Journal of the History of Philosophy

494 H/STORY OF PHILOSOPHY of "truth" so drastically relativized (in the sense of being explicated in terms of not merely anthropocentric but also historico-socio-psychological factors) that one is left wondering whether anything at all remains of the idea of Nietzsche as an adherent of "objectivity" in matters of "truth" and "value" which Wilcox purports to be defending . (And one is also left wondering what sense Wilcox would have one attach to the words "if it is true" and "factual" which he employs [cf., e.g., p. 198] with reference to Nietzsche's "theory of the will to power" and the use he makes of it in setting forth his basic "standard of value.") The real problem, in interpreting Nietzsche on this matter, is to discern precisely what he has in mind when he speaks of "truth" in a way suggesting something philosophically more conscionable and more deserving of the name than the kinds of things plain men and philosophers have accepted as "truth" for so long, and at least to some extent "more absolute" than the radically conditioned and highly questionable commodity Wilcox characterizes. Wilcox raises the important question of whether, and if so, how sense can be made of Nietzsche's conviction that "some interpretations have merits that others lack." But when he goes on to say, "these we call true humanly true" (p. 158), and then to explicate these "merits" in terms of what the notion of "humanly true" means for Nietzsche, he relies too heavily upon Nietzsche's analysis of what generally passes for "true." For he thereby neglects the crucial distinction in Nietzsche's reflections on these matters between the "humanly true," as something "all-too-human" and emphatically unacceptable to the "new philosophers" of whom he speaks, and what might in a Nietzschean manner be termed the "over-humanly true." The latter, for Nietzsche , is something less than absolute but more than convenient and useful, less than unconditional but more than "frog-perspectival" (in Nietzsche's phrase), less than finally correct but more than fundamentally erroneous. And it is conceived not as an extraction from the "depths" of man's passions and experience, his past history and present needs and limitations, but rather as the issue of the heightened powers and keener discernment, and the greater inventiveness and uncompromising intellectual integrity, which Nietzsche takes to be among the traits of his "new philosophers," accounting for his characterization of them as "exceptions" in relation to the ordinary run of men, and of philosophers past and present. Wilcox sets the stage for the discussion of this problem, but then fails to face it squarely and to deal with it adequately. This is regrettable; but he has performed a valuable service nonetheless, by bringing the problem so close to the surface, and by providing an example of the kind of approach to Nietzsche which offers the greatest promise of leading to a satisfactory and philosophically consequential resolution of it. RICHARDSCHACI-IT University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Gesammelte Schriften. By Wilhelm Dilthey. Ed. by Ulrich Herrmann. Vol. XV, Zur Geistesgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts: Portraits und biographische Skizzen, Quellenstudien und Literaturberichte zur Theologic und Philosophie. (G6ttingen : Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht, 1970) Vol. XVI, Zur Geistesgeschichte des 19. lahrhunderts: Au#iitze und Rezensionen aus Zeitungen und ZeitschriJten 1859-1874. (G/Sttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972) Vol. XVII, Zur Geistesgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts: Aus "Westermanns MonatsheJten ": Literaturbriefe, Berichte zur Kunstgeschichte, Verstreute Rezensionen 18671884 . (G/3ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1974) These three volumes, edited by Ulrich Herrmann, are the latest of the collected writings of Wilhelm Dilthey. They contain reviews, discussions and essays, the bulk of which were first published (either anonymously or under pseudonyms) in the 1860's and 1870's. BOOK REVIEWS 495 Contributed to non-professional journals, these writings were meant to inform the general public of developments in the socio-political and natural sciences as well as in history, religion and the arts. As such, they give evidence of Dilthey's thorough acquaintance with the varied trends of nineteenth-century thought---of that impressive erudition which led the young William James to characterize him as the quintessential professor "overflowing with information with regard to everything knowable and unknowable . . . to...