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Single Idea 5652

[filed under theme 3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 8. Subjective Truth ]

Full Idea

For Nietzsche, the true belief is the one which augments one's power.

Gist of Idea

True beliefs are those which augment one's power

Source

report of Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13

Book Ref

Scruton,Roger: 'A Short History of Modern Philosophy' [ARK 1985], p.193


A Reaction

Scruton probably had in mind Idea 4534, from The Will to Power, but wider reading suggests this is not Nietzsche's view of truth, which was much more robust. Nietzsche was obsessed with identifying the motivation for a love of truth.

Related Idea

Idea 4534 'Truth' is the will to be master over the multiplicity of sensations [Nietzsche]


The 15 ideas with the same theme [no truth, apart from the way individuals see things]:

Observation and applied thought are always true [Epicurus]
Truth is clear and distinct conception - of which it is hard to be sure [Descartes]
My general rule is that everything that I perceive clearly and distinctly is true [Descartes]
Someone may think a thing is 'clear and distinct', but be wrong [Leibniz on Descartes]
For Spinoza, 'adequacy' is the intrinsic mark of truth [Spinoza, by Scruton]
Choose the true hypothesis, which is the most intelligible one [Leibniz]
We hold a proposition true if we are ready to follow it, and can't see any objections [Leibniz]
Traditional views of truth are tautologies, and truth is empty without a subject [Kierkegaard, by Scruton]
Subjective truth can only be sustained by repetition [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
I recognise knowledge, but it is the truth by which I can live and die that really matters [Kierkegaard]
The highest truth we can get is uncertainty held fast by an inward passion [Kierkegaard]
We don't create logic, time and space! The mind obeys laws because they are true [Nietzsche]
True beliefs are those which augment one's power [Nietzsche, by Scruton]
'Epistemic' truth depends what rational creatures can verify [Davidson]
Anti-realists see truth as our servant, and epistemically contrained [Friend]