Against the positivism which halts at phenomena - 'There are only facts' - I would say: no, facts are just what there aren't, there are only interpretations. We cannot determine any fact 'in itself': perhaps it's nonsensical to want to do such a thing. 'Everything is subjective,' you say: but that itself is an interpretation, for the 'subject' is not something given but a fiction added on, tucked behind. - Is it even necessary to posit the interpreter behind the interpretation? Even that is fiction, hypothesis. Inasmuch as the word 'knowledge' has any meaning at all, the world is knowable: but it is variously interpretable; it has no meaning behind it, but countless meanings. 'Perspectivism'. It is our needs which interpret the world: our drives and their for and against. Every drive is a kind of lust for domination, each has its perspective, which it would like to impose as a norm on all the other drives.
True: Of a statement, idea, belief, etc.: in accordance with fact; agreeing with reality; correct.
Theory: The conceptual basis of a subject or area of study. Contrasted with practice.
Logic: The branch of philosophy that treats of the forms of thinking in general, and more especially of inference and of scientific method. (Prof. J. Cook Wilson.) Also, since the work of Gottlob Frege (1848–1925), a formal system using symbolic techniques and mathematical methods to establish truth-values in the physical sciences, in language, and in philosophical argument.
Perspectivism: Much of Nietzsche’s reaction to the theoretical philosophy of his predecessors is mediated through his interest in the notion of perspective. He thought that past philosophers had largely ignored the influence of their own perspectives on their work, and had therefore failed to control those perspectival effects. Commentators have been both fascinated and perplexed by what has come to be called Nietzsche’s “perspectivism”, and it has been a major concern in a number of large-scale Nietzsche commentaries. There has been as much contestation over exactly what doctrine or group of commitments belong under that heading as about their philosophical merits, but a few points are relatively uncontroversial and can provide a useful way into this strand of Nietzsche’s thinking.
Nietzsche’s appeals to the notion of perspective (or, equivalently in his usage, to an “optics” of knowledge) have a positive, as well as a critical side. Nietzsche frequently criticizes “dogmatic” philosophers for ignoring the perspectival limitations on their theorizing, but as we saw, he simultaneously holds that the operation of perspective makes a positive contribution to our cognitive endeavors: speaking of (what he takes to be) the perversely counterintuitive doctrines of some past philosophers, he writes,
Particularly as knowers, let us not be ungrateful toward such resolute reversals of the familiar perspectives and valuations with which the spirit has raged against itself all too long… : to see differently in this way for once, to want to see differently, is no small discipline and preparation of the intellect for its future “objectivity”—the latter understood not as “disinterested contemplation” (which is a non-concept and absurdity), but rather as the capacity to have one’s Pro and Contra in one’s power, and to shift them in and out, so that one knows how to make precisely the difference in perspectives and affective interpretations useful for knowledge. (GM III, 12)
This famous passage bluntly rejects the idea, dominant in philosophy at least since Plato, that knowledge essentially involves a form of objectivity that penetrates behind all subjective appearances to reveal the way things really are, independently of any point of view whatsoever. Instead, the proposal is to approach “objectivity” (in a revised conception) asymptotically, by exploiting the difference between one perspective and another, using each to overcome the limitations of others, without assuming that anything like a “view from nowhere” is so much as possible. There is of course an implicit criticism of the traditional picture of aperspectival objectivity here, but there is equally a positive set of recommendations about how to pursue knowledge as a finite, limited cognitive agent.
In working out his perspective optics of cognition, Nietzsche built on contemporary developments in the theory of cognition—particularly the work of non-orthodox neo-Kantians like Friedrich Lange and positivists like Ernst Mach, who proposed naturalized, psychologically-based versions of the broad type of theory of cognition initially developed by Kant and Schopenhauer. The Kantian thought was that certain very basic structural features of the world we know (space, time, causal relations, etc.) were artifacts of our subjective cognitive faculties rather than properties or relations of things in themselves; but where Kant and Schopenhauer had treated these structures as necessary, a priori conditions of any possible experience whatsoever, the more naturalistically oriented figures who influenced Nietzsche sought to trace them to sources in human empirical psychology, which would of course be contingent. The potential of these ineliminable subject-side influences to vary suggests Nietzsche’s idea of treating them as a kind of perspective, and he does not hesitate to tie these cognitively important perspectives back to his own ideas about psychology. In particular, the Genealogy passage emphasizes that for him, perspectives are always rooted in affects and their associated patterns of valuation. For that reason, Nietzsche holds that “every great philosophy so far” has been “the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir”. Thus, theoretical claims not only need to be analyzed from the point of view of truth, but can also be diagnosed as symptoms and thereby traced back to the complex configurations of drive and affect from the point of view of which they make sense. Nietzsche’s perspectivism thus connects to his “genealogical” program of criticizing philosophical theories by exposing the psychological needs they satisfy; perspectivism serves both to motivate the program, and to provide it with methodological guidance.
But Nietzsche’s perspectivism and his arguments for it go beyond epistemology, or the “theory of cognition” (Erkenntnistheorie), as it was practiced in the broadly Kantian milieu of his contemporary philosophy. (One should say, they “go beyond” the theory of cognition at least; Gemes argues that epistemological interpretations of perspectivism are altogether mistaken, and that it should be taken instead as fundamentally a doctrine within moral psychology, about the drives and affects.) Nietzsche makes perspectivist claims not only concerning the side of the cognitive subject, but also about the side of the truth, or reality, we aim to know. His views on this topic have been highly controversial, with some scholars emphasizing Nietzsche’s apparent denials of truth (either skeptical denials that any truth is ever knowable, or more radical claims that the very idea of truth is somehow incoherent), and others highlighting his own frequent and routine claims for the truth of his own views, as well as the valorization of truthfulness and honesty we saw above. A number of different strategies have been proposed for reconciling the tensions between these different strands of text, including the supposition that at least some of Nietzsche’s own claims must fall outside the scope of his denials of truth, the idea that Nietzsche distinguished different senses of “truth”, and the developmental proposal that Nietzsche eventually gave up on his denials of truth late in his career. In addition to work focused on Nietzsche’s understanding of truth per se, a good deal of scholarly effort has explored the way Nietzsche attempts to build his perspectivism down into the ontology of the world by understanding reality itself as a system of ever-shifting force-centers which themselves constitute a variety of points of view on the whole. These efforts argue for strong connections between perspectivism and the will to power doctrine.
From On Truth and Lies…: “What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms, in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, decorated and which, after lengthy use, seem firm, canonical and binding to a people: truths are illusions that are no longer remembered as being illusions, metaphors that have become worn and stripped of their sensuous force, coins that have lost their design and are now considered only as metal and no longer as coins.”
Postmodernism: The state, condition, or period subsequent to that which is modern; spec. in architecture, the arts, literature, politics, etc., any of various styles, concepts, or points of view involving a conscious departure from modernism, esp. when characterized by a rejection of ideology and theory in favour of a plurality of values and techniques. Also in extended use in general contexts, frequently used ironically.
Post-Truth: Originally U.S. Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping political debate or public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.
Positivism: Originally (now historical): a philosophical system elaborated from the 1830s by the French thinker Auguste Comte (1798–1857), recognizing only observable phenomena and empirically verifiable scientific facts and laws, and rejecting inquiry into ultimate causes or origins as belonging to outmoded metaphysical or theological stages of thought; a humanistic religion based on this system. In later use: any of various philosophical systems or views based on an empiricist understanding of science, particularly those associated with the belief that every cognitively meaningful proposition can be scientifically verified or falsified, and that the (chief) function of philosophy is the analysis of the language used to express such propositions.
Scientism: The belief that only knowledge obtained from scientific research is valid, and that notions or beliefs deriving from other sources, such as religion, should be discounted; extreme or excessive faith in science or scientists. Also: the view that the methodology used in the natural and physical sciences can be applied to other disciplines, such as philosophy and the social sciences
Philosophy of Science: is a subfield of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose of science. This discipline overlaps with metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, for example, when it explores the relationship between science and truth. Philosophy of science focuses on metaphysical, epistemic and semantic aspects of science. Ethical issues such as bioethics and scientific misconduct are often considered ethics or science studies rather than philosophy of science.
Epistemology: Defined narrowly, epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the following questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits? As the study of justified belief, epistemology aims to answer questions such as: How we are to understand the concept of justification? What makes justified beliefs justified? Is justification internal or external to one's own mind? Understood more broadly, epistemology is about issues having to do with the creation and dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry. This article will provide a systematic overview of the problems that the questions above raise and focus in some depth on issues relating to the structure and the limits of knowledge and justification.
Ontology: is the philosophical study of being. More broadly, it studies concepts that directly relate to being, in particular becoming, existence, reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.[1] Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology often deals with questions concerning what entities exist or may be said to exist and how such entities may be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.
Metaphysics: is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality. The word "metaphysics" comes from two Greek words that, together, literally mean "after or behind or among [the study of] the natural".
Metaphysics studies questions related to what it is for something to exist and what types of existence there are. Metaphysics seeks to answer, in an abstract and fully general manner, the questions:
Topics of metaphysical investigation include existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility.