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On Beyond Good and Evil: Part One

Note: All quotes are from my slightly more modern translation of Beyond Good and Evil dated 1998. Section One of Beyond Good and Evil is entitled "On the Prejudices of Philosophers." Essentially, Nietzsche argues that the traditional approach to philosophy is all wrong.  Past philosophers have taken for granted an "instinct for knowledge" (Kaufmann translates this as "drive for knowledge") that is too restrictive when considering the vast forces in play that philosophy attempts to define and contemplate.  "Thus," he writes, "I do not believe that an 'instinct for knowledge' is the father of philosophy, but rather that here as elsewhere a different instinct has merely made use of knowledge (and kNOwledge) as its tool." (Aphorism 6, the strange spelling by the translator reflects Nietzsche's often joking play on words which, in this case, means "misunderstanding".) Nietzsche critiques traditional metaphysical appro