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NIETZSCHE’S NATURALIZED VIEW OF LOGIC
Abstract: This paper examines Friedrich Nietzsche’s views on the nature of logic. Nietzsche’s naturalistic project affects the nature and understanding of logic. Nietzsche’s metaphysical background belief of change and flux influences his conception of how logic should be understood. This conception of logic is found throughout the corpus of Nietzsche’s writing with only slight variation of emphasis. A counter-argument provided by Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick alleging that Nietzsche changed his view regarding logic in the latter period of his writing is examined. It is shown that Clark and Dudrick’s exegesis of Nietzsche is faulty and that there is textual evidence from the latter writings of Nietzsche to demonstrate continuity of his views on logic with the earlier portions of his writings.
Nietzsche takes his pursuit of naturalism seriously. He demonstrates a ruthless consistency regarding the implications and applications of a fully naturalized worldview. This is seen in any number of areas of his thought. Although the area of morality is perhaps the most well known area to feel Nietzsche’s naturalizing touch, his naturalism also generates some interesting and controversial thoughts on the nature of logic and reasoning itself.
Nietzsche’s views on logic and human reasoning can only be understood in light of his naturalizing program or, as he describes it, the “de-deification of nature” (The Gay Science, 220). Nietzsche articulates this view when he states: “When may we begin to ‘naturalize’ humanity in terms of a pure, newly discovered, newly redeemed nature” (The Gay Science, 220)? For Nietzsche, this naturalizing program has two inter-related aspects, a metaphysical component and an epistemological component. Metaphysically, Nietzsche is committed to an understanding of human beings in which their origination is a result of non-teleological forces. Humans are churned up out of the flux. This metaphysical starting point has epistemological implications. Keith Ansell Pearson succinctly describes this relationship of metaphysics to epistemology in Nietzsche’s thought: “Rather, his idea is that we, along with everything else that lives are implicated in the perpetual flux, and the challenge we are now confronted with is one of developing a more refined knowledge of ourselves and the world in light of this truth.”
Nietzsche is opposed to a “metaphysical philosophy” which posits eternal and unchanging forms or ideas. Rather, he engages in what he calls “historical philosophy” which focuses on the naturalistic origination and development of humans—their faculties and concepts (Human, All Too Human, 161). Nietzsche chastises the vast majority of philosophers preceding him for “their lack of historical sense, their hatred of the very idea of becoming… They think they are doing a thing an honour when they dehistoricize it, sub specie aeterni—when they make a mummy out of it” (Twilight of the Idols, 462). This “historical” approach is, thus, reductionistic in nature. Human faculties and concepts are a result of a long chain of historical causes; none of which are goal seeking in orientation. As Steven Hales states:
For him, everything is an invention or fiction, and everything is the result of the way we impose categories and form concepts out of sensory chaos…. There are an infinite number of ways that the raw chaos of experience could have been carved up into objects; humans have simply chosen those interpretations that allow them to live and promote their interests.
Thus, to properly understand the current state of humanity it is necessary to explore this evolutionary back-story. From these starting points—metaphysical and epistemological—Nietzsche considers the nature of human logic.
One of Nietzsche’s most developed articulations of the nature of logic comes from The Gay Science3.111 which is entitled “Origin of the logical” (221-222). He begins this section with the words, “How did logic come into existence in man’s head? Certainly out of illogic…” Nietzsche then proceeds to offer an evolutionary account that explains the development of logical reasoning. He posits an evolutionary advantage that aided survival to those beings that made quick judgments about various situations in which two things seemed equal in some respect. In Nietzsche’s words:
Those, for example, who did not know how to find enough what is “equal” as regards both nourishment and hostile animals—those in other words, who subsumed things too slowly and cautiously—were favored with a lesser probability of survival than those who guessed immediately upon encountering similar instances that they must be equal.
Although it helped the organism survive, this quick judgment regarding the identity of situations led to the erroneous conclusion that there was a stable substance in reality that allowed for such identity. Nietzsche notes that this concept of substance “is indispensable to logic.” But it should be remembered that for Nietzsche, all is in a state of flux and that judgments, which do not accord with this reality, tend to falsify this flux by imputing to it a stable substrate that is empirically detectable. Thus, develops the “dominant tendency… to treat as equal what is merely similar.” For Nietzsche, this does not correspond to reality, “for nothing is really equal.” Without this erroneous tendency “[n]o living beings would have survived.” This leads Nietzsche to conclude that, what we today call proper logical inferences, which are based on a (mistaken) concept of a stable substance, are simply the result of “a process and a struggle among impulses” which arose out of illogical mental moves. These erroneous tendencies have embedded themselves in human beings due to “primeval mechanisms” which operate “so quickly and … so well concealed.”
This view of logic is found in other places in Nietzsche’s writing. Four years before the publication of The Gay Science, Nietzsche published Human, All Too Human in 1878 in which he wrote the following about logic:
“Logic, too, rests on assumptions that do not correspond to anything in the real world, e.g., on the assumptions of the equality of things, the identity of the same thing at different points of time; but this science arose from the opposite belief (that there were indeed such things in the real world.” (164)
This is but a one-sentence preview to the more fully developed thoughts in The Gay Science.
Nietzsche also picks up the discussion of logic after The Gay Science. In Beyond Good and Evil, which was published in 1886, Nietzsche states, “Behind all logic, too, and its apparent tyranny of movement there are value judgments, or to speak more clearly, physiological demands for the preservation of a particular kind of life” (314). Here, again, there are the themes of “value judgments” and “physiological demands” which are used for evolutionary advantage. In particular, Nietzsche mentions two value judgments made by humans: (1) “certainty is worth more than an uncertainty” and (2) “appearance is worth less than ‘truth.’” Nietzsche notes that such values may have “regulatory importance for us” but this may be nothing more than “foreground evaluations” in which we are not cognizant of the long evolutionary history in the background that impinges upon our reasoning. This is reminiscent of Nietzsche’s words in The Gay Science(section 111). There he spoke of the idea of humanity’s evolutionary history being “concealed.” Nietzsche continues in Beyond Good and Evil to discuss logic and again mentions, for the second time in as many sentences, the “preservation of beings like us.” This preservation rests upon “a certain kind of niaiserie”—French, for foolishness or stupidity. This also comports well with the larger discussion of logic found in The Gay Science in which the tendency to “err and make up things” generates the logical structure of humanity’s thinking.
In one of Nietzsche’s last published writings in 1888—Twilight of the Idols—he again broaches the topic of logic and reasoning in ways consistent with the above analysis. The relevant section (1.3) is as follows:
We possess science nowadays precisely to the extent that we decided to accept the evidence of the senses—when we were still learning to sharpen them, arm them, think them through to the end. The rest is abortion and not-yet-science: to wit, metaphysics, theology, psychology, theory of knowledge. Or the science of forms, the theory of signs: like logic and that applied logic, mathematics. Reality is nowhere to be found in them, not even as a problem; nor does the question arise as to what actual value a sign-convention like logic has. (463)
Nietzsche places the “science nowadays,” which is based on senses, in opposition to that which he calls “not-yet-science”—a mere “abortion” of thought. Into this latter category of items he places logic and states that “reality is nowhere to be found” in this category of items. There is no mention of the physiological and evolutionary background as in previous writings but there are contextual clues that the philosophical categories of flux and constant change are at play here. In the previous section (1.2) Nietzsche praises Heraclitus because he rejected the thought of other philosophers who “showed things as if they had duration and unity” (462). Nietzsche ends this section with these words:
‘Reason’ is what causes us to falsify the evidence of the senses. If the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie … But Heraclitus will always be right that Being is an empty fiction. The ‘apparent’ world is the only one: the ‘real world’ has just been lied on …(462)
There is a shift of perspective in Nietzsche’s thought here—in that the ideas of the evolutionary background are not mentioned—but not a contradiction to what was seen earlier. Here, in Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche speaks of ‘reason’ in quotation marks. This ‘reason’ is that which imposes the stability of Being and its consequent concepts such as “unity, identity, duration, substance, causes, materiality”—items listed in the contextual vicinity of 1.5. Previously, as was noted, Nietzsche was describing the evolutionary back-story that explained how humans developed the notions of substance that underlie logic. Here, Nietzsche’s focus is the philosophical doctrine of change as found in Heraclitus. Thus, there is consistency of thought even if there is a slight shift of perspective.
This demonstration of the consistency of Nietzsche’s thought regarding logic is important to note since not all Nietzsche scholars would grant this. Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick, in their essay “Beyond Good and Evil,” seek to argue that Nietzsche changed his views about logic in Beyond Good and Evil. In a footnote Clark and Dudrick comment on the phraseology of Section 1.3 which speaks of value judgments that are connected with “physiological demands for the preservation of a particular kind of life.”
This sounds as if principles of logic were instilled in us by evolution, by the contributions they made to our ancestors’ survival which is what Nietzsche believed in his early work (e.g., HAHI:18). In what follows, we argue in effect that this is no longer his view in BGE.
If Clark and Dudrick are correct in their assessment then this would call into question the thesis of this paper regarding the continuity of perspective on logic throughout the corpus of Nietzsche. Thus, an examination of their argument is in order.
Clark and Dudrick’s focus in their essay is on the preface and Sections 1.3-4 of Beyond Good and Evil. This is significant since it is precisely Section 1.3 that was referenced above to show continuity of Nietzsche’s thought. Indeed, even Clark and Dudrick recognize that a straight forward reading of 1.3-4 seemingly undermines the truthfulness of logic. Sections 1.3-4, in their words, “seem to provide clear evidence that Nietzsche denies both the possibly [sic] of gaining truth and the value of doing so.” In order to overcome this prima facie reading, Clark and Dudrick distinguish between an exoteric reading which is the surface level understanding and an esoteric reading of the text which is a “sophisticated and subtle communication” that is contrary to the surface meaning. They argue that this work of Nietzsche cannot “be adequately appreciated without recognizing that its surface meaning differs substantially from what Nietzsche really believes, and that the latter is simply not accessible to most readers—perhaps any reader—without significant overcoming of their initial impressions.” This is a bold move on the part of Clark and Dudrick—to subvert the surface meaning of the text in an attempt to show the exact opposite. But the details of the arguments used to show such an inversion of meaning are lacking in substance.
Clark and Dudrick begin their interpretative efforts in the preface of Beyond Good and Evil by attempting to demonstrate a “striking similarity” between Nietzsche’s preface and the preface to Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Our authors argue that there is similarity of both content and structure. Clark and Dudrick draw attention to the metaphor of the bow and its tension that Nietzsche uses in the preface. They write, “Nietzsche does not unpack this metaphor for us, but a tense bow must involve two opposing forces.” They link these two opposing forces with “the will to truth” and “the will to value.” It is precisely here that one begins to see the interpretative excess of Clark and Dudrick. To appreciate this critique it is important to see the actual words of Nietzsche:
But the struggle against Plato, or—to put it more clearly, for the ‘common people’—the struggle against thousands of years of Christian-ecclesiastical pressure (for Christianity is Platonism for the ‘common people’) has created a splendid tension of the spirit in Europe such as the earth has never seen: with this kind of tension in our bow, we can now shoot at the most remote targets. To be sure, Europeans experience this tension as distress, and there have already been two elaborate attempts to loosen the bow, once by means of Jesuitism, and a second time by means of the democratic Enlightenment… But we who are not sufficiently Jesuits, nor democrats, nor even Germans, we good Europeans and free, very free spirits—we have it still, all the distress of the spirit and all the tension of its bow! And perhaps the arrow, too, the task, who knows? the target… (312)
The full context leads one to think that Clark and Dudrick have over-interpreted the metaphor of the bow. The key point and stress of the passage is upon the “tension” which is mentioned three times. The tension resulting from the challenge to transcendence (under the guise of Platonism and Christianity) is likened to the tension of a bow. But Clark and Dudrick bring in the extraneous detail about the “two opposing forces” which allows them to insert talk of “the will to truth” and “the will to value.” Why is this important? Clark and Dudrick will take these two elements and use them to overthrow the apparent, surface meaning of 1.3-4. They argue that main point of 1.3-4 is to overturn the “falsification thesis” which is found in Nietzsche’s early work. This falsification thesis is the idea that all of our supposed ideas of truth are actually false. According to Clark and Dudrick, “Nietzsche is trying to show us something that he does not say: that his early philosophy is the expression of a tension between the will to truth and the will to value.” Notice the disjunction between what Nietzsche allegedly “shows” and what he “says.” This disjunction will grow into outright antithesis as Clark and Dudrick develop their argument.
As Clark and Dudrick progressively engage the details of Nietzsche’s text their interpretations become more strained. This can be seen in their handling of the first sentence of 1.4: “We do not object to judgement just because it is false; this is probably what is strangest about our new language” (314). Clark and Dudrick comment on this in the following manner:
Evidently when Nietzsche suggests that logic, mathematics, and other such “indispensable” judgments are false, he is not objecting to them. But then what is the point of calling them false? As the term functions in ordinary discourse, to call a judgment “false” is certainly to object to it as a candidate for belief or acceptance, and it is not clear in what other regard Nietzsche might be considering judgments here.
The interpretative problem here is one of positing a false dichotomy: either the term “false” is to be understood as it “functions in ordinary language” or there is complete lack of clarity to Nietzsche’s meaning. The tertium quid is that Nietzsche is challenging the conventions of “ordinary discourse” and positing his own understanding of falsity in this context. Nietzsche has already articulated this understanding regarding the falsity of judgments in previous writings. For example, in The Gay Science section 11—a section commented upon earlier in this paper—Nietzsche articulates his view:
How did logic come into existence in man’s head? Certainly out of illogic, whose realms originally must have been immense. Innumerable beings who made inferences in a way different from our perished; for all that, their ways might have been truer…. At bottom every high degree of caution in making inferences and every skeptical tendency constitute a great danger for life. No living beings would have survived the opposite tendency—to affirm rather than suspend judgment, to err and make up things rather than wait, to assent rather than negate, to pass judgment rather than be just—had not been bred to the point where it became extraordinarily strong. (221)
This can be considered a biological interpretation of logic. What is striking to notice is that even Clark and Dudrick recognize the “biological interpretation” as being a potential interpretation for Beyond Good and Evil1.3-4:
Admittedly, BGE4 might seems to be using “life” in a biological sense when it denies that falsity is an objection to a judgment, claiming that the only question is “to what extent it is life-promoting, life-preserving, species-preserving, even species-cultivating.” The biological interpretation of “life” is also suggested byBGE3’s claim that the valuations that stand behind logic are “physiological demands for the preservation of a certain type of life,” and they therefore might not be truth-conducive but only “precisely what is necessary for the preservation of beings such as us.
This suggestion appears correct but Clark and Dudrick tenuously reply, “we need not interpret it in this way.” Instead, they opt for an interpretation in which the relevant terms are not given a biological interpretation but, rather, one that “coheres with the normative interpretation of ‘life.’” While their creative exegesis of Nietzsche may be possible, it does not seem plausible.
Clark and Dudrick run into further difficulties with their interpretation of the last line of 1.3: “Given, that is, that man is not necessarily the ‘measure of all things’…” As it stands, it certainly appears that Nietzsche is rejecting Protagoras’ dictum that man is the measure of all things. Clark and Dudrick, however, argue that Nietzsche does not, in fact, deny the statement by Protagoras. This allows them to postulate:
Nietzsche is obviously urging the reader to consider whether he himself rejects this claim. If he doesn’t, then he doesn’t endorse BGE3’s argument. And since the problematic claim concerning truth not being an objection at the beginning of BGE 4 appears to be a way of dealing with the fallout from that line of argument, Nietzsche need not endorse it either.
By this interpretative move they are able to neutralize a straightforward reading of 1.3-4.
Clark and Dudrick allege that Nietzsche “expects good readers to realize that he doesn’t
accept it, and therefore that he does not actually endorse the argument of BGE3.”
One should be wary of a reading that inverts the plain meaning of the text into something completely opposite. Only if their reading of the last line of 1.3 can be sustained can Clark and Dudrick neutralize the plain meaning of 1.3-4. But their reasons offered for this interpretation seem strained. Of even more consequence, there is a text subsequent to Beyond Good and Evil that also seems to align with Nietzsche’s denial of Protagoras’ dictum. In Nietzsche’s The Anti-Christ(section 14) man is reduced to one animal among many, which seems to undergird the suggestion the “man is not the measure” of all things.
We no longer trace the origin of man in the ‘spirit’, in the ‘divinity’, we have placed him back among the animals…. man is, relatively speaking, the most unsuccessfully animal, the sickliest, the one most dangerously strayed from its instincts—with all that, to be sure, the most interesting!—As regards the animals, Descartes was the first who, with a boldness worth of reverence, ventured to think of the animal as a machine… Nor logically do we exclude man, as even Descartes did: our knowledge of man today is real knowledge precisely to the extent that it is knowledge of him as machine. (490)
This portrait of man as “animal” and, thus, “machine” coheres well with, not only the denial of “man as the measure” but also the wider array of evidence cited earlier regarding Nietzsche’s views on logic.
Although their exegesis of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil1.3-4 is creative, it ultimately fails to convince. The case for continuity in Nietzsche’s view regarding logic is stronger. To simply add one more element to this argument for continuity in contradistinction to Clark and Dudrick, consider that even inthe work Beyond Good and Evil—in a subsequent section to 1.3-4—Nietzsche argues in a manner consistent with remarks from his earlier works. Consider part 21 of Section 1 in which Nietzsche writes:
We alone are the ones who have invented causes, succession, reciprocity, relativity, coercion, number, law, freedom, reason, purpose; and if we project, if we mix this world of signs into things as if it were an ‘in itself’, we act once more as we have always done, that is mythologically. (322)
Although this section is concerned with the concept of cause and effect, and not strictly with logic, nevertheless there is more mentioned in this sentence beyond that which relates to cause and effect. Consider that “number” and “reason” are also mentioned. Notice the focus on “inventing” and that this is a result of thinking “mythologically.” This seems fully consistent with Nietzsche’s views as articulated in both Human, All Too Human and The Gay Science.
Nietzsche’s naturalizing program leaves nothing unscathed. Even the human ability to reason and the idea of logic itself are to be understood only in light of a non-teleological background of flux. Logic is considered by many philosophers to be something metaphysically stable and invariant. In Nietzsche’s understanding, however, logic must be understood as simply one more piece of human evolution. Humanity is birthed out of the naturalistic flux and logic itself is but a construct that aids in evolutionary survival. This understanding of logic is consistently seen across the corpus of Nietzsche’s writing. There may be other themes and concepts that take center stage in his later writings but this naturalized view of logic remains relatively constant.
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Leiter, Brian. “Nietzsche’s Naturalism Reconsidered.” In The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche
edited by Ken Gemes and John Richardson, 576-598. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
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by Keith Ansell Pearson, 517-531. Wiley-Blackwell, 2006.
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