Diseño de alcantarillados según RIDAA 1944

psychological and moral ulterior guiding motives informing the inven- tion of metaphysical dualism are revealed, this dualism will be refuted. He writes: ‘When one has disclosed these methods as the foundation of

all extant religions and metaphysical systems, one has refuted them.’11

Moreover, Nietzsche suggests that rationalism, motivated by the will to truth, ultimately performs this examination of itself. He writes:

All great things perish through themselves, through an act of self-cancella- tion: thus the law of life wills it, the law of the necessary ‘self-overcoming’ in the essence of life – in the end the call always goes forth to the lawgiver himself: ‘ patere legem, quam ipse tulisti’ [submit to the law which you yourself have established].12

Metaphysical realism, in its cognitivist guise, becomes an untenable philosophical position, according to Nietzsche, once the will to truth undermines itself. The will to truth can no longer endorse the belief in the ‘true’ world once its srcins in a reactive and ascetic morality that is not disinterested but motivated by a hatred of our drives and instincts has been revealed. He contends that the belief in a ‘true’ world, when subject to the demands of intellectual honesty, is exposed as a partial point of view ‘implanted by centuries of moral interpretation’ and there-

fore as a belief we are no longer ‘allowed’ to entertain.13 _{The consequent}

collapse of the cognitivist version of metaphysical realism indicates, in Nietzsche’s view, the untenability of the extra-perspectival conception of knowing inherent in the God’s Eye View of knowledge. The motivations informing rationalist metaphysics turn out not to be disinterested but rather a distorted view on things. Although this is an important aspect of his complete rejection of metaphysical realism, Nietzsche argues that the revelation that Reason is not an objective and disinterested cognitive tool that facilitates access to the world as it is in itself does not result in the complete collapse of metaphysical realism. Rather, metaphysical realism merely adopts a non-cognitivist stance with regard to the ‘real’ world. In so doing, the possibility of extra-perspectival knowledge and its correspondent non-empirical object are upheld as ideals even though they are unattainable in practice.

In his outline of the history of philosophy in Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche traces the progressive demise of the rationalist conception of reality and our knowledge of it:

How the ‘Real World’ at last Became a Myth HISTORY OF AN ERROR

1. The real world, attainable to the wise, the pious, the virtuous man – he dwells in it,he is it.

Nietzsche’s Perspectival Theory of Knowledge 57

(Oldest form of the idea, relatively sensible, simple, convincing. Transcription of the proposition: ‘I, Plato,am the truth’).

2. The real world, unattainable for the moment, but promised to the wise, the pious, the virtuous man (‘to the sinner who repents’).

(Progress of the idea: it grows more refined, more enticing, more_{incomprehensible –it becomes a woman, it becomes Christian . . . )} 3. The real world, unattainable, undemonstrable, cannot be promised, but

even when merely thought of a consolation, a duty, an imperative. (Fundamentally the same old sun, but shining through mist and scep-

ticism; the idea become sublime, pale, northerly, Königsbergian.) 4. The real world – unattainable? Unattained, at any rate. And if unattained

alsounknown. Consequently also no consolation, no redemption, no duty: how could we have a duty towards something unknown?

(The grey of dawn. First yawnings of reason. Cock-crow of positiv- ism.)

5. The ‘real world’ – an idea no longer of any use, not even a duty any longer – an idea grown useless, superfluous, consequently a refuted idea: let us abolish it!

(Broad daylight; breakfast; return of cheerfulness and bons sens; Plato blushes for shame; all free spirits run riot.)

6. We have abolished the real world: what world is left? the apparent one, perhaps? — But no! with the real world we have also abolished the apparent world!

(Mid-day; moment of the shortest shadow; end of the longest error; zenith of mankind; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.)14

Nietzsche’s complaint here centres on his belief that philosophy has operated within a dualistic, two-world model. According to this model, our knowledge can be adequate to reality only if we disengage ourselves from our particular anthropocentric interests. Stages 1 to 4 in Nietzsche’s history of philosophy represent this two-world mode of thinking which has its srcins in Platonism and Christianity. Nietzsche places Kant at stage 3, thus indicating he considers that Kant too operates within this two-world mode of thinking. According to Nietzsche, Kant retains the rationalist appeal to non-empirical reality in the guise of the inaccessible and unknowable thing-in-itself. In so doing Kant adopts, in Nietzsche’s view, the non-cognitivist strain of metaphysical realism.

Nietzsche argues that Kant belongs to this metaphysical realist cat- egory because he retains the thing-in-itself as a metaphysical hangover from rationalist metaphysics. This hangover results, in Nietzsche’s view, from Kant’s acceptance of the demise of unmediated conceptual knowl- edge coupled with his retention of the idea that our human senses are unable to provide insight into the ultimate nature of reality. Nietzsche