What is PERSPECTIVISM for Nietzsche
In this lesson from a PROFESSOR we are going to talk about one of the most important philosophers in current history, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1923). Whose theses are framed within the perspectivism. A philosophical current that developed between the XIX-XX centuries, and according to which, the knowledge of any reality can be obtained through different perspectives or points of view (cognitive), because each one of the perspectives is indispensable for the whole.
If you want to know more about what is perspectivism for Nietzsche, he continues reading and… do not lose details!
Before studying Nietzsche's perspectivism, we are going to briefly explain what this philosophical doctrine consists of. Thus, the perspectivism establishes that each human being knows reality from his point of view and that the world has multiple interpretations.
Also, it is based on three big ideas:
- Every human being knows the reality according to their point of view and all knowledge is subject to that point of view or perspective.
- The truth exists, but we cannot get to know it if we do not make a sum of all the perspectives, that is, if we want to know the authentic truth of an issue, we must know the different versions of said issue.
- Multiple perspectives can come together in one perspective., that is, different points of view from different people. Therefore, each perspective is valuable (we are unique beings) and the only false perspective is the one that tries to be unique.
The perspective of Nietzsche takes place during the last years of his life and above all appears reflected in three of his works: Thus spoke Zarathustra (1883), About truth and lies in the extramoral sense (1893) or Rehearsal of a transmutation of all values (1903).
Thus, broadly speaking, Nietzsche's perspectivism asserts that there must be a multiplicity of perspectives or several points of view on the same issue, with the aim of better understanding or reaching something and obtaining more interpretive possibilities.
In this way, he establishes that reality is constituted by perspectives and that the interpretation of the world is developed by the perception of each one. (from a specific place and time), that knowledge and the world can be approached from different points of view, all of them valid and justified. Being the perspective of each subject, only Y multiple/subjective viewpoints, which leads us to a better understanding.
“…Every representation of the world is a representation made by a subject; the idea that we can dispense with the vital situation of the subject, its physical, psychological, historical or biographical traits, to achieve an understanding of the world as it can be…”
Finally, Nietzsche also points out that the birth of perspective implies the end of decline of the world/western culture which, since Socrates, has imposed a model of knowledge based on necessary, immutable and eternal truths.
If we want to know where perspective arises according to Nietzsche, we must study his concept of the human being. Thus, according to his thesisman is not reason but a being dominated by instincts and drives (which are in the unconscious) repressed by society to comply with established standards.
In this way, our protagonist establishes that these instincts are part of the experiences that feed us (some fill up and others disappear) and that are the ones that control our thoughts or interpretations (=perspective). So, instinct dominates reason and the different interpretations/perspectives have their origin in the unconscious.
For Nietzsche the idea of perspective is directly linked to the idea of truth. Thus, according to this philosopher the big mistake and problem that the human being has generated throughout history has been the creation of the will to truth or absolute truth and immovable linked to a divine being, God.
"… What is the truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, anthropomorphisms, in a word, a sum of human relationships that have been enhanced, extrapolated, embellished poetically and rhetorically and that, after prolonged use, seem fixed, canonical, obligatory to a people: truths are illusions that have been forgotten are…"
However, for our protagonist nothing can be reduced to a single category, we must question this "necessary" absolute truth and, once we are able to question it, we will be able to accept each other's perspective and free ourselves from something false like the will to truth.
Hence it tells us thatGod is dead, the new philosophy and the superman have been born: With God dead there is no longer where to hold on because he has the absolute disappeared and progress, science or nature has been born. Thus, accepting the death of God, it is accepted that there is no other foundation for morality than the human being, denying the absolute and accepting perspectivism and that it is possible live in the future, which would be the essential condition for the birth of the superman. He who is capable of generating his own value system.
Likewise, according to Nietzsche, we must be aware that the truth is something that the human being has invented and, therefore, the perspective is not in itself true, but an invention/fiction of each one or an interpretation of things. But, nevertheless, more real than the absolute truth because it allows us to question and because it is transformative.