On the Prejudices of Philosophers
1
The will to truth which will still tempt us to many a venture, that
famous truthfulness of which all philosophers so far have spoken with
respect - what questions has this will to truth not laid before us! What
strange, wicked, questionable questions! That is a long story even now -
and yet it seems as if it had scarcely begun. Is it any wonder that we
should finally become suspicious, lose patience, and turn away
impatiently? that we should finally learn from this Sphinx to ask
questions, too? Who is it really that puts questions to us here? What in
us really wants "truth"?
Indeed we came to a long halt at the question about the cause of this
will - until we finally came to a complete stop before a still more
basic question. We asked about the value of this will. Suppose we want
truth: why not rather untruth? and uncertainty? even ignorance?
The problem of the value of truth came before us - or was it we who came
before the problem? Who of us is Oedipus here? Who the Sphinx? It is a
rendezvous, it seems, of questions and question marks.
And though it scarcely seems credible, it finally almost seems to us as
if the problem had never even been put so far - as if we were the first
to see it, fix it with our eyes, and risk it. For it does involve a
risk, and perhaps there is none that is greater.
2
"How could anything originate out of its opposite? for example, truth
out of error? or the will to truth out of the will to deception? or
selfless deeds out of selfishness? or the pure and sunlike gaze of the
sage out of lust? Such origins are impossible; whoever dreams of them is
a fool, indeed worse; the things of highest value must have another,
peculiar origin - they cannot be derived from this transitory,
seductive, deceptive, paltry world from this turmoil of delusion and
lust. Rather from the lap of Being, the intransitory, the hidden god,
the 'thing-in-itself' - there must be their basis, and nowhere else."
This way of judging constitutes the typical prejudgment and prejudice
which give away the metaphysicians of all ages; this kind of valuation
looms in the background of all their logical procedures; it is on
account of this "faith" that they trouble themselves about "knowledge,"
about something that is finally baptized solemnly as "the truth." The
fundamental faith of the metaphysicians is the faith in opposite values.
It has not even occurred to the most cautious among them that one might
have a doubt right here at the threshold where it was surely most
necessary - even if they vowed to themselves, "de ornnibus dubitandum."
