This week, Scott and Karl discuss Nietzche’s On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense.

Written in 1873 one year after The Birth of Tragedy, it was published by his sister Elisabeth in 1896 when Nietzsche was already mentally ill.

In just 24 pages, the work wrestles with epistemological questions about the nature of truth and language, and how they relate to our formation of concepts.

Nietzsche’s primary question is this: Where do you have the desire for truth? For him, it is difficult to explain where any drive to truth comes from when the human intellect functions to deceive us.

If you’ve never encountered Nietzche before, Karl warns, “He’s a really good philosopher with a hammer.”

Tune in to learn more about the social roots of truth-seeking according to Nietzche and what happens when humans get concepts.