bench through each other’s perspective, they never know the colors in which they see are not actually the same. This ties back to the idea that Nietzsche argues throughout his essay. If both individuals can never really know if the color they see is the same, how can they truthfully deem that red is the true color of that bench? Overall, Nietzsche’s essays bring light on the deeper understanding of how language affects the realities of every individual. His perspectivism opens readers to the idea that truth can never be an absolute concept.

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Everything Is a Lie – Nietzsche

Posted by Mellisa Ramdeen (she/her) on

In, “On Truth and Lying,” Nietzsche explains how humans have allowed themselves to become deceived from the very own language they have created. He brings attention to how the origin of language is dependent on how selfish humans are. They think that everything revolves around them, and that the words they create are true, because of the way they perceive it. Due to this ‘truth’ that humans have created for themselves, Nietzche brings up how this same “arrogance” from humans and their language have, in turn, “blinded” them (Nietzsche 752-753). He gives an example of objects in nature that humans have named and created descriptions for. Labeling a stone as “hard” is an “entirely subjective stimulus” to humans (Nietzsche 754). Although it is true to say that humans would describe it as such, who is to say that any other being has a different description that they deem fit for a stone? This is the point that Nietzche tries to make; Language is only what is true to humans and deceives them in return.

The deception that Nietzsche talks about is in relation to a “metaphor” (Nietzsche 755). When humans think about anything, they already create an image and have envisioned what they deem fit for that word. He explains how they are all metaphors, but they do not “correspond to the original entities” (Nietzsche 755). This connects back to the idea of the stone, where humans experience a certain stimulus to name an object as such in a language, but that same stimulus is not the same for other beings. It is all merely subjective to humans, and these metaphors are disguised at the truth in language. Another case of language being deceptive, is the way it takes away all the difference between many objects. Nietzsche uses another example of a leaf. Everyone knows what a leaf looks like, but the stark difference that makes each leaf “individualized” is taken away and everything “becomes equivalent” (Nietzsche 755). Because of how language waters down their concepts, it can be deemed as a lie, since it is not the full truth. 

Nietzsche’s main idea with language and deception, is due to the natural selfishness humans possess, they think that the language they’ve created is true. He argues that language is only true to humans due to the stimuli they experience, and they assume that other beings must as well. These truths are metaphors that only they can envision because of their own experiences.

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Nietzsche asks himself, “What, then, is truth”? What is his answer?

Posted by GLADYS DUMAN (She/her) on

In “What, then, is truth”? Nietzsche focuses on this word as a mysterious drive that humans do to preserve themself in relation to other individuals because human beings cannot be alone by nature, thus creating consciousness through the formation of arbitrarily repetitive concepts from subjective norms to fit in societies and to interact with others. Thereby, Nietzsche argues that truth has its basis not in absolute reality but in human language which was needed for expression and dissimulation of the sudden forms of thinking.

That is why he argues that the ideal concept of truth is a lie in the sense that it arises from various numbers of interests, historical context, and rules to which the eventual concept of truth does not properly apply because there is no distinction between what is factual and what is made up. Truth is the blindness of reality.

The kind of truth which in turn gives the first step towards something that must count as truth by designating something desired by human beings like peace and love; making those kinds of feelings common in a society in which the opposite is harmful and destructive and as a result are feelings of deception. Here is how the word “lying” was born to release our thoughts to make life more tolerable.

Nietzsche goes further suggesting that “truths are illusions of which we have forgotten that they are illusions”, Nietzsche’s argument is that the truth was formed when our beliefs, our words, and our concepts were based on our illusions instead of the way things really are in on themselves. An example is when you can see a constellation whose concept is “a group of stars that were imagined—at least by those who named them—to form conspicuous configurations of objects or creatures in the sky”. It relates in the same way that you do not know how and when humans started to imagine in their own perceptions created by their own minds which are based on individual experiences and perspectives.

He answers himself by saying that truth is just an interpretation based on our own perspective, all the things we think are real, are not really real. In a concept that is based on the idea that there is a single, absolute reality that exists independently of any individual’s beliefs or perspectives, which is seen as a universal, abstract concept that is not affected by individual opinion or interpretation. Truth is an elusive concept, as it is subjective and based on the individual’s perception of reality or simply facts.

 

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What is Truth?

Posted by Nadine (She/Her) on

Analyzing Nietzche’s essay, “On Truth and Lying in a Nonmoral Sense, he captures an interesting theory pertaining towards humans and their motives in a society that is subjected to the inexplicable sense of illusions. Questioning the meaning of truth, Nietzsche has sculpted how human existence is built on the ladder that goes up yet halts due to the analogy that we’ve conformed our minds to believe we are living in reality, only to lift our heads and see a world of metaphorical illusions. We are stuck in our minds and are unable to explore the truth. Truth is a figment of one’s own imagination, unknown at the center of one’s own mind. By setting this inflicting tone, it brings forth this impression, that our morals of reactions mold the abstractions of truth. Nietzche speaks on how it is our knowledge of certain things that are full of what could be figments and don’t originate to the ideal of what is real. But what does Nietchez mean by real? Possibly something that hasn’t been taunted by the ushering of society or what we consume by others. With that being said, he incorporates the usage of words that portray what could be elaborated as ‘truth’. With the example in Nietzsche’s essay, he speaks about a one claiming to be wealthy with the words ‘I am rich’, yet it brings forth deception, allowing “to make the unreal appear to be real”. It’s what we initially want to believe that we are countered by the reality of morals. Humans are tricked, by deception, greed, dreams, and ultimately our internal desires, that we lie to ourselves and try to shy away from the ‘truth’. The illusions we are so blinded by, enhance every time we trick ourselves into deception. It’s captivating how Neitchez’s theory of truth constructs an abundance of questionable thoughts. With his intention to stimulate his readers mind, it’s quite conflicting, feeling as if we’ve obliged to the understanding of ‘truth’, more so his theory in it. We’re subjected to what society has deemed to be real, true, and a fact, that we’re lied to. We ignore the defaults of what was once and now is not. But yet again, that could be the social construct of ‘truth’. Possibly the truth is what we can think it means. With Neitchz’s theory on this, it has definitely confronted the abilities towards what we can make ourselves and others believe and its how we go about it. Humans are very interesting and our perceptions of what we dare to challenge, inflict how others maneuver around it and try to adopt that theory.

 

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Truth and Lying to Myself in a Way That is Probably Moral Enough?

Posted by Joshua Pulsifer (He/him) on

In Nietzsche’s “Truth and Lying in a Nonmoral Sense,” the reader is presented with an opportunity to confront the insignificance of not only their own existence but the framework in which all people seem able to collectively understand it. While the beginning of the essay certainly sets the tone by reducing humanity to nothing more than a “pitiful” (752) blip in the eye of nature, the bulk of the paper is principally concerned with specifying that one of our fundamental tools, language, is deeply, intrinsically flawed. In its diluting of the material world through metaphors and concepts, language results in an unattainability of “the ‘thing- in- itself’ (which would be, precisely, pure truth, truth without consequences)” (754) and humans with their immense reliance on communication, are thus living in a constant state of “deception” and “forgetfulness” (754). Such deficiencies are apparent to Nietzsche in all forms of language ranging from the way we describe rocks to the hard sciences (pun intended). Ultimately, language is a mere “imitation of the relations of time, space, and number.” (759) and perhaps we best not trust it as a primary source.

However, there are some who break from the chains of unreality, Nietzsche implies. He espouses the Man of Intuition who, rather than existing in a false world of concepts, governs himself by means of experience. He, of course, is opposed to the Man of Reason who succumbs to the mundanity of the universe compartmentalized and labeled. And, maybe I am the cynical Man of Reason which Nietzsche seems to be frowning upon, but I can’t help but find some serious faults in his line of thinking. While I perceive a reactionary character in his argument stemming from an increasingly socially detached society, to which I sympathize greatly, I also find the majority of his claims to be beyond the scope of human concern. When he says that the, “drive to form metaphors, that fundamental human drive which cannot be left out of consideration for even a second without also leaving out human beings themselves” (759) he himself even seems to be scratching at the triviality of his assertions. Nietzsche takes issue with language being insufficient to capture the truth, but never seems to fully reckon with why something is a problem if it seems to be a fairly universal, perhaps even an intrinsic condition of our species. Is not language, then, a product of the Man of Intuition? If so, is not the Man of Intuition inextricably tied to the deceptions Nietzsche derides?

Though still obviously quite wary of giving into the idea fully, I think Nietzsche even agrees with this notion when he states that concept creation and our “unconquerable urge to let [ourselves] be deceived” (760) is a constant feature of life. In a world that has forgone much of the beauty and truth to be captured in expression, perhaps a bit of idealism is called for. But, I would like to think that to be human, and to be deeply rooted in what is not “true”, can in itself quite extraordinary and perhaps more profound in a world in which the awesomeness of truth seems to be more and more absent from our modern lives. I seem to find perfect contentment with my faulty language when I do not attempt applying it to axioms inaccessible to me regardless if I could achieve the impossible feat of leaving my own perceptive framework. And, if I live subjectively – the only way I can – could that not make the words I use to describe truth, well, perfectly true? In this manner, I would say, yes, a rock is hard, and the universe itself is as real and tangible as I choose to describe it to myself. I just don’t see a problem with that, but maybe my mask is on a little too tight.

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