Nietzsche's Critique of Reason and Language

Criticism of the concept of reason focuses on two aspects:

1. Nietzsche adopts an empiricist standpoint theory of knowledge. Reversing the traditional approach, he provides the superior sensory experience over reason: the senses show us the real world (thanks to them, experimental science is possible), while reason misrepresents the testimony of the senses, creating an apparent world and misleading us.
2. The critique of reason is an analysis of language, as this is what falsifies reality and not reason. Man has to fall necessarily into error because he is a victim of language.

Language Problems

1. It confuses us to identify words with things. Language makes us believe that the fact that there exists a word necessarily implies a reference. For example, if we have the personal pronoun "I," it means there is a unitary subject that does not change. However, in Nietzsche's opinion, under "I" there is only a plurality of instincts, moments, in constant struggle.
2. It deceives us by its performance, especially when forming concepts: the ability of generalization seems to confirm the existence of unitary and permanent things. Everything changes, but if something does not change its name, it seems to remain the same, through the work of language and its binding capacity. A concept is intended to serve to express and encompass a multiplicity of things or individual realities that, in fact, are never identical. The concept has been made arbitrarily, ignoring individual differences, as if nature has no such uniqueness. Words are a set of generalizations, hopes that custom and practice have imposed, mere conventions, or forgotten metaphors.

Man, moved by language, has been building the world. This time, we are determined to interpret reality. From the word "I," he creates the concept of will, of substance, of what is the cause of actions, underlying and remaining forever. Then, man applies this scheme to other aspects of reality. On the one hand, we see actors and actions (e.g., "it rains"), and on the other hand, we see substance and accidents (e.g., "Pedro is tall"). Therefore, Nietzsche says that the error about the self has its own favor in language. And we cannot get rid of God as we are victims of language, while we continue to believe blindly in grammar.