Perspectivism and Truth in Nietzsche’s Philosophy: A Critical Look at the Apparent Contradiction

Nietzsche was a revolutionary author and philosopher who has had a tremendous impact on German culture up through the twentieth century and even today. Nietzsche's views were very unlike the popular and conventional beliefs and practices of his time and nearly all of his published works were, and still are, rather controversial, especially in On the Genealogy of Morals. His philosophies are more than just controversial and unconventional viewpoints, however; they are absolutely extreme and dangerous if taken out of context or misinterpreted. After Nietzsche's death it took very little for his sister to make some slight alterations to his works to go along with Nazi ideology.

Nietzsche introduces the initial concepts of what is good to be determined by those who have benefitted from unegoistical

Despite such claims, Nietzsche criticizes this mistaken idea that the knowledge of the universe can be comprehended by any method; he argues that not even the “most scrupulously conscientious analysis and self-examination of the intellect” cannot successfully interpret the progressive history of the world as “the human intellect cannot avoid seeing itself in [only] its perspectives” (Nietzsche 336). To Nietzsche, Kant and Hegel’s attempts to find truth in history is faulty because faith is just now found in science and reasoning rather than religion. What Kant and Hegel fail to realize is that the human race’s separation from this faith gave rise to “our new ‘infinite’”, in which “the world has become ‘infinite’ for [humanity] all over again, inasmuch as we cannot reject the possibility that it may include infinite interpretations” (Nietzsche 336). Thus the new infinite is self-consciously made by the individual members of humanity itself, as we can now independently interpret the world ourselves as we see fit. Nietzsche declares that even if some of these interpretations may include “too much devilry, stupidity and foolishness”, it does not matter because it does not rely on faith (Nietzsche 336). The new infinite that arises is ours, in which the abundance of perspectives is too overwhelming for any scholar to give meaning to such chaos. There is no logical reason how such disorder should

Friedrich Nietzsche was part of large family. His father’s name was Carl Ludwig Nietzsche. Carl Nietzsche was a religious man and was the preacher of a Lutheran church. His mother’s name was Franziska Oehler. Friedrich Nietzsche also had a sister and a brother. His sister’s name was Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, and his brother’s name was Ludwig Joseph. At age five, Friedrich Nietzsche’s family life changed. His father passed away due to brain problem. The year after his father’s death, Ludwig Joseph the brother passed away. After the loss of his two family members, Friedrich Nietzsche, his mother, and sister moved in with their grandmother. The loss of his love ones was a very trying time for Friedrich Nietzsche, and their deaths caused Nietzsche to question his beliefs

In his book, Twilight of the Idols, Friedrich Nietzsche aggressively challenges conventional schools of thought dating back to the ancients. Philosophy, as we know it, began over two-thousand years ago in Athens with the birth of Socrates. Socrates introduced the practice of reasoning and dialectics—the art of discourse hoping to bring individuals closer to some universal truth—to an Athenian society that previously held aesthetics, not logic, as indicative of goodness. Socrates revolutionized life in Athens, and by extension, the Western tradition. His beliefs are found in works written centuries after his death. He is heralded as the “father of philosophy.”

Friedrich Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense represents a deconstruction of the modern epistemological project. Instead of seeking for truth, he suggests that the ultimate truth is that we have to live without such truth, and without a sense of longing for that truth. This revolutionary work of his is divided into two main sections. The first part deals with the question on what is truth? Here he discusses the implication of language to our acquisition of knowledge. The second part deals with the dual nature of man, i.e. the rational and the intuitive. He establishes that neither rational nor intuitive man is ever successful in their pursuit of knowledge due

In his second essay of the Geneaology of Morals, Nietzsche attempts to identify and explain the origin of the conscience. He does not adopt the view of the conscience that is accepted by the “English Psychologists”, such as Bentham, J. Mill, J.S. Mill and Hume, as the result of an innate moral feeling. Rather, it is his belief that the moral content of our conscience is formed during childhood under the influence of society. Nietzsche defines the conscience as an introspective phenomenon brought about by a feeling of responsibility, in which one analyzes their own morality due to the internalization of the values of society. This definition holds the position that the conscience is not something innate to

In my opinion, some of the essential idea in Nietzsche’s “beyond good and evil” is his search for the truth. He believed everyone had the ability to explore truth in their own specific way. In Nietzsche’s “beyond good and evil” he also believes that self – preservation is not the main ambition of human beings but the fundamental creative force that motivates all creations is the “will to power”(122). Furthermore, Friedrich Nietzsche did not believe in the existence of God, to him, God was dead. God plays no vital role in our culture- except as a protector of the slaves morality, including the idea of equal worth of all persons (122).

German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, is one of the most read, least understood- yet influential thinker who brought forth new questions for many philosophers to follow. There are many accusations and rumors around Nietzsche. In “What Nietzsche Really Said” these accusations and rumors that surrounded Nietzsche are allayed and supported by his impact and influential views. “What Nietzsche really said depends on what one reads and how one interpret what ones reads” thus, the interpretation of these accusations and rumors are either helpful or harmful about Nietzsche. Three helpful rumors about Nietzsche is that he adored power, he was a (pre) postmodernist and argued fallaciously. Although he was apolitical, people believed that his “will

Nietzsche forces readers to cease to believe in the very thing that we base our reasoning on. Take our morality for instance, humans treat ‘morality’ like a sacred being, because we believe that there is a higher celestial being or a God. Humanity is being called into

He believes that knowledge has the ability to not take itself too seriously. Nietzsche is an advocate for uniting knowledge and play. He supposes that we create our values ourselves and do not discover them from nature or reason, as supposed by Plato. However, both philosophers believe that knowing your own ignorance and having a willingness to accept the fact that we are sometimes wrong and at fault is a vital step in creating the morals and values that we hold.

In Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical work, Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche has strong opinions on the belief of virtue and instinct. Nietzsche is known to be a controversial philosopher, since he goes against the Christian church and its ideals of human nature and indulgence. Another thinker known to speak of human nature is the Greek philosopher Socrates. Socrates finds disparity within human nature and knowledge. Both philosophers examine life and its characteristics and what it means to live. However, their opinions on life and how a person should carry their lives is extremely disparate.

If we broadly understand metaphysics to be the inquiry concerning how reality is in itself, then we find in the work of Nietzsche two different levels of discourse regarding his opinion of metaphysics. On one level, we find the Nietzsche that we all know, the staunch opposer of metaphysics as Platonism who greatly influenced later thinkers such as Martin Heidegger and Jean-Luc Marion. However, on another level, there is a Nietzsche who is completely at ease in employing this term in a positive way. This, is particularly clear in the light of Nietzsche’s first publication, The Birth of Tragedy. Heavily influenced by figures such as Schopenhauer and Wagner, in this text Nietzsche avails himself of

Friedrich Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher and held in regard amongst the greatest philosophers of the early part century. He sharpened his philosophical skills through reading the works of the earlier philosophers of the 18th century such as Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Arthur Schopenhauer and African Spir; however, their works and beliefs were opposite to his own. His primary mentor was Author Schopenhauer, whose belief was that reality was built on the foundation of experience. Such as it is, one of his essays, Schopenhauer als Erzieher, published in 1874, was dedicated to Schopenhauer (Mencken, 2008). In the past two centuries, his work has had authority and influence in both

Nietzsche introduced an idea of philosophy that was more than simply a rational groundwork of existence or as the pursuit of an absolute truth. Instead, he suggested that philosophy is something to be respected as a personal interpretation of life and all its faculties (morality, existentialism etc.) and that was – for him - focused on life affirmation. Furthermore, this thinking implies that philosophy is not a be all and end all answer to life’s questions; rather, it is merely a