Nietzsche's Views On Language Essay

1. Zietzsche begins in an optimistic tone concerning the idea of mankind knowing truth and possessing knowledge, illustrating this by describing it as a time where “clever animals invented knowledge”, also adding that it was the “highest” moment of world history, yet, he immediately contradicts this by also adding that it was the most “mendacious”, or deceptive. The point that was being made here was that although it may have been a misleadingly beautiful moment of our history in terms of new knowledge and expanding our perspectives, all of it was merely a façade fabricated by mankind itself. And yet, our minds have been expanded but by a false light, hence why is it a paradox, particularly, a paradox with negative implications on the nature …show more content…
Plato’s perception of language in regards to its relation with truth lines up with Nietzsche’s views to a fair extent. The most apparent statement regarding Zietzsche’s views is in the final paragraph, where he states that if he were to “make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare ‘look, a mammal’” it would in a sense be a truth that is brought into mankind, however, he goes on to explain that this truth is not absolute by any means, mainly because of the fact that the word “mammal” is a word that man invented to label a certain type of animal, and thus it is an illusion of truth brought upon mankind because we still do not know the true name of such a type of animal, if there even is one. This correlates with how Plato exemplifies the idea of man seeing the distorted shadows and noises of things, but yet still not truly understanding these things for what they are. Their true nature remains unknown. In a sense, those of mankind who believe wholeheartedly that a camel is a mammal by absolute law of truth are the ones that are shackled, forever doomed to stare at the distorted shadow of what is something else …show more content…
A prime example of what Nietzsche’s arguments and metaphors are referring to is mankind’s concept of time. There is always debate on whether time is a construct by humanity for the sake of convenience or if time is something that exists outside of our own personal perception of it. Like his concept of declaring something a mammal as bringing a truth to a limited light, we have declared time as something we can measure and perceive intelligently, however, we will likely never understand the true nature and behavior of time, so the only thing mankind can do is mold what we can perceive into something that can be presented as a truth, however false or illusory it may be. It is a direct result of man’s insatiable desire for knowledge. If we concede to the fact that we may not be able to understand time, thinkers and philosophers would be disgusted at such an outcome and thus, create their own theories on the properties of time (which is something that already happens anyway, perhaps because of the fact that we are able to see that time is still something shrouded in false-truth despite being told otherwise by the majority.) This all ties into Nietzsche’s somewhat pessimistic interpretation of mankind’s pursuit of knowledge, where no matter how far we “expand” our perspective, the substance of whatever truth we may find remains limited and disingenuous in some