C. What Truth IsFor Nietzsche, truth is a way of keeping the herd in check (Will to Power, 277). Actually though the herd has a hatred for the truthful, or that which is beyond the simple (Will to Power, 285). The will to truth is a tool of the Will to Power (Will to Power, 285). Nietzsche writes,
“The so called drive for knowledge can be traced back to a drive to appropriate and conquer: the senses, the memory, the instincts, etc., have developed as a consequence of this drive. The quickest possible reduction of the phenomena, economy, the accumulation of the spoils of knowledge (Will to Power, 423). “The methods of truth were not invented from motives of truth, but from motives of power, of wanting to be superior. ‘How is truth perceived?’ By the feeling of enhanced power” (Will to Power, 455)
Knowledge works as a tool of power and hence it is plain that it creases with every increase of power according to Nietzsche. The view that truth is found and that ignorance and error are at an end is one of the most potent seductions existing since “truth” is therefore more fateful than error and ignorance. Truth may be viewed as a necessary error, a perspectival appearance, or a showy word (Beyond Good and Evil, 4; Will to Power, 15; Will to Power, 80).
D. Determining the Value of Truth and Falsity (Appearance)
A variety of quotes demonstrate Nietzsche’s conclusions on the subject of the value of truth and false:
“The falseness of a judgment is for us not necessarily an objection to a judgment; in this respect our new language may sound strangest. The question is to what extent it is life-promoting, life preserving, perhaps even species cultivating” (Beyond Good and Evil, 4)
And,
“The antagonism between the ‘true world,’ as revealed by pessimism, ad a world possible or life-here one must test the rights of truth. It is necessary to measure the meaning of all these ideal drives against life to grasp what this antagonism really is: the struggle of sickly, despairing life that cleaves to a bdhond, with healthier more stupid and mendacious, ricer, less degenerate life. Therefore it is not ‘truth’ instruggle withlife but onekindof life in struggle with another” (Will to Power, 592)
And,
“But truth does not count as the supreme value, eenless as the supreme power. The will to appearance, to illusion, to deception, to becoming and change (to objectified deception) here counts as more profound, primeval, metaphysical tan the will to truth, to reality, to mere appearance-the last is itself merely a form of the will to illusion” (Will to Power, 853).
