• Gregory
    4.7k
    Although promoted in ancient times by Protagoras, and hinted at by Montaigne and G. Teichmuller, F. Nietzsche is, it seems, the most famous protagonist of perspectivism: that is, that there is no Archimedean point ("Punctum Archimedis") from which one can view truth from nowhere and see all of a truth without interpretation altering the nature of the intellectual object. So there is no ultimate knowledge for him that could be obtained by rational deduction. In "The Genealogy of Morals" he wrote:
    "Let us be on guard against the dangerous old conceptual fiction that posited a 'pure, will-less, painless, timeless knowing subject'; let us guard against the snares of such contradictory concepts as 'pure reason', 'absolute spirituality', 'knowledge in itself': these always demand that we should think of an eye that is completely unthinkable, an eye turned in no particular direction, in which the active and interpreting forces, through which alone seeing becomes seeing something, are supposed to be lacking; these always demand of the eye an absurdity and a nonsense. There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective knowing; and the more affects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our 'concept' of this thing, our 'objectivity' be."

    In "The Will to Power" he writes "Finally, is it necessary to posit an interpreter behind the interpretation? Even this is invention, hypothesis... In so far as the word "knowledge" has any meaning, the world is knowable; but it is interpretable otherwise, it has no meaning behind it, but countless meanings."

    Of course, the main objection to this is that perspectivism itself is posited as more than a perspective. I've been wondering if this is a fair accusation though. To turn perspectivism against itself first of all seems rather loopy. Why not let it rest on it's own foundation even if that foundation is air? Can it be seen in itself with allowing the snake to eat itself? It seems to me that Occam's razor would prevent us from making unnecessary turning abouts of a belief on to itself in a way that is unnatural. However, this may have been done already in the field of mathematics:

    We have Godel's theorem that uses self-reference as it's main intuitive gesture. I don't see any reason why this should be allowed in mathematics but not in philosophy. If we reject self-reference in mathematical schemes however, we can reject them in philosophy as well and perspectivism might have an opportunity to thrive. As Protagoras said, "Man is the measure of all things." As is often said "There are two sides to every question." It is as reasonable to love the relative relatively as it is to love the Absolute absolutely. Perhaps there is never a coin with only one side and so on..

    So is there a privileged state of knowledge and did Godel (the Platonist) take away Nietzsche's thunder? Or is it "all just your opinion man"?
    Thanks
  • Tom Storm
    9k
    Is perspectivism self-refuting? How would we demonstrate that the metaphysical underpinnings of this view do not apply to itself? Why would we let perspectivism off the hook when we don't let other examples of self-refuting ideas of the hook, like logical positivism's verification principle?

    Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset was also known for perspectivism and as I understand it took a phenomenological approach.

    If we take the view that there is no such thing as 'the true' then what do we have? Conventional opinion has it that we have to make our own meaning. But even if you believe there is a capital T truth, your 'take' on this truth will be perspectival. To me it seems unavoidable even if you believe in the foundational merits of a grand narrative like Platonism or Islam. Even within religious traditions people don't agree on dogma and doctrine. Everyone has a subjective reading of their 'truth'.
  • ajar
    65
    So is three a privileged state of knowledge and did Godel (the Platonist) take away Nietzsche's thunder? Or is it "all just your opinion man"?
    Thanks
    Gregory

    False dichotomy? Is it not more like a continuum that runs from '1 + 1 = 2' to 'vanilla is the best flavor of ice cream ' ? Note that comments about this continuum also belong on it.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    Typo. It should say "there"
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