The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century

by Michael N Forster

  Instead, my approach to the normative paradoxes in Nietzsche’s perspectivism is somewhat different. I will focus exclusively on what I regard as the most fundamental version of the normative problem: the self-refutation paradox arising out of Nietzsche’s perspectivism. Hopefully, my solution will provide ideas about how one might respond to the other variants. I look in particular at the logic underlying the self-refutation charge, and ask: how would Nietzsche, read as a skeptic, respond to this logic? I bring his skeptical relation to logic to bear on solving the paradox, as no one writing in this vein has done yet.23 I argue that the problem of self-refutation needs to be moved beyond the standard responses, and contextualized to an alternative, skeptical framework: one unconventional enough to allow him to embrace a logic of self-refutation as part of a wider pattern of self-criticism by anti-systematic, skeptical philosophers. Once properly contextualized, his perspectivism will be shown to be paradoxically circular, self-referencing, and self-implicating. But not in the vicious, confused, and incoherent way his critics think it is. Rather, the inconsistencies and paradoxes arising in his perspectivism will be of an illuminating kind that raises provocative questions about what Nietzsche’s skeptical project really is.

  32.4 THE LOGIC OF SELF-REFUTING SPEECH

  Ever since 1965, when Arthur Danto initiated the self-refutation paradox, every Nietzsche commentator of any significance has felt it imperative to come to grips with this puzzle.24 The paradox begins by asking of Nietzsche a seemingly simple question: “Is the theory of perspectivism true or false?” But the question turns out to be complex. For no matter how a skeptic answers, unwanted implications follow inexorably from the bivalent form of the question. If Nietzsche tries to assert or state his theory of perspectivism in neutral, presuppositionless terms, a problem arises. For it seems he already doth protest too much. In the unavoidable act of speaking, his very speech act calls into question the status of the claims of perspectivism. For what is the status of the very statements used to state the theory, if not affirming statements with a truth-value? If his statements are false, then their falseness would seem to undermine them. The only remaining alternative, given the bivalence loaded into the question, is for Nietzsche to commit to perspectivism being true. But if we apply the morals of the theory to itself, then by the theory’s own lights, there seems to be no intellectually responsible criterion for preferring perspectivism as true, without drawing on the notions of truth it seeks to reject. Thus his critics conclude that perspectivism is paradoxically “self-refuting,” “viciously circular,” “contradictory,” “confused,” and “incoherent.” For it just is not possible to believe a normatively ungrounded epistemology, which, by its own lights, can’t be true.

  But what is really at stake in the paradox? If what is at stake is a circular, self-refuting logic, then a circular logic is present in other self-referential paradoxes, such as the liar’s paradox. The liar asserts, “I am lying” or “This statement is false.” The liar has to draw on the very resources being called into question. Yet we understand the liar and it would be wrong to say that such lies verge on confusion or incoherence. Lies derive their significance within a meaningful linguistic practice by virtue of a contrast with truth-telling. At least with respect to its underlying logic, the thesis of perspectivism is no more confused or incoherent than the liar’s paradox. If Nietzsche should deny that the statements used to state the theory are true, he would seem to be straightforwardly reversing their truth-value in the same way the liar’s statements are self-reversing. Likewise, if he refuses to affirm the truth of perspectivism, then he would seem to be undermining the truthfulness of his own statements.

  Notice a circular logic is also present in, but not fatal to, other common forms of speech. Think of a narrator, who begins a story with the familiar fiction, “Everything I’m about to say in this story is true.” In a fictional context, as in the liar’s paradox, there is a suspension of the imperative to tell the literal truth. What is said may be literally false, but the literal truth is not undermined in a way that renders it senseless. For the narrator’s conceit has an intelligible surface meaning, which communicates a fictional truth beyond its literal truth-value. This makes the pretext credible (or “fictionally true”) in the fictional world. Other literary contexts use a self-referential logic. Socrates, for instance, uses irony to undermine his own statements. He says the opposite of what he means (or at least something different). The very thwarting of our expectations works to bring about a dramatic statement reversal, without lapsing into confusion. So what makes perspectivism any more paradoxical than irony and other ordinary forms of self-refuting speech?25

  In fact, a circular logic is a desirable feature of skeptical speech itself. Later we will see Nietzsche adopt tropes from the ancient variety, Pyrrhonian skepticism, as codified by Sextus Empiricus in the Outlines of Pyrrhonism (third century AD). The Pyrrhonian skeptics claimed not to be affirming propositions or doctrines in the sense of being truth-bearers. For it was precisely in being consciously self-refuting that skeptical phrases were thought to differ from dogmatic, declarative assertions. The Pyrrhonian skeptics cautiously formulated noncommittal utterances, such as, “Everything is undetermined,” or alternatively, “Nothing can be determined,” “All things are non-apprehensible,” “No more” (Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I, 14), “No more this than that” (Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I, 189). But do these utterances amount to saying nothing or committing to nothing? Even though the skeptics doggedly refused to make assertions, or to put forward doctrines, it would seem they doth protest too much. In the unavoidable act of speaking, their speech acts call into question the status of skeptical speech itself. For what is the status of a skeptical statement if not affirming a statement with a truth-value? Even “apparent assertions” count as speech acts, which carry conversational implicatures that would seem to commit one to truth-bearing statements and doctrines. In trying to express what can’t be said, skeptics seem to say the opposite of what they mean, which in applying to itself logically cancels itself out.

  Thus, if problems of self-reference and self-refutation afflict ordinary forms of speech, including skeptical speech itself, what makes it particularly fatal to Nietzsche’s perspectivism?

  What I think is really at stake in the self-refutation charge is a logical contradiction. To restate the charge in more precise, logical terms than his critics do: a logical contradiction arises between the substantive, propositional content of statements used to put forward perspectivism as a theory, and the truth of those skeptical statements. The statements used to state the substance of the theory cannot be assigned a stable truth-value. For any positive tenets arising from his skeptical epistemology would themselves be subject to skeptical refutation. If true, then Nietzsche’s skeptical thesis that “there is no truth” would indeed undermine the very statements used to state the theory. For how could a skeptic about truth use the very concept of truth in stating a preference for perspectivism? If, to state the theory, Nietzsche is forced to draw on the very logical and truth-referring notions that are being skeptically questioned, then it would seem he is not a skeptic about truth after all. For the truth of perspectivism, regarded as such, reverses or “turns against itself” based on the formal, logical features of the statements alone. For in referring back to themselves, the statements count as reversals that logically contradict one another. Thus, it would seem, perspectivisim is more viciously self-refuting than other more benign forms of speech on logical grounds.

  32.5 TWO STANDARD RESPONSES: RATIONAL AND IRRATIONAL

  If an underlying logic is what is really at stake in the self-refutation charge, then we seek a method specially tailored to resolving logical contradictions. The first method that comes to mind is a rational one. Commentators writing in this vein try to remove the offending inconsistency, in order to render Nietzsche’s theories internally consistent.26 What is wrong with a circular logic, rationalists think, is that it violates certain formal struc
tures of rational thought; where rational thought is broadly conceived as standing for various formal strategies of thought codified in the laws of classical logic. Thus, in order to reinterpret Nietzsche’s results in a way that escapes conflict, rationalists search for a more stable, internally consistent position on truth.

  The problem with a rational solution is that it requires drawing on the very value-laden concepts that Nietzsche regards with hostility. To make his theories consistent, as the rationalists try to do, implicates him in concepts and standards of rationality that he strenuously calls into question. The idea of giving a consistent, defensible, unitary theory or system and deploying rational methods is anathema to Nietzsche. He expresses hostility to conventional standards of rationality, and responds fearlessly to attempts to refute him rationally: “What have I to do with refutations?” (GM, Preface, 4). He rejects unity of method (BGE, 210) and declares war on the urge to systematize: “I am not narrow enough for a system—not even my own system.” About his anti-systematic bent, he writes unashamedly in Twilight of the Idols: “I distrust all systematizers and stay away from them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity” (TI, “Epigrams and Arrows,” 26). The rationalists are insensitive to Nietzsche’s self-presentation of himself as a philosopher at war with this tradition. Thus, a rational response to self-refutation cannot do justice to the inconsistencies and paradoxes arising in the views of a philosopher unwilling to defend himself using a traditional argumentative genre.

  In fact, as far as Nietzsche is concerned, the rationalist tradition is a dogmatic one (the ancient dogmatists were a school also known under the name of “rationalists”). And a self-referential logic is only fatal to theories, he thinks, if one is a dogmatist about logic. Michel Haar argues rightly that Nietzsche was not a dogmatist about logic. Nietzsche launches an attack against the very rational concepts used in formal structures of thought: against the law of identity (HH, 1, 11), a bivalent logic, the law of exclusion (WP, 552: 298; GS, 110–11; WP, 510, 521, 523). Even the law of non-contradiction is called into question (WP, 516).27 Thus logical contradictions can only arise for those who see themselves as working within a dogmatic logic that relies on the concepts of identity, self-identity, and non-contradiction—the very value-laden concepts that tell you that there is something wrong with contradictory assertions in the first place. He condemns logicians for using concepts ostensibly as part of a disinterested logical demonstration. He thinks hidden values and presuppositions lie in their supposedly descriptive, objective terms. He thinks logical laws reveal a rational bias in valuing all that is fixed, stable, identical, and non-contradictory (Haar 1996: 16–17; 1997: 6–7, 18).

  How then would Nietzsche relate himself to the logic underlying the self-refutation charge? Among the two standard responses, consider alternatively how an irrationalist would respond. If one has to be a dogmatist about logic for the paradox to go through, and Nietzsche is not, then why not remove the offending inconsistency by portraying him as flatly denying the logic underpinning it?28 After all, he resists the rationalist orientation toward consistency, coherence, and systematicity—and the biased world picture he thinks is bound up with dogmatic values. Rather than defend himself against the inconsistencies in which his own views implicate him, he staunchly refuses to defend himself in terms of logical consistency: “I long ago declared war on this optimism of logicians” (WP, 535). Without classical logic in place, there would be nothing wrong with a logical contradiction; hence, nothing wrong with a circular argument. So why not short-circuit the self-refutation charge by taking a fast shortcut through illogic?

  Of the two standard responses, it seems an irrational denial of logic is easier to reconcile with Nietzsche’s naturalized ontology. Consider: He embraces a Heraclitean picture of nature undergoing flux, change, and becoming; and Heraclitean contradictions are an essential and inevitable component of this naturalized ontology. The natural world accepts no binary oppositions and instead emphasizes differences of degree and transition (WS, 67). To capture the chaotic movement, indeterminacy and change, his naturalism stresses continuity between human beings (their sentiments, energies, passions) and the natural world, as falling along a continuum, with degrees of differentiation, but with no radical breaks.29

  Thus a naturalized ontology could be said to influence Nietzsche’s relation to logic to this extent: Heraclitean naturalism distances him from a rational tradition, by calling into question the metaphysical assumptions about reality that logical concepts commit us to.30 Nietzsche identifies nature with chaos, indeterminacy, primal forces, and contradictions. Thus, the natural world goes beyond what classical logic and conceptualization can capture (Cox 1999: 78–9). On his naturalized ontology, living things are unique and unrepeatable, which makes them incomprehensible and elusive to a logic that spuriously equates nonidenticals (WP, 510). Thus, he rejects a bivalent logic that flatly opposes a notion of truth to error, for being unable to capture living structures.

  For a logic involving the concepts of equality, identity, self-identity, sameness, oneness, and unity have no force within his naturalized ontology. He leaves open the possibility that there might be statements that are neither true nor false, but lie on a continuum, which makes them intermediate in degrees of value (BGE, 34). Rather than logic, he prefers artistic expression as a means of establishing continuity between human artists and the more brutal natural drives and energies in nature (BT, 2). Especially early Greek art and culture, “Dionysian” arts, succeed in reaching beyond what rational logical concepts can capture by combining contradictory forces of self-generation and self-destruction.

  This picture of Heraclitean naturalism may make Nietzsche sound like he is veering toward irrationalism with respect to logic, but he is not. He rejects the metaphysical value-laden presuppositions he thinks are loaded into logical concepts—but all of these points belong more properly to his (anti-) metaphysics and naturalized ontology. His anti-metaphysical commitments lead him to question the existence of hypostasized, fixed entities and his naturalism reorients us to the fluid, dynamic, living structures of nature. But this does not require anything as strong as denying logic. Questioning the logic underlying the paradox is not the same as irrationally being engaged in a “destruction of logic.” It is not directly relevant to our issue of logical self-refutation whether Nietzsche thinks traditional logic falsely schematizes and creates a fictional unity and coherence in nature where none exists. Logical self-refutation concerns conflicts among propositions, statements, and predicates, not about the way things really are in the world.31 The issue of how logic connects to reality—be it construed by a Heraclitean naturalist or a realist metaphysician—need not be involved in his naturalized ontology. To gauge the impact of his anti-metaphysical commitments, there is no need to saddle him with an implausible denial of logic, as the irrationalist does. For purposes of waging battle against the dogmatists about unity and coherence, his naturalistic ontology doesn’t need anything as strong as a flat denial of logic. For now, he can and probably should, remain agnostic on the issue of whether logic rests on unwarranted assumptions committing us to misleading ontological claims (HH, 11). As we shall see later, he can, and does, leave it open as to whether our logical concepts signify ontological truths about life and living things.

  The harm of misreading Nietzsche as an irrationalist—not the least of which prevents us from taking him seriously—is that it saddles him with a relation to logic that places him outside all argumentative traditions. While rationalists have got him pegged to the wrong tradition, the point is not that he does not occupy any argumentative tradition whatsoever. A wildly irrational reading of his relation to logic would leave us with this unfortunate impression. Prima facie, his appeals to natural, not rational, standards of warrant and acceptability, made irrationalism a better fit with his naturalism. But as we shall see later, it is an essential part of his naturalism that to occupy some perspective or conceptual scheme is a basic condition of all life.
To opt out of or subtract the human addition that we superadd onto the world from our perspective, as the irrationalist portrays him, would require assuming a nonhuman, ahistorical, perspectiveless standpoint transcending our conceptual framework. This would portray Nietzsche as adopting the dogmatist’s use of ahistorical, abstract structures in violation of his own perspectival-genealogical method. And among the natural conditions that have to be in place to enable human life is logic itself. Thus, while he staunchly refuses to defend his position in terms of rational consistency (“What have I to do with refutations?”), he nevertheless insists we can’t step outside our human perspective and destroy, despise, deny, or encourage a disbelief in logical laws.

  So far, we’ve seen there is more at stake in Nietzsche’s epistemology than short-circuiting clever logical puzzles. His relation to logic is more complicated than taking a fast shortcut through illogic. Hence, we need to go beyond the standard affirmation and denials of logic, while staying within a natural argumentative framework in which logic, language, and rational thought hold. My strategy, given the depth of Nietzsche’s commitment to skepticism—a commitment running throughout his epistemology, science, art, and morals—is to find a method that can accommodate his skeptical relation to logic, still from within a framework in which logic holds. My investigations are complicated from the start by the fact that Nietzsche’s views on logic, as with perspectivism itself, are never developed systematically anywhere. My restoration of the systematic connections, which his anti-systematic bent works hard against, will involve primarily the work of analytic reconstruction.