Veracity and Pragmatism in Nietzsche's On Truth and Lies

In his 1873 essay On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (OT), Nietzsche tried to undermine traditional treatments of lie. Veracity, far from originating in some native will to truth, is acquired through a complex social schooling. Such schooling ensures that one learns not to look for what is strictly speaking true. Training in the use of metaphor is the key instrument here—yet metaphor is itself a process of selective inattentiveness and distortion. Traditionally, OT has been read as a first crucial move in Nietzsche’s war on Socratism (the view that, in Jankélévitch’s words, “no one can know the truth without feeling the need to tell it”). However, considering that, in Nietzsche’s eyes, such a training serves purposes, both social and individual, a likeness between his views and pragmatist account(s) of truth has also been suggested. This paper supports both views and tries to show how they work together. OT makes it clear that in Nietzsche’s view there is no abstract use of intelligence regardless of practical life; and that there is no pure impulse to truth in human beings independently of adaptive needs. Veracity is a means to solving vital problems—however, this holds of lying as well. Nietzsche speaks of a “peace treaty” individuals are willing to make with “the herd” by consenting to standard truth. This Hobbesian language might be misleading in that it suggests some sort of event which would mark the beginning of a truth-policy. Rather, the non-moral level is the one Nietzsche will later often refer to as biological. Thus, it is suggested that the discipline of veracity is part of what one might call a political anthropology of truth.