On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense

What it is

On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense is a short philosophical essay written by Friedrich Nietzsche in 1873, one year after The Birth of Tragedy. It was not published during most of his active life but was released by his sister Elisabeth in 1896, after Nietzsche had become mentally ill.

Why it matters

In the essay Nietzsche argues that concepts and words are really metaphors that humans invented and then forgot were invented, coming to treat them as if they directly matched reality. He famously calls truth 'a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms'. The essay has become one of the works most associated with Nietzsche's later reputation as an influence on postmodern thought, and shows him thinking carefully about language itself, a question tied to his training as a philologist.

Look closer

• What does Nietzsche mean by comparing truths to 'worn out' coins?
• Why might an essay written in 1873 not be published until 1896, and by his sister rather than himself?
• How does thinking of words as metaphors change the way we might read any of Nietzsche's other books?