How Far We Too Are Still Pious

Stone Island

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Stone Island
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Nietzsche, The Gay Science: Book V, #344:
How we, too, are still pious.— In science convictions have no rights of citizenship, as one says with good reason: only when they decide to descend to the modesty of hypotheses, of a provisional experimental point of view, of a regulative fiction, they may be granted admission and even a certain value in the realm of knowledge—though always with the restriction that they remain under police supervision, under the police of mistrust.— But does this not mean, if you consider it more precisely, that a conviction may obtain admission to science only when it ceases to be a conviction? Would it not be the first step in the discipline of the scientific spirit that one would not permit oneself any more convictions? ... Probably this is so: only we still have to ask, to make it possible for this discipline to begin, must there not be some prior conviction, even one that is so commanding and unconditional that it sacrifices all other convictions to itself? We see that science also rests on a faith, there simply is no science "without presuppositions." The question whether truth is needed must not only have been affirmed in advance, but affirmed to such a degree that the principle, the faith, the conviction finds expression: "Nothing is needed more than truth, and in relation to it everything else has only second-rate value."— This unconditional will to truth: what is it? Is it the will not to allow oneself to be deceived? Is it the will not to deceive? For the will to truth could be interpreted in the latter way, too: if only the special case "I do not want to deceive myself" is subsumed under the generalization "I do not want to deceive." But why not deceive? But why not allow oneself to be deceived?— Note that the reasons for the former principle belong to an altogether different realm from those for the second: one does not want to allow oneself to be deceived because one assumes that it is harmful, dangerous, calamitous to be deceived,—in this sense, science would be a long-range prudence, a caution, a utility, but one could object in all fairness: how? is wanting not to allow oneself to be deceived really less harmful, less dangerous, less calamitous: what do you know in advance of the character of existence to be able to decide whether the greater advantage is on the side of the unconditionally mistrustful or of the unconditionally trusting? But if both should be required, much trust and much mistrust: from where would science then be permitted to take its unconditional faith or conviction on which it rests, that truth is more important than any other thing, including every other conviction. Precisely this conviction could never have come into being if both truth and untruth constantly proved to be useful: which is the case. Thus—the faith in science, which after all exists undeniably, cannot owe its origin to such a calculus of utility; it must have originated in spite of the fact that the disutility and dangerousness of "the will to truth," of "truth at any price" is proved to it constantly. "At any price": oh how well we understand these words once we have offered and slaughtered one faith after another on this altar!— Consequently, "will to truth" does not mean "I will not allow myself to be deceived" but—there is no alternative—"I will not deceive, not even myself":—and with that we stand on moral ground. For you only have to ask yourself carefully: "Why do you not want to deceive?" especially if it should seem—and it does seem!—as if life aimed at semblance, meaning error, deception, simulation, delusion, self-delusion, and when the great sweep of life has actually always shown itself to be on the side of the most unscrupulous polytropoi [polytropoi: Greek word used in the first line of the Odyssey to describe Odysseus; meaning ranges from much turned to much traveled, versatile, wily, and manifold]. Charitably interpreted, such a resolve might perhaps be a quixotism [Don-Quixoterie], a minor slightly mad enthusiasm; but it might also be something more serious, namely, a principle that is hostile to life and destructive ... "Will to truth"—that might be a concealed will to death.— Thus the question: "Why science?" leads back to the moral problem: Why have morality at all when life, nature, and history are "not moral"? No doubt, those who are truthful in that audacious and ultimate sense that is presupposed by the faith in science thus affirm another world than the world of life, nature, and history; and insofar as they affirm this "other world," look, must they not by the same token negate its counterpart, this world—our world? ... But you will have gathered what I am driving at, namely, that it is still a metaphysical faith upon which our faith in science rests—that even we seekers after knowledge today, we godless ones and anti-metaphysicians still take our fire, too, from the flame lit by a faith that is thousands of years old, that Christian faith which was also the faith of Plato, that God is the truth, that truth is divine ... But what if this should become more and more incredible, if nothing should prove to be divine any more unless it were error, blindness, the lie—if God himself should prove to be our most enduring lie? —
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Science itself is a kind of faith, a faith in the truth.
 
Stone Island said:
Nietzsche, The Gay Science: Book V, #344:


Science itself is a kind of faith, a faith in the truth.
Click to expand...

You have to be a strong rationalist to call things derived from empirical inquiry a "faith."

"Faith is being sure of what is hoped for, being certain of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1
This does not at all describe science.

"Complete trust or confidence in someone or something" Oxford American Dictionary.
This definition may describe some of science, or describe science partially. But only in the same way as saying "I have faith that 2+2=4," which is a silly statement to make.

I have encountered many Christians who equate the two types of faith. "I have faith that this chair will hold me, so I sit down on it. I have faith in God, so I trust him with my ruined financial situation." Completely different usage of the term "faith."
 
Even Nietzsche can make the mistake of equating an axiom (the fundamental metaphysical assumption of science that there is an objective world about which we can make true statements) with faith.

The will to truth is an entirely different thing in science than in any other manifestation. Faith-based will to truth - i.e. religion - is the will to death. It is living for the sake of dying.
 
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Stone Island said:
Nietzsche, The Gay Science: Book V, #344:


Science itself is a kind of faith, a faith in the truth.
Click to expand...
Not exactly - it is a process which we have reason to believe helps us better understand how our world/universe actually works - and, to a lesser extent so far, why it works that way.
 
Fallacy of "expansion" I think it's called. Science is a modus operandi, which Nietzsche criticizes as if it were a modus vivendi. Thus, because lies can be useful in life (m.v.), doesn't mean they have any place in science (m.o.), just as because money is useful in life, doesn't mean we should eat dimes for breakfast. So there is no need for science -- scientists actually -- to choose between truth and lies, unless sorely tempted to fudge some data perhaps. Science is work, not life. What he calls "faith in truth" at the root of science is maybe better understood as a self-referential hypothesis: science posits itself as useful; as long as we use it, the hypothesis is confirmed.
 
is wanting not to allow oneself to be deceived really less harmful, less dangerous, less calamitous: what do you know in advance of the character of existence to be able to decide whether the greater advantage is on the side of the unconditionally mistrustful or of the unconditionally trusting? But if both should be required, much trust and much mistrust: from where would science then be permitted to take its unconditional faith or conviction on which it rests, that truth is more important than any other thing, including every other conviction.
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Nietzshes premise is false, in this case. The purpose of science is to find truth even if this truth is not in any way useful. Science also does not deal with the question whether or not "truth is more important than any other thing". It's a very silly idea! Is truth more important than food, for instance? It depends on your purpose. If you are hungry, it isn't. If you need to know which way is north and which is south it is.
(Funny translation of Die fröhlihche Wissenschaft, though.)
There are a couple of very good pages in Die fröhlihche Wissenschaft where Nietzsche describes how for instance preachers, schoolteachers, generals and Jews behave as scientists: People who are used to being obeyed tend to think that if they claim something very vigorously, people will accept it as truth, whereas Jewish scientists tended to argue for every little detail since people didn't automatically take a Jew at his word.
Not exactly the kind of racism that Hitler could use in his propaganda!
 
It's funny, but Nietzsche was talking about how people think and act, and how they understand themselves to be thinking and acting, and not whether that thinking and acting was, at root, entirely consistent.
 
I think in this instance Nietzsche is equating faith with trust. For example a chemical engineer will have faith that a mathematician has correctly solved the equation. I have faith that the theory of evolution is true and that it has been appropriately verified even though I have not thoroughly checked over all of The Origins of Species nor have I examined the fossils myself.

Basically faith in science is a trust in the knowledge put forward and verified by others without conducting the experiments yourself. Trusting that the science is correct.
 
Here's a very simple formulation: Science can teach us how to clone. Science can not tell us whether we should clone Hitler or Churchill.

Nietzsche is pointing out that scientists, or the scientifically minded, conflate these two kinds of knowledge.
 
Stone Island said:
Here's a very simple formulation: Science can teach us how to clone. Science can not tell us whether we should clone Hitler or Churchill.

Nietzsche is pointing out that scientists, or the scientifically minded, conflate these two kinds of knowledge.
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And how would the Nietzschean Free Spirit, who has gone Beyond Good and Evil to create a new Morality unchained by the herd-like Judeo-Christian Slave Morality, determine who to clone? What criteria does the Ubermensch use to distinguish good from bad?
 
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