New knowledge as creation: Notes when reading nietzsche on evolution, power, and knowledge

Abstract

This paper elaborates on a radical turn in epistemology, taking Rappaport's evolutionary significance of lies and Zahavi's handicap principle as starting points. I argue that only a non-adaptionist view is appropriate to understand the progress of human knowledge. I show that this view inhere's Nietzsche's complex approach to human existence, who thus can be regarded as an important precursor of epistemology. Interestingly, Nietzsche was a formidable critic of Darwinism. The core idea emerging from this discussion is that all knowledge has to be conceived as a creative process which does not simply adapt to the outside world as object of epistemic activity, but which transforms it. Hence, knowledge is inextricably related to power as a fundamental category. The paper contains a detailed index of relevant arguments in Nietzsche's collected works.