Nietzsche’s Value

  Last Wednesday Professor of Philosophy Linda Williams, from Kent State University, arrived to present her work about Part One of Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil.

  Williams focuses especially on continental philosophy and also teaches some ethics classes.

  "[Nietzsche] states that a philosopher's philosophy is a mirror of the philosopher," said Williams. "It will be a philosopher's values that drive his philosophy."

  She continued, showing how Nietzsche revealed this in other thinkers including, for example, Spinoza and Kant.

  As Nietzsche applied this thought to other philosophers, Williams applied it to Nietzsche in the context of Part One of Beyond Good and Evil.

  "There is a particular arc in Part One that informs the rest of the work," said Williams. "Generally the question is ‘What is true?'  [However,] Nietzsche holds health, growth, and power above truth. He suggests that maybe our physiology—how our bodies are—might connect to what ideas you have. He calls on everyone to become psychologists so they can figure out where their ideas come from. Nietzsche's values are going to color his epistemology."  

  This idea especially manifests itself in Nietzsche, as Williams explained that Nietzsche dealt with various health problems such as migraines and vomiting blood.

  "Nietzsche acknowledges that this knowledge had to come from his medical history," said Williams.

  Another one of his points that she explained dealt with free will.

  "He argues that causality and free will don't exist," said Williams. "We can't praise or blame anyone if we think they could not have done otherwise. It's helpful to think in terms of causality, but why attach truth to that?"

  By replacing health for truth, Williams said, he was trying to create a belief system to lead to healthy human beings. However, this went against Christianity and Science, the predominant worldviews of the time, and presents some room for debate.

  "If we take away truth as the arbitrator, everything is reduced to an opinion," said Williams. "When we remove truth from the equation, scary things are a consequence. You just have to think for yourself."

  After the lecture, Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy Joseph Palencik spoke about why he wanted to bring her to Muskingum's campus.

  "It's a chance to learn about aspects of his work that [we] usually don't get the chance to discuss in the classroom [even though] Nietzsche is covered in a number of our classes," said Palencik. "[Also,] she is my former professor; I went to Kent State and she taught me Nietzsche."

  Study of Nietzsche will not end this semester.

  "Next semester, I'll be teaching Nietzsche in my Intro to Philosophy class," said Palencik. "We'll be reading On the Genealogy of Morals."