Continental Philosophy

Nietzsche's Account of Truth

Primary Sources:

Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (EMS)
Nietzsche, The Gay Science (GS), sections 108 - 112, 121, 246, 260, 293, 354, 355, 373
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (BGE), Preface, sections 1 - 23, 34, 36, 39, 43, 204, 206, 207, 230
Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals (GM), section III, sections 12, 23 - 28
Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (TI), "Reason in Philosophy", "How the 'True World' Finally Became a Fable"

Secondary Sources:

A.C. Danto, Nietzsche as Philosopher, chapters 3
A. Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature, chapters 1 - 3
M. Clark, Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy, chapter 1
R. Schacht, Nietzsche, chapter 2
M. Warnock, "Nietzsche's Conception of Truth", in M. Pasley (ed.), Nietzsche: Imagery and Thought
J.P. Stern, "Nietzsche and the Idea of Metaphor", in M. Pasley (ed.), Nietzsche: Imagery and Thought
H. Vaihinger "Nietzsche and the Doctrine of Conscious Illusion", in R.C. Solomon (ed.), Nietzsche: A Collection of Critical Essays
P. Pütz, "Art and Intellectual Inquiry", in M. Pasley (ed.), Nietzsche: Imagery and Thought

Questions:

What is Nietzsche's account of truth? What is perspectivism (cf. GM 12)? Does Nietzsche believe that his own views are true?
What does it mean that "everything is false" (cf. Danto, p 75)? Why should one believe that the world is without any of the distinctions we draw in it? Is this "Dionysiac Insight" itself true (cf. Danto, p. 72)? What is the significance of Nietzsche's claim that "we operate with a whole lot of things which do not exist, with lines, plains, bodies, atoms, divisible times, divisible spaces" (cf. GS 112)? Why is science an "anthropomorphizing of things" (ibid.)? How did "truth" come into the world according to Nietzsche (cf. GS 110ff)? Why did consciousness develop, in how far is it the "perspective of the heard" (cf. GS 354)? Why does Nietzsche still claim that there is a world, if everything is false? Is he a kind of transcendental idealist (cf. Danto, p. 96)?
What does it mean to say that there are no facts, only interpretations? Is such a claim coherent? Does it make sense to claim that this view is itself an interpretation (for a defense of such a claim see Nehamas, p. 66ff)? Is physics an interpretation (cf. BGE 22)? Does Nietzsche believe that some interpretations are better than others (cf. Nehamas)?

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