Nietzsche on Knowledge and Truth: Excerpt from the Gay Science

Nietzsche's explanation of the origin of knowledge is one that deduces most attempts to error and misdirection. Nietzsche begins his account by attacking all past endeavours of intellect by asserting that, "over immense periods of time the intellect produced nothing but errors"(169). He continues by characterizing the progression of theories as "erroneous articles of faith, which were continually inherited"(169). He also systematically denies most of the early epistemological philosophers' claims of primary qualities, the existence …

…this time knowledge falls victim to the error of our senses, and truly becomes part of us, in that it know perceivese the world through our bodies. This meshing of knowledge and person defines a thinker as "that being in whome the impulse for truth and those life-preserving errors clash for their first fight, after the impulse of truth has proved to be also a life-preserving power"(171), which defines the state of our knowledge today.