doppelganger
Through the Looking Glass
I was reviewing Twilight of the Idols looking for an excerpt I wanted for another thread today when I re-discovered Nietzsche's discussion of the error of false causality underlying morality:
How pervasive is the error of confusing "truth" with the effects of "believing something to be true"? Can you think of examples of this error? How about the confusion of the "state of of consciousness" with its causes?
The "explanation" of agreeable general feelings: They are produced by trust in God. They are produced by the consciousness of good deeds (the so-called "good conscience" -- a physiological state which at times looks so much like good digestion that it is hard to tell them apart). They are produced by the successful termination of some enterprise (a naive fallacy: the successful termination of some enterprise does not by any means give a hypochondriac or a Pascal agreeable general feelings). They are produced by faith, charity, and hope -- the Christian virtues.
In truth, all these supposed explanations are resultant states and, as it were, translations of pleasurable or unpleasurable feelings into a false dialect: one is in a state of hope because the basic physiological feeling is once again strong and rich; one trusts in God because the feeling of fullness and strength gives a sense of rest. Morality and religion belong altogether to the psychology of error: in every single case, cause and effect are confused; or truth is confused with the effects of believing something to be true; or a state of consciousness is confused with its causes.
How pervasive is the error of confusing "truth" with the effects of "believing something to be true"? Can you think of examples of this error? How about the confusion of the "state of of consciousness" with its causes?