Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche

by Friedrich Nietzsche

Probably the most popular of the Essays in this book will prove to be the one on TRUTH AND FALSITY. It is an epistemological rhapsody on the relativity of truth, on “Appearance and Reality,” on “perceptual flux” versus—” conceptual conceit.” Man’s intellect is only a means in the struggle for existence, a means taking the place of the animal’s horns and teeth. It adapts itself especially to deception and dissimulation. There are no absolute truths. Truth is relative and always imperfect. Yet fictitious values fixed by convention and utility are set down as truth. The liar does not use these standard coins of the realm. He is hated; not out of love for truth, no, but because he is dangerous. Our words never hit the essence, the “X” of thing, but indicate only external characteristics. Language is the columbarium of the ideas, the cemetery of perceptions. Truths are metaphors, illusions, anthropomorphisms about which one has forgotten that they are such.