Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T01:45:03.644Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Perspectivalism: Knowledge/Interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2023

George J. Stack
Affiliation:
State University College, New York
Get access

Summary

… that every elevation of man brings with it the overcoming of narrower interpretations; that every strengthening and augmentation of power opens up new perspectives and enjoins believing in new horizons— this runs through my writings.

Nietzsche, Nachlass

Among many paradoxical conceptions in Nietzsche's writings, one of the most consistently defended in his theory of perspectivalism. It is central to his epistemic reflections and lies at the heart of many of his fundamental ideas. But although perspectivalism has been analyzed quite often, some aspects of it have not received sufficient attention. What complicates matters is that Nietzsche introduces various levels of perspectival analyses. Moreover, he intermixes perspectivalism as an epistemological method with his own imaginative perspectival interpretation of actuality, a source of a great deal of confusion and of questionable renditions of his thought.

Although Nietzsche's views on various moral or valuational perspectives tend to attract the most attention, they are not the only or the most basic modes of perspectival analysis. Even though he refers often to the variety of values that have been elevated in different cultures and in different periods of history, his own “table of values” is not relativistic. He consistently values what affirms and enhances life, whatever elevates the type “man.” Where we find an ingenious use of relative points of view is in Nietzsche's employment of a variety of conceptual perspectives. These are the foundation for the construction of a global interpretation of the nature of actuality.

The first suggestion of the importance of perspective for understanding, the one that was the model for many subsequent uses of this method, was derived from the hermeneutic problem of deciphering the meaning of texts in philological studies. A text has to be interpreted against a background of general cultural knowledge and in terms of a literary, historical, and valuational context. Thus, to cite one of Nietzsche's insightful exercises, he discerned in Socrates’ attitude toward life a “pessimism” that had only previously been noted by Kierkegaard (though in a somewhat different way). Commenting on Socrates’ words in the Phaedo as he was dying, “Crito, we owe a cock to Asklepios, pray do not forget to pay the debt,” he points out that it was the custom in ancient Greece to offer a rooster to the god of health, Asklepios, after one had recovered from an illness.

Type
Chapter
Information
Nietzsche's Anthropic Circle
Man, Science, and Myth
, pp. 60 - 102
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×