Nietzsche's Rejection of Transcendent Truth

Abstract

<p>In this thesis I address Nietzsche's seemingly paradoxical claim that all truth is in fact illusion. I begin with an examination of the claims in On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, where the transcendent truth is rejected on the grounds that it is self-contradictory impossibility. However, if this is the case, then how is it possible for Nietzsche to make such a claim? Docs he not implicitly exclude his own account from this critique? To investigate this matter, I offer an interpretation of his critique of the history of Western morality since the time of Socrates and how it relates to what he terms the human, all-too-human origins of the concept of truth. This leads to a discussion of his claims concerning the essentially perspectival and interpretive nature of human knowing. I argue that this view of knowledge. in which truth and life are viewed as one and the same, saves Nietzsche from the charge of internal inconsistency.</p>