This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: ‘Nietzsche's Sensualism’, forthcoming in the European Journal of Philosophy (DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0378.2010.00440.x). The final version of the paper is available (Early View) at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0378.2010.00440.x/pdf Please do not quote this version! Nietzsche’s Sensualism i (Mattia Riccardi, Universidade do Porto,
[email protected]) ii I. Introduction Recent literature on Nietzsche has given great attention to his late endorsement of the epistemological position he sometimes refers to, indeed quite puzzlingly, as ‘sensualism’. A first thesis (T1) central to this view is succinctly described in BGE 134, where he stresses that ‘[a]ll credibility, good conscience, and evidence of truth first comes from the senses’ (BGE 134). Taken at face value, this passage seems to plainly state the empiricist view according to which the senses are the source we need to consult in order to decide if a proposition about the world is true or not. A second thesis (T2), which Nietzsche explicitly links to the view he refers to as ‘sensualism’, is that sense organs are causally efficacious. Again, at first sight this claim seems to point to the elementary fact that our sense organs, as all other things, are engaged in causal exchanges governed by the laws of physics. If we are to give credit to this first impression, thus, the sensualism endorsed by Nietzsche would be a position akin to empirical realism. Notably, this is the exact view defended by Maudemarie Clark in her influential work from 1990.