Nietzsche’s doctrine of perspectivism claims that our view of the world and the statements we take to be true, depend on our perspective of the world. Thus, it gives rise to the epistemological thesis that our knowledge claims can never be true in an absolute or objective sense.
Perspectivism lays the foundations of Nietzsche’s thought, philosophy is subjective, and no philosophy is ultimate – but helps as a base to allow others to see the world differently.
He speaks of a new breed of philosophers approaching, of “free spirits¨. These are not ones who want to establish their truth as a truth for everyone (the secret wish of all dogmatic aspirations), they are outlaws, who are not in agreement with the majority, and whose judgements are their judgements alone. Inevitably they will be presented with bolted doors and shut windows, but for Nietzsche, these are free, very free spirits.
“Greatest of all is the one who can be the most solitary, the most hidden, the most different, the person beyond good and evil, the master of his virtues, the one with an abundance of will. Only this should be called greatness: the ability to be just as multiple as whole, just as wide as full.”
Perspectivism is committed to the idea that our knowledge of reality is never really “unmediated.” I’m not sure how this isn’t nihilistic, in a way. What it is, though, is a theory that very much fits Nietzsche’s way of thinking. The notion that everything is always mediated by a point of view, by a particular set of predilections, or, worse yet, by sinister political motives, such as an allegiance to a political group or ideology, very much fits within Nietzsche’s natural disposition.
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