Can someone please shed some light on the following quote given by German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche:-
We have art in order not to die of the truth (The Will to Power §822).
As far as I can comprehend, he wants to say that the reality or truth of this world is so harsh and brutal that it is better to die from the unreal but pleasing beauty of art. Is that true?
In sectioin 822 of the Will to Power (ed. Kauffman), Nietzsche's note from 1888 reads thus:
"For a philosopher to say, 'The good and the beautiful are one,' is infamy; if he goes on to add, 'also the true,' one ought to thrash him. Truth is ugly. We possess art lest we perish from truth." (Will to Power; Section 822)
This note reflects a theme that preoccupied Nietzsche from his early writings on Art in The Birth of Tragedy all the way through later works such as The Gay Science and Beyond Good and Evil. Unlike many philosophers who are concerned with the conditions under which a statement might count as being true, Nietzsche asks why philosophers and subsequently theologians and scientists exhibit such a strong "Will to Truth"-- i.e. why they hold the value of the truth for its own sake to have a status overriding that of all other categories, especially those which are aesthetic and artistic in nature. He is not rejecting the importance of truth in philosophy, science or everyday life. Rather, he is noting that the "Intellectual Conscience" which posits honesty and the acquisition of the truth as the summa bonum, fails to grasp the power of that "untruth" we find in artworks, works of fiction, music etc. The cognitive (knowledge-seeking) and aesthetic perspectives often conflict, and it is far from clear that in each and every case the value of truth is greater (i.e. is more conducive to vitality and health) than the value of the aesthetic. The argument proceeds in 2 steps:
a) Artworks and aesthetic experience can be as vital to human well being as Truth (or more).
b) Living should be understood, in large part, as a work of art in progress. In GS 299, Nietzsche asks, " how can we make things beautiful, attractive, desirable for us when they are not?" He answers the question a few lines down stating that, "we want to be poets of our lives, first of all in the smallest, most everyday matters." (GS; 299) Elsewhere Nietzsche describes this mode of living as, "Giving character to one's self."
Again, in The Gay Science (section 107), under the heading "Our ultimate gratitude to art - Nietzsche writes,
"As an aesthetic experience, life is still bearable for us."
He is echoing his earlier Birth of Tragedy in which he wrote,
"It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified."
Translator, Walter Kauffman, suggests that Nietzsche is reminding the reader that it was in that earlier book that he first drew attention to the problematic relationship between science (as the quest for truth) and art (as the quest for beauty and deep aesthetic fulfillment). In The Gay Science, he elaborates on the theme first taken up in Birth of Tragedy, and counsels us to "discover the hero no less than the fool in our passion for knowledge; we must find pleasure in our folly or we cannot continue to find pleasure in our wisdom." In this passage he seems to strike a balance between the ideals of beauty (however much it may stray from true accounts of the world) and the truth (conceived as that which which is taken to be the case, i.e. factuality). For example, war and killing are, in truth not pleasurable for most, but even the the rage of Achilles is something that readers of Homer through the centuries have long understood as beautiful and life-enriching poetry.Even the purposeful lying of Odysseus charms Athena in Homer's Odyssey, though the "intellectual conscience" of modern philosophers and science cannot celebrate "trickery" and dishonesty as does Homer. Art has the power to enrich human experience, but very often it does so by providing us with fulfilling illusions. This is not "bad" but shows that the aesthetic perspective has great value despite its being at odds, in many cases, with the will to truth and putative facts associated with it.
Art is designed to grab our attention at a base level. And that diverts our attention from thought. And thought is madness. No other animal would buy a smoke alarm. There's no fire, why would you need alerting? Sure, avoid falling in the burning pit, but don't lay awake pondering what if, silly human. But the reality is that houses do burn down horrifically on occasion. Ahhhg the worry... Never mind.. strictly come dancing is on the Tele..I'll forget about burning alive for a while. And art is lies.. no serious female tennis player would go commando.. and I'm certain the charge if the light brigade would have had a lot more arterial spray. Still those hats really did look splendid didn't they... Ahhhg grape shot just took of a man's arm from the shoulder all because an idiot made a bad decision... The hats though... Look at the hats...
I think silverskid really delivered a comprehensive and satisfyingly contextualized answer here. I would just add that art is not just a lie, or a way of disguising, concealing, or transmogrifying the truth. It is a way of looking at the world and the various aspects of human existence and experience with a lens that goes beyond the bare, objective, unadorned facts. Those can be horrible and despairing. Art is how we use certain faculties to make life about more than just "the truth"—to make it about beauty, imagination, creativity, poignancy, cathexis, etc.
But I also don't think art is merely a disguise, masquerade, or elegantly crafted form of deception. It is a way of seeing that is arguably equal to "the truth." Unlike the truth, though, which thrives without sun or water, and will arguably continue to exist whether it is acknowledged or not, art is a way of seeing that must be fed constantly, replenished and nourished regularly. Why this is exactly I cannot say.
Nietzsche piggybacked on Schopenhauer, came after him and was a much better aphorist. Since Nietzsche said "God is dead" we have a tendency to think of this idea as a settled issue, a done deal. We don't think much of the incredible transition from the comforts of satisfied religion, even for the highly educated, to a lone soul? in an infinitely uncaring universe. Schopenhauer posited the Aesthetic sense as a religious substitute years before Nietzsche did, however Nietzsche condensed the idea into a startling thought.
I reckon he's saying that the truth in art is not bivalent, so it is beyond the antinomy of man and superman, and so no-one need perish or go under within its logic. The greatest of artists are tyrants, but they have art to quell that, to make it "new" - as all art must be - rather than dominative. So a bit like Marxism promises a future state in which man does not live in conflict with other men, Nietzsche is offering a present in which - via art - the superman is multiple.
Which is great, cos - whatever you think of your hole in the mountain - other people are a necessary feature of a life lived well.
Would you date Nietzsche? It would be tricky...
In the translation by Hill & Scarpitti:
It is unworthy for a philosopher to say that the good and the beautiful are one; if he goes so far as to add 'and also the trye', we should thrash him. Truth is ugly: we have art lest we perish from the truth (465).
The best gloss I'm aware of on this is Philip J. Kain's:
The truth is not good for human beings - the truth is horror. Reality as it truly is, is not beautiful - it is terrifying. To pursue the truth, far from pursuing the good and achieving happiness, as most all philosophers have assumed, would have the consequence of plunging humankind into the abyss, of rubbing their noses in the horror of existence. Life requires lies, illusion, art, veiling. Life must shun the truth. Life is not possible with the truth. To pursue the good, what is best for human beings, requires rejection of the true. (Kain: 47.)
One might protest, but surely it's always good to know the truth - to know what is bad, harmful, dangerous, for instance. How else but by knowing the truth can we avoid such things? Doesn't inquiry - scientific, historical, &. - aim at discovering the truth. If not, what is the point of it?
I'm not so sure about this - there are some truths I'd prefer not to know: the date of my death, for instance. But Nietzsche wipes away such protests in a wider perspective. Again Kain succinctly captures his viewpoint :
If the truth is that existence is horrible [which it is: GT], if the true is the furthest thing from the good [which is also is: GT], then at least since Socrates we have been involved in serious contradiction. Insofar as we pursue the real truth, insofar as we approach the horror and meaninglessness of existence, we are not headed toward meaning, purpose, or the good at all. We progress toward meaninglessness. On the other hand, insofar as we seek meaning, purpose, and the good, we must mask the true, conceal it, create illusion. What emerges from this are two different conceptions of truth, the truth as correspondence to reality and a truth which requires illusion, that is, merely, what we take to be true. We must recognize that Nietzsche has and needs both of these conceptions and that to understand him we must explore both. (Kain: 47-8.)
References
Philip J. Kain, 'Nietzsche, Truth, and the Horror of Existence', History of Philosophy Quarterly , Jan., 2006, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Jan., 2006), pp. 41- 58.
F. Nietzsche, The Will to Power [Der Wille zur Macht], tr. R.Kevin Hill & Michael A. Scarpitti, London: Penguin Random House UK, 2017.
