Nietzsche’s existential struggle with “science” and “truth.”

What does science have in common with religion?

1. Historically, intellectuals and common folk widely believe that “truth” and a commitment to it are intrinsically good.

2. Nietzsche –who himself was dedicated to the truth — begs to differ by exposing the flimsiness of concepts like “good & evil” and “truth & untruth.”

3. An oath to truth is rooted in the human instinct towards ascetic ideals in all world religions and societies. Science is merely the latest software update of this hardwired instinct.

“Truth is intrinsically good.” But is it?

Aristotle’s Metaphysics is notable for ascribing to human beings the essential trait of the desire and impulse to know, noted by the very first sentence of Book I: “All men by nature desire to know.” This statement is a piece with the expression “all beavers by nature desire to make dams.”

According to Aristotle, when this desire goes unfulfilled, we become unhappy, as we delight in fulfilling this desire like no other. Therefore, believing oneself to know is intrinsically pleasurable for human beings.

Humans deem “truth” the supreme good!

Most philosophers and scientists through history acknowledged this, though relative to their mutually exclusive conceptions of “truth.”

Secular modern types tend to view science as the source of all human possible human truths. And its “goodness” is not because scientific truth, our possession of it, or its applications have good consequences. Surely, scientific truth can result in “good” consequences, i.e., life-preserving or useful. Medicine, for instance, is the branch of science whose application often creates humanity-saving effects, such as curing and eradicating diseases with critical endangerment potential like smallpox.

Scientists regularly make similar discoveries, along with enthralling explanations regarding age-old questions (e.g., how did the universe begin? Is their free will?) Hence, scientific truth’s “goodness” is intrinsic, as it readily and “unconditionally” fulfills our innate yearning for knowledge.

Because the ability to grasp the truth and use it to our advantage is unique to our species, truth must be acquired and applied. Both knowledge and its application are considered unalterably valuable, so truth always yields goodness.

Truth and goodness have an unconditional connection, in other words. No matter the context, truth is better than ignorance. Therefore, a duty to rational and scientific truth, its acquisition, and its application (i.e., faith in intellectual honesty or conscience) must be a “blessed” life.

Nietzsche on the “will to truth.”

When one devotes to a life of intellectual honesty, one refuses to believe ideas unsupported by rigorous evidence. This is emblematic of modern science, as Nietzsche points out in his Gay Science:

“A refusal to believe this or that and to live accordingly without first becoming aware of the final & most certain reasons pro & con.”

According to these thinkers, this adherence should be universalized (including matters in one’s personal life), which is what Nietzsche called the “will to truth.”

Yet, rationally minded individuals seldom admit that they hold any convictions; they regard science as an activity and object of value without presuppositions and thus value or morality neutral. That, after all, is why science so successfully –though imperfectly — yields high-quality and practical descriptions of facts.

The starting point of any pursuit of truth cannot be one with biases –science is grounded in facts, not values. Objectivity, not subjectivity or, worse, morality. In other words, how disciplines such as science operate is normatively neutral and amoral on account of being committed to intellectual honesty and finding the truth “at all costs.”

However, as Nietzsche notes, one must first believe that science is value-neutral and aims at what is most valuable (truth) before science can begin. Without these beliefs and their related valuations (i.e., root convictions), there is no science. These beliefs solely motivate science.

So, per Nietzsche, science’s end goal through the will to truth is to question everything except its axiomatic roots. In other words, to question everything and only believe things based on evidence, except the idea that questioning everything and basing all beliefs on stringent evidence is the ultimate good.

And here, Nietzsche sees science and its moral adherents as analogous to religion. Dependent faith in certain principles and an almost complete unwillingness to view them as such but as “reality” is where science and religion find a common thread.

Hence, when Nietzsche said “God is Dead,” he merely talked about Christianity in the West as no longer being taken as seriously in the everyday cultural domain.

The typical (but false) nihilistic interpretation of this often quotes Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov: “God is dead. Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.” In the cultural domain, science is just Christianity with a new mask for Nietzsche, not its downfall. Instead, the intensification of all Christian moral sentiments and the expulsion of their cultural artifacts in place of new ones characterizes “God is Dead.”

Modern people believe in factoids based on reading the abstract of a study. Medieval people held beliefs in God based on the priest’s sermon. Scientists and priests may have used a rigorous methodology to write and say such things. Still, those who are their followers seldom do and are thus liable to digesting nonsense by appeal to authority. Scientists preliminarily concluding with a study title that cigarettes may pose a protective against COVID-19 is a foolhardy one such example to chew on.

The overlaying religious and moralistic themes might change because of science, but the underlying ideals and morals do not. Just as human brains are the evolutionary product of instincts and passion of lowly origin, so are human ideas. In both cases, the archaic lingers, even when advancement is pronounced. Where it remains is in culture and how morality plays out in culture. Modernity is just as outwardly valuing self-sacrifice and altruism as it was before the death of God.

How could a commitment to the truth ever be wrong? How could we ever question truth being good? Could “untruth” be more desirable?

“Truth is good” is one of the most intuitively compelling ideas on the planet, such that one is almost stunned at the idea of questioning it. But this jarring response exposes Nietzsche’s worry –that science and all of our formal pursuits of knowledge rest on presuppositions, values, and convictions that truth is good. “Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as science ‘without any presuppositions’” for presuppositions are what give a discipline its purpose and, thus, its direction.

That is to say, the so-called “presuppositionless” pledge to intellectual honesty is shown through intellectual honesty as grounded in presuppositions. Thus, a normative value is at the root of science; not facts, but only their interpretation based on a particular perspective — albeit an often beneficial one.

Thus, when Nietzsche asks, “why not untruth?” he is interested in demonstrating our utter lack of easy answers to this question. “Untruth” for Nietzsche is whatever contradicts a current culture’s view of truth. Therefore, as Nietzsche insists, “there is no well-established harmony between the furthering of the truth and the well-being of humanity.” If I am getting mugged, I will not think to inspect the gun for whether it is real or not before making up my mind on how to act, for instance. However, the contents of some truths might be too unbearable for some –such as Darwin’s painfully dwindling religious faith. Or, arguably, some knowledge is too dangerous to allow semi-rational creatures like ourselves to possess without threatening our extinction –e.g., artificial intelligence.

So, while post-God moderns might have let go of religion, they have not absolved themselves of the credulity which comes with it. On the contrary, most people still demand certainty and view careful examination of critical issues as a source of suspicion. Consider the clichéd image of the poverty-stricken medical or graduate student, sacrificing many of life’s pleasures — including marriage and family — for a largely thankless career as an authority the masses only trust and when it is morally/personally convenient.

Nietzsche believed that most humanity does not commit themselves to the will to truth. Instead, they mostly allow themselves to follow the spurious desires, appetites, and convictions they culturally and locally inherited. Moderns merely appeal to science in public contexts because science is the culturally accepted authority on all truth matters. Thus, most of the beliefs held by most people have fragile bases –including the commitment to the will to truth. Hence, it is a conviction whose basis is no different from other convictions and thus proves helpful in a highly relative sense, not a universal one.

Therefore, living in true and whole accordance with the will to truth guarantees social suicide. Socrates and Spinoza were splendid examples of this. The fact is that a commitment to intellectual honesty in its earliest adherents was a danger to their life. It was more a burden than a commitment.

What makes us think this is no longer the case? For Nietzsche, it is hubris that we are in special possession to know the true world –as opposed to the old delusions of Plato and Jesus, who only thought they had it. “What could we possibly appeal to to justify the will to truth?”

We can ask the same of any other system, and the answer will never be “proof.” Proof shows the will to truth to be suitable for some in some cases and destructive for others in other cases. Faith — belief without evidence — is the only concept one can appeal to for justifying a wholesale commitment to truth.

Thus, there is no reason to believe that the will to truth should apply outside of the sciences other than the unproved intuition that truth is intrinsically good. For example, consider the consequences of knowing a person too well:

“Too close. If we live in too close proximity to a person, it is as if we kept touching a good etching with our bare fingers; one day, we have poor, dirty paper in our hands and nothing more. a human being’s soul is likewise worn down by continual touching; at least it finally appears that way to us — we never see its original design and beauty again.”

The solution here is not to lose our commitment to intellectual honesty. Instead, we should consider that it is no more valuable a pledge than any other, as ultimately, such value derives from individuals, not objectively. Hence, perhaps Spinoza did experience the will to truth as blessed goodness, but not everyone will.

For many, ignorance is bliss, and it should stay that way.

Nietzsche’s point here is that moderns must stop assuming everyone will benefit from a commitment to intellectual honesty — that it is indeed, in large measure, a burden, not an unequivocal good. At all ages, those who make this commitment suffer because they show certain “truths” of their time to be “untrue” and vice-versa, riling up the masses into fury. Spinoza doubted the doctrine of “chosen peoples,” and Socrates doubted the broad wisdom of narrow professionals; most of us can comfortably agree with both without fear for our lives. Few, however, dare touch their contemporary ideological counterparts.

Given that modern ideas stand on the shoulders of such supposedly false giants, who’s to say that our current “truths” will not be subjected to a similar fate of being exposed in the future as falsehoods? By demonstrating through reason the fundamental equality of all values (including those that underpin science) as presuppositions for thought and action and nothing more, Nietzsche urges a response in the affirmative.

Each age has its Voldemort-esque unspeakable truth, and those who utter it earliest are almost always culturally persecuted. In contrast, those who emit it last inherit a convention at birth; this is unaccounted for in any commitment to truth as the highest good. It is also evidenced in most academics, per Nietzsche. They tend to dampen their commitment to the will to truth because of their awareness of such inexpressible truths. For science, it’s grounding in faith in specific values consists of this unbearable truth. There will, in all ages, always be such a “truth” we “cannot laugh at,” as Nietzsche says.

Only the guilty conscience of the reader will know what our age’s unspeakable “truths” are. Just look to comedy, as Nietzsche asks; such a methodology is precisely Nietzsche’s Gay Science for future philosophers.

If groans follow a joke, the comedian is either bad or has uttered a future “truth” and a current “untruth.” Both cases unveil the moralistic root of all truth. It is a severe task for joyous free spirits to look to comedy to find such truth!