In the passage, On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense, Freidrich Nietzsche explains that humans have created an illusion of the world, and what we think we know about the world is actually not the truth. The purpose of the passage is to evaluate the entirety of human intelligence.

An interesting argument that Nietzsche brings up at the beginning, is the world is something in itself, and that the world’s explanation, by humans, only holds its value to human beings. He brings up a comparison between a mosquito and a philosopher in the same sense that they both have individual values. First it is important to note why the comparison was made with a philosopher. The philosopher was chosen because they, of all humans, take the stand in examining the world without personal feelings, and rather a truthful point of view. Yet, as Nietzsche brings up the mosquito’s individual value, it’s only ability is to float through the air, and with that one, limited value, it goes to believe that it is flying at the center of the universe. The human philosopher is like the mosquito, because he too is self-centered. He thinks that with his one, limited human intellectual ability, that he may take on finding the “truth” of the universe. This “truth”, as Neitzsche explains, is only the truth that humans have created. Our truth is not perceived as the truth by the rest of nature, therefore it’s value is only to humans.

Nietzche furthers his argument by challenging the design of human language when used to discuss the “truth” of something. He starts with the question, “What is a word?”. The word is in itself a sound, and when heard is a nerve stimulus. As soon as the word is spoken about, it has already been made false. These words, when inferred by humans, are always going to always be different. People have their own metaphors of what that word means, therefore the meaning of it will always be subjective/ unique. Overall, proving we as an linguistic species are very limited in obtaining the actual “truth”. “Truth” is in itself, and would be a “lie” when a human use language to describe it.