Faith in Science?

[Mudhammam]

I'm getting a little suspicious that equivocations on the word "faith" are going to lead to some misunderstandings. It seems to me that Nietzsche's "faith" is equivalent to what we'd call pragmatic philosophical assumptions.

For example, you could argue that the believe in an obective world is "faith." You can't really know what's behind it, but you act as though you can. But you could also see this assumption as a definition of the human context: things are true which are true with our senses and way of thinking as human beings. It doesn't matter if we are in the Matrix or the Mind of God or whatever, because all the things that are true in this context still hold.

Those are fair points. I don't take Nietzsche's statements on "faith" so far as applicable to logical axioms and immediate perceptions per se, from which we can speak intelligibly about experience regardless if it's in the context of objectivity or not, though it may correctly extend that far in certain philosophical conversations, but I take him to be speaking on the underlying morality of science. Is there a moral assumption, even an implicit one--an ought, a should, an obligation--to behold science or reason as a sort of imperative; is anyone justified in the demands that they expect truth to satisfy, or is the criteria for truth simply defined by the goals and ultimately the will of each person?