Nietzsche's On Truth And Lie In The Extra Moral Sense

In Friedrich Nietzsche’s essay “On Truth and Lie in the Extra Moral Sense” he discussed the idea that language is nothing more than a metaphor, making the concept of truth unobtainable. Language is expressed through the use of metaphors, and the origin of language is a multi-step process of metaphors. A word is simply “the image of a nerve stimulus in sounds” (2). During this process, our brain interprets our thoughts and allows us to verbalize them aloud, creating words. Nietzsche’s argument is that truth, along with language is nothing more than an illusion. However truth is more subjective than Nietzsche’s essay alludes to. When people use music and art to express themselves, they are able to show their own personal truth. Individuals can …show more content…
We distort the true nature of the thing with this relationship, but it is necessary for our understanding. According to Nietzsche, first the nerve stimulus forms an image, and only then is our brain able to understand the thing. Nietzsche’s second metaphor is referring to how the image is imitated by sound. Somewhere in the process of becoming a word, the thing is warped into a universally agreed upon lie. Language is nothing more than a commonly accepted verbal understanding of images that our brain sees. When we use language, it can be harder for us to understand things for what they are. Nietzsche also believed that, when we use words, we get confused by what we actually wish to speak about because they are not accurate representations of the things we are trying to speak …show more content…
I found it interesting that Nietzsche's believed that language is nothing more than a series of forgotten metaphors. Metaphors are just the way that humans confuse sensation and intellect. “He forgets that the original perceptual metaphors are metaphors and takes them to be the things themselves” (5).
The creation of language is a metaphor in itself even if it's an imperfect one. Trees, emotions and descriptive words are all metaphors of images and sounds, confused as concepts. You could even say that a metaphor is a metaphor in itself, but that creates an entirely too complicated paradox. Nietzsche wrote to the effect that all metaphors take away the individuality of the concept, and overgeneralize. If Nietzsche is correct, and nothing in language exists outside of falsehoods and metaphors, the ability to create is also nonexistent. It is hard to argue that that there are no individual and unique concepts when individuality is a fundamental criteria for creation. Along with our urge for the truth humans have an equally valid urge to create. He fails to address the creative process that lies within all humans. This doesn't happen by forgetting, or a simulation, but it is intentional. Artists, Musicians, and children playing imagination are prime examples of the innate human ability to create, outside of the restrictions of

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Nietzsche's On Truth And Lie In The Extra Moral Sense

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