Beyond Good and Evil - Preface

Beyond Good and Evil

Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future

Preface

"Supposing truth is a woman... what then?"

With this statement at the beginning of the Preface of BGE, Nietzsche challenges what our relationship has been to truth. How have we approached her? Why have we approached her? 

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Nietzsche sees our approach to truth rooted within the Socratic method. The Socratic method seeks truth by leaving no stone unturned, all dark crevaces hidden from sight will be shone with light,  truth shall be forced to reveal herself to us. Nietzsche questions this approach, is this how truth is known, is this how she shows herself to us? 

"Supposing truth is a woman... what then?"

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Within the Preface Nietzsche states that "truth has been stood on its head", or in other words, the cart has been put before the horse. This section introduces an important argument. Nietzsche advances a challenge, stating that for over a millenia, across all paradigms of truth, we have erred by starting with the conclusion, the truth, the result, and only afterwards, have we engineered the argument, the intellectual framework, the philosophy, to justify the conclusion we already had.  

What conclusions did we already have? the soul? the ego? faith in grammar, causality, and opposite values? Once we have the conclusion, how could the intellectual framework say otherwise? The justification for the assumption merely reiterates the assumption!

Nietzsche sees some of these conclusions originating from two interwoven intellectual movements: Platonism, and its evolution, Christiantiy. He sees these movements as having introduced the important metaphysical concept of opposite values, between the outer (perception, change, temporality, error), and the inner (platonic forms, the soul, truth, the eternal) world. 

What person would find the outer undesirable? Who would need to create the inner world to feel justified? 

Did we perphaps force truth to be nothing more than a reflection of our ideals, or perhaps... our vices? 

"Supposing truth is a woman... what then?"

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What drives us to seek truth? An objective, selfless, pursuit of truth? Or have we merely used that explanation to cover the stench of our base, vile, all-too-human desires? Have we been ashamed to admit why we have sought her? 

"Supposing truth is a woman... what then?"

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What has the result been of a millenia of intellectual lashings and lifting of every stone? what has this done to the pysche of man? 

Nietzsche sees this long millenia as the process of cultivation of man's intellectual discipline, fortitude, and strength. The psyche pulled into two directions (good and evil, truth and error, outer and inner, into opposite values) over a millenia has created a spiritual tension never seen before. 

Nietzsche states:  

"But the fight against Plato or, to speak more clearly and for 'the people,' the fight against Christian-ecclesiastical pressure of millenia - has created in Europe a magnificent tension of the spirit the like of which has never yet existed on earth: with so tense a bow we can now shoot for the most distant goals"

And to those good Europeans (including Nietzsche):

"we still feel it, the whole need of the spririt and the whole tension of its bow. And perhaps also the arrow, the task, and who knows?... the goal..."

This millenia of labouring in the desert has created the potential for a new stage in human development, for a 'first movement', a 'sacred yes'.

"Supposing truth is a woman... what then?"

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A millenia of error, do we require now a different approach to truth? a playful, cheerful, dionysian approach? Do we need perhaps... a gay science?...

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"Gaya scienza was a term used by trobadours in the 12th and 14th century to refer to the art of poetry. Gay Science translates to 'gai saber' which referred to the art of song cultivated by medieval trobadours of Provence, and with that, invokes an aristocratic culture of courtly love" (Nietzsche, Introduction, 2001)

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References

Gay Science (Nietzsche), Cambridge University Press 2001, B.Williams translation.

Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche), Vintage Books 1989, W.Kauffman translation.