Adam asked:

I have read a limited amount of Nietzsche, and my interest in epistemology has led me to wonder if
Nietzsche has a theory of knowledge. I am asking purely for the sake of my own interest, as I have no
paper due on the subject. Three Political Science and Philosophy professors have been unable to
answer my question at all. My philosophy professor even went as far as to state that Nietzsche was
perhaps not even a real philosopher because his system of thought is so disjointed. I disagree, but
does he make a valid point nonetheless?

============

Nietzsche is the first of the major impact non-scholar philosophers, so you can defend the view that
he really is not a philosopher in the likes of Hegel or Kant. Using a rather poetic approach to the
analysis of philosophical questions, such as individuality, freedom and morality, it is only natural that
you can't make a "system" out of his body of work. The fragmented nature of his ideas, make it
difficult to follow him, as you would follow a master. But then again, isn't existentialism all about not
being able to follow?

What is knowledge to Nietzsche? I would adopt the Spinoza approach to answering this question,
and put the question in these terms: what is not knowledge to Nietzsche? All that is not related to
vitality and the search for a noble way of life. I would tend to say that knowledge for him is definitely
more about conscience of what you are and what you can achieve. Conscience is an essential part of
the process of the individual thought process, as it allows you to restrict yourself to those matters than
are indeed valuable. It is then not a question of what you can know, but more a question of what you
should know. For instance, access to the truth about God, his nature and existence, is irrelevant, as
you can read in the Antichrist, because you must know that you are without Him. The end result of not
having a particular objective in the field of knowledge, but only a starting point — conscience —
means that in fact you have an abandoned Man, abandoned to his own destiny in a way, so he must
adopt no pre-conditions.

In fact you can pretty much see what this leads to. The theory of knowledge you can find is:
conscience is the Archimedes's leaver to the remainder of what should be the things necessary for a
noble man's freedom, a man that refuses the slavish way of someone who believes and depends on
God.

So is there a theory of knowledge in Nietzsche? I would tend to say yes. But, as for as for so many
other things, not in a classical sense. Socrates said: I only know that I know nothing, and Nietzsche
says: I must know what I am. Conscience that fundamental knowledge starts with knowing that you
have to free yourself from God, "be alone" in materialistic and metaphysical sense, presents us with
an empty, but unrestricted reservoir for what could the culture of a free man could encompass.

Nuno Hipolito