How did Friedrich Nietzsche connect language and metaphor to claims of truth?

Friedrich Nietzsche argued that human claims to "truth" are fundamentally mediated by the rhetorical and representational nature of language. He contended that what philosophers traditionally regard as sacred or absolute truth is, in reality, a "movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms".1

According to Nietzsche, these so-called truths are simply metaphors that have become "worn out and drained of sensuous force" through long usage, leading people to mistakenly perceive them as fixed, objective, or canonical. He viewed the intellect as a practical instrument for survival rather than a source of objective insight; therefore, language functions as a tool for dissimulation, allowing humans to master a complex environment by creating illusions that they eventually forget are illusions.21

Ultimately, Nietzsche posited that the relationship between concepts and the things they designate is a matter of convention and habit rather than an intrinsic connection to reality. By exposing truth as a series of rhetorical approximations, he challenged the Western philosophical tradition's claim to possess direct access to the "in-itself" or absolute being.1