Slipping from the tightrope
Supposing truth is a woman — what then? So begins Nietzsche’s exploration of truth in Beyond Good and Evil . I have always suspected that this line has more to do with Nietzsche’s disdain for women but reading it again, I wonder. Does it have more to do with his disdain for truth? Hear me out. The remainder of the preface to this work lambasts philosophers attempts at dogmatism. That philosophers have searched for truth in a way that is absolute, like Plato’s attempt to set reality “out there” in the world of the Forms. Nietzsche tells us in this very opening paragraph, “. . . all dogmatism is dying.” He later tells, somewhat dogmatically it might be worth noting, that dogmatic philosophy like the Vedanta doctrine or Platonic philosophy is a mask. I’ve thought about masks a lot over the last year. We’ve been wearing literal masks as a layer of protection against a mysterious and quite deadly virus. It’s stifled our freedom, at least that’s the argument. What exactly is that free...