beach-tszche
me reading part of the preface from nietzsche’s beyond good and evil while on tour in florida 2012.
supposing truth is a woman? to an 1800’s prussian-raised dude who supposebly didn’t get laid too much, a woman is something to be won. won not so much by intelligence but by wit, not so much by calculation but by boldness, and not at all by coercion but by charm. well, poetry embodies all of those latter things and nietzsche’s “winning” of the truth, supposing she is a woman, is far superior to other philosophical endeavors since and hitherto, ranging as they do from dry to impenetrable. and supposing, as existentialists suppose, that truth is subjectivity, the truth that nietzsche wins is really just as true as kant or hegel’s meticulous, logical systematizing. and a whole lot more exciting and beautiful to read in my opinion.
nietzsche’s poetic style is the perfect way of expressing his philosophical idea(s) because, as i was saying in the video, most western philosophers believe that there is only one truth but nietzsche implies (elsewhere in his oeuvre) that there are many truths. that truth is subjectivity. and if you believe that (like an existentialist might), then there is no disproving other philosophers on the basis of logic and syllogistic argument alone. cogent argument might be the best way of swaying logically-minded thinkers, because criticism means something to them when expressed in philosophical terms. but logic would not be the only way to approach truth, nor would it be the best way to sway poetically-minded people. logic is not therefore completely worthless, however. and so nietzsche covers both angles thoroughly, which makes him unique among philosophers (and poets). in the end, logic and poetry…one is not better than the other, one is not more true than the other, one is not more powerful than the other, one is not more privy to truth than the other, so he uses huge doses of both in his writing. it just happens to be the ultimate joy to read for me, bombastic, iconoclastic NON-fiction. video by andrew.
read the whole passage —> http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/nietzsche/1886/beyond-good-evil/preface.htm