Nehamas on Nietzsche - Essay Example

Nehamas examines what he refers to as “Nietzsche’s ambiguous attitude toward the question of whether truth is discovered or created”. What is not being considered here on the part of Nehamas is the possibility that the attitude is less ambiguous in the sense that Nietzsche didn’t consider the full implications of this sort of attitude than it is that Nietzsche unambiguously considered this attitude to be the only defendable position.

There are two basic parts of this attitude to examine.  First, we must consider the aspect of the unity of the self. As Nehamas states, Nietzsche considered there to be an utter lack of unity of self, considering that one’s thoughts and desires so readily contradict each other, and even one’s desires change and run contrary to each other as well.  In this sense, there is no single self that uniformly acts on a person’s behalf. In considering this attitude with the assertion that Nietzsche’s attitude was ambiguous in matters of whether the truth was discovered or created, Nehamas’ attitude does not hold up as well. If people are always in a state of becoming because there are so many tendencies that work in contradictory manners, then obviously the truth is both found and created. This is less a matter of ambiguity than an attempt to be contradictory. The truth cannot be determined by a person who is in such a state of determining what she thinks about things. If we are attempting to determine something that is considered to be fixed and finite such as the truth, then there would be no way for people who are ever-shifting in their self-perceptions to discover such a thing. Therefore, in the process of the organization of the unity of the self, the truth is created for an individual, and an individual who is constantly shifting is able in a sense to discover the truth that the organization of the unity of the self has created.

Secondly, we must return to the idea of “becoming” as opposed to “being”. Nehamas quotes Nietzsche saying that “everything recurs is the closest approximation of a world of becoming to a world of being”. Being is not fixed, and as such Nietzsche’s idea of recurrence becomes inevitable. It explains the repetition of patterns by so many individuals. If there was an element of ambiguity in Nietzsche’s view of the truth, it was because Nietzsche simply had developed a different conception of truth that included ambiguity.  Nietzsche views recurrence as a strong desire in humans, and this is because of an attempt to take part in the eternal human condition. One does not become and simply be what one has become; the process of becoming is continual, and as such, the process of creating truth is continual as well. The truth is continually being created and found.