Reflections on Nietzsche's philosophy
Nietzsche’s
Philosophy
Nietzsche’s
philosophy is not as complicated as it appears to be. The reason it appears
complicated is that people try to read some absolute meaning in it, which
obviously it does not offer. People try to see his philosophy as a positivistic
fat or reality, which obviously it isn’t. Like everything else it is open to
interpretation.
So how
should we approach Nietzsche? The answer is we should approach Nietzsche in a
manner that allows us to interpret his philosophy in a certain paradigm of
meaning. A paradigm that befits our own individual situations.
What I am
proposing here is an interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy from my
perspective.
Nietzsche’s
Theory of Language
In the
Semitic religious tradition, the most praised intellectual quality of humans is
termed as the ability to name things. This ability to name things places humans
above angels and the rest of the creation.
“And He
taught Adam the names—all of them. And then He showed them to angels and asked,
“Inform me of the names of these, if you are truthful.”
The angels
couldn’t name the animals, but when the Lord asked Adam, he successfully named
everything before him.
This ability
to name things is the very basis of the human cognitive abilities. Man knows
his world, and the objects in it through their names.
What is a
name? In the world of linguistics, a name is called a sign, and it is a
combination of two things. A sound, or a word, and a concept. The sound or the
word we use in a name joins with a concept to form a name.
It is said
that the sound or the word we choose for a concept in a name is arbitrary,
means there may or may not be a reason behind its choice.
The other
part of a name or a sign, the concept, is formed through a long social process.
This process is very much like the process of qualitative research.
The process
of research starts with something that we want to study. We gather data about
that entity, analyze it and then formulate a theory about that entity, after
careful sifting and reductions.
The same
process is used in the formation of concepts. People of a community interact
with an entity or a situation. They share their experience with each other
through mutual discussions, and then, after a process of reduction, in which
everything non-essential is removed from different experiences, a general
concept is formed.
This concept
is assigned a sound image, and the way this sound image is chosen isn’t based
on any resemblance with the object it names. Like the word lion that we use for
the concept of lion doesn’t bear any resemblance with the being it designates.
However,
once a sound image is chosen for a concept, no one is allowed to use it for any
concept other than the one for which it was chosen.
This
regularity in the use of a certain sound image for a certain image is ensured
and guaranteed by a strict tradition or convention.
Hence, we
cannot use the word poor to designate a rich man, and if someone does so, use
the designation rich for the poor, he will be called a liar.
A liar is
the one who defies the conventional use of a sign, and uses it to designate a
being for which it is not conventionally used. A fox can’t be called a wolf,
and a wolf a fox.
This then is
the sense in which we use the designations truth and lie. Truth means to stick
to the convention, and lie mean to defy the tradition.
This sense
of truth and lie has a great consequence for the societies where certain
concepts become debatable.
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