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BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL

By Friedrich Nietzsche

Translated by Helen Zimmern

CHAPTER I: PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS

Supposing that Truth is a woman--what then? Is there not ground for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been dogmatists, have failed to understand women--that the terrible seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for winning a woman? Certainly she has never allowed herself to be won; and at present every kind of dogma stands with sad and discouraged mien--IF, indeed, it stands at all! For there are scoffers who maintain that it has fallen, that all dogma lies on the ground--nay more, that it is at its last gasp. But to speak seriously, there are good grounds for hoping that all dogmatizing in philosophy, whatever solemn, whatever conclusive and decided airs it has assumed, may have been only a noble puerilism and tyronism; and probably the time is at hand when it will be once and again understood WHAT has actually sufficed for the basis of such imposing and absolute philosophical edifices as the dogmatists have hitherto reared: perhaps some popular superstition of immemorial time (such as the soul-superstition, which, in the form of subject- and ego-superstition, has not yet ceased doing mischief): perhaps some play upon words, a deception on the part of grammar, or an audacious generalization of very restricted, very personal, very human--all-too-human facts. The philosophy of the dogmatists, it is to be hoped, was only a promise for thousands of years afterwards, as was astrology in still earlier times, in the service of which probably more labour, gold, acuteness, and patience have been spent than on any actual science hitherto: we owe to it, and to its "super-terrestrial" pretensions in Asia and Egypt, the grand style of architecture. It seems that in order to inscribe themselves upon the heart of humanity with everlasting claims, all great things have first to wander about the earth as enormous and awe-inspiring caricatures: dogmatic philosophy has been a caricature of this kind--for instance, the Vedanta doctrine in Asia, and Platonism in Europe. Let us not be ungrateful to it, although it must certainly be confessed that the worst, the most tiresome, and the most dangerous of errors hitherto has been a dogmatist error--namely, Plato's invention of Pure Spirit and the Good in Itself. But now when it has been surmounted, when Europe, rid of this nightmare, can again draw breath freely and at least enjoy a healthier--sleep, we, WHOSE DUTY IS WAKEFULNESS ITSELF, are the heirs of all the strength which the struggle against this error has fostered. It amounted to the very inversion of truth, and the denial of the PERSPECTIVE--the fundamental condition--of life, to speak of Spirit and the Good as Plato spoke of them; indeed one might ask, as a physician: "How did such a malady attack that finest product of antiquity, Plato? Had the wicked Socrates really corrupted him? Was Socrates after all a corrupter of youths, and deserved his hemlock?"

But the struggle against Plato, or--to speak plainer, and for the "people"--the struggle against the ecclesiastical oppression of millenniums of Chr

I. PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS

1. The Will to Truth, Too Inquisitive.

The will to truth, which later became identified with "knowledge" in every sense, which finally became synonymous with "science," and which revealed itself in philosophers as "love of wisdom"—that powerful propensity has, in recent times, caused many a hazardous venture and many a moral misgiving. It is of such a nature that all values have hitherto been determined by it; morality itself only on the basis of this will. Well, what tools and perspectives will this will to truth eventually select for itself? And what frontier, what end will it finally set for itself? Why is truth preferred to untruth? Why not rather untruth? Why not rather insecurity, vagueness, even ignorance? The power of a thing may lie in its very untruthfulness: certain life conditions might even require it. Perhaps this is a new discovery for some: that the value of truth is not at all independent of its value for life.

The question of the value of truth first emerges when one inquires about the value of the will to truth. Why will truth at all? One begins to suspect this is a matter of morality, not of knowledge. We have set truth as the highest value—but what if this very value is questionable? What if truth is ultimately harmful and dangerous? What if, the more truth we attain, the more poverty, austerity, and even danger we encounter? Many a man has gone to the root of things with such a bad conscience, so much so that he finally turned around, preached the opposite, and praised the lie, appearance, illusion, greatness, poetry, and religiosity to the heavens—as much as he was able. Even Kant believed he was defending morality when he set the "thing-in-itself" beyond the reach of the "appearance"—that is, beyond the reach of the "useful"—and thus, in a way, secured the realm of morality from the "smell of the marketplace." He acted like a moralist, not like a researcher!

And what if, to take another hypothesis, even that which philosophers call "will to truth" is simply a prejudice—perhaps the prejudice of the moralist, or even the prejudice of the metaphysician? Perhaps the fundamental drive is merely a will to power?

2. The Popular Question of Truth.

"Why do you seek knowledge? Why not rather ignorance?"—this is a question that is not asked often enough. The demand for truth has hitherto been merely a moral demand, not a scientific one. One must be strong enough to bear such questions: why is this demand so powerful? Why does it take on the form of conscience for us?

The "will to truth" is still a moral demand, a remnant of religious belief, the belief in opposites, a belief in moral imperatives. Philosophers have hitherto assumed that truth was valuable a priori. They have not questioned the value of truth itself. They have simply assumed that the ascent towards truth, the ascent towards knowledge, was inherently good.

3. What If—?

What if an increase in knowledge and insight should prove to be more detrimental and dangerous than ignorance? What if that which constitutes the greatness of humanity lies precisely in its voluntary self-deception? What if a certain kind of untruth is a necessary condition for life?

We have accustomed ourselves to the idea that knowledge is life-enhancing. But is it possible that it is life-diminishing? Suppose a philosopher were to arise who possessed such a strength of vision that he could look into the most terrible aspects of existence without flinching, and yet conclude that ignorance was preferable for the majority of mankind? Would he then be immoral?

4. The Dogmatism of Morality.

All former philosophies have been, at bottom, applications of personal morality and an expression of the personal morality of their authors. They have sought to give philosophical justification to their own deeply rooted moral presuppositions. They have not sought the truth; they have sought their truth.

Kant, for example, sought to provide a secure basis for Christian morality; his critique of reason was ultimately a defense mechanism against skepticism that threatened the moral order he valued. He found it necessary to put "appearance" beyond the reach of knowledge so that "duty" might survive.

5. Perspectives and Interpretations.

There is no such thing as facts, only interpretations. The will to truth may simply be the will to impose one particular interpretation as the definitive one. The belief in objective truth is itself an interpretation, one perhaps born of weakness—a need for security.

If we discard the "will to truth" as an unconditional demand, what replaces it? Perhaps the "will to power"—the will to organize, to shape, to interpret the chaos of existence in a way that affirms life and enhances strength.

6. The Danger in Knowledge.

Consider the cost of the pursuit of truth. It often leads to disillusionment, nihilism, and the decay of vital energies. The man who pursues truth without considering its consequences for life itself is a dangerous ascetic, perhaps even a disease upon life. We must learn to evaluate truth according to the life it supports. A truth that paralyzes is worthless.

7. The Philosophers' Hidden Motives.

Why have philosophers so vehemently championed the "real" against the "apparent"? Because they feared the apparent—they were weaklings who needed the comfort of a stable, objective "real" world to ground their own shaky existence. They mistook their need for metaphysical security for a cosmic necessity.

This old prejudice against appearance—that it is somehow "less real" or morally inferior—must be broken. Appearance is the condition under which alone life is possible. Life is interpretation.

8. Beyond Good and Evil.

We stand now at a turning point. The great dogmas have collapsed. The philosopher of the future must be an experimenter, one who dares to create new values, rather than merely defending the ruins of old ones. He must learn to look with new eyes at the very concepts of "good" and "evil," recognizing them not as eternal truths but as historically contingent perspectives—tools used by specific kinds of men for specific purposes. The future task is to create values beyond this inherited dichotomy.

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