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Archivo para Julio 24th, 2009

Contra Nietzsche – II

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Con la segunda entrada de esta serie me centraré en un problema estrictamente filosófico, puesto que mi post anterior no fue muy bien entendido.

No obstante, formularé mi crítica a través de una cita al que en este blog se reconoce como todopoderoso en temas kantianos y de ética (¿acaso no hay una total equivalencia?). Me refiero, por supuesto, al norteamericano Allen W. Wood.

Hablando sobre la sabiduría—en el terreno de la ética—en Kant, nos dice:

In other words, the closest we can ever come to wisdom are the aspiration
to it and the search for it – yet not in order to find it, but rather in order
to compensate in the best way we can for our corrupt tendency to deceive
ourselves, for the advantage of our self-conceit and indolence, about what
our duties are. The attempt to think abstractly and systematically about
morality is the best way to do this because – contrary to the false doctrine later
proclaimed by Nietzsche – the will to system is the highest will to integrity of
which creatures like us are capable. Someone who had true wisdom would deserve to be called a “practical philosopher” (MS 6:163). Kant emphasizes,
however, that wisdom – an idea invented by the ancients – is more than can
be asked of any human being (VA 7:200). If we entertain this idea when
we think of ourselves as philosophers, Kant thinks, “it would do no harm
to discourage the self-conceit of someone who ventures to claim the title of
philosopher if one holds before him, in the very definition, a standard of
self-estimation that would very much lower his pretension” (KpV 5:108).
Wisdom is the best concept we can form of how we ought to be. But for
Kant, our main purpose in forming it is only to teach ourselves that no one
is wise, hence that there are no actual human beings we should try to imitate
and that the only real guide to conduct is the moral law we give ourselves.
What we accomplish in comparing ourselves with the ideal of wisdom is not
to become wiser but only to strike down the self-conceit that misleads us into
thinking we might become wise. The closest we can ever actually come to the
ideal of wisdom is to acquire that humbling item of Socratic self-knowledge.

In other words, the closest we can ever come to wisdom are the aspiration to it and the search for it – yet not in order to find it, but rather in order to compensate in the best way we can for our corrupt tendency to deceive ourselves, for the advantage of our self-conceit and indolence, about what our duties are. The attempt to think abstractly and systematically about morality is the best way to do this because – contrary to the false doctrine later proclaimed by Nietzsche – the will to system is the highest will to integrity of which creatures like us are capable.[15] Someone who had true wisdom would deserve to be called a “practical philosopher” (MS 6:163). Kant emphasizes, however, that wisdom – an idea invented by the ancients – is more than can be asked of any human being (VA 7:200).

[15] “I mistrust all systematizers and I avoid them. The will to system is a lack of integrity.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows 26, in W. Kaufmann (ed. and tr.), Portable Nietzsche (New York: Viking Press, 1954), p. 470. Nietzsche apparently supposes that there could be such a thing as the integrity of a fragment, or even of an isolated impulse or insight, divorced from the whole of which it is a part. This gets things exactly wrong, by treating stubborn adherence to the isolated impulse in disregard of the whole as a necessary condition for integrity. But the name for this trait is not “integrity”; it is “irresponsibility.”[1]

Personalmente creo que, como con cualquier otra cosa, se puede sistematizar con integridad (*ehem*Kant*ehem*), al igual que sin integridad (*ehem*Hegel*ehem*). Que Nietzsche hable en absolutos sobre un punto que me parece de total importancia en el ámbito de la filosofía moral, y de forma tan errónea, no es otra cosa que irresponsabilidad, como bien dice Wood.

[1] La cita es, por supuesto, de Kantian Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Páginas 153 y 308.

Escrito por Zimmerman

24/07/2009 a 12:15

Escrito en Cita, Crítica, Filosofía, Post, Ética

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