Nietzsche, Knowledge and the Uncertainty of the Immediate
Aphorisms from Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil #14
I would like to continue commenting on aphorisms from Beyond Good and Evil (1886). We continue reading the first chapter of this book: “Prejudices of Philosophers.”
As a reminder, you can find the previous posts on the following page: Nietzsche.
There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are “immediate certainties”; for instance, “I think,” or as the superstition of Schopenhauer puts it, “I will”; as though cognition here got hold of its object purely and simply as “the thing in itself,” without any falsification taking place either on the part of the subject or the object. I would repeat it, however, a hundred times, that “immediate certainty,” as well as “absolute knowledge” and the “thing in itself,” involve a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO; we really ought to free ourselves from the misleading significance of words! The people on their part may think that cognition is knowing all about things, but the philosopher must say to himself: “When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, ‘I think,’ I find a whole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: for instance, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an ‘ego,’ and finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking — that I KNOW what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps ‘willing’ or ‘feeling’? In short, the assertion ‘I think,’ assumes that I COMPARE my state at the present moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it is; on account of this retrospective connection with further ‘knowledge,’ it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for me.” — In place of the “immediate certainty” in which the people may believe in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series of metaphysical questions presented to him, veritable conscience questions of the intellect, to wit: “Whence did I get the notion of ‘thinking’? Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak of an ‘ego,’ and even of an ‘ego’ as cause, and finally of an ‘ego’ as cause of thought?” He who ventures to answer these metaphysical questions at once by an appeal to a sort of INTUITIVE perception, like the person who says, “I think, and know that this, at least, is true, actual, and certain” — will encounter a smile and two notes of interrogation in a philosopher nowadays. “Sir,” the philosopher will perhaps give him to understand, “it is improbable that you are not mistaken, but why should it be the truth?” (Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Helen Zimmern, The Project Gutenberg, 2003)
In this passage, Nietzsche argues that it is impossible to have “immediate certainties” about ourselves. “Immediate certainties” (unmittelbare Gewissheiten) refer to unmediated, complete, and clear knowledge. He critiques two examples that claim to lead to self-evident truth: Descartes’ “I think” (cogito) and Schopenhauer’s “I will.”
For Nietzsche, the idea of “immediate certainties” involves a contradiction in terms (contradictio in adjecto). Even if a statement like “I think” is true, it cannot be immediately certain, as it relies on the mediation of judgments and presupposes various assumptions. Nietzsche’s critique extends to the belief that cognition can grasp the thing-in-itself (Ding an sich, implicitly referring to Immanuel Kant) without distortion from either the subject or the object.
While ordinary people may think that knowledge means knowing everything about things, Nietzsche insists that philosophers must question even the most basic claims. Analyzing the statement “I think” reveals several difficult, perhaps impossible, assumptions: the existence of a thinking “I,” the necessity of something thinking, the nature of thinking as an activity, the presence of an “ego,” and the concept of cause and effect. Without a pre-existing understanding of thinking, we cannot even distinguish it from other mental states such as willing or feeling.
Moreover, the statement “I think” implies a comparison between one’s current state and other states that were previously known. This retrospective reference to prior knowledge contradicts the idea of immediate certainty.
Nietzsche finally suggests that any claim to intuitive and unambiguous knowledge should be met with skepticism. Immediate certainty is not the product of intuition, but of a complex web of presuppositions and judgments.
To be continued…
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In Schopenhauer's Will and Idea, the will is something consciously chosen, to my understanding. It may or may not be well thought out, or even a thought itself, but an impulse towards some thing, some event, some desire or manifestation. It is directed. Thinking is not quite that solidified and unified towards a given end, nearly as much, as towards an understanding or discovery of what may be.
To form a will to .... takes a tremendous effort, while thinking only allows one to see others paths, without necessarily having to pick one. In science it is a little more direct towards an understanding, which is quite different.