Nietzsche, Stevens, and Derrida

Abstract

Oh, these Greeks! They knew how to live. What is required for that is to stop courageously at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore appearance, to believe in forms, tones, words, in the whole Olympus of appearance. Those Greeks were superficial -out of profundity. -Preface to the second edition of The Gay Science Pilate saith unto him [Jesus], What is truth? -John xviii. 38 -Do I still have to add that in the entire New Testament there is only one solitary figure one is obliged to respect? Pilate, the roman governor.... 'What is truth?' - The Anti-Christ, 46 Why couldn't the world that concerns us-be a fiction? -Beyond Good and Evil, 34 Heraclitus will always be right in this, that being is an empty fiction. - Twilight of the Idols, "'Reason' in Philosophy", 2 The final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else. The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly. What is philosophy? Rather, let's put it this way: What should be the aim of philosophy? My answer to the question is that it should be the ultimate aim of philosophy to help human beings live their lives more fully, namely, to teach them how to live.