In a Twitter feed, I read a quote of something Nietzsche wrote, "Nothing is needed more than truth, and in relation to it everything else has only second-rate value."
I had reservations about this quote until I looked up the context. It struck me as a moral value statement - something very Western and far out in the the Aspy spectrum of thinking - but this is more or less what Nietzsche was writing about. His thinking was in regards to the faith of science. He went on:
Is it the will not to allow oneself to be deceived?
...
But why not deceive? But why not allow oneself to be deceived?
Note that the reasons for the former principle belong to an altogether different realm from those for the second. One does not want to allow oneself to be deceived because one assumes it is harmful, dangerous, calamitous to be deceived. In this sense, science would be a long-range prudence, a caution, a utility; but one could object in al fairness: How is that? Is wanting not to allow oneself to be deceived really less harmful, less langerous, less calamitous? What do you know in advance of the character of existence to be able to decide whether the greater advantage is on the side of the unconditional mistrust or of the unconditionally trusting?
...
...such a resolve might perhaps be a quixotism, a minor slightly mad enthusiasm; but it might also be something more serious, namely, a principle that is hostile to life and destructive.—"Will to truth"—that might be a concealed will to death?
Our faith is science... is still a metaphysical faith... that truth is divine.
-- From Aph. 344. How we, too, are still pious. The Gay Science
I had reservations about this quote until I looked up the context. It struck me as a moral value statement - something very Western and far out in the the Aspy spectrum of thinking - but this is more or less what Nietzsche was writing about. His thinking was in regards to the faith of science. He went on:
Is it the will not to allow oneself to be deceived?
...
But why not deceive? But why not allow oneself to be deceived?
Note that the reasons for the former principle belong to an altogether different realm from those for the second. One does not want to allow oneself to be deceived because one assumes it is harmful, dangerous, calamitous to be deceived. In this sense, science would be a long-range prudence, a caution, a utility; but one could object in al fairness: How is that? Is wanting not to allow oneself to be deceived really less harmful, less langerous, less calamitous? What do you know in advance of the character of existence to be able to decide whether the greater advantage is on the side of the unconditional mistrust or of the unconditionally trusting?
...
...such a resolve might perhaps be a quixotism, a minor slightly mad enthusiasm; but it might also be something more serious, namely, a principle that is hostile to life and destructive.—"Will to truth"—that might be a concealed will to death?
Our faith is science... is still a metaphysical faith... that truth is divine.
-- From Aph. 344. How we, too, are still pious. The Gay Science
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