The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century

by Michael N Forster

  26 A good representative of the rationalist approach is Maudemarie Clark, who tries to render Nietzsche’s epistemological writings on truth internally consistent by invoking a standard of what is “rationally acceptable.” Clark argues that Nietzsche can consistently endorse his perspective and positive tenets in a way that will meet analytic rational standards of acceptability. Using a developmental approach, she argues that as one moves away from Nietzsche’s early to middle-period writings toward the later, final formulations, one finds a more stable, internally consistent position on truth that can remove problems of self-reference and incommensurability (Clark 1990: 141, 155–8). Bernard Reginster extends the rational approach to a practical context and with a notion of “reflective revaluation” of conflicting desires—he too tries to remove conflict by rational means, in order to move us closer to a stable position (Reginster 1997: 287–92, 299).

  27 Nietzsche names Heraclitus, who denied the law of non-contradiction, as a notable exception to his critique (TI, “‘Reason’ in Philosophy,” 2). For Nietzsche’s remarks on logic, see HH, 11, 18; GS, 110–11; TI, III, 3; TI, VIII, 7; WP, 508–22; 554. See also BGE, 4; WP, 508–22, 512–16, 535; Nachlass, 134, 136. For Nietzsche’s remarks on mathematics, see HH, 11, 19; GS, 112, 355; TI, “Reason” 3; WP, 516, 530, 554.

  28 For instance, Haar claims that Nietzsche is engaged in a “destruction” and “denial” of logic (1977: 6–7).

  29 One encounters a variety of concepts of naturalism in Nietzsche. The various concepts are sensitive to context and resist being reduced to a single unitary sense. The sense of nature mentioned in section 32.3, which makes humans continuous with nature rather than setting man above animals in nature, appears in his reflections on art and culture. On this sense, cf. Berry 2004: 88–103; 2001. In this sense, Nietzsche’s naturalism involves trusting the senses (TI, “‘Reason’ in Philosophy,” 1, 3); unlearning our spirituality; relearning our wild instinctual natures; and “translating man back into nature” (BGE, 230: 261). Naturalism in this sense makes art and culture continuous with the primal forces of nature, not “antithetical” or superior to them (cf. Hatab 2011). But as we’ll see later, there is another quite different sense of naturalism, which unlike the first sense, is species-specific and does not apply to nonrational animals. We’ll see, in the context of naturalizing logic, the natural conditions that make human life possible require the concepts of truth and logic, without which, human life would be impossible. This second sense of naturalism works against the first sense because it makes humans discontinuous with animals.

  Thus, the second sense in which Nietzsche is a naturalist in my account differs from Berry (2004, 2011). Berry sets up Montaigne’s skepticism as a model of someone who represents both a naturalistic and skeptical attitude, and by way of a line of influence passing through Montaigne, she argues for the same in Nietzsche. The sense of naturalism she sees in Nietzsche is that he is motivated by the belief that man doesn’t stand above the rest of the natural world, but in continuity with it (Berry 2011: 94). Thus, there are two important respects in which my account of naturalism differs: one, the sense of naturalism having to do with rational logical concepts is species-specific, which would make this kind of naturalism in humans discontinuous with animals. Two, I attribute to Nietzsche a substantive naturalism that commits him to an ontology that is compatible with his theoretical skepticism.

  30 Haar 1996: 15–16; cf. WP, 554; BGE, 17; HH, 11.

  31 Nietzsche regards formal logic as “a convention of signs,” a theory of signs that provides rules for manipulating connectives, predicates, variables, operators, relations among sentences in abstraction from reality (WP, 604). On this issue, he writes in Twilight of the Idols: “In these [formal sciences, like logic and mathematics], reality makes no appearance at all, not even as a problem” (TI, “‘Reason’ in Philosophy,” 3). To explain further what is true of propositions and predicates would take us beyond formal logic.

  32 Hales and Welshon argue that Nietzsche thinks logical axioms are shared across human perspectives, which makes them part of the bedrock in human thought and, as such, cannot be up for revision. As humans, we are forced to accept the laws of logic as being part of the conditions that make life possible. Hales and Welshon, 2000: 112–13.

  33 Whereas Poellner, by contrast, claims this does in fact make logic immune from questioning. Poellner 2000: 59.

  34 By contrast, Nadeem Hussain describes Nietzsche as a “fictionalist” about value, where fictionalism remains silent on the question of what it is for a value judgment to have normative authority (Hussain 2007).

  35 While Nietzsche extends his fictionalism to include the unconditional and the self, his brand of fictionalism is not to be confused with Humean skepticism about the concepts of cause and the self as “fictional” projections.

  36 On the value-meanings that Nietzsche thinks are hidden in our biased worldview, see Rolf-Peter Horstmann in “The Unity of Reason and the Diversity of Life: The Idea of a System in Kant and in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy,” in Cambridge History of Nineteenth Century Philosophy 1790–1870, eds. Allen Wood and Songsuk Susan Hahn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

  37 TI, “What I Owe to the Ancients,” 4. See EH “Why I am so clever” BGE, 10: 256–7; A, 8; BGE, 6: 249, 230: 160, 13, 30.

  38 The literature is inscrutably silent on the ancient skeptics’ relationship to logic. Even if we think the ancient skeptics neither affirmed nor denied logical laws, but suspended judgment in theory, the very conditions of engaging in rational discourse and argumentation render the use of the logical laws unavoidable. Consider the method of equipollence: while skeptics would not see themselves as actively assenting to the use of law of noncontradiction in theory, just to affirm the indeterminacy thesis about reality requires skeptics minimally to suppose there is something wrong with a conflict of appearances. Without the law of contradiction still in play, there would be nothing to indicate there is something wrong with a conflict in appearances to force them to role back to a stance of suspended judgment. If the ancient skeptics had to passively consent to the use of logical laws in practice, then in this respect this makes Nietzsche, who actively questions such laws, more radical than the ancient skeptics.

  39 On this strategy, see Conway and Wade, who read Nietzsche’s brand of skepticism as Pyrrhonian skepticism, rather than Cartesian or Humean skepticism (1992: 193–223). While explicit references to Pyrrhonian skepticism in Nietzsche’s published work are few and scattered, there is an array of passages, ranging from early to later stages of his intellectual development, in which he identifies himself with ancient skepticism and even calls himself a skeptic. For respects in which the ancient skeptics influenced Nietzsche, see Adi Parush 1975: 523–542; Philip Kain 1983: 383ff; Avner Cohen, 1984: 405–424; Robert Hull 1990: 375–391; Richard Bett 2000: 62–86; Jessica Berry (2004, 2005, 2011).

  40 On the strong versus weak reading of perspectivism, see Hales and Welshon 2000: 31–4.

  41 Laughter plays a serious role for Nietzsche in smashing icons, and overcoming static boundaries. Laughter ruptures us from the restrictive, oppressive, conventional “truths” associated with the overly interpreting intellect. Laughter cuts through the “gravity of our costumes” and masks, which are a symbol of illusions for Nietzsche. In comedy, he thinks laughter comes spontaneously and instinctively and puts us in touch with our pre-rational selves. In the Birth of Tragedy, laughter gets associated with the “Homeric laughter” of the Olympian Gods, who look down upon the seriousness and gravity of earnest mortals from a superior, transcendent height (HH, I, 16).

  42 While Nietzsche’s form of skepticism has been identified in the literature with ancient skepticism in many respects, one important departure is his relation to practical action. His version of skepticism rejects the concept of the weak-willed skeptic, with a low degree of will, whose lack of beliefs invites tranquil detachment or ataraxia. He describes his brand as a more severe, more dangerous,
harder type of skepticism: one that gives the spirit dangerous freedom in acting (BGE, 209). He describes the “new skeptic” as having a stronger degree of will; and a heart that is hard enough for evil (or good): “It [new skepticism] gives the spirit dangerous freedom, but it is severe on the heart.” He refers admiringly to a strong “manly skeptic” and “the skepticism of audacious manliness”: one with the ability to command and embrace contradictions; one committed to rigor and discipline. (See BGE, 109–111; 122; 208–211; esp. 209, 211.) He calls his form of skepticism a “German form of skepticism.”

  43 See Lanier Anderson (1998; 2005) on this distinction between the epistemological question, “How do we know perspectivism?” or the question “Is the theory true?” and the practical question, “Ought or should we believe perspectivism because it is true?”.

  44 Thus Nietzsche’s distinction between guilty and innocent beliefs lines up with sick and healthy. Given his chronic health problems, anything having to do with sick and healthy states of the body was a topic of preoccupation for this self-described “physician.” He applies to beliefs a psycho-physical standard of health, taken over from the ancient skeptics’ medical model (GM, III, 19: 139). The ancient skeptics’ standard of health was meant to apply to behavior having to do with healthy and sick states of the body, but he adapts these norms and fashions them into rules and mores to discipline and constrain what we do in philosophical conduct.

  45 Thus, we have to reject a pluralistic reading of perspectivism: on which there are a radically pluralistic body of perspectives and appearances, and all appearances are regarded as “mere appearances,” “mere perspectives” on a par with all others. For the “plurality view,” see Kain 1983: 367.

  46 Everything I have ever valued about Nietzsche, I learned from Raymond Geuss at Columbia University. The original stimulus for drafting this piece came from David Owen’s conference on “Nietzsche and Post-Analytic Philosophy” at the University of Southampton, England. There, Richard Schacht and Paul Patton gave well-informed and stimulating early feedback. Allen Wood kindly encouraged and commented on an early rough draft. Thanks to alert and receptive audiences at University of New Mexico, Reed College, Mt. Holyoke College, the Canadian Philosophical Association, and University of Alberta. In particular, thanks to Alexander Rueger, who resurrected my interest in this early project and motivated me to complete it under the best possible circumstances. Heartfelt thanks to Michael Forster, who originally got me interested in skepticism. I am very grateful to him for seeing some value in this piece and allowing it to see the light of day.

  CHAPTER 33

  DIALECTICS

  CLAUDIA WIRSING

  33.1 ANCIENT ORIGINS

  DIALECTIC derives from the Greek διαλɛκτική (τέχη), dialektikê (technê) and means, first of all, the ‘art of discourse’ (synonymous with the Latin (ars) dialectica). The word Dialectic originated from Greek διαλέγɛσθαι, dialegesthai1 (‘to talk’ or ‘to make conversation’) and means more exactly the art of reasonable argumentation, the art of clarifying the truth in the alternation of speech and replies or, in a modern sense, the art of rational discourse. The participants in discussion refer in dialectical discourse to real contrasts in nature or society or to contradictions between opposed positions with the aim of reaching a common truth, and against the background of a common recognition and rational control of the criteria which articulate what it generally means to appreciate something as right or true. Dialectic involves, at a very general level, three structural types: 1. Through discursively-pursued reflection, different ways of understanding are selected and contrasted (in terms of the Greek dialegein, literally to select). 2. Fixed meanings and reasons arise only out of a form of conversation which connects theses and syntheses with each other. 3. The clarity of contents and the quality of reasons are determined by the argumentative conversation of a dialectical relationship. This implies that reason (logos) is based essentially on the dialectical procedure (dialektikê methodos) of establishing truth.

  33.1.1 Plato: Dialectic as Art of Thinking and Ontological Mode of Truth

  Plato’s concept of dialectics takes on different meanings as his thought develops. Thus, for example, the concept of the ‘middle’ Plato (Republic) is distinguished from that of the ‘late’ Plato, and also within a single phase of his thinking (late works such as Parmenides and Sophist, for example) the meaning of dialectic differs. In Parmenides, a dialogue which would become essential for the German idealists, dialectic is understood as a procedure of correct thinking or as a method for examining validity claims: formulating a thesis allows one to examine whether the corollaries flowing from it are reasonable, that is, whether internal contradictions arise in the connection of thesis and corollary, or whether untenable or even absurd assumptions come to light.2 However, if a proposition turns out to be untenable the counterthesis is not necessarily thereby true; it too must be examined carefully in the same manner. Plato realizes at this point a principle of epistemic heuristics which Hegel summed up as follows: ‘The false must not be false because the opposite is true, but in itself.’3

  The established contradiction is used as heuristic means for finding truth. Contradiction is not itself the truth-principle of assertions; on the contrary, assertions must have an internal logical consistency and can only be recognized as true when proved valid without contradiction. However, in the Sophist dialectic is, in addition to this meaning from the Parmenides, also an ontological fundamental science, that is, it is not only a procedure of thinking but also a quality of the comprehended ideas themselves. Dialectic is therefore the method (dialektikê methodos) through which knowledge about ideas, about the final structures and grounds of being, is to be found, namely by surveying the whole conceptual field of an object in its logical classifications through ‘dihairesis’ (subdivision).4 Already for Plato it is important that knowledge (and therefore truth) differs from correct opinion by the fact that it must be adequately justified; however, dialectic is the correct way of finding—and the very essence of being of—the network of reasons or grounds that leads us to final principles.

  In discovering and thinking through the connections and differences between basic concepts (ideas) as well as in recognizing the meta-conceptual rules which regulate these connections and separations in the relation between ideas,5 dialectic becomes the real ‘science of free people’.6 At the same time, however, the quality of the ideas is itself dialectical (and not only their recognition), namely in the way in which they refer inevitably in their being to various other ideas by negative and positive participation in each other, that is, in mixed relations of identity and difference, compatibility and contradiction. It is necessary to think this ontological participation, so that the radical dialectical conclusion which Hegel will later draw can be absolutely avoided: only if basic concepts participate in each other and thus share in their opposite can the logical conclusion that they themselves are completely their own opposite be avoided, a thought which Plato strongly resists.7 By the same measure Plato wants to retain the possibility of false speech which was denied by the Sophists (in particular, Protagoras and those influenced by him, such as Dionysodorus and Euthydemus).

  In summary, it can be seen that for Plato dialectic is firstly a philosophical approach to discussion and correct thinking (Parmenides), insofar as the dialectician comes to an adequate and true form of conversation, one which tries to expose the illusions of untrue thinking: ‘What would you call someone who knows to ask (erôtan) and answer (apokrinesthai) questions? Wouldn’t you call him a dialectician?’8 Thus dialectic is the art of ‘someone who has a pure und just love of wisdom (philosophia)’.9 And second, it is a feature of the ideas themselves (Sophist).

  33.1.2 Aristotle: Dialectic as Logic of Discourse

  While the Platonic dialectic refers more to the operation between the fundamental categories of being and the method by which they are truly explored, Aristotle’s dialectic is about opposed opinions i
n discourse, that is, about questions of a rhetorical rather than a primarily logical nature.10 Platonic dialectic refers to the sphere of highest truth, the Aristotelean version instead to the sphere of probability, that is, to a social approach to contradictions and vagueness in every-day speech and common opinions. Foreshadowing Kant’s concept of dialectic as a ‘logic of illusion’ (Logik des Scheins), but without its negative connotations, dialectic for Aristotle is the art of inferring probable propositions from probable premises.11 Aristotelean dialectic also deals thereby with contradictions between universal assertions,12 and lays down a set of rules or methodical means to cope with them.13 Thus Aristotle speaks of his Topics as a ‘treatise on dialectic’14 and calls the topical syllogisms ‘dialectical syllogisms’.15 Contra Plato, he separates the claim for absolute truth from the necessity of knowledge’s first principles and final reasons: because they are underivable, they can only be discovered by dialectic as an art of finding probable propositions. For Aristotle, dialectic becomes the procedure for generating knowledge above and below the strict claim of truth: in the everyday as well as in the fundamental thinking of final grounds, only the probabilities of opposed assertions can be treated rationally. Thus dialectic becomes, in an anti-Platonic manner, ‘a line of enquiry whereby we shall be able to reason from reputable opinions about any subject presented to us, and also shall ourselves, when putting forward an argument, avoid saying anything contrary to it’.16 How important the discourse-technical character of dialectic is for Aristotle becomes apparent in the Sophistical Refutations, which come at the end of Aristotle’s treatment of dialectic.