Abstract
Like Kant, the German Idealists, and many neo-Kantian philosophers before him, Nietzsche was persistently concerned with metaphysical questions about the nature of objects. His texts often address questions concerning the existence and non-existence of objects, the relation of objects to human minds, and how different views of objects impact commitments in many areas of philosophy―not just metaphysics, but also language, epistemology, science, logic and mathematics, and even ethics. In this book, Remhof presents a systematic and comprehensive analysis of Nietzsche’s material object metaphysics. He argues that Nietzsche embraces the controversial constructivist view that all concrete objects are socially constructed. Reading Nietzsche as a constructivist, Remhof contends, provides fresh insight into Nietzsche’s views on truth, science, naturalism, and nihilism. The book also investigates how Nietzsche’s view of objects compares with views offered by influential American pragmatists and explores the implications of Nietzsche’s constructivism for debates in contemporary material object metaphysics. Nietzsche’s Constructivism is a highly original and timely contribution to the steadily growing literature on Nietzsche’s thought.
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Notes
See, e.g., Kenneth Pearce, “Mereological Idealism” in Tyron Goldschmidt and Kenneth Pearce (eds), Idealism: New Essays in Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
One might argue that HH I: 9 is the exception. Nietzsche writes “It is true, there could be a metaphysical world; the absolute possibility of it is hardly to be disputed.” But I am not convinced. First, this has nothing to do with objects—it concerns entire worlds. Second, Nietzsche goes on to say that belief in metaphysical worlds was derived from “the worst of all methods of acquiring knowledge” and that “When one has disclosed these methods as the foundation of all extant religions and metaphysical systems, one has refuted them!” And third, a few passages later Nietzsche seems to endorse the constructivist view that human beings have “made appearance appear,” or that “the world “has acquired color” and “we have been the colorists” (HH I: 16).
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Remhof, J. Symposium on Justin Remhof’s Nietzsche’s Constructivism: a Metaphysics of Material Objects (Routledge, 2018). Philosophia 49, 571–583 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00223-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00223-4