Nietzsche and the notion of truth

Abstract

The aim of the thesis is to focus on the notion of truth as it constitutes one of the core problems in Nietzsche’s philosophy. After making some preliminary remarks on certain technical and approach-related problems, it starts with Nietzsche’s criticisms directed against the traditional philosophy, analyzing why Nietzsche thinks that in their search for truth philosophers were prejudiced and became hostile to life, in his terms formed a décadent culture. A genealogical research on the belief in truth is carried out throughout the third chapter as the reasons for such a belief are very important for both Nietzsche’s critique and his own philosophy. My purpose is to show what Nietzsche seems to oppose, but at the same time acknowledge in terms of belief in truth. Once the ambivalent nature of Nietzschean philosophy becomes clearer, a broader discussion on his own position is presented in the fourth chapter. In this regard, I will further dwell on some possibly contradictory arguments of Nietzsche, juxtaposing truth with falsity, illusion with reality, moral with nonmoral and metaphorical with literal. Appealing to various accounts of Nietzsche from different periods of his life, I will finally attempt to offer a subjective reading of Nietzsche freed from fundamental contradictions which, yet, tends to underline the irony pertaining to human existence.