Turanli, Aydan - Nietzsche and the Later Wittgenstein--An Offense to the Quest for Another World

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Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Issue 26, 2003

Copyright © 2003 The Friedrich Nietzsche Society.

Nietzsche and the Later Wittgenstein:An Offense to the Quest for Another World

AYDAN TURANLI

ne of the most important Wittgensteinian themes is the idea that we arebeing held captive by a picture. Being held captive by a picture is the

product of thinking that there can be an external standpoint in analyzing con-cepts. This idea of “the view from nowhere” directs our investigation in phi-losophizing. The cure is an escape from a platonic cave, and seeing theconnections. In this article, I argue that both Nietzsche and the laterWittgenstein share the idea that perspicuous representation is possible onlyif we free ourselves from this craving for generality. In Nietzsche this viewfinds its expression in On the Genealogy of Morals, which is designed toshow that concepts regarding moral issues cannot be analyzed in a vacuum.In the later Wittgenstein, this view is enlarged so as to cover all kinds of con-cepts. I also maintain that, unlike Wittgenstein, Nietzsche provides an accountof how this craving arises.

The thoughts of Friedrich Nietzsche and Ludwig Wittgenstein are not sup-posed to be similar at all. One is a philosopher, especially in his early period,thought to belong to the analytic camp of thinking, while the other is sup-posed to be a literary rather than an academic philosopher. But clearly theyboth tried to transform our vision of philosophy: one in the nineteenth cen-tury and the other in the twentieth century. They attack traditional ways ofdoing philosophy from all directions, and in this sense both can be regardedas revolutionary thinkers. In the beginning of the twenty-first century theiragenda is still important: we still did not achieve to see the “world rightly”

O

* I would like to thank the Philosophy Department of Brown University for invit-ing me as a Visiting Scholar for the academic years 1995–97. I would also like tothank the Department of Philosophy of Boston University for inviting me for post-doctoral work for the academic year 1997–98. I am also grateful to the PhilosophyDepartment of Harvard University for allowing me to attend several seminars on thelater Wittgenstein.

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Mary Botto

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as Wittgenstein tries to get us to see in the Tractatus. We behave as if we areeliminating metaphysics, but it shows itself under different disguises.

I see Wittgenstein’s and Nietzsche’s views as therapeutic in the sense thatby attacking several dogmas of traditional philosophy they try to get us tosee that we are actually being held captive by a picture. Their critiques oftraditional philosophy focus on several issues, including knowledge and moral-ity, all of which intend to show that “language is like an engine idling” (PI§132) when we analyze concepts concerning these topics from an externalstandpoint. I want to deal with their reaction to traditional philosophers regard-ing issues of knowledge and morality.

I

Traditionally, knowledge had been regarded as justified true belief. Accordingto this understanding, there are three components of knowledge as belief,truth, and justification. After the Gettier objections in 1963, epistemologistsrevised their view and tried to add the fourth component to their theory ofknowledge, but even the revised version of the traditional definition of knowl-edge would not do for Nietzsche and Wittgenstein.

According to traditional philosophers, knowledge is possible either throughgrasping abstract propositions existing independently in another world orthrough awareness of mental propositions. The Platonic worldview, for exam-ple, presupposes the “pure, will-less, painless, timeless” (GM III 12) knower.Knowledge, in this sense, requires a philosophical method that enables us toachieve objectivity and a God’s-eye view of things. Wittgenstein and Nietzscheoppose this otherworldly explanation of knowledge. This type of knowingpresupposes “pure reason” and “absolute intelligence.” It entails ThomasNagel’s a “view from nowhere.” For Nietzsche, such super-knowing requires“an eye turned in no direction at all” (ibid.). But there cannot be such an eyebecause “There is only a perspective seeing” (ibid.). Perspectivism, on theother hand, necessitates seeing-something-as something. It needs the humanbeing’s perspective. Wittgenstein appeals to the Gestalt Switch analogy inorder to underline that absolute knowledge is not possible, and there are noideas the grasping of which guarantees our knowing once and for all.

The categories of pure reason, which guarantee absolute knowledge, arenot a priori. For Nietzsche, logical rules and categories are useful devicesthat help preservation and growth of life. Our conviction that “a=a” is theresult of entrenched experience, which seems to confirm this conviction.Wittgenstein, on the other hand, repudiates essentialism and asserts that log-ical laws are conventions rather than assertions about being. This is empha-sized in his famous aphorism “essence is expressed by grammar” (PI §371),


NIETZSCHE AND THE LATER WITTGENSTEIN 57

and grammar is convention (Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics,part I §74). For Wittgenstein, in principle, logical rules are subject to changeand they have nothing to do with truth. In the Tractatus, while discussing thepicture theory of truth, he asserts that logical propositions, which are tau-tologies and contradictions, do not have representational character; in thissense, they are senseless but not nonsensical. They are, on the other hand,“part of the symbolism, in the same way that ‘0’ is part of the symbolism ofArithmetic” (Tractatus §4.462). Wittgenstein’s view, on the function of log-ical propositions, changes and in On Certainty he implies that logical propo-sitions are neither senseless nor meaningful. What he calls Weltbild Sätze,including logical Sätze, provide a framework for creating reality for ourselves.They are neither true nor false (On Certainty §205). Instead, they make “true”and “false” possible (ibid., §94). They do not reflect or represent objectivetruth in any sense.

According to Nietzsche, on the other hand, logic is a useful device forunderstanding, formulating, and abstracting other things. The categories ofpure reason are suitable for a purpose; they are categories used in under-standing and preserving our species. Logical rules have pragmatic utility:“their utility alone is their ‘truth’” (WP III 514). They are subject to change—useful devices for making life easier. Hence, they cannot represent the truth.“The categories are ‘truths’ only in the sense that they are conditions of lifefor us: as Euclidean space is a conditional ‘truth’” (WP III 515). The basiclaws of logic such as the law of contradiction, the law of excluded middle,and the law of identity are conditional truths for us. They are ‘conditionaltruths’ in the sense that they do not exclude alternative laws. We do not acceptthem because they correspond to a truth in the world; the laws of logic or thelaws of thinking do not refer to something about reality, about being, but helpus arrange our world. They are not a priori truth, or ‘pre-existing idea.’Therefore, a truth of logic is not a truth-in-itself, but a “biological compul-sion” (ibid.). It is a part of human nature not to see the same surface blue andred simultaneously. Being able to see that “a=a” is instinctive. And this isvery similar to what Wittgenstein asserts in On Certainty. For Wittgenstein,my knowing that “a=a,” or that “There exists an external world,” or that “Iam a human being,” or that “I have ancestors” or that “I have two hands” areall instinctive. My knowing concerning these Weltbild Sätze is knowing with-out knowing how I know it.

For Nietzsche, the idea that logic represents how the world is is dominatedby the belief that “we can gain possession of knowledge, that judgementsreally hit upon the truth” (WP III 516). However possession of knowledge isnot possible; all we can have is passion for knowledge.

Knowledge, for both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, has a communal nature.Nietzsche, like Wittgenstein, maintains that human history or the history ofcommunities started when animals learned to make promises. In this sense,


becoming social is becoming capable of calculation, and the terminal pointof this process should be sovereign, the autonomous individual.

Elimination of emotions, instincts, and inclinations from matters regard-ing cognition cripples the intellect. For Wittgenstein, knowledge cannot bedefined as justified true belief because our knowledge is not limited to propo-sitional knowledge. In On Certainty he implies that human knowledge isbased on nonpropositional, wordless understanding. As Spengler emphasizes,knowledge radiates not only from the cognizing part of man, but from thewhole man (The Decline of the West, I:49). Nietzsche also emphasizes thatour “true experiences are not all garrulous”; “Whatever we have words for,that we have already got beyond” (Twilight of Idols, Skirmishes of UntimelyMan 26, GM III 12). This “wordless understanding” touches the very depthof the human personality and the human voice in both philosophers.

II

Another aspect, which is related to knowledge, is morality. Plato identifiesvirtue with knowledge; for him there is an identity of happiness, virtue, andknowledge. Good life must include knowledge of the truer type and the exactknowledge of eternal objects. The highest good of man is the genuine devel-opment of man’s personality as a rational and moral being, and when a man’ssoul is in the state it ought to be in, if he is illuminated by divine dispensa-tion, then that man is happy. This relation between knowledge and moralissues is challenged by Nietzsche.

Nietzsche questions idealization in ethics: On the Genealogy of Morals isdesigned to show that concepts regarding moral issues cannot be analyzed ina vacuum and this attitude is actually the product of thinking that there canbe an external standpoint in analyzing concepts. Nietzsche criticizes Plato’sattempt to define the perfect man through concepts such as “good,” “wise,”“just,” and “dialectician.” According to him, this is to define “individuum initself.” It is the “denaturalization of moral values” (WP II 430) and to removea plant from all soil. Moral values are naturalized through Nietzsche’s con-ceptual analysis: he gives the genealogy of the concepts “good” and “evil”to show that there are no moral values such as good-in-itself and morality-in-itself over and above the actual uses of “good” and “evil.” “Good” and“bad” are not defined by our a priori knowledge of them. In order to showthis he appeals to descriptions of historical processes in which these conceptshave been used. The origin of evil does not lie behind this world. Rather thansearching for the origin behind this world, we should, Nietzsche suggests,ask “under what conditions did man invent the value judgements good andevil” (GM III Preface). Nietzsche’s depiction of the master-slave morality

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presumes that the relation between the concepts “good” and “bad” dependson a class relation, the relation between the ruling class and the lower class.“Good” was imposed upon the lower class by the upper or ruling class (GMI 2). “Good” was always associated with the upper class, with Aryans, fair-haired, noble, spiritually distinct, and pure. “Bad” was identified with work-ing class, common, inferior, and poor. Historically, they were correlated withrace and class. While previously concepts or values such as “good,” “noble,”“happy,” and “powerful” were under the monopoly of aristocrats, with theinfluence of the Slave Revolt of Jews and Christians this changed. “Good”became associated with the poor, powerless, sick, ugly, and truly blessed (GMI 6). Hence, in almost all nations, the values “good,” and “bad” were incul-cated, or imposed upon the lower class by the ruling class, the class that pos-sesses power.

Nietzsche’s analyses of moral values show that there is no a priori neces-sity for associating the word “good” with unegoistic actions (GM I 2). Thereis no meaning-in-itself determining the meaning of the concepts “good” and“bad” once and for all. Other concepts concerning moral values such as “guilt,”“obligation,” or “justice” are also analyzed in historical perspective in theGenealogy. They too, like other moral concepts, are seen within the per-spective of class relationships, power relationships, purchase and sale rela-tionships, and exchange relationships of creditor and debtor.

Nietzsche’s conviction that there is no one characteristic defining moralvalues stems from his complete rejection of the traditional Platonic under-standing. For him, the whole history of a thing, or a custom, is a chain ofreinterpretations rather than progress toward a goal (GM II 12). With this stepNietzsche rejects traditional teleological explanations and this paves the wayfor accepting the fluidity of meanings. The concept of “punishment,” forexample, has many meanings (GM II 13). The conclusions Nietzsche drawsfrom the analysis of the concept “punishment” show the great similaritiesbetween his views and those of Wittgenstein. Nietzsche says, “the history ofpunishment up to now in general, the history of its use for a variety of pur-poses, finally crystallizes in a kind of unity which is difficult to dissolve backinto its elements, difficult to analyse and, this has to be stressed, is absolutelyundefinable” (ibid.). He says further that “all concepts in which an entireprocess is semiotically concentrated defy definition; only something whichhas no history can be defined” (ibid.). He also stresses that there cannot beone element defining a concept, because although in some cases one elementbecomes predominant, in other cases other elements may become important.So the definition of “punishment” per se cannot be given because it is totallydependent on history, context, and uses in actual cases. This is very similarto Wittgenstein’s concept of “family resemblance.” Wittgenstein too pointsout that concepts have meaning only in the flux of life and most concepts ofdaily life cannot be defined by a single characteristic. There is no quality of

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a concept corresponding to the actual features of the world in our immedi-ate environment. Hence, the intrinsic definition of concepts cannot be given.

Despite this, Wittgenstein and Nietzsche differ with respect to the method-ology of conceptual analysis. Nietzsche goes to the origins of concepts. Hegives the genealogy of concepts. According to him, concepts can only havemeaning when seen from a historical perspective. He appeals to history, andshows in what ways concepts were used under different circumstances.Wittgenstein, on the other hand, by showing connections between concepts,tries to get us to see that most of our concepts elude clear-cut definition.While criticizing Frege’s view that a concept should have definite bound-aries, he says, “Stand roughly there” is also enough to describe a concept (PI§71). To define the concept “game,” we give examples and we intend themto be taken in a particular way. There is nothing common to all types of games.There is rather “a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail” (PI§66). Wittgenstein does not appeal to history; he does not give us the originof concepts. He suggests that we look and see how concepts are used in dailylife, and what relation they have to other concepts in order to show us that thereis no uniformity in their usage. The point of similarity, on the other hand, is thatboth Nietzsche and Wittgenstein reject categories and a prioricity.

According to Nietzsche, the-meaning-in-itself, like other concepts of tra-ditional metaphysics such as “unity,” “truth,” “purpose,” “totality,” “perma-nence,” “doer,” “atom,” and “the thing-in-itself,” is “only the seduction oflanguage (and the fundamental errors of reason petrified within it)” (GM I13). Nothing in the world actually corresponds to these concepts. They are,for Nietzsche, subjective categories of the human mind having no objectiveexistence. This denial of metaphysical concepts is one of the fundamentalcharacteristics of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Wittgenstein asserts that meta-physical problems, or philosophical problems, “arise when language goes onholiday” (PI §38), or when “A picture held us captive. And we could not getoutside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to usinexorably” (PI §115). Nietzsche and Wittgenstein agree that metaphysicalconcepts are being created by “reason petrified within [language].” All ofthese concepts are used to form explanatory philosophical theories. Accordingto Nietzsche, they are fictions created as a result of fallacies of reason crys-tallized in language. For Wittgenstein, we need therapies to get rid of meta-physical problems created by these concepts. Science, Wittgenstein asserts,can be explanatory, or it can use explanatory devices, but philosophy shouldbe descriptive. What we need is liberation from mythology, or liberation frommetaphysics. This is also Zarathustra’s “way to a new morning” (Z:1, “Onthe Gift-Giving Virtue,” 3).

Nietzsche’s rejection of traditional metaphysics finds its culmination inhis remark “God is dead.” For Nietzsche, “God is dead” can be interpreted

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as saying that there is no realm of transcendent reality, no supersensible world,no absolute values. Presupposing that there are two different realms, one animmutable, absolute realm of universal essences, is to degrade the world inwhich we live into a world of illusion. It is to deny reality, the world of senses,of change, and opposition. With the devaluation of the highest values, Nietzscheabandons the idea that there are two worlds having an unequal ontologicalrank: the true and transcendent world of ideas and the inferior world of senses.The only world we have is the world of sensations, change, and contradiction.

Wittgenstein also criticizes this longing for the truth, this craving for fric-tionless surfaces. His concept of “family resemblance” is the critique of thePlatonic understanding of meaning, which presumes that specific differenceand universals make meaning possible. “We have got on the slippery icewhere there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal,but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so weneed friction. Back to the rough ground!” (PI §107).

Nietzsche identifies “naturalization of morality” (WP II 461) with certaintyin actions and in instincts. To the extent that our actions are conscious, theylose perfection. Naturalness, on the other hand, excludes the great doctrineof the identity of happiness, virtue, and knowledge and the idea of the tran-scendental. Naturalization of morality is possible by returning to the facts ofcommon sense and of the “‘little people’ of all kinds” (WP II 439). Of course,this does not mean that we accept what is given to us as it is; on the contrary,“As the soldier exercises, so should man learn to act” (WP II 430). Instinctsare shaped and reshaped in practice, and this process goes on and on end-lessly. What Nietzsche does in ethics Wittgenstein does in philosophy of lan-guage. Nietzsche opposes idealization in ethics; he naturalizes ethics.Wittgenstein opposes idealization in language, and suggests naturalizationof language by bringing “words back from their metaphysical to their every-day use” (PI §116). To be sure, what is everyday or ordinary is not givenonce and for all, but is defined and redefined.

III

The craving for absolutely general specifications results in doing metaphysics.Unlike Wittgenstein, Nietzsche provides an account of how this craving arises.The creation of the two worlds such as apparent and real world, conditionedand unconditioned world, being and becoming is the creation of the ressen-timent of metaphysicians. Nietzsche says, “to imagine another, more valu-able world is an expression of hatred for a world that makes one suffer: theressentiment of metaphysicians against actuality is here creative” (WP III579). Escaping from this world because there is grief in it results in asceti-


cism. Paying respect to the ascetic ideal is longing for the world that is pureand denaturalized. Craving for frictionless surfaces, for a transcendental,pure, true, ideal, perfect world, is the result of the ressentiment of meta-physicans who suffer in this world. Metaphysicians do not affirm this worldas it is, and this paves the way for many explanatory theories in philosophy.In criticizing a philosopher who pays homage to the ascetic ideal, Nietzschesays, “he wants to escape from torture” (GM III 6). The traditional philoso-pher or the ascetic priest continues to repeat, “‘My kingdom is not of thisworld’” (GM III 10). This is a longing for another world in which one doesnot suffer. It is to escape from this world; to create another illusory, fictitious,false world. This longing for “the truth” of a world in which one does notsuffer is the desire for a world of constancy. It is supposed that contradic-tion, change, and deception are the causes of suffering; in other words, thesenses deceive; it is from the senses that all misfortunes come; reason cor-rects the errors; therefore reason is the road to the constant. In sum, this worldis an error; the world as it ought to be exists. This will to truth, this quest foranother world, this desire for the world as it ought to be, is the result of unpro-ductive thinking. It is unproductive because it is the result of avoiding thecreation of the world as it ought to be. According to Nietzsche, the will totruth is “the impotence of the will to create” (WP III 585). Metaphysiciansend up with the creation of the “true” world in contrast to the actual, change-able, deceptive, self-contradictory world. They try to discover the true, tran-scendental world that is already there rather than creating a world forthemselves. For Nietzsche, on the other hand, the transcendental world is the“denaturalized world” (WP III 586).

The way out of the circle created by the ressentiment of metaphysicians isthe will to life rather than the will to truth. The will to truth can be overcomeonly through a Dionysian relationship to existence. This is the way to a newphilosophy, which in Wittgenstein’s terms aims “to show the fly the way outof the fly-bottle” (PI §309).

Department of Humanities and Social SciencesFaculty of Letters and SciencesIstanbul Technical UniversityIstanbul

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Higgins, Kathleen, and Bernd Magnus, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals. Trans. Carol Diethe, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

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———. Twilight of the Idols. In The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. W. Kaufmann. New York:The Viking Penguin, 1982.

———. The Will to Power. Ed. W. Kaufmann, trans. W. Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. NewYork: Random House, 1967.

———. Zarathustra, in The Portable Nietzsche. Ed. and trans. W. Kaufmann. New York: TheViking Penguin, 1982.

Plato. Collected Dialogues. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1987.

Schacht, Richard, ed. Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press. 1994.

Spengler, Oswald. The Decline of the West, vol. I. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926.Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Culture and Value. Ed. G. H. von Wright in collaboration with H. Nyman,

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Nyman, trans. C. G. Luckhardt and M. A. E. Aue. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993.———. On Certainty. Ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, trans. D. Paul and G. E.

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and G. E. M. Anscombe, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1978.


Turanli, Aydan - Nietzsche and the Later Wittgenstein--An Offense to the Quest for Another World

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