New Knowledge as Creation: Notes When Reading Nietzsche on Evolution, Power and Knowledge

Abstract

This paper elaborates on a radical turn in evolutionary 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 evolutionary 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.

Keywords: Handicap principle, non-adaptationist evolutionary epistemology, Nietzsche, creativity of knowledge

JEL Classification: B40, Z00