Perspectivism and Falsification Revisited: Nietzsche, Nehamas, and Me

Abstract

Abstract In this article, I offer the beginning of a new interpretation of Nietzsche's perspectivism, one that restricts the scope of the knowledge to which it applies. I do so by presenting a new reading of one of Nietzsche's most important passages on perspectivism, Genealogy III:12. I arrive at this reading by revisiting Alexander Nehamas's 1985 interpretation of perspectivism, my 1990 alternative to it, and Nehamas's recent criticism of that alternative in the Journal of Nietzsche Studies. I argue that, despite some errors that I made, my developmental approach to interpreting Nietzsche's commitment to the falsification thesis still holds up against Nehamas's recent criticism. I then argue against his 2017 account of falsification in The Gay Science and his 1990 and 2017 accounts of perspectivism. In the end, I argue that we both made the same mistake of thinking that Nietzsche's perspectivism applies to all knowledge.