ON NATUS SOLIS
Michael Vossen
May 7, 2006

What is it about a sun that makes it bright? What traits must a person have to become a sun? How does natus solis occurs? This essay will attempt to answer such questions in its analysis of Nietzsche’s claims on nobility. The essay will first look at Nietzsche’s praise of Greek nobility and criticism of Christian morality as to isolate the traits that characterize a noble person. The essay will then suggest an interpretation of Nietzsche in which it is shown how a commitment to intellectual integrity about oneself and worldview drives people capable of dealing with truth to "create" a self-affirming perspective on the world, which in turn functions like the value-creation ability that Nietzsche praises. This account will also look at ways a person can drop such a commitment, and argue that the result of which can be considered Nietzsche’s main target of criticism. Further, this account will also help to clarify some of Nietzsche’s remarks about truth and argumentation.

WHAT IS NOBILITY?

To begin, let it be asked, “What is noble about the noble? In what ways are they bright?” In answering this question, it is the traits that Nietzsche seems to find intrinsically praiseworthy about noble people that are sought. An improper answer to the question would be to look at the utility of nobility for some purpose, for this would be to evaluate the nobility insofar as they enable the purpose, not for what is distinctive about the nobility itself. Thus, the answer to the question should look for distinctive traits or capacities that noble persons have that distinguishes them from non-noble people.

Nietzsche’s The Genealogy Of Morals is a useful place to begin to answer the question. One trait that seems to be distinctively noble here is the ability of nobility to create values. Nietzsche’s discussion of the origin of good from Greek nobility’s word for “the Truthful” provides an account for how value creation works. (BGE 205 & GOM 29) In Nietzsche’s account, the Greek nobility look to themselves and find “...one who is, who possesses reality, who is actual, who is true...”(GOM 29) Here, a Greek noble looks to himself, discovers that he is strong, fast, and skilled, and then affirms the characteristics he finds in himself, giving them value and naming them good. This self-affirmation also serves to create new values for others; when the noble surveys the populace, he honors those and only those who are like him. As Nietzsche writes “...every star is such an egoist-it honors itself in them and in the rights it cedes to them;...”(BGE 265) Values are created in that a self-affirming person’s creation of a positive attitude towards his traits and capacities can be applied to other people with similar capacities, such that those traits in general can be seen as valuable. As such, nobles create a perspective in which certain phenomena have value, so a noble person can be described as a value-creator. In this way, a noble person fits the metaphor of a sun, as he sheds light on the world in a way as to make certain perspectives knowable, and his light is valuable to some objects he shines on.

One mistake in reading Nietzsche here is to infer from his praise of Greek nobility that Nietzsche simply sees as noble those values that Greek nobility sees as noble. Nietzsche praise of Greek aristocracy’s ‘strength’ should not be thought of as praising the set of attributes hardiness, speed, and skill, etc that they find valuable, for Nietzsche allows for those with an apposing set of attributes to be noble as well. For example, Nietzsche seems to allow for noble Jews, who have an inverted set of values to the Greek aristocracy. Nietzsche portrays the Jews as claiming “...the wretched alone are the good; the poor, impotent, lowly alone are the good; the suffering, deprived, sick, ugly alone are blessed by God, blessedness is for them alone...”(GOM 34) The Jew’s ability to maintain such a perspective should be considered noble, as “...every noble morality develops from a triumphant affirmation of itself...”(GOM 36)As such, strength for Nietzsche seems to come from an honest affirmation of oneself and one’s conditions. So, the Jews who are suffering, sickly, ugly, wretched and impotent are noble in that there affirmation of self serves to give value to the conditions that lead. This helps explain why Nietzsche claims “The Jews, however, are beyond any doubt the strongest, toughest and purest race now living in Europe; they know how to prevail even under the worst conditions (even better than under favorable conditions)...”(BGE 187)

The confusion in reading Nietzsche may occur because the target of Nietzsche’s criticism, Christianity, adopts many values of the Jewish people. Christianity, however, violates multiple conditions for nobility that Judaism does not. Again, this seems to suggest that is not the valuing of a certain set of attributes that Nietzsche praises, but rather the method in which a person or group comes to value something. One problem with Christianity as Nietzsche characterizes it is that Christianity’s values emerge from ressintement as apposed to self-affirmation.

One important aspect of self-affirmation is that it allows for a pathos of distance. Pathos of distance occurs when a self-affirming person notices that others are not like himself; they do not have the ability to do the things he does, be it running fast, or living as a sickly person. As such, the other people do not posses attributes valued by the self-affirming person, and are thus judged as not good, for they do not measure up to the self-affirming person’s standard. The judgment ‘not good’ is then termed ‘bad’. Ressintement effectively reverses the process. A man of ressintement creates the value ‘evil’ from his hatred and anger at people he takes to have wronged him. Rather than a self-afirmation, the man of ressentment wills a sort of other-negation. The man of ressentment values himself insofar as he is not evil, so creates his conception of good as the negation of evil. This creation of value lacks the self-affirming aspect.
Further, while Christianity seems to value wretchedness, poorness, and lowliness like Judaism, Christianity is dishonest with itself, as it values these characteristics as a means to what it really wants, power. If Christianity were self-affirming, if it did value its conditions of existence, then it would have no need for a kingdom of heaven, in which those currently powerful are made low, and made to suffer. As partaking in such a kingdom is the goal of Christianity, Christians are dishonest about the characteristics it values; Christians do not really affirm their own conditions, their poverty, humility and lowliness, for what they really want is to have the power to inflict harm onto those they are resentful against. Given this dishonesty and dissatisfaction with itself, it is clear that Christianity is apposed to the traits Nietzche finds noble; “While the noble man lives in trust and openness with himself..., the man of ressintement is neither upright, nor naive, nor honest and straightforward with himself.”(GOM38)

To summarize: people who are noble are characterized by value creation, self-affirmation, and being honest about themselves. These traits are related to one another, and are also related to truth; being true about oneself, being true in reality, and being true with one’s words. The absence of nobility occurs because one or more of these conditions are violated.

HOW DOES NOBILITY ARISE?

Thus far elements of Nietzsche’s concept of nobility have been identified and characterized. While this sheds some light on Nietzsche’s concept, an account of how nobility arises in a person seems much more illuminating than a description of a noble person. So, an explanation of the Natus Solis will be attempted. Such an account will show that the possession of and adherence with an intellectual conscience leads a person to become noble. That this account can be attributed to Nietzsche is shown through the coherence of some of Nietzsche’s claims with it, and the interpretive power the account has on such claims. Further, given Nietzsche’s claim “We, however, want to become who we are-human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who create themselves!...we must become physicists in order to be creators in this sense...So, long live physics! And even more long live what compels us to it-our honesty!”(GS, 335), such an account explains why Nietzsche sees honesty compelling us to “want to become who we are”, to be self-legislating, which seems equivalent to being self-affirmers, and to be value creators.

What an intellectual conscience is should first be explained, While Nietzsche does not give an explicit explanation of intellectual conscience, the concept can be broadly taken to capture a person’s willingness to be completely honest with himself. As such, a person with an intellectual conscience tries to find justification for his practices, habits, and beliefs. So, when Nietzsche writes “While the noble man lives in trust and openness with himself... the man of ressintement is neither upright, nor naive, nor honest and straightforward with himself.” trust and openness with oneself can be seen as aspects of having an intellectual conscience, along with those aspects the man of ressintement fails to posses. (GOM38)

If the requirements of an intellectual conscience are taken seriously, then a problem arises. A commitment to intellectual integrity is not a trivial commitment for Nietzsche. The commitment is hard to maintain, for Nietzsche holds that truth is not pleasant, nor often life or action enabling. Insofar as a person honestly analyzes his beliefs and situations, many of the facts he discovers will probably disturb him. If a person is entirely honest with himself, he will know hard truths about himself, such as that he is not as handsome as others, or not as smart, or not as strong or some other apparent deficiency. The person will probably realize that he understands the world less than he might initially think, that many practices and actions of his are unjustified, and that the world is not a pleasant place. Some places where Nietzsche seems to have this view are in his discussion of the wisdom of Silenus, and of Hamlet. Thus, truth can be seen as a problem for those committed to intellectual integrity, a fact that is perhaps obscured by Socrates’ influence on western culture.

A person’s response to the problem of truth can be seen as a measure of strength, of both integrity and fortitude. The weak reaction to dealing with the pain and hardness of truth is to drop the commitment to intellectual integrity. This can conceivably occur in various ways, but usually involves needing to halt the process of being critical and questioning oneself. One such reaction is for a person to believe that he has discovered something that is “certain”, that one has discovered “the truth”. Appeals to the certainty of a discovery are a way to avoid the hardship involved in analyzing something further. This explains some of Nietzsche’s claims. For example, the claim “Believers and their need to believe.-The extent to which one needs a faith in order to flourish, how much that is ‘firm’ and that one does not want shaken because one clings to it-that is a measure of one’s strength (or, to speak more clearly, one’s weakness).”(GS, 347) should be taken to diagnose the need for faith and certainty as a need to abandon an intellectual conscience, for adherence to an intellectual conscience requires a person to ‘shake’ up his beliefs in being self-critical. This can also be seen in the statement “How much truth does a spirit endure, how much truth does it dare? More and more that became for me the real measure of value. Error (faith in the ideal) is not blindness, error is cowardice.”(EC 218) Here, it is important to note that error’s being cowardice, rather then blindness, treats error as the inability to undergo the hardships required by an intellectual conscience, not as the inability to discover something.

This account help to explain Nietzsche’s hostility to supposed absolute and objective truths. These truths both seem unjustified, for the appeal to some experience outside of man’s possible experience, and are often used as definitive answers to questions. As such, they attempt to escape the commitment to analysis required by an intellectual conscience. It seems like for this reason, Nietzsche writes “God is a gross answer, an indelicacy against us thinkers- at bottom merely a gross prohibition for us: you shall not think!”(EC 237)

The desire for certainty can also be seen as a desire to be commanded, for in searching for certainty in action, a weak willed person needs a lasting set of rules on how to behave that are objectively right, as otherwise he may discover that his action are unjustified. This is deceptive in that it ignores the particularity of certain situations; rules ignore context of the situation. As Nietzsche writes “...Your judgment ‘that is right’ has a prehistory in your drives, inclinations, aversions, experiences, and what you have failed to experience; you have to ask, ‘how did it emerge there? And then also, ‘what is really impelling me to listen to it?’”(GS 335)

The account so far has dealt with the weak response to the problem of truth’s hardness. How do people who remain committed to intellectual conscience deal with the problem? The intellectual conscience person is restrained in the following ways:

Commitment to intellectual conscience forces a person to preserve the truth of certain facts about life, such as I’m constantly ill, my books do not sell well, women avoid me, etc.

Commitment to intellectual conscience also forces one not to posit any metaphysical entities that do not have good justification to believe in, or a “certain” truth.

Intellectual conscience requires a person not to be a self-deceiver, as beliefs can be about the self, and self-deception is having a false belief about oneself. Finally, insofar as beliefs are about the world, intellectual conscience requires that we do not posit non-existing entities; that we have good reasons for believing facts about the world

So, in dealing with hard truths, the intellectually conscience person has limited options. As such, the intellectually conscience person needs to create a “perspective” in which facts about oneself are viewed positively: to be self-affirming, despite hard truths about one’s circumstances. This requires ones attitude toward facts to change, while the content of the facts remain. In this way, a “gay science” is needed; an attitude that enables those strong enough to laugh at hard facts. This change in attitude seems to be done through taking oneself to be of highest value; by honestly affirming one’s self and the condition for this self. This is somewhat like being able to respond positively to Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence demon; to judge that all the facts about oneself are good, because one judges himself as good.
The demand of intellectual conscience for coherence in world-view makes the positive interpretation of self and world an ongoing process. New facts must be assimilated in justification for the account created by to meet the analytic demands of an intellectual conscience. This seems to make for a process of interpretation/analysis/re-interpretation/analysis/..., in views of the self, or of explanation/analysis/re-explain/analysis/... when examining the world. Given Nietzsche’s claims on the perspectival nature of truth, this process can be thought of as unending, since the more perspectives that are brought to bear on a set of facts, the heartier the knowledge is gained from such viewing. Since it seems like Nietzsche suggests infinite perspectives can be given, then the process is unending. Again, the process is not viciously unending, for perspectives are maintained when they are overcome.

Nietzsche’s claim that we must be Physicists makes sense under this analysis, as a similar process can be though of as occurring in physics. For example, consider the competition between wave and particle theories of light. There were two accounts of the nature of light that explain some phenomena; two “interpretations” of a set of facts. The facts are simple things such as “mirrors reflect the sun”, “light spreads when put through a slit, etc”. Over time, difficulties arise in the accounts as new facts are discovered that an account cannot explain, or the account doesn’t predict correctly. The difficulties are then resolved with the introduction of a new theory of light, a new “perspective” on a phenomenon. The old account is still preserved-not contradicted or refuted, in that something of the old accounts perspective remains under the new account.

Thus, the resolution given by theories performs something like a sublation: a new theory on how to understand old phenomena is built like a temple out of the rubble of old theories. Again though, the commitment to truth does not allow such a new theory to be uncritized for long; “Every attainment, every step forward in knowledge, follows from courage, from hardness against oneself, from cleanliness in relation to oneself.”(EC 218)

This new criticism should be thought of as being looked forward to by noble people, as new problems are something to triumph over. The self-affirming person is able to handle these new problems as his self-love makes him value his capacity to deal with the hardships of analysis. Dealing with such problems has become a condition for his flourishing once the self affirmation occurs; strength is “...a desire to overcome, a desire to become master, a thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs...”(GoM 45) Finally, this process of addressing and overcoming valid problems serves to strengthen theory, such that it can be truly said that “Will to truth is a making firm, a making true durable, an abolition of the false character of things, a reinterpretation of it into beings. ‘Truth’ is therefore not something there, that might be found or discovered-but something that must be created and that gives a name to the process”(WP 552)

CONCLUDING REMARKS

While I generally avoid such a section in my essays, some concluding remarks seem appropriate here. While I doubt that this essay has provided a definitive argument for the view sketched, given its coherence with many of Nietzsche’s claims, it is probably onto something. A clearer account would need to fit Nietzsche’s views on perspectival truth in more, as well as explain the apparent analytic process that a person committed to his intellectual conscience undergoes in more detail. The merit of my account is that its explanation of truth as a problem for Neitzsche, a problem of maintaining analysis, seems truer to Neitzsche’s writings than other explanations.

Notes

GoM: The Genealogy of Morals. Citations are by page.
GS: The Gay Science. Citations are by section.
BGE: Beyond Good and Evil. Citations are by section.
EC: Ecce Homo. Citations are by page.
WP: Will to Power. Citations are by section.


Works Cited

Gemes, Ken. “Nietzsche’s critique of truth”. In Nietzsche. Oxford University Press. 2001.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Genealogy of Morals. Random House, Inc. 1967.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Ecce Homo. Random House, Inc. 1967.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Random House, Inc. 1966.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. Cambridge University Press. 2001.