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Nietzsche's Synthesis Essay

Decent Essays
The first thesis is that “Beliefs are habits of action”, this means that the things we take to be truth are not always immutable truths of the universe, but rather they are beliefs that developed on the basis of what has worked. Because these beliefs result from observing what has worked, they can vary depending on people’s perspectives and motives, due to the nature of these beliefs, being that they are subjective, we no longer have any reason to believe that all beliefs must conform to each other to form a single consistent world. Whether or not two beliefs are consistent is irrelevant if both of them work pragmatically. The truth is whatever works.
In his second thesis, Rorty comments on Nietzsche’s attempt to see science through the lens of art, and using life to experience art, in this way he saw that poetry may be a substitute for religion. He believed that using poetry as a substitute for religion would provide more room for individuality than religion, he also thought it would be a better substitute then science which was the goal of the enlightenment thinkers. If the driving motivation behind people’s behavior is not the desire for truth, but rather the desire for happiness, then there is no way to separate the cognitive from the non-cognitive, there is no way to separate the “higher” intellect of a human which pursues things for its
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Nietzsche viewed this as a weakness and despised it. Democratic pragmatists also object to this secular alternative as it is a betrayal of the Judeo-Christian value of fraternity that democracy inherited. Pragmatists do not take issue with religious fundamentalist’s ignorance of natural science, they instead take issue with the avoidance of using democratic consensus to facilitate
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