This essay represents a novel contribution to Nietzschean studies by combining an assessment of Friedrich Nietzsche’s challenging uses of “truth” and the “eternal return” with his insights drawn from Indian philosophies. Specifically, drawing on Martin Heidegger’s Nietzsche, I argue that Nietzsche’s critique of a static philosophy of being underpinning conceptual truth is best understood in line with the Theravada Buddhist critique of “self ” and “ego” as transitory. In conclusion, I find that Nietzsche’s “eternal return” can be understood as a (...) direct inversion of “nirvana”: Nietzsche celebrates profound attachment to each and every moment, independent from its pleasurable or distasteful registry. (shrink)

I investigate the consequences of Nietzsche's perspectivism for notions of truth and objectivity, and show how the metaphor of visual perspective motivates an epistemology that avoids self-referential difficulties. Perspectivism's claim that every view is only one view, applied to itself, is often supposed to preclude the perspectivist's ability to offer reasons for her epistemology. Nietzsche's arguments for perspectivism depend on “internal reasons”, which have force not only in their own perspective, but also within the standards of alternative perspectives. Internal reasons (...) allow a perspectivist argument against dogmatism without presupposing aperspectival criteria for theory choice. Nietzsche also offers “internal” conceptions of truth and objectivity which reduce them to a matter of meeting our epistemic standards. This view has pluralistic implications, which conflict with common sense, but it is nevertheless consistent and plausible. Nietzsche's position is similar to Putnam's recent internalism, and this is due to their common Kantian heritage. (shrink)

Introduction Undoubtedly it would be useful to interpret the "new Nietzsche," as he is often called, within the larger contexts of "Nietzsche and the ...

This thesis seeks to make a contribution to the history of modern continental philosophy by establishing a structural link between the thoughts of Friedrich Nietzsche and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. I argue that this link lies in the question of truth: both thinkers criticise the traditional concept of truth as objectivity. However, they both find in the existence of this very concept a problem that its rejection alone does not solve. What is it in our natural axistence that gave rise to the (...) notion of truth? It is this questioning which I call the "question of truth". I locate three ways in which the question of truth informs Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty's thoughts. Firstly, both thinkers propose a genealogy of the concept of "truth," one in which they suggest that our natural existence is structured in a pre-objective way: existing means making implicit truthclaims. Further, they each explain the appearance of our belief in truth in terms of a radicalisation of this implicit attribution of truth (Chapters I and IV). Secondly, both thinkers seek to recover the pre-objective ground from which truth as an erroneous concept arose. They propose strikingly similar methods to do so (Chapters II and V). This ground, once uncovered, must be examined. This investigation leads both Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty to ontological considerations. They both ask how we must conceive of a Being whose structure allows for the existence of the belief in truth, or as I argue, error. As a conclusion, I suggest that both thinkers' investigations of the question of truth lead them to conceive of Being in a similar way, as the process of self-falsification by which indeterminate Being presents itself as determinate (Chapters III and VI). (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche haunts the modern world. His elusive writings with their characteristic combination of trenchant analysis of the modern predicament and suggestive but ambiguous proposals for dealing with it have fascinated generations of artists, scholars, critics, philosophers, and ordinary readers. Maudemarie Clark's highly original study gives a lucid and penetrating analytical account of all the central topics of Nietzsche's epistemology and metaphysics, including his views on truth and language, his perspectivism, and his doctrines of the will-to-power and the eternal recurrence. (...) The Nietzsche who emerges from these pages is a subtle and sophisticated philosopher, whose highly articulated views are of continuing interest as contributions to a whole range of philosphical issues. This remarkable reading of Nietzsche will interest not only philosophers, but also readers in neighboring disciplines such as literature and intellectual history. (shrink)

Using Alasdair MacIntyre as a foil, I defend what I take to be a viable Nietzschean genealogical account, showing that a proper perspectivism is neither perniciously subjectivist nor absolutist. I begin by arguing against MacIntyre’s assertion that genealogists are committed to the view that rationality requires neutrality and that as there is no neutrality, there is no rationality. I then continue by offering something of a reconstruction of Nietzsche’s view, designed partly to clarify the error pinpointed in MacIntyre’s arguments, but (...) primarily to amplify the Nietzschean solution. This reconstruction involves claiming that Nietzsche is committed to three different senses of “truth:” the “Truth” (with a capital “T”) of correspondence theories, “truth” which is really pragmatic knowledge that helps us survive, and, finally, “truth” that is nothing more that “metaphors and metonyms” which are falsely taken to be useful to survival. (shrink)

Why are we still intrigued by Nietzsche? This chapter argues that sustained interest stems from Nietzsche’s challenge to what we might call the ‘staticism’ inherent in our ordinary experience. Staticism can be defined, roughly speaking, as the view that the world is a collection of enduring, re-identifiable objects that change only very gradually and according to determinate laws. The chapter discusses Nietzsche’s rejection of remnants of staticism in Hegel and Schopenhauer (1). It outlines why Nietzsche deems belief in any variant (...) of the staticist picture as problematic (2); and examines his adualistic-dialetheic stance towards, for example, first-person and third-person descriptions in the philosophy of mind (3). The chapter closes with a discussion of the contributions of "Nietzsche on Time and History". (shrink)

Best known for having declared the death of God, Nietzsche was a thinker thoroughly absorbed in the Christian tradition in which he was born and raised. Yet while the atheist Nietzsche is well known, the pious Nietzsche is seldom recognised and rarely understood. Redeeming Nietzsche examines the residual theologian in the most vociferous of atheists. Fraser demonstrates that although Nietzsche rejected God, he remained obsessed with the question of human salvation. Examining his accounts of art, truth, morality and eternity, Nietzsche's (...) thought is revealed to be a series of experiments in redemption. (shrink)

On the Genealogy of Morals contains the puzzling claim that the will to truth is the last expression of the ascetic ideal. Part I of this essay argues that Nietzsche’s claim is that our will to truth functions as a tool allowing us to take a passive stance to the world, leading us to repress and split off part of our nature. Part II deals with Nietzsche’s account of the sovereign individual and his related, novel, account of free will. Both (...) these accounts hinge on the notion of the self as an integrated whole. In contrasting the integrated sovereign individual, who has genuine free will, and we splintered moderns, Nietzsche aims to unsettle us with uncanny suggestion that we have no genuine selves. Part III shows that the invocation of the uncanny is a central strategy Nietzsche uses to bring home his disturbing message that we are strangers to ourselves. (shrink)

Article (Reprinted in "Oxford Readings in Philosophy: Nietzsche", edited by B. Leiter and J. Richardson, Oxford University Press, 2001.

We argue that Nietzsche's interest in truth is more than merely a critical one. He criticizes one historically prominent conception of truth while proposing his own theory, called "perspectivism". However, Nietzsche's truth perspectivism appears to face a self-referential paradox, which is explored in detail. We argue that no commentator has yet solved this puzzle, and then provide our own solution. This solution, which depends upon distinguishing between weak and strong perspectivism while promoting the former, supplies Nietzsche with a consistent truth (...) theory that preserves the bulk of his claims. (shrink)

In his 2001 article 'Teaching to Lie and Obey: Nietzsche on Education', Stefan Ramaekers defends Nietzsche's concept of perspectivism against the charge that it is relativistic. He argues that perspectivism is not relativistic because it denies the dichotomy between the 'true' world and the 'seeming' world, a dichotomy central to claims to relativism. While Ramaekers' article is correct in denying relativistic interpretations of perspectivism it does not go far enough in this direction. In fact, the way Ramaekers makes his case (...) may actually encourage the charge of relativism, especially when it comes to his appropriation of perspectivism for education. This article proposes to pick up where Ramaekers left off. It will argue that Nietzsche's denial of the opposition between the 'true' world and the 'seeming' world opens up the possibility for the reestablishment of truth, albeit in a modified form. After examining Nietzsche's modified 'realist' epistemology, the paper will explore the implications of it for his philosophy of education. It will be argued that Nietzsche's educational philosophy is founded on his concept of perspectivism in so far as he demands that students be rigorously inculcated into a pedagogical framework that teaches students to discriminate between 'true' and 'false' perspectives. This framework is essential for the development of an intellectually robust and life-affirming culture. (shrink)

This paper offers an interpretation of Nietzsche’s well known unpublished remark, ‘Truth is ugly. We possess art lest we perish of the truth .’ I argue that it is not helpful to construe this remark as a claim to the effect that art falsifies the truth by, for example, peddling lies or deceptions. Rather, I suggest, the remark should be taken to refer to the various ways in which art can present us with the truth in such a manner that (...) we do not perish of it. And of these ways, I argue, the most interesting is that in which art facilitates awareness of putatively ugly truths while actually abolishing their ugliness: a striking discussion of this possibility is to be found in Nietzsche’s first book, The Birth of Tragedy . I conclude that, overall, Nietzsche is best understood as a conditional cognitivist—as someone who thinks of truth as valuable, but not as valuable no matter what; and I suggest that what makes his position interesting and distinctive is the alethic pessimism (‘Truth is ugly’) that runs through his version of cognitivism. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Nietzsche should be understood as a “thorough-going nihilist”. Rather than broaching two general projects of destroying current values and constructing new ones, I argue that Nietzsche should be understood only as a destroyer of values. I do this by looking at Nietzsche’s views on nihilism and the role played by Nietzsche’s cyclical view of time, or his doctrine of the eternal recurrence of the same. I provide a typology of nihilisms, as they are found (...) in Nietzsche—negative, reactive and radical—through a close reading of an unpublished fragment in his later notebooks, remnants of which are scattered throughout his published work. I show how the progression between the different stages of nihilism are a “necessary consequence of the ideals entertained hitherto” (WTP 28), with the eternal recurrence of the same playing a vital role in this progression. The last stage of nihilism—radical nihilism—is ambiguous between a life-denying, or passive, nihilism and a life-affirming, or active, one; but, I argue, both kinds of nihilism preclude a construction of new values. But there is an inherent tension within Nietzsche’s account of nihilism insofar as it relies on the eternal recurrence of the same. This tension is brought out nicely by Löwith and (I argue) partially resolved by Klossowski. There are at least two meanings of the eternal recurrence of the same. In one sense, the cosmological reading, it is intended to make sense of the idea that time is infinite and matter is finite by claiming that every possible combination of matter will recur infinite times. In the other sense, the anthropological reading, it is a kind of thought experiment, analogous to Kant’s categorical imperative: “live in every moment so that you could will that moment back again over and over” (Löwith). There is a tension between these readings insofar as one must will to live in such a way that they will do it again, over and over (the anthropological reading), but also that what they do will make no difference, for what one decides to do has been done (and will be done) innumerable times. I argue that this tension can only be resolved by considering Nietzsche as aiming at “goal-lessness as such” and placing him as an active nihilist. (shrink)

I have argued elsewhere that Nietzsche’s genealogical critique of religion and morality requires a cognitivist epistemology, including a correspondence conception of truth. In this essay I pose ten crucial questions concerning the consistency of Nietzsche’s epistemology with his genealogy: Does Nietzsche hold that the world is a totally characterless flux? Does he hold that there is a metaphysical distinction between appearance and reality? Does he believe that there is cognitively useful perceptual access to the world? Does he believe that there (...) is a distinction between language and reality? Does he hold that there are representations? Does he hold that (some) language is capable of expressing what is made available by the senses? Is Nietzsche himself limited by the inadequacies of language that bar others from knowledge? Does his talk of the ‘creation’ of truth have non-cognitivist implications? Does his ‘perspectivism’ entail non-cognitivism? Is Nietzsche’s perspectivism self-referentially consistent? In answering these questions, I defend Nietzsche’s consistency and his cognitivism by showing that his views on ‘philology’ respond to his own critique of language and that his ‘perspectivism’ is self-referentially consistent and is consistent with his cognitivism. (shrink)

Does Nietzsche claim to know anything? Does he need to make such claims in order to fulfill his broader philosophical aims, in particular, to criticize religion and morality genealogically? Do his own epistemological views entitle him to make such claims? I defend affirmative answers to the first two of these questions and formulate several crucial issues involved in answering the third. These issues stem both from unresolved difficulties in available interpretations of Nietzsche and unexplored aspects of Nietzsche’s views. They include: (...) the extent to which and the ways in which Nietzsche thinks that language inherently ‘falsifies’ the world, the importance of distinguishing several senses of ‘thing-in-itself’ and of ‘creation’ of truth in Nietzsche’s writings, the inadequacies of utilitarian or (vulgarly) pragmatic interpretations of Nietzsche’s views, and the apparent self-referential inconsistency of Nietzsche’s ‘perspectivism’. I hope that posing these issues will help focus controversies among divergent groups of Nietzsche’s interpreters. (shrink)