REVIEWING MODERN SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE WITHIN THE SCOPE OF NIETZSCHE’S IRRATIONALISM

Abstract

Human knowledge has been constrained into two major bifurcations; knowledge based on factual experience and those based on value, instincts and intuitions. Scientific knowledge is claimed to be based on empirically verifiable data; thereby being considered as the most reliable system of inquiry ever developed by human civilizations. Scientific knowledge is esteemed to be a systematic inquiry, which emphasizes the superiority of human reason over human intuitions, instincts and impulses. However, Friedrich Nietzsche expresses strong disgust for the over-glorification and exaltation of reason over those elements of human nature that serve as alternative sources of knowledge such as dark strivings, vitalism, intuitions, instincts and impulses. Nietzsche criticizes all forms of system- building as expressed in the universalization of fixed scientific methods, universal conceptions of truth and knowledge and the very idea of unquestionable religious morality and social norms. For Nietzsche, what is needed for the liberation of the human soul; and the realization of the ―will to power‖, is the abandonment of reason and the celebration of the dark instincts, creative intuitions and animalistic outbursts, which represent the irrational part of human nature. The ―will‖, which is a symbol of irrationality, defines human nature in its crudest form. This work proposes two major contentions: the first is that scientific knowledge is exclusive, as it denies the authenticity, validity and efficacy of other non-rational and non-systematic modes of knowing. The second contention of the paper is that there exist, non-rational, authentic, valid and efficacious elements of human nature that serve as reliable modes of apprehending knowledge, beneath and beyond rational and systematic epistemic modes, which are elaborated by Friedrich Nietzsche in his philosophical irrationalism.