*This color signifies Ben Kegley (a friend of Wes Morriston)'s interpretation of Nietzsche's Perspectivalism. This color signifies Wes Morriston (my former Existentialism professor)'s Responses to Kegley's interpretation, and considerations of whether the doctrine of Perspectivalism is likely to be true*
In regards to Nietzsche statement that there are no truths, I would like to offer the following defense. First, I believe this is an example of Nietzsche using rhetoric that is perhaps more extreme than his claim. I believe Nietzsche is trying to draw our attention to a metaphysical supposition that stands behind Christianity and all similar ethoses. That supposition is that there are eternal, objective, mind-independent truths.
Let's try a really simple example. Once upon at time, dinosaurs roamed the earth. Right? This is a perfectly "objective" truth in the the following sense. Anybody who says or thinks that dinosaurs did not roam the earth is simply mistaken. In one important way, it's not a "mind-dependent" truth, since the existence of dinosaurs in no way depended on the existence minds capable of thinking about dinosaurs. Is it an "eternal" truth? Well, since dinosaurs have existed, it will always be true that they existed. (I'll leave it to others to worry about whether it was true before dinosaurs existed.) I take it that - even on Ben's comparatively benign interpretation of his words - Nietzsche would reject all of the above claims, but they seem pretty reasonable to me. So what's the big problem with the "metaphysical supposition" that there are at least some "eternal, objective, mind-independent truths"?
His replacement for this notion is perspectivism; however, I believe Nietzsche's perspectivism is deeper than mere relativism. Although, Nietzsche would agree that different perspectives exist among humans, especially between a person belonging to the master class and a slave, he also wants to draw attention to the fact that human existence itself is a perspective, a perspective that we all share, however by no means the only possible perspective.
So, then, even the existence of human beings is perspective-relative? Am I understanding this correctly? If so, then I want to ask, "Relative to whose perspective?" Given the use of the word "we", it appears that Ben's Nietzsche wants to say that "human existence" is relative to our perspective. But who or what is this "we" such that "we all share" this perspective? Not "human beings", apparently. "Human being" is a perspective-relative notion, and "we" might have had a different perspective and not thought of ourselves as human beings at all. So I ask again, who or what is the "we" who has and imposes alternative perspectives? It would be very interesting to hear how else "we" might have "conceptualized" ourselves. What alternative perspective might "we" have adopted such that "we" are not humans? Would such a perspective deserve to be taken seriously? Or would those who adopted it simply be insane humans?
Nietzsche wants to reground all of our endeavors in human existence and earthly life. Therefore, to him the notion of a mind-independent truth is incomprehensible.
Suppose we grant that there is no God and no hereafter, and that planet earth is our true and only home. How is it supposed to follow that all truth is mind-dependent? Even the truth that there is no God looks like a glaring exception to this claim. I mean: How could the non-existence of God possibly depend on the existence of your mind or mine? Gosh, now that I think of it, if God really doesn't exist, then the non-existence of God would be a wonderful example of an eternal truth! And what about Nietzsche's claim that everything is "necessary"? Is that not supposed to be an objective and eternal truth? Or is it just one way (among other possible ways) of looking at things? A way that Nietzsche finds particularly exhilarating, of course. But one that is not true in any further sense?Let me put this another way. If I deny that everything is necessary (as I am inclined to do), have I made a mistake? Or have I simply adopted a "perspective" different from Nietzsche's? Hmm... This leads to another interesting question. Could we have adopted perspectives other than the ones that we have adopted? Not, it seems, if everything is necessary! So why isn't the claim that we have a choice of perspectives inconsistent with Nietzsche's own view that everything is necessary? Or does logical inconsistency just not matter here? (I'm not altogether sure what rules are in force in the particular game Nietzsche is playing.)
Nietzsche believes that all of our concepts are directly derived from and bound by our human experiences, including our notions of truth and falsity. For example, his critique of causality is meant to elucidate the fact that causality only appears to us only in virtue of how we perceive the world not due to some all-governing principle such as the principle of sufficient reason. He writes in Gay Science 110 "an intellect that saw cause and effect as a continuum, not as we do, as arbitrary division and dismemberment - that saw the stream of the event, would reject the concept of cause and effect and deny all determinedness"
Suppose that cause and effect are not discrete events - that the causal process is indeed a continuum. I'm not an expert on causation, but that doesn't sound implausible to me. At least in certain cases. A simple question occurs to me, however - one that is highly relevant in the context of the present discussion. Is this way of looking at things closer to the truth about causation in those cases? Or is it just one more "perspective"? . . . In what follows, I'll be moving a bit beyond what Ben actually wrote about Nietzsche's view. But I think that my brief description of perspectivalism is at least consistent with everything Ben said about Nietzsche's view. I also think - but don't hold me to this! - that it's consistent with a lot of what Nietzsche actually says.As I understand this doctrine, then, it claims two things. (1) There is no objective truth about things as they are independently of whatever perspective we have adopted. (2) What we experience (and what we declare to be "true") is a function of the way we interact with what we "see" and "interpret" from within that perspective.A brief word of explanation about (2). Without something like (2), the view would amount to little more than the claim that we make everything up from scratch. Now God might be able to do that. :-) But (a) God isn't supposed to exist, and (b) I don't think we want to attribute such powers to ourselves! So the "we make the world from scratch" view is surely not a serious contender - not as the correct view about ourselves and the world, and probably not as Nietzsche interpretation. That's why I think that something that does the job (2) is supposed to do is a required addition to any halfway plausible version of the perspectivalist position. Even with the addition of (2), however, I have three very general worries.1. If there are no mind-independent facts about what things are like independently of our perspective(s), then it's hard to see how the application of a perspective in any particular case can be other than arbitrary. Let's assume, for example, that "hammer" and "bird" are mind-dependent concepts that belong to the perspective through which we see things. Your perspective alone can't explain why you see a hammer and not a bird in a particular case. There must be something there that resists the one interpretation and is amenable to the other. But of course this "something" couldn't resist either interpretation unless it had some features of its own independently of us and the perspective "we" have adopted. It follows that there must be at lease some objective truths about mind-independent reality. (Even if it's sometimes really hard to know what they are.) (Another way to put this point would be to say that (1) prevents (2) from doing the job it was supposed to do.)2. As I've already indicated, I'm puzzled about the identity of the "subject" who views things from one perspective but might have viewed them from another. We seem to be talking about this subject in a way that is independent of any particular perspective. But apparently we aren't just talking about human beings here (since, as noted above, "human being" is merely a category within one possible perspective). But if "we" are not human beings, then who or what are "we"? Brahman? The Absolute? God? (Oops! I forgot. God is dead.)3. It's not clear to me what the criterion for adopting one perspective as opposed to another is supposed to be. I thought Nietzsche's view was that the more "vital", "life-affirming", "will to power enhancing" perspective was the one to go for. But then we'd have to worry about what that means (Vital for whom? Whose life are we supposed be be "affirming"?) Once we're clear about the nature of the advantages a perspective may possess (or lack), we still have the question whether it's really true that one perspective has more of these important advantages than another. What if each of two incompatible perspectives claimed them for itself? Would there not have to be a fact of the matter about whether either of them really did have these advantages? No? Then it seems that we have no perspective-independent criterion, and the choice of perspective is completely arbitrary. Surely that can't be what Nietzsche wants to say!....To avoid possible misunderstanding, I want to make it clear that I'm not saying that the notion of "a perspective" is never useful or applicable. I am not even denying that some "truths" may be perspective-relative. I merely claim two things. (a) There must be some truths that are not perspective-relative in this way. And (b) the very fact that a particular proposition is true "in" or "from" a particular perspective is itself an objective fact.I want to correct one thing I said in class yesterday. No, I don't really think that "objective truth" is the only kind of truth there is. I don't mind if someone wants to use the word "true" in some other way, and I acknowledge that "true within a perspective" is a locution that can make perfectly good sense. I don't even think there is an "objective fact of the matter" about every question that we can ask. (A trivial example: there is no objective fact of the matter about whether spinach is "tasty". It is however, an objective fact that some people like it and some people don't. A less trivial example... There may be no objective fact of the matter about what Nietzsche meant by saying that there is no truth. It is, however, an objective fact that scholars disagree about what he meant. ) What I do think is (a) that what I'm calling "objective truth" is the fundamental sense of truth, and (b) that it's unavoidable, and probably presupposed by all other senses of "true".The word for the day... You just can't avoid objective truth. Even Mr. "truth is subjectivity" (Johannes Climacus) knew that!
In regards to Nietzsche statement that there are no truths, I would like to offer the following defense. First, I believe this is an example of Nietzsche using rhetoric that is perhaps more extreme than his claim. I believe Nietzsche is trying to draw our attention to a metaphysical supposition that stands behind Christianity and all similar ethoses. That supposition is that there are eternal, objective, mind-independent truths.
Let's try a really simple example. Once upon at time, dinosaurs roamed the earth. Right? This is a perfectly "objective" truth in the the following sense. Anybody who says or thinks that dinosaurs did not roam the earth is simply mistaken. In one important way, it's not a "mind-dependent" truth, since the existence of dinosaurs in no way depended on the existence minds capable of thinking about dinosaurs. Is it an "eternal" truth? Well, since dinosaurs have existed, it will always be true that they existed. (I'll leave it to others to worry about whether it was true before dinosaurs existed.) I take it that - even on Ben's comparatively benign interpretation of his words - Nietzsche would reject all of the above claims, but they seem pretty reasonable to me. So what's the big problem with the "metaphysical supposition" that there are at least some "eternal, objective, mind-independent truths"?
His replacement for this notion is perspectivism; however, I believe Nietzsche's perspectivism is deeper than mere relativism. Although, Nietzsche would agree that different perspectives exist among humans, especially between a person belonging to the master class and a slave, he also wants to draw attention to the fact that human existence itself is a perspective, a perspective that we all share, however by no means the only possible perspective.
So, then, even the existence of human beings is perspective-relative? Am I understanding this correctly? If so, then I want to ask, "Relative to whose perspective?" Given the use of the word "we", it appears that Ben's Nietzsche wants to say that "human existence" is relative to our perspective. But who or what is this "we" such that "we all share" this perspective? Not "human beings", apparently. "Human being" is a perspective-relative notion, and "we" might have had a different perspective and not thought of ourselves as human beings at all. So I ask again, who or what is the "we" who has and imposes alternative perspectives? It would be very interesting to hear how else "we" might have "conceptualized" ourselves. What alternative perspective might "we" have adopted such that "we" are not humans? Would such a perspective deserve to be taken seriously? Or would those who adopted it simply be insane humans?
Nietzsche wants to reground all of our endeavors in human existence and earthly life. Therefore, to him the notion of a mind-independent truth is incomprehensible.
Suppose we grant that there is no God and no hereafter, and that planet earth is our true and only home. How is it supposed to follow that all truth is mind-dependent? Even the truth that there is no God looks like a glaring exception to this claim. I mean: How could the non-existence of God possibly depend on the existence of your mind or mine? Gosh, now that I think of it, if God really doesn't exist, then the non-existence of God would be a wonderful example of an eternal truth! And what about Nietzsche's claim that everything is "necessary"? Is that not supposed to be an objective and eternal truth? Or is it just one way (among other possible ways) of looking at things? A way that Nietzsche finds particularly exhilarating, of course. But one that is not true in any further sense?Let me put this another way. If I deny that everything is necessary (as I am inclined to do), have I made a mistake? Or have I simply adopted a "perspective" different from Nietzsche's? Hmm... This leads to another interesting question. Could we have adopted perspectives other than the ones that we have adopted? Not, it seems, if everything is necessary! So why isn't the claim that we have a choice of perspectives inconsistent with Nietzsche's own view that everything is necessary? Or does logical inconsistency just not matter here? (I'm not altogether sure what rules are in force in the particular game Nietzsche is playing.)
Nietzsche believes that all of our concepts are directly derived from and bound by our human experiences, including our notions of truth and falsity. For example, his critique of causality is meant to elucidate the fact that causality only appears to us only in virtue of how we perceive the world not due to some all-governing principle such as the principle of sufficient reason. He writes in Gay Science 110 "an intellect that saw cause and effect as a continuum, not as we do, as arbitrary division and dismemberment - that saw the stream of the event, would reject the concept of cause and effect and deny all determinedness"
Suppose that cause and effect are not discrete events - that the causal process is indeed a continuum. I'm not an expert on causation, but that doesn't sound implausible to me. At least in certain cases. A simple question occurs to me, however - one that is highly relevant in the context of the present discussion. Is this way of looking at things closer to the truth about causation in those cases? Or is it just one more "perspective"? . . . In what follows, I'll be moving a bit beyond what Ben actually wrote about Nietzsche's view. But I think that my brief description of perspectivalism is at least consistent with everything Ben said about Nietzsche's view. I also think - but don't hold me to this! - that it's consistent with a lot of what Nietzsche actually says.As I understand this doctrine, then, it claims two things. (1) There is no objective truth about things as they are independently of whatever perspective we have adopted. (2) What we experience (and what we declare to be "true") is a function of the way we interact with what we "see" and "interpret" from within that perspective.A brief word of explanation about (2). Without something like (2), the view would amount to little more than the claim that we make everything up from scratch. Now God might be able to do that. :-) But (a) God isn't supposed to exist, and (b) I don't think we want to attribute such powers to ourselves! So the "we make the world from scratch" view is surely not a serious contender - not as the correct view about ourselves and the world, and probably not as Nietzsche interpretation. That's why I think that something that does the job (2) is supposed to do is a required addition to any halfway plausible version of the perspectivalist position. Even with the addition of (2), however, I have three very general worries.1. If there are no mind-independent facts about what things are like independently of our perspective(s), then it's hard to see how the application of a perspective in any particular case can be other than arbitrary. Let's assume, for example, that "hammer" and "bird" are mind-dependent concepts that belong to the perspective through which we see things. Your perspective alone can't explain why you see a hammer and not a bird in a particular case. There must be something there that resists the one interpretation and is amenable to the other. But of course this "something" couldn't resist either interpretation unless it had some features of its own independently of us and the perspective "we" have adopted. It follows that there must be at lease some objective truths about mind-independent reality. (Even if it's sometimes really hard to know what they are.) (Another way to put this point would be to say that (1) prevents (2) from doing the job it was supposed to do.)2. As I've already indicated, I'm puzzled about the identity of the "subject" who views things from one perspective but might have viewed them from another. We seem to be talking about this subject in a way that is independent of any particular perspective. But apparently we aren't just talking about human beings here (since, as noted above, "human being" is merely a category within one possible perspective). But if "we" are not human beings, then who or what are "we"? Brahman? The Absolute? God? (Oops! I forgot. God is dead.)3. It's not clear to me what the criterion for adopting one perspective as opposed to another is supposed to be. I thought Nietzsche's view was that the more "vital", "life-affirming", "will to power enhancing" perspective was the one to go for. But then we'd have to worry about what that means (Vital for whom? Whose life are we supposed be be "affirming"?) Once we're clear about the nature of the advantages a perspective may possess (or lack), we still have the question whether it's really true that one perspective has more of these important advantages than another. What if each of two incompatible perspectives claimed them for itself? Would there not have to be a fact of the matter about whether either of them really did have these advantages? No? Then it seems that we have no perspective-independent criterion, and the choice of perspective is completely arbitrary. Surely that can't be what Nietzsche wants to say!....To avoid possible misunderstanding, I want to make it clear that I'm not saying that the notion of "a perspective" is never useful or applicable. I am not even denying that some "truths" may be perspective-relative. I merely claim two things. (a) There must be some truths that are not perspective-relative in this way. And (b) the very fact that a particular proposition is true "in" or "from" a particular perspective is itself an objective fact.I want to correct one thing I said in class yesterday. No, I don't really think that "objective truth" is the only kind of truth there is. I don't mind if someone wants to use the word "true" in some other way, and I acknowledge that "true within a perspective" is a locution that can make perfectly good sense. I don't even think there is an "objective fact of the matter" about every question that we can ask. (A trivial example: there is no objective fact of the matter about whether spinach is "tasty". It is however, an objective fact that some people like it and some people don't. A less trivial example... There may be no objective fact of the matter about what Nietzsche meant by saying that there is no truth. It is, however, an objective fact that scholars disagree about what he meant. ) What I do think is (a) that what I'm calling "objective truth" is the fundamental sense of truth, and (b) that it's unavoidable, and probably presupposed by all other senses of "true".The word for the day... You just can't avoid objective truth. Even Mr. "truth is subjectivity" (Johannes Climacus) knew that!
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