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Nietzsche's Theory of Cognition: an Interpretation and Defense of Perspectivism Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2012 Nietzsche's Theory of Cognition: An Interpretation and Defense of Perspectivism Justin R. Marquis Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Marquis, Justin R., "Nietzsche's Theory of Cognition: An Interpretation and Defense of Perspectivism" (2012). Dissertations. 369. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/369 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2012 Justin R. Marquis LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO NIETZSCHE’S THEORY OF COGNITION: AN INTERPRETATION AND DEFENSE OF PERSPECTIVISM A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN PHILOSOPHY BY JUSTIN R. MARQUIS CHICAGO, IL AUGUST 2012 Copyright by Justin R. Marquis, 2012 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would, first and foremost, like to thank my family and especially my parents, Rick and Cindy, for encouraging me in all my pursuits. A huge thanks is due to Dr. Jacqueline Scott, my dissertation director, for her mentoring and guidance. I have learned a great deal working under her, and this dissertation represents the fruits of her mentoring. Her encouragement to pursue the connection between Nietzsche’s epistemology and his larger project directly influenced the content of Chapters Two and Six. I also appreciate the work and support of the other members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Andrew Cutrofello and Dr. Victoria Wike. A special thanks is due to Dr. David Yandell who would have been on my dissertation committee were it not for health reasons. The influence of our discussions is evident throughout the dissertation, especially Chapters Three and Four. I would like to acknowledge the financial support I received from the Graduate School of Loyola University Chicago and the Arthur J. Schmitt foundation. Two years of fellowship funding allowed me to work full time on my research. I owe a great deal to my peers and colleagues in Loyola’s department of philosophy graduate programs. Their friendship and our philosophical discussions are what make doing philosophy worthwhile. Finally, I would like to thank my partner Lizzie Johnson for her love, support, and patience as I completed this project. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi ABSTRACT vii CHAPTER ONE: TRUTH AS A WOMAN: AN INTRODUCTION TO PERSPECTIVISM 1 Introduction 1 Themes and Terminology 8 Outline of the Dissertation 10 An Overview of the Literature 17 CHAPTER TWO: NIETZSCHE’S CRITIQUE OF THE WILL TO TRUTH 29 Introduction 29 What is Nihilism? 31 Truth and European Nihilism: The Problem of Christianity 42 The Value of Truth 50 Who Wants Truth? 63 Truth and Knowledge and the Will to Truth 71 CHAPTER THREE: NIETZSCHE’S SKEPTICISM 74 Introduction 74 Human, All Too Human’s Pyrrhonian Skepticism 77 Healthy and Unhealthy Skepticism 81 Nietzsche’s Skepticism in “On Truth and Lies” 89 The Skepticism of Beyond Good and Evil §36 100 Nietzsche’s Skepticism: Modern or Ancient 114 Nietzsche’s Skepticism Regarding Logic 117 The Thing In Itself for Nietzsche 119 Nietzsche’s Metaphysical Agnosticism 126 CHAPTER FOUR: NIETZSCHE’S ACCOUNT OF COGNITION: PERSPECTIVISM 131 Introduction 131 The Optical Perspective Analogy for Human Cognition 133 The Textual Interpretation Analogy for Human Cognition 145 The Elements that Determine Cognitive Perspectives 156 Cognition and Practical Reason 169 Truth and Justification in Perspectivism 178 Some Philosophical Problems 185 Nietzsche’s Revaluation of the “Merely” Apparent 190 iv CHAPTER FIVE: CRITERIA OF EVALUATION: OBJECTIVITY AND VALUE FOR LIFE 194 Introduction 194 The Problem of Global Relativism 199 Two Concepts of Objectivity 201 Intersubjective Disagreement and Perspectivism 220 Cognitive Weakness 223 (Dis)honesty and Intellectual Conscience 227 Conflict of Values/Conflict of Perspectives 239 CHAPTER SIX: METAPHYSICS OF APPEARANCE 247 Introduction 247 Art as the Good Will to Appearance 252 Metaphysics of Appearance 267 The Will to Power 272 Metaphysics of Appearance and Nietzsche’s Positive Philosophy 278 Conclusion 285 BIBLIOGRAPHY 289 VITA 296 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS The following abbreviations have been used for references to Nietzsche’s texts. See the bibliography for information about translations used. A The Antichrist BGE Beyond Good and Evil BT The Birth of Tragedy D Daybreak EH Ecce Homo GM On the Genealogy of Morals GS The Gay Science HAH Human, All Too Human TI Twilight of the Idols TL “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense” WP The Will to Power Z Thus Spoke Zarathustra vi ABSTRACT Friedrich Nietzsche has long been recognized as a pivotal thinker in the history of moral philosophy, but until the last quarter century his importance for our understanding of the concepts of truth and knowledge had been largely ignored in English-language scholarship. In my dissertation, I add to the growing discussion on Nietzsche’s theory of human cognition. While more attention has recently been given to this dimension of Nietzsche’s thought, several key aspects have been largely ignored or insufficiently treated including the effects that the ethical or evaluative domain have on the way we cognize the world, the role that radical skepticism plays in motivating Nietzsche’s theory, and the connections between Nietzsche’s views on cognition and his larger philosophical project. What is distinctive about my project is the connection I draw between Nietzsche’s critique of the unconditional will to truth in On the Genealogy of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil and his treatments of epistemological issues. Without understanding this connection, one cannot understand how Nietzsche’s distinctive positions on truth, knowledge, and cognition relate his overall project. My dissertation sets out to answer four main questions regarding Nietzsche’s theory of cognition, each question corresponding to a chapter of the completed work. In Chapter One I ask what the relationship is between Nietzsche’s views on truth, knowledge, and cognition and his larger philosophical project of overcoming nihilism. Here I argue that Nietzsche’s views on cognition follow directly from his analysis of the nihilism of post-Christian Europe and that his project of overcoming that nihilism requires a complete revaluation of human knowing. Chapter Two asks what Nietzsche’s vii relationship is with skepticism and to what extent can Nietzsche be labeled a skeptic. I show that Nietzsche can be squarely placed in the skeptical tradition in philosophy that includes the Ancient Greek skeptics and the modern heuristic skeptic, Descartes. Nietzsche, however, rejects Descartes attempts to escape radical skepticism, and so can be properly labeled a radical skeptic himself. The next chapter asks what Nietzsche’s model is for how human cognition functions given that it is not designed to aim for truth (as it is traditionally understood, i.e. correspondence). I explore the ways that his favored metaphors of textual interpretation and optical perspective function in elucidating what goes on when we think, highlighting these metaphors strengths and weaknesses. I ultimately conclude that cognition is a practical endeavor with theoretical objects, leading Nietzsche to reject the Kantian distinction between the practical and theoretical employments of reason. Finally I ask, given Nietzsche’s model of how human cognition functions, how should we evaluate competing knowledge claims between individuals? It has been argued that Nietzsche’s pespectivism leads to an unacceptable global relativism regarding, if not truth, then at least epistemic justification. I argue that Nietzsche does not need to abandon the most radical of his conclusions, and he can still account for how and why some positions on theoretical and philosophical matters are better than others, and so an unacceptable “anything goes” kind of relativism does not follow from his views. After answering these four main questions regarding Nietzsche’s views on truth, knowledge, and cognition, I look at how a metaphysics is possible for Nietzsche given his skepticism. I argue that one of the ways a philosopher can create the conditions for overcoming nihilism and affirming life is to create a metaphysics that is both ruthlessly honest to one’s cognitive commitments and an artistically creative outpouring of one’s viii abundant, healthy drives. I show in this final chapter how a metaphysics that is self-aware of its epistemic limitations fits into some of the contemporary interpretations of Nietzsche’s positive project. ix CHAPTER ONE TRUTH AS A WOMAN: AN INTRODUCTION TO PERSPECTIVISM Supposing truth is a woman—what then? BGE Preface Introduction When I tell people who have at least a cursory familiarity with Nietzsche that I am working on his epistemology, I am often met with the remark, “Nietzsche has an epistemology?” In some ways, this reaction makes a great deal of sense because, as I argue, Nietzsche’s primary philosophical concerns are not epistemological—they are evaluative, cultural, and ethical. Nevertheless, at the beginning of Nietzsche’s so-called “late period”— 1886-1887—during which he published Beyond Good and Evil and the second edition of The Gay Science, Nietzsche offers sustained if complex and fragmentary treatments of traditional epistemological and alethic questions. He deals with these questions because he understands them to relate to his primary philosophical projects in an essential and inescapable way. While not by any means the only works where Nietzsche has something to say about human cognition, in these works Nietzsche’s focus is at times explicitly directed to such concerns. In this dissertation I attempt to describe what Nietzsche’s view regarding human cognition is—as well as the related epistemological and alethic concepts.
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