The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things (89 page)

1. Introduction

Frege made linguistic sense an object of philosophical scrutiny and thereby both generated and shaped the whole of what followed in
Part Two
of this book. In the first sentence of Deleuze’s commentary on Nietzsche – the philosopher who initiates
Part Three
– he writes, ‘Nietzsche’s most general project is the introduction of the concepts of sense and value into philosophy’ (Deleuze (
2006a
), p. 1).

Frege and Nietzsche, in their interests and style, could hardly be less alike as philosophers. Even so, Deleuze highlights what is more than just a quirky point of comparison between them. Both, in their incommensurably different ways, made crucial contributions to establishing a due concern with sense as a linchpin of any attempt to make maximally general sense of things – and of any attempt to make sense of making maximally general sense of things. This is one respect of many in which
Part Three
of this book will run in parallel with
Part Two
.

Nietzsche’s concern with sense was nevertheless much broader than Frege’s. He shared an interest in linguistic sense,
¹
but, as the quotation from Deleuze intimates, his interest extended to sense more generally. It extended to all the ways in which things are accorded significance and value – or rather, to all the ways in which things are
or may yet be
accorded significance and value. For Nietzsche was no slave to extant forms of sense-making, still less a blinkered slave to them. Quite the contrary. He was one of philosophy’s great iconoclasts, probably the greatest. Insofar as he was concerned to account for the sense that is actually made of things, this was primarily with a view to debunking it, dismantling it, and passing beyond it, so as to make radically new sense of them. This was in turn because one of the most pervasive features of the sense that is actually made of things, in much of the modern world, is a combined moralism and religiosity which Nietzsche thoroughly
deplored. He found it constricting, pusillanimous, importunate, petty, and noxious. His assault both on this and on other aspects of modern sense-making was vicious and uncompromising. And it was all the more effective for the sheer brilliance and rhetorical power of his prose. It is impossible to read him – properly and honestly to read him – without feeling profoundly ill at ease with oneself. Often that effect is accentuated by the knowledge that the unease was shared in the writing. Freud is reputed to have said, ‘[Nietzsche] had a more penetrating knowledge of himself than any other man who ever lived or was ever likely to live’ (Jones (
1953
), p. 344).

That Nietzsche’s work should have been, on the one hand, so life-affirming and so opposed to the debilitations of self-censure and guilt while, on the other hand, so capable of instilling those very affects in his readers is neither the paradox nor the indictment of Nietzsche that it may appear to be. Nietzsche himself knew only too well how that which is constitutionally creative and enhancing can become destructive and degrading when pitted against that which is itself bent on destruction and degradation. This is connected to the point that Deleuze makes when, drawing on the distinction between active forces and reactive forces that is so crucial to his reading of Nietzsche,
²
he writes:

How do reactive forces triumph? … Nietzsche’s answer is that even by getting together reactive forces do not form a greater force, one that
would be active. They proceed in an entirely different way – they decompose;
they separate active force from what it can do
; they take away a part or almost all of its power. In this way reactive forces do not become active but, on the contrary, they make active forces join them and become reactive in a new sense. (Deleuze (
2006a
), p. 57, emphasis in original; cf. pp. 64–68)

2. Truth, the Pursuit of Truth, and the Will to Truth

Descartes acted out the first scene in this historical drama by taking a critical step back and calling all his beliefs into question. He even called into question those of his beliefs which, when he was focusing on the matters in hand, he found irresistible. This led him to pose what I dubbed in
Chapter 1
, §3, his Reflective Question, which can be reformulated as follows:

Why should the fact that I cannot help believing something, when I give the matter my full attention, mean that it is true?

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) wants to take an even larger critical step back.
³
It may seem obscure what space there is behind Descartes for any further retreat. But Descartes only really stepped back as far as he needed in his pursuit of the truth. He did not have much to say about whether that was a reasonable pursuit in the first place, nor indeed about what it consisted in.
⁴
There is therefore space for Nietzsche to ask:

Why should the fact that something is true mean that I do well to believe it?

and, concomitantly,

What is it to do well to believe something?
⁵

and indeed,
à
la
Pilate,

What is truth?
⁶

There is space, in other words, for Nietzsche to reflect at the most fundamental level about the very character of sense-making, its aims and its rationale. This is part of his project of rendering sense itself, in its many guises, an object of philosophical scrutiny. In a way his critical step back involves asking how sense, in one of its guises, relates to sense in another of its guises. On one way of construing sense, to make sense of things is to arrive at a true conception of them. On another, it is to view them in a way that makes them easier to live with, perhaps even makes them bearable. Part of Nietzsche’s concern is with what the first of these has to do with the second.

Not that Descartes is Nietzsche’s only target. He is not even his principal target. We saw in
Chapter 5
how Kant extended the enlightenment project that Descartes had started, using his own reason as the supreme arbiter in his attempts to make sense of things. In particular, like Descartes, he used his own reason to vindicate his privileging his own reason in this way; but not, as in Descartes’ case, with a view to establishing
that
his reason carried the authority that he accorded it; rather, taking this for granted, with a view to establishing
how
it carried the authority that he accorded it. Thus it was for Kant a datum that, by dint of our reason, we can know that 7 + 5 = 12 (Kant (
1998
), B20–21). So too it was a datum that, by dint of our reason, we can ascertain the fundamental demands of morality (Kant (
1996c
), 5: 36 and 161–162).
⁷
It was a datum that reason enables us to make sense of things in each of these ways – and in sundry other ways besides. For Nietzsche these can scarcely be data when, quite apart from any reservations that he might have about the specific ways in which Kant thinks reason enables us to
make sense of things, he (Nietzsche) wants to question what making sense of things even
is
.
⁸

Kant himself, of course, thought that, in some of these cases, making sense of things involves arriving at synthetic
a priori
knowledge about them, and that the project was to explain how this is possible. Here is a characteristically withering quotation by Nietzsche, in which he takes Kant to task for his attempted execution of this project:

Kant asked himself: how are synthetic judgements
a priori possible
? – and what, really, did he answer?
By means of a faculty
: but unfortunately not in a few words, but so circumspectly, venerably, and with such an expenditure of German profundity and flourishes that the comical
niaiserie allemande
involved in such an answer was overlooked.
⁹
People even lost their heads altogether on account of this new faculty, and the rejoicing reached its climax when Kant went on further to discover a moral faculty in man….

But … it is high time to replace the Kantian question ‘how are synthetic judgements
a priori
possible?’ with another question: ‘why is belief in such judgements
necessary
?’ … Or, more clearly, crudely and basically: synthetic judgements
a priori
should not ‘be possible’ at all: we have no right to them, in our mouths they are nothing but false judgements. (
Beyond Good and Evil
, §11, emphasis in original)
¹⁰

If anyone is Nietzsche’s principal target, Kant is.
¹¹

It is not just that Kant assumes too much for Nietzsche’s liking.
What
Kant assumes is not to Nietzsche’s liking. Nietzsche’s scepticism, unlike Descartes’, is not merely tactical. When he questions our pursuit of truth, for example, it is because he thinks there is a genuine case to be answered for our being better off acceding to falsehoods (see e.g.
Human
, I.517). Similarly, when he questions the various presuppositions that Kant makes it is because he thinks there is a genuine case to be answered against them. Nietzsche sees Kant’s philosophy as an epitome of the moralism-cum-religiosity to which I referred in the previous section. He sees Kant as a philosopher of the heights, to invoke Deleuze’s image (Deleuze (
1990b
), pp. 127ff.). That
is, he sees Kant as attempting to climb up beyond the mire of appearances to a place where there is unique access to what is ultimately real, to what is ultimately good, and to what is ultimately true; a place where he can embrace all that is higher in lieu of all that is base; a place where he can live out what Nietzsche calls ‘the ascetic ideal’ (
Genealogy
, III passim; see further §6 below). But it remains to be shown, in Nietzsche’s view, that there
is
anywhere up there;
a fortiori
that there is anywhere up there affording unique access to any such ultimata. And, just as important, it remains to be shown why, even if there is, that should impel us to make the climb (
Beyond Good and Evil
, §2).
¹²

But look, you might say, surely Nietzsche’s own persistence with these questions indicates his own desire for the truth. Surely, when he asks whether we should pursue the truth, he is pursuing the
truth
about whether we should pursue the truth. Is there not something self-stultifying about his taking this critical step back?

There is much to be said in response to this. In the first place we cannot assume without question-begging that Nietzsche’s own persistence with these questions does indicate a desire for the truth. Who knows, pending further study of what he says, but that it indicates a desire for peace of mind?
¹³
Second, even if Nietzsche does have a desire for the truth, there is nothing in the least self-stultifying about his wanting to know whether he would be better off not having it. But, you may reply, suppose he eventually decides that he
would
be better off not having it. And suppose he would never have reached this decision had he
not
had it.
¹⁴
Is
that
not self-stultification? Perhaps it is. But if it is, then it is self-stultification of a kind that can be seen in retrospect as benign. Third, we must in any case not forget that part of Nietzsche’s attempt to take this critical step back is to question what truth
is
, to question what the desire for truth is. Let us not rule out the possibility that both truth and the desire for truth assume different forms, and that what is motivating him to take this critical step back is not the same as what he is most concerned to take it back from.

One thing that is significant as far as this third point is concerned – I shall expand on its significance below – is that Nietzsche himself does not talk about the desire for truth. He talks about ‘the will to truth’ (e.g.
Gay Science
, §344, and
Beyond Good and Evil
, §§1ff.). And he means by this considerably
more than the desire for truth. The will to truth is a valuing of truth
above all else
. Moreover, it is a valuing of truth as something pure, something whose pursuit can be otherwise disinterested, something that provides refuge from what I earlier described as the mire of appearances.
¹⁵
It is an abhorrence of all deception, even where deception seems best attuned to the demands of life.
¹⁶
It is a commitment to what we might call the scientific ideal. And it is a prime manifestation of the commitment to the ascetic ideal.

Here is Nietzsche’s own analysis of his conception:This unconditional will to truth – what is it? Is it the will
not to allow oneself to be deceived
? Or is it the will
not to deceive
? For the will to truth could be interpreted in the second way, too – if only the special case ‘I do not want to deceive myself’ is subsumed under the generalization ‘I do not want to deceive.’ But why not deceive? But why not allow oneself to be deceived?