Another delightful excerpt, this
time from Nietzsche’s Jenseits (14).---
“…It
is perhaps just dawning on five or six minds that physics is only an
interpretation and exegesis of the world, and not a world-explanation; but, in so
far as it is based on the belief in the senses, it is regarded as more. What is
clear, what is “explained”? Only what can be seen and felt… Conversely, the
charm of the Platonic noble way of thinking consisted in resistance to obvious
sense-evidence. In the overcoming of the world in the manner of Plato, there
was an enjoyment different from that which the physicists of today, the
Darwinists and anti-teleologists, offer us.
How wonderful is it to see this
repudiation of the religion of science (and that is what the belief in physics
being capable of world-explanation, and all belief in senses is!) by the genius
of Nietzsche. “What is clear, what is explained? Only what can be seen
and felt.” But isn’t it true that, according to our senses, we used to see and
feel that the earth was flat, but then, after seeing the earth from a
sufficient distance, we eagerly accepted the fact that it was not flat
at all, and today we offer the portable globe on our desk as the sensory proof
that the earth is a globe--- can’t you see it for yourself? Yes, science
has pushed us into believing in a sensory perception of the world, but, at the
same time, what science has proved in a much larger “sense” is that our
senses cannot be trusted. Neither should we put our trust in our most
accomplished instruments of science, because we have built them out of our
present limitations. Yes, we are more sophisticated today than we were
yesterday, but how can this possibly help our faith in science as measured by
the yardstick of the future?
At its best, science is our
technical tool, “like a hammer,” as I once described it in an article
about science and philosophy. At its worst, science becomes a religion,
a cult of the senses, but, considering the fact that we cannot really
trust our senses, it is a patently false religion, tainted by inherent
inconsistencies and false foundational assumptions since its very conception.
Nietzsche is wonderful in his
free flight of the mind. All politicians and ideologues of today, pontificating
about liberty and freedom, ought to be shown this glorious example of real,
authentic, honest, and sincere, unadulterated liberty: Read Nietzsche, Ecce
Homo Liberatus! Freedom of inspiration, freedom of instinct, and the best
alternative to “academic freedom”--- freedom from the academia!!!
And, incidentally, remember him a
short while ago savagely disparaging Plato and contemptuously toward both Plato
and Christianity calling the latter derisively “Platonism for the people.”
Yet, Plato it is,--- one of his chosen, one of the “magnificent eight” of his
visit to Hades; and here, in this passage again, he speaks admiringly of
Plato’s nobility in his resistance to obvious sense-evidence. Plato and
Christianity, like most other phenomena we encounter anywhere in existence, are
not inherently good or evil, but their function as well as their interpretation
depend on the particular circumstances and on our angle of vision.
Likewise with our senses. It
would be a great folly, bordering on insanity, to distrust our senses
completely, refusing to believe what we have seen with our own eyes and sensed
with our own other senses. But it is an even greater folly, philosophically
speaking, to make a “religion” out of our senses, as, should we get lucky
enough to witness that religion crumble before our very eyes, like a
false idol, there is a grave danger that, instead of putting our trust in more
durable values, we shall go around, shopping for another false idol, and as a
most unfortunate offshoot of that sad experience with our senses, we might lose
that necessary limited trust in them, which, as I said before, is essential to
keeping our sanity out of the danger zone.
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