Can someone, other than Unreasonable, explain this to me, or point me in the direction of something that does, because I’m having some trouble with it.
Faust is the resident expert on Perspectivism. He talks about it a fair amount in this thread, this one, and this one. I hope that helps.
I’m not altogether on board with some of the definitions I have read about this.
I just checked the Wiki entry - it’s actually very good, and wholly supports the views I expose in the threads cited by Xunzian.
I found this:
stolaf.edu/depts/philosophy/ … ivism.html
I just skimmed it, but it also seems very good.
Nothing personal, Unreasonable, I am just struggling to see it as anything other than what you called it here at the minute, and I think I should probably learn a bit more about it before I decide for certain.
Xunzian and Faust, thanks - going to be a long night!
OK, here’s what I have so far:
While I recognise a vulgar version of a Heideggerridean-style “de(con)struction of metaphysics” at work here, is there not an inherent danger that this might descend into solipsism? How do we overcome that, should we even want to? By an aggregate (i.e. social) view of “truth”? Should we even care about “truth” at all, on this view? (Faust, I know you have rejected nihilistic consequences elsewhere, so perhaps you might have an answer.)
The perspectivist uses nihilism to create a blank slate of values. And then creates his own values. yeah - it leads there - where you tke it after that is up to you.
How does perspectivist nihilism create “a blank slate”?
Faust - would you agree with the remark that there is no fundamental difference between a pragmatic and a perspectivist view of truth?
Matty - Perspectivism famously requires the revaluation of all values. Nihilism maintains that there are no objective values.
Irving - pragmatism means a few different hings. But perspectivists are pragmatic, yes. Pragmatism is concerned with the amount of work a principle does. Perspectivists are a little less concerned with efficiency.
Faust, the way you talk about and employ perspectivism makes it out to be a philosophy where anything and everything is only what you want it to be. Some would call this nihilism, some would call this infintile, but I’m not sure how many would call it perspectivism. Generally perspectivism has an existentialist bent which means not that you can make truth and meaning what you want, but rather truth and meaning issue from your particular existence and view of things.
I mean Nietzsche’s overman is for a particular type of person who has the disposition to create meaning and truth in accordance with this disposition, while people with other dispositions have different truths and meaning. They can’t just decide one day to take on a different perspective, the overman can’t decide to take on the Christian perspective, and the Christian can’t take on the higher man’s perspective unless their is a radical change in their underlying motivations and drives. They may think they can, but it would be inauthentic.
There you go; I amended that for you Faust.
Understood, but I still don’t see how that creates “a blank slate” - “an open book” seems more accurate.
Sitt - what you want does issue from your view of things. The two are inseparable - two sides of the same coin. Two facets of the same jewel. One does not possess a wil - for persepctivism, one is one’s will. You do not understand the causal realtionship here. We don’t ever change our will - it changes us.
matty - you may be getting it very quickly - choose your metaphor. I like mine, and I like yours, too.
Which is where existential authenticy comes in. I can think that I want to be a Christian and even act like I take on a Christian perspective, but it is false unless I actually have a disposition associated with the Christian perspective. I think the point is that for perspecitivism, one doesn’t simply pull the perspective out of thin air and adopt it, but the perspective is determined by your disposition or motivations, or relation of forces(depending on who you read), or what you call “will”.
Sure they can, and for a couple of reasons - first, Nietzsche himself was raised Christian; his father was a minister, and his young self took the study of scripture very seriously in fact. Nietzsche knew, felt, and understood Christianity better than most Christians.
The second is none other than the imagination, the chief source of his genius - presupposing one first has his open, with the “mind’s eye” one can take on a multitude of perspectives without having to leave one’s armchair, and do so with varying degrees of breadth, lucidity, and insight, according to the intensity of one’s intellectual constitution.
Nietzsche understood most Christians better than they understood themselves.
I think your point helps me, but I can’t find the quote and I’m not going to spend 10 minutes trying to find it. It’s a Nietzsche quote to the effect of “My very existence prevents me from having faith”. Which would indicate what I said, he thought he took on the perspective of the Christian, but it was false or inauthentic.
There is a difference between hypothetically taking on a perspective and then actually living or believing that perspective. If perspectivism was the idea that one can take on any perspective at any time because they felt like it, then would Nietzsche not be prescribing the overman for everyone? But he doesn’t, he reserves it for a particular type of person with a particular disposition, which leads me to believe that for Nietzschean perspectivism, perspectives are lived perspectives, and abstractly considering “what would it be like to be an alligator” misses the point.
Or consider it this way, he doesn’t deny Christianity through theology, but he denies it because the motivations or drives that underlie it are garbage. The question is always “why” does this person believe this - is it from weakness and negation or from affirmation and strength? Which would indicate that What makes the perspective the perspective is the personal motivations, not abstract reasoning.
A “blank slate” has connotations of “starting from scratch” for me, which seems impossible - I follow Derrida here (as at present in a lot of things) to the effect that we cannot “escape” metaphysics as such, hence the “open book” metaphor. I imagine you would disagree.
Yeah - no one really starts from scratch. But we can get close, in limited ways. The point is to jettison inherited values.