Fictions Less Utile: Nietzsche on Living Artistically

The great irony of Nietzsche’s philosophy is that we continue to believe in the truths that he has exposed as illusions even after denying them with remarkable tenacity. Escaping from the habits of convention is no easy thing, especially for creatures like ourselves who have been cultivated to seek clarity in discourse and to eschew vagueness in judgement. As Nietzsche will repeat time and again, our thinking abounds with useful fictions without which the human animal could not survive. And yet for Nietzsche, philosophy is not of this order. The great adventure of life is the departure from thinking in all predictable forms. An experiment in thinking has to be an experiment in living or it is nothing. From his idiosyncratic writings on tragedy to his late speculations on nihilism, Nietzsche explores the powers of art to transform life, to liberate life from the structures which constrain it.