Nietzsche has been variously called an Existentialist, a pragmatist (by Rorty, among others), a deconstructionist, a postmodernist, a proto-Nazi, a Transcendentalist, a Romantic - all manner of things. And a superficial reading, a shallow analysis of what he wrote, a misunderstanding of these terms - all will lead to such conclusions as yours, Riv.
So I’ll jump in - he was an “inductionalist”. No worse than any of these other sloppy labels. Nietzsche held that we are capable of ever-closer approximations to the truth - and even this is a sort of “reverse” reasoning. We are not so much right about stuff as we can be progressively “less wrong.” Kinda like science. We construct models, paradigms, some of which give better answers, more practical solutions than others. So, of we use "pragmatic’ for “practical” then yes, we can apply that term to Nietzsche. But we don’t use those words synonymously in philosophy. James would not have. The difference lies in the answer to the question, “better to what end?”
Nietzsche’s ends were very different than James’ and it does both thinkers a disservice to lump them together. If you examine James’ theory of truth, you will see that he has little in common with Nietzsche. It constantly astounds me that people will not analyze philosophers in terms of their various theories of truth. Pragmatism implies certain theories of truth as epistemological devices. Nietzsche’s does not - N’s theory of truth is not pursuant to an epistemic view at all. It is therefore not an aid to understanding to call N a pragmatist - it’s just a way to throw a label around in order to appear intelligent and well-read. In the end, neither goal is accomplished.
Only once you have mastered language can you call yourself a philosopher.
I’ll assume that this is just self-deprecating humor.
A quote? This might do -
Our amazement. — It is a profound and fundamental good
fortune that scientific discoveries stand up under examination
and furnish the basis, again and again, for further discoveries.
After all, this could be otherwise. Indeed, we are so convinced
of the uncertainty and fantasies of our judgments and of the
eternal change of all human laws and concepts that we are
really amazed how well the results of science stand up.
Nietzsche has no faith in the necessity that science leads to truth. It does lead to something, though. here, he also notes that our “laws” change - they are not set in stone, as we know - scientific certainties do not exist, strictly speaking. That is, we may take it as settled that the Earth is a spheroid, but we know of no law that requires it. At least, no law that may not be someday refined, amended, even superceded by another Great Discovery about the laws of the Universe.
We are not talking about what truth is, however. As I have tried to point out. James may be talking about what truth is, but N usually talks about why we are so adamant about finding it. We have other things to do - more useful things.
You claimed that Nietzsche thought we are capable of ever-closer approximations to the truth. This quote does not justify that comment. And if anything is clear about Nietzsche, it’s that science doesn’t deal in ‘truths’—errors, perspectival fictions, falsifications, etc, YES, but not truth. Furthermore, whenever you quote, I need references so that I can look at context—not that it matters in this case, because even at a superficial level, the quote is unrelated.
Since we were talking about Nietzsche’s conception of truth, we were talking about what truth is, for Nietzsche. There is a separate issue about what the value of a traditional conception of truth is. But you can’t just change the topic when you stop wanting to talk about the other one.
Well, when you say. “science doesn’t deal in ‘truths’—errors, perspectival fictions, falsifications, etc, YES, but not truth” you are agreeing with me when I say, “We are not so much right about stuff as we can be progressively “less wrong.” Kinda like science. We construct models, paradigms, some of which give better answers, more practical solutions than others.” and “Nietzsche has no faith in the necessity that science leads to truth.”
So I am left to wonder which quack you are arguing with. Not that i haven’t seen you argue with yourself before, of course.
I didn’t say science progressively moves away from errors, perspectival fictions, and falsifications. And therefore, I didn’t say that science is progressively “less wrong”.
And when asked to say what I thought ‘truth’ was for Nietzsche, I didn’t avoid the question and say, “something that you can get progressively closer to”.
Other useful, for the believers, but false systemic beliefs can be found in various kinds of colonialism and, say, Manifest Destiny. Here people found beliefs to assuage what might otherwise have been considered immoral behavior. I am not making choices, it is Destiny. I have the right because when I evaluate my Culture, amazingly, I find it better than the people whose land I am taking. Racism, which is often a part of these, can be seen as useful but false. If you gather the system of beliefs involved in some mix of Christianity, racism, and the beliefs involved around what is the correct and only correct way to have a society/Culture/way of Life, you get a very effective program for minimizing guilt and combining secular and religious Power and Control of Soldiers, sailors, administrators, etc, to carry out these intercultural relations that often skipped things like fair negotiation, rights to Life, etc., which would have tended to be held in relation to members of one’s own society and even to a great extent to societies one defeated in war, but who were similar types of civilization.
The trick here is that there were no doubt some truths and partial truths tossed into the system of belief.
Of course, Another issue is - what is the time frame? When do we decide enough time has gone by, we can weigh all the pluses and minuses?
And how do we compare what happened to what might have happened without the beliefs?
Generally human beings thrive on believing things that are not true, self delusion, after all if we were completely honest with ourselves it would make our lives extremely hard to cope with; you might argue depression occurs when you are facing up to the reality of your false beliefs, although it often tends to be a a spiralling down beyond anything regarding something honest. It is useful to some extent to kid ourselves in many areas of our life, to make us believe we are better than we are, in fact we do it so often it often goes unnoticed. There are so many false beliefs that are useful to us, it’s probably impossible to untangle them from every day life. You might think it’s just religion that is perhaps unreal and based on pure faith, but much of our life comes from this state of mind, I’m not saying life is total shit, but one needs at least a veneer of self delusion to function at all, the longer you live the more undercoats you probably have.
“I just gave you 3 quotes of Nietzsche saying either that we do, or should, consider ‘true’ what works.”
Nietzsche says neither that truth is what works nor that it should be considered as such. On the contrary, he says what’s not true is often most necessary. Nietzsche is explaining that what conscious life requires for its own promotion are instinct-informed fantasies just as often as anything resembling truth.
[i]1. “We simply lack any organ for knowledge, for ‘truth’: we ‘know’ (or believe or imagine) just as much as may be useful in the interests of the human herd, the species; and even what is here called ‘utility’ is ultimately also a mere belief, something imaginary, and perhaps precisely that most calamitous stupidity of which we shall perish some day”. (Gay Science, Aphorism 354)
“The falseness of a judgment is for us not necessarily an objection to a judgment; in this respect our new language may sound strangest. The question is to what extent it is life-promoting, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-cultivating”. (Beyond Good and Evil, 4)
Over immense periods of time the intellect produced nothing but errors. A few of these proved to be useful and helped to preserve the species: those who hit upon or inherited these had better luck in their struggle for themselves and their progeny (Gay Science, 110).[/i]
In every single quote, Nietzsche is saying either that we do consider true what works, or else that we should.
No, perspectival falsifications and errors are called false because by the lights of the traditional conception of truth (the Correspondence Theory), they are false. That’s why you find ‘truth’ in scare quotes. It is absolutely clear, from the quotes, that Nietzsche is saying either that we do consider true what works, or that we should.
I like this and Think there is a lot of truth in it. I Think a lot of the rapid motion and distraction we find today is because there is an underlying panic closer to the Surface than in earlier periods.
This is a continuation of the passage you quoted from BGE.
“To recognize untruth as a condition of life - that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous, way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil.”
What could Nietzsche mean by untruth being necessary for life, other than just that?
Just what I said in my last post. --Untruths according to the traditional conception of truth (i.e., The Correspondence Theory of truth). Nietzsche equivocates about ‘truth’, but he usually indicates he’s speaking in this sense by using scare quotes.
But the notion that we really consider true what enhances our power, our life, etc… that’s pragma. That’s not the same as above, and n endorses that.
True/False are value judgements of beliefs. Something 100% true, a certain, undeniable belief, would be a fact, but you’re not asking about facts, you’re asking about beliefs.
So, isn’t there something odd about asking if a false belief is useful? Isn’t it a contradiction in terms? How can something of a negative valuation be useful? It’s like being attracted to someone ugly. By definition, you can’t be. You’re just not being honest about what is or isn’t ugly.