It is necessary to raise the question of the nature of the direction of the criticism of Nietzsche against thinking. Although it is comprehensive and very radical at first glance, the study allows us to see the ambiguity of such an understanding. Uncompromising criticism is directed primarily against the absolutization of the role of reason and its aspects. At the same time, the thinker tries to find a reasonable beginning and, behind it, new sides that were previously ignored under various pretexts. Cognition of man and the world on other grounds, overcoming the limitations of the old metaphysics, defining the true meaning that is embedded in the concept of reason – all this looms in the work of Nietzsche, although at times it seems that he fled from the power of reason.
Society is one of the brightest and most consistent exponents of the tradition of criticism of the mind of Nietzsche, and rightly so. It was he who rejected not only already false truths but also knowledge as such and brought the criticism of reason to the recognition of the priority of everything irrational (Nietzsche, 2020). The German thinker abandoned a number of presumptions of the classical type of philosophy, thereby opening the way for the subsequent criticism of the intellectualism and rationalism of modern European philosophy, which has always recognized reason as the highest instance of attesting reality.
The advantage of Nietzsche’s philosophy is that in his criticism of reason, he goes much further than Kant. He will no longer reject not only false truths but also knowledge as a such, understanding by the latter just delusion and falsification. Nietzsche will no longer come out against the illusions of knowledge but against knowledge and truth as such (Nietzsche, 2020). Moreover, he will completely reject the rational interpretation of truth as the main goal of human knowledge, believing that this place belongs to life itself with all its passions and impulses. Priority in cognition will no longer be given to reason but to the instinctive-unconscious, immediate-intuitive principle, in which, according to Nietzsche, the will to power finds its direct manifestation. Significantly ahead of time, one of his future followers in this area – the American thinker Rorty, the philosopher of life will refuse to recognize the objective nature of truth, the fact that it generally expresses a certain relation of things themselves (Nietzsche, 2020). Truths, as completely logical, bearing the stamp of universality, constructed by a soulless reason, Nietzsche will oppose delusions, for only they are permeated with human concerns and desires, contribute to the preservation and growth of life. The dialectic of truth and error is quite complex and contradictory: the philosopher then pits them against each other, giving priority to error.
It should be noted that since Nietzsche interprets reality itself as an unordered Heraclitean stream of becoming, it turns out to be completely impossible to assert any commensurability of the categories of thought and reality (Nietzsche, 2020). Hence his perspectivism is the only possible uncompromising criticism of knowledge and reason (Nietzsche, 2020). The process of cognition thus turns into an assessment, interpretation, and creation of the world when everything from beginning to end is conditioned by the activity of the subject himself.
Emphasizing the fact that Kant allegedly lacked a genuine criticism of reason, Nietzsche concluded that he had not succeeded in revealing the authority that should conduct this criticism; in Kant, criticism became only criticism of reason from the side of reason itself. This mind itself turned, in this case, simultaneously into a judge and into a defendant. Thus, it is the philosophy of life in the person of Nietzsche and his numerous followers that will bring the criticism of reason to the recognition of the priority of all the irrational, instinctive-unconscious in cognition, opposing the mind of life itself as an alien force that cannot understand it (Nietzsche, 2020). It will abandon a whole series of presumptions of the classical type of philosophy, thereby opening the way for the subsequent criticism of the intellectualism and rationalism of modern European philosophy, which has always recognized reason as the highest instance of certifying reality.
For Nietzsche, the mind is a force alien to life, permeating European culture since the time of Socrates and plunging it, overly trusting, into a state of decline. In Nietzsche’s approach to reason, there is initially a clear assessment of this force as a private ability of a person, nevertheless illegally claiming universal domination. As for the meaning given by these philosophers to the concept of “criticism,” if, in Kant, criticism means the study of cognitive ability and its boundaries, then in Nietzsche’s philosophy, criticism is transformed into an exposure of the totalitarian-powerful impulses of reason (Nietzsche, 2020). The discrepancies in the definition of the concept of “criticism” are partly due to the spiritual and ideological context in which the considered thinkers worked. Nietzsche’s reflections fell on the era of the crisis of rationality when the mind appeared not as something in need of improvement but as something with which it was necessary to fight, paying the price for the damage it caused. Such “damage,” according to Nietzsche, is manifested in the total emptiness of values and ideals and, most importantly, in the emptiness of the person himself (Nietzsche, 2020). Without dwelling only on the statement of such emptiness, the philosopher felt his mission in “filling” the void – the material for the such filling was life itself as an all-embracing ontological reality, as something that is truly inherent in man.
In the philosophy of Nietzsche, the will to power, expressed in life with its instinctive-unconscious beginning, acts as an instrument of criticism. However, one should not assume that Nietzsche radically breaks with Kant’s “tools”; rather, Nietzsche’s position crystallized in an effort to achieve the unconditional in the series of the conditioned. Indeed, according to Kant, the critic becomes a true “legislator” when he is subordinated to the “correct ability” – and it is quite sensible to ask the question of what is hidden behind the veil of reason (Nietzsche, 2020). In this regard, Nietzsche seems to slightly open such a veil for us, even if this required great audacity to test the “shrine” for strength.
If one is given examples from life in order to substantiate the relevance and advantage of Nietzsche, then it is necessary to turn to the modern structure of the life of society. The fact is that most of the most important goals for a modern person, for example, career goals, are just the vain goals of reason. In addition, excessive worship of reason, knowledge, and pragmatism kills art, which can also be observed in modern times (Jonas & Yacek, 2018). Compared to the previous periods of life, humanity, in the vast majority of spheres of art, will stagnate. It is very important that it is an art that conveys the truth most reliably, as a minimum, because it becomes unambiguous but only sets the direction for reflection (Jonas & Yacek, 2018). Conversely, the mind interprets any truth in a distorted, careerist, or overly scientific context.
References
Jonas, M. E. and Yacek, D. W. (2018). Nietzsche’s philosophy of education. Rethinking ethics, equality and the good life in a democratic age. Taylor & Francis.
Nietzsche, F. (2020). Beyond good and evil. The philosophy classic. Wiley.