Nietzsche&#039;s Naturalist Deconstruction of Truth

Peter Bornedal

doi:10.5771/9781498579315

Summary

Nietzsche’s Naturalist Deconstruction of Truth: A World Fragmented in Late Nineteenth-Century Epistemology offers a new interpretation of Nietzsche’s discussions of truth and knowledge, covering the period from his early essay “On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense” to his late notebooks. It places these discussions in the context of the neo-Kantian, Naturalist, Positivist, and Pragmatic schools influential in Nietzsche’s late nineteenth-century Europe. Peter Bornedal argues for a view of Nietzsche’s epistemological thought as an elaboration of this paradigm: proposing ideas that are anti-metaphysical and anti-theological in their polemic orientation, and in general promoting new scientific naturalist ideals in the discussions of knowledge. Bornedal suggests that the rational pursuit of these new ideals to the unencumbered mind logically leads to Nihilism in its most profound epistemological sense. Nietzsche’s “critique of metaphysics” is thus seen as having sprung from sources different from and, at times, in patent opposition to more recent postmodern and deconstructionist critiques. This book contextualizes Nietzsche in relation to a number of philosophical peers and juxtaposes him to contemporary thinkers in a way that resolves some of the difficulties that have plagued recent Nietzsche scholarship.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2020
ISBN-Print: 978-1-4985-7930-8
ISBN-Online: 978-1-4985-7931-5
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 274
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. 1. 1. NATURALISM VERSUS METAPHYSICS No access
  2. 2. NIETZSCHE VERSUS DERRIDA No access
1. 1. 1. Preliminary Remarks No access
  2. 2. Human Insignificance and Self-Deceptive Pride No access
  3. 3. Genealogy of the Pragmatic Notion of Truth No access
  4. 4. Nerve-Stimuli, Images, and Sounds No access
  5. 5. Word and/or/versus Concept? No access
  6. 6. Truth as “Dead Metaphors” No access
  7. 7. The Rationalizing Concept No access
  8. 8. Biological Perspectivism No access
  9. 9. Nietzsche’s Empiricist Neo-Kantianism No access
2. 1. 1. Regressions to Romantic Arts-Metaphysics No access
3. 1. 1. ‘Vanity’ as the Specifically Human ‘Thing-in-Itself’ No access
  2. 2. Will to Truth as Will to Immortality No access
1. 1. 1. Nietzsche’s Critiques of the In-Itself as Cause in the Middle Work No access
  2. 2. ‘Chronological Reversal’ of Cause and Effect No access
  3. 3. A Surface without Abyss No access
  4. 4. Three Pillars of Nietzschean Positivism: PhenomenalismPerspectivism Relativism No access
  5. 5. ‘Long Live Science’ as the ‘Best Possible’ Falsification No access
2. 1. 1. From Materialism to Agnosticism No access
  2. 2. From Agnosticism to Positivist Nihilism No access
  3. 3. A Nietzsche-Machean Theory of Knowledge No access
  4. 4. The Fictional Concept in Vaihinger and Nietzsche No access
  5. 5. Nietzsche’s Positivism According to Habermas No access
3. 1. 1. What Is ‘True’ and What Is ‘False’ in Nietzsche’s Discussion ofKnowledge? No access
Appendix No access Pages 175 - 192
1. INTRODUCTION No access
2. PART I: NIETZSCHE’S EARLY THEORYOF TRUTH AND KNOWLEDGE No access
3. PART II: NIETZSCHE’S POSITIVIST-PRAGMATIC PARADIGM No access
Abbreviations No access Pages 245 - 246
Bibliography No access Pages 247 - 262
Index No access Pages 263 - 272
About the Author No access Pages 273 - 274