MUSIC, PHILOSOPHY, AND MODERNITY

form, feeling, metaphysics, and music 35

world which we do not control. In the case of truth the temptation to

self-deception is equally present, but the very idea of truth also entails

that which is not just a result of the exercise of our will. We do in one

sense produce truth by using language, but this does not mean that the

truth of what we say is our product.

One can question some of the more emphatic accounts of

metaphysics 1 on the basis of these ideas. Horkheimer and Adorno,

for example, much like Heidegger, interpret metaphysics inDialectic

of Enlightenmentas being generated by the fear of the threats posed by

nature. Scientific truth is therefore generated by the need to control the

natural world, rather than by the desire for objectivity. This assumption

follows Nietzsche’s argument, in relation to metaphysical attempts to

arrive at pure truths, that ‘It is something new in history that cognition

wants to be more than a means’ (Nietzsche 2000 : 2 , 126 ).^10 Truth is

here seen first of all as generated by the resistance of the world to our

needs and desires, which is apt for many aspects of truth, but it is then

further interpreted in terms of its notional source. But what could make

this interpretation true? What goes missing here is precisely the idea

of the independence of truth from what is in our control. Even if the

source of truth were an unconscious drive which employs the notion of

truth as a means towards the goal of control, we would still need ways

of validating this knowledge that did not depend on this source: other-

wise the claim is viciously circular. The important thing is therefore to

find a way of keeping in view what led to the conception of metaphysics

of Heidegger and ofDialectic of Enlightenmentwithout depending on

questionable assumptions about the ground of metaphysics.

If the modern natural sciences are indeed the concrete result of

what began as metaphysics, it is clear that, although they can reduce

the threat to human survival by controlling many aspects of nature,

they do not fulfil other demands which gave rise to philosophy. This

is not least because their effects can also be at least as threatening as

nature itself. Even though scientific theories are based on the pressure

of an objectivity that we cannot overcome by our will, their effects in the

context of a human world that is also constituted in terms of emotions

can produce a ‘second nature’ which mimics the worst aspects of the

first. The truth about this second nature must be located in the under-

standing of intentionality, and this is what resists explanation in terms

10 I have used the Schlechta edition, as it is now available on a very reasonably priced
searchablecd-rom.