Reading Nietzsche Through The Ancients

BOSTON UNIVERSITY
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Dissertation
READING NIETZSCHE THROUGH T H E ANCIENTS:
A N ANALYSIS OF BECOMING, PERSPECTIVISM, A N D
T H E PRINCIPLE OF NON-CONTRADICTION
by
MATTHEW MEYER
B.A., University of St. Thomas, 1996

M.T.S., Harvard University, 1999
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
2010
UMI Number: 3405992
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MATTHEW MEYER
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First Reader
Daniel O. Dahlstrom, P h . D .
Professor of Philosophy
Boston University
Second Reader a^g/

David Roochnik, P h . D .
Professor of Philosophy
Boston University
Third Reader
Bernard Regmsterl P h . D
Professor of Phifosophy
Brown University
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to my first reader, Professor Daniel Dahlstrom,
for his guidance and support from the time I entered Boston University. I would like to
thank my committee, Professor David Roochnik, Professor Gisela Striker, and Professor
Bernard Reginster for their encouragement and advice as I worked on this dissertation, and
Professors Alfred Dunshirn, Reiner Friedrich, Wolfgang Haase, and Stephanie Nelson for
helping me progress in my studies of ancient Greek. Thanks is also due to the Boston
University Department of Philosophy, the Boston University Humanities Foundation, and
the Earhart Foundation for providing the financial support that made this project a reality. I
would also like to acknowledge the important role that my friends and colleagues have
played throughout this process and the efforts of Jakob Dellinger and Heike Schotten who
read chapters of this dissertation. Finally, I cannot say enough about the love, support, and
patience that my family and, especially, my wife have shown me over the years. Without
these people, none of this would have been possible.
tv
READING NIETZSCHE THROUGH T H E ANCIENTS:
AN ANALYSIS OF BECOMING, PERSPECTIVISM,
A N D T H E PRINCIPLE OF NON-CONTRADICTION
(Order No. )
MATTHEW MEYER
Boston University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2010
Major Professor: Daniel Dahlstrom, Professor of Philosophy
ABSTRACT
The purpose of the dissertation is threefold. The first aim is to show that Nietzsche
is a naturalist who believes that there are objective facts, rather than a post-modernist who
denies such facts. Although Nietzsche rejects intrinsic facts about things-in-themselves, he
nevertheless holds that it is objectively true that all facts are relational and that these admit of
objective truth or falsity.
The second aim is to show that Nietzsche's naturalist and empiricist commitments
go hand in hand with his revival of three related doctrines that are critically examined in
Plato's Theaetetus and Aristotle's Metaphysics IV. The first of these is equivalent to the point
mentioned above. It is the Heraclitean doctrine of the unity of opposites, the view, often
thought to violate the principle of non-contradiction, that everything exists and is what it is
only in relation to something else. The second doctrine is Heraclitean becoming, the claim
that change is an essential feature of nature, and the third is a Protagorean perspectivism,
where objects of knowledge are said to be interpretive constructs that exist only in relation
v
to an equally relative perceiving subject. In developing these points, this dissertation argues
that Nietzsche's Protagorean perspectivism does not undermine the objective truth of his
Heraclitean commitments, but rather that his Heraclitean commitments form the ontological
backdrop for his perspectivism.
The third aim is to show that Nietzsche expresses his commitment to the
aforementioned Heraclitean doctrines at the beginning of both Human, All Too Human and
Beyond Good and Evil and that these two doctrines shape the contents of the aphorisms that
follow. This dissertation argues for this textual point not only to support the claim that
these doctrines function as cornerstones to Nietzsche's philosophical project, but also to
reject the view that Nietzsche's published works lack order and coherence. In defending the
latter point, this dissertation makes several suggestions as to how the placement of these
doctrines at the beginning of the aforementioned works might be related to Nietzsche's
activity as a tragic and comic poet in Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Ecce Homo.
VI
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
Part One: Nietzsche's Philosophy

Part Two: Nietzsche's Texts
Part Three: Nietzsche's Project
CHAPTER O N E 36
Becoming and the Unity of Opposites in Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Tragic Philosophy in BT and PTA
1.3. Nietzsche's Doctrine of Becoming in the Secondary Literature
1.4. Cox on Becoming
1.5. Richardson on Becoming
1.6. Reading PTA
1.7. Heraclitean Becoming in PTA
1.8. Parmenides' Refutation of Heraclitean Becoming in PTA
1.9. Some Concluding Remarks
CHAPTER TWO 91
Aristotle's Defense of the Principle of Non-Contradiction in Metaphysics IV
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Nietzsche's Critique of Logic
2.3. An Overview of Aristotle's Defense of the Principle of Non-Contradiction
2.4. Three Formulations of the Principle of Non-Contradiction
2.5. Aristotle's Elenctic Defense
2.6. The Devastating Consequences of Denying PNC-Ontological
2.7. Diagnosing the Motivation for Denying PNC-Ontological
2.8. Aristotle's Critique of the Heraclitean-Cratylean Theory of Change
2.9. Aristotle's Critique of Protagoras on Perception
CHAPTER T H R E E 166
Science, Becoming, and The Unity of Opposites in Human, All Too Human
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Clark on the Falsification Thesis
3.3. Science, Becoming, and the Falsification Thesis
3.4. Science and Becoming in PPP
3.5. Becoming and the Unity of Opposites in HH
3.6. The Tragic Consequences of Becoming in HH
3.7. Human, All Too Human and the Development of the Free Spirit
Vll
CHAPTER FOUR 232
Becoming, Perspectivism, and the Unity of Opposites in Plato's Theaetetus
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Justifying the Turn to the Theaetetus
4.3. Knowledge is Perception and the Four Theses
4.4. Knowledge is Perception
4.5. From Knowledge is Perception to Homo Mensura
4.6. From Homo Mensura to the Secret Doctrines of Heraclitus
4.7. A Preliminary Account of Perception and a Puzzle
4.8. Heraclitean Flux and a Secret Theory of Perception
4.9. The Final Stage of the Secret Doctrine
4.10. The Critique of the Four Theses
4.11. Some Preliminary Objections
4.12. Protagoras and the Problem of Self-Refutation
4.13. The Incompatibility of Heraclitean Flux and Knowledge is Perception
4.14. The Refutation of Empiricism and the Unity of Opposites
CHAPTER FIVE 306

Becoming, Perspectivism, and the Unity of Opposites in Beyond Good and Evil
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Nietzsche's Perspectivism
5.3. Perspectivism in the Work of Gustav Teichmiiller
5.4. Becoming and Perspectivism in Nietzsche's Late Nachlass
5.5. Becoming, Perspectivism, and the Unity of Opposites in BGE
5.6. Perspectivism in GS 354 and GM III 12
APPENDIX 1 380
BIBLIOGRAPHY 381
VITA 397
Vlll
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Ancient Authors and Texts
Aristotle
APo. Posterior Analytics
DA De Anima
De Int. De Interpretatione
Met. Metaphysics
Ph. Physics
Plato
Cra. Cratylus
Grg. Gorgias
Rep. Republic
Tht. Theaetetus
Nietzsche's Works and Translations

A The Antichrist, trans. W. Kaufmann (Viking Press, 1954)
AOM Assorted Opinions and Maxims in HH
BGE Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Kaufmann (Random House, 1989)
BT The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit ofMusic, trans. Kaufmann (Vintage Books, 1967)
D Daybreak, trans. RJ. Hollingdale (Cambridge University Press, 1982)
DD Dionysian Dithyrambs
EH Ecce Homo, trans. Kaufmann (Random House, 1989)
GM On the Genealogy ofMorals, trans. Kaufmann (Random House, 1989)
GS The Gay Science, trans. Kaufmann (Random House, 1974)
HH Human, All Too Human, trans. Hollingdale (Cambridge, 1986)
HL On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life in UM
KSA Kritische Studienausgabe
KSB Samtliche Briefe: Kritische Studienausgabe
NCW Nietzsche Contra Wagner, trans Kaufmann (Viking Press, 1954)
PPP Pre-Platonic Philosophers, trans. Whidock (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2001)
PTA Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, trans. Cowann (Gateway, 1962)
RWB Richard Wagner in Bayreuth in UM
SE Schopenhauer as Educator in UM
TI Twilight of the Idols, trans. Kaufmann (Viking Press, 1954)
TL "On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense," trans. Breazeale (Humanities, 1979)
UM Untimely Meditations, trans. Hollingdale (Cambridge, 1997)
WP The Will to Power, trans. Kaufmann and Hollingdale (Vintage Books, 1967)
WS The Wanderer and His Shadow in HH
Z Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Kaufmann (Viking Press, 1954)
IX
Other Works and Translations
DK Diels-Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Weidmann, 1985)
WWR Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and ^presentation (Two Volumes), trans. E.J.
F. Payne (Dover, 1969) (Cited by volume and section number)
Notes on Translations and Citations: I cite Nietzsche's works in the standard fashion.
Translations exclusively from KSA are my own. When quoting from Nietzsche's published
works, I use the translations listed above, unless otherwise noted. References to Thus Spoke
Zarathustra list the book and section by number, e.g. "Of Friends" is (Z I 14). References to
Twilight of the Idols and Ecce Homo list abbreviated chapter title and section number, e.g. (TI
"Ancients" 3) or (EH "Books" BGE:2). References to texts in which sections are too long
to be cited helpfully by section number cite section number then page number, e.g., (SE 3, p.
142). The Kritische Studienausgabe (KSA) (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999) is cited by volume number
followed by the fragment number (with the exception of KSA 14, which is followed by the
page number). Samtliche Briefe: Kritische Studienausgabe (KSBj (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1986) is cited
by volume number followed by the number of the letter.
Unless otherwise indicated, translations of Plato's Theaetetus come from the Levett/Burnyeat
translation (Hackett, 1990). For passages from the other Platonic dialogues, the translations
in Plato: Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Hackett, 1997) have been used. Unless otherwise
indicated, translations of Aristotle's Metaphysics come from the Tredennick translation
(Harvard University, 2003). Translations of Aristotle's other works are indicated in the
corresponding footnote.
x
INTRODUCTION
[That] everything which coexists in space and time

has but a relative existence, that each thing exists
through and for another like it, which is to say
through and for an equally relative one.—This is a
truth of the greatest immediate self-evidence for
everyone, and one which for this very reason is
extremely difficult to reach by way of concepts or
reason. But whoever finds himself directiy
looking at it must at once move on to the
Heraclitean conclusion and say that the whole
nature of reality lies simply in its acts and that for
it there exists no other sort of being.
(Nietzsche, PTA 5, p. 53)
Part I: N i e t z s c h e ' s Philosophy
In recent years, certain battle lines have been drawn as to how one should interpret
Nietzsche's philosophy, and one of the central questions that has come to the fore is
whether Nietzsche is a naturalist who sees his philosophy as continuous in some way with
the natural sciences or a post-modernist w h o seeks to undermine the authority of the natural
sciences by reducing it to just one interpretative construct among others. Although some,
like Christoph Cox, have sought to reconcile these two strands in Nietzsche's thinking, 1
others, such as Brian Leiter, have held them to be mutually exclusive. In particular, Leiter
has cast the debate between the naturalist and the post-modern Nietzsche as a debate
between those, like Freud, who see Nietzsche as discovering certain deep and hidden facts
about human nature and those, like Foucault, who deny that there are any non-interpretive
facts about human nature waiting to be discovered. In the Anglo-Saxon context, Leiter
identifies the likes of Arthur Danto, Alexander Nehamas, and Richard Rorty as those w h o
1
Cox (1999).
2
Leiter (2002, Iff.).
2
have advocated the post-modern reading of Nietzsche.3 In contrast, Leiter sees his own
commentary on Nietzsche's On the Genealogy ofMorality as contributing to a growing list of
interpreters such as Richard Schacht and Maudemarie Clark who have implicitly sided with
Freud in granting primacy to the naturalist strand in Nietzsche's thinking.4
In what follows, I argue that Nietzsche belongs, first and foremost, to a version of
the naturalist tradition that Leiter defends, and in so doing, I show how Nietzsche's
naturalist and empiricist commitments go hand in hand with his attempt to revive certain
Heraclitean and Protagorean doctrines that Plato and Aristotle critically analyze in the
Theaetetus and Metaphysics IV, respectively. On the one hand, I contend that Nietzsche
embraces both a form of naturalism that makes his work continuous with the natural
sciences of his day and a brand of empiricism that commits him to the view that the senses
are the only means by which we can become acquainted and have knowledge of the world.
On the other hand, I hold that these commitments lead Nietzsche to adopt (1) a Heraclitean
doctrine of the unity of opposites (UO), defined as the view that everything exists and is
what it is only in relation to something else, (2) a Heraclitean doctrine of becoming, where
change is said to be an essential feature of nature, and (3) a Protagorean-like perspectivism,
where the properties and the things of our commonsense worlds are said to exist only in
relation to a knowing and perceiving subject that also only has relative existence. Along the
way, I highlight the fact that the first two of these doctrines can be found at the beginning of
Human, Jill Too Human and Heyond Good and Evil and argue that they not only shape the
3
Danto (1965), Nehamas (1989), and Rorty (1989).
4
Schacht (1983) and Clark (1998).
3
contents of the aphorisms that follow in each of these works, but also form the ontological
backdrop for the emergence of perspectivism in BGE.
In terms of the contemporary debate, linking Nietzsche's philosophical project to
these Heraclitean and Protagorean doctrines is significant because they either resemble or
form the basis for a number of the claims that post-modern commentators have attributed
to Nietzsche. In particular, I argue that Nietzsche's naturalism and empiricism lead him to
accept the following views that bear some resemblance to the post-modern reading: (1) there
are no intrinsic facts, only relational facts or interpretations; (2) the world, in-itself, is
radically indeterminate; (3) there is no Truth; (4) knowledge, in the sense of episteme, is
impossible; (5) the philosophical, rather than scientific, quest for knowledge should no
longer be a process of discovery but rather one of artistic creation.5
Given these points, it might seem that I am simply following Cox in trying to
reconcile these two strands in Nietzsche's thinking. However I will emphasize the naturalist
side of Nietzsche's philosophy throughout this study because I want to contrast my reading
with at least one component of the post-modern interpretation that I reject. This
component has been put forth by Alexander Nehamas, and a version of it has been
embraced by the likes of Cox as well as Steven Hales and Rex Welshon.6 It states that
Nietzsche refrains from presenting any of his views dogmatically, which Nehamas defines as
5
Leiter (1994) rejects certain versions of a number of these points in attacking what he calls the "received
view" or the post-modernist understanding of Nietzsche's perspectivism.
6
Nehamas (1985), Cox (1999), and Hales and Welshon (2000). In each case, I hold that Nietzsche's rejection
of dogmatism has been misunderstood. For Cox, Nietzsche's attack on dogmatism is an attack on presenting
views in a way that fails to acknowledge their status as interpretations such that it cuts off further inquiry (1999,
3 and 51). For Hales and Welshon, dogmatism is equivalent to truth absolutism or the belief that if a statement
is true, it is true for everyone, and if it is untrue, then it is untrue for everyone (2000, 17ff). On my view,
Nietzsche's rejection of dogmatism amounts to a rejection of the view that the things we can come to know are
things-in-themselves (cf. WP 559; KSA 13,11[134]).
4
presenting views in a way that they "should be accepted by everyone on account of their
rational, objective, and unconditional authority."7 I reject this claim because I hold that each
of the seemingly post-modern positions that I attribute to Nietzsche is rooted in his
rejection of things that exist and are what they are in virtue of themselves (things-in-
themselves), and his rejection of things-in-themselves is, in turn, rooted in a belief that
Nietzsche thinks everyone should accept on account of its rational, objective, and
unconditional authority, namely UO or the view that everything exists and is what it is only
in relation to something else.
On my reading, Nietzsche does not therefore reject all facts, all determinacy, all
truth, <z//knowledge, and the philosophical project altogether. Instead, he only rejects facts
about things-in-themselves, determinacy with regard to things-in-themselves, Truth that is a
property of things-in-themselves, knowledge of things-in-themselves, and the philosophical
quest for knowledge of thing-in-themselves. For instance, when Nietzsche claims to reject
Truth (WP 616; KSA 12, 2[108]), he is not rejecting all truth, but rather Truth insofar as it is
understood as a property of things-in-themselves. Since he believes that UO is true and UO
entails the rejection of thing-in-themselves, he holds that there is no Truth. Similarly, he
rejects knowledge, in the traditional sense of episteme, precisely because he claims to know, in
the sense of having a justified true belief, that UO is the case (WP 517; KSA 12, 9[89]).8
Here again, the basis for Nietzsche's rejection of knowledge or episteme lies in his rejection of
things-in-themselves. This is because he follows Plato and Schopenhauer in holding that
7
Nehamas (1985, 4).
8
As in WP 520 (KSA 11, 36[23]), Nietzsche speaks of becoming in this passage, rather than UO. However, I
argue below that there is an intimate connection between UO and becoming and therefore UO can be
substituted in these contexts for becoming.
5
genuine knowledge or episteme is necessarily of things-in-themselves.9 Since he knows that
UO is the case and therefore that there are no things-in-themselves, Nietzsche can conclude,
on the basis of this supposed knowledge, that there is no knowledge in the sense of episteme.
In trying to understand Nietzsche's relationship to the philosophical project, we can
again employ this distinction to see why Richard Rorty is wrong to claim that Nietzsche is
urging us to "drop the whole idea of 'knowing the truth'." 10 Simply stated, Nietzsche is very
much engaged in the project of seeking out true beliefs and rejecting false ones. The true
belief that he claims to have found is UO, and the false belief that he seeks to purge from
both his thinking and ours is that there are things that exist and are what they are in virtue of
themselves. At the same time, we can say with Rorty that Nietzsche's denial of things-in-
themselves does lead him to reject, in his post-Zarathustra publications, the traditional
philosophical quest to discover such things. Because Nietzsche knows that there is nothing
out there but relations, the quest to find the true nature of a thing by isolating it from all its
relations will result in the dissolution of that thing. Since such a project is a recipe for
nihilism or the dissolution of the world and even the self into nothingness, the post-
Zarathustra Nietzsche seeks to replace the traditional philosophical project with a philosophy
of the future, where the task is not to discover a world of things-in-themselves but rather to
create a world and a self that only have relative existence.
It is for these and other reasons that I take UO to be the philosophical cornerstone
of Nietzsche's project, and in this work, I will offer an extended defense of this claim. In so
9
Thus Schopenhauer writes: "The things of this world, perceived by our senses, have no true being at all; they
are always becoming, but they never are. They have only relative being; hence their whole existence can just as well
be called non-being. Consequently, they are likewise not objects of real knowledge (ETTlOTriur)), for there can
be such a knowledge only of what exists in itself and for itself, and always in the same way" (WWR I 31).
10
Rorty (1989)
6
doing, I will be following, to varying degrees, the likes of Nehamas, Peter Poellner, and
Wolfgang Miiller-Lauter. However, I diverge from commentators such as Nehamas not
only because I think that Nietzsche holds that everyone should accept UO on account of its
unconditional authority, but also because I locate this doctrine at the beginning of what I
take to be Nietzsche's two most philosophically significant published works, namely HH and
BGE, where he raises the question of how something can come from its opposite (HH 1
and BGE 2). For this reason, I will argue that UO is not only theoretically foundational for
Nietzsche's philosophical project, in the sense that it provides the justificatory basis for a
number of the positions he adopts regarding truth and knowledge, but also textuallj
foundational, in the sense that the doctrine, appearing in HH 1 and BGE 2, forms the basis
for a number of the claims that Nietzsche puts forth in the subsequent aphorisms in each of
these texts.
At this point, one might wonder what the problem of opposites coming to be from
opposites in HH 1 and BGE 2 has to do with the relationalist ontology I have discussed
above and what my justification is for defining UO in the way that I have. The key to
understanding the first point lies in recognizing the Heraclitean background to HH 1 and, by
extension, BGE 2. We can be confident that Nietzsche has Heraclitus in mind in HH 1 not
only because his query into the problem of change and opposites—a problem that is the
same as it was some "two-thousand years ago" (HH 1)—recalls Heraclitus' doctrines of UO
and becoming, but also because he links, in an 1888 reworking of the passage, the historical
solution to the problem of opposites to a Heraclitean "philosophy of becoming" and the
metaphysical solution to the problem of opposites to a Parmenidean philosophy of being
11
Nehamas (1985, especially ch. 3), Poellner (1995, 109ff. and 279ff.), and Miiller-Lauter (1999a).
7
(KSA 14, p. 119). Although this raises the further question of what the denial of absolute
opposites or what I take to be UO has to do with a philosophy of becoming, we know from
Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, an unpublished essay from 1873, that Nietzsche
understands UO to be the view that everything only has relational existence and that he links
UO to becoming by developing a dynamic ontology that conforms to UO, where nature is
said to be made up of interrelated forces that only exist insofar as they are affecting and
being affected by each other.
Because PTA provides us with a key to understanding the relationship between UO
and becoming and allows us to see the way in which these two doctrines are embedded in
Nietzsche's claims at the beginning of HH and, by extension, BGE, I will devote the first
chapter of this work to a detailed exposition of its contents. In so doing, I will be following
Peter Heller and especially Britta Glatzeder who have both shown in their commentaries on
HH that Nietzsche's analysis of pre-Socratic philosophy in PTA can be used to interpret the
structure and argument of H H 1 . Whereas Nietzsche sees Anaximander as introducing the
problem of opposites or becoming into ancient Greek philosophy, Heraclitus and
Parmenides represent two competing solutions to the problem that can be linked to what
Nietzsche calls, in HH 1, historical and metaphysical philosophy, respectively.
In turning to PTA, we will also be able to link Nietzsche's acceptance of these
Heraclitean doctrines to his empiricist commitments and his corresponding rejection of
rationalism. Whereas Heraclitus is portrayed as a thinker who develops his doctrines of
becoming and UO by way of drawing inferences based on empirical observations, Nietzsche
portrays Parmenides as rejecting Heraclitus' philosophy not because it misconstrues the
12
Heller (1972) and Glatzeder (2000).
8
empirical world, but rather because such a construal of the empirical world violates the
principle of non-contradiction (PNC). In other words, Nietzsche's Parmenides grants that
Heraclitus is right to describe the empirical world in terms of UO, but because UO violates
PNC, Nietzsche's Parmenides concludes that the empirical world must be rejected as
something merely apparent or even illusory. Because Nietzsche's Parmenides assumes that
there is a correspondence between how we think and the way the world is, the world cannot
be contradictory. Because the senses reveal a world that is contradictory, we must leave
behind the senses and turn to reason alone. In so doing, we discover a metaphysical world
of being, something that corresponds to the logical principle of identity, A=A.
At this point, one might expect that Nietzsche would defend his Heraclitus from
Parmenides' attacks by simply construing UO in a way that does not violate PNC. Instead,
what Nietzsche does is reject Parmenides' assumption that there is a correspondence
between thinking and being and therefore Parmenides' attempt to use PNC to get us to
abandon an empirical world best captured by UO. Although Nietzsche's flaunting of PNC
might worry some at this point, it is important to distinguish between a logical version of
PNC that governs statements and their truth values, where a proposition and its
contradictory cannot be true at the same time, and an ontological version that governs things
and their properties, where something cannot both be (F) and not be (F) at the same time
and in the same respect. For Nietzsche, UO, as the view that everything exists and is what it
is only in relation to something else, does not violate the logical version of the principle
because it does not also contain the negation of the view, i.e. it is not the case that everything
exists and is what it is only in relation to something else. However, Nietzsche does think
that UO violates at least some construal of the ontological version of PNC and, more
9
generally, that it cuts against the fundamental structures of both language and thought. This
is because the doctrine invites us to accept that the world is one of relations without pre-
existing relata, predicates without subjects, deeds without doers.
Although Parmenides does not provide us with a defense of the correspondence
between thinking and being, Nietzsche also rejects, both in PTA and in his late Nachlass
fragments (PTA 5, p. 52 and WP 516; KSA 12, 9[97]), Aristotle's formulation of PNC on
similar grounds, and what is important about Aristode's formulation of PNC for our
purposes is that he supplements it with an extended defense in Metaphysics IV. Indeed,
because Aristotle defends, first and foremost, an ontological version of PNC, we can read
Metaphysics IV as a defense of the Parmenidean presupposition that there is a correspondence
between the way we think and the way the world is, and it is for this reason that I will devote
chapter two of this work to an examination of Aristode's argument.
In turning to Metaphysics IV, we will discover a number of other points immediately
relevant to this study. First, we will see that Aristode does not and cannot offer a positive
proof of PNC. Instead, he provides us with what he calls an elenctic refutation of the denial
of PNC, one that is designed to show that his interlocutor must accept the principle insofar
as he accepts significant speech. In terms of our work on Nietzsche, this claim is important
because it will give us reason to think that Nietzsche's denial of PNC goes hand in hand with
his belief that language seduces us into adopting false beliefs about the world. Aristotle's
defense is also interesting because he dedicates a significant portion of Metaphysics IV to
highlighting the terrible or even tragic consequences of denying PNC. Indeed, we will see
that the denial of Aristotle's ontological formulation of PNC not only forces the interlocutor
to agree with Protagoras that the world is radically indefinite, but also to embrace a
10
skepticism that brings an end to the philosophical project as Aristotle understands it. As we
have noted above, these are precisely the positions that post-modern readers have claimed to
find in Nietzsche's work and, in my mind, play a central role in shaping what I will call
Nietzsche's tragic philosophy. Finally, Aristotle devotes the remainder of his defense to
diagnosing the reasons why pre-Socratic thinkers were led to the denial of PNC. Specifically,
he attributes the pre-Socratic denial of PNC to a general mental oudook that can be
understood in terms of their commitment to a certain sort of naturalism and empiricism.
This is a striking feature of Aristode's analysis because it provides us with a model for
understanding how naturalist and empiricist commitments can and do lead to the acceptance
of views that are central features of Nietzsche's own philosophy.
In chapter three, I will return to Nietzsche's works and provide a close commentary
of the opening aphorisms of HH with the insights that we have gained in chapters one and
two. On the one hand, we will see how Nietzsche expresses his commitment to the
Heraclitean principles of UO and becoming in the language of the natural sciences. On the
other hand, we will find Nietzsche developing certain unwanted or tragic consequences from
his Heraclitean commitments as the first book of HH unfolds, consequences that are similar
to those identified by Aristotie in his defense of PNC. First, we will see how Nietzsche's
commitment to UO and becoming underwrite what is known in Nietzsche scholarship as
the falsification thesis or what I will define here as the view that language and logic seduce us
into adopting false beliefs about reality. Second, we will see how UO and becoming result in
a certain sort of skepticism, where all judgments are declared to be incomplete and unjust.
Finally, we will see how Nietzsche's commitment to UO and becoming underwrite what I
will call a tragic tension between truth and life. What I mean by this is that Nietzsche
11
develops the view, already expressed in works such as The Birth of Tragedy and On the Uses and
Disadvantagesfor Tife, that we must falsify the "true but deadly" world of Heraclitean
becoming in order to function and flourish. It is for these reasons that Nietzsche thinks the
scientific discovery of Heraclitean principles such as UO and becoming are a source of
despair for the thinker who has dedicated his life to unveiling the naked truth.
As noted above, BGE also begins with Nietzsche raising the problem of opposites
(BGE 2), and although I will go into more detail below about how I situate both H H and
BGE within Nietzsche's larger corpus, I will state here that the key difference between the
two works can be explained in terms of the aforementioned tension between truth and life.
Whereas Nietzsche presents himself as an Enlightenment thinker dedicated to the search for
truth even at the expense of life in HH, he reverses this relationship between life and truth in
BGE. Specifically, Nietzsche now holds that life is more valuable than truth and therefore
he assesses judgments primarily according to the degree to which they enhance and promote
life (BGE 4). For our purposes, Nietzsche's turn to life in BGE is important because it is
with this move that he introduces us to his doctrine of perspectivism, "the basic condition of
all life" (BGE "Pref").
The emergence of perspectivism in BGE is an important moment for my
interpretation because the debate as to whether Nietzsche is a committed naturalist or one of
the legitimate fathers of so-called post-modern thinking turns very much on how we
understand his perspectivism, and it is for this reason that I will devote the fourth and fifth
chapters of this five-chapter work to dealing with the various problems associated with this
view. In particular, my goal will be to show that Nietzsche is clearly in the naturalist camp
precisely because his perspectivism emerges from his attempt to carve out a life-affirming
12
response to the deadly doctrine of becoming he finds expressed in the natural sciences of his
day. In other words, just as Nietzsche turns to life-promoting horizons in HL as a response
to the deadly truth of Heraclitean becoming, Nietzsche develops his doctrine of
perspectivism in BGE as a response to his continued commitment to a Heraclitean ontology
that he inherits from the natural sciences.
In chapter four, I will develop a model for understanding how Nietzsche's
perspectivism might relate to his Heraclitean commitments by turning to the Heraclitean-
Protagorean position that Plato articulates and critically analyzes in the Theaetetus. Although
turning to the Theaetetus might sound like a leap in this context, there are four reasons that
justify such a move. The first is that it will complement our analysis of Aristode's defense of
PNC. This is because there is reason to think that Aristotle borrows a number of arguments
he employs against the likes of Heraclitus and Protagoras in Metaphysics IV from Plato's
Theaetetus. Second, commentators such as Leiter and especially Joel Mann have noted the
important role that Protagoras' homo mensura doctrine plays in Nietzsche's thinking, and
therefore our turn to the Theaetetus wi)l allow us to explicate this relationship in more detail.13
Third, we know that Gustav Teichmuller's work Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt is the
source for Nietzsche's use of the term "perspectivism,"14 and in his work, Teichmuller
argues that if one were to deny the distinction between the real and apparent world, which
Nietzsche emphatically does, then one would be forced to agree with Heraclitus and
Protagoras that man, with his senses, is indeed the measure of all things. The final reason
comes from the fact that in the Theaetetus Plato has Socrates argue that Protagoras' doctrine
13
Leiter (2002, 43ff. and 106ff.) and Mann (2003).
14
However, Teichmuller never speaks of perspectivism as a noun, but rather only in adjectival form.
15
Teichmuller (1882, 184).
13
is somehow self-refuting, and the problem of self-refutation has been a central topic of
scholarly debate in recent years regarding the status of Nietzsche's perspectivism.
In dealing with the problem of self-refutation in the Theaetetus, we will encounter an
important result for our understanding of Nietzsche's perspectivism: Plato does not succeed
in refuting the doctrine, but rather he shows that the Protagorean must either relativize the
truth of the homo mensura doctrine such that it is only true for those who espouse it or he
must acknowledge that there is at least one thing of which man is not the measure, namely
the measure doctrine itself. As we will see, this is an important result because it maps on to
the two possible solutions to what Bernard Reginster and John Richardson have called the
paradox of perspectivism. On the one hand, there is the perspectivist solution, where it is said
that Nietzsche avoids the paradox of perspectivism by entertaining hypotheses or presenting
views as only true "for him." On the other hand, there is the two-level solution, where it is held
that perspectivism is not universal in scope and therefore does not apply back to his central
views on ethics, metaphysics, and even perspectivism itself.16
It is in dealing with the paradox of perspectivism and the problem of self-refutation
that we encounter the primary motivation for turning to the Theaetetus in this context. This is
because I will be arguing throughout this work for a two-level solution to the paradox of
perspectivism, and I hold that the Theaetetus provides us with such a two-level solution
precisely because it offers an account of how Protagoras' doctrine is rooted in a non-
persepctival, Heraclitean ontology that parallels the one I find in both PTA and HH. On the
one hand, we are told that this Heraclitean picture reduces all of nature to indeterminate
powers that only exist insofar as they are affecting other powers. On the other hand, we
16
Reginster (2001, 217f.). Reginster is following Richardson (1996, lOf.) here.
14
learn that the primary principle that governs this ontology is what I have called UO or the
view that everything exists and is what it is in only relation to something else.17 Indeed, this
principle is important because it not only eliminates the distinction between appearance and
reality, but also because it binds the Heraclitean and Protagorean positions together.
It is with this Heraclitean-Protagorean theory in hand that I then turn, in chapter
five, to the role that perspectivism plays in Nietzsche's "post-Zarathustra writings. The goal
here is to show how his perspectivism develops from his continued commitment to a
Heraclitean ontology. I begin by unpacking Teichmuller's exposition of the view. On the
one hand, Teichmuller sometimes equates perspectivism with UO and therefore the key
principle of the Heraclitean-Protagorean position. On the other hand, he articulates
perspectivism in terms of a knowing subject that projects certain categories onto what he calls
the multiplicity of sensations. I then turn briefly to Nietzsche's Nachlass fragments from this
time to show how he combines these two understandings of perspectivism with his
Heraclitean ontology. Here I not only argue that Nietzsche's Protagoreanism emerges, in
part, with his injection of "value-estimations" or "interpretations" into the force-relations
that hold at the most fundamental level of reality, but also show how he follows Teichmuller
in holding that conscious, linguistic creatures like us organize the chaos of sensations into
"life-worlds" or perspectives for the purposes of life and even "knowledge."
With this background in mind, I then devote much of the chapter to an analysis of
the opening section of BGE, arguing that it is Nietzsche's interest in problems of life and
value, coupled with his continued commitment to a Heraclitean ontology that makes it
17
Note: Plato does not refer to this view as UO. However, he does have Socrates develop a relationalist
ontology in response to the problem of conflicting appearances.
15
impossible to live according to nature, that motivate his turn to perspectivism. Here the task
is to show that despite the introduction of perspectivism, his criticisms of science, and his
suggestion that the dynamic ontology of the will to power is interpretation and not text,
Nietzsche is nevertheless committed to a scientifically grounded conception of UO and
becoming. I do this by showing that Nietzsche's turn to falsifying perspectives is motivated
by his belief that these UO and becoming are true, that his criticisms of science are directed
at mechanistic science only, and that although the will to power is an interpretative
projection of human psychology onto the wall of nature, it is nevertheless distinct form the
ontology of force that Nietzsche inherits from the natural sciences of his day. Indeed, I will
argue that Nietzsche designs the will to power not only as something that "completes" the
victorious concept of force in the natural sciences by ascribing an inner will to it (WP 619;
KSA 11, 36[36]), but also to function as a naturalized and dynamic substitute for
Teichmuller's knowing subject. I conclude with an attempt to show how my understanding
of perspectivism resonates with two other passages from the published works where the
doctrine is mentioned (GS 354 and GM III 12) and with some remarks as to how
Nietzsche's perspectivism might relate to his philosophy of the future.
Part Two: Nietzsche's Texts 18
In the first part of this introduction, I endeavored to situate my approach to
Nietzsche's philosophy within contemporary scholarship and to detail the outlines of a
project that is designed to show how Nietzsche's naturalism and empiricism go hand in hand
with his acceptance of Heraclitean doctrines such as UO and becoming and how his
acceptance of these "tragic" doctrines forms the basis for the Protagorean-like perspectivism
18
For a chronological list of Nietzsche's works and how I interpret them, see appendix I.
16
that emerges with his turn to life in BGE. In outlining my approach to Nietzsche's
philosophy, I have also touched upon the fact Nietzsche expresses his Heraclitean
commitments at the beginning of both HH and BGE and have suggested that these
doctrines should therefore be understood as playing a foundational role in shaping the
contents of each of these texts. In the second part of this introduction, I want to say more
about this claim by situating the following project within a larger interpretive framework of
Nietzsche's published texts that I have sketched in other places.19 In so doing, I will not
only offer an explanation of the transition that takes place from HH to BGE with respect to
the relative value that Nietzsche places on life and truth, but also indicate how the
philosophy articulated in H H and BGE might be related to what I think is Nietzsche's
Dionysian art in works like Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Ecce Homo.
The framework that I have in mind goes something like this. Nietzsche's published
works can be divided into two broad periods. Whereas the first part runs from his initial
publication of The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit ofMusic in 1872 to his break with Richard
Wagner in 1876, the second part runs from his 1878 publication of HH to the works he
wrote in 1888 just prior to his collapse. The basic difference between these two periods is
that whereas Nietzsche is, in the first period, dedicated to the rebirth of Dionysian art in the
form of Wagnerian opera at the first Bayreuther Festspiele in 1876, his post-1877 published
works are the product of his eventual decision to break with Wagner and to take over the
project himself. More specifically, this second period can be further broken down into two
distinct and yet related projects. This first project begins with HH, includes all of the works
that fall under what is known as the "free spirit" (AOM, WS, D, and GS), and culminates in
19
Meyer (2002), (2004), (2006), and (2008).
17
the tragedy and satyr play of Zarathustra, where the first three books of the work constitute
Nietzsche's tragic trilogy20 and the fourth book functions as a satyr play.21 The second
period begins with BGE, includes GM as an expansion on the themes presented at the end
of BGE, and culminates in both his Dionysian Dithyrambs and what I take to be the Dionysian
comedy of his 1888 works, where EH functions as the centerpiece or parabasis of this
comedy.22 So understood, we can find in Nietzsche's post-1877 oeuvre works that
correspond to the four genres associated with the Greek god Dionysus: tragedy, comedy,
satyr play, and dithyramb.
If this framework is correct, then locating the appearance of UO and becoming at
the beginning of both HH and BGE carries with it a fair amount of significance. This is
because we are not simply showing that these doctrines appear at the beginning and shape
the contents of what are perhaps the two most philosophical texts in Nietzsche's corpus.
Instead, we are locating these doctrines at the beginning of two texts that each function as
the first work in a series of publications that culminate, in both instances, in Nietzsche's
activity as a Dionysian poet, and what this textual link suggests is that there might be some
theoretical connection between Nietzsche's philosophical endeavors in HH and BGE and
his artistic efforts in works such as Zarathustra and EH.
Before delving into this issue, I first want to say something about how my reading of
Nietzsche's published works differs from two alternative approaches to his corpus that have
been predominant in recent years. The first of these has been put forth by Martin Heidegger
and has been followed, at least implicitly, by interpreters such as Wolfgang Muller-Lauter
20 Meyer (2002). Cf. Gooding-Williams (2001, 50ff.), Higgins (1988, 136ff.), and Reginster (2006, 52).
21
Cf. Bennholdt-Thomsen (1974, 21 Of.), Higgins (1987, 203-32), Loeb (2000), and Shapiro (1983, 60f.)
22
Meyer (2008).
18
and Peter Poellner.23 It states that Nietzsche's genuine philosophy is to be found in his
unpublished fragments or Nachlass, part of which was used by Nietzsche's sister and his
literary executor, Heinrich Koselitz, to publish a book that Nietzsche never wrote, namely
The Will to Power.24 Although Heidegger offers little or no justification for his claim, it must
be said that the obscure, esoteric, aphoristic, and therefore Heraclitean style of a number of
Nietzsche's published works do encourage a turn to the Nachlass fragments, where Nietzsche
not only tells us in a rather straightforward manner what he thinks, but also, in some
instances, why he thinks in the way he does.
Nevertheless, this fact alone does not justify the relative neglect of the published
works that Heidegger's reading encourages, and it is for this and other reasons that the
scholarly reaction to Heidegger's approach has been, as Reginster notes, "strongly negative
and justified on a variety of grounds." 25 In reacting to Heidegger's claims, scholars have
adopted the approach that I prefer, and it is what Reginster calls the "priority principle,"
which I will define as the view that Nietzsche's positions in the published works have a
priority over those in the Nachlass and that the primary but not exclusive value of the
Nachlass lies in helping us explain the views in the published works. Indeed, my efforts in
the first, third, and fifth chapters follow the priority principle. This is because I use
Nietzsche's unpublished essay, PTA, to decipher the meaning of the obscure and yet
significant "problem of opposites" that he puts forth at the beginning of HH and BGE.
23
MuUer-Lauter (1999a) and Poellner (1995).
24
Heidegger (1991, 9) writes: "What Nietzsche himself published during his creative life was always
foreground. That is also true of his first treatise, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit ofMusic (1872). His
philosophy proper was left behind as posthumous, unpublished work."
25
Reginster (2006, 16).
26
19
This brings us to a second approach that my reading implicitly rejects. Specifically, it
is the one put forth by Arthur D a n t o at the beginning of his influential work:
Nietzsche's books give the appearance of having been assembled rather than
composed. They are made up, in the main, of short, pointed aphorisms, and of
essays seldom more than a few pages long; each volume is more like a treasury of
the author's selections than like a book in its own right. Any given aphorism or
essay might as easily have been placed in one volume as in another without much
affecting the unity or structure of either. And the books themselves, except for
their chronological ordering, do not exhibit any special structure as a corpus.27
Danto's claim here is important not only because it highlights just how much my own
position differs from his, but also because the claims surrounding this passage give
expression to a view that I think has been implicitly adopted by a number of commentators
since the publication of Danto's work. Specifically, Danto couples his claim about the lack
of systematicity in Nietzsche's works with the idea that the task of the commentator is to
piece together Nietzsche's system for him by indiscriminately quoting from the seeming
hodgepodge of ideas found in his published and unpublished writings. In this way, D a n t o
agrees with what we might call a hypothetical post-modern reader w h o finds in Nietzsche's
works a series of fragmented reflections. However, Danto disagrees with our hypothetical
post-modern reader in rejecting the inference that Nietzsche intendedhi's, works to be
fragmented and even contradictory so as to reflect a fragmented and contradictory world.
Instead, D a n t o holds that the lack of systematicity in Nietzsche's published works is simply
due to his "singular lack of architectonic talent." 28 Perhaps as a matter of charity, D a n t o
therefore takes it as his task to help Nietzsche out by systematizing his work for him. Thus,
27
Danto (1965, 19).
2
» Danto (1965, 22).
20
Danto devotes each chapter to discussing Nietzsche's views on a particular topic by bringing
together evidence from a wide range of writings to form what look to be relatively coherent
positions. In my mind, it is precisely this idea that has shaped the methodological approach
adopted by the likes of Schacht, Richardson, and Hales and Welshon.29
Perhaps the most serious threat to this procedure is not so much Nietzsche's
supposed distaste for systems (TI "Maxims" 26), however the term may be defined, but
rather the contradictions that one finds once this method is adopted. Contradictions are a
problem for this approach because they make it impossible to develop and attribute to
Nietzsche a coherent position on a topic where a contradiction is found. This is a problem
for such commentators because one can readily find Nietzsche contradicting himself on a
wide range of issues within a relatively short period of time. For instance, we are told in H H
that the scientific man is the further evolution of the artistic (HH 221), but then we are told
in GS, a work published only four years later, that the study of physics is a necessary means to
becoming an artistic creator (GS 335). Similarly, in The Wanderer and his Shadow, Nietzsche
presents the death of God with shoulder-shrugging indifference (WS 84), whereas in The Gay
Science, published only two years later, Nietzsche madly proclaims the earth-shaking
consequences of this great event (GS 125).
Of course, such worries can be resolved by arguing that Nietzsche simply changed
his mind or, more specifically, that his views developed over time. In dealing with the previous
example concerning the relationship between science and art, we might say that although
Nietzsche thought in 1878 that art was in some way less important than science, he
eventually came to see, by 1882, that it was in some way superior to science, and conclude
25
Schacht (1983), Richardson (1996), and Hales and Welshon (2000).
21
from this that this latter claim was his final, considered position. The idea here is that
Nietzsche matures, and although it is not always adopted in order to deal with the problem
of contradictions, commentators have indeed adopted such an approach.
Before I explain my way of dealing with the contradictions noted above, I want to
say something about why I do not think, in contrast to the likes of Schacht, Karl Lowith,
Poellner, and Clark, that Nietzsche's thinking undergoes significant development.30
Specifically, I take seriously Nietzsche's 1888 claim that the seeds for his later writings can be
found in BT (TI "Owe" 4) and therefore that the general framework for his philosophy
remains consistent from his first work to his last. This is because I hold that Nietzsche
remains committed, from the beginning of his career to the end, to what I have called a
tragic philosophy and the rebirth of an art that is supposed to affirm life in response to the
tragic insights that philosophy delivers.
To get a sense of what tragic philosophy is, we can start by noting what it denies,
namely optimism or the belief that human beings can overcome the suffering of existence
and attain some sort of happiness or eudaimonia. Thus, the first element of tragic philosophy
is that suffering is an essential and ineluctable feature of our existence, and it is a view that I
call factual pessimism. Factual pessimism is an opinion that Nietzsche finds expressed in the
wisdom of Silenus (BT 3) and articulated in the philosophy of Schopenhauer, and it was
based on this factual pessimism that both Silenus and Schopenhauer endorsed an evaluative
pessimism, where it is held that life is therefore not worth living.
30
Lowith (1997), Schacht (1983), Poellner (1995), and Clark (1990). Of the developmental readings, the
scheme that Lowith proposes and Poellner adopts is closest to my own, where Nietzsche is said to mature with
the transition from GS to Zaratbustra.
22
Although I will say more about evaluative pessimism in a bit, we can say here that
factual pessimism is one sense in which tragic philosophy can be tragic for life. This,
however, is not the only sense. Specifically, Nietzsche sees in tragic philosophy something
that posits a deep tension between life and truth by revealing the falsity of many of the
values and concepts that make life both possible and desirable. On the one hand, it reveals
that there is nothing that is intrinsically valuable in nature such that it provides the proper
object of all our strivings. In this sense, the world, independently of our desires, appears to
be worthless or meaningless and therefore not worthy of being affirmed.31 On the other
hand, it reveals that many of the concepts we employ just to function in our daily lives fail to
correspond to anything out there in reality. For Nietzsche, the most important of these
concepts is the "I", and it is a central feature of his tragic philosophy that this "I" lacks any
independent existence.
Tragic philosophy is not only tragic for life because it reveals that suffering and
falsification are essential elements of existence, but it is also tragic for philosophy itself. On
the one hand, Nietzsche thinks that the mere recognition of the tragic truth is a source of
existential suffering or despair. In this sense, Oedipus, rather than Socrates, is held out to be
the paradigmatic wise man (BT 9), where the more one knows, the more one suffers from
such knowledge. On the other hand, tragic philosophy uses philosophy and science to
undermine the epistemic capacities of science and philosophy such that they are said to bite
themselves in the tail (BT 15). In this sense, tragic philosophy underwrites the
31
This is a crude but, I hope, not incorrect way of stating the issue. For a more nuanced treatment of this
point, see Reginster (2006).
32 Cf. Hales and Welshon (2002, ch. 7).
23
aforementioned skepticism, where we know just enough to know that we will never attain
the kind of knowledge that philosophers have traditionally been seeking.
The final feature of tragic philosophy is that it lays the foundation for Nietzsche's
emphasis on the significance of art. There are three important aspects of art that Nietzsche
emphasizes and each relate to the way in which tragic philosophy is tragic for philosophy
and for life. First, Nietzsche sometimes attributes to art an epistemic function that
overcomes the skepticism generated by philosophy. In a work like BT, Nietzsche suggests
that music can help grasp the world as primordial will (BT 16), and in BGE, we are told that
the knowing of the philosopher will be a kind of (artistic) creativity (cf. BGE 211). Second,
it is through creativity that we not only make a certain sort of knowledge attainable, but also
make life both possible and even desirable. Specifically, Nietzsche sees the generation of
perspectival worlds of commonsense things and selves to be a kind of artistic creativity that
we all undertake, and it is through such creativity that the world becomes inhabitable.
Moreover, Nietzsche thinks that psychologically healthy human beings also have the capacity
to give value to a world that otherwise lacks it, and it is this value-bestowing function that
Nietzsche finds in certain psychological types that makes life, even after the death of God,
desirable. This latter point brings us to the third and perhaps most important role that art
plays in relation to Nietzsche's tragic philosophy, namely that it makes the affirmation of life
possible. For Nietzsche, philosophy creates an existential dilemma by revealing the truth of
factual pessimism. The existential dilemma that tragic philosophy creates can be understood
through Hamlet's question "to be or not to be?" and this question can in turn be understood
in terms of whether one accepts or rejects the aforementioned evaluative pessimism.
Whereas both Schopenhauer and the mythical figure Silenus infer from factual pessimism
24
that life has no value and therefore one should deny life, Nietzsche distinguishes himself
from these two figures not by rejecting factual pessimism, but rather by rejecting the
inference that factual pessimism entails evaluative pessimism. For Nietzsche, life does not
have a value in itself, but rather such value depends on the attitude we adopt toward it, and
Nietzsche thinks that we can adopt an affirmative attitude toward life by means of the arts
associated with Dionysus.33 In this sense, we can say that whereas tragic philosophy raises
the question of the value of existence, Dionysian art is precisely what enables us to affirm
existence by transfiguring both suffering and life into an aesthetic phenomenon.
I have discussed Nietzsche's tragic philosophy here because I think that the
relationship between such philosophy and his interest in the life-affirming powers of
Dionysian art remain fixed throughout his career. At the same time, I hold that Nietzsche's
tragic philosophy does undergo some development with regard to the metaphysical and
ontological principles that ground it. Specifically, Nietzsche ultimately comes to replace the
Schopenhauerian metaphysics of BT (1872) with the anti-metaphysical philosophy of
Heraclitus in PTA (1873), and it is this anti-metaphysical philosophy, expressed in the
principles of UO and becoming, that Nietzsche continues to hold in HH (1878), BGE
(1886), and on into Twilight of the Idols (1888).34 PTA is therefore an important work not only
because it allows us to decipher the meaning of Nietzsche's question concerning opposites at
the beginning of H H and BGE, but also because it allows us to understand a work like H H
as an exercise in tragic philosophy. This is because, in PTA, Nietzsche not only casts
33
Apollo, of course, also plays a role. However, the most important feature of Nietzsche's argument in BT is
his emphasis on music and musical dissonance, for it is in the latter that we have a clear instance of the capacity
of art to transform suffering itself into something that can be affirmed (BT 24).
34
On my reading, TI "Reason" is just a reworking of the argument of PTA, now with an even greater emphasis
on the role that the senses play in detecting becoming.
25
Heraclitus' thought as the pinnacle of philosophy during the "tragic age" of the Greeks, but
also portrays Heraclitus' philosophy as an aesthetic understanding of the world (PTA 7, p.
62). It is for these reasons that we can say that although Nietzsche abandons the
metaphysics of BT in 1873 by way of his interpretation of Heraclitus' philosophy in PTA, he
nevertheless remains committed to the anti-metaphysical version of tragic philosophy of
PTA in HH and for the rest of his career.
Indeed, one of the potential problems that my account faces is explaining just why
Nietzsche feels the need to repeat himself so much, given that I claim to find these tragic
principles in PTA, HH, BGE, and TI. Fortunately, the answer to this question dovetails
with my solution to resolving at least some of the contradictions found in Nietzsche's
published works, and it is an answer that I will develop by contrasting my account with the
developmental approach favored by someone like Clark. Whereas Schacht, Poellner, and
Lowith have argued that Nietzsche matures either with the publication of GS (1882) or just
after the publication of GS, Clark takes the view that Nietzsche does not grow up until the
publication of GM in 1887. To support her reading, Clark turns to the section "How the
True World Became a Fable" from TI and argues that the final three stages of the
developmental story that Nietzsche tells there can be mapped onto his published works and
an earlier unpublished essay, "On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense" (1873). For
Clark, Nietzsche's development has to do with his initial belief in, but subsequent rejection
of, the thing-in-itself and the related distinction between the real and apparent world. On
her view, Nietzsche begins his career at the fourth stage because he initially believes in an
unattainable thing-in-itself. This stage corresponds to Nietzsche's thinking in TL and HH.
The fifth stage, where the so-called true world is abolished, corresponds to Nietzsche's work
26
in GS and BGE. Finally, the sixth stage is to be found in Nietzsche's works starting with the
publication of GM. This is where Nietzsche recognizes that with the abolition of the so-
called true world, what was once the apparent world now becomes the true world. For
Clark, this means that Nietzsche, in his final works, accepts the view that the empirical world
is now the real world.35
Although I agree with Clark that the final three stages in the description of how the
true world became a fable can be mapped onto Nietzsche's published works, I depart from
her reading on two important points. The first has to do with how these stages should be
mapped onto Nietzsche's published works. Specifically, I hold that these stages are to be
found exclusively in the works of the free spirit, i.e. from HH (1878) to GS (1882). Whereas
HH and its two appendices, Assorted Opinions and Maxims and WS, can be placed at stage
four, Nietzsche's work in Daybreak and the first three books of GS can be placed at stage
five. The fourth book of GS, which was written separately from the first three books of GS
and concluded the 1882 edition (KSB 6, 159), should be seen as either belonging to the final
stage or as marking the transition from the fifth to the sixth stage. Zarathustra, then, is a
work that clearly belongs to the sixth stage.
The reason for preferring this reading over the one offered by Clark is that it better
corresponds to Nietzsche's subtle references to the published works in his account of these
stages. Although there is no direct reference to HH in stage four, Nietzsche's talk of "gray
morning," "the yawn of reason," and the "cockcrow of positivism" certainly suggests the
mood and tenor of the work. In stage five, we find Nietzsche talking of "bright day,"
"breakfast," and the "return of bon sens and cheerfulness." Whereas the first two
35
Clark (1990, 109ff.). Clark (1998) has revised this view somewhat.
27
descriptions clearly refer to D, the latter suggests GS. In the final stage, we then find an
obvious reference to the conclusion of the 1882 edition of GS and the beginning of
Zarathustra when Nietzsche writes "INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA" in place of the original tide
of GS 342, "incipit tragoedia."
At this point, it might seem as if I am simply favoring Lowith's reading over Clark's,
where Nietzsche is said to mature with the publication of Zarathustra. Although this is true
in a way, it is important to note that I disagree with any straightforward developmental reading
of Nietzsche's oeuvre, and it is in articulating my disagreement with such readings that I will
begin to unpack my answer as to how we are supposed to make sense of some of the
contradictions found in Nietzsche's works and explain the transition that takes place from
HH to BGE with respect to the relative value of truth and life. Specifically, it is my position,
sketched elsewhere,36 that the works of the free spirit are peculiar in that Nietzsche is
consciously adopting the values of the Enlightenment project to show how this project
undermines itself. In particular, Nietzsche commits himself in H H to what I will call the
morality of truth and science, one that places an absolute value on truth and enjoins the
thinker to avoid the scientific sin of anthropomorphism in his quest to know the world in
itself, only to show in works such as D and then GS that a true or scientifically grounded
understanding of nature offers no support for the morality of truth and science. On my
reading, it is the "death of God" in GS that marks Nietzsche's self-overcoming of the
morality of truth and science (GS 125) and therefore the transition from the gray science of
HH, where the pursuit of truth is understood as a duty, to the gay science of GS, where the
pursuit of truth is now understood as an experiment (GS 324).
36
Meyer (2006).
28
There are at least four reasons for reading the works of the free spirit in this way.
The first is the otherwise surprising congruence between Nietzsche's views in his works after
the free spirit project (post-1882) and the views he expresses in his works prior to the free
spirit project (pre-1878). Indeed, I have argued elsewhere that Zarathustra can be read as
Nietzsche's self-fulfillment of his hopes for a rebirth of tragedy that he originally expressed
in his first work.37 If this is correct, it would seem strange for Nietzsche to publish a handful
of works in the meantime that contradict the ideas of his earlier and later projects and then
republish these ideas in 1886 and 1887 along side his later works. Moreover, what is striking
about Nietzsche's early works is that there is reason for thinking that he is already at stage six
at this point. Not only does he provide us with a sympathetic account of a Heraclitean
philosophy that does away with things-in-themselves and overcomes dualism in PTA, but he
also argues against the absolute value or obligatory power of truth in both TL and HL. If it
is true that Nietzsche is already at stage six in his pre-1877 works, then have reason to
suspect that when he places himself at stage four in HH, he does so not because he has
regressed in his thinking, but rather because he wants to show how the principles and values
of the Enlightenment project are such that, when taken to their logical conclusion, they lead
us to stage six and the rebirth of tragedy with "INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA".
The second reason for reading the works of the free spirit in this way is that
Nietzsche had already outlined the progression found in these works in BT.38 Specifically,
Nietzsche speaks of a Socrates who plays music, a figure who, driven by the quest for truth,
37
Meyer (2002). I understand the relationship between BT and Zarathustra as one of thought and deed, a
reading supported by Nietzsche's comment in E H about Zarathustra: "My concept of the 'Dionysian' here
became a supreme deed' (EH Books, Z:6).
38
Cf. Meyer (2004).
29
engages in philosophy and science only to recognize that science and philosophy undermine
the quest for knowledge of things-in-themselves (Kant) and the pursuit of happiness
(Schopenhauer) and therewith make the rebirth of tragic art desirable (BT 15). So
understood, we can say that just as Nietzsche is playing the role of the tragic poet in
Zarathustra, he is playing the role of a Socrates who plays music in his works from HH to
Zarathustra, where he presents himself as the Socratic seeker for truth in the former only to
play music in the latter.
The third reason for reading the works of the free spirit in this way has to do with
the prolepticism found throughout these texts. By prolepticism, I mean the art of subtly
suggesting or signaling future intentions in earlier texts such that the careful reader will have
some sense or expectation of what will be presented in the texts that follow. A clear
instance of Nietzsche's prolepticism can be found at the end of HH, where he concludes the
work with a reference to D by speaking of the "philosophy of the morning" (HH 638).
What this proleptic remark suggests is that Nietzsche has a good sense of the contents of D
prior to writing it and that he wants to alert his reader to the fact that the following work is
meant to be some sort of continuation of the work at hand. A second instance of
Nietzsche's prolepticism occurs at the end of the 1882 edition of GS, where he introduces
the character Zarathustra by penning the opening lines of the subsequent work, Zarathustra
(GS 342). Again, this suggests that Nietzsche knows he will be writing the tragedy of
Zarathustra at the time of writing the final book of GS (1882). Indeed, once we begin to read
GS with Nietzsche's prolepticism in mind and think of Zarathustra as his own tragedy, we
begin to notice other, less immediate references to the work. Not only do we find Nietzsche
telling us at the beginning of GS that we are now in the age of tragedy (GS 1) and later in the
30
text searching for a tragic solution to the death of God (GS 153), we also find him asking as
early as HH whether the philosophy developed in the first book will become a tragedy (HH
34). Of course, if we are right to read Zarathustra as a tragedy, then we can answer this
suggestive question affirmatively—the tragic philosophy of HH does indeed become the
tragic art of Zarathustra.
In presenting our final reason for reading the works of the free spirit in this way, we
will explain the contradictions noted above and why Nietzsche abrupdy turns away from art
in HH and then suddenly returns to art in a work like GS. On my reading, Nietzsche's
subordination of art to science in HH is not a rejection of the ideas of BT, but rather one
part of a larger project designed to bring them to fruition. This is because Nietzsche tells us,
on the backside of the cover to the 1882 edition of GS, that HH is just one text in a series of
texts "whose common goal is to erect a new image and ideal of the free spirif (GS, p. 30). The
idea here is that once we read HH as just one part of a larger project called the free spirit
that extends from 1878 to the 1882 edition of GS and use GS 342 to link GS to Zarathustra,
we can see how HH stands at the beginning of a series of reflections that culminate in the
rebirth of tragedy in Zarathustra and therefore how the project of the free spirit is continuous
with, rather than opposed to, Nietzsche's project in BT.
If this reading is right, then we have taken a big step in providing at least some
reason for thinking of Nietzsche's work from HH to Zarathustra as a single project that
begins with the tragic philosophy in HH and culminates in the tragedy and satyr play of
Zarathustra. If this is the case, then we are left wondering why Nietzsche continues to write
the works he does after the publication of Zarathustra and how these works might relate to
this project. However, before answering these questions, I first want to say something about
31
the relationship between H H and BGE and how this relates to Nietzsche's rejection of what
we have called the morality of truth and science in a work like GS.
In our previous remarks, it was noted that we can understand the difference between
H H and BGE in terms of the relative value that Nietzsche attaches to life and truth in each.
Whereas he adopts the values of the Enlightenment project by dedicating his life to and
suspending all desire for the pursuit of truth in HH, Nietzsche subordinates the value of
truth to the value of life in BGE. As we have also noted above, one of Nietzsche's aims in
the works of the free spirit is to tell the story of how he has used science to overcome what
we have called the morality of truth and science and therewith establish the superiority of life
and art. Although there are deep affinities between GS and BGE, especially because
Nietzsche added a fifth book to GS in 1887 just after writing BGE, we can say that whereas
the purpose of the first four books of GS is to depict the final stages of the process of
becoming a free spirit, Nietzsche writes BGE from the standpoint of a fully formed free
spirit, one who has liberated himself from the morality of truth and science and therefore
one who is ready to transition into becoming the philosopher of the future. Thus, we can
say that even though science does play an important role in BGE and the works that follow,
Nietzsche nevertheless dedicates these works to ultimately assessing everything according to
the value for life.
Although this explains the difference between HH and BGE and provides some
insight as to why Nietzsche would repeat his commitment to the Heraclitean principles
sketched above in BGE 2, we are still left wondering about the status of the works that
follow BGE and their relationship to Nietzsche's philosophy of the future. Although I have
32
argued this point elsewhere,391 will say here that there are three good reasons for thinking
that Nietzsche's philosophy of the future is equivalent to a Dionysian comedy in which he
creates both himself and his world and that his Dionysian comedy can be found in the
published works that he wrote in 1888. The first reason for holding this view is that a typical
Dionysian festival includes four genres: tragedy, satyr-play, comedy, and dithyramb. If we
are right in thinking that Zarathustra should be read as a tragedy and a satyr play and given
that we know Nietzsche concluded his career by compiling his Dionysian Dithyrambs, we have
reason to suspect that he also took on the role of the comic poet at some point in his career
to complete his festival of Dionysian poetry. The second point has to do with the way in
which two key formal features of what is known as Old Comedy can be mapped onto
Nietzsche's 1888 works, namely the agon and the parabasis. Whereas the agon can be linked
to Nietzsche's slanderous attacks against his philosophical, artistic, and religious rivals in
works like TI, The Antichrist, The Case of Wagner, and Nietzsche Contra Wagner, Nietzsche's
parabasis can be found in EH, 40 where he proclaims himself to be, in Aristophanic fashion,
both wise and clever. Finally, there is plenty of textual evidence that emphasizes the
importance of laughter and comedy in Nietzsche's later works. In GS, Nietzsche couples his
proleptic remarks about tragedy, first, with the claim that the waves of laughter will
eventually overwhelm even the greatest of tragedians (GS 1) and then with the claim that
comedy, like tragedy, presents itself as a possible solution to the death of God (GS 153). In
his 1886 preface to BT, Nietzsche commands us to replace the other-worldly comfort of
Christianity with the this-worldly comfort of Dionysian laughter (BT "Pref' 7), and
39
Meyer (2008).
40
The parabasis marks a moment in the play in which the comic poet would address the audience by way of the
chorus leader, often focusing on the success or failure of his previous plays.
33
Nietzsche concludes BGE by linking his discipleship to Dionysus to a philosophy of the
future that will rank philosophers according to the rank of their laughter (BGE 294 and 295).
Admittedly, the purpose of this introduction is not to defend this interpretation of
Nietzsche's published works, but rather to describe it so that we can situate our present
study within its confines. On the one hand, we have said that the reason for sketching this
framework here is that it will help us to make sense of the transitions that take place from
HH to BGE. On the other hand, it is with this framework in hand that we can understand
our efforts here as an attempt to provide a defense of at least one significant aspect of this
larger project. Specifically, by showing how Nietzsche places the fundamental principles of
his tragic worldview at the beginning of both HH and BGE in the form of UO and
becoming and how a number of the passages that follow in each of these texts are
consequences of his initial commitment to these two doctrines, we can begin to see, pace
Danto, that Nietzsche's published works do have an internal structure and coherence and
that his philosophical efforts in works like HH and BGE might be dedicated to establishing
a tragic worldview that makes possible and desirable the Dionysian art that follows in works
like Zarathustra and EH.
Part Three: Nietzsche's Project
My construal of Nietzsche's philosophy and the way in which it shapes the
background to his efforts as a Dionysian poet brings me to a final point. By understanding
the published works in this way, we can see not only how UO and becoming might form the
basis for Nietzsche's tragic worldview and his corresponding turn to Dionysian poetry, but
also how his larger project can be understood as a contribution to what is known as the
ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry. Specifically, we can follow Stephen
34
Halliwell and say that this ancient quarrel can be articulated in terms of two competing
worldviews,41 but add to Halliwell's insights the claim that the difference between these two
worldviews turns on whether one accepts the relationalist ontology expressed by UO and
rejects things-in-themselves or whether one accepts things-in-themselves and rejects the
relationalist ontology expressed by UO. Although some might find it strange to think of
UO and the related doctrine of becoming as the foundation of an entire worldview that is
then linked to ancient poetry, we must not overlook the fact that Plato has Socrates speak of
Heraclitean becoming (and the related doctrine of UO) in precisely this manner in the
Theaetetur.
And as regards this point of view, let us take it as a fact that all the wise men
of the past, with the exception of Parmenides, stand together. Let us take it
that we find on this side Protagoras and Heraclitus and Empedocles; and also
the masters of the two kinds of poetry, Epicharmus in comedy and Homer in
tragedy. For when Homer talked about 'Ocean, begetter of gods, and Tethys
their mother', he made all things the offspring of flux and motion. (Tht,
152e)42
Although not explicit, what this passage suggests is that Plato, like Nietzsche, not only thinks
that there is a worldview shared by a wide array of pre-Socratic philosophers, sophists, and
poets, but also that Homer, as the master of tragedy, stands at the head of this worldview. It
is for this reason that I think Plato and Nietzsche agree that there is such a thing as a tragic
worldview, that the principles of this tragic worldview receive their philosophical articulation
41
Halliwell (1996).
42
The Greek reads: I o n |JEV yap OUSETTOT' OUSEV, asi 5E yt'yvETOU. KCU TTEP'I TOUTOU TtauTES E^fjs oi
ao<|>oi TTAF|V TTapuEviSou auu<t>EpEa9cov, TTpcoTayopas TE KCU 'HPOIKAEITOS Kai 'E|JTTE-5OKA?|S, KCU
TGOV TTOir)Tcov oi dtKpoi TT)S TTOtf|aEcos~ EKaTEpas, KconcoStas psv' Emxapuos-, xpayopStas 5E
"Onripos, os E'ITTGOV-' QKEOVOV TE 0ECOV ysvEaiv Kai ur|TEpa Tr|6uv.
35
in the work of Heraclitus, and that these principles somehow form the basis for the
flourishing of both sophistry and poetry. Where Plato and Nietzsche differ, however, is the
position that they take with respect to the truth of this worldview. Whereas Plato devotes
much of his work to attacking this worldview and subordinating poetry to the philosophical
quest for knowledge of the world in-itself, Nietzsche's attempt to revive the Heraclitean-
Protagorean position found in work like the Theaetetus can be understood as part of his larger
attempt to revive the art forms associated with the Greek god Dionysus and therewith the
subordination of philosophy to the demands of art. In this way, we can understand
Nietzsche's post-1877 project as the blossoming of the very ideas he first articulated in BT,
where he not only argues that the pursuit of art, rather than the pursuit of truth, represents
the highest task for humanity (BT "Pref'), but also that "it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon
that existence and the world are etemaily justified" (BT 5).
CHAPTER O N E
B e c o m i n g and the Unity of O p p o s i t e s in
Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
The linguistic means of expression are useless for

articulating becoming: it belongs to our
ineliminable need for preservation continually to
posit a cruder world of constancy, of "things", etc.
(Nietzsche, WP 715; KSA 13,11 [73])
Parmenides said, "one cannot think of what is

not";—we are at the other extreme, and say "what
can be thought of must certainly be a fiction".
(Nietzsche, WP 539; KSA 13, 14[148])
1.1. Introduction
O n e of the central aims of this work is to show that the doctrine of becoming and
the related doctrine of the unity of opposites (UO) function as cornerstones to Nietzsche's
philosophical project on both a theoretical and a textual level from P T A (1873) to his 1888
published works. O n a theoretical level, it will be argued that these doctrines go hand in
hand with Nietzsche's ontology of force and form the basis for his rejection of self-identical
things, his skeptical epistemology, the falsification thesis, the tragic tension between life and
truth, and ultimately his perspectivism. O n a textual level, it will be argued that these
doctrines are foundational because they appear at the beginning of H H and B G E , and the
philosophical positions that Nietzsche develops in each of these works can be largely derived
from his initial commitment to these two doctrines.
There are, however, two significant challenges facing my interpretation. T h e first is
that it is not altogether clear that Nietzsche intends to commit himself to these doctrines at
the beginning of H H and B G E in raising the question "how can something come from its
opposite?" O n e reason for doubting such an interpretation is that it is not immediately

37
obvious how UO is supposed to relate to becoming, if at all. The other problem has to do
with the doctrine of becoming itself. Specifically, even if it is agreed that becoming is
present in HH 1 and BGE 2, it is not clear how we are supposed to interpret the doctrine:
Is it the view that all things come to be and pass away, i.e. there are no eternal substances?
Or is it the view that all things are changing at all times in some respect or perhaps even in
all respects? Or is it the view that there are no things that persist through time because
everything perishes with a change in its properties and these properties are changing all the
time? Or is it the view that there are no things but only motions, processes, or changes?
The problem with HH and BGE is that Nietzsche's obscure style does not readily
allow for the development of nuanced responses to such questions through careful textual
analysis. Instead, one is almost forced to generate a theoretical framework from Nietzsche's
unpublished texts and fragments in order to decipher the meaning of the claims he puts
forth in his published works. Because of this, what I will do in this first chapter is turn to
Nietzsche's early essays on pre-Socratic philosophy in order to generate the necessary
background for interpreting the opening aphorisms of both HH and BGE. While I will
briefly touch upon Nietzsche's lectures from PPP, the main focus of this chapter will be his
exposition of the debate between Heraclitus and Parmenides in PTA. In turning to this
work, I will focus on two points in particular. First, I will endeavor to establish a theoretical
link between Heraclitus' doctrine of the unity of opposites and his doctrine of becoming.
Whereas becoming will be defined as the view that change is an essential feature of reality,
UO states that everything exists and is what it is only in relation to something else. As we
will see, the latter doctrine leads to the former because the kind of relations that hold
between the fundamental stuffs of the Heraclitean world, namely qualities or forces, are what
38
I will call effective relations. That is, these stuffs are such that they can only exist insofar as
they are affecting each other. This then is how UO guarantees becoming or the view that
change is a necessary feature of reality. Second, I will focus on spelling out the philosophical
implications of Nietzsche's acceptance of these two doctrines. In particular, I will emphasize
that they do away with self-identical things that have the properties they do in virtue of
themselves (things-in-themselves). Because these positions do away with such entities, UO
and becoming are at odds not only with the subject-predicate structure of language, but also
with the basic laws of thought.
As we will see, these latter two points are important because they underwrite what is
known in the secondary literature on Nietzsche as the falsification thesis, the view that
language and thought seduce us into adopting false beliefs about the world. The claim that
the falsification thesis is rooted in Heraclitean becoming and the doctrine of UO is
important not only because it implicitly rejects the view, held by Maudemarie Clark,1 that the
falsification thesis is rooted in Nietzsche's belief in a thing-in-itself, but also because it
indirectly links the view to Nietzsche's empiricism and goes hand in hand with his rejection
of rationalism. To understand the tension between becoming and UO, on the one hand, and
thought and language, on the other, and how this tension relates to the empiricist-rationalist
debate, we will turn to Nietzsche's portrayal of Parmenides and the strategy that Parmenides
uses to reject both becoming and UO. 2 Specifically, we will see that Parmenides agrees with
Heraclitus that the world as it reveals itself to the senses is something that violates the
1
Clark (1990). Note that there is some discrepancy between Clark's understanding of the falsification thesis
and my own.
2
When I speak of the ideas of Heraclitus and Parmenides in what follows, I will be speaking of Nietzsche's
Heraclitus and Nietzsche's Parmenides. I will leave questions as to the accuracy of Nietzsche's account of
these two figures aside.
39
structures of language and thinking. That is, Parmenides thinks that empiricism leads to the
acceptance of becoming and UO and that these doctrines in turn underwrite the falsification
thesis. However, Parmenides breaks with Heraclitean philosophy by concluding from this
fact that the world that reveals itself to the senses must be somehow illusory. Because
Parmenides assumes that there is an identity or correspondence between thinking and
being,3 Parmenides can use the principle of non-contradiction to reject not only Heraclitus'
doctrine of UO, but the senses altogether. Moreover, Parmenides not only uses the laws of
thinking as regulative principles, but also as constitutive principles. That is, Parmenides uses
the logical principle of identity to construct a world of being that conforms to the basic
structures of thinking.
Given that Nietzsche's version of Heraclitean becoming and his doctrine of UO cuts
against the basic structures of language and thought, it will be difficult to develop a
completely adequate description of the theory in language. Because of the difficulty of this
task, I will preface my analysis of PTA by turning to two previous interpretations of
Nietzsche's doctrine of becoming offered by Christoph Cox4 and John Richardson.3
However, before I do this, I want to begin this chapter with a brief summary of BT and its
relationship to PTA. The reason for starting with BT is not only because it is Nietzsche's
first work, but also because it will reveal the way in which Nietzsche's turn to Heraclitean
becoming can be understood as an extension of his initial project of indentifying a type of
philosophy that ultimately supports the tragic art of the ancient Greeks. The point here is to
3
Here I will leave unanswered the question as to whether Nietzsche's Parmenides holds that there is a
numerical identity between thinking and being or whether there is a mere correspondence between thinking
and being, such that they are nevertheless said to be numerically distinct.
* Cox (1999).
5
Richardson (1996).
40
show that Nietzsche's rejection of the dualistic metaphysics of BT via his newfound
commitment to becoming in PTA will not constitute a rejection of the tragic philosophy of
BT, but rather a refinement of it. Consequently, when we encounter Nietzsche's articulation
of becoming and UO and his related critique of metaphysics in HH, we should interpret this
move as a continuation of the cultural project of BT.
1.2. Tragic Philosophy in BT and PTA
Nietzsche did not begin his career as a philosopher, but rather as a classical
philologist, and BT was supposed to be his first book-length contribution to the field of
classical philology. Instead, what Nietzsche produced was what he called in a letter to his
former professor Friedrich Ritschl "a kind of manifesto" (KSB 3, 194), one that would mark
the beginning of a new epoch and announce the aims of all his future strivings (KSB 3, 183).
Indeed, Nietzsche's lofty expectations for the text can be found in the original preface to the
work, where he suggests that BT should be understood as the second turning point—
Socrates was the first (BT 15)—in so-called world-history (BT "Pref'). Nietzsche sees his
work as a turning point in world history because it announces the death of the Socratic
optimism inherent in the modern Enlightenment project and sketches his hopes for a rebirth
of tragic philosophy and art. While Nietzsche would later criticize his youthful exuberance
in a preface that he added to the 1886 edition of the work, we have noted in the introduction
a series of reasons for thinking that he remained committed to this project. The most
important of these is the fact that scholars have read Zarathustra as Nietzsche's own tragedy,
and what this suggests is that the later Nietzsche did not abandon the cultural project of BT,
but rather rejected Wagner as the person responsible for the rebirth of tragic art and, in so
doing, decided to take over the project himself.

41
Although BT begins with the much-discussed distinction between Apollo and
Dionysus, the work as a whole turns on the distinction between tragic wisdom and
optimistic philosophy. Whereas tragic wisdom or tragic philosophy highlights the deep
tension between life and truth by depicting the human being as a suffering creature thrown
into a natural world hostile to his deepest needs, optimistic philosophy construes nature in
such a way that it supports the human quest for eudaimonia or the good life. In the opening
chapters of BT, Nietzsche argues that the Greeks developed their art as a life-affirming
response to the tragic wisdom of Silenus. In sections ten through fifteen, Nietzsche
contends that Socratic optimism brought an end to both tragic philosophy and the
corresponding form of tragic art. In the final sections, Nietzsche argues that Kant and
Schopenhauer have revived tragic philosophy and therefore have paved the way for the
possibility of a corresponding rebirth of tragic art in the form of Wagnerian opera.
To understand the way in which Socratic optimism killed tragic art, one must first
grasp the connection between tragic philosophy and tragic art. Specifically, Nietzsche
contends that it was the Greeks' awareness of the ineluctability of suffering that drove them
to produce their art (BT 3). That is, they recognized the horrors of existence, and this
recognition raised Hamlet's question, to be or not to be (BT 7). Whereas Silenus counseled
life-denial, i.e. that it was best not to be, not to be born, Nietzsche contends that the Greeks
turned to art as a means of affirming life in spite of such wisdom. Whereas Apollonian art
makes life worth living by shrouding the suffering of existence with beautiful images,
Dionysian art is able to transform suffering itself into an aesthetic phenomenon worthy of
affirmation. In particular, Nietzsche believes that the pleasure we take in musical dissonance
exhibits the way in which humans are capable of taking pleasure in pain, conflict, and war
42
(BT 24). In tragedy, this Dionysian capacity of humans to take pleasure in the disharmonic
elements of existence is found in the joy we find in the destruction of the individual hero,
and it is through his destruction, as a representative of individuality as such, that the chorus
and the audience alike are joyously re-united with each other and nature herself (BT 16).
According to Nietzsche, tragedy was the highest form of Greek art because it united the life-
affirming power of Apollonian art via the beautiful appearance of the hero on the tragic
stage with the life-affirming power of Dionysian art embodied in the song and dance of the
chorus and the pleasures we take in the destruction of individuation (BT 7-9).
In sections ten through fifteen, Nietzsche argues that Socratic optimism struck at the
heart of the tragic worldview of the Greeks and the corresponding need for tragic art to
affirm, justify, and redeem the ineluctable suffering of human existence. This is because
Nietzsche's Socrates saw in science and philosophy the means by which one could correct the
eternal wound of existence through the powers of reason (BT 13). Having construed nature
as something ordered for the good of human flourishing, there was no longer any need for a
life-affirming art that either covered over (Apollonian) or directly affirmed (Dionysian) the
ugly and disharmonic elements of existence. What was now needed was philosophy, and it
was by leading the philosophical life that one could attain eudaimonia. According to
Nietzsche, Socratic optimism led to the development of not only a new form of existence,
but also a new understanding of nature, and this resulted in the death of an understanding of
nature and a corresponding way of life that one could truly call tragic.
In the final sections of the work, Nietzsche contends that there is the possibility for
a rebirth of tragic art in the form of Wagnerain opera because there has been a
corresponding rebirth of tragic philosophy through the work of Kant and Schopenhauer (BT
43
19). Nietzsche's claim here is that the Socratic quest for truth has actually led to the
destruction of Socratic optimism and the corresponding rediscovery of the tragic worldview.
Whereas Nietzsche sees in Kant's philosophy a skepticism that denies the possibility of the
kind of knowledge that would correct the suffering of existence, he sees in Schopenhauer's
philosophy positive proof of the ineluctability of human suffering (BT 18). It is for these
reasons that Kant and Schopenhauer have rediscovered Dionysian wisdom now comprised
in concepts (BT 19). That is, it is through philosophy that we are again confronted with the
question of whether to be or not to be, and while the young Nietzsche embraces the
question, he nevertheless breaks with Schopenhauer's life-denying ethics by turning to what
he thinks is the life-affirming, tragic art of Richard Wagner.
The importance of Kant and Schopenhauer can also be felt in Nietzsche's attempt to
articulate his principles of the Dionysian and Apollonian in terms of the Kantian distinction
between the thing-in-itself and the world of appearances. Indeed, the metaphysical
principles of Nietzsche's first work seem to mirror those of his self-appointed mentor,
Schopenhauer. Nevertheless, there is one crucial difference that separates these two
thinkers. Whereas Schopenhauer confines human misery to the phenomenal world,
Nietzsche claims that contradiction and suffering constitute the essence of the unified will
(KSA 7, 7[117]).6 Strangely enough, Nietzsche's Ur-Eine is a contradictory entity at war with
itself (BT 5). As a result, when the veil of Maya is ripped away, one does not experience the
contemplative calm characteristic of Buddhist enlightenment, but rather the roaring power
of desire which finds its expression in the festivities of the Dionysian cult.
6
See Decher (1984). More recently, see Han-Pile (2006, 379).
44
In conceiving of the Ur-Eine as contradictory, Nietzsche has implicitly construed the
metaphysical entity that lies beyond the realm of appearances as a unity of opposing
elements, where the tension or suffering of the Ur-Eine functions as the motor that generates
the world of appearances. As we will see, this slight modification of Schopenhauer's will is
important for our purposes not only because it shows that Nietzsche is committed to a form
of the unity of opposites at the earliest stages of his career, but also because it makes for a
relatively smooth transition to the Heraclitean philosophy of PTA. Quite simply, what
Nietzsche will do in PTA is reject the metaphysical dualism of BT and the corresponding
notion of an Ur-Eine that is a unity of opposed elements standing behind the world of
appearances by construing the natural world that reveals itself to the senses in terms of ever-
quarreling opposite qualities or forces. For Nietzsche and Nietzsche's Heraclitus, this will
leave us with only one world, and this will be the empirical world of becoming.
1.3. Nietzsche's Doctrine of Becoming in the Secondary Literature
Before developing my own account of becoming in PTA, I first want to turn to
those commentators, such as Christoph Cox and John Richardson, who have provided a
substantive treatment of the view as it is found both in PTA and elsewhere in Nietzsche's
writings. In turning to the work of Cox and Richardson, I want to situate my own
interpretation of becoming within what I hope will be become a tradition of Anglo-
American scholarship that makes the doctrine a centerpiece of Nietzsche's philosophical
project. In this sense, my efforts here will stand in contrast to those interpretations that say
litde or nothing about the influence of Heraclitus on Nietzsche's thought and the role that
45
becoming plays in his later philosophy.7 In following Cox and Richardson, my hope is to
employ their interpretive insights into how one should and should not interpret becoming so
as to improve my own construal of the doctrine. On the one hand, Cox's exposition will
require that we avoid the potential pitfall of placing becoming in an unknowable noumenal
realm such that it resembles Kant's thing-in-itself. On the other hand, I will appropriate
portions of Richardson's analysis to show why we cannot interpret becoming in terms of a
subject-predicate ontology. At the same time, I will criticize both of their positive construals
of the doctrine on the grounds that they do not entirely resonate with the account we find in
PTA and Nietzsche's later writings.
1.4. Cox on Becoming
As we will see, the interpretation of becoming that I will advocate resembles, but is
not equivalent to, what Christoph Cox has called "becoming as noumena." According to
Cox, becoming as noumena is the position that has been advocated by neo-Kantian readers
of Nietzsche such as Arthur Danto, Stephen Houlgate, and Julian Young.8 For these
thinkers, becoming as noumena is roughly equated to "a fluid, impermanent, and
undifferentiated Urwelt to which the categories of knowledge (identity, substance, causality,
etc.) do not apply." According to this reading, Nietzsche's skepticism derives from his
belief in this chaotic Urwelt. Since the aforementioned categories do not apply to the world
in itself, there is no hope of ever coming to know such a world. Instead, all we can hope for
7
Perhaps the two most prominent interpretations of this sort are Clark (1990) and, to a lesser extent, Nehamas
(1985). Although Nehamas does provide an account of Nietzsche's relational ontology in chapter three of his
work, he places perspectivism at the center of Nietzsche's philosophical project and says little about PTA. I
will offer a critique of Clark's views in chapter three and Nehamas' views in chapter five.
8
Danto (1965, 80 and 95-97), Houlgate (1993, 133 and 135), and Young (1992, 3, 41, 96-97, and 160-161). For
a complete list, see Cox (1999,171). Here it should be noted that while becoming is mentioned by each of
these interpreters, they do not provide a detailed account of how and why Nietzsche came to adopt the view.
9
Cox (1999, 170).
46
is knowledge of a world that we construct. The reason why this position can be called neo-
Kantian is that it implicidy treats "becoming" or the chaodc Urwelt as roughly equivalent to
the thing-in-itself. That is, the chaotic Urwelt is supposed to be, on this account, the
unknown and unknowable cause of our representations. We can never know this world
because we immediately impose some kind of order on the otherwise unformed Urwelt in the
act of perception. As a result, Nietzsche, like Kant, is a dualist. That is, Nietzsche believes
that there is the world as it is, in itself, i.e. the chaotic Urwelt, and the world as it appears to
us, i.e. the constructed world of self-identical objects that conform to the categories of the
understanding.
Although I will develop a view not too different from becoming as noumena, Cox is
right to highlight some of the difficulties with the position, three of which I will briefly
discuss here. The first is that this cannot be a proper interpretation of becoming because it
commits Nietzsche to two incompatible claims. That is, Nietzsche both claims that
becoming or the chaotic Urwelt is unknowable and, at the same time, he seems to know
enough about it to know that it is unknowable. Second, the becoming as noumena reading
fails to offer a coherent account of perception. Specifically, it suffers from the same
problem that plagues some readings of Kant's philosophy, namely the problem of affection.
The third and perhaps most potent objection to this reading of becoming is that it seems to
commit Nietzsche to the very kind of dualism he so adamandy rejects.
Although Cox raises some important issues, there are rejoinders to each of the
problems highlighted above. The first objection suffers from the fact that it does not
directly undermine the interpretation in question, but rather reveals a potential inconsistency
in Nietzsche's own thinking. That is, the objection does not deny the fact that Nietzsche
47
both claims that becoming is unknowable and, at the same time, claims to know that the
world is becoming, but rather points out that these two claims seem to conflict with each
other. Thus, one could argue that even though these two claims conflict, it is nevertheless a
proper interpretation of Nietzsche's texts. Indeed, we know from PPP that Nietzsche finds
this very position at the end of Plato's Cratylus, where it is argued that "given eternal flux, no
continuity in knowing, and therefore no knowledge is possible" (PPP, p. 84), and Nietzsche
does not express any worries about the potential inconsistency of the position, even if it is,
in the end, inconsistent.
Perhaps the reason why Nietzsche does not express any worries about this potential
inconsistency is because it is merely an apparent inconsistency. Here, we could say that the
inconsistency between claiming to know that the world is becoming, on the one hand, and
denying that we can have knowledge of the fundamental stuffs of the world, on the other, is
rooted in an equivocal use of the verb "to know." Specifically, when Nietzsche denies that
we can have knowledge of becoming, he is using the term "knowledge" in a specific sense,
perhaps tied to ancient notions of episteme or scientia, where a necessary condition of
knowledge is being able to give an account of what something is, in- itself.10 Indeed,
Nietzsche suggests such a restricted use of knowledge in one of the Nachlass fragments that
Cox quotes: "A world in a state of becoming could not, in a strict sense, be 'comprehended'
or 'known'" (WP 520; KSA 11:36[23]). As I argue in the next section, one reason why
becoming cannot be known in this strict sense is that Nietzsche's doctrine of becoming does
away with things that exist and are what they are in themselves. Since knowledge in the
sense of. episteme is necessarily of things-in-fhemselves, the denial of things-in-themselves
10
Cf. Schopenhauer (WWR I 31).
48
underwrites Nietzsche's claim that episteme is impossible. At the same time, we can say that
we can know, in the sense of having a justified true belief, that the world is composed of
interrelated forces that resist being fully captured by language and thought. In PTA,
Nietzsche claims that Heraclitus came to hold such beliefs by exercising his "power to think
intuitively," where thinking intuitively is contrasted with conceptual and logical thinking
governed by the principle of non-contradiction (PTA 5, p. 52).
The second objection that Cox raises is a bit more forceful. Again, the problem that
he attributes to the neo-Kantian reading of Nietzsche's doctrine of becoming is the problem
of affection. On a certain reading of Kant's philosophy, the problem of affection emerges
because Kant seems, on the one hand, to hold that sensibility is causally affected by the
world of things-in-themselves and, on the other hand, to hold that the law of causality is
only valid for the world of appearances. Although the neo-Kantian reading states that
Nietzsche differs from Kant insofar as Nietzsche's world-in-itself is an undifferentiated flux
as opposed to a world of individuated things-in-themselves, this difference nevertheless fails
to eliminate the problem of affection. Rather than individuated things-in-themselves
affecting sensibility, it is now the flux of forces that is supposed to generate the content of
intuitions upon which the categories of the understanding are then imposed. Here again, we
might argue that Cox's point does more to highlight the philosophical weakness of the
position being attributed to Nietzsche than to call into question the accuracy of the reading
itself. However, Cox does highlight a significant passage in which Nietzsche criticizes Kant
for having failed to limit his conception of causality to the phenomenal world (WP 553; KSA
12:5[4]). What this suggests is that Nietzsche was at least aware of the problem of affection,
49
and it gives us reason to believe that he would have tried to avoid a similar problem in
developing his own account of becoming.
Admittedly, Cox's objecdon raises one of the thorniest problems for anyone who
wants to develop a coherent reading of Nietzsche's views on ontology, perception, and
epistemology, and I will not be able to give a full account of the issue until we delve into the
relationship between becoming and perspectivism in chapters four and five. Here, we can
say that the problem is that of showing how the qualitative world of first-person experience
relates to the scientific world of forces. To begin, we can agree with Cox that for Nietzsche
there are neither perceiving subjects nor objects that are perceived insofar as they are
understood as basic unified entities that exist and persist through time. Instead, the most
basic units of the commonsense world are sensations or effects,11 and it is from these effects
that subjects and objects are constructed as regulative fictions (KSA 11, 35[35]). That is, just as
an object is a bundle of effects, where these effects are now construed as the properties of a
property-bearing object, the subject is just a bundle of perceptions of these effects, where
these perceptions are preserved through memory and united by the understanding.
By following Cox in making the fundamental stuffs of the common sense world
effects or sensations, we have only begun to deal the problem at hand. Although such an
ontology eliminates the problem of affection because there is nothing in the external world
that causes these effects or sensations, we are left wondering not only why this does not
commit Nietzsche to some form of untenable idealism, but also how these effects might
relate to his scientifically grounded ontology of force. Although I can only sketch a brief
11
Cox (1999, 128ff.). Hussain (2004) offers a similar account.
12
For an analysis of Nietzsche's bundle ontology, see Hales and Welshon (2000, 57ff.).
50
answer to the issue here, I think that the key can be found in F.A. Lange's The History of
Materialism, a work that had a significant influence on Nietzsche's thinking. The key that we
can take from Lange's work is that there is no ontological difference between forces and
effects. Instead, they are just two descriptions of one and the same reality. Lange presents
this idea in the course of describing the basic ontology of the modern materialist, where the
world is made up of matter and force. According to Lange, this matter-force dichotomy
maps onto a basic subject-predicate ontology. Whereas matter plays the role of a property-
bearing subject that we never immediately experience, force is to be equated with the effects
that we directly experience. On this model then, it is matter, and not force, that plays the
role of the cause of our sensations or effects.13 Thus, when Nietzsche contends that the
world consists only of effects, he is jettisoning the matter of modern materialism, and in
jettisoning matter, he is jettisoning the cause of our sensations or effects. However, this
world of effects can at the same time be construed in the language of force, and these forces
are not to be understood as the causes of our sensations or effects, but rather as being, in the
sense of being numerically identical with, our sensations or effects. It is in this sense that
force and effect are simply two alternative descriptions of one and the same reality.
Even if the first two objections have been met, we are still faced with the ever-
present difficulty of construing becoming in such a way that it does not entail the kind of
dualism that Nietzsche so adamantly rejects. Indeed, in our previous attempt to overcome
the problem of affection, we seem to have fallen into precisely this trap. That is, we now
have, on the one hand, a true world of opposing forces or a chaos of sensations and, on the
other, an apparent world of conscious subjects and ordinary middle-sized objects. To
" L a n g e (1866,380).
51
respond to this objection, we can begin by stating that, pace Cox, Nietzsche does not reject
all forms of dualism and the appearance-reality distinction altogether. Instead, he simply
rejects the kind of ontological dualism which holds that there are two types of entities, those
that are known through the senses and those that are known through reason. The fact that
Nietzsche does not reject dualism altogether is not only implicit in his falsification thesis and
perspectivism, but also explicit in certain Nacblass fragments. In one of these fragments,
Nietzsche opposes our "psychological perspective" and "phenomenal world" of ordered,
recognizable, and identical things to the "the formless unformulable world of the chaos of
sensations—another kind oi phenomenal world, a kind of'unknowable for us'" (WP 569;
KSA 12, 9[106]). Similarly, in his critique of mechanistic science, Nietzsche contends that
once we reject number, thing, and the concepts of activity and motion as merely
phenomenal, we are still left with "dynamic quanta, in a relation of tension to all other
dynamic quanta: their essence lies in their relation to all other quanta, in their 'effect' upon
the same" (WP 635; KSA 13, 14[79]). What both of these fragments suggest is that, for
Nietzsche, there is a kind of dualism implicit in his thinking insofar as we have the real world
of force or dynamic quanta or, alternatively construed, the chaos of sensations, and the
apparent world of what seem to be self-identical subjects and objects that exist and persist
through time.
In my mind, such a distinction is also at work in Nietzsche's articulation of his
perspectivism in GS 354. Here, the distinction runs along the lines of the difference
between the conscious world of the knowing and conceptualizing subject and the non-
conceptual and unknown world of the unconscious. In making this distinction, Nietzsche
remains a realist about the latter and a fictionalist about the former. The reason for thinking
52
that Nietzsche is a realist about unconscious forces or drives is that he claims that "the
whole of life would be possible without, as it were, seeing itself in a mirror." As to the world
of which we do become conscious, Nietzsche contends that it is "only a surface and sign-
world, a world that is made common and meaner; whatever becomes conscious becomes by
the same token shallow, thin, relatively stupid, general, sign, herd signal; all becoming
conscious involves a great and thorough corruption, falsification, reduction to
superficialities, and generalization" (GS 354). Thus, based on this passage alone we can say
that Nietzsche believes that there is a true world that lies beyond a conceptualizing
consciousness and a second, falsified world generated by the superficial, conceptualizing, and
perspectival nature of consciousness.
Cox is not only aware of these passages, but he also cites a number of others which
suggest that Nietzsche is in fact committed to some sort of dualism. Nevertheless, Cox
rejects such a reading because it "would certainly equivocate [Nietzsche's] own rejection of
the appearance/reality distinction and put into doubt his expressed commitment to the
primacy of the this-worldly, for it would commit him to the view that the world we know—
the world of our experience—is built upon another, unknowable, primary, and pre-given
world of becoming or chaos."14 To avoid this result, Cox contends that we should construe
such passages as empirical and phenomenological claims designed to remind us that the
world in which we live "is continually undergoing change and transformation."15 That is, we
14
Cox (1999,143).
15
Cox (1999,144).
53
are to recognize that everyday, middle-sized objects are always subject to change at the
micro-level and will eventually be destroyed over a long period of time at the marco-level.16
In my mind, the problem with Cox's argument is that it overextends Nietzsche's
critique of dualism, so much so that he uses it to try to eliminate an appearance-reality
distinction that I think is fundamental to Nietzsche's thought, namely the distinction
between the scientific image and the manifest or commonsense image. Whereas Cox seems
to find in Nietzsche a continuity between the scientific world of swarming molecules and the
middle-sized objects of every day experience, 17 1 hold that Nietzsche's scientific realism
commits him to a view of the world that rejects or eliminates the middle-sized objects of
everyday experience insofar as they are said to be self-identical and unified entities as
falsifications of a true world that is best described in terms of force-quanta. Indeed, we will
see that one of the earth-shaking or tragic results of Nietzsche's commitment to the natural
sciences is that it ultimately reduces the "I" to something that he alternatively calls a
regulative fiction and a bundle of drives and affects.
The idea, then, is that if this distinction between the scientific and manifest images
commits Nietzsche to a form of dualism, then Nietzsche is a dualist in this sense, and this
kind of dualism is unproblematic for Nietzsche because he does not,pace Cox, reject all
forms of dualism. However, it is here that we might wonder whether such a distinction
commits Nietzsche to a form of dualism at all. As I will argue at length in chapter three,
Nietzsche's commitment to becoming and a related ontology of force is rooted in his
scientific realism, and what this means is that his ontology of force offers itself as an
16
Cf. Cox (1999,193ff.).
17
Cox (1999,194£).
54
alternative, indeed superior, description of the very world that commonsense accounts are
meant to describe, i.e. the world that reveals itself to the senses. Here, the scientific
description does not generate a second world, but rather a second description, and it is this
second description that is held out to be true and the initial commonsense description is
rejected as false. To understand why this does not lead to dualism, one only needs to think
of the Copernican revolution. In developing his heliocentric description of the solar system,
Copernicus distinguished between the manifest and scientific images, but he did not generate
a second world that was ontologically distinct from the first. Instead, he simply offered an
alternative and presumably superior account of one and the same basic set of entities.
As a final point, we do need to concede to Cox that Nietzsche's becoming and his
related ontology of force is like Kant's thing-in-itself insofar as it renders the world
unknowable. However, we must emphasize that the reason why the world is unknowable is
not because we do not have access to it via the senses, but rather because such an ontology
cannot be grasped by reason. As we will see, one reason why becoming and the related
ontology of force cannot be grasped by reason is that it does away with self-identical things
and therewith the subject-predicate structure of reality. Indeed, this is one reason why I
would argue against Cox's attempt to construe becoming in terms of things that change, where
"tables, hands, cups, water, doorknobs, trees, stones, and all other natural things" are said to
"expand, contract, grow, decay, fuse, divide, solidify, melt, evaporate, and so on."18 In our
analysis of PTA, we will see the way in which Nietzsche's Heraclitus rejects such talk as
belonging to the popular imagination of the unknowing herd. Before I do this, however, I
18
Cox (1999, 194f.). However, it must be noted that Cox is aware of Nietzsche's critique of thinghood (1999,
139ff.).
55
first want to turn to Richardson's analysis to highlight additional reasons for rejecting the
view that becoming is a doctrine that can be described in terms of things and their
properties. In so doing, I will prepare the ground for my own interpretation of becoming in
terms of an ontology of qualities or forces that exist and are what they are only in relation to
something else.
1.5. Richardson on Becoming
Although Richardson's analysis will further our quest to understand Nietzsche's
doctrine of becoming, it must be said at the outset that the general aim of his discussion runs
contrary to the thrust of my own. This is because Richardson's primary goal in unpacking
his reading of becoming is to preserve his more fundamental claim that Nietzsche has an
ontology and therefore what he calls a theory of being.19 Richardson needs to make this
argument because Nietzsche often associates his doctrine of becoming with an outright
denial of being. To diffuse this potential objection, Richardson stresses two initial points.
First, Nietzsche understands being in the Platonic-Parmenidean sense of the term, where a
being is an entity that is not subject to change. Thus, when Nietzsche praises Heraclitus for
having rejected being, he is praising him for having denied the existence of such entities.20
By interpreting Nietzsche's rejection of being in this manner, it leaves Richardson space to
attribute to Nietzsche a theory of beings that are in time and subject to change. This brings
us to Richardson's second point. Specifically, we can understand Nietzsche's ontology of
being in terms of his doctrine of becoming. By insisting that all beings are in time and
19
Richardson (1996, 73).
20
56
subject to change, Richardson can now argue that Nietzsche's intention is not to reject being
altogether, but rather to argue that "being is becoming."21
As Richardson openly acknowledges, he needs to say more about what the claim
"being is becoming" might mean. He begins this task by stating that, for Nietzsche,
becoming means that "beings are essentially changing?'22 Here again, the claim that beings are
essentially changing needs to be developed. According to Richardson, when most people
think of the type of change that Heraclitean becoming is supposed to describe, they think of
it as "of beings." More specifically, the typical reading of becoming holds that every being
passes out of existence and is replaced by a different being at some point in time. Here,
Richardson considers both qualities and things to be types of beings. So we have an instance
of becoming when an apple changes from green to red. This is because the green of the
apple passes away and the color red comes to be when it replaces the green. Similarly, we
have an instance of becoming when an apple rots or is eaten. Here, the apple passes away
and some new object takes its place. Richardson calls both of these processes "being
replacement" and he combines this view with claim that "beings are essentially changing" to
formulate a possible interpretation of Nietzsche's theory of becoming. Specifically, "nothing
is that has not replaced something else or will not later be replaced itself."23
At this point, however, Richardson begins to wonder if this is the best reading of
becoming. The source of his worry is that this reading fails to explain why Nietzsche
associates becoming with a denial of fhinghood. Indeed, "being replacement" seems to be
quite consistent with the existence of mundane things. As a result, Richardson concludes
21
Richardson (1996,74).
22
23
57
that Nietzsche's theory of becoming must be saying something more. Here, he explores the
idea that Nietzsche denies the existence of things because being replacement occurs at every
instant. In this case, the only beings that "are" would be instantaneous. That is, while they
exist, they do not persist through time, no matter how short this interval might be. According
to Richardson, this reading does have the potential advantage of explaining Nietzsche's
denial of things and substances. The idea here would be that persistence is a necessary
condition of thinghood. Since nothing persists, Nietzsche concludes that there are no
things. Despite this potential advantage, Richardson highlights one significant problem,
namely that it is "wildly at odds with our experience."24 Stated quite simply, apples and
colors seem to last longer than mere instants, even when we observe such beings with
utmost care and attention.
Nevertheless, Richardson tries to counter our common-sense resistance to the
theory by introducing some additional considerations into the discussion. The first has two
components, and it very much resembles the understanding of things that Cox hints at in his
own reading of becoming.25 First, Richardson urges us to think about Nietzschean things
not in terms of substances and their properties, but rather in terms of wholes and parts.
Thinking in these terms emphasizes constant change because we can now say that a thing
changes when any of its parts change, even if those parts cannot be detected by the naked
eye. Second, when we think about the relationship between the parts and the whole, we
should try to think in terms of Heraclitus' image of the bow or the lyre. The idea is that
wholes are composed of parts that are continually struggling with one another. On this
24
25
Cox (1999, 194).
58
model, then, we can see the way in which things are constantly changing because each of
their parts is continually striving to overcome the other parts that naturally oppose them.
The second consideration that might help us take constant change more seriously is
thinking of change in terms of individuated points along a continuum. While it might be
hard for us to believe that water is, at every moment, changing from warm to cold and then
back again, we might more readily accept that water is, at every moment, changing its
absolute temperature, however minute this change may be. True, we will not always be able
to perceive such changes, but we might nevertheless grant that imperceptible changes are, in
fact, happening all the time. Of course, such an ontology would eliminate conceptual
groupings of similar, but not identical, instances. That is, we could no longer say that the
warm water remains warm through time because even though it is still warm, it has changed
its absolute temperature. The upshot of this kind of thinking, however, is a world of
precisely individuated beings, not only in time, but, as Richardson points out, in space as
well. Moreover, because we cannot group beings into species, types, or natural kinds, we
end up with a situation in which "each being is a kind only to itself."26
Having made "constant change" as plausible as possible, Richardson proceeds to
develop reasons for rejecting it. First, Richardson argues that we would resist Heraclitean
becoming so construed because it tries to undermine our everyday views by being overly
precise. That is, there does not seem to be any good reason to give up thinking about warm
water remaining warm through time just because its absolute temperature is changing
however so slightly. The second shortcoming has to do with Nietzsche's claim that
becoming undermines the existence of beings altogether. According to this reading,
26
59
becoming not only does not undermine the existence of beings, but it multiplies the number
of beings in the universe. That is, the claim that one cannot step into the same river twice
does not entail there are no beings, but rather that a new being is born at every moment with
every change. Thus, where the common man sees one river that persists through time and
change, the Heraclitean now sees a series of rivers that replace each other at every moment.
Richardson's analysis of becoming is valuable for our purposes because he shows, in
a step-by-step fashion, why the doctrine of becoming should not be understood as "things
change" or that change is "of beings." On the one hand, if we read the doctrine as the
rather banal claim that all things are subject to change at some point in time, then we cannot
make sense of Nietzsche's repeated attacks on things. On the other hand, if we read the
doctrine as stating that all things are subject to change all the time, then we are faced with
two intractable problems. First, the doctrine is not philosophically satisfying. Simply put, it
is hard to believe that commonsense things are changing at every moment. Second, once we
appeal to additional considerations in order to convince ourselves that, in fact, beings are
changing at every moment, we end up with an ontology that does not deny beings, but rather
multiplies them. As Richardson writes, these additional considerations lead to the
conclusion that "every precise, momentary condition is now a being in its own right, though
none lasts for more than a moment. Yet becoming was supposed to rule out beings."
Although we have successfully determined via Richardson's analysis what becoming
is not, i.e. it is not "of beings," we are now left with the more demanding task of developing
a positive understanding of becoming. Here, however, Richardson makes the questionable
27
60
move of turning away from Nietzsche's PTA and toward Plato's dialogues,28 where he gleans
three central points. First, Nietzsche's doctrine of becoming entails that beings are not self-
sufficient in the moment. Instead, they ate processes that are necessarily stretched over time.
Second, these processes only take their identities contextually. That is, their whatness is
determined by their relationship to other processes. Finally, Richardson claims that
becoming is intentional. That is, reality is not only a collection of processes, but a collection
of processes that each have a certain structure, where each will-to-power strives towards the
satisfaction of its contextually defined telos.
Although I will incorporate the point about contextualism into my analysis and
restrict Richardson's point about intentionality to becoming only insofar as we think of it in
terms of Nietzsche's distinct idea of the will to power, I do want to dispute Richardson's
claim that beings are processes stretched over time on the grounds that there is litde textual
evidence for it. Indeed, it is quite telling that Richardson turns directly to Plato's texts,
rather than to Nietzsche's own account in PTA, to argue that "being occurs only as a
temporal spread."29 True, Richardson does supplement his reading with passages from
Nietzsche's corpus, but the textual evidence he cites rarely supports the point he is trying to
make. Perhaps the best textual support for Richardson's claim comes from HL, where
Nietzsche tells us that man's "existence" is "an imperfect [tense] that can never be
completed" (HL 1). But even here, it is hardly the case that Nietzsche is telling us "fairly
directly" that "being occurs only as a temporal spread." Indeed, passages from the same
section in HL suggest that Nietzsche's understanding of becoming eliminates being
28
I will also turn to Plato's dialogues to develop my own account of becoming. However, I turn to an account
of becoming in the Tbeaetetus that Plato mosdy rejects, and I will do so only to supplement my initial
interpretation of becoming generated by a close reading of PTA.
29 Richardson (1996,103).
61
altogether. That is, the lesson from HL is not that beings are processes stretched over time,
but rather that beings, in particular the "I," are fictions generated for the preservation of life
and the flourishing of human culture.
In any case, the upshot of Richardson's analysis is to argue that Nietzsche's doctrine
of becoming does not rule out beings and therewith the project of ontology, but rather his
appeal to becoming is designed to "redescribe beings, by insisting that temporal stretch is
essential to them: they're processes."30 In other words, Richardson's Nietzsche is a four-
dimensionalist who turns to Heraclitus to reject a tradition initiated by Parmenides that failed
to see beings in this manner. Although Richardson's account has deepened our
understanding of what Nietzsche's conception of becoming is not, I think that his positive
account is an overly conservative attempt to place Nietzsche in a tradition that he ultimately
rejects, and my reason for thinking this is that the reading he provides does not square with
Nietzsche's exposition of Heraclitus' philosophy in PTA.
1.6. Reading PTA
In the next three sections, I will turn to Nietzsche's construal of the debate between
Heraclitus and Parmenides in PTA and develop what I think is a proper interpretation of
becoming, ultimately relating it to Heraclitus' unity of opposites doctrine. As we will see,
PTA is crucial for our purposes not only because it provides us with the necessary
framework for interpreting the distinction between historical and metaphysical philosophy in
HH, but also because it smoothes over some of the differences between BT and HH. While
Nietzsche will publically reject the artist's metaphysics of BT in HH, PTA reveals the way in
which Nietzsche's anti-metaphysical position goes hand in hand with his attempt to redefine
30
62
the tragic philosophy of BT in terms of Heraclitean becoming, and it is the appearance of
Heraclitean becoming at the beginning of HH which suggests that Nietzsche intended the
work to be an exercise in tragic philosophy and therefore a continuation of the project of
BT, despite its rejection of Schopenhauer's metaphysics.
Reading PTA within the context of the tragic philosophy of BT is also important for
our purposes because it provides additional support for a view that I will be stressing
throughout this study. Simply stated, Nietzsche thinks that becoming and the related
doctrine of UO are true, while the denial of becoming and the related doctrine of UO is
false. This is an important point because I use it later to contend that Nietzsche's
perspectivism does not reduce becoming to a view that is merely true for Nietzsche, but
rather true for everyone on account of its objective validity. Reading PTA as an extension or
reformulation of the tragic philosophy of BT is important in this context because implicit in
the argument of BT is Nietzsche's view that there are correct and incorrect ways of
construing reality. Specifically, Nietzsche implicitly holds in BT that the optimistic view of
nature that Socrates first introduced to Greek culture is false, whereas the tragic view of
nature, articulated in the myth of Silenus and then rediscovered by Kant and Schopenhauer,
is true. Indeed, Nietzsche contends that Socratic optimism is self-destructive precisely
because the quest for truth that it inspires ultimately reveals optimism for what it is, namely a
myth that has no grounding in reality. It is in this sense that the Socratic project, as a
combination of optimism and the quest for truth, is self-undermining. In PTA, the
opposition to tragic philosophy is not so much Socratic optimism, but rather rationalist and
dualist metaphysics, and much like his rejection of Socratic optimism in favor of tragic
philosophy in BT, Nietzsche praises Heraclitus' related doctrines of becoming and UO,
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while rejecting Parmenides' doctrine of being as "a moment un-Greek as no other in the two
centuries of the Tragic Age" (PTA 9, p. 69).
One of the problems with reading PTA in this dogmatic fashion is that there is
textual evidence suggesting that Nietzsche did not think of Heraclitus' philosophy as
something objectively true, but rather as an expression of his personality. Specifically,
Nietzsche introduces his subject by acknowledging that "philosophical systems are wholly
true for their founders only. For all subsequent philosophers they usually represent one
great mistake, for lesser minds a sum of errors and truths" (PTA, p. 23). Moreover,
Nietzsche then tells us in the second preface that he is more interested in the personalities of
pre-Socratic thinkers than in their philosophical doctrines per se. The reason is that although
each of their doctrines has been refuted, their personalities have not (PTA, p. 25).
The problem with reading PTA through this interpretative lens is that Nietzsche
begins to assess the relative merits of each system as the essay unfolds, most notably praising
Heraclitus' teachings and condemning Parmenides' metaphysical turn. Now it could be that
Nietzsche's respective praise and condemnation is merely an expression of his personal
preference for Heraclitus and distaste for Parmenides, but it is more likely that Nietzsche's
assessment of these philosophers is rooted in the way in which their philosophies do or do
not capture something about the world.31 One reason for holding that Nietzsche thinks
Heraclitean becoming says something about the world and not just about Heraclitus'
personality is that Nietzsche begins to develop support for the Heraclitean position by
appealing to other philosophers and scientists. In PTA, Nietzsche appeals to Schopenhauer
31
I do think, however, that the primary difference between Nietzsche's respective portrayals of Anaximander
and Heraclitus turns on the issue of personality insofar as the latter affirms the world he describes in his
philosophy, while the former condemns it. The idea here is that whether one affirms or denies life is ultimately
a matter of psychological health, a theme found in the opening pages of the essay.
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in his exposition of Heraclitus to emphasize the point that "everything which exists has but a
relative existence, that each thing exists through and for another like it, which is to say
through and for an equally relative one." Here, Nietzsche tells us that "this is a truth of the
greatest immediate self-evidence for everyone," and that whoever accepts it must "move on
to the Heraclitean conclusion and say that the whole of reality \Wirklichkeil\ lies simply in its
acts [Wirken] and that for it exists no other sort of being" (PTA 5, p. 53).
In other texts, Nietzsche not only turns to contemporary philosophers to support
his position, but he also appeals to the natural sciences. Indeed, I will show how Nietzsche
attempts to articulate the doctrine of becoming in the language of the natural sciences in my
analysis of H H in chapter three. As we will see, however, HH is not Nietzsche's first
attempt to link Heraclitean becoming to the natural sciences. In fact, Nietzsche's other
significant discussion of Heraclitus' philosophy can be found in PPP, and it includes
extended references to the scientific investigations of Karl Ernst von Bar (PPP, p. 60) and
Ludwig von Helmholtz (PPP, p. 62). Moreover, we also know that Nietzsche began reading
the works of Roger Boscovich and African Spir while writing PTA.32 Whereas Spir indirectly
shapes Nietzsche's critique of Parmenides,33 Nietzsche sees in Boscovich a physicist who
marks the transition from Netwon's mechanistic worldview that Nietzsche rejects to the
dynamic worldview that he endorses.
What all of this suggests is that Nietzsche's efforts in PTA are not to be understood
exclusively as investigations into the personalities of these philosophers. Instead, what
Nietzsche is doing is slowly building evidence to show that modern philosophers and
32
Schlechta and Anders (1962).
33
Green (2004).
34
Whidock (1996,204).
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scientists are gradually moving away from the Democritean atomism of early modern science
and moving toward a Heraclitean understanding of the world, one that will ultimately form
the basis for Nietzsche's break with the Western metaphysical tradidon and form the basis
for his tragic worldview. In this sense, Nietzsche's quest to find support in modern
philosophy and science for the doctrines of the philosopher of the tragic age of Greece can
be understood as an extension of his belief, originally articulated in BT, that the Socratic
optimism implicit in the modern Enlightenment project will, when taken to its logical
conclusion, result in the rebirth of the tragic worldview.
1.7. Heraclitean Becoming in PTA
For our purposes, the argument of PTA begins with Nietzsche's exposition of
Anaximander's thought. This is because Anaximander not only introduces into Greek
thinking what Nietzsche calls "the problem of becoming" (PTA 5, p. 50) in a way that
parallels what we might call the problem of opposites in HH 1, but also because Nietzsche
portrays Anaximander as a dualist whose thought will be superseded by the anti-dualism of
Heraclitus. In fact, one can read Nietzsche's interpretation of the transition from
Anaximander to Heraclitus in PTA as a portrayal of Nietzsche's personal overcoming of the
metaphysical dualism of BT. This is because Nietzsche explicitly associates Anaximander's
thought with that of Schopenhauer and implicitly accepts Heraclitus' philosophy as his own.
Just as Heraclitus dissolves the dualism of Anaximander, Nietzsche rejects, via Heraclitus,
Schopenhauer's dualism and therefore the metaphysics of his first work. In particular,
Nietzsche attributes two principles to Anaximander that Heraclitus would then reject. The
first is that the world of individual entities with definite properties emerges from a hidden,
metaphysical "womb of all things" called "das Unbestimmte" or "the indefinite" (PTA 4, p.
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47). The second is that Nietzsche's Anaximander interprets the coming to be of individual
things with definite properties as a violation of justice, and the penalty that these things pay
for their coming to be is that they must ultimately pass away. In this sense, Anaximander is,
like Schopenhauer, a life- and world-denying pessimist, one who thinks that the world of
coming to be is something that ought to perish.
In contrast to Anaximander, Nietzsche presents Heraclitus as a life-affirming
philosopher. That is, Heraclitus does not view the world of coming to be and passing away
as a grand injustice, but rather as an aesthetic game of creation and destruction that Zeus
plays with himself (PTA 6, p. 58). Here, it should be noted that Nietzsche attributes a
similar view to Heraclitus near the end of BT, where he is trying to explain why it is that life
is only justified as an aesthetic phenomenon. Specifically, Nietzsche contends that
Dionysian art is life-affirming because it reveals "the playful construction and destruction of
the individual world as the overflow of a primordial delight," and in so doing, he refers to
Heraclitus: "Thus the dark Heraclitus compares the world-building force to a playing child
that places stones here and there and builds sand hills only to overthrow them again" (BT
24). It is from these passages that we can see why Heraclitus becomes Nietzsche's tragic
philosopher par excellence. Specifically, he is a thinker who sees the world as a meaningless
game of coming to be and passing away but nevertheless affirms and takes delight in this
process as an aesthetic phenomenon.
Although such passages reveal the continuities between BT and PTA, there is a
crucial difference between the two works. Specifically, in PTA, Nietzsche understands
dualism to go hand in hand with the life- and world-denying interpretation of existence.
That is, the evaluative claim that the world of coming to be ought to perish is rooted in a
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metaphysical claim about a second world that is distinct from and perhaps better than the
one that reveals itself to the senses. The implicit teaching of PTA is that the affirmation of
existence requires the elimination of BT's dualistic ontology, as it is with the elimination of
this second world that the natural world of change will no be longer condemned as an unjust
manifestation of some inaccessible realm of "being" or "things-in-themselves."
In PTA, Nietzsche believes that Heraclitus' philosophy does precisely this, and he
begins his treatment of the issue by having Heraclitus exclaim that "becoming is what I
contemplate," not the "punishment of what has come-to-be did I see, but the justification of
that which is coming-into-being" (PTA 5, p. 50). According to Nietzsche, Heraclitus' insight
into the nature of becoming is related to two central negations. The first is the one
discussed above. That is, he denied the existence of two different worlds, no longer
distinguishing a "physical world from a metaphysical one." Second, Nietzsche tells us that
once Heraclitus denied Anaximanderian dualism, he was forced to accept a "far bolder
negation: he altogether denied being" (PTA 5, p. 51).
At this point, we need to reflect on what Nietzsche means when he says that
Heraclitus "altogether denied being." The reason why Heraclitus rejected being was not
only because he did not believe that there was some second world beyond the world of the
senses, i.e. a metaphysical world, but also because when he observed the world that is
available to the senses, i.e. the physical world of change, he did not find anything that
"shows a tarrying, an indestructibility, a bulwark in the stream." From this comment alone,
we might conclude that Heraclitus denied being because he could not find anything in the
sensible world that persists for all time, such as a super-diamond whose nature guarantees
that it will never undergo alteration. Here, the view would be that everything that comes to
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be and exists for some period of time must nevertheless perish at some point, passing away
back into the river of becoming. However, as the passage continues, Nietzsche's Heraclitus
proclaims that he sees "nothing other than becoming," that only myopic people see "land"
where there is only "the ocean of coming-to-be and passing away." While the names we use
for things might trick us into believing that there are things that endure, Heraclitus reminds
us that we never step into the same river twice (PTA 5, p. 52).
If we stopped with the claim that we cannot step into the same river twice, we would
be forced to interpret Heraclitus' denial of being as the denial of things that persist for any
period of time. As we have seen in Richardson's analysis, however, such a reading of
becoming cannot account for Heraclitus' denial of being because it actually results in the
multiplication of the number of beings. That is, on this view, we would have a world
populated with instantaneously existing beings, perishing at every moment precisely because
they are gaining or losing their properties at every moment. Here, one might argue that such
a construal of Heraclitean becoming amounts to the denial of being because persistence is a
necessary condition for something to be a being. The problem with this reading, however, is
that it does not make sense of the remainder of the argument of PTA, where Nietzsche
delves into Heraclitus' violation of the principle of non-contradiction (PNC) and
Schopenhauer's related theory that empirical reality consists only of effects or Wirken. In
other words, the claim that there are things that exist but do not persist not only entails that
there is more to reality than mere effects or Wirken, but also fails to explain why Nietzsche
thinks Heraclitus is committed to the violation of Aristotle's version of PNC.
On the reading we are developing here, Heraclitus' denial of being can be
understood as the denial of not just metaphysical substances, but also commonsense things,
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and his denial of commonsense things is not a form of idealism, but rather a relationalism
that is rooted in a refined empiricism. The idea is that there are better and worse approaches
to and descriptions of the empirical world. Whereas the naive man of commonsense sees
the world in terms of objects and their properties, a refined observer like Heraclitus
recognizes that there is nothing in the world but effects or Wirken. Indeed, the contrast
between the commonsense view of the empirical world and the reality that Heraclitus
discovers is, on Nietzsche's account, so great that someone who follows Heraclitus down
this path will be struck with a certain sort of paralysis, where the "impact on men can most
nearly be likened to the sensation during an earthquake when one loses one's familiar
confidence in a firmly grounded earth" (PTA 5, p. 54). Important here is the fact that
Nietzsche introduces the distinction between the commonsense empiricist and the refined
empiricist of the Heraclitean sort within the context of praising Heraclitus for having
overcome the dualism of Anaximander. What this suggests is that Nietzsche does not
consider Heraclitus' rejection of commonsense descriptions of the empirical world to imply
or lead to a form of unwanted dualism. Instead, the commonsense description is rejected as
false, while Heraclitus' claim that the world consists of only Wirken is held up as a genuine
insight into the true nature of the empirical world.
To understand why Nietzsche does not believe that these Wirken are beings, we need
to delve into a second aspect of Heraclitus' so-called earthshaking philosophy, namely his
doctrine of the unity of opposites. Specifically, Nietzsche contends that Heraclitus explained
the coming to be and passing away of the empirical world in terms of divided opposites that
continually sought to unite with each other. Here, Nietzsche describes the phenomenon of
generation and corruption using both the language of forces and qualities. In the first
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description, Nietzsche tells us that a force divides itself into two qualitatively opposed
activities and then seeks to re-unite with itself. In the second description, Nietzsche tells us
that "a given quality contends against itself and separates into opposites," and after this
separation, these opposite qualities everlastingly seek to re-unite. In both instances,
Heraclitus' understanding of reality stands in sharp contrast to reality as it is conceived by
"das Volk." Whereas the common man sees "something rigid, complete, and permanent,"
Heraclitus sees the way in which "light and dark, bitter and sweet are attached to each other
and interlocked at any given moment like wrestlers of whom sometimes the one, sometimes
the other is on top" (PTA 5, p. 54). The definite qualities that appear to us in this process
do not constitute the coming to be of some "thing" that is sweet, but rather the temporary
dominance of one quality over the now hidden other. Indeed, Nietzsche tells us that only
"narrow human minds" and "animal-heads" believe that there are things. In truth, things
have no real existence: "They are but the flash and spark of drawn swords, the quick
radiance of victory in the struggle of opposites" (PTA 5, p. 55).
Whether the Heraclitean world sketched in PTA is one of eternally warring qualities,
such as bitter and sweet, or eternally opposed forces, as Nietzsche thinks the physics of his
day tells us, the point to emphasize here is that his conception of the world does away with
self-identical things or beings. At this point, however, someone like Richardson might argue
that Nietzsche does indeed have a theory of being precisely because he tells us what the
world is made of, namely qualities or forces. Although Richardson would be right on this
issue j/"we were to understand "being" as simply referring to the fundamental stuffs of any
ontology, whatever they may be, I think we should avoid referring to Nietzsche's forces as
beings because using the term "being" runs the risk of obfuscating Nietzsche's rejection of
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being and, in so doing, transforming him into a more traditional thinker than he actually is.
Here, I would contend that the definition of being implicit in the argument of PTA is that a
being, when considered in itself oz in relation to itself, is a "unity" or in some sense "one"
that has certain essential or intrinsic properties and is capable of independent existence.
With this definition in hand, I will argue that there are four corresponding reasons why the
stuffs of Nietzsche's Heraclitean world are not beings of the traditional sort, and each of
these reasons will show how Heraclitus' rejection of being is intimately bound up with
becoming and, more importantly, the doctrine of UO.
The first difference between qualities or forces and beings of the traditional sort, e.g.
forms, substances, atoms, monads, etc., is that, unlike the latter, the former are not capable
of independent existence. A quality or force is not capable of independent existence because
it depends on being related to something that it is not or its opposite.35 In terms of warring
qualities, we can say that if the bitter were to conquer the sweet completely, it would result in
its own destruction. In terms of forces, we have a similar scenario. For a force to exist, it
requires resistance, a force that opposes it. Without such resistance, the force itself is
extinguished. In this sense, forces or qualities are existential^ united with their opposites.
The second reason why forces or qualities differ from beings of the traditional sort is
that they are essentially united with their opposites. The difference between an existential and
an essential unity of opposites is that whereas the former deals with the conditions of
existence, the latter deals with the determinate nature of the entity in question. By
determinate nature I have in mind an answer to the question, "what is it?" Here, the
35
Of course, in a substance or substance-like ontology, we say that qualities or forces depend on something
substance-like. In the case of qualities, we say that qualities must be predicated of some substance. In the case
of forces, we say that they must be attributed to matter in some way.
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essential unity of opposites tells us that things only take on a determinate character by
standing in some relation to something else. If, for instance, we speak of active and reactive
forces, as Deleuze wants us to do,36 then UO enjoins us to say that these forces only take on
such a character in relation to each other. That is, we could not isolate each force from its
relationship and say that here is an essentially active force and there is an essentially reactive
force. At the level of perception, we can say that a so-called perceived object does not have
the qualities it does independently of the perceptual relation. Instead, it comes to be a such
and such only when it enters this relation. In terms of common sense things, we can say that
the wine is or only becomes sweet insofar as it is being tasted. Independendy of this
relation, the wine does not have the property of being sweet. Finally, we can apply this
principle again to the realm of commonsense things and say that these things only take on
the properties they do insofar as they are situated in some contextual relation to other things.
In a classic example, Phaedo can only be called tall if there is some other person such as
Simmias or even a past stage of Phaedo who becomes short while standing in this relation.
It is with the principle of the unity of opposites in hand that we can state an
additional, yet related reason why the fundamental forces or qualities of the Heraclitean
picture are not beings of the traditional sort. Specifically, it is because they are existentially
and essentially united with their opposites that these entities cannot be considered unities in
themselves. Instead, the only instances we have of unity are unities of multiplicities or
opposites. However, and here is where the position jars with our logical sensibilities, once
we detach these multiplicities or individual relata from their relationships, we are not then
36
Deleuze (1983, 39ff.).
73
left with something that is a self-subsisting unity. Instead, the unity of opposites states that
the relata, independently of the relation, are nothing.
The final claim implicit in the denial of being is that it rejects self-identical entities.
Here we can understand self-identity as equivalent to self-relation and oppose self-relation to
what we will call other-relation. In rejecting beings, Heraclitus is therefore rejecting the
notion that there are things that are related to themselves, and Heraclitus' rejection of things
that are related to themselves goes hand in hand with his claim that everything is necessarily
related to something else. Indeed, we can say that the contrast between self-relation and
other-relation is the dominant principle that governs the previous three claims. In the
Heraclitean world, things do exist, but only in relation to something else. Moreover, things
do have determinate properties, but only in relation to something else. Finally, things do
exhibit a certain unity, but only as a multiplicity of related relata.
j If we have construed the position correctly, we can see just how bound up the denial
of being is with Heraclitus' ontology of relations or UO. At the same time, Nietzsche's
exposition of Heraclitus' philosophy does not run along the lines of an immediate contrast
between being and UO, but rather between being and becoming. So understood, one might
worry that the real contrast Nietzsche wants to establish in PTA is between stability and
change and further wonder what UO has to do with such issues. To understand this
connection, we must recall the argument above and insist that becoming cannot be
construed in terms of a subject-predicate ontology. That is, we need to resist the temptation
to think of the issue in terms of an Aristotelian ontology in which things change by gaining
or losing properties. That said, the easiest way to explain how UO relates to becoming is to
say that the Heraclitean world is not one of merely conceptual relations, but one of what I
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have called effective relations. That is, the relations that hold between the fundamental
stuffs of the Heraclitean world are such that a force cannot exist without affecting
something else, i.e. some of other force. So construed, forces must always be affecting each
other, and since this process of affecting and being affected is change, we can say that
change is therefore an essential feature of reality.
For our purposes, this is perhaps the best way to construe the relationship between
becoming and UO, and it is one that is captured by Nietzsche's appeal to Schopenhauer's
explanation of sensible reality in terms of Wirken that only have relative existence. However,
Nietzsche does offer alternative explanations of change in terms of UO, both in PTA and in
his account of Heraclitus' philosophy in PPP. In particular, we have noted above that
Nietzsche also describes the world of becoming in terms of opposite qualities like bitter and
sweet, light and dark, eternally quarrelling with each other. On the one hand, we can say that
this account is simply a metaphorical description taken from the qualities we find in the
world of commonsense of the eternally quarrelling forces described above. Thus, this
account states that change is going on all the time in the sense that these opposites are
constantly quarrelling with each other. On the other hand, Nietzsche likens these quarrelling
opposites to "wrestlers of whom sometimes the one, sometimes the other is on top." Given
such an account, we can say that while one sort of change is occurring all the time because
these qualities are said to be continually "wrestling" or "quarrelling" with each other, there is
another sort of change that occurs when the subordinate "wrestler" comes to dominate the
previously dominant one. The idea is that there is a constant war going on under the surface
between a unity of opposed qualities, and what comes to the surface, what appears, is the
quality that is dominant in the relationship, and when the dominant partner in the
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relationship is overthrown, there is a change in what appears such that the previously
dominant partner is now sublimated and the previously subordinate partner makes its
appearance.
For our purposes, this additional construal of change is important for two reasons.
The first is that it provides an understanding of change that most matches the language of
the problem of opposites raised at the beginning of H H 1 and BGE 2. Specifically, we can
say here that this view makes it possible for things to come from their opposites because
these opposites are eternally united to each other, where coming to be is understood in
terms of coming to be the dominant partner in the relationship. Here, one might worry that
on this view things cannot change at all because change involves moving from one contrary
to another, and since both contraries are eternally co-present, there is no change from one
contrary to the other. Based on Nietzsche's construal of the position in PTA, we can say
that although change from one contrary to the other does not occur in any absolute sense—
where the appearance of one contrary entails the complete destruction of the other—, it
does occur in the sense of one contrary becoming more dominant than the other for a
certain period of time. This brings us to our second point. Because both opposites are
always co-present, change can be understood as a matter of degree. That is, we not only can
speak of an opposite being more or less dominant in a relationship, but we must insist that at
no time does one contrary completely abolish the other. This is because UO dictates that if
ever one of the pairs of opposites were to be completely destroyed by the other, the
dominant opposite would be destroyed along with it. For this reason, we can say, with
Nietzsche, that the struggle between these opposites "endures in all eternity" (PTA 5, p. 55).
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The final understanding of change in this Heraclitean ontology that we need to
consider has to do with the status of macro-objects. Specifically, the Heraclitean
understands macro-objects to be like bows and lyres, and what this means is that macro-
objects are not subjects of change, but rather unities of opposing forces. Although this way
of understanding things does not appear in Nietzsche's account of Heraclitus in PTA, it does
occur in PPP (p. 66), and it resembles the understanding of the subject as a collection of
"drives and affects" that he presents later in BGE 12. The idea here is that the macro-
objects we tend to assume to be self-identical unities with determinate properties capable of
independent existence are actually composite wholes. However, they are not, as Democritus
would have it, made of individual parts that are themselves substance-like entities that have
determinate properties and are capable of independent existence. Instead, they are
composites of interrelated forces that only exist insofar as they are affecting or "quarrelling"
with each other. Again, the image that Heraclitus offers to explain this idea is that of the lyre
and the bow, and there are three reasons why this way of construing macro-objects is
important. First, it gives us an account of macro-objects that does without the concepts that
the Heraclitean position denies, namely in-itself existence, determinacy, and unity. Second, it
tells us that despite the apparent stability of macro-objects over time, we find an eternal
quarrel between the parts of the larger whole going on beneath the surface that makes
change an essential feature of reality. Finally, in holding that the apparent stability of macro-
objects depends on an underlying tension, we again encounter a vision of the world that
places agon, struggle, strife, and even suffering at the heart of the world (PTA 5, p. 55).
It is with this last point that we can see the way in which the Heraclitean worldview
sketched by Nietzsche is a tragic one. By construing both nature and ourselves in terms of
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ever-quarrelling forces, suffering is made into an essential part of existence such that it
renders impossible any sort of happiness that includes peace or freedom from disturbance.
Indeed, Nietzsche tells us that this war is not only constantly going on within each
individual, but also between individuals, groups, and states on a continual basis: "It is
Hesiod's good Eris transformed into the cosmic principle; it is the contest-idea of the Greek
individual and the Greek state, taken from the gymnasium and the palaestra, from the artist's
agon, from the contest between political parties and between cities—all transformed into
universal application so that now the wheels of the cosmos turn on it" (PTA 5, p. 55).
What is also interesting about Nietzsche's account of Heraclitus' philosophy in
PTA—and here is where we find Nietzsche leaving behind anything we might find in the
fragments we have from Heraclitus—is that Heraclitus' philosophy is supposed to be tragic
in an aesthetic sense. That is, Heraclitus' philosophy models tragedy not only in depicting
the world in a way that makes suffering an essential part of it, but also, as we noted above, in
being able to affirm this constant struggle as a game that Zeus plays with himself. Indeed,
what is striking here is that Nietzsche associates this aesthetic attitude toward existence with
the playfulness of the child: "in this world only play, play as artists and children engage in it,
exhibits coming-to-be and passing away, structuring and destroying, without any moral
additive, in forever equal innocence" (PTA 7, p. 62). It is striking not only because it refers
back to the Heraclitean passage in BT (BT 24), but also because it points forward to the
image of the child that caps the description of the three metamorphoses found at the
beginning of Nietzsche's own tragedy, namely Zarathustra.
The final aspect of Heraclitus' philosophy that we need to stress is that it is
philosophically tragic. On the one hand, we have noted that Nietzsche describes Heraclitus'
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doctrine of becoming as "a terrible, paralyzing thought" (PTA 5, p. 54). On the other hand,
we have noted the way in which the doctrine cuts against our conceptual and logical
capacities such that it renders the world unintelligible to creatures like us. Although
Nietzsche does ascribe to Heraclitus the power to think "intuitively," which in turn makes it
possible for Heraclitus to attain the insights he does, Nietzsche also notes the way in which
the Heraclitean position violates Aristode's principle of non-contradiction. Before
explaining why someone like Aristode (in the next chapter) and Parmenides (in the next
section) would think that the position violates this principle, we can say a few words about
the way in which the related doctrines of becoming and UO generally cut against the way we
think and speak. With respect to UO, we can say that the doctrine is in some sense
unthinkable because it invites us to conceive of relations without any pre-existing relata.
With respect to becoming, we can say that Nietzsche's Heraclitus invites us to understand
change without positing some sort of substratum that is the subject of the change. In the
language of GM I, we can say that the doctrine of becoming in PTA invites us to overcome
the linguistic and logical tendency of thinking that there are forces that cause and doers
behind deeds (GM 113).
Although Nietzsche and Nietzsche's Heraclitus invite us to accept such positions,
many thinkers have rejected these doctrines for a priori reasons. Indeed, Afrikan Spir, a
central influence on Nietzsche, rejected an ontology of pure force for precisely this reason.
That is, he argued that forces necessarily require some underlying substance that bears the
force and is moved by it. To think that a force could exist without a corresponding
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substance would be akin to believing that a walk walks.37 As we will see in the next section,
Spir is simply following a tradition initiated by Parmenides, as it was Parmenides, at least on
Nietzsche's account, who was the first to reject the ontology of Heraclitus solely on the
grounds that it violates the basic structures of thought.
1.8. Parmenides' Refutation of Heraclitean Becoming in PTA
In trying to make sense of Nietzsche's version of Heraclitean becoming and how it
relates to the unity of opposites doctrine, we have noted that the theory is bound up with a
claim that language and rational thought necessarily falsify a world so constituted. This is an
important point for our purposes because I will argue that the appearance of Heraclitean
becoming in Nietzsche's later works functions as the basis for what is known as the
falsification thesis. In this section, I want to provide indirect evidence for this way of
construing Heraclitean becoming by looking at Nietzsche's interpretation of Parmenides'
philosophy. We can understand Nietzsche's interpretation of Heraclitean becoming through
his interpretation of Parmenides because Nietzsche interprets Parmenides' philosophy as a
direct response to Heraclitus. Specifically, Nietzsche holds that Parmenides rejected
Heraclitus' philosophy of becoming and the related doctrine of the unity of opposites
precisely because it violated the basic structures of language and, more importandy for
Parmenides, thought. For Nietzsche's Parmenides, there is an identity or correspondence
between thinking and being or reality, and if sensible reality is said to conflict with thought,
then sensible reality must be rejected as deceptive or illusory. As we will see, Nietzsche
responds to Parmenides' objection to Heraclitean ontology not hy trying to re-characterize
37
Spir (1877, vol. 2, 112). This passage comes from an edition of Spir's work that was published later than
Nietzsche's PTA.
80
sensible reality in a non-contradictory fashion, but rather by attacking the fundamental
presupposition of the Parmenidean project, namely that there is an identity or
correspondence between thinking and being.
Although Nietzsche does not begin his treatment of Parmenides' philosophy with a
discussion of the correspondence between thinking and being, he does begin by casting
Parmenides and his doctrine of being as the Gegenbild or counter-image to Heraclitus and his
doctrine of becoming (PTA 9, p. 69). As we have noted in our summary of BT, Nietzsche
understands the developments in ancient Greek culture in terms of a radical clash between
two competing worldviews represented by tragic poetry and the corresponding tragic
worldview, on the one hand, and Socratic optimism and Platonic philosophy, on the other.
In BT, Nietzsche argued that Euripides and, above all, Socrates were the leaders of a new
way of thinking that brought an end to the tragic worldview and the genuine tragic art that
emerged as a response to it. In PTA, Nietzsche pushes the break with the tragic worldview
back to the debate between Heraclitus and Parmenides and the emergence of Parmenides'
philosophy. Whereas Nietzsche thinks that Parmenides' metaphysical turn marks the
beginning of the end of the tragic worldview, Nietzsche finds in Heraclitus a naturalist
philosopher who gave expression to a tragic or aesthetic conception of the world (PTA 7, p.
62). Whereas Heraclitus raised the curtain on the greatest of all dramas (PTA 8, p. 68),
Parmenides' doctrine of being brought all of this to an end. As we noted above, Nietzsche
thinks that Parmenides' discovery of being was a moment un-Greek like no other in the
tragic age and ultimately divided pre-Socratic philosophy into two halves (PTA 9, p. 69).
According to Nietzsche, the doctrine of being also divided Parmenides' own
philosophical activity into two periods. During the first period, he was, much like his
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predecessors, interested in Anaximander's problem of becoming or how something could
come from its opposite. Like Heraclitus before him, Parmenides wanted to develop an
account of the physical world that would solve the problem of change. However, he did so
by mistakenly dividing qualities into two distinct groups, and, according to Nietzsche, it was
this erroneous understanding ofopposites that drove Parmenides to develop his doctrine of being.
Specifically, the next step in his method was to interpret one of the contraries as the
negation of the other. As a result, he divided the world into positive and negative qualities,
associating the former with light and the latter with darkness. However, because the "dark"
qualities were mere negations or privations of the "light" qualities, Parmenides further
concluded that the latter were "seiend" or "existent," while the former were "nicht seiend"
or "non-existent." Thus, for the young Parmenides, the physical world consisted of both
being and non-being, that which exists and that which does not exist (PTA 9, p. 72).
Having divided the world in this manner, Parmenides approached Anaximander's
problem of becoming. Believing that what exists cannot come from what already exists, as
this would not be a case of coming to be, and that something cannot come from nothing, he
concluded that coming to be must be a result of the mixture between being and non-being
or, as Nietzsche states it, "for coming-to-be, the existent [das Seiende] as well as the
nonexistent [das Nicht-Seiende] are necessary; whenever they interact, we have coming-to-be."
However, Parmenides was still faced with a problem. Because he did not see being and non-
being as naturally united to form becoming, he had to explain how these two originally
distinct elements could come together. Here, Parmenides appealed to the mysterious power
of ens, symbolized by Aphrodite, as that which is capable of uniting these two distinct
elements (PTA 9, p. 73).

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According to Nietzsche's account, the mature Parmenides soon rejected this
youthful theory of becoming. In so doing, he not only broke with his prior philosophy, but
also with the philosophers of nature who preceded him. On Nietzsche's view, Parmenides
rejected his previous account of becoming, which is supposedly preserved in the Doxa,
because it violated the principles of rational thought. Specifically, Parmenides realized the
inherent contradiction contained in the notion of a negative quality. That is, Parmenides'
description of becoming made use of the non-existent, but for the non-existent to mix with
the existent, the non-existent must itself exist. According to Nietzsche's Parmenides, this
was a great logical blunder. This is because thinking dictates that "what is, is" and "what is
not, is not." To assert anything else, especially that something both "exists and does not
exist" or "is and is not" is "a universal crime against logic" (PTA 10, p. 77).
Important for our purposes is the fact that Nietzsche interprets Parmenides as
responding not only to his own youthful philosophy, but also to the account of becoming
given by Heraclitus. We know this because Nietzsche tells us that Parmenides was just as
much disgusted with Heraclitus' philosophy as he was with his own original system.
Specifically, Nietzsche speaks of Parmenides' hatred of "the antinomy-play of Heraclitus" by
referring to statements such as "we are at the same time and are not" and "being and
nonbeing is at the same time the same and not the same." According to Nietzsche's
Parmenides, people who make such statements are two-headed know-nothings; "everything
is in flux with them, including their thinking" (PTA 10, p. 77).
Although the claim that Parmenides designed his philosophy as a response to
Heraclitus is controversial, we can be sure that Nietzsche reads the relationship between the
two thinkers in this way. Not only can we identify the Parmenidean fragment that Nietzsche
83
has in mind when he refers to Parmenides' hatred of the two-headed know-nothings, but we
also know, from PPP, Nietzsche's source for reading Parmenides in this manner.
Specifically, the Parmenidean fragment that Nietzsche has in mind is D K B6, where
Parmenides speaks of "two-headed" types who "know nothing," presumably because they
believe that "being and not-being" are "the same and not the same." Nietzsche's source for
the claim that Parmenides is responding here to Heraclitus' philosophy is Jacob Bernays,38
and we know this because Nietzsche cites Bernays in a similar discussion in PPP (PPP, p.
84). Bernays' work is important for our purposes because he is known for having
developed, again controversially, what is often called the three ways of Parmenides.39 Here
we can unpack, in the spirit of both Bernays' reading and Nietzsche's comments in PTA and
PPP, an interpretation of what these three ways are and how Parmenides establishes the
superiority of his philosophy. In so doing, we will see another way in which three central
ideas of Heraclitus' philosophy relate: (1) the doctrine of becoming; (2) the unity of
opposites thesis; (3) the alleged denial of the principle of non-contradiction.
On this reading of Parmenides' philosophy, there are three possible paths that one
can follow: 1) "It is;" 2) "It is and is not;" and 3) "It is not." In order to establish the
desired connection between "it is and is not" and becoming, we need to interpret the verb
"to be" existentially. In so doing, the first way will read "it exists," and this will be
Parmenides' philosophy of being. The second way will read "it exists and does not exist,"
and this will be Heraclitus' philosophy of becoming. The third way will read "it does not
exist," and this will be what we might call a philosophy of non-being or nothingness. The
38
Bernays (1850).
39
Cf. Mansfeld (1964, Iff.).
84
purpose of Parmenides' philosophy is to establish the truth of the first way by eliminating
the other two paths. Following Nietzsche, we can say that Parmenides eliminates the path
of becoming by asserting the identity of thinking and being (DK B3). That is, the path of
becoming, which is followed by those "two-headed" mortals who believe that "being and
non-being" are "the same and not the same" (DK B6.8-9), is ruled out because it violates the
laws of rational thinking, i.e. the principle of non-contradiction. For rational inquirers, there
are only two possible ways, namely "it is" and "it is not" (DK B2.2-5). Here, Parmenides
rules out "it is not" or non-being on the grounds that it is unlearnable, unknowable, and you
could not point it out (DK B2.6-8). In other words, non-being cannot be an object of
thought, discourse, or even sensation precisely because in order for it to be an object at all it
has to be or exist. Thus, the path of non-being is eliminated, and the only path remaining is
"it is" or the path of being.
It must be noted, however, that this reading of Parmenides' philosophy is not
without controversy.40 First, there is much dispute concerning the interpretation of the verb
"to be". According to the existential interpretation provided here, Parmenides' entire
philosophy is designed to prove the claim, "it exists." While this might seem like a trivial
point, the significance of Parmenides' philosophy comes to light once we read him, again
controversially, as responding to Heraclitus' attempt to describe the ever changing world in
terms of entities that exist only in relation to something else. Parmenides responds to
Heraclitus not by arguing that he had misconstrued the nature of the sensible world, i.e. that
there are indeed self-existent and self-identical entities that reveal themselves to the senses,
but rather by claiming that the sensible world that Heraclitus accurately describes is a
4
° Cf. Graham (2006, 155ff.).
85
deception. Because there is an identity between thinking and being, reality cannot be
contradictory, and if the senses reveal a world that is somehow contradictory and therefore
unthinkable, then the senses must be the source of deception. Parmenides therefore
concludes that thought alone is the source of truth, and what thought reveals is being, a
conception of reality that corresponds to the logical principle of identity, A=A (PTA 10,
p. 77).
Having laid out Parmenides' critique of Heraclitus, Nietzsche proceeds to criticize
Parmenides' philosophy in turn. The first criticism he levels against Parmenides is not that
he misconstrued Heraclitus' philosophy as being contradictory, but rather that Parmenides
held that thought alone could be used as a constitutive principle in determining the nature of
reality. Even though "experience nowhere offered him being as he imagined it" (PTA 11, p.
81), Nietzsche tells us that Parmenides simply "concluded its existence from the fact that he
was able to think it" (PTA 11, p. 82). According to Nietzsche, the problem with this move
is that "it rests on the assumption that we have an organ of knowledge which reaches into
the essence of things and is independent of experience" (PTA 11, p. 82). That is, it
presupposes that we can move from the possession of a mere concept of a thing to the
inference that the conceptualized thing has a mind-independent existence. Such an
inference, however, is unjustified. This is because Kant, according to Nietzsche, has taught
us that the laws of thinking are merely formal conditions of truth and knowledge, and
"further than this, logic cannot go." Thus, although it is logically true that "what is, is" and
"what is not, is not," Nietzsche argues that "we cannot find any reality whatever which is
constructed stricdy in accordance with those propositions." Although it is the case that a
tree is indeed a tree and not a tree at the same time, Nietzsche contends that we can only
86
speak about the nature of the tree insofar as it is distinguished from, and therefore stands in
relation to, non-trees, e.g. a shrub. Based on this claim, Nietzsche concludes that words and
concepts do not provide us access to things themselves precisely because words and
concepts never reach beyond "the wall of relations, to some sort of fabulous primal ground
of things." Trying to derive being from the mere possession of a concept is, according to
Nietzsche, a piece of naive philosophizing that has been brought to an end by the work of
Kant (PTA 11, p. 83). In the end, Parmenides' employment of logical principles for
metaphysical purposes reveals itself to be nothing more than an exercise in what we can call
logical anthropomorphism (PTA 11, p. 84).
Just as he criticizes Parmenides for using the logical principle of identity as a
constitutive principle in metaphysical speculations about the nature of being, Nietzsche also
attacks Parmenides and Zeno for employing the principle of non-contradiction to reject the
world of sense experience as illusory. According to Nietzsche, Zeno did this by means of
his analysis of the infinite. On this theory, the infinite can only exist as a perfect or
completed infinity, and the senses reveal to us everywhere the notion of perfect infinity. The
problem, however, is that perfect infinity, where any determinate distance can be infinitely
divided, makes motion impossible. In order to move from point A to point B, a moving
entity such as Achilles must traverse and infinite number of spaces. Traversing over an
infinite number of spaces, however, is impossible. Thus, it is impossible for Achilles, or
anything else, to move from one point to the next. Because the senses both show us that
motion occurs and attest to a perfect infinity that makes motion impossible, we must
conclude that the senses reveal a world that is contradictory and illogical. However, since
the assumed correspondence between thinking and being rules out the possibility of the
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world being contradictory or illogical, the testimony of the senses must be rejected as
illusory. According to Nietzsche, this is the general point of Zeno's philosophy, namely to
show that "all our conceptions lead to contradictions as soon as their empirically given
content, drawn from our perceivable world, is taken as an eternal verity" (PTA 12, p. 86).
Similar to his treatment of Parmenides' encounter with Heraclitean antinomies,
Nietzsche does not argue that Zeno missed some crucial point that shows that the sensible
world is not, in fact, contradictory. Instead, Nietzsche attacks the conclusion that Zeno
draws from his paradoxes. According to Nietzsche, the conclusion that Zeno drew was that
because the sensible world reveals itself to be contradictory, it cannot be "true Being" and
must be "merely an illusion" (PTA 12, p. 85). The suppressed premise is this argument is, of
course, the Parmenidean presupposition that true being must conform to the laws of logical
thinking. Nietzsche, however, rejects this very premise. Thus, he writes: "Wouldn't one
think that confronted with such logic a man would attain the insight that such concepts do
not touch the heart of things, do not undo the tangle of reality?" What Parmenides and
Zeno rightiy show is the disjunction between logical thinking and the sensible world, but
what they infer from this is that the data provided by the senses must be rejected as illusory.
This move, however, rests on the unproven and, according to Nietzsche, "wholly
unprovable" assumption that "with our capacity to form concepts we posses the decisive
and highest criterion as to being and nonbeing, i.e., as to objective reality and its antithesis."
Rather than testing our concepts against sensible reality and rejecting them when they fail to
measure up to this criterion, Parmenides and Zeno reject sensible reality for failing to
measure up to our concepts (PTA 12, p. 86).

88
The purpose of turning to Nietzsche's account of Heraclitus' philosophy in PTA has
been to generate an understanding of Heraclitean becoming and UO and to show how these
relate. The purpose of turning to Nietzsche's account of Parmenides' philosophy in PTA
has been to deepen our understanding of Nietzsche's Heraclitus by looking at the way in
which Parmenides rejected Heraclitean becoming and UO. What we have seen is that both
Heraclitus and Parmenides agree that sense perception reveals a world which conflicts with
the basic structures of thought. On the one hand, Heraclitus and Parmenides agree that the
senses nowhere reveal some self-identical being that corresponds to the logical law of
identity, A=A. On the other hand, Heraclitus presents a doctrine of UO that seems to
violate the principle of non-contradiction as both Parmenides and Aristotle formulate it.
What therefore distinguishes Heraclitus and Parmenides is that whereas Heraclitus remains a
committed empiricist even though his empirical observations lead him to adopt views that
conflict with the basic structures of thinking, Parmenides rejects empiricism and makes the
rationalist turn precisely because he wants to preserve the identity or correspondence
between thinking and being.
At this point, contemporary scholars might become alarmed with the fact that
Nietzsche openly construes the Heraclitean doctrine in a way that violates PNC, as much
recent work has been devoted to freeing Heraclitus from having made such an elementary
mistake.41 What is striking about such scholarship is that it has failed to recognize the
possible distinction between our contemporary understanding of PNC and the
understanding of PNC that is being rejected by Heraclitus and defended by the likes of
Parmenides and Aristotle. Whereas the former says that a proposition and its negation
41
For an example of this, see Graham (2006). Roochnik (2004) rightly resists this temptation.
89
cannot both be true at the same time, the latter is an ontological principle that says a thing
cannot both be (F) and not be (F) at the same time and in the same respect. On Nietzsche's
view, the debate between Heraclitus and Parmenides is a debate about PNC as an
ontological principle and therefore a debate about whether the world is governed by laws
that correspond to those that govern our thinking. Once we recognize this, we can begin to
see how Nietzsche and Nietzsche's Heraclitus could reject the ontological version of PNC
and nevertheless remain committed to a contemporary version of PNC that governs
propositions and their truth values. Not only does the contemporary version of PNC
remain neutral about the status of the world and therefore says nothing about the truth of an
ontological version of PNC, we can readily see the way in which UO does not violate our
contemporary understanding of PNC if we have been correct in formulating the doctrine as
the view that everything exists and is what it is only in relation to something else.
The distinction between these two versions of PNC is important because we not
only see the way in which Heraclitus' doctrine, so construed, does not violate our
understanding of PNC, but also because there is good reason to think that Nietzsche and
Nietzsche's Heraclitus would accept our contemporary understanding of PNC even in
rejecting the ontological version. The reason why Nietzsche and Nietzsche's Heraclius do
not violate our version of PNC with UO is because they do not also hold its negation, i.e. it
is not the case that everything exists and is what it is only in relation to something else.
Moreover, the reason for thinking that Nietzsche—and Nietzsche's Heraclitus—would
accept our version of PNC is that he declares false any theory that entails the negation of
UO. Specifically, it is UO that allows a proponent like Nietzsche to reject all theories that
appeal to things-in-themselves or beings as we have defined them above. This is an

90
important point because it says that Nietzsche is committed to at least one principle that he
thinks everyone should accept on account of its objective validity, and it is this point, in turn,
that suggests his perspectivism cannot be understood as rejecting objective truth tout court.
However, before I show how Nietzsche makes UO the cornerstone of his tragic philosophy
in chapter three and address the various problems associated with Nietzsche's perspectivism
and its potential relation to UO in chapters four and five, I want to turn to a detailed analysis
of Aristotle's defense of PNC in Metaphysics IV in the next chapter. In so doing, we will
encounter not only the distinction between the two versions of PNC noted above, but also a
wide range of arguments that are, in my mind, designed to defend an ontological version of
PNC and therefore the Parmenidean presupposition that there is a correspondence between
the way we think and speak about the world and the way the world really is.
CHAPTER TWO
Aristotle's D e f e n s e of the Principle of
Non-Contradiction in Metaphysics IV
The aberration of philosophy is that, instead of

seeing in logic and the categories of reason means
toward the adjustment of the world for utilitarian
ends (basically, toward an expedient falsification),
one believed one possessed in them the criterion
of truth and reality. (Nietzsche, WP 584; KSA 13,
14[153])
Heraclitus' regal possession is his extraordinary

power to think intuitively. Toward the other type
of thinking, the type that is accomplished in
concepts and logical combinations, in other words
toward reason, he shows himself cool, insensitive,
in fact hostile, and seems to feel pleasure
whenever he can contradict it with an intuitively
arrived-at truth. He does this in dicta like
'everything forever has its opposite along with it,'
and in such unabashed fashion that Aristotie
accused him of the highest crime before the
tribunal of reason: to have sinned against the law
of contradiction. (Nietzsche, PTA 5)
2.1. Introduction
In the previous chapter, I attempted to spell out Nietzsche's understanding of
becoming and its relationship to the unity of opposites (UO) thesis via his interpretation of
Heraclitus' philosophy in PTA. Specifically, I argued that U O established a framework for
an ontology in which becoming is true by construing the fundamental stuffs of nature, i.e.
qualities or forces, in terms of effective relations. Because these fundamental stuffs can only
exist insofar as they are affecting each other, change is an essential feature of nature.
Moreover, it was argued that Nietzsche's Parmenides rejected this conception of nature on
the grounds that it was unthinkable. Specifically, U O violated Parmenides' formulation of
the principle of non-contradiction (PNC), and, according to Nietzsche, it was for this reason
92
that Parmenides rejected not only Heraclitus' philosophy but also the world that reveals itself
to the senses. In so doing, he turned to reason and reason alone, and what he discovered
was the metaphysical realm of being.
Although Parmenides' rejection of Heraclitus' philosophy was, on Nietzsche's
account, historically successful, Nietzsche nevertheless thinks that Parmenides' philosophical
revolution rested on the assumption that there is an identity or correspondence between
thinking and being, and what I want to do in this chapter is reflect on the justification for
this assumption and examine some of the consequences that result from its denial.
However, because Parmenides does not explicitly defend this principle in the fragments we
possess, we cannot turn to his work to undertake such an investigation. For this reason, I
am going to turn away from Parmenides' philosophy and Nietzsche's construal of it and
devote this chapter to an independent reading of Aristotle's defense of the principle of non-
contradiction (PNC) in Metaphysics IV.
The reason for turning to Aristotle's text at this juncture stems not only from the
fact that Nietzsche critically references Aristotle's version of PNC in both PTA and his late
Nachlass, but also because we can read Metaphysics IV, or so I will contend, as an extended
attempt to defend a version of Parmenides' belief that there is an identity or correspondence
between thinking and being. My reason for believing that we can read Aristotle's defense of
PNC in this way comes from the fact that he defines the principle, first and foremost, in
ontological terms. That is, Aristotle's primary formulation of PNC is not about statements
and their truth values, but rather about objects and their properties, and what this means is
that Aristotle's defense of PNC is effectively a defense of the view that the structure of the
world fundamentally corresponds to the way we think and even talk about it.
93
Important for our purposes is the fact that Aristotle does not defend the ontological
version of PNC (PNC-ontological) by appealing to logical consistency or what I will call the
logical formulation of PNC (PNC-logical), i.e. the view that two contradictory statements
cannot be true at the same time. That is, he does not argue that we should accept PNC-
ontological because its denial would lead to the impossible situation in which two
contradictory statements are true at the same time. As we will see, one of the reasons why
Aristotle does not choose this method of defense is that it would beg the question, and the
reason why it would beg the question is not because he would be using PNC-logical to
defend PNC-logical—as Aristotle is not defending PNC-logical, but rather PNC-
ontological—but rather because Aristode's understanding of negation forces him to base his
version of PNC-logical, which I will call PNC-logicaÂ),1 on PNC-ontological. For
Aristode, negation is not truth-functional, and as a result, contradictory statements can and
would both be true if some property both belonged and did not belong to the same subject
at the same time and in the same respect. However, since Aristode thinks that it is
impossible for this to be the case, two contradictory statements cannot be true at the same
time. In this sense, Aristode secures PNC-logical(A) by defending PNC-ontological.
The fact that Aristotle does not appeal to the contemporary version of PNC-logical
to prove PNC-ontological is significant for our purposes because it shifts the debate away
from issues of logical consistency toward fundamental questions in ontology. Indeed, I have
argued in the conclusion of the previous chapter that one can, as Nietzsche does, hold the
Heraclitean position without violating the laws of logical consistency. Quite simply, one can
I will explain this difference in more detail as the chapter unfolds.

94
be consistently committed to UO insofar as one does not also deny UO, 2 just as one can be
consistendy committed to a doctrine of becoming insofar as one does not also deny the
doctrine of becoming. Of course, showing that the denial of an ontological version of PNC
is logically consistent does not prove the denial of the ontological version of PNC. It merely
shows that it is logically possible. As a result, the logical consistency of the denial of PNC-
ontological simply raises the question of whether the posidon accurately captures the way
the world is, and as we will see, this quesdon hinges, in large part, on whether nature is
populated with self-identical entities that exist and have the qualities that they do in virtue of
themselves.
Indeed, I will contend that Aristotle's defense of PNC-ontological is at the same time
a defense of his substance metaphysics and this is why much of the latter part of his defense
is geared toward showing,pace his pre-Socratic opponents, 3 that substances and substratums
play an essential role a proper explanation of both change and perception. However, this is
only one of three different strategies that Aristode adopts in trying to defend the principle.
His first strategy is to show that an interlocutor cannot assert an instance of the denial of
PNC-ontological without accepting the principle. This is because asserting an instance of
the denial of the principle presupposes significant speech, and Aristode provides an
extended argument to show that significant speech entails PNC-ontological. Here, it is
2
Throughout this and other chapters, I will refer to the unity of opposites and the co-presence of opposites
interchangeably.
3
Throughout this chapter, I will often speak of the pre-Socratics or Aristode's pre-Socratic opponents as a
group of thinkers committed to some common beliefs that Aristode opposes. I do this not only for the sake of
simplicity, but also because Aristode does encourage us, at least at times, to think of his predecessors in this
way. That said, it should be noted that when I speak of Aristode's pre-Socratic opponents, as I do here, I do
not mean all pre-Socratic thinkers, but rather those pre-Socratic thinkers who held theories that were opposed
to the theory of Aristode that is under discussion.
4
Aristode's summarizes his three-pronged strategy at (Met. 101 l b l 3-15).
95
important to note that even if Aristotle's argument is successful, he still has not provided a
positive proof of the principle. Instead, he leaves the interlocutor with the option of either
accepting PNC-ontological or denying significant speech. As a result, the possibility remains
open for the interlocutor to reject PNC-ontological insofar as he also abandons significant
speech.
While Aristotle designs the first part of the defense to show that the would-be denier
of PNC-ontological is refuted as soon as he opens his mouth, the argument can also be read
as implicitly highlighting one of the disastrous consequences that result when one denies the
ontological formulation of PNC, namely the loss of significant speech. In this sense, the
first leg of Aristode's defense goes hand in hand with the second, as the latter consists of
showing just how bad the situation would be if PNC-ontological did not hold of the world.
Although Aristode mentions a number of negative consequences that follow from the denial
of PNC-ontological, I will highlight and discuss the four that will be most relevant to our
interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy: (1) it entails the rejection of essences and results in
the view that everything is an indefinite one; (2) it leads to the break down of the rules that
govern statements and their truth values, such as Aristode's understanding of the law of
excluded middle and the principle of bivalence; (3) it makes it impossible to render practical
judgments; and (4) it underwrites a form of skepticism that brings the philosophical project
of knowing things-in-themselves to an end.s
While the second part of Aristode's defense dovetails nicely with Nietzsche's tragic
philosophy, the third part of his defense is equally important for our purposes. In Metaphysics
5
1 will also talk about how the theory might be self-refuting, which is not a negative consequence of denying
PNC-ontological, but rather a reason for accepting PNC-ontological.
96
IV.5-6, Aristotle diagnoses the reasons why his predecessors—a list that includes a wide
range of pre-Socratic figures from Homer to Heraclitus—came to adopt views that led to
the denial of PNC-ontological and he endeavors to undermine the credibility of their
position. Not only does Aristotle contend that pre-Socratic philosophers denied PNC-
ontological in explaining how contraries could come to be from the same thing, but he also
sketches the way in which (1) the denial of PNC-ontological, (2) the Protagorean thesis that
man is the measure of all things, and (3) Heraclitean flux all have a common source.
Specifically, I follow Lee and Wedin in arguing that the common source of these views is
what I will call ontological naturalism and strict empiricism.6 Whereas the latter states that
the sense experience is a necessary and sufficient condition for knowing the world, the
former identifies reality exclusively with the sensible and changeable world. Furthermore, I
will extend Lee's and Wedin's analyses by arguing that Aristode understands pre-Socratic
thinkers to be united not only in their ontological naturalism and strict empiricism, but also
in their attempts to develop theories of perception (Protagoras) and change (Heraclitus and
Cratylus) that do without the subject matter of Aristotie's Metaphysics, namely substances or,
more generally, self-identical things that exist and are what they are in and for themselves.
What we will discover through our analysis is that Aristotie's defense of PNC-
ontological against his pre-Socratic opponents has more to do with theories of perception,
change, and the constitution of the fundamental stuffs of nature than with issues of logical
consistency. This is an important distinction for our purposes because it will help us
understand Nietzsche's specific criticisms of Aristotle's defense of the principle and his
6
Lee (2005, 121 and 177) does not explicitly use the term "empiricism," and where I use ontological, she uses
metaphysical. See also Wedin (2004b).
97
general criticism of logic. Indeed, before I turn to an analysis of Aristotle's defense, I want
to take a closer look at Nietzsche's criticism of logic and show how it should be construed as
an attack not on logical consistency, but rather on the Parmenidean presupposition that
there is an identity or correspondence between thinking and being.
2.2. Nietzsche's Critique of Logic
If it is correct that Nietzsche's critique of logic or what I have called his denial of the
identity of thinking and being lies at the heart of his break with the Western metaphysical
tradition and his attempt to revive what I have called a tragic worldview, it is rather
surprising that the issue has not played a more prominent role in Nietzsche scholarship.
Although scholars have often noted Nietzsche's criticisms of logic,7 they have rarely made
such criticisms a focus of their interpretations and, in turn, linked them to the tension
between becoming and being in PTA and the denial of opposites in HH and BGE. Perhaps
one of the most prominent exceptions to this tendency can be found in the work of
Wolfgang Miiller-Lauter. Specifically, he has argued that Nietzsche not only develops an
ontology of antagonistic forces that renders reality contradictory, but also that he is
committed to various doctrines, such as the eternal return and the Uebermensch, that are
inconsistentwith one another.8 While some thinkers have rejected Nietzsche's thought for the
latter reason, Miiller-Lauter believes that this is a mistake because such logical
7
For instance, Schacht (1983), Nehamas (1985), Clark (1990), and Richardson (1996) all mention Nietzsche's
comments on logic, but do not subject them to sustained philosophical reflection or argue that they are central
to his philosophical project. Indeed, Clark (1990, 66) is perhaps the most sensitive to Nietzsche's critical
attitude toward logic, but she nevertheless misses the main thrust of Nietzsche's critique, i.e. that in logic we
possess a criterion for grasping being.
8
Miiller-Lauter (1999a).
98
inconsistencies actually derive from Nietzsche's ontology of antagonistic forces. As a result,
they should be understood as an essential part of his philosophical project.9
Miiller-Lauter's position on this issue has given rise to justified criticism. In his
review of a recent English translation of Miiller-Lauter's book, Tom Bailey has argued that
there does not seem to be any way that Nietzsche could articulate his theory of reality
without conforming to PNC.10 This is because a statement like "there are no self-identical
things" cannot be affirmed unless it excludes its contradictory, i.e. "there are self-identical
things." Here, Bailey appeals to Poellner's more recent discussion of the issue, where
Nietzsche is criticized for thinking that his ontology of force and his related doctrine of
becoming lead to a denial of PNC. According to Poellner, "the applicability of the axioms
and rules of inference of logic does not presuppose the existence of even relatively enduring
particulars. The law of non-contradiction asserts that 'no statement is both true and false
[...]. This would hold even in a world of rapidly changing and chaotic constellations of
qualities (Nietzsche's world of'becoming,' or of the 'chaos of sensations')."11
While I think that Bailey, following Poellner, is right to criticize Miiller-Lauter for
holding that Nietzsche embraces logical contradictionism or inconsistency, Bailey and
Poellner both fail to make the crucial distinction between PNC as a principle of logical
consistency and PNC as an ontological principle. In the previous quote, Poellner defines
PNC in terms of statements and their truth values, and although he is right to argue that
PNC, so defined, holds even if the world is in constant flux, the problem is that Nietzsche's
criticisms are primarily directed at an ontological version of the principle. Indeed, once we
9
Miiller-Lauter (1999a, 5).
10
Bailey (2003, 96£).
11
Poellner (1995, 193).
99
define PNC in ontological terms and understand becoming as the result of the existential
and essential unity of opposing forces, we can see why Nietzsche would attack PNC
(ontological) in the name of his commitment to becoming. This, however, would not entail
that Nietzsche also endorses a rejection of the logical version of the principle.
Fortunately, more recent work on Nietzsche' critique of logic has highlighted the
importance of distinguishing between ontological and purely logical notions. Specifically,
Hales and Welshon have argued that "Nietzsche's critique is really about the applicability of
logic and object realism and not about logic per se."12 In other words, Nietzsche's critique is
about semantics, not syntax, as he is focused on the meaning of logical symbols, not on the
rules for the manipulation of symbols that make up logic as a formal system. According to
Hales and Welshon, Nietzsche's argument is that logic does not have any applicability to the
world in itself, i.e. a mind-independent reality, because there are no mind-independent, self-
identical things to which the symbols and formulas of logic refer.13
Despite their sensitivity to the way in which Nietzsche's critique of logic has to do
with his denial of self-identical entities, Hales and Welshon nevertheless claim that it is not
entirely clear that Nietzsche wanted to reject synchronically self-identical entities, as opposed
to diachronically self-identical entities or even qualitatively identical yet numerically distinct
entities. Here they ask: "what could be 'nuttier' than rejecting synchronically self-identical
entities?" u In responding to Hales and Welshon, Michael Steven Green has pushed the
12
Hales and Welshon (2000, 55).
13
As Hales and Welshon (2000, 50) point out, however, Nietzsche's critique of realist metaphysics does not
require the rejection of logic as a formal system on the grounds that logic can be applied to fictional entities as
well. Indeed, I will argue with Hales and Welshon that once we leave behind the scientific world of forces for
the perspectival world of constructed subjects and objects, Nietzsche thinks that the laws of logic can and do
apply.
14
issue further by insisting that Nietzsche does reject synchronic self-identity. Not only does
he cite additional textual evidence to show that Nietzsche holds such a view,ls Green also
argues that "to read Nietzsche as rejecting merely diachronic self-identity is to conclude that
he is confused about one of the simplest and most rudimentary logical principles, for the
logical principle of self-identity concerns synchronic self-identity only. It says nothing about
whether an object is the same thing over time."
In presenting his case, Green highlights the influence of Afrikan Spir on Nietzsche's
thinking, and while we will deal more with Spir in the next chapter, the important thing to
note about his project here is that Spir is not only conscious of the distinction between the
logical and ontological versions of PNC and the principle of identity, but he also explicitly
argues for the ontological employment of such principles. In so doing, Spir countenances a
world in which the ontological formulations of the principles of identity and contradiction
did not hold, and he argues that such a world would be characterized by Heraclitean flux.16
At the same time, Spir goes on to argue against such a conception of reality by contending
that the laws of logic do in fact apply to the world. In terms of pre-Socratic philosophy, we
can say that Spir rejects Heraclitean becoming by defending Parmenides' principle that there
is an identity between thinking and being.
Spir is important for thinking about Nietzsche's critique of logic precisely because
one can read Nietzsche as a rejecting Spir's attempt to defend the Parmenidean identity of
thinking and being. Specifically, it is the denial of thinking and being that underwrites
Nietzsche's critical remarks about logic not only in PTA, but also in his later writings. In
15
Cf. KSA 8, 9[1] (p. 136); KSA 12, 7[4]; and WP 520 (KSA 11, 36[23]). Important for our next chapter is the
fact that the passage from KSA 8, 9[1] forms the basis for HH 32.
16
Spir (1877, 164).
17
See Green (2004, 178).
101
HH, for instance, Nietzsche claims that "logic too depends on presuppositions with which
nothing in the real world corresponds" (HH 11). In BGE, he speaks of the fictions of logic,
such as the unconditional and the self-identical (BGE 4), and he rails against the
superstitions of logicians, especially their belief in the ego and the atom (BGE 17). Finally in
TI, he claims that when logic and applied logic operate independently of the testimony of
the senses "reality is not encountered at all, not even as a problem" (TI "Owe" 3).18
In the late Nachlass, we find a number of passages in which Nietzsche effectively
declares "war" on the "optimism of logicians" (WP 535; KSA 11, 38[4]). In one passage, he
explicitly denies that the "basic laws of logic, the law of identity and the law of
contradiction" are what he calls "forms of pure knowledge." Instead, he declares that they
are merely "regulative articles of belief' (WP 530; KSA 12, 7[4]). In another passage, he
seems to reject what we have called the Parmenidean principle of the identity of thinking and
being and asserts the contradictory nature of reality:
The law of contradiction provided the schema: the true world, to which one
seeks the way, cannot contradict itself, cannot change, cannot become, has
no beginning and no end. This is the greatest error that has ever been
committed, the essential fatality of error on earth: one believed one
possessed a criterion of reality in the forms of reason—while in fact one
possessed them in order to become master of reality, in order to
misunderstand reality in a shrewd manner. And behold: now the world
became false, and precisely on account of the properties that constitute its
reality: change, becoming, multiplicity, opposition, contradiction, war. (WP
584; KSA 13,14[153])
18
Here it should be noted that Green (2005) and Clark (2005) have engaged in a nuanced debate about
Nietzsche's position on logic in general and in TI in particular. Because this chapter is primarily about
Aristotle's defense of PNC, rather than Nietzsche's critique of logic, I will not enter into the nuances of this
debate here.
Finally, in a passage that will be of some importance for our reading of the opening
aphorisms of HH and BGE, Nietzsche contends that logic, not experience, is the source of
our belief in opposites. We believe that there are opposites in nature only because we have
falsely projected our thinking onto the wall of nature (WP 552; KSA 12, 9[91]). In reality,
there are no (absolute) opposites.19
What is common to each of these passages is that Nietzsche is not so much attacking
the principle of logical consistency as he is the belief that logical principles can function as a
"criterion of reality," and it is in this sense that Nietzsche's "war" on logic is really a war on
the Parmenidean presupposition that there is an identity between thinking and being. This
line of thinking can also be found in a passage from the late Nachlass in which Nietzsche
explicitly attacks Aristode's defense of PNC. The note begins with Nietzsche's attempt to
reduce the laws of thinking to mere psychological facts of our existence. That is,
propositions such as A=A are not, on this view, necessary truths, but rather have resulted
from the fact that we are unable to affirm and deny one and the same thing. Nietzsche then
explicitly refers to Aristode, noting that if the. law of contradiction were the most basic of all
principles, then we would still need to consider "whatpresuppositions already lie at the bottom
of it." This line of questioning leads Nietzsche to wonder whether our logical principles
correspond to reality or are a means by which we create reality. Because we could only
affirm the former position if we already knew what reality was like, Nietzsche concludes that
logic "contains no criterion of truth, but an imperative concerning that which should count as
true." At this point Nietzsche begins questioning the existence of the self-identical "A",
which he argues is presupposed by every proposition of logic. Here he claims that if there is
19
I will clarify what I mean by absolute opposites in the next chapter.
in fact no self-identical A, then logic has "a merely apparent world as its condition," and he
goes on to affirm precisely this possibility. What we need to recognize is that the thing that
leads to the "belief in logic" is merely a construction. If we do not recognize this, we will
make logic "a criterion of true being," and this will lead "to positing as reality all those
hypostases: substance, attribute, object, subject, action, etc.; that is, to conceiving a
metaphysical world, that is, a 'real world'" (KSA 12:9(97]; WP 516).
What this final remark indicates is that Nietzsche's rejection of the identity or
correspondence of thinking and being is not an isolated point, but rather forms the basis for
his attack on an entire conception of reality which holds that there are substances and
intrinsic properties out there waiting to be known by the philosopher. In turning to
Aristotle's Metaphysics IV, we will see the way in which Nietzsche's analysis is largely correct.
Specifically, Aristotle's defense of PNC-ontological is not merely an attempt to point out an
isolated mistake made by a pre-Socratic like Heraclitus, but rather it is an attempt to reject an
entire ontology that Aristotle thinks is the ultimate consequence of the naturalist and
empiricist commitments of the pre-Socratics. Moreover, in rejecting this ontology and the
general mental outlook from which it derives by way of his defense of PNC-ontological,
Aristotle is, at the same time, establishing the foundations for his study of being qua being in
the books that follow.
2.3. An Overview of Aristotle's Defense of the Principle of Non-Contradiction
Aristotle's defense of PNC in Metaphysics IV is densely argued and covers a wide
range of topics that require familiarity with his larger corpus. Because one could dedicate a
book-length study to the issue, I will not try to offer an exhaustive account of Aristotle's
defense in this chapter. Instead, what I will do is emphasize certain aspects of Aristotle's
104
defense by developing an interpretation that dovetails with the issues relevant to my
interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophical project. In what follows, my analysis of
Aristotle's defense of PNC is divided into six sections. In section 2.4,1 deal with the fact
that commentators have identified as many as three different version of PNC in Aristode's
defense. Here, I establish the primacy of PNC-ontological first by showing that one of these
versions is not a version of PNC and then by showing how Aristode's version of PNC-
logical(A) actually depends on PNC-ontological, thereby making PNC-ontological the
primary object of Aristode's proof. In section 2.5,1 delve into Aristode's elenctic defense of
the principle. In so doing, I show not only how Aristode seeks to establish the claim that
significant speech presupposes PNC-ontological, but also how he uses what we now
recognize as basic logical principles and rules of inference to mount his defense. Here, I will
contend that if he were defending the logical version of PNC as we understand it, Aristotle
would be guilty of a petitioprincipii. However, because Aristode is not defending our logical
version of PNC, but rather an ontological version of PNC, he can use what we now
recognize as fundamental logical principles and rules of inference to mount his defense of
PNC-ontological without begging the question.
As we will also see, one of the interesting facets of Metaphysics IV is that Aristode
cannot provide a positive proof of PNC-ontological. As a result, what Aristode's elenctic
proof establishes is that the denier of PNC-ontological cannot articulate his position, or
anything else for that matter, in terms of significant speech. While this might provide the
interlocutor with enough reason to abandon his denial of PNC-ontological, Aristode
nevertheless supplements his argument with two strategies designed to motivate the
interlocutor to accept PNC-ontological. In section 2.6,1 go through the first of these

105
strategies, where, at the end of Metaphysics IVA, Aristotle highlights the negative
consequences that he attaches to the denial of PNC-ontological. In sections 2.7 through 2.9,
I again emphasize the ontological thrust of Aristode's defense. Here, I argue that he devotes
Metaphysics IV.5-6 to showing how the naturalism and empiricism of his predecessors not
only led to the denial of PNC-ontological, but also to the denial of the subject matter of the
Metaphysics, namely things that exist and are what they are in themselves.
2.4. Three Formulations of the Principle of Non-Contradiction
Aristode begins Metaphysics IV by telling us that "there is a science which studies
being qua being, and the properties inherent in it in virtue of its own nature" (Met. 1003a22-
25).20 The fact that Aristode begins the book that contains his defense of PNC with a
reference to essential properties of things-in-themselves is significant for our purposes not
only because it highlights Aristode's concern with ontological issues in the text, but also
because this is precisely what the pre-Socratics who violate the principle of non-
contradiction deny. Because Aristode's Metaphysics deals primarily with ontological issues
and Metaphysics IV opens with a reference to things-in-themselves, it should come as no
surprise that Aristode first formulates the principle of non-contradiction in terms of
property-bearing subjects and their properties. Thus it is formulated as: "It is impossible for
the same attribute at once to belong and not to belong to the same thing and in the same
relation" (1005bl9-20).21
Despite the broad agreement that Aristotle wants to defend the ontological
formulation of the principle, commentators have nevertheless found two more formulations
20
Unless otherwise noted, all translations are form Tredennick. T h e Greek reads: EOTIV ETTtcnT||jr| TIC T\
SeCOpel TO fj OV KCU TCX TOUTCO UTTCCpXOVTCX KCX0' CXUTO.
21
The Greek reads: TO ydp OCUTO auct UTtdpxEiv TS Kai ur| uTTOtpXEiv aSiivocTov TCO auTco Kai KOTO TO
auTO.
106
of the principle present in Metaphysics IV. Specifically, Lukasiewicz has claimed that there are
three versions of the principle that Aristotle wants to defend: the ontological, psychological,
and logical.22 Apparent evidence for a psychological version of the principle appears
immediately after the introduction of the ontological version, where Aristode claims that
someone cannot believe that something both is and is-not (F) (1005b23-24).23 In contrast to
the ontological and psychological versions of the principle, which appear in the opening
stages of Aristode's defense, evidence for the logical version appears in his summary of what
his argument has established. It reads: "the most certain of all beliefs is that opposite
assertions are not both true at the same time" (1011bl3-14).24 Although Lukasiewicz thinks
that the logical and ontological formulations are logically equivalent, he claims that they
nevertheless have different meanings?'5 While the ontological version is about objects and
their properties, the logical version is about assertions and their truth values.
Because I hold that the demonstrandum of Aristode's defense is the ontological
version of the principle, my task here will be to show, pace Lukasiewicz, that Aristode is not
also offering an immediate defense of a psychological and a logical version. I will begin with
the psychological version. Specifically, I hold that Aristode is not defending a psychological
version because what Lukasiewicz has dubbed as the psychological version of the principle is
not a version of the principle at all. Instead, it is a claim about PNC-ontological, namely that
22
Luksasiewicz (1979). Gottlieb (1992,185f.) identifies three versions, but refers to them differently:
ontological, doxastic (psychological), and semantic (logical). Brinkmann (1992, 205ff.) also distinguishes three
different principles, but claims that they are all expressions of what he calls the principle of determinacy.
23
1 have adopted Whitaker's (1996) convention of distinguishing between "is-not F " and "is not-F". Whereas
the former is a negation stating that a property F does not belong to a subject, the latter affirms that the
property "not-F" belongs to a subject.
24
The Greek reads: OTI uev ouv pE(3cuoTC<Tr| 56£a TTaacav TO \IT\ slvai dAr|0ETe apa xac auTiKEiiasuac
4>daEic.
25
Lukasiewicz (1979, 51f.).
it is the most certain of all principles (1005b22), and Aristotle uses PNC-ontological to
establish this point. We know that the argument uses PNC-ontological because Aristotle
tells us this at the beginning of Metaphysics IV.4: "We have just assumed that it is impossible
at once to be and not to be, and by this means we have proved that this is the most certain
of all principles" (1006a3-5).26 While this much is clear, there is some ambiguity about the
argument itself. On the standard interpretation,27 the argument is supposed to work by
applying PNC-ontological to the knowing subject. Specifically, to believe that something
both is and is-not (F) is to have contrary beliefs, a point supposedly secured by the argument
in section fourteen of De Interpretatione. Beliefs, however, are properties of a thinking thing.
Therefore, to have contrary beliefs at the same time is to have contrary properties at the
same time, and having contrary properties violates PNC-ontological for the following
reason. If an object has one of two contrary properties (white and black), it cannot have the
second of the contrary pair, otherwise they would not be contrary properties. That is, if
white belongs to an object, black does not belong to an object and vice versa. Therefore, if
white and black both belonged to the same object, black and white would also not belong to
that object. As a result, if something were both white and black, it would also not be black
and white. However, if something both is and is-not white and is and is-not black, then we
would have a two-fold violation of PNC-ontological. Since believing that X is and is-not F
is to have contrary beliefs, contrary beliefs are contrary properties of a knowing subject, and
having contrary properties violates PNC-ontological, it is impossible to believe that X is and
is-not F if PNC-ontological is true.

26
The Greek reads: T\\±€\C. 5E vuv EIATI^CCHEV coe dSuvdtou ovxoc a[ia ETVOU KO\ \IT\ ETVOU, KCU 5'id
TOUTOU E5EI£C<HEV S T I pEfJaioTaTri auTri TCOV dpxcSv TTaacSv.
27
Here I follow Whitaker (1996, 185). Lukasiewicz (1979, 52f.) and Wedin (2000, 115f.) provide similar
treatments.
108
While I do have some reservations about this reading, the important point for our
purposes is that Lukasiewicz's so-called psychological formulation of the principle is really a
claim about PNC-ontological. If this argument is correct, then there are only two
formulations of PNC remaining, the logical and ontological. The next step in our argument
is to deal with the passages that have suggested to Lukasiewicz and others that Aristode is
interested in defending the modern logical version of the principle, -(p and —p). This will be
important because while Cresswell has argued that Aristode is not defending PNC-logical, he
does not provide an alternative explanation for the passages that support such a reading.
Here I will contend that although Aristode does indirectly defend a logical version of the
principle (PNC-logical(A)), which states that two contradictory assertions cannot be true at
the same time, he is nevertheless not arguing for the modern logical notion, -(p and —p). As
we will see, this distinction will be important in that, unlike the modern logical notion, PNC-
logical(A) ultimately depends on certain facts about the world, namely PNC-ontological.
To understand why this is so, we first need to note the difference between Aristode's
understanding of contradictory assertions and our own. For many modern logicians,
contradictory assertions are defined as those for which it is impossible for both to be true or
false at the same time.29 For Aristotle, however, there is nothing in the definition of
contradictory assertions that guarantees that they cannot both be true or false at the same
time. To understand this, we first need to grasp Aristode's notion of negation. Specifically,
Aristotle does not think in terms of negating propositions, where the negation is external to
the proposition and implies the falsity of the embedded affirmation. Instead, for Aristotle,
28 Cresswell (2003, 170).

29
For a list of the various definitions of contradiction, see Grim (2004, 51 ff.).
109
negation is a second kind of assertion. When we negate, we simply assert that a property (F)
does not belong to a given subject (x). Negation, of course, stands in contrast to
affirmation, where we assert that a property (F) does belong to a given subject (x). A
contradictory pair of assertions therefore consists of two assertions that affirm ("x is F") and
deny ("x is-not F") the same thing (F) of the same thing (x) (De Int. 17a30-35). Thus, there
is nothing in the definitions of negation and contradiction to ensure that two contradictory
assertions cannot both be true at the same time (PNC-logical(A)). Nevertheless, Aristode
does hold that, for the most part (see discussion below), two contradictory assertions cannot
be true at the same time. His reasoning, however, is not based on the definitions of
contradiction and negation, but rather on certain facts about the world.
To understand better how PNC-logical(A) depends on certain facts about the world,
we first need to turn to De Interpretations, where Aristode is discussing exceptions to what
Whitaker has called the rule of contradictory pairs (RCP). This rule states that for "every
contradictory pair [of assertions], one member is true and the other false."30 RCP is simply a
combination of PNC-logical(A) and what is known as Aristode's law of excluded middle
(LEM). Whereas PNC-logical(A) states that two contradictory assertions cannot both be
true at the same time, LEM states that two contradictory assertions cannot both be false at
the same time. Taken together, we have RCP.
Aristode's discussion in De Interpretations is important for our purposes because it
highlights the way in which the rules governing contradictory assertions depend on the
ontological status of their subject matter. Indeed, they admit of exceptions precisely because
of this dependency. Thus, in chapter seven of De Interpretatione, Aristotle identifies a class of
30
Whitaker (1996, 78).
110
contradictory assertions, namely non-universal assertions about universal subjects such as
"man is pale" and "man is-not pale," that can be true at the same time (De Int. 17b29),
thereby violating RCP and PNC-logical(A). In the next chapter, he identifies an additional
exception to RCP, arguing that, in the case of contradictory pairs in which a name signifies
more than one thing, it is possible for both to be false (18a27).31 In chapter nine, we find
Aristotle's analysis of future contingent assertions, where he argues that "it is necessary for
one or the other of the contradictories to be true or false—not, however, this one or that
one, but as chance has it; or for one to be true rather than the other, yet not already true or
false" (19a36-39).32
While there has been much debate about whether Aristode is suspending RCP in the
case of future contingents or the principle of bivalence (PB),33 which states that any given
assertion must be either true or false (17al-3), the important point for our purposes is the
fact that Aristode allows for exceptions to the rules governing contradictory assertions
because of the way things are. In chapter nine, Aristode's concern is that if RCP holds for
future contingents,34 then fatalism will be true. Fatalism, however, cuts against our
common-sense view that we can influence the future. To preserve this view of the world,
31
This is an interesting instance that reinforces the point about Aristotle's understanding of negation. It occurs
when a term "cloak" signifies two things, such as horse and man. "Cloak is pale" and "cloak is-not pale" can
both be false when man is pale and horse is-not pale. While modern logicians would acknowledge that the
"cloak is pale" is false because one of the subjects which it signifies is not pale, they would contend that "cloak
is not pale" is true because it is not the case that pale can be attributed to both of the subjects of which pale is
predicated. For Aristotle, however, asserting that the "cloak is-not pale" is to assert that the predicate pale
does not belong to horse and does not belong to man. However, since pale does belong to man, it is also false
to say that "cloak is-not pale".
32
Trans. Ackrill. The Greek reads: TOUTCOV y d p dvayioi UEV 0ocTEpov yopiov xfjc duTi^daecoc dAr|0sc;
slvcu f| d/sOSoc, ou PEVTOI TO5E T\ TO5E dXX' OTTOTEP' ETUXS, KCU ydXXov [ihv dXr|0fj TT|V ETEpav, ou
UEVTOI f|5ri dAr|0fj f| ÊuSfj.
33
See Whitaker (1996, 129ff.) for a brief summary of the secondary literature and the various responses to the
issue. Also see Frede (1985).
34
This, in any case, is Whitaker's (1996) interpretation.
Ill
Aristotle argues that the rules typically governing contradictory assertions do not apply to
future contingents, and Aristotle can and has to do this because the rules governing
contradictory assertions are ultimately related to how the actual things are (19a33).
In Metaphysics IV, Aristode's task is not to identify exceptions to the basic rules
governing contradictory assertions, but rather to argue that the world is structured such that,
for present singular assertions, two contradictory assertions cannot be true at the same time
(PNC-logical(A)) (Met. 1011M4). In other words, Aristode's task in Metaphysics IV is to
reject theories that deny PNC-ontological. This is because the possibility that the same
property can belong and not belong to the same object at the same time and in the same
respect is the one and only way for two contradictory present singular assertions to be true at
the same time. This is because, for Aristode, "x is F " is true iff x is F, and "x is-not F " is
true iff x is-not F (1011b26-28). So both "x is F" and "x is-not F" can be true at the same
time (not PNC-logical(A)) iff it is possible that x is and is-not F (not PNC-ontological).
Thus, in order to secure PNC-logical(A) with respect to present singular assertions, Aristode
must provide a defense for PNC-ontological.
The situation would be devastating for Aristode's program of scientific
demonstration if PNC-ontological did not hold. Not only would PNC-logical(A) fail, but
also LEM and PB. Since "x is F" is false when x is-not F and "x is-not F" is false when x is
F, both "x is F" and "x is-not F" would be false if x is and is-not F. Thus, LEM would fail.
However, we have just show above that "x is F" and "x is-not F " are both true. Therefore,
both assertions would be true and false if PNC-ontological did not hold. Thus, PB would
112
fail.35 Since RCP, PNC-logical(A), LEM, and PB all fail when PNC-ontological does not
hold, we can see why Aristode thinks that PNC-ontological is the "ultimate belief for
anyone who is demonstrating anything and why it is the starting-point for all other axioms
(1005b33f.).36 As Aristode's defense of PNC in Metaphysics IV.4 indicates, if PNC-
ontological does not hold, not only will demonstration be impossible, but even significant
speech.
2.5. Aristotle's Elenctic Defense
Having shown that the immediate object of Aristotle's defense is PNC-ontological, I
now want to turn to the first part of his defense, namely his elenctic refutation of an
opponent who is invited to assert an instance of the denial of PNC-ontological. In so doing,
I will substantiate my claim that Aristotle is seeking to defend PNC-ontological by
highlighting the way in which he uses what we now recognize as basic principles of logic and
rules of inference to "force" his interlocutor into abandoning his denial of PNC-ontological
insofar as he remains committed to significant speech. The idea here is that Aristode can
use these basic principles of logic and rules of inference in his defense because he is
defending PNC-ontological, not its modern logical formulation. In contrast, if he were
attempting to show that PNC-logical is the foundation for rules of inference such as modus
ponens and modus tollens, Aristode would ultimately beg the question.
35
This, of course, assumes that PB is a principle based on an exclusive, rather than inclusive, "or"—that an
assertion must be true or false means that it must be one or the other and not both.
36
With Wedin (2004, 258ff.), I defend Aristode against Lukasiewicz (1979) who rejects Aristode's claim that
PNC is die highest principle of all demonstrations. However, I differ significandy from Wedin in my
explanation of why Aristotle thinks that PNC is an ultimate belief for anyone demonstrating anything.
Specifically, Wedin contends while PNC is not used in all deductions, the validity of the principles used in
deductive reasoning all depend on -(p and -p). In contrast, I argue that Aristode is defending PNC-ontological
and PNC-ontological establishes a world in which two contradictor)', present singular assertions cannot be true
at the same time.
113
As we have seen, Aristotle argues, at the end of Metaphysics IV.3, that PNC-
ontological is the most certain of all principles by presupposing the truth of PNC-
ontological. In Metaphysics IV.4, Aristotle's task is to defend PNC-ontological itself. The
problem that he immediately confronts is that the principle cannot be positively
demonstrated. This is because PNC-ontological is the most fundamental principle of all
demonstration. If PNC-ontological were to be a conclusion of a demonstration, it would no
longer be the starting-point of all other axioms. This is because Aristotle stipulates that any
demonstration must proceed from premises that are prior to and better known than the
conclusion (APo. 71b22). Therefore, if some other principle were to be used to prove PNC-
ontological, that premise would be the starting-point of all other axioms. Of course, even if
some other principle dethroned PNC-ontological, the opponent could again demand a
demonstration of this most fundamental principle and such a demonstration would, in turn,
require a principle that is more fundamental than it. This, however, would lead to an infinite
regress, and this is why it is want of education to demand a positive demonstration of the
most fundamental axiom.
While we are told that there cannot be a positive demonstration of PNC-ontological,
Aristotle believes that he can provide an elenctic demonstration (Met. 1006al3). Although
commentators like Lukasiewicz have been baffled by this distinction,37 it seems quite clear
what Aristotle has in mind and why it is significant for his argument. Specifically, Aristotle is
claiming that he can successfully refute anyone who asserts an instance of not-PNC-
ontological, i.e. that some property both belongs and does not belong to the same subject in
the same respect. This is different from a straightforward demonstration because the
37
Lukasiewicz (1979, 55).
114
interlocutor is now responsible for articulating the proposition that Aristotle will then try to
refute. If he does not agree to such a procedure, Aristode claims that he has no logos, and if
he has no logos, then there is no reason to debate with him (1006al3-16).
It is at this point that Aristode invites his interlocutor to meet the most minimal of
demands, namely to say "something significant both to himself and to another" (1006a21-
22).38 Of course, once the interlocutor answers this demand, Aristode thinks that he can
successfully refute him. The reason why Aristode thinks he can refute his interlocutor once
he says something significant is that significant speech entails the acceptance of PNC-
ontological. Therefore if he can get the interlocutor to accept significant speech, he can
force him to accept PNC-ontological.
It is here that we get a sense of the elenctic structure of Aristode's proof.
Specifically, the form of Aristode's argument is the same form that Gregory Vlastos finds in
Plato's elenctic dialogues.39 There, Socrates combats an interlocutor's belief that ^> first by
getting him to commit to some additional premise q and then showing that q entails not-p. In
other words, Socrates' strategy is to convict the interlocutor of being committed to an
inconsistent premise-set. In Metaphysics IV, Aristode's strategy is to combat the interlocutor's
claim that^>, i.e. not PNC-ontological, by getting his assent to q, i.e. significant speech, and
then showing that q entails notp.
There are, however, two worries that have emerged in the secondary literature about
this strategy. The first is that Aristode's negative refutation seems to depend on the
interlocutor's commitment to significant speech. That is, the interlocutor might assent to
38
The Greek reads: TO or||jaivEiv yl TI Kai auxco Kai dAAco.
39
Vlastos (1999).
115
the force of Aristotle's demonstration that significant speech is inconsistent with the denial
of PNC-ontological, but he will still be able to deny PNC-ontological by then abandoning
his commitment to significant speech. It is this apparent loophole in Aristotle's strategy that
has led some commentators to think that Aristode's elenctic refutation is really a
transcendental argument on behalf of PNC-ontological.40 That is, Aristotle is arguing from
the possibility of significant speech to the truth of PNC-ontological. The problem with this
reasoning is twofold. First, there does not seem to be any reason why the interlocutor needs
to assent to the possibility of significant speech in order for the proof to work. That is,
Aristotle could simply by-pass the interlocutor, claim that significant speech is possible, and
then prove PNC-ontological. The problem with this is that it transforms Aristode's elenctic
proof into a straightforward demonstration. The second reason strikes at the heart of
transcendental arguments as such, and it recalls the dictum that one person's modusponens is
another's modus tolkns. That is, while Aristotle, on this reading, uses the premise "if
significant speech is possible, then PNC-ontological" to prove PNC-ontological by affirming
the antecedent, his interlocutor could just as well deny the possibility of significant speech by
denying the consequent. That is, he could reject PNC-ontological and join Cratylus in trying
to purge philosophy of linguistic utterances altogether (1010al3).
The other reason for rejecting the transcendental reading is that we can make sense
of Aristode's elenctic refutation by noting one more facet of his argument. Specifically,
Aristode thinks he can refute anyone who asserts an instance of not-PNC-ontological
because he thinks that significant speech is a necessary condition for asserting an instance of
not-PNC-ontological. That is, if the interlocutor wants to assert an instance of not-PNC-
40
See Gottlieb (2007). Politis (2004, 158) seems to endorse this reading.
116
ontological, he must say something significant. Indeed, he does not even have to make an
assertion, i.e. a sentence capable of being true or false. Instead, all he has to do is utter a
significant word, and in so doing, he will have committed himself to the very proposition he
wants to deny, namely PNC-ontological. Thus, while Aristode's elenctic refutation does not
provide positive proof of PNC-ontological, it is designed to show that it is impossible to
assert the denial of PNC-ontological. Therefore, the interlocutor is left with a choice, either
accept PNC-ontological or refrain from saying anything at all, even denying PNC-
ontological. Of course, if he refrains from saying anything at all, he will be, according to
Aristotle, no better than a vegetable (1006al5).
Having shown that his interlocutor must have a logos and that a logos presupposes
significant speech, Aristotle launches his defense of PNC by trying to establish the claim that
significant speech entails PNC. On my reading, Aristode's argument begins at 1006a31,
where he states that if "man" signifies one thing, then let it be a two-footed animal.41 In
signifying one thing, Aristode tells us that the interlocutor is committed to the view that if
something (x) is a man, then that thing (x) will be whatever it is to be a man. The reason
why Aristode insists that the interlocutor signify one thing, and not many, is that signifying
one thing is a necessary condition for discourse (dialegestai), both with another and with
oneself. This is because when we think (noein) of something, we necessarily think of
something that is one (hen) (1006bl0).42 A word that signified many things would not
signify, because to signify, for Aristotle, means to use words as symbols of affections in the
soul (De Int. 16a4-9). If a word signified more than one thing, it would not evoke a
41
See Wedin (2000, 133) for a discussion of the brief argument in 1006a29-31.
42
Notice here how Aristotle's argument depends on certain facts about our thinking. It is for this reason that I
hold that the principle of the identity or correspondence of thinking and being is embedded in Aristotle's
concept of significant speech. The Greek here reads: OU0EV y a p EVSEXETCU VOetV ur| VOOUVTCX EV.
117
corresponding affection in the soul, either in another or in the one who signifies. As a result
there would be no discourse.
As we can see, Aristotle's demand that the interlocutor say something significant is
far from innocent. By accepting this demand, the interlocutor will be committed to the
principle that x (here "man") is whatever it is to be x (here "two-footed animal"). By
insisting that significant speech must signify one thing and one thing only, Aristotie will have
eliminated the possibility that x can also signify anything other than what it is to be x, for if
the name were to signify anything other than what it is to be x, then it would signify not one,
but many things. Thus, if "man" signifies what it is to be a man, then it cannot signify
anything else, including what it is not to be a man.
According to Wedin, Aristotie concludes the first stage of the elenctic argument with
the following claim:43 "now let this name, as we said at the beginning, have a meaning, and
let it have one meaning" (Met. 1006M1-13).44 The second stage begins with Aristotle's
attempt to show that "man" and "not-man" cannot signify the same thing. The reason for
this is that Aristotle's requirement that the interlocutor signify one and only one thing would
not exclude a thing being man and not being man if "man" and "not-man" signified the
same thing. Aristotie begins by introducing the following premise:
1) (a) If "man" signifies one thing, (b) it is impossible that "being man" and
"not being man" will signify the same thing. (1006bl3-16)
43
Much of this analysis follows Wedin (2000, 134ff).
44
The Greek reads: EOTCO 5r|, cooiTsp EAEXQI! KCXT' dpxac, OT|ucuv6v TI TO ovona Kai ormcuvov sv.
118
Aristotle's next move is to assume that "man" and "not-man" signify the same thing, i.e. the
denial of what he wants to prove, and then show that it leads to the denial of (lb). To do
this, he introduces the following premise:
2) (a) If "man" and "not-man" signify the same thing, then (b) "being man" and "not
being a man" will signify the same thing. (1006b22-24)
Aristotle then endeavors to support (2) with the following argument (1006b25-28):
3) If (a) 2a, then (b) "being man" and "not being a man" have the same logos.
4) If (a) 3b, then (b) "being man" and "not being man" will be one thing.
5) If (a) 4b, then (b) "being man" and "not being man" will signify the same thing.
Since (5b) is equivalent to (2b), we have shown (2): If (2a)—assumed in (3a)—, then (2b)—
from (5b). With (2) now in place, Aristotle can use modus tollens to reject (2a). That is, from
(1) and the proof of (la), we have (lb) (1006b28-29). Since (lb) is the denial of (2b), we
must reject (2a). Therefore we must grant (not-2a) that "man" and "not-man" cannot
signify the same thing.
At this point, we first need to recall why Aristode wants to prove that "man" and
"not-man" cannot signify the same thing. The reason is that it represents the last remaining
possibility that something could both be and not-be man. That is, once we show that from
the nature of significant speech that "man" can signify one and only one thing, the only way
that something could be and not-be man is if "man" and "not-man" signified one and the
same thing. While Aristode acknowledges that something might be man and not-man
homonymously, the issue is not whether something can be man and not-man merely in
name (onomd), but rather in fact (pragma) (1006b22). As we have seen from the argument
119
above, "man" and "not-man" cannot signify the same thing in fact, for if they did, "being
man" and "not being man" would signify the same thing, and this is not the case.
It is at this point in the argument that we come to what Dancy has called the
"clincher."45 The clincher begins with the claim that:
7) Necessarily, if anything is a man, it is a two-footed animal. (1006b28-30)
As Dancy notes, Aristotle seems to be reworking the claim already put forth at (1006a32-34),
where we are told that if anything is a man, its humanity will consist in being whatever it is to
be, e.g. a two-footed animal. The crucial addition, of course, is the term "necessarily." This
is important because it allows Aristotle to take the next step in the argument, which is:
8) It is not possible for anything that is a man not to be a biped animal. (1006b31)
Here, Aristode simply reformulates (7). Specifically, he transforms the hypothetical into a
negated conjunction. That is, he is saying that it is not possible, as opposed to necessary, for
the antecedent to be true, i.e. that something is a man, and for the consequent to be false, i.e.
that that something is also not a two-footed animal. With (8) in hand, all we need to do now
is substitute "man" for "biped animal". This move is permitted because "biped animal" is
the definition of "man". In so doing, we get the conclusion, which Aristotle phrases as:
9) It cannot be true to say at the same time that the same thing is and is not man.
(1006b34)
This can be rephrased as:
9a) It is not possible for anything to be a man and not to be a man.
While Aristotle will go on to show that the same argument holds also in the case of not
being man (1007al), (9a) is generally taken as the conclusion of the argument. Of course, it
45
Dancy (1975, 29).
120
is merely an instance of the general principle, but Aristotle believes that if it works in one
instance, it works in all instances. Thus, Aristotle believes that he has shown by means of
this argument that it is impossible for the same attribute to belong and not to belong to the
same thing at the same time and in the same respect. Whether this holds for all properties or
just essential properties is something that commentators have debated, and I will briefly
touch upon in the next section.46
At this point, it is helpful to recall exactiy what Aristode is trying to prove. As we
have argued above, Aristotle is not trying to prove the modern logical principle, -(p and —p),
and therefore he is not trying to show that the modern logical principle is the basis for rules
of inference, such as modusponens, and the other axioms, such as the principle of identity, of
formal logic. Indeed, we have seen that Aristode's elenctic proof has the structure of a modus
ponens—if one is committed to significant speech, then one is committed to PNC-
ontological; the interlocutor commits himself to significant speech in trying to deny PNC-
ontological, therefore he is committed to PNC-ontological—and that he uses modus tollens to
reject the claim that (2a) "man" and "not-man" signify the same thing. If Aristode were
trying to prove that PNC-logical is the basis for these rules of inference, he would run the
risk of a petitioprincipal Here, commentators like Wedin have tried to help Aristode escape
this charge by arguing that although the validity of modus ponens and modus tollens depends on
PNC, thus preserving the claim that PNC is the basis of all other axioms, Aristode does not
use PNC in employing the aforementioned forms of inference to secure PNC. 48 While
Wedin's strategy has some plausibility, it is nevertheless unnecessary, and it is unnecessary
46
See Cresswell (2003) and Wedin (2000).
47
See Wedin (2000, 154f£).
48
See Wedin (2004, 258ff.).
121
because he has wrongly assumed that Aristotle's defense is geared toward securing —(p and —
p) and that this version of the principle is supposed to provide the basis for the various rules
of inference.49 Instead, the object of Aristotle's proof is PNC-ontological, and it is because
he is trying to show how significant speech presupposes PNC-ontological that he can use
what we now recognize as basic rules of inference to secure agreement from an interlocutor
who has a logos and is willing to observe the normal rules of Aristotelian dialectic. Thus,
even the interlocutor who denies the principle for the sake of argument, as opposed to an
interlocutor who denies the ontological version because of genuine perplexity (1009al6), can
be compelled by reasoning and argumentation. He is not, therefore, like Lewis Carroll's
tortoise who refuses to accept the conclusion of a sound argument, but rather someone who
demands a demonstration that things in the world cannot both have and not have the same
property at the same time in the same respect, and what Aristotle has provided here is a
negative demonstration of this very point by arguing that this ontological fact is a necessary
condition for significant speech, dialectics, and even Aristotle's scientific program.
2.6. The Devastating Consequences of Denying PNC-Ontological
While most of the commentary on Metaphysics IV.4 has focused on Aristotle's
elenctic refutation of PNC-ontological, his elenctic refutation constitutes only one part of his
program. Indeed, the purpose of the elenctic refutation is not to prove that PNC-
ontological unconditionally holds, but rather to show that it is impossible for anyone to
articulate an instance of its denial. Here it is important to recall that Aristotle employs this
strategy because he himself cannot provide a positive proof of the principle. Thus, what
49
Wedin (2000, 115), usually quite thorough, simply asserts in a footnote, citing no specific textual evidence,
that Aristode is defending -(p and -p). However, see Wedin (2004a, 234f.) for more thoughts on this issue.
122
Aristotle has effectively shown is that if the interlocutor wants to maintain his position, he
has to abandon significant speech, and if he abandons significant speech, he can no longer
assert anything at all. While one might think that this result would provide enough
motivation for the interlocutor to abandon his position, Aristotle does, in the later stages of
his defense, depict Cratylus as remaining consistent by abandoning significant speech in light
of his persistent commitment to the denial of PNC-ontological. In the end, when he wanted
to philosophize, he simply moved his finger (1010a7-15).
In the next two sections of his defense, Aristotle seeks to supplement his initial
argument by continuing this line of attack. That is, he does not set out to provide a positive
proof of the principle, but rather to motivate the interlocutor to abandon his (silent) denial,
and Aristotle does this by showing first that the denial of PNC-ontological leads to a series
of unwanted consequences and second that pre-Socratic thinkers such as Protagoras and
Heraclitus had no good philosophical reasons for denying PNC-ontological. Whereas
Aristotle dedicates the remainder of Metaphysics IV.4 to the former project, he dedicates
Metaphysics IV.5-6 to the latter.
Although commentators hold that Aristotle officially begins the process of listing the
unwanted consequences that follow from the denial of PNC-ontological when he claims that
such a position entails that all things will be one (1007M9-21),50 it is worth noting that
Aristotle highlights another unwanted consequence of the denial of PNC-ontological in a
supplemental argument to his initial proof (1006b34-1007a20), one that we did not discuss
above. Specifically, after having shown by means of his elenctic refutation that it cannot be
true to say at the same time that the same thing is and is-not man (1006b33f.), Aristotle tells
so See Wedin (2000:161 f.).

123
us that the same argument can be used for negative predications, such as "not being man"
(1007a2). Here, he considers someone who might argue that something is both man and
not-man because Socrates, say, is both man and white, where white is a kind of not-man. As
Aristotle argues, the problem with this line of argumentation is that it does away with ousia in
the sense of essence (1007a21).51 In doing away with essence, it eliminates the distinction
between essential properties and accidental properties. That is, the interlocutor thinks that
he can signify Socrates by saying "white" or "not-man." This, however, is not the case.
What he is actually doing is signifying something about Socrates, not Socrates himself. In
contrast, to signify ousia is to signify the essence, and when one signifies the essence of
something, that something must be whatever it is signified as being and nothing else
(1007a29). Thus, if some x is essentially a man, then that x cannot also be essentially not-
man or white or even a ship.
What we see here is that the belief that one can signify something through two or
more predicates leads to the destruction of ousia in the sense of essence. As the next step in
Aristotle's argument shows, the problem with this is that it results in the impossible situation
of everything being accidental (1007a30-31), where we have a world in which accidents are
supposed to be predicated of accidents.^2 For Aristotle, accident predication is impossible
because that which is accidental must, by virtue of being accidental, be predicated of
something with an essential nature. Because of this, Aristotie concludes that there must be
51
The Greek here reads: OUOiav Kai TO Tl T\V ETVOU. I take the KCtl to be epexegetical. I thank Gisela Striker
for pointing this out.
52
For an analysis of this issue, see Brinkmann (1992).
something that signifies ousia, and once there is something that signifies ousia, "contradictory
statements cannot be predicated at the same time" (1007bl7).53
Aristotle's argument becomes rather murky in the very next passage, where he claims
that, "if all contradictory predications of the same subject at the same time are true, then
clearly all things will be one" (1007bl8-20). The problem is that this passage marks, in the
words of Wedin, a "curious turn" in Aristode's defense of PNC-ontological.54 This is
because Aristode seems to be attributing to his interlocutor a new and even stronger denial
of PNC-ontological. Whereas the denial of Aristode's initial formulation of PNC-
ontological only requires that at least one property both belongs and does not belong to one
and the same subject at the same time and in the same respect, Aristode now attributes to
his interlocutor the view that all contradictory predications are true of ^//subjects at the same
time and in the same respect. This is surprising not only because Aristode now seems
confused about whom he is attacking, but also because if his initial argument is supposed to
succeed in defeating the weaker denial of PNC-ontological, i.e. its contradictory, then there
is no reason to attack the stronger denial, i.e. its contrary. This is due to the simple fact that
the refutation of the weak denial entails the refutation of the strong denial.
Although the situation is far from clear, we might be able to make some sense of
Aristotle's curious turn by trying to identify more precisely the position of his interlocutor.
Thus far, we have seen the way in which Aristotle's arguments are focused on essential
predications and that the notion of significant speech has to do exclusively with essential
properties, and we will see that the examples Aristotle uses to justify his curious turn are all
53
The Greek reads: aSuvocrov aua KcnriyopeTaSoci TCCC avTic^doEic.
54
Wedin (2003). Lukasiewicz (1979, 57f.) also notes that the object of Aristode's proof undergoes a
transformation.
instances of essential predicates, e.g. man and ship (1007b32-34). What this suggests is that
the interlocutor's rejection of PNC-ontological is, at least at this point in the argument,
limited to essential properties. 53 Moreover, for Aristode's turn to be successful, he must
presuppose that his interlocutor is committed not merely to the view that there is just one
endty that both has and does not have its essential property, but that this is the case for all
entities. That is, Aristode's opponent is not someone who is arguing for the possibility of
what one might call a defective substance, where such a defective substance, in contrast to
non-defective substances, would both have and not have some essential property. Instead,
he is arguing with someone who holds that all things both have and do not have some
essential property. So construed, the argument is directed against an interlocutor who denies
PNC with respect to essential properties for all beings, and although Aristode's elenctic
proof also works against the defective substance theorist, it is just not who he is immediately
arguing against.
In order to complete the curious turn, we still need to explain Aristode's belief that
the denial of PNC-ontological with respect to one essential property for all subjects entails
the view that all essential properties will be attributed to any subject whatsoever.
Fortunately, Aristotle explicitiy argues this point (1007b29-1008a2). Specifically, he
contends that if something both has and does not have its essential property, whatever
property that may be, the denier of PNC-ontological will be committed to the view that that
thing has every essential property. Aristotle argues that if a man also is-not a man, then the
man either is or is-not a ship. If he is also essentially a ship, then he will also not-be a ship.
55
Cresswell (2003) has taken this path. Here, we can also add that if Aristode's defense of PNC is, at the same
rime, a defense of substance in the sense of essence, then we can see why his defense might be geared toward
essential properties only.
Here, Aristotle's argument seems to borrow from the principle stated above. That is, the
denier of PNC-ontological is committed to the view that if x is essentially F, then it also is-
not F. So if we say in this instance that a man is now essentially a ship, he will also not-be a
ship, and this will be true of whatever essential property we think of. If, on the other hand,
we begin by saying that the affirmation, e.g. "Socrates is a ship," is not true, Aristotle thinks
that the denier of PNC-ontological will eventually be forced to admit that both the negation
and the affirmation are true. This is because if the affirmation is not true, then the negation,
e.g. "Socrates is-not a ship," will be even truer than the initial negation, "Socrates is-not a
man."36 However, if the former negation is truer with respect to a thing's essential
properties, the denier of PNC must now hold that the affirmation concerning the ship is true
as well. Therefore, if Socrates is and is-not a man, then he must also be and not-be a ship,
and this is true not only for being a man and being a ship, but in all cases. Since this
argument holds for all other essential properties, the denier of PNC must necessarily be
committed to the view that all essential properties apply to anything to which one essential
property and its contradictory applies. Since the denier of PNC is committed to the view
that PNC is violated for every existing entity with respect to its essential properties, if one
substance both has and does not have all essential properties, then all substances will both
have and not have all essential properties. In this way, the denial of PNC-ontological as
applied to all entities entails the strong denial of PNC-ontological, where all substances have
all essential properties.
56
Presumably the former negation is "more true" precisely because the corresponding affirmation is, at least
for now, not true, whereas the corresponding affirmation of the latter negation is true, thereby undermining, in
Aristotle's mind, the degree to which it is true.
Even if I have failed to offer a convincing explanation of this curious turn in the
argument, it should be clear that Aristotle is now defending PNC-ontological against the
strong denier, and it is the strong denial of PNC-ontological that leads to the complete
destruction of substance in the sense of essence. Once substance in the sense of essence is
destroyed, we are left wondering what the world would be like. On the one hand, we might
countenance a world in which there is accident predication. However, we have just seen that
this is impossible. Accidents have to attach themselves to something. The other option is
that all accidental properties attach themselves to an indefinite one. This, of course, is the
option that Aristotle considers as the passage unfolds (1007b23-29), and he employs the
argument detailed above to generate this kind of ontology. Specifically, once we show that
everything has and does not have every (essential) property, we will have a world in which
there is no essential (qualitative) difference between any of the individual entities. However,
if there is nothing left to distinguish (qualitatively) one entity from another, these entities will
no longer be numerically distinct,37 and since entities cannot be numerically distinct,
everything collapses into one thing, and if that one thing has and does not have every
essential property, then that one thing cannot properly be said to be anything. Instead, it
must be something indefinite {aoristos) (1007b27).
There are a number of reasons why Aristotle's argument here is significant for our
purposes. In terms of thinking about Nietzsche's own philosophy, what we see is an
intimate connection between the denial of PNC, the denial of substance in the sense of
essence, and a radically indefinite world. As Brian Leiter has critically noted, a number of
interpreters have attributed to Nietzsche the view that the world is radically indefinite. If
57
Priest (1998, 119) suggests that the identity of indiscernibles might be at work here.
such readings are even partially plausible, then we can see how the position might be
intimately bound up with his denial of PNC-ontological.58 In terms of Aristotle's defense of
PNC-ontological, it also links his discussion with his later attacks on Protagoras' ontological
naturalism and strict empiricism in Metaphysics IV.5, where the belief that reality is confined
to the sensible world is said to lead to the view that nature is radically indefinite (1010a3).59
Finally, the argument here simply re-enforces the view that Aristode's defense of PNC is
primarily a defense of PNC-ontological, where the debate is not as much about
contradictory statements and their truth-values as it is about the structure of the world.
At this point, we need to say something about the kind of defense that Aristotie is
offering here. This is because Lukasiewicz has raised worries about a. petitio principiiif we
construe Aristotle's arguments in this section as proofs of PNC. According to Lukasiewicz,
Aristotle's arguments take the form of a reductio ad impossible, and Lukasiewicz thinks that
such reductio arguments presuppose PNC.60 Here, Aristode's strategy is to show that if the
strong denial of PNC is true, then certain false conclusions follow, such as the world will be
an indefinite one. Since the things that follow from the strong denial of PNC are false, the
strong denial of PNC must also be false.
In dealing with this issue, Wedin has acknowledged that Lukasiewicz is right on the
issue of apetitioprincipii if this is what Aristode is in fact doing. However, Wedin claims that
Aristotie does not intend these arguments to be proofs for PNC. 61 Instead, Wedin believes
that they should be interpreted as "shriek" arguments, where Aristotle attempts to extract an
58
Leiter (1994, 334ff.).
59
Of course, Aristotle has just mentioned Protagoras at 1007a24.
60
Lukasiewicz (1979, 56f.) explains this as follows: "A reductio proof runs thus: - If a were the case, b would
have to be the case; but b is not the case; therefore a cannot be the case. Why not? Because if a were the case,
then there would be a contradiction—for b too would be the case, and it is not the case."
61
Wedin (2000, 157ff).
129
awkward or unwanted consequence from the strong denial of the principle. According to
Wedin, a shriek argument differs from a reductio proof because it leaves the truth-value of the
principle that is being attacked unaffected. What it does instead is transfer the awkwardness
of the entailed consequence to the doctrine itself. So if the strong denial of PNC entails that
the world is an indefinite one and this is somehow awkward or embarrassing, then the strong
denial of PNC itself will be awkward or embarrassing.
Although I agree with Wedin's claim that Aristotle is offering a series of shriek,
rather than reductio, arguments, I do so for different reasons. Specifically, the problem that
Wedin's distinction is designed to overcome is a pseudo-problem, and it is a pseudo-
problem generated by Lukasiewicz's and Wedin's shared belief that Aristotle is trying to
prove the contemporary version of PNC-logical. As I have argued above, Aristotle is trying
to prove PNC-ontological, and this permits him to use in his defense what we now
recognize as basic rules of inference and, in certain cases, PNC-logical. Thus, we are not
forced to read Aristotle's arguments in the way that Wedin does in order to avoid zpetitio
principii. Nevertheless, I do read Aristotle's arguments in this way, and I do so because I
think that if any one of these arguments could successfully prove the truth of PNC-
ontological by showing that its denial entails false consequences, then Aristotle would indeed
have provided a positive proof of PNC-ontological and there would, in turn, be no need for
an elenctic proof.
That said, there are times when Aristotle seems to be doing more than merely
highlighting the embarrassing consequences of the strong denial of PNC-ontological. As we
have seen, Aristotle thinks that the denial of PNC-ontological leads to the view that the
world is an indefinite one. Although this might already scare the strong denier of PNC-
130
ontological into submission, Aristotle seems to provide us with an argument as to why such
an ontology cannot be true. Specifically, he claims that nature cannot be an indefinite one
because nothing can fully or actually exist unless it is a determine something. As a result,
this indefinite one exists only potentially, and given the fact that this potentiality does not
attach itself to anything that actually exists, this potentiality is akin to not existing at all
(1007b26-29).62 As a result, the strong denial of PNC leads to the view that the world is a
sort of nothing, a view that does not seem to be merely unpalatable, but flat out false.63
However we might construe Aristotle's argument, we can see the way in which he
readily associates his defense of PNC (-ontological) with ontological issues, so much so that
his defense of PNC-ontological thus far has almost turned into a contest between two
competing ontologies. Whereas the affirmation of PNC-ontological goes hand in hand with
Aristotle's own substance ontology, the strong denial of PNC-ontological entails the
destruction of essence and an ontology in which everything is mixed together in an indefinite
one. What we have just seen is that Aristode defends PNC-ontological by arguing, first, that
we cannot do without essence and that essence entails PNC-ontological and, second, that it
is unpalatable or even impossible that everything is mixed together in an indefinite one.
One might object to my emphasis on the ontological issues at work in Aristotle's
defense on the grounds that it downplays, to an unjustified extent, the presence of his appeal
to logical principles as his defense unfolds. This is because we find Aristode referring to
LEM (1008a2f£), PB (1008a28-29), PNC-logical(A) (1008a28-29), and RCP (1008a34-b2), all
within the final arguments of Metaphysics IV.4. Here however it is important to recall what I
62
The Greek reads: TO aopiaTov ouv EOiKaai Asyeiv, Kai OI6|JSVOI TO 6V Asystv rrspi TOU ur| OVTOC
Xeyouoiv. TO yap Suvdust 6v Kai urj EVTEAEXEI? TO dopicrrov EOTIV.
63
We will encounter a parallel to this view in the Theaetetus, where nature is reduced to a collection of indefinite
powers.
131
have argued above. Specifically, one reason for holding that Aristotle's defense is primarily,
although not exclusively, a defense of PNC-ontological is because he thinks that PNC-
ontological is the necessary condition for LEM, PB, PNC-logical(A), and RCP. Indeed, the
fact that Aristode appeals to these principles as a part of his shriek strategy simply re-affirms
the primacy of PNC-ontological. This is because in offering shriek arguments, Aristode is
not showing that PNC-ontological must be accepted because its denial would violate any one
of these principles. Instead, his arguments are designed to show that these principles only
hold if PNC-ontological holds. Therefore, if we want to preserve these principles, we must
accept PNC-ontological.
Aristotle first references what commentators have interpreted as the violation of
LEM just after showing that the denial of PNC-ontological leads to the view that all things
are an indefinite one (1008a2-7). I say that commentators have interpreted it as a reference
to LEM because Aristode does not explicidy speak of two contradictory statements that are
both false at the same time.64 Instead, what he says is that for those who violate PNC-
ontological "it is not necessary either to affirm or to deny a statement" (1008a3-4).65 The
idea is that if some x both is and is-not F, then there is no need to assert anything. This is
because the purpose of asserting is to establish that something is the case, and establishing
that something is the case means ruling out what is not the case. If it is the case that x both
is and is-not F, then neither the affirmation nor the denial will rule out anything. If what is
true of x is true of everything else, there is no point in either affirming or denying anything.
At the same time, there is reason for following commentators who think that Aristode is
64
Both Priest (1998,121f.) and Wedin (2000, 155) read it in this way.
65
The Greek reads: OUK avdyKf] T\ $dva\ f] d(TTO(|)dvai.
132
referring to LEM here. The idea is that there is no need either to affirm or deny a statement
because both are false. If it is the case that x both is and is-not F, then "x is F" will be false
because x is-not F and "x is-not F" will be false because x is F. Here, we will have a
violation of LEM, as two contradictory statements will both be false at the same time.
Aristotle appeals to PB and PNC-logical(A)66 after a discussion of whether the denial
of PNC-ontological holds for all terms or only for some.67 In this discussion, Aristotle
argues that if someone holds that it is equally possible to assert or deny anything of anything,
then it will be the case that all statements are true and all false (1008a28-29). As shown
above, if x is and is-not F, then both "x is F" and "x is-not F" are both true and false. Since
"x is F" and "x is-not F" are both true, PNC-logical(A) will be violated. Since "x is F" is
both true and false, PB is violated. One consequence of the denial of PB is that the
opponent must admit that what he says is false. Even worse is that the opponent's denial of
PB, LEM, and PNC-logical(A) makes it obvious that discussion with him is about nothing at
all. This is because he either says that things are both thus and not thus or he refrains from
saying that things are thus and not thus. In both cases he fails to make some definite
statement, one that says that the world is one way and not the other (1008a31-34).
In his next argument, Aristode appeals to RCP (1008a34-b2). This is an important
part of Aristode's defense because he wants to use it to defeat his interlocutor, but he knows
that he cannot precisely because it would beg the question. Specifically, he argues that if the
truth of the affirmation entails the falsity of the negation and truth of the negation entails the
falsity of the affirmation, then it will be impossible for the assertion and the denial to be true
66
LEM is also implicit in this discussion.
67
He seems to extend die scope of the denial of PNC-ontological to include accidental properties such as white
at this juncture (1008a7-l 1).
133
at the same time. In other words, if RCP is true, then PNC-logical(A) is true, and if PNC-
logical(A) is true, then PNC-ontological must also be true. Nevertheless, Aristotle
recognizes that this argument simply begs the question, nodng that "but perhaps it will be
said that this is the point at issue" (1008M-2),68 and the reason why he thinks it begs the
question is because, as I have argued above, PNC-logical(A) and RCP are only true if PNC-
ontological is true.
Given that he cannot use RCP and PNC-logical(A) to prove PNC-ontological on the
grounds that it begs the question, we are left to wonder why Aristotle would even raise this
issue here. As a response, we can say that Aristotle is doing precisely what Wedin takes him
to be doing with each of his previous arguments, namely highlighting the unwanted
consequences of denying PNC-ontological. Quite simply, the idea is that if one denies PNC-
ontological, then one must also deny PB, LEM, PNC-logical(A), and RCP and therefore any
attempt to say anything definite about the world. Shriek!
Aristode's next shriek argument (1008b2-13) is also crucial for our purposes as it not
only raises an issue that seems to plague Nietzsche's own thinking, but also forces us to
think more clearly about the denial of PNC-ontological. Specifically, Aristode suggests that
the denial of PNC-ontological is either self-refuting or it transforms the interlocutor into a
vegetable, and he makes his case by mapping out three possible positions that the denier of
PNC-ontological can take with respect to his own theory. First, let us say that the denier of
PNC-ontological thinks that his position is right and the defender of PNC-ontological is
wrong. Here Aristode seems to reason that if one holds that one's view is right, then one
must be committed to the view that reality has a definite nature. However, Aristode has just
68
The Greek reads: dXX' (ococ ocuTO <J)CUEV av TOUT' elvat TO apxfjc KSIJJEVOV.
134
shown that the denial of PNC-ontological leads to the view that reality is indefinite.
Therefore, the denier of PNC-ontological cannot be correct in holding that he is right. So
now let us say that the denier of PNC-ontological is not right absolutely, but more right than
its defender. Here again Aristotle argues that the denier of PNC-ontological will be
committed to the view that reality has a definite nature, and his position will be true and not
not-true. Finally, let us say that all men are equally right and wrong, both the denier and the
defender of PNC-ontological and anyone else for that matter. Here, the denier of PNC-
ontological can either assert both the affirmation and the denial of his position or he can
refrain from judgment. In the first case, he actually says nothing (1008b8-9), as Aristotle's
elenctic proof has shown. In the second case, he fails to produce a logos, and in failing to
produce a logos, he has again transformed himself into a vegetable (1008b 13).
While not exacdy the same, one could easily map the alternatives Aristotle lays out
here with respect to the denial of PNC-ontological onto the debates that have circled around
Nietzsche's perspectivism. The question is whether Nietzsche's own philosophy can escape
the charge of self-refutation, and while I will argue in chapter five that Nietzsche does
believe that his view is right absolutely and that it escapes the problem of self-refutation, we
can offer a brief response to Aristotle's variant of the problem here. Specifically, Aristotle's
charge boils down to the claim that one cannot consistently hold that something is
indefinite. The supposed reason is that in claiming that something is indefinite, we are
effectively defining the nature of that thing. What Aristode is doing however is equivocating
on the meaning of what it is for something to be a definite something. On the one hand, we
can say that for something to have a definite nature is for that thing to possess certain
properties that entail the exclusion of others. Here, something is what it is and not
something else. On the other hand, if we say that something has an indefinite nature, then
we are defining that thing only in virtue of what it is not. That is, we can say what it is, i.e.
indefinite, only by referring to the fact that it lacks some positive, definite property that
excludes certain other properties. Whereas someone who rejects PNC-ontological denies
that things are definite in the first sense, he is committed to something being definite in the
second, broader sense, i.e. it is defined by what it is not. As a result, he is committed to the
truth of his own view, i.e. that things have no definite nature in virtue of what they are in and
of themselves, and the falsity of the opposing view, i.e. that things do have a definite nature
in virtue of what they are in and of themselves. Therefore, he says something and he
believes that what he says is true.
However one might deal with the problem of self-refutation, the proponent of this
view will nevertheless be confronted with the next objection that Aristode presents
(1008bl2-31), and it is again noteworthy that we find Nietzsche wrestling with this same
issue. Specifically, Aristode contends that the denial of PNC-ontological entails the
indeterminacy of nature, and the indeterminacy of nature undermines the basis for rendering
practical judgments and acting upon them. According to Aristode, the reason why we act is
that we judge one thing or one state of affairs to be better than another. However, if
everything is both so and not so, then it is not the case that something or some state of
affairs is better than another, as it will both be and not-be good. Since we do things only
because we want to bring about a better state of affairs than if we did not do that thing,
there will be no reason to do anything. Moreover, Aristode contends that when we judge
something to be good or bad, we do so because of the determinate qualities that it has or
does not have. If everything both has and does not have a given property, then there is no
reason why I should pursue one thing over another. For instance, if I desire something
sweet and everything both is and is-not sweet, I will be confronted with the problem that
there is nothing that is just sweet and that no one thing is sweeter than another. As a result,
there will be no basis for pursuing one thing over another.
Here again Aristode does not go on to claim that his argument proves PNC-
ontological. Instead, he argues that our actions show that no one truly believes in the strong
denial of PNC-ontological. Aristode thinks that once we recognize the way in which our
actions depend on judgments about the way things are and knowledge of the way things are
helps us render better judgments, we will be all the more eager to pursue the truth. This is
because we are more likely to attain the things we want if we guide our decisions and actions
by knowledge rather than mere guesswork, and knowledge consists in having insight into the
way things are and the way they are not (1008b27-31).
What is significant about this final remark is that Aristode also thinks that the denial
of PNC-ontological underwrites a certain form of skepticism via the indeterminacy thesis.
For whatever reason, Aristode does not list this as one of the terrible consequences of the
strong denial of PNC-ontological in Metaphysics IV.4. Instead, we find it in the next section,
where he argues that the pre-Socratic failure to distinguish between thought and perception
led to the view that all things are the way we perceive them to be and this, in turn, led to the
view that things are both so and not so (1009b33-1010al). Just after presenting this
argument, Aristotle claims that it is here that the consequences are the most difficult. This is
because if supposedly clear-sighted men like Empedocles and Democritus held these views,
then up and coming philosophers will despair, as the pursuit of truth will be akin to chasing
flying things (100%38-lOlOal).

In my mind, what we find here is a form of what I will call paradoxical skepticism,
and it is paradoxical because it seems to presuppose a certain sort of knowledge about what
the world is like. Indeed, we have come across a similar sort of paradoxical skepticism in
the last chapter, when we noted how Nietzsche, very much in line with the conclusion of
Plato's Cratylus, believes that becoming rules out any sort of knowledge. For Aristode, the
basic claim is that the denial of PNC-ontological leads to a view of nature as radically
indefinite, and the view that the world is radically indefinite makes philosophy, in the sense
of the quest to know things as they are in themselves, impossible.
To conclude this section, it should be noted that although the problem of skepticism
occurs most prominently in Metaphysics IV.5, Aristode does finish Metaphysics IV.4 with some
similar considerations. After arguing that nature admits of degrees and therefore there will
be, at the very least, some view that is truer or more correct than another, Aristode remarks
that all of the aforementioned arguments are designed to free us from the view that would
prevent us from making any mental determination (1009a2-5).70 Here again, the issue of
indeterminacy emerges, but it does so not with reference to things, but rather with reference
to thought, and the idea seems to be that the denier of PNC-ontological must refrain from
making any mental determination precisely because his position entails the indeterminacy of
nature. Of course, this argument presupposes that our minds ought to mirror or reflect the
way the world is. As we will see in chapter five, Nietzsche accepts the indeterminacy thesis
with respect to nature, but rejects the view that we ought to refrain from making any mental
determination. Instead, he argues that we very well can make mental determinations, as it is
69
Cf. Lee (2005, 129) for considerations that parallel this analysis.
70
The Greek reads: Kav ei \!x\ SOTIV, dAA' fi5r| y^ T l ^ OT1 PEfJaiOTepov Koci dAr|0tvcoTEpov, Kai TOU
aKpaTou Kai KCOAUOVTOC TI TTJ Staaota opiaoct.
through these mental determinations that we give shape and consistency to an apparent
world that ultimately exists for us. This, I will argue, is a key feature of his perspectivism.
2.7. Diagnosing the Motivation for Denying PNC-Ontological
In Metaphysics IV.4, Aristode provides us with his elenctic proof of PNC-ontological
and highlights the consequences that follow from the denial of the principle. We have
contended that his elenctic proof is designed to show that if the interlocutor accepts
significant speech, then he must also accept PNC-ontological. Thus, what Aristode does not
do is offer a positive proof of the principle, and because he does not and thinks he cannot
offer a positive proof of the principle, he seeks to motivate the interlocutor to abandon his
denial of PNC-ontological by highlighting the unwanted consequences that follow from such
a position. In Metaphysics IV.5-6, Aristotle continues his defense, and he does so not by
continuing to scare the interlocutor into accepting PNC-ontological, but rather by showing
that those who historically denied the principle had no good reasons for doing so.
With this shift in strategy, it is important to note the way in which Aristotle
distinguishes, at the beginning of MetaphysicsTV.5, between the two types of interlocutors
that he is attacking in the chapter. On the one hand, there are those who hold this theory
for the sake of argument. On the other hand, there are those who hold it because of a
generally confused mental outlook (1009al5-22). Given this distinction, there is reason to
think that Aristotle's elenctic demonstration in Metaphysics IV.4 is directed at the former
interlocutor because we are told that he can be cured through argumentative force and
refutation. Indeed, the elenctic refutation is particularly effective against those who hold it
for the sake of argument precisely because it shows that PNC-ontological is presupposed in
any argument whatsoever. The latter type, by contrast, is one who denies PNC-ontological
139
not for the sake of argument, but rather because of a misguided methodological approach to
reality that culminates in an equally misguided understanding of perception and change.
According to Aristotie, such an opponent is not to be remedied by the force of a refutation,
but rather through persuasion. That is, it is not a matter of showing the opponent that he is
committed to an inconsistent premise set, but rather that he has gone wrong in his basic
approach to understanding the fundamental questions in philosophy.
Aristotle begins the argument of Metaphysics IV. 5 by referring to Protagoras for the
second time in his defense, claiming that "from the same opinion also derives the thesis of
Protagoras, and it is necessary that both either are or are not the case equally" (1009a6-7). 71
While it is clear that in this passage Aristotie wants to establish some connection between (a)
the strong denial of P N C and (b) the Protagorean claim that all opinions and appearances
are true, it is not clear what he is referring to when he mentions "the same opinion". Some,
like Wedin and Lee, have taken it to be a third opinion that appears later in the text, namely
the view that perceptible things (ta aistheta) are the only things that are (fa onto) (1010al-3). 72
Although they are not entirely off the mark, I think that "same opinion" does in fact refer to
(a) the (strong) denial of P N C . Indeed, Aristotle's argument here is that (a) not only entails
(b), but that (b) entails (a). Whereas Aristotle argues for the latter entailment, he does not
explicitly do so for the former. Regarding the move from (a) to (b), the idea seems to be
that if every property b o t h belongs and does not belong to a given subject, every assertion
will be true. Regarding the latter move, Aristotle holds that (b) entails (a) by assuming that
71
Trans. Kirwan. The Greek reads: EOTI 5' CXTTO Tf|C auTrjc 5o£r|C Kai 6 TTpcoTayopou Xoyoc, Kai
dvdyiai 6|JOICOC auxouc dycj)co f| slvai f| ur| EIVOCI.
72
Wedin (2004, 216). Lee (2005, 120f.) also cites 1009a38-b2 as further support for the same position. The
Greek reads: cuTtov 5E Tfjc 5oi;r|G TOUTOIC OTI TTEpi TCOU OVTCOV |JEV TT|V dAri0Eiau EOKOTTOUV, Ta 5'
SVTOC UTTEAafJov Eivai Ta ataBrixd yovov.
for every statement believed by someone, there is someone out there who believes its
contradictory.73 Therefore, if all beliefs are true and for any given belief there is someone
who believes the contradictory of it, then (b) will entail the strong denial of PNC.
The reason why Wedin and Lee are not entirely off the mark in reading "the same
opinion" in the opening line of Metaphysics IV.5 as a reference to a third belief that underlies
both (a) and (b) is that Aristode does go on to speak of a third belief that plays precisely this
role. Specifically, he writes that "clearly then both these theories proceed from the same
mental oudook" (1009al5-16),74 and Wedin and Lee are right in claiming that this mental
oudook is that perceptible things are the only things that are (1010al-3). This is what I have
called, in the introduction to this chapter, ontological naturalism and strict empiricism. It
can be called an ontological naturalism because it makes a claim about what there is, namely
that nothing exists beyond a world available to the senses that is subject to generation and
destruction. It is a form of strict empiricism because it states that sense experience is a
necessary and sufficient condition for knowledge of the sensible world.
In focusing on the natural world available to the senses, Aristode claims that the pre-
Socratics encountered the problem of how something could come from its opposite, and it
was their attempt to resolve this difficulty that led them to embrace the denial of PNC-
ontological. Aristode describes the situation as follows:
Those who really feel the difficulties have been led to this opinion by observation of
the sensible world. They think that contradictions or contraries are true at the same
time, because they see contraries coming into existence out of the same thing. If,
73
Of course, someone might well object to Aristotle's claim here, as it does seem possible that we could
establish universal agreement among perceivers for at least one object with respect to one property.
74
The Greek reads: OTI USV ouv d u o Ttjc auxfje eiai S t a v o i a c ducjjoTspoi o'l Aoyoi, 5f]Aov.
141
then, that which is not cannot come to be, the thing must have existed before as
both contraries alike. (1009a22-26)75
In the next chapter, it will be shown that Nietzsche places a variant of this question at the
beginning of H H and that his ultimate denial of absolute opposites goes hand in hand with
his attempt to revive the pre-Socratic theories that Aristotle rejects in Metaphysics IV. Here,
we find Aristotle placing the question at the center of pre-Socratic philosophizing.
Confronted with a problem drawn from the world of sense experience and constrained by
the belief that something cannot come from nothing, certain pre-Socratic philosophers
reasoned that some x can become y if and only if x is already y. If x were n o t already y, then
y's coming to be would be an instance of something coming to be from nothing. This then
is why the pre-Socratics held that contrary properties were co-present in objects and why
contradictory statements were therefore true of the same thing at the same time. According
to Aristotle, it was this view that developed into Anaxagoras' claim that everything is mixed
with everything and Democritus' belief that everything is a mixture of the plenum and the
void, where the former is and the latter is not (1009a25-30).
I n addition to the problem of change, pre-Socratic thinkers also came to embrace the
strong denial of PNC-ontological because of problems concerning perception (1009a38f£).
Specifically, they noticed that different people and different organisms—and even the same
organism at different times—had conflicting perceptions of what seemed to be the same
thing, and since there were n o good arguments as to why one perception should be counted
75
Trans. Ross. The Greek reads: EAriAuBe 5e TOTC Siarropouaiv auTt| rj 5o£a EK TCOU aio0r)Tcov, r| UEV
TOU ana xdc dvTt<j>dasic KCU TavavTia urrapxEiv opcSatv EK TCXUTOG yiyvouEva Tavavria. gi ouv ur)
EVSEXSTCU ytyvEO0ai TO ur| 6v, TtpourrfipxEU ouoicoc TO TTpdyua ducfico 6v.
more or less true than another, thinkers like Democritus concluded that "either there is no
truth or we cannot discover it" (1009b9-ll). 76
Although Aristotle provides an extended analysis of the problem of conflicting
appearances and the related undecidability arguments, I want to focus on the next issue that
Aristotle addresses in his analysis, one that effectively forced pre-Socratic thinkers like
Protagoras to accept the view that all appearances must be true. Specifically, Aristode claims
that they failed to distinguish properly between thought (phronesis)11 and perception (aisthesis)
in holding that thinking, like sense perception, is a form of physical alteration {alloiosis)
(1009M3).78 Although the connection between the view that thinking and sense perception
are forms of physical alteration and the claim that all appearances are true is not immediately
obvious, Lee has argued that the problem lies in explaining the possibility of falsehood.79 In
particular, these pre-Socratics held that thinking, like perceiving, was something passive.
The passivity of thinking leads to the view that all appearances are true because if nature
determines our thoughts, as it does with our perceptions, then there does not seem to be any
way that we can make mistakes. Just as a blackboard never falsely reports what has been
written upon it, the mind will never have a false impression if thinking, like perception,
occurs when nature impresses itself on the thinker. This is especially true of the like-by-like
theories of thinking and perception that were endorsed by figures such as Empedocles. If
our mind becomes qualitatively identical with the object that is being perceived or thought
when perception or thinking occurs, then there can be no such thing as false perceptions or
76
The Greek reads: 5io ArjuoxptToc ye (j>r|aiv f|Toi OU0EV slvai dATiSeg T\ r|uiv y ' a5r|Xov.
77
For difficulties with the translation of this word in this context, see Lee (2005, 137).
78
The Greek reads: oXcoc 51 Sid TO UTToAa(jpdvsiv §p6vr\a\v UEV TT|V a'io0r|Oiu, TauTnv 5' elvai
dAAoicoaiu.
79
Lee (2005, 133ff.).
thoughts. This is because error requires a qualitative difference between the object and the
object of perception or thought, and if perceiving or thinking requires qualitative identity for
it even to occur, then, on the like-by-like theory, a false perception or thought is no
perception or thought at all. As a result, all our perceptions and thoughts must be true, and
since Aristotle implicitly commits these pre-Socratics to the additional view that for every
perception or thought of some x being F there is a contrary perception or thought that
entails that x is-not F, every statement and its contradictory will be true and therefore
everything will be both so and not so (1009b31-33).
At a later point in this chapter, I will argue that Aristode's attack on the pre-Socratic
failure to distinguish between thinking and perceiving should be understood as an essential
feature of his broader attack on the strict empiricism and ontological naturalism of his
predecessors. Here, however, I simply want to note that Aristotle refers to the strict
empiricism and ontological naturalism of his opponents immediately after explaining how
the failure to distinguish between thinking and perception led to the skepticism we discussed
in the previous section (1010a2-3).80 The positioning of this claim is important because it
allows Aristode to transition from his diagnosis of Protagoras' claim that all appearances are
true to his analysis of the Heraclitean-Cratylean theory of change. Aristotle also transitions
between these two positions by picking up on the line of argumentation in Metaphysics IV.4,
where he contends that the strong denial of PNC leads to the view that nature is indefinite.
In Metaphysics TV. 5, Aristotle does not argue that the indeterminacy thesis follows from the
strong denial of PNC-ontological, but rather from straightforward observation of the
sensible world, and in so doing, he admits that the nature of the indefinite is readily present
80
The Greek reads: TCX 5' SVTCX UTTEAa|3ov Eivat Ta a'io8r|To: povov.
in the immediately sensible world (1010a3-4). Thus, if one remains committed to strict
empiricism and ontological naturalism, one will be forced to adopt this view. What this
means, of course, is that for Aristode to reject the view that the world is indefinite, he will
ultimately have to attack the strict empiricism and ontological naturalism of his predecessors.
That is, he has to attack the general mental outlook that leads to the Protagorean and
Heraclitean-Cratylean positions and ultimately the denial of PNC-ontological.
Before Aristode launches his attack against the deniers of PNC-ontological, he
exacerbates the pre-Socratic position by piling Heraclitean-Cratylean worries about change
onto the Protagorean claim that the world is indefinite and therefore unknowable.
According to Aristotle, Heraclitus and Cratylus noted that the sensible world is constantly in
motion in all respects, and having noted this, they argued that n o true statement could be
made about anything that is changing in all respects (1010a8-9). 82 I n this sense, their
arguments went beyond the aforementioned skepticism that Aristode cites as a consequence
of the Protagorean thesis. Even more extreme than Heraclitus, who believed that we could
not step into the same river twice, Cratylus held the view that we could not even step into
the same river once. Because a reality of this sort cannot be properly expressed in language,
Cratylus abandoned language altogether and philosophized by simply pointing his finger
(1010al0-15).
2.8. Aristotle's Critique of the Heraclitean-Cratylean Theory of C h a n g e
Thus far, we have sketched not only the pre-Socratic positions that Aristotle sets out
to attack, but also part of his diagnosis as to why such thinkers came to adopt the positions
81
The Greek reads: EV 5E TOUTOIC TToXAr| r| TOU dopiOTOV 4>uote EVUTrdpxsi Kai r| TOU OVTOC OUTCOC
coanep S'ITTOIJEV.
82
The Greek reads: TTEpi ye TO TTavTTi TTCCVTGLN; |JETCX(3C<AAOV OUK EVSEXECJSOU dAr|0suEtv.
that they did. As Lee has noted, Metaphysics IV.5 has a ring structure, where Aristotle first
introduces the views of his pre-Socratic opponents and then proceeds to offer his response
to each position in reverse order.83 Nevertheless, in turning to Aristotle's criticisms of the
Hearclitean-Cratylean position on change, we should not overlook the fact that he briefly
articulates his own solution to the problem of how contraries can come from the same thing
in diagnosing the reasons of the pre-Socratics for rejecting PNC-ontological. Specifically,
Aristode argues that this issue is easily solved through his notion of potentiality (1009a30-
38). Although contraries cannot be actually present in the same thing at the same time and
in the same respect, Aristode holds that they can be potentially present in the same thing at
the same time and in the same respect, and it is this fact that allows something to come to be
F without coming to be from nothing. When the wind becomes hot, hot does not come to
be from nothing, but rather from the potentiality of the wind to be hot.
Aristotle favors his own solution to the problem of how contraries can be generated
from the same thing not only because it avoids the Scylla of violating PNC-ontological and
the Charybdis of having something come from nothing, but also because he thinks that the
pre-Socratic solution to the problem is no solution at all. Specifically, he argues that the co-
presence of opposites not only fails to explain change, but even makes change logically
impossible (1010a33-1010bl). It makes change logically impossible because change,
according to Aristotle, only occurs from one contrary to another. If this is what change is
and contraries are always co-present in a given entity, then it will be impossible for
something to change from one contrary to another. As a result, the co-presence of
83
Lee (2005, 122f.).
146
opposites not only fails to underwrite the radical flux doctrine of Heraclitus and Cratylus,
but actually undermines it.
This argument is the last in a series of arguments that Aristode presents immediately
after unpacking his diagnosis of the Heraclitean-Cratylean position. Whereas the previous
argument is based largely on logical considerations about the possibility of change given the
Heraclitean-Cratylean model, the common goal of Aristode's other arguments is to show
that there are at least some things in nature that are not changing at all times and in all
respects. Perhaps Aristode's most straightforward version of this latter line of attack occurs
just prior to his claim that the denial of PNC-ontological renders change logically impossible.
Specifically, Aristode tells us that, "we must prove to them and convince them that there is a
kind of nature that is not moved (akinetos)" (1010a33-34).84 While one might read this as an
expression of Aristode's general strategy in attacking the Heraclitean-Cratylean position, i.e.
that of proving that there is something that is akinetos, it is more likely a specific reference to
his own unmoved mover, the focus of Physics VIII and Metaphysics XII. In fact, Aristode also
seems to refer to the unmoved mover both in his initial response to the pre-Socratic theory
of the co-presence of opposites (1009a36-38) and near the end of his defense of PNC in
Metaphysics IV (1012b31). Aristode's argument here is quite simple. Even if the pre-
Socratic s he is attacking are right in thinking that everything in the immediately sensible
world is continuously in motion in all respects, there is nevertheless something that
transcends the sensible world that is not in motion, and it is this unmoved something that
obeys PNC-ontological. As a result, even if the things of the immediately sensible world are
84
The Greek reads: 6 T I y d p loTiu dxivriTOC TIC <()uaic SSIKTEOV OOJTOTC KOU TTEIOTSOV CCUTOUC.
147
radically indefinite and admit of contrary properties at the same time and the same respect,
the strong denial of PNC-ontological fails.
Aristotle, however, thinks that he does not have to leave behind sense experience
altogether to show that there is something that is not continuously changing in all respects.
Although celestial bodies are subject to locomotion, they are nevertheless eternal in the sense
that they are ungenerated and incorruptible. Thus, even if the immediately sensible realm is
radically indefinite and subject to constant change, Aristotle thinks he can undermine the
Heraclitean-Cratylean theory of change and therefore their challenge to PNC-ontological by
pointing to sensible entities beyond what is immediately present. Here again, Aristotle's
strategy consists in rejecting his predecessors' denial of PNC-ontological by challenging their
commitment to an ontology that, in this case, restricts the thinker to the observation of the
world immediately available to the senses.
Even more important for our purposes is the fact that Aristode attacks the
Heraclitean-Cratylean position by appealing to his own theory of change concerning objects
of the immediately sensible world (1010al5-25). It is more important because the position
that Aristotle develops here is precisely the position that Nietzsche criticizes when he asserts
that there is no doer behind the deed, no lightening behind the flash (GM 113). In contrast
to Nietzsche, Aristotle's larger project is to show that, in any instance of change, there is
always some unchanging entity that functions as the subject of change and persists through
the transformation. In Metaphysics IV.5, he makes this point with regard to three different
types of change, and he begins the argument with the following claim: "although that which
is changeable supplies them, when it changes, with some real ground for supposing that it 'is
not,' yet there is something debatable in this; for that which is shedding any quality retains
something of that which is being shed, and something of that which is coming to be must
already exist" (1010al5-19). Here, Aristode has the arguments of Physics I in mind, where
he claims that whenever there is qualitative change, e.g. non-musical to musical, there must
be something that is the subject of the change (Ph. 190a33-37).
While things become a bit more difficult for Aristode in trying to apply this model to
substantial change or change simpliciter, he nevertheless argues that there must also be
something that underlies and persists through instances of the generation and corruption of
substances. In Metaphysics IV.5, the claim is that "if a thing is ceasing to be, there will be
something there which is; and if a thing is coming to be, that from which it comes and by
which it is generated must be; and this cannot go on to infinity" (Met. 1010al9-22). 86 Things
are a bit more difficult for Aristode because in instances of substantial change, one is left
wondering what this underlying thing is supposed to be. Whereas it is quite clear that a
substance like man exists and persists through the change from unmusical to musical, in
cases of substantial change Aristode does not have the luxury of appealing to an additional
substance that underlies the change. In Physics I, he suggests that we can know this
underlying nature by analogy: "For as the bronze is to the statue, w o o d to the bed, and the
matter and the formless before receiving form to any thing which has form, so is the
underlying nature to the substance, i.e. the 'this' or existent" (Ph. 91a8-12). 87 Although some
85
The Greek reads: TO |J8V U£Taj3dAAov OTE pETa(3dAAEi EXEi Tivd auToTg aAr|0fj Aoyov pr| oieoSai
elvai, KCUTOI I o n ys d|j(t)iaPr]Tr|ot|jov. TO TS yap aTro(3dAAov EXEI TI TOU diTo(3aAAo|jEvou, Kai TOU
yiyvouevou fj5r| dvdyKn TI EIVCU.
86
The Greek reads: oAcoc TE si <|)0EipTai, uTrdpÊi TI ov. Kai ei yiyvETOti, E£ OU yiyvETca Kai u<}>' ou
ysvvaTCU avayKaiov ETVOI, Kai TOUTO u.r| ilvai sic diTsipov.
87
Trans. Hardie and Gaye. The Greek reads: coc y d p rrpog dvSpidvTO xaAxoc fj TTpOC KAivr)V £uAov f]
Ttpoc TCSV dAAcov TI TCOV 'EXOUTCOV uop4>r|u f| uArj Kai TO dpopôv EXEI TTpiv AO(3E7V TT|V Mop<j>rjv,
OUTCOC auTt| Ttpoc ouai'av EXEI Kai TO TO5E TI Kai TO 6V.
149
commentators have held that Aristotle is referring here to his problematic concept of prime
matter, more recent commentators have argued that this is not the case.88
In any event, the upshot of Aristotle's model for change, both in terms of predicative
(qualified) and substantial (simpliciter) change, is that there are always three principles
involved, two contraries—qualities such as hot and cold in cases of qualified change and
form and privation in cases of change simpliciter—and a substratum that persists
throughout, and he uses this model to refute the Heraclitean-Cratylean position in matters of
quantitative change as well. Although he grants that nothing remains constant with respect
to quantity, there is nevertheless the. form by which we recognize everything (Met. 1010a24-
25). Thus, Aristotle will admit that a river, for instance, is always changing with respect to its
quantity, but there is nevertheless something, namely the form, that preserves the kind of
thing that it is and allows us to come to know it even amid the constant flux.
In my mind, Aristotle's line of argumentation here is important not only because it
places him in direct opposition to Nietzsche, but also because it allows us to make some
inferences about the position that he is trying to attack. Specifically, given that Aristotle
argues against the Heraclitean-Cratylean view by contending that there is an unchangeable
substrate involved in each instance of change, we can infer that the Heraclitean-Cratylean
model described here is one that tries to explain change without reference to some
underlying thing that exists and persists through the change. Although it is far from clear, I
would suggest that this is the meaning of Aristotle's claim that it makes some sense to say
that things "are not" when they are in the process of changing (1010al7). On this reading,
the Heraclitean-Cratylean view states that change goes all the way down, such that there is
88
See Gill (1991, 98f£).
150
not anything that is not changing with respect to itself at any moment in time such that it
could be said to truly be. Although this reading might seem to cut against Aristotle's earlier
claim in Metaphysics I that Heraclitus is committed to the view that fire is the underlying
substratum (984a8), we must not forget that fire itself is best explained in terms of motion.
Evidence for such a view can be found not only in Metaphysics I (984b7), but also in Plato's
Theaetetus, a work always hovering in the background of Aristode's analysis in Metaphysics IV,
where we are told there that heat and fire are ultimately products of movement (phora) and
friction (tripsis) and that movement and friction are themselves types of motion (kinesis) (Tht.
153a).
Because the Theaetetus provides us with a fuller account of Heraclitean becoming and
does so in a way that parallels my own analysis of becoming in Nietzsche's own philosophy,
I will refrain from saying anything more about the Heraclitean(-Cratylean) theory of change
at this point. Instead, I will simply emphasize that there is reason for thinking that the view
Aristotle ultimately attributes to both Heraclitus and Cratylus is one that does away with
independendy existing things and therefore cannot be analyzed in terms of a subject-
property ontology. So construed, the Heraclitean-Cratylean position in Metaphysics IV
dovetails not only with Nietzsche's own analysis of change, but also with the position that
Aristotle ultimately attributes to Protagoras at the end of both Metaphysics IV.5 and IV.6,
where substratums and things-in-themselves are rejected and everything is explained in terms
of relations. If this is correct, then Aristotle's analysis indicates that the Protagorean and
Heraclitean-Cratylean positions are not only united by what I have called by their
commitment to a strict empiricism and an ontological naturalism, but also by their denial of
anything that exists in and for itself.

151
2.9. Aristotle's Critique of Protagoras on Perception
Aristotle dedicates the remainder of Metaphysics IV.5 and then Metaphysics IV.6 to
undermining the Protagorean theory that leads to the denial of PNC-ontological, and his
general strategy is to show that the Protagorean commitment to empiricism and ontological
naturalism ultimately leads not only to the denial of things themselves, but also to the view
that everything exists only in relation to something else. In Metaphysics IV.5, Aristode attacks
the Protagorean denial of any distinction between perception and thinking, broadly
construed to include phantasia, by implicitly arguing that thinking is not a form of material
alteration (aikiosis), and he concludes the section with a short argument as to why there must
be more than mere perceptions and perceptual qualities, as the Protagorean thesis seems to
hold. In Metaphysics IV.6, Aristotle shows how someone of the Protagorean persuasion can
avoid violating PNC-ontological by making everything relative, but he also argues that this
comes at the cost of making everything dependent on perception and opinion and results in
the dissolution of the unity of the judging subject.
To recall, Aristotle tells us in his diagnosis of the pre-Socratic denial of PNC-
ontological at the beginning of Metaphysics IV.5 that the reason why his predecessors held the
view that every perception must be true—a position which, in light of conflicting
perceptions, led to the denial of PNC-ontological—is that they believed that both thinking
and perception were forms of material alteration (alloiosis) (1009M2-15). As Metaphysics IV.5
unfolds, Aristotle returns to the theme in mounting his attack on the Protagorean position
that all appearances are true by distinguishing between phantasia and aisthesis (1010bl-3).89 As
89
The Greek reads: rrsp\ 5E TT\Q aAnSst'ac, coc ou irav TO 4>atvousvov aXr|9s<;, TrpcoTOv uiv OTI OU 5rj r|
aio8r|aic ^6U5ric TOU ye tSiou EOTIV, aXA' r| cjjavTaaia ou TCJUTOV xfj cuaBrjasi.
152
we have noted above, Lee has convincingly argued that the reason why Aristotle emphasizes
the distinction in this context is that it makes falsehood possible. Although Lee has rightly
argued that Aristotle's alternative model allows for falsehood because it makes thinking into
something active rather than something passive like perception, I want to argue here that
Aristotie's attempt to distinguish between the activity of thinking and the passivity of
perception goes hand in hand with his argument that thinking is something that cannot be
wholly explained in terms of material change. By construing the argument in this way, we
will see the way in which Aristotle rejects the Protagorean thesis that all appearances are true
by attacking what I have called his ontological naturalism, which, in this case, is applied to
issues concerning the nature of the thinking mind.
Admittedly the claim that I am putting forth here has its roots in Plato's final
refutation of the Heraclitean-Protagorean position in the Theaetetus. As we will see in chapter
four, Plato appeals to a unified soul that functions independently of the senses to reject
Theaetetus' claim that knowledge is perception and the Heraclitean-Protagorean view that
everything exists and is what it is only in relation to something else. Although Aristotle does
not, in Metaphysics IV.5, speak of a soul that functions itself through itself, I think there is
good reason for approaching his argument with Plato's general framework in mind and
trying to explain the distinction between thinking and perception in terms of a distinction
between non-material and material types of change. This latter distinction is, in my mind,
made explicit when Aristotle attacks his pre-Socratic opponents for believing that thinking,
like perception, is a form of material alteration (alloiosis) (1009M3). In DeAnima III.3, he
puts forth a similar argument, contending that pre-Socratics like Empedocles and Homer
failed to explain error because they all looked "upon thinking as a bodily process like
153
perceiving, and [held] that like is understood as well as perceived by like" (DA 427a25-27).90
Aristotle refers here to his previous analysis of the like-by-like theory of perception in De
Anima 1.5, where he attacks Empedocles' view that the soul is composed of the elements
(409b24). In Metaphysics IV.5, Aristode lists Empedocles first among the thinkers who saw
thinking as a form of sense-perception, as he held the view that changes in one's condition
(hexis) result in changes in one's thought (Met. 1009bl7-18), and Aristotle cites another
passage from Empedocles that makes even more explicit his naturalist commitments: "And
as they change into a different nature, so it ever comes to them to think differendy"
(1009M8-19).91 According to Aristotle, Parmenides held a similar view: "for each and every
man the substance of his limbs is that very thing which thinks" (1009b24).92
Whereas the evidence that the aforementioned pre-Socratics held the view that
thinking was something bodily and a form of material alteration is found in Aristode's
diagnosis of why they denied PNC, his critique of the conflation of thinking and perceiving
is found in the latter half of Metaphysics IV.5. Important for our purposes is the fact that
Aristotle first articulates the distinction in terms of thinking (phronesis) and perception
(aisthesis) in his diagnosis (1009M2-13), but then redraws the distinction as one between
phantasia and perception in his criticism of the position (1010b3). This move not only
suggests that phronesis should be interpreted broadly enough so as to Include, phantasia, but it
also points, again, to Aristode's discussion in DeAnima III.3, where he launches into a
discussion of phantasia in his attempt to explain falsehood.
90
Trans. Smith. The Greek reads: TTCXVTEC yap OUTOI TO VOETV acopaTiKov coaTrep TO aia9aveo8ai
UTToAauPdvouaiv.
91
The Greek reads: Ttpoc TTapsov yap ufiTic svauÊTat dvSpcoTTOiaiu.
92
The Greek reads: TO ydp auTo EOTIV OTTEP (jjpouEEi, UEAECOU <f>uatc dvSpcoTTotaiv, xai TTCXOIV xai
rravTi.
154
Much has been written on Aristotle's notion ofphantasia, and it is not my intention
to enter into these debates here.93 However, I do want to push for a reading of the notion
that highlights the way in which it should be construed not only as an activity of the soul, but
also as something whose operation does not have a corresponding physiological process.
Initially this latter claim might sound a bit striking for two reasons. First, there has been
much debate about whether perception is a form of material alteration (a/Ioiosis).94 However,
if we are correct in holding that Aristotle, in contrast to his predecessors, wants to
distinguish perception from thinking on the grounds that one is a form of material alteration
and the other is not, he must hold that perception is a type of material alteration because he
holds that thinking is not.95 Second, one might object to the claim that phantasia is not a
form of material alteration on the grounds that Aristode explicitly states fast phantasia is a
movement resulting from the exercise of the power of perception (DA 429a2) and that it
cannot function without perception (427bl5). Because we have just stated that perception is
a type of material alteration, it seems that we must also hold that phantasia is a type of
material alteration as well. However, just because phantasia depends on something that is a
type of material alteration, i.e. perception, it does not follow that phantasia is itself a type of
material alteration. Thus we can say that although phantasia depends on perception and
therefore material alteration insofar as it uses the data it receives from perception, it is
nevertheless distinct from perception, and one of the crucial ways in which it is distinct from
perception is that it is not a form of material alteration. If it were a form of material
93
See Watson (1982), Frede (1992), Caston (1996), Sisko (1996), Ferrarin (2006).
94
See Sorabji (1974), Nussbaum and Putnam (1992), Burnyeat (1992,1995), Everson (1997).
95
Here, however, I would argue that this does not necessarily mean that the eye itself must become red when it
sees red. Instead, it simply means that the eye must undergo some material alteration when it is seeing, whatever
that material alteration may be.
155
alteration, it would be passive and dependent upon external objects like perception and
therefore could not go wrong to the degree that it does.96 As Lee's analysis shows, thinking
of phantasia as largely infallible would be a problem for Aristode because one of the primary
reasons why he turns to phantasia in De Anima III.3 and in Metaphysics IV.5 is to explain how
error is possible.97
Although he wants to distinguish between phantasia and judgment (doxa), Aristode's
specific identification of phantasia as at least one significant source of error certainly parallels
Plato's own attempt to explain error via judgment in the Theaetetus, and although Aristode is
far from explicit on this point in Metaphysics IV.5, we can say that phantasia, like judgment, is
one of the activities of the soul that is not, like perception, determined by material
conditions. Of course, if we are right in saying that phantasia is an activity of the soul and is
therefore like Plato's notion of judging in this respect, then Aristotle is implicidy appealing
to something that exists over and above the immediate realm of sense experience, insofar as
we assume that what is not material is not sensible. While the soul, as the form of the body,
cannot exist without the body on Aristotle's account—excluding the possible exception of
the active intellect in De Anima III.5—, it is nevertheless something more than the body and
the material changes of the body, and therefore Aristode's appeal to an activity of the soul
implicitly points beyond the realm of material change. So construed, Aristode's argument
against the pre-Socratic conflation of thinking and perceiving simply continues the strategy
employed against the Heraclitean position insofar as he is, in both instances, attacking the
96
Here, I would like to say that it would not go wrong at all, but Aristode does allow that certain types of
perceptions, namely perceptions of common and incidental objects, can be erroneous (DA 428bl9-25).
97
SeeCaston(1996).
156
confused mental outlook that led to the denial of PNC-ontological, namely what I have
called strict empiricism and an ontological naturalism.
Admittedly, Aristotle devotes much his refutation of the Protagorean claim that all
appearances are true not to establishing and clarifying the distinction between thinking and
perceiving, but rather to the detailing the kinds of appearances that can be false once we
have established the possibility of falsehood via the aforementioned distinction (Met.
1010b3-26). Once the possibility of falsehood is introduced, Aristotle thinks that the claim
that all appearances are true will ultimately fall to commonsense reasoning about which of
the two appearances is correct. The basic idea is that although we might raise some puzzles
about conflicting appearances, no one, in the end, takes seriously the claim that the
perceptions of a sick or a madman should be given equal consideration to those of a healthy
and sane person (1010b3-8). Similarly, we do not have too much trouble distinguishing
between dreams and reality. Thus, if we were to dream that we are in Athens but are really
in Libya, we would not actually set out for the Odeum in Athens on the basis of our dream
(1010b8-ll). Drawing on arguments in the Theaetetus, Aristode also contends that no one
believes that all opinions about the future are equally true, but rather that we seek out
experts in each respective field for the most reliable opinion on a specific issue (lOlObll-
14). Moreover, we also do not grant equal weight to all the reports of the senses. Thus, if
the senses provide conflicting reports about the color of something, we ultimately believe
that sight is the sense that has the authority to judge in such matters (1010bl4-17). In
singling out each sense as being authoritative with respect to its proper objects, e.g. sight is
authoritative about colors, hearing about sounds, etc., potential conflict and contradiction is
overcome because no sense ever provides conflicting reports at the same time (1010M8-19).
157
In fact, Aristotle contends that although our senses might offer conflicting reports about a
particular thing being sweet or not sweet over time, the senses never report the quality sweet
as being anything other than sweet. Thus, although the wine might not be essentially and
necessarily sweet, sweetness is (1010M9-26). This, of course, amounts to a rejection of the
strong denial of PNC-ontological and the related denial of essence because if something
such as sweet is necessarily what it is, namely sweet, then it cannot both be so and not so
(1010b26-30).
In the concluding part of Metaphysics TV.5 (1010b30-1011a2), Aristotle directiy attacks
what I, following Wedin and Lee, have identified as the generally confused mental outlook
that led to the denial of PNC-ontological, namely empiricism and ontological naturalism, and
he does so, in a manner that parallels his critique of the Heraclitean-Cratylean view of
change, by insisting that there must be some substratum (hupokeimenon) that exists
independendy of the perceived quality. In the passage, the claim under criticism is specified
as the view that only things that are perceived exist (esti to aistheton motion) (1010b30), and
Aristode argues that on this view, nothing would exist if animated things did not exist (me
onton ton empsuchon) (1010b31). This is because without animated things, there would be no
perception, and without perception, there would be no perceptible things.98 Here he admits
that this may very well be true with respect to perceptions and even perceived qualities, but
argues that it is impossible that the substrate causing the perception should not exist apart
from the perception. This is because perception is not something that exists or even occurs
on account of itself, and therefore it requires some additional factor prior to the perception.
98
Cf. Lee (2005, 177ff.) for a more nuanced reading of the passage.
158
This, according to Aristotle, is true, even if things are said to be reciprocally related to each
other.
Important for our purposes is the fact that Aristotle's argument indicates that the
position against which he is arguing denies the existence of a substratum altogether. Just as
we have seen him argue that there is some substratum that exists and persists through
change and that there is some perceiving soul that is at least partially distinct from material
alteration, Aristotle now contends that there must be some underlying thing that exists
independently of and even causes a given perception. In suggesting that Aristotle is arguing
against a position that ultimately denies any sort of substratum, we might begin wondering
what sort of positive position this could be. Although idealism might suggest itself to
modern readers in this context, where perceptible qualities are held to be dependent on an
independently existing mind, such a view would not only be anachronistic, but also hard to
square with Aristode's attack on pre-Socratic materialism with respect to mind. Instead,
what Aristotle's argument suggests, at least at this juncture, is that the pre-Socratic
commitment to the existence of only what is immediately sensible results in the view that
nothing exists in and of itself, but only in relation to something else. On this model, it is not
only the case that perceptual qualities only exist insofar as they are perceived, but also that
thinking and perceiving, understood here as material alteration (alloiosis), only exist insofar as
there is thinking and perceiving. Support for such a view can not only be found in the
Theaetetus, but also in a passage from Metaphysics IX, where Aristotle associates the
Protagorean position with the view that neither the perceptive faculty nor the perceptual
quality exists independently of perceiving and being perceived, respectively (1047a4-10).

159
If this account is correct, then we should not be surprised to find Aristotle, in
Metaphysics IV.6, concluding his criticism of the Protagorean position with an analysis of the
view that everything only exists in relation to something else, one that denies that there are
things that exist in and for themselves (1011al7-18). The section begins with Aristotle
raising some additional worries about which perceiver will function as a standard or criterion
in matters of conflicting appearances, and here again Aristode mentions two types of
interlocutors: those who really hold these views and those who hold them for the sake of
argument. Those who really believe that we cannot determine whose appearances are more
authoritative than others can be dealt with because their actions show that they do not in
fact believe such claims. Those who hold these views for the sake of argument can be dealt
with by reminding them that there cannot be a demonstration for everything (1011a8-13)
and that what they are demanding is impossible, namely to get them to contradict themselves
in argument when they assert the right to contradict themselves from the very beginning
(1011al5-16).
Leaving those who assert the right to contradict themselves behind, Aristotle turns
to an interlocutor who wants to both avoid contradictions and hold that all appearances are
true. In order for the interlocutor to maintain this position, he must first reject the view that
things exist in and for themselves. This is because he can hold the view that all appearances
are true without contradicting himself only by holding that all things exist only in relation to
something else. Since the view that all things exist only in relation to something else is
incompatible with the view that some things exists in and for themselves, the latter view
must be rejected in order to preserve the former and therewith the thesis that all appearances
are true.
160
At first glance, the strategy that Aristotle grants to his o p p o n e n t to make it possible
to hold the thesis that all appearances are true without contradiction seems to be one of
truth relativity. That is, the Protagorean will have to contend that there are no truths that are
true for everyone, but rather only true for some person or another at a particular time and in
a particular way. This, however, is not exacdy the position that Aristode describes in the
following passage:
If not all things are relative, but some are (whatever they are) in themselves, not
everything that appears will be true; for that which appears is apparent to someone;
so that he who says all things that appear are true, makes all things relative. And,
therefore those who ask for an irresistible argument, and at the same time are willing
to take a stand in argument, must guard themselves by saying that the truth is not
that what appears is the case, but that what appears is the case for him to whom it
appears, and when, and to the sense to which, and under the conditions under
which it appears. And if they give an account of their view, but do not give it in this
way, they will soon find themselves contradicting themselves. (101 lal7-25)"
In this passage, it is states of affairs, not truth values, that are being relativized, where each
state of affair exists only in relation to some perceiver at some time and for some particular
sense. Thus, although it might seem that two perceivers are perceiving one and the same
wine or even one perceiver is perceiving the same wine over time or even one perceiver is
perceiving the same wine by means of taste and sight, in each case we are confronted with a
numerically distinct appearance that is peculiar to the particular perception. Since each
appearance is relative to each perceiver in this way and no sense of a particular perceiver at a
99
Trans, taken from Lee (2005, 61). The Greek reads: El 51 UT| EOTI Ttdvxa Ttpoc TI, dAA' EVid EOTi Kai
auTa Ka9' auTa, OUK dv £tr| aTtav TO tjjatvousvov dAnBec. TO ydp (t>aiv6usvov TIVI EOTI cj>aiv6uEvov.
COOTE 6 AEYCOV aTtavTa TO <t>cuv6uEva EIVOU aAtiSfj diravTa TTOIE! TO 6VTO npoc TI. SIO Kai
(JHJACXKTEOV TOIC Tr|v piav EV TCO Aoyco ^TITOUOIU, dua 5E Kai GTTSXEIV AOYOV dîouatv, OTI OU TO
<t>atvou£vov EOTIV dAAd TO <t>aiv6u£vov op <|>aivETat Kai OTE ctiaiVETai Kai f\ Kai coc. dv 5' UTtEXoucn
LEV Aoyov, ur| OUTGO 5' UTTEXCOOI, ouufJnoETat auToTc TavavTia Tax<J AEYEIV.
161
particular time will ever report contradictory properties, contradiction can be avoided insofar
as each appearance is qualified in the appropriate way. O n this view, when I claim that the
wind is cold, I must say that this wind is cold for m e at a particular time for a particular sense
and in a particular way. Thus, when you declare that the wind is warm, you must qualify
your statement in a similar way. In qualifying each statement in this manner, there is n o
contradiction because the two statements are referring to two distinct winds. Similarly, if the
wine tastes sweet to me n o w but bitter to me later, there is n o contradiction because, again, I
am technically talking about a different wine, as there is, on this view, n o such thing as a
wine that exists independendy of each particular perception. Furthermore, if an object that
appears to be one according to sight appears to be two to my sense of touch when I have my
fingers crossed, there will again be n o contradiction because I am not, strictly speaking,
perceiving the same object or set of objects. Instead, there will be one object that is relative
to my sense of sight and another object that appears relative t o my sense of touch, and again,
any violation of PNC-ontological or even PNC-logical(A) will be avoided.
According to Aristode, there is a heavy price to pay for rejecting the view that things
exist in themselves in favor of the view that everything only exists in relation to something
else. O n the side of objects, it leads to a conclusion that is very much in line with the quasi-
idealism found at the end of Metaphysics IV.5, namely that everything that happens will be
dependent on sensation and opinion, such that nothing will happen unless someone forms
an opinion about it (101 lb4-8). 100 O n the side of the subject, Aristotle presents a terse
argument as to why making everything relative undermines the unity of the judging subject
100
The Greek reads: avdyKT) Ttpoc TI TTOIE'IV OTrauxa KCU Ttpoc 5o£av Kai aio0r|Oiv, coax' OUTS
yeyovev OUT' EOTCU OU9EV nr|0Ev6e TtpoSo^doavToc. si 5s ylyovEv fj EOTOU, SfjAov OTI OUK av E'ITI
cmavTa irpoQ 5o£av.
162
(1011b7-12).101 Although the argument is difficult to unpack, Aristotle seems to be claiming
that if we make all things relative to a judging subject, then we must make the judging
subject, qua embodied human being, into an object of judgment and therefore relative to a
judging subject, and relative not just to one judging subject, but rather to an infinite number
of specifically different judging subjects. However, if we do this, the unity of the thinking
subject will be destroyed. This is because the argument begins with the premise that if a
thing is one, then that thing can stand only in relation to something that is one (hen) or
definite (horismenon), but not to an infinite number (apeird) of specifically different things.
However, we have just shown that if all things are relative, then the judging subject will stand
in relation to an infinite number of specifically different things. As a result, the judging
subject cannot be a unity. Thus, the interlocutor is left with a choice. He can abandon
either the claim that the thinking subject is a unity or the claim that all things are relative.
Although nothing is explicit, we can surmise that Aristotle, very much in line with
Plato's refutation of the Heraclitean-Protagorean position in the Theaetetus, has designed this
argument to provide a good reason for rejecting the belief that all things only exist in relation
to something else. If nothing exists in and for itself, then this includes the judging subject,
and if the judging subject is relative to what it perceives, then the unity of the judging subject
must be abandoned. Because Aristotle seems to think that this conclusion is enough to
reject the view, he does not provide any arguments as to why we must believe that the
judging subject is a unified something. However, the value of Aristode's analysis here, at
least for our purposes, lies not so much in the fact that he provides us with knockdown
arguments against such views, but rather in the fact that he details the way in which the strict
101
For alternative readings of this argument, see Kirwan (1971, 115f.) and Lee (2005, 70f.).
163
empiricism and ontological naturalism of pre-Socratic thinkers points toward or even
culminates in a view that does away with independently existing objects and subjects and
makes everything stand in relation to something else. As I will argue in my analysis of the
Theaetetus in chapter four, this is precisely the doctrine that binds the Heraclitean-
Protagorean position together, and as I am arguing in my chapters dealing with Nietzsche's
own philosophy, this is the doctrine that he subtly places at the beginning of HH and BGE
when he raises the question of how something can come from its opposite.
2.10. Concluding Remarks
Before concluding this chapter, it might do us well to take stock of the terrain we
have just covered and link our analysis of Aristotle's defense to our larger argument about
Nietzsche's philosophical project. This is because our discussions of the distinction between
thought and perception and the view that everything exists only in relation to something else
seem to have taken us a long way from our initial concerns about violations of the principle
of non-contradiction. This, of course, is something that would be especially true if we were
to think of PNC as a logical principle. As I have argued, however, Aristotle's defense of
PNC is first and foremost a defense of PNC as an ontological principle, and as such, he is
defending the view that the world is structured in such a way that it corresponds to the basic
structures of thought and even language. Although Aristotle does imagine an interlocutor
who might reject PNC-ontological for the sake of argument, he nevertheless directs the
latter half of his defense against pre-Socratic thinkers who were motivated by their theories
of perception and change to deny that there are things that exist in and of themselves and
therewith the view that, to use the language of Parmenides, there is an identity or
correspondence between thinking and being. As we have seen, what led them to develop
164
such theories was their prior commitment to what I have called strict empiricism and
ontological naturalism. As we have also seen, Aristode attacks their views by rejecting such
commitments. In this sense, Aristode can be understood as a follower of Nietzsche's
Parmenides. Strict empiricism leads to a world that somehow violates PNC-ontological, and
if we want to overcome these results, we must look to something that transcends the
sensible world, either in the form of beings with stable and essential natures or in the form
of a non-material thinking subject.
At the same time, we need to note two potential differences between Aristode and
Nietzsche's Parmenides. The first is that we have just seen how Aristotle thinks that
someone like Protagoras can avoid contradictions by making everything relative. If we are
correct in understanding Nietzsche's doctrine of UO as the view that everything only exists
and is what it is in relation to something else, then Aristotle's final remarks suggest that UO,
so construed, not only does not violate our understanding of PNC, but also the ontological
version of PNC that Aristode is defending in Metaphysics IV. The second point is that
Aristode does not accept the view that the senses reveal a contradictory world and then use
this fact to motivate the rationalist's leap into a non-sensible world of pure being. Instead,
Aristode simply shows that strict empiricism must be supplemented by thinking subjects and
beings that exist in and for themselves in order to make sense of world that reveals itself to
the senses. Indeed, based on the arguments of Metaphysics IV, we could say that Aristode
rejects the philosophies of Heraclitus and Protagoras not because they were empiricists and
ontological naturalists per se, but rather because they failed to see the need to supplement
their study of the sensible world with a study of being qua being.
165
In the next chapter, we will turn to Human, All Too Human, and what we will see is
not only the way in which Nietzsche begins the text by raising the pre-Socratic question of
how something can come from its opposite, but also how he answers this question in a way
that is designed to purge philosophy of entities that exist and are what they in and for
themselves. Specifically, he will appeal to a form of Heraclitus' unity of opposites thesis to
construe nature in terms of forces that are existentially and essentially united with their
opposites, and, as I have argued in the last chapter, such an ontology will go hand in hand
with his doctrine of becoming. In so doing, Nietzsche will not only do away with the
underlying substratum of Aristotle's physics, but also the atom found in Democritus'
philosophy and the mechanistic science of early modern philosophy. In making this move,
Nietzsche will not present himself as rejecting modern science as such, but rather as carrying
modern science to what he thinks is its rightful conclusion. That is, Nietzsche will contend
that once scientists liberate themselves from illegitimate metaphysical suppositions, they will
see the world in terms of relations between dynamic forces. It is here that the philosophy of
Heraclitus will undergo a rebirth and the guiding principle of rationalist metaphysics will be
denied, namely that there is an identity or correspondence between thinking and being.
CHAPTER T H R E E
Science, B e c o m i n g , and T h e Unity of O p p o s i t e s
in Human, All Too Human
Those who really feel the difficulties have been led

to this opinion by observation of the sensible
world. They think that contradictions or
contraries are true at the same time, because they
see contraries coming into existence out of the
same thing. If, then, that which is not cannot
come to be, the thing must have existed before as
both contraries alike. (Aristode, Met. 1009a22-26)1
3.1. Introduction
In out analysis of Nietzsche's interpretation of pre-Socratic philosophy in chapter
one, we argued that Nietzsche identified two related doctrines at the heart of Heraclitus'
philosophy, namely becoming and the unity of opposites (UO). In so doing, we not only
showed how such doctrines might relate, but also indicated that these doctrines run the risk
of violating the principle of non-contradiction (PNC). Indeed, we saw the way in which
Parmenides rejected these doctrines and the sensible world that they purported to describe
precisely because they violated the laws of thought. At the same time, we discussed the way
in which Nietzsche defended these Heraclitean principles against Parmenides' attacks by
calling into question Parmenides' fundamental assumption, namely that there is an identity
or correspondence between the way we think and the way world really is.
In chapter two, we turned to Aristotle's defense of P N C not only because he follows
Nietzsche's Parmenides in interpreting Heraclitus as having violated the principle, but also
1
Trans. Ross. The Greek reads: eXrjAu0E 5E TOTC SiaTTopouoiv ctuTn r| 5o£a EK TCOV cuaSnTcov, r| UEV xou
aua TCW avxiâoEic KCU xdvavTia unapxEiv opcoaiv EK TCXUTOU yiyvouEva TavccvTia. si ouv ur|
EVSEXETOU yt'yvEo0ai TO ur| 6v, TrpoumipXEV OMoicoc TO irpdyna du<j)co 6v.
because there is reason for thinking that Aristotle's defense can be read as an attempt to
articulate reasons for accepting the aforementioned Parmenidean supposition. In so doing,
we gained a number of insights that will be helpful for the interpretation of Nietzsche's
more mature philosophy that we will begin to develop in this chapter. The first is that
Nietzsche's Heraclitean commitments and his related quarrel with Aristotle over the status
of PNC is not about the value or justification of logical consistency, but rather about
whether the world conforms to the fundamental categories of thought. Whereas Aristotle's
defense of PNC as an ontological principle goes hand in hand with his belief in self-identical
things that conform to the structure of language and thought, Nietzsche's rejection of the
principle goes hand in hand with his attempt to revive Heraclitean becoming and an
ontology that conforms to UO. Moreover, in detailing Aristotle's argument we not only saw
how beliefs such as the co-presence of opposites were bound up with a view of change that
does away with underlying things that persist through time and a theory of perception that
does away with unified perceiving subjects and things that cause perceptions, but we also
traced such views to what Aristotle took to be an erroneous "mental outlook" of the pre-
Socratics, namely what I have called strict empiricism and ontological naturalism. In this
way, we said that Aristode's defense of PNC follows the Parmenidean strategy insofar as it
rejects this mental outlook on the grounds that it leads to the untenable and unpalatable pre-
Socratic positions outlined in Metaphysics IV.
It is with the background of Nietzsche's interpretation of Heraclitean becoming and
the doctrine of UO in PTA and Aristode's analysis of the pre-Socratic denial of PNC-
ontological in Metaphysics IV that I now turn to Nietzsche's 1878 work, Human, All Too
Human (HH). In so doing, we will quickly see the relevance of our previous efforts. Not
168
only does Nietzsche begin the work with the declaration that "almost all the problems of
philosophy once again pose the same form of question as they did two thousand years ago,"
but he also raises the question that Aristotle identified as an important centerpiece of pre-
Socratic philosophizing: "how can something originate in its opposite?" The importance of
our interpretation of PTA becomes evident once we examine the two alternative responses
that Nietzsche identifies to this guiding question. Specifically, it is PTA, along with
Nietzsche's 1888 re-working of HH 1, that enables us to associate the metaphysical
philosophy of HH 1 with Parmenides' doctrine of being and the historical philosophy
mentioned in the section with Heraclitus' doctrine of becoming. As a result, when
Nietzsche turns to historical philosophizing in the opening stages of HH, he will be
committing himself to the doctrine of becoming and the related doctrine of UO that he first
articulated in PTA.
As I develop my interpretation of the first chapter of HH, I will argue that Nietzsche
commits himself not only to the doctrines of becoming and UO through the historical
philosopher's denial of absolute opposites, but also to a number of other philosophical
positions that follow from this ontology, positions that resemble the negative consequences
that Aristotle derives from the denial of PNC-ontological. In particular, I will focus my
attention on two facets of Nietzsche's treatment of "the first and last things" in HH. First, I
will contend that just as Aristotle's defense of PNC forced the interlocutor to join Cratylus
in refraining from significant speech, Nietzsche's commitment to the flux doctrine
underwrites a version of what is known as the falsification thesis, which I define as the view
that language and logic seduce us into adopting false beliefs about the way the world really is.
Also found in Aristotle's analysis is the view that the denial of PNC not only leads to a
169
certain kind of skepticism, but also makes it impossible to act in everyday life. In my reading
of HH, I will show how the doctrine of becoming has, for Nietzsche, what I will call tragic
consequences for both philosophy and life. With regard to philosophy, we will see the way
in which becoming underwrites the view that we cannot grasp through reason the
fundamental stuffs of reality. With regard to life, we learn that we can only live by means of
falsifying becoming through what Nietzsche calls unjust judgments. As a result, Nietzsche's
turn to becoming is tragic not only for philosophy, in that it undermines our quest for
knowledge, but also for life, in that we cannot inhabit the world without engaging in the
process of falsification. This, then, is the reason why Nietzsche's doctrine of becoming
forms the basis for his tragic philosophy and why it is, as the end of the first chapter of HH
makes clear, a potential source of despair (J/er^weifelun^) (HH 31, 33, and 34).
In terms of Nietzsche's larger oeuvre, there are two reasons for wanting to highlight
the way in which becoming underwrites the tragic tension between truth and life in HH.
The first is that HH is often read as a break with Nietzsche's earlier writings and an outright
rejection of his youthful hopes for a rebirth of tragedy and tragic culture.3 Developing the
claims put forth in the introduction, we can say here that HH follows BT and HL in
maintaining Nietzsche's view that the truth is somehow "deadly" (HL 9). As we will see,
Nietzsche concludes the first chapter of H H with precisely this point, as he wonders
whether his philosophy will quickly morph into a tragedy (HH 34). Here, the reference to
tragedy is suggestive because I read Zarathustra as Nietzsche's own tragedy, and given that
2
On the relationship between despair and nihilism, see Reginster (2006, 28ff. and 54ff.).
3
For instance, Julian Young (1992, 59) claims that "Human, All-too-human marks, it is clear, a tremendous
departure from the world of The Birth of Tragedy." However, it should be said in Young's defense that his claim
results from his underestimation of the role of science in BT, not from a misreading of HH. Indeed, I will
follow Young (1992, 62f.) in connecting the presence of Heraclitean becoming in HH with Nietzsche's general
interest in the natural sciences and, in particular, Boscovich.
170
HH is the first in a series of works called the free spirit that conclude with the final aphorism
of the 1882 edition of GS, where Zarathustra is introduced under the title of "incipit
tragoedia" (GS 342), there is reason to think that the tragic philosophy of HH bears some
significant connection to Nietzsche's tragic art in Zarathustra.
The other reason for highlighting the tragic tension between life and truth in H H is
that it helps explain the relationship between HH and BGE. While both begin with the
question of how something can come from its opposite, these two works are significantly
different, and their differences can be understood in terms of the relative value placed on life
and truth in each work. In HH, Nietzsche portrays himself as a scientifically-minded thinker
committed to the ideals of the Enlightenment project. That is, the Nietzsche of HH is
committed to what I have called the morality of truth and science, one that requires him to
expunge his subjectivity, will, and life for the sake of grasping nature as it is, in itself. In
BGE, Nietzsche turns the morality of truth and science on its head. That is, he no longer
seeks to discover a de-anthropomorphized conception of nature and to know the world as it
is in itself. Instead, his new goal is to translate man back into nature, where the life, will, and
subjectivity of the knower are no longer seen as obstacles in the quest for knowledge, but
rather as a necessary means to creating a "life-world" that is ultimately intelligible to a
knowing subject that is also an interpretive construct.
One upshot of this reading is that while Nietzsche eventually abandons the view that
falsifying or anthropomorphizing nature is something we ought to avoid, he never abandons
the falsification thesis itself. Although the philosopher of the future will be free to engage in
the task of "creating the world," Nietzsche nevertheless sees this creative task as a falsifying
process. It is on this point, therefore, that my interpretation differs from the one presented
171
by Maudemarie Clark. This is because Clark holds that the falsification thesis is rooted in
Nietzsche's initial belief in a metaphysical world of things-in-themselves, and although
Nietzsche was committed to things-in-themselves in his earlier works, he abandoned things-
in-themselves in the later works and eventually the falsification thesis. In contrast to Clark, I
will argue that Nietzsche's falsification thesis is rooted in his commitment to a scientifically
grounded conception of becoming, and since Nietzsche remains committed to becoming
from PTA (1873) to TI (1888), he never abandons the falsification thesis.
I begin this chapter with a discussion of Clark's reading of the falsification thesis and
I will do so because HH is the work in which Nietzsche not only establishes a clear
connection between the falsification thesis and becoming, but also where he articulates
becoming in the language of the natural sciences. If it is the case that Nietzsche's
commitment to the natural sciences leads him to adopt becoming and becoming underwrites
the falsification thesis, then we will see the way in which Nietzsche's commitment to the
natural sciences goes hand in hand with the falsification thesis. This is an important point
because Hussain has rightiy noted that the primary motivation for holding that Nietzsche
eventually abandons the falsification thesis is that commentators like Clark have had a
difficult time reconciling it with his explicit empiricism and his positive attitude toward the
natural sciences.4 While Hussain has tried to show how Nietzsche can both be friendly to
the senses and science and still remain committed to the falsification thesis by focusing on
Nietzsche's post-Zarathustra writings, I will argue this point by focusing primarily, although
not exclusively, on HH.
4
Hussain (2004, 327).
172
In articulating my differences with Clark in the next section of this chapter, I argue
that although she is right to find a version of the falsification thesis that is rooted in a belief
in a thing-in-itself in TL, she nevertheless overlooks the fact that the belief in a thing-in-itself
is not the only reason why Nietzsche holds the falsification thesis in the work. This is an
important point because when we turn to H H and Nietzsche's later works, we find that the
falsification thesis is not rooted in the way in which sensations falsify mind-independent
things-in-themselves, but rather in the understanding's conceptualization of becoming,
whether becoming is understood in terms of a flux of mind-dependent sensations or in
terms of a flux of mind-independent forces.5 In section 3.3,1 try to substantiate the link
between the falsification thesis and Nietzsche's turn to the natural sciences. In section 3.4,1
develop a reading of the first book of HH that highlights (1) the presence of UO and
becoming in HH 1 and the other apohrisms, (2) Nietzsche's attempt to articulate these
doctrines in the language of the natural sciences, and (3) the way in which becoming
underwrites the falsification thesis in the work. In section 3.5,1 say something about the
problem that becoming poses for "life" and, in section 3.6, how Nietzsche's attempt to deal
with the problem of life leads to further developments in the works of the free spirit and
ultimately a new conception of philosophy in BGE.
3.2. Clark on the Falsification Thesis
In her Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy, Maudemarie Clark does not offer a detailed
interpretation of HH. Instead, she presents it within the context of her developmental story
5
1 have dealt with the issue of whether becoming should be construed as the flux of sensations or the flux of
the mind-independent world of forces in the first chapter and will return to it in the fourth and fifth.
Specifically, I argue that these two versions of the flux doctrine are simply two different ways of looking at one
ontological reality. Whereas the flux of sensations is the flux from the first-person point of view, the flux of
forces is the flux from a third-person point of view.
173
about Nietzsche's views on truth. At stake is what she calls the falsification thesis, which she
defines as the belief that our best empirical theories, including science, somehow falsify
reality.6 According to Clark, the young Nietzsche, starting with BT and most importantly in
TL, was committed to the falsification thesis. As Nietzsche matured, he abandoned this
position. The reason why Nietzsche eventually came to reject the falsification thesis is that it
was based on his belief in fhings-in-themselves. The young Nietzsche therefore agreed with
(a certain reading of) Kant: While the senses, combined with the understanding, do provide
us with knowledge of the phenomenal world, this knowledge is nevertheless a falsification of
the way the world really is in-itself. The mature Nietzsche overcame this idea when he first,
in GS and BGE, recognized that the thing-in-itself is a contradiction in terms (BGE 16) and
second, in his post-BGE works, when he realized that the rejection of the thing-in-itself
entails the rejection of the falsification thesis. It is for this reason that we find, according to
Clark, no evidence of the falsification thesis in Nietzsche's post-BGE writings.
There have been numerous objections to Clark's developmental picture.7 Whereas
Hussain and Green have focused on Clark's reading of BGE and the presence of the
falsification thesis in TI respectively, I want to add to the chorus of criticisms by focusing
primarily, although not exclusively, on Clark's reading of TL and HH and her claim that the
falsification thesis is rooted in the thing-in-itself. TL is an important work for Clark's
argument because it does, on one level, present a version of the falsification thesis that is
rooted in a belief in a thing-in-itself. As her analysis makes clear, Clark wants to contrast her
6
Note that my own definition of the falsification thesis differs from Clark's. While my definition emphasizes
the falsifying character of language and logic, it still leaves room for science to reveal a world that cannot be
grasped by rational thought.
7
Most notably Anderson (1996), Hussain (2004), and Green (2002 and 2005). For a critique of Clark's
commonsense realism, see Ibanez-Noe (2005).
174
reading with those who think that TL is fundamentally about the nature of truth and
language. According to what Clark calls the "radical interpretation," Nietzsche denies the
existence of truth insofar as any of our beliefs correspond to reality, and this truth-denying
position derives from Nietzsche's insights concerning language.8 Although Clark does not
dispute that Nietzsche denies the existence of truth in the essay, she nevertheless argues that
Nietzsche's denial of truth is rooted in a representational theory of perception and a
metaphysical correspondence theory of truth, not, as the radical interpretation has it, in an
analysis of language.9 That is, the reason why Nietzsche denies the existence of truth in the
essay is that, on the one hand, he believes that truth requires a correspondence between our
beliefs and things-in-themselves and, on the other, he is committed to a representational
theory of perception which underwrites the view that the ideas we immediately perceive in
no way resemble things-in-themselves.
Although Clark is right to argue that Nietzsche's denial of truth does issue in part
from a metaphysical correspondence theory of truth coupled with a representational theory
of perception in TL, she is wrong to think that this forms the entire basis of the falsification
thesis in TL. This is because Nietzsche identifies additional levels at which falsification takes
place in the essay. On one level, and this is what Clark's analysis captures, Nietzsche
contends that sensation falsifies, not so much the thing-in-itself, but the nerve stimulation—to
infer that some external object is the cause of the nerve stimulus is, according to both
Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, an invalid application of the principle of sufficient reason.
Sensation falsifies because it generates qualia such as sounds, colors, and smells that do not
8 Clark (1990, 63f.).

9 Clark (1990, 77).
175
resemble the stimulated nerve, just as pains do not resemble stimulated c-fibers. On another
level, and this is the level that Clark's analysis mostly overlooks, we are also engaged in a
process of falsification in conceptualizing sensations, i.e. the qualitative world of sounds,
colors, etc. Specifically, Nietzsche makes two points. First, the mere fact that we are using
words to symbolize the qualitative world of smells and colors is itself falsifying. Because
mental representations and words are entirely different, there is no possible way that they
can correspond to one another. So even if we were to avoid generalizing concepts by using
demonstrative pronouns or assigning names to each particular representation, Nietzsche
claims that these linguistic expressions would falsify the individual representations insofar as
they involve a non-resembling translation from one sphere to another. The second point
that Nietzsche makes has to do with the formation of concepts. The problem is that
concepts necessarily falsify the world of individual representations by equating two
representations that are, in fact, merely similar. For example, when we form the concept
leaf, we do so by "arbitrarily discarding" the individual differences and "forgetting the
distinguishing aspects" of two or more instances (TL 1).
The fact that Nietzsche identifies a number of levels at which falsification takes place
is problematic for Clark's larger argument because she contends that Nietzsche's later
abandonment of things-in-themselves entails the eventual abandonment of the falsification
thesis. The suppressed premise of her argument, however, is that falsification occurs only at
the level of sensation. On this view, once things-in-themselves are rejected as contradictory,
there is nothing left for sensation to falsify, and since falsification occurs at the level of
sensation only, the falsification thesis must be abandoned. According to Clark, Nietzsche's
works exhibit precisely this dynamic, where the denial of things-in-themselves eventually
176
leads to the abandonment of the falsification thesis in GM. Although Clark is right to argue
that the later Nietzsche does not hold that our representations falsify things-in-themselves,
the additional level of falsification in TL means that it is wrong to think that Nietzsche
would drop, ipso facto, the falsification thesis when he rejects things-in-themselves.
Here, it must be said that Clark is aware of the aforementioned problem in TL, but
she nevertheless tries to interpret it away. Specifically, she acknowledges the possible
presence of the view that falsification also occurs in moving from the realm of sensation to
the realm of language. In response, Clark contends that the view articulated in TL would
commit Nietzsche to a form of inconsistent nominalism.10 The problem with Clark's
argument is that even if she is successful in showing that Nietzsche's position is somehow
inconsistent, she wants to infer from the fact that the position is inconsistent to the further
claim that Nietzsche does not hold the position. Not only is such an inference invalid, her
larger interpretation of Nietzsche's development hangs largely on this inference. That is, in
order to argue that Nietzsche abandons the falsification thesis with his rejection of things-in-
themselves in his mature works, she needs to show either that the Nietzsche of TL does not
hold the view that falsification is caused by the conceptualization of sensations or that, in
addition to rejecting things-in-themselves, Nietzsche later rejects the earlier view that
linguistic conceptualization somehow falsifies sense data. Since she does not show that the
mature Nietzsche rejects this latter view, she needs to show that Nietzsche does not hold
this view in TL, and this she fails to do.
Indeed, the problem for Clark is not only that she does not show that Nietzsche
does not hold the view in TL that falsification occurs in conceptualizing sensations, but also
'o Clark (1990, 77).

that there is plenty of evidence in the later works attesting to the fact that Nietzsche remains
committed to this view. As Green has righdy emphasized, the mature Nietzsche does not
believe that falsification occurs at the level of sensation, but rather in the conceptualization
of these sensations.11 Although Clark is also aware of such evidence, she again tries to
interpret it away at two different junctures in her work. In the first instance, she tackles the
problem in the form of "the chaos of sensations."12 The idea that Clark is trying to counter
here is that once Nietzsche rejects things-in-themselves, reality becomes identified with the
chaos of sensations. Falsification is introduced when we seek to organize this chaos by
imposing what roughly amounts to the Kantian categories of the understanding onto this
chaos. Clark tries to diffuse this reading by arguing, through an appeal to BGE 15,13 that
Nietzsche is committed to an extra-mental reality and therefore does not identify reality with
the chaos of sensations. The problem with her response is that while she is right to argue
that Nietzsche is committed to an extra-mental reality at this point, this extra-mental reality
is not one of "independendy existing things" such as brains and sense organs in the world of
commonsense.14 Instead, this extra-mental reality, when subjected to scientific analysis,
dissolves into the relational forces of the scientific picture, and as we have seen in the first
chapter and will see in the remainder of this one, the reason why Nietzsche thinks that our
language and thought falsify this reality is that it cuts against the basic subject-predicate
structure of thought and language.
11
Green (2005, 55).
12
Clark (1990,120).
13
For an extended debate on this issue, see Hussain (2004) and Clark and Dudrick (2004). I will say more
about this in chapter five.
14
Clark (1990,123).
178
The section "'Reason' in Philosophy" from TI presents a similar challenge for
Clark's reading. Indeed, it is a twofold threat. Not only do Nietzsche's remarks in the
section suggest that the conceptual framework of the understanding, rather than sensation, is
the guilty party in the falsification of reality, TI belongs to a group of late works in which
Nietzsche is supposed to have abandoned the falsification thesis, at least on Clark's account.
Whereas Green has dealt at length with Clark's denial of the presence of the falsification
thesis in TI,lD the point I want to emphasize is the way in which Clark contrasts the
falsification thesis with Nietzsche's "uniform and unambiguous respect for facts, the senses,
and science."16 Implicit here is Clark's belief that the falsification thesis is incompatible with
respect for the senses and science, and her belief on this issue goes hand in hand with her
larger claim that the falsification thesis is rooted in things-in-themselves. What Clark fails to
consider is that Nietzsche's respect for science and the senses, especially insofar as they
show "becoming, passing away, and change" (TI "Reason" 2), is precisely what leads him to
accept some version of the falsification thesis. Whereas the understanding necessarily
conceives of the world in terms of unity, thinghood, substance, and permanence (TI
"Reason" 2), careful empirical observation and scientific experimentation reveal that these
categories do not apply to a world in which becoming and UO are true.
Indeed, the purpose of delving into the falsification thesis in Nietzsche's later works
has been to provide evidence for precisely this point. That is, the falsification thesis is not
rooted in worries about the way in which sensation falsifies things-in-themselves, but rather
in worries about the way in which the language and logic falsify the empirical world of
15
Green (2005).
16
Clark (1990, 105).
179
becoming. The reason for developing the point here is because it is this disharmony
between reason and the world of becoming that forms the basis for the falsification thesis in
HH, rather than, as Clark argues, the TL-inspired tension between things-in-themselves, on
the one hand, and the world that is accessible through science and commonsense, on the
other. As we will see, Nietzsche's appeal to a scientifically grounded doctrine of becoming
leads him to reject not only the eternal substances that once populated the metaphysical
world, but also the things of the commonsense world and the atom of early modern
science.1
In turning to her reading of HH, it should be noted that Clark is aware that
Nietzsche speaks as though "strict science" can give us access to the truth and that it is
through science that Nietzsche can explain how he knows that most of our beliefs are false.19
Despite her acknowledgment of these points, Clark nevertheless endeavors to interpret the
falsification thesis in HH through her reading of TL, where a metaphysical correspondence
theory of truth and representational theory of perception entail the falsity of the empirical
world of appearances. In so doing, she focuses on Nietzsche's remarks about the possibility
of a metaphysical world (HH 9) and the way in which this possibility entails that our best
theories might be radically false, not that they are radically false. Clark's idea is that, in HH,
Nietzsche adopts an agnostic position with regard to whether our best empirical theories
falsify the world in-itself. While such agnosticism did make a brief appearance in TL, where
Nietzsche claimed that we do not know enough about things-in-themselves to assert that our
representations do not correspond to them, Nietzsche nevertheless adopted what Clark calls
17
On the different ways of understanding becoming, see fn. 5.
18
Ibafiez-Noe (2005).
19
Clark (1990, 97).
180
the "atheistic" position of insisting that our best empirical theories do falsify reality in the
work. Because Nietzsche has moved from atheism to agnosticism with respect to the
falsification thesis in HH, Clark argues that Nietzsche has taken a small step toward
abandoning the falsification thesis altogether. According to Clark, Nietzsche will continue
this process of abandoning the falsification thesis first by rejecting thing-in-themselves in GS
and BGE and then by rejecting his initial representational theory of perception through his
perspectival account of knowledge in GM.20
As I will argue, Clark's reading of HH would have been better off had she followed
her initial insights about the way in which Nietzsche's commitment to science forms the
basis for his claim that most of our beliefs are false. This is because the central lesson of
H H is that the world that we commonly experience is the result of our tendency to project
our wants, desires, and mental dispositions onto the wall of nature. It is in this sense that
the world is human, all-too-human. However, the reason why Nietzsche laments our
tendency to falsify reality is not because of his background in Kantian philosophy, but rather
because of his commitment to what I have called the morality of truth and science. In HH,
Nietzsche attaches himself to a scientific project that dates back to the likes of Copernicus
and Bacon, one that fiercely guards against the sin of anthropomorphism and rejects the
Aristotelian view that we should begin our quest to know the world from our commonsense
perspective. As we will see, Nietzsche thinks that once we strip away everything that is
human from our account of nature, what we are left with are the motions or forces of the
scientific world, and because the scientific world of motions or forces cuts against the
structures of language and thought, we are doomed to falsify it as we live our daily lives. It is
20
Clark (1990, 135ff.).
181
therefore in HH that Nietzsche makes most explicit the lesson that Hussain wants to extract
from Nietzsche's later works.21 That is, H H exhibits the way in which Nietzsche grounds
the falsification thesis in his empiricism and his commitment to the scientific project.
3.3. Science, Becoming, and the Falsification Thesis
In the previous section, I have argued against Clark's view that the falsification thesis
is rooted in Nietzsche's commitment to things-in-themselves, suggesting along the way that
Nietzsche instead grounds the falsification thesis in his commitment to a science-based
doctrine of becoming. In this section, I will gradually transition to a close reading of H H by
further developing the link between science, becoming, and the falsification thesis. To
understand how the falsification thesis could emerge from Nietzsche's commitment to
science, one only needs to turn to the lessons learned from the Copernican revolution.
Turning to Copernicus in this context is not without textual basis, as Nietzsche often praises
him in the same breath as Roger Boscovich (BGE 12; KSA 9, 15 [21]; KSA 11, 36 [432];
KSB 6, 213) and even likens his own critique of language to the Copernican rejection of our
belief in a geocentric solar system (TI "Reason" 5). Here, we can say that the basic lesson
learned from the Copernican revolution is that we tend to get things wrong when we view
the world from our commonsense standpoint. Applying this lesson to the history of
philosophy, we begin to see the way in which the Copernican revolution symbolizes the early
modern break with the philosophical approach of Aristotle and the Scholastics.22 Whereas
Aristotle believed that our opinions, language, senses, and thinking all provide a relatively
stable foundation upon which to build the edifice of knowledge, early modern science and
21
Hussain (2004, 327).
22
This argument is indebted to David Roochnik's lectures on early modern philosophy.
182
philosophy begin with a deep suspicion about such a commonsense approach and therewith
a call for strict methods in engaging in empirical observation. Indeed, it was this deep
suspicion toward immediate sense observation that paved the way for the distinction
between primary and secondary qualities, an idea most distinctly formulated by Locke, but
already present in the work of Descartes and Galileo and dating back to Democritus. Here,
it was argued that smells, tastes, and colors were not essential features of the world, but
rather ideas in the mind that were caused by an extra-mental reality that they did not
resemble. By stripping these secondary qualities from the world and throwing them in the
dustbin of the mind, the scientist was now thought to be able to explore the world of
primary qualities or the world-in-itself, and the world that the scientist found was composed
of nothing more than matter and motion.
One of the important lessons we can take from this brief look at early modern
philosophy and science is that the appearance-reality distinction during this time originally
corresponded to the distinction between the qualitative world of commonsense and
Newton's mechanistic world of matter and motion. That is, the purpose of the distinction
was not so much to initiate debates about idealism, realism, and skepticism, but rather to get
at the true, mind-independent nature of the world as described by science. Nevertheless,
this distinction did lead to the aforementioned philosophical debates, and these debates, in
turn, led to further complications of the distinction. In particular, Kant complicated the
issue because he not only used the distinction as a model for understanding the difference
between what he called the phenomenal and noumenal world, but also because he retained
the primary-secondary quality distinction within the phenomenal world itself. Thus, for
Kant, there is, in addition to the distinction between phenomenal and noumenal worlds, a
183
distinction between the empirical world of appearances and the empirical world in-itself.
Whereas the former is the world of commonsense, the latter is the world discovered by the
scientist. Interesting here, of course, is that much like Boscovich and Nietzsche, Kant also
sees the empirical world-in-itself as reducing all matter to expressions of force.23
Although highlighting the two-fold distinction between appearances and things-in-
themselves in Kant might seem a bit tangential, it is not when we think about the debates
that Clark's reading of Nietzsche has generated. This is because Clark wants to read
Nietzsche through the lens of the Kantian distinction between the empirical world, which
includes both science and commonsense, and the metaphysical world of things-in-
fhemselves. While this distinction is present in Nietzsche's early writings, I have endeavored
to show that the falsification thesis in his later writings is rooted rather in the tension
between the world of commonsense and the world of science. In this sense, Nietzsche is
rejecting Kant's two-fold distinction and returning to the early modern understanding of the
distinction, and it is for this reason that his efforts can be understood as an extension of the
lessons learned from the Copernican revolution. Just as unrefined and uncontrolled sense
observation generates error by leading us to believe that the sun revolves around the earth,
Nietzsche holds that the uncritical application of the structures of language and logic to the
world dupe us into believing that there are doers behind deeds, substances that bear
properties, and matter that functions as the subject of motion.
I have added matter and motion to this list because Nietzsche's commitment to the
scientific project eventually drives him to reject the matter of Newton's mechanistic
worldview. Just as the early moderns saw in secondary qualities the anthropomorphization
23
For an extended treatment of this issue, see Langton (1998) and Wilson (1984).
184
of the world via the senses, Nietzsche sees in matter the mere hypostatization of the forms
of reason and language. Much like Aristotle who needed a substance that functioned as a
bearer of properties, the early materialists needed to posit a thing that functioned as the
subject of motion, and the reason why Nietzsche thinks that this is an error is not only
because he traces matter back to Democritean atomism and sees Democritus as uncritically
accepting Parmenides claim that something—in this case the atom—must be, but also
because he learns from F.A. Lange's The History ofMaterialism and his independent reading of
Roger Boscovich that the natural sciences of his day have gradually eliminated the atom
from the scientific picture of the world. In so doing, these scientists have discovered a
world of pure motion or force, and it is with this discovery that modern science has
successfully eliminated the last remnant of the metaphysical tradition in the form of the
atom and, in Nietzsche's mind, made possible the rebirth of Heraclitean becoming.
It is at this point that the specific influences on Nietzsche's thought become
particularly important. While we can piece together, from the Nachlass fragments and his
published works, the way in which Nietzsche sees the transition from a mechanistic to a
dynamic worldview as a rebirth of Heraclitean becoming,24 this transition is most clearly
detailed by Lange's The History ofMaterialism, a work that Nietzsche first read in 1866.
Whereas others have provided an in-depth treatment of Lange's influence on Nietzsche, 25 1
want to focus on three crucial lessons that Nietzsche is likely to have taken from his
predecessor. First, he learns to see modern science as a campaign against anthropomorphic
depictions of nature. Second, he comes to view modern science as a progressive shift away
24
For Nietzsche's critique of the mechanistic worldview, see the series of Nachlass fragments collected in WP
(618-639).
25
Salaquarda (1978) and Stack (1983).
185
from the mechanistic views of Newton, where the world is construed in terms of matter and
force, toward a dynamic worldview, where there is only force. Finally, it is Lange's attempt
to interpret modern materialism as the rebirth of Democritean atomism that provides the
basic model for Nietzsche's belief that the emerging dynamic worldview amounts to a return
to Heraclitean becoming.
To expand upon these points, it would be easiest if we could simply turn to the
account Lange provides of modern physics in the chapter "Matter and Force" from the
second edition of his work (1873).26 There, Lange not only details the ever-diminishing
significance of the atom, but also assigns Roger Boscovich a central role in the story. The
problem, however, is that this chapter is not included in the first edition (1866), and while
we know that Nietzsche initially read the 1866 edition, we cannot be sure that he read any
edition other than the first prior to 1882, four years after the publication of HH.27
Fortunately, we can construct an account from Lange's first edition that tells a story quite
similar to the one provided in the second. This is not only because one can find the essential
arguments of "Matter and Force" in the first edition, but also because it was through Lange's
1866 work that Nietzsche discovered Boscovich via his reading of Fechner.28
In the "Force and Matter" chapter from the 1873 edition, Lange begins by
complaining about the naive belief that modern atomism is a discovery of the modern
natural sciences, noting that doctrine dates back to Democritus and that the atom has
retained its metaphysical character.29 In the 1866 edition, Lange expresses the same idea.
26
I cite the 1950 translation of this edition.
27
Salaquarda (1978, 240) denies that Nietzsche ever read the 1873 edition. Stack (1983, 23) doubts
Salaquarda's judgment, but offers no evidence to substantiate his doubts.
28
See Salaquarda (1978, 243).
29
Lange (1950, 351).
186
Although most modern materialists want to deny that their position is similar to that of
Democritus on the grounds that it is a result of experimental discoveries, Lange insists that
he would not have written his book if this were true.30 Indeed, what Lange wants to show is
that most of the questions associated with modern materialism are simply revised versions of
old debates and that although the proofs they provide for their positions are different, the
general methods and goals nevertheless remain the same.31
The reason for emphasizing Lange's contention that modern materialism is simply a
revival of Democritean atomism is that we can begin to see not only why Nietzsche would
open HH with the claim that all of the philosophical questions are the same as two thousand
years ago, but also why he would think that the modern sciences can be understood as a re-
birth of pre-Socratic philosophy in general and a rebirth of Heraclitean becoming in
particular. At the same time, it is important to note that while Lange highlights the gradual
dissolution of the atom in the natural sciences, he nevertheless refrains from adopting a
dynamic worldview and linking it to Heraclitus' philosophy. It is here, therefore, that Lange
and Nietzsche part ways, and the basis for their differences is instructive. Specifically, via a
quote from Helmholtz, Lange considers but then rejects the possibility of a world of pure
force. According to Helmholtz, a world of pure force would be something that both is
(daseiri) and is not {nicht daseiri). This is because force is not something that can properly be
said to exist. Matter alone is that which exists {das Daseiende). Therefore, a world of pure
force is something inconceivable. At the same time, however, a world of pure matter is
equally objectionable. This is because we never immediately experience matter. Instead, it is
30
Lange (1866, 282).
31
Lange (1866,283).
32
Lange (1866, 379ff.).
187
something that we assume given our experience of forces. For Lange, the matter of modern
materialism is therefore not much different from Aristode's notion of substance. Just as
forces are experienced as effects, matter takes on the substance-like role as the bearer of
forces qua effects. Nevertheless, Lange does not want us to revert to Aristotelian realism
with respect to matter. Instead, he employs the fact that matter is merely something we
assume as the bearer of forces to contend that both matter and force are relative to us. This
is because the matter-force combination is not a result of empirical observation, but rather
something necessitated by the nature of thinking. Matter is something ideal because we
assume it via our experience of forces as effects. Force is also something ideal
presumably—and here Lange is not altogether clear—because its existence depends on what
has already been shown to be ideal, namely matter. For Lange, it is here that materialism
reveals itself to be self-undermining, and it is the self-destruction of materialism that leads to
what has been called Lange's (materio-)idealism.33
In my mind, Nietzsche avoids Lange's (materio-)idealism by remaining a realist about
force.34 That is, Nietzsche accepts Lange's claim that the natural sciences have gradually
dissolved matter into motion or force, but he resists Lange's conclusion that both matter and
force are relative to us. Important for our purposes is the fact that Nietzsche rejects Lange's
conclusion by denying the identity of thinking and being. That is, while Nietzsche follows
Lange in holding that a world of pure force, as something that both is and is not, is
unthinkable, the sheer fact that it is unthinkable does not render it an ontological
impossibility. To think that the world must conform to the laws of thought is to be guilty of
33
Stack (1983, 97).
34
In an 1882 Nachlass fragment, Nietzsche claims that "Alles ist Kraft" (KSA 10, 1[3]).
188
what G k t z e d e r has called "logical anthropomorphism," and being scientific means
avoiding anthropomorphism in all its forms.
O f course, just because Nietzsche rejects the principle that the world does not
necessarily conform to the laws of thought, thereby making a world of pure force possible, it
does not necessarily follow that the world is, in this case, a play of forces. This is because
there needs to be some additional evidence to show that nature should be construed in this
way, and it is here that we see the importance not only of Lange's portrayal of the
developments in the natural sciences, but also of Nietzsche's direct engagement with the
work of Roger Boscovich. Although we know that Nietzsche originally read Boscovich's
Philosophiae naturalis Theoria as early as 1873, 36 his name does not appear in Nietzsche's works,
notes, or letters until an 1882 letter addressed to Heinrich Koselitz (Peter Gast), where he
writes:
If anything has been well refuted, it is the prejudice of "matter"; and indeed not by
an idealist but by a mathematician—by Boscovich. He and Copernicus are the two
great opponents of appearances to the eye. Since him, there is no longer any
matter—except as popular relief. He has thought the atomistic theory through to its
end. Gravity is most certainly not a "property of matter," simply because there is no
matter. Gravity is, as well as vis inertiae, most certainly an appearance of force
(simply because there is nothing else other than force!). (KSB 6, 213)37
This letter is significant n o t only because it reveals how Nietzsche sees in Boscovich a
thinker who has eliminated matter from the scientific worldview, but also because Nietzsche
contrasts Boscovich's scientific and mathematical elimination of matter with that of the
idealists. What this latter point suggests is that Nietzsche neither turns to idealist arguments
35 Gktzeder (2000, 95) and (2003, 123).

36
Schlechta and Anders (1962, 127ff.).
37
My translation.
189
to jettison matter nor does he believe, like Lange, that the scientific dissolution of matter
into force results in a form of (materio-)idealism. Instead, Nietzsche finds in Boscovich a
concept of force that is not only crucial for the development of his doctrines such as the
eternal return and the will to power,38 but also a dynamic materialism that allows him to
interpret the progress of modern physics as a gradual movement from Democritean
atomism back to Heraclitean becoming.39
3.4. Science and Becoming in PPP
Before turning to Nietzsche's attempt to articulate Heraclitean becoming in the
language of the natural sciences in HH, I want to solidify this link by showing how
Nietzsche's interest in the natural sciences intensifies during his early studies of pre-Socratic
philosophy and how he weaves points gained from the natural sciences into his account of
ancient Greek philosophy in Pre-Platonic Philosophy, written in the years between PTA and
HH. 40 In particular, Schlechta and Anders have shown that Nietzsche borrowed a number
of books on the natural sciences—the list of which includes books by Boscovich and Spir—
from the Basel library in March of 1873.41 The fact that Nietzsche borrows these books in
connection with his studies of the pre-Socratic philosophers is evidenced by a letter to Carl
von Gersdorff that he wrote on April 5 of that year (KSB 4, 301). In the letter, Nietzsche
tells Gersdorff that he is bringing PTA to Bayreuth so that he can read it aloud, but he also
notes that the work is far from completed. This is because he is trying to be more
disciplined with himself, and as a part of this self-discipline, he has plans to study subjects
such a mathematics, mechanics, and chemistry.
38
See Whitlock (1996).
39
Stack (1983, 233).
40
For a complete account of Nietzsche's reading of the natural sciences, see Brobjer (2004).
41
Schlechta and Anders (1962,164).
In PTA, we saw how Nietzsche tries to link ancient Greek thought to contemporary
German philosophy. In PPP, Nietzsche does something similar, but in this work he
explicitly appeals to the natural sciences to provide support for pre-Platonic philosophy in
general and Heraclitus' doctrines of becoming in particular. According to Schlechta and
Anders, Nietzsche turns to the natural sciences of his day on seven different occasions in
PPP.42 For our purposes, the two most important of these excursions occur in Nietzsche's
treatment of Heraclitus. There, Nietzsche explicitiy connects Heraclitean becoming to the
natural sciences when he claims that the main proposition of the latter is that "all things flow
(TTaVTCt psi)." To develop this point, Nietzsche first appeals to a thought experiment from
Karl Ernst von Bar's 1860 lecture, "What Conception of Living Nature is the Correct one?"
Bar's claim is that the rate of conscious perception is relative to the pulse rate of the
organism. Because of this, if we were to increase the pulse rate of an organism significantly,
the world would appear to be changing at a much slower rate. If, on the contrary, we were
to decrease the pulse rates of an organism, everything would appear to be changing at a
much faster rate. Indeed, if we decreased this infinitely, then everything, according to
Nietzsche, "would be devoured by the wild storm of becoming. Whatever remains, the
unmoving ((Jf| psiv), proves to be a complete illusion, the result of the human intellect"
(PPP, p. 61). In contrast, if we were to increase this infinitely, everything would come to a
halt. However, if we were to combine this latter experiment with an infinitely strengthened
capacity to perceive change, there would still be "no persistent thing in the indefinitely
smallest particle of time [or time atom] but rather only a becoming" (PPP, p. 62).
42
Schlechta and Anders (1962, 60f£).
191
Here, Nietzsche claims that just as "becoming never ceases at the indefinitely small,"
becoming also reigns at the level of macro-objects. To secure the latter point, Nietzsche
turns to the work of Hermann von Helmholtz, the teacher of Lange and one of the leading
natural scientists in nineteenth-century Germany. Specifically, Nietzsche seeks to disabuse
us of the belief that the heavens will remain eternally the same. The earth will perish one
day, most notably because the heat of the sun cannot last eternally. Quoting from
Helmholtz, Nietzsche informs us that the rotation of the planets is slowing down because
the stores of mechanical force are slowly depleting. In so doing, Nietzsche compares
Helmholtz's observation to the "intuitive" insight of Heraclitus that "there is no thing of
which we may say 'it is'." As the passage continues, we are told that Heraclitus "rejects being.
He knows only becoming, the flowing. He considers belief in something persistent as error
and foolishness" (PPP, p. 62).
Because we will encounter becoming on both the micro and macro level in HH, it is
important here not to interpret becoming as the mere claim that all existing things will
eventually pass away, i.e. the denial of eternally persisting macro-objects, but rather to see
such a claim as one piece of a larger theory which states that there is nothing in nature that is
stable at any given point in time. Just as we need to keep in mind that the solar system as we
now know it will eventually be destroyed, we also need to note that these macro-objects are
not made of anything on a micro-level that is stable at any moment in time. Indeed, the
point of turning to these examples in PPP was not to articulate a precise theory of becoming,
for we have already done this in our analysis of PTA in the first chapter, but rather to show
how Nietzsche weaves evidence from the natural sciences into his account of Heraclitean
becoming. This is a crucial point not only because Nietzsche presents Heraclitean becoming
as a discovery of the natural sciences in HH, but also because it indicates that Nietzsche is
interested in defending the doctrine as an adequate characterization of nature, rather than
seeing it as an expression of Heraclitus' personality, as the opening of PTA might suggest.
3.5. Becoming and the Unity of Opposites in Human, All Too Human
It is with this background in mind that I now turn to an exposition of HH. The
reason why I have dedicated so much time to preparing for this interpretive moment is not
only because I think that the doctrine of becoming plays such a central role in Nietzsche's
later philosophical project, but also because the appearance of the doctrine at the beginning
of HH and BGE and its connection to the unity of opposites has been largely overlooked in
more comprehensive studies of Nietzsche.43 Although one might contend that the reason
why this point has been largely overlooked is that I am wrong to think that becoming and
UO are present in these sections, I would argue that once we approach HH and BGE with
the arguments of PTA and PPP in mind, we will readily see the connection between
Nietzsche's denial of absolute opposites and Heraclitean becoming.
Part of my optimism on this point is due to the fact that two of the three
monographs on HH available in German have emphasized the Heraclitean background to
the first section.44 Peter Heller, for instance, opens his analysis of H H with the claim that
"dem Heraklit bleibt Nietzsche treu" or "Nietzsche remains faithful to Heraclitus."45 To
link Heraclitus' doctrine to the central themes of HH, Heller turns to PTA to say more
about what the Heraclitean doctrine of becoming might mean. In so doing, he not only
43
Miiller-Lauter (1999a) is the exception. While Cox (1996) and Richardson (1996) have a lot to say about
being and becoming in Nietzsche's work, they do not recognize that this forms the crux of Nietzsche's
argument in H H and, I would argue by extension, in BGE. Schrift (1987) and Weiss (1996) have focused on
Nietzsche's denial of opposites in HH 1, but both have overlooked the implicit connection to becoming.
44
Cf. Heller (1972) and Glatzeder (2000). Claesges (1999) is the exception.
45
Heller (1972, 5).
articulates the doctrine in terms of an eternal war of opposites, but also notes that this
conception of the world, as a form of "Selbstwiderspruch" or "Self-contradiction," violates
Aristotle's principle of non-contradiction.46 After discussing the reductionism implicit in the
unity of opposites thesis and the project of HH as a whole, Heller then attempts to connect
becoming to the perspectivism found in Nietzsche's ôst-Zarathustra writings.47 Finally, he
notes the problems associated with linguistically articulating Nietzsche's version of
Heraclitus' philosophy and discusses the way in which Nietzsche's obscure presentation style
might be linked to his Heraclitean commitments.48
Although Heller touches upon a number of themes relevant to this study, his
articulation of becoming and the way in which it relates to Nietzsche's perspectivism does
not achieve the precision that one might want in dealing with such a fundamental aspect of
Nietzsche's philosophical project. Moreover, because he draws almost exclusively from
PTA to unpack the distinction between historical and metaphysical philosophy, he struggles
to understand how Nietzsche could link Hearclitean becoming to the natural sciences of his
day. For Heller, Heraclitean becoming seems to be something that Nietzsche wins through
intuitive insight—a point drawn from PTA—, not through the rigors of the natural sciences,
as PPP might suggest. Because of this, Heller thinks that the doctrine borders on
• • 49
esotencism.
On this and other points, Glatzeder offers a much superior analysis in her more
recent work.50 Like Heller, she turns to PTA to interpret the opposition between
46
Heller (1972, 7).
47
Heller (1972,16f£).
48
Heller (1972, 9).
49
Heller (1972, 9).
50
Glatzeder (2000). For a condensed version of her argument, see Glatzeder (2003).
194
metaphysical and historical philosophy in HH 1, seeing it in terms of a conflict between
Heraclitus' doctrine of becoming and Parmenides' doctrine of being. Unlike Heller, she
provides an in-depth treatment of Nietzsche's account of how Western thinking went awry
through an "error of reason."51 Specifically, Glatzeder contends that Nietzsche convicts
previous thinkers of "logical anthropomorphism" or the illegitimate application of the
categories of human reason to nature. Like all forms of anthropomorphism, Nietzsche
rejects this on the grounds that it is unscientific. Nevertheless, what is not anthropomorphic
for Nietzsche is becoming and the related ontology of force. This is because becoming and
the related ontology of force is a conception of reality that is supported by the discoveries of
the natural sciences. It is for this reason that Nietzsche thinks that becoming and the related
ontology of force is true. However, as HL suggests, Nietzsche also thinks that the doctrine
is "deadly" (HL 9). That is, becoming makes it impossible to live without falsifying this
reality,52 and it is for this reason that becoming is a source of despair.53
As my reading unfolds, my agreement with Glatzeder's interpretation will become
evident, so much so that the project of re-articulating her reading of HH does stand in need
of some justification. Part of the reason for engaging in this project is to make a version of
her interpretation available to an English-speaking audience in a way that contributes directly
to the debates within Anglo-American scholarship. The other reason is to extend the scope
of Glatzeder's project. Although she wants us to read HH as the key to understanding
Nietzsche's thinking as such,54 there are a number of reasons why scholars might resist such
a claim without further argument. In particular, it leaves one wondering why Nietzsche
51
Glatzeder (2000, 93f£).
52
Glatzeder (2000, 117ff.).
53
Glatzeder (2000, 64).
54
Glatzeder (2003, 115).
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returns to the problem of opposites in BGE, how his doctrine of becoming might relate to
his perspectivism, and whether Nietzsche's later critique of science entails the rejection of
becoming as a non-perspectival characterization of reality. In chapter five, I attempt to deal
with precisely these issues. Before I can do this, however, I must develop a reading of H H
that emphasizes the connection between science, becoming, and the falsification thesis. In
so doing, we will see the way in which becoming underwrites a deep tension between life and
truth, and it is through this tension that we will begin to grasp the differences between HH
and BGE.
For those who have focused on the work, HH presents itself as an interpretive
puzzle. The puzzle involves trying to explain what some have called Nietzsche's "fling" with
positivism or what I will call naturalism.55 Here, Nietzsche's naturalism can be loosely
defined as the view that philosophical inquiry should be continuous with, if not the same as,
empirical inquiry in the natural sciences.56 The problem with Nietzsche's naturalism in H H
is that it underwrites a deep hostility to art, and it is this hostility to art that sharply
distinguishes HH from Nietzsche's first work, BT, and his positive attitude toward art in GS,
a work published only four years after HH. In an attempting to explain this fling,
commentators have often appealed to biographical issues.57 First, there is the break with
Wagner and Nietzsche's disillusionment with the inaugural Bayreuther Festspiele. The idea is
that Nietzsche turned to natural science because he saw it as a means of denouncing
Wagner's aesthetic program, one that he had celebrated as late as 1876 with his untimely
meditation, Richard Wagner in Bayreuth. To this account, the potential influence of Paul Ree is
55
Cohen (1999).
56
For a similar, but more nuanced definition of naturalism, see Leiter (2002, 3).
57
Montinari(1991,60ff.).
also noted—at least, this was how many of Nietzsche's friends at the time explained the
radical shift in HH (KSA 15, p. 86).58 In his The Origin ofMoral Sensations (1877), Ree
provides a naturalistic account of morality by grounding it in the ideas of Darwin and
Lamarck. In HH, Nietzsche not only refers to Ree's work, but he also uses it as a model for
his own attempt to show how moral sensations emerged from amoral elements of the
natural world.
Although scholars have wondered why Nietzsche would turn to the sciences and
against art in HH, there is litde question that this is indeed the main thrust of the work. This
is because Nietzsche announces his dedication to the goals of the modern scientific project
in the opening pages of the text. As Nietzsche notes in EH, the text was published on the
centenary of Voltaire's death, and the 1878 edition was dedicated to his honor (EH "Books"
HH: 1). In the same edition, Nietzsche adapts a passage from Descartes to announce that
he has now committed his life to the development of reason and the quest for truth (KSA 2,
ll). 5 9 The appeal to Descartes in this context is quite fitting because much like the
Meditations Nietzsche's project here is to raze the structure of his beliefs and begin anew.
Indeed, Nietzsche's initial notes for HH from the summer of 1876 appeared under the title
of the "Pflugschar" or "Ploughshare" (KSA 8,17[105]) (EH "Books" HH:2), and in EH,
Nietzsche tells us that he aims to place each of his ideals on ice so that they, like the "thing
in itself," eventually freeze to death (EH "Books" HH:1).
Unlike Descartes, Nietzsche does not however adopt rational certainty as the
standard of truth, but rather appeals to the strict methods of the natural sciences. Here, the
58
For a general study of Nietzsche's relationship to Ree, see Small (2005)
59
Cf. Rethy(1976).
197
task is to do away with anything that does not result from the "rigorous self-discipline" of
the natural sciences and anything that reeks of a '"higher swindle,' 'idealism,' 'beautiful
feelings,' and other such effeminacies" (EH "Books" HH:2). The problem is that, unlike
Descartes and his discovery of the cogito, Nietzsche's investigations never reach bedrock.
Instead, what he finds is running water in the form of Heraclitean becoming, and it is
because of this that Nietzsche is unable to rebuild the edifice of knowledge in the traditional
sense of episteme or scientia. Thus, we find Nietzsche declaring at the end of the first chapter
of H H that all life is immersed in error and depicting himself at the end of H H as a wanderer
in the desert of knowledge (HH 638).
Despite its disastrous consequences for life and even philosophy, Nietzsche remains
committed to the cold, hard, and impersonal quest for truth. Indeed, this is an important
moment in H H because it is here that Nietzsche distinguishes his project from the Socratic
optimism of BT. As we have noted before, Socratic optimism can be construed as the belief
that the quest for and possible attainment of truth will lead to some form of happiness or
the good life. In HH 7, Nietzsche argues that this is precisely where the Socratic project
went wrong. Wanting to find in nature support for human life and the quest for happiness,
the Socratic project effectively placed restraints on scientific inquiry and launched into its
"high-flying" metaphysics, leaving behind sober and detailed investigations of nature for
large-scale claims about the importance of knowledge. In so doing, Nietzsche contends that
the purpose was not to find the truth, but rather to bestow "on life and action the greatest
possible profundity and significance" (HH 6).
In contrast to this philosophical optimism, HH can be characterized as an exercise in
pessimism or tragic philosophy. Here, there are two important points that need to be kept
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in mind. First, the pessimism that emerges from Nietzsche's investigations is not an
essential feature on his commitment to science. Instead, what is essential to this
commitment is that science is not restrained by the potentially negative consequences that a
particular discovery, such as heliocentrism or evolution, might have for the human desire for
meaning and happiness. Nevertheless, Nietzsche's scientific approach does in fact lead to
pessimism insofar as scientific discoveries such as the doctrine of becoming render nature
hostile to the needs of human life. The second point to keep in mind is that the pessimism
of HH is factual rather than evaluative. Whereas factual pessimism highlights the deep tension
between truth and the human quest for meaning and happiness, evaluative pessimism is the
judgment that existence is something that ought to be denied or negated. This is an
important distinction to make because while Nietzsche remains, from beginning to end, a
factual pessimist, he devotes his other works to rebelling against the kind of evaluative
pessimism expressed in the final chapters of Schopenhauer's The World as Will and
Representation.
In HH, Nietzsche develops his factual pessimism via the natural sciences. However,
he does not, in HH itself, reject evaluative pessimism through an artistic affirmation of life.
This will first happen when he writes his own tragedy in Zarathustra and again in a work like
EH. Instead, the Nietzsche of HH is a man of science, and in accordance with the demands
of scientific objectivity, he refrains from making any judgments about the value of existence
(HH 34) and fends off any worries about despairing of the truth by adopting the "good
temperament" of the theoretical man (HH 34).
Although there is much rhetoric about methodological rigor and the painstaking
labor involved in his detailed scientific investigations (HH 3), Nietzsche begins HH with a
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sweeping and seemingly unscientific claim that is designed to put an end to the Western
metaphysical tradition and, as I will argue, to announce a new form of philosophy that is
ultimately an expression of Heraclitean becoming. Specifically, Nietzsche begins the first
section with the assertion that "almost all of the problems of philosophy once again pose the
same form of question as they did two thousand years ago." Here, a skeptical reader might
wonder why this is the case. Although he does not provide support for this claim in H H
itself, we have seen that much of Nietzsche's thinking resulted form his engagement with
Lange's The History ofMaterialism, and once we take the general thrust of Lange's argument
into consideration, i.e. that modern science is nothing more than a revival of Democritean
atomism, we can begin to see why Nietzsche would think that the fundamental questions of
philosophy have not changed since antiquity.
What the opening of H H shows is that Nietzsche is not concerned to make explicit
his reasons for taking the positions that he does, a fact that makes interpreting the work a
difficult endeavor. Just as troublesome for the interpreter is the additional fact that
Nietzsche is not always precise with the claims he makes. For instance, if the first sentence
were exact, Nietzsche's reference to the philosophical problems of two thousand years ago
would place his interests in the latter half of the second century BCE. The problem is not
only that we do not have much evidence attesting to raging debates concerning the problem
of opposites during this time, but also that there is little evidence to suggest that Nietzsche
was particularly interested in the cultural developments of this period. Because of this, the
reader is left to interpret Nietzsche's claim somewhat liberally, and it is through such a liberal
interpretation that we hit upon the debates that animated philosophy in ancient Greece
during the fourth and fifth centuries BCE.

There are three reasons for thinking that Nietzsche is referring back to this time
period with the problem of opposites in HH 1. The first is simply that an independent
examination of Greek philosophy shows that this was indeed a hot topic for those thinkers
who followed in the wake of Heraclitus' philosophy. Indeed, one of these thinkers was
Plato, and we only need to turn to dialogues such as the Phaedo and the Republic to find the
problem of opposites and the related distinction between being and becoming taking center
stage. The second point is that these debates are not only prominent during this time, but
we have just shown through our analysis of PTA that Nietzsche took a keen interest in
them. Although Nietzsche does not provide us with a detailed analysis of these debates as
they appear in Plato's works, we know that he lectured on every one of Plato's dialogues in
the years prior to HH and that he linked the tension between becoming and being found in
works like the Phaedo and the Republic to the pre-Socratic debate between Heraclitus and
Parmenides, respectively. Finally, we can find the basic structure of HH 1 in Nietzsche's
reading of the pre-Socratics in PTA. Whereas Nietzsche's query as to how something can
come from its opposites can be equated with "Anaximander's problem of becoming" in
PTA (PTA 5, p. 52), the so-called historical and metaphysical solutions to the problem of
opposites can be linked to the philosophies of Heraclitus and Parmenides, respectively.
In tracing the problem of opposites and the related historical and metaphysical
solutions back to PTA, we are following the work of both Heller and Glatzeder. Although a
close reading of HH 1 does show close parallels between the passage and the argument of
PTA, the passage itself does not clearly indicate that the rejection of Parmenidean being and
the acceptance of Heraclitean becoming are at stake. Indeed, one could favor a more
deflationary reading of the section by arguing that Nietzsche simply wants to highlight the
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fact that something like rationality emerged or evolved from irrationality and therefore deny
that anything like reason could entirely free itself from irrational drives.
As the argument of HH 18 indicates, Nietzsche is undoubtedly interested in arguing
just such a point. However, the question concerning the interpretation of H H 1 is whether
this is all that Nietzsche wants to argue. I do not think that it is, and I do not think this
because Nietzsche's remarks in his 1888 revision of HH 1, not to mention the appearance of
"becoming" in other passages such as HH 2 and 16, make it clear that the clash between
being and becoming is precisely what is at stake. Specifically, in the 1888 revision, Nietzsche
preserves much of the original passage, but now contrasts metaphysical philosophy with
"eine eigentliche Philosophie des Werdens" or "an actual philosophy of becoming," one that
completely rejects an "in-itself," "being," and "appearance." In so doing, Nietzsche claims
that the original question of how something can come from its opposite has been incorrectly
phrased, and it has been incorrectly phrased because we are told that there are no (absolute)
opposites (KSA 14, p. 119).
What we see here is that the two responses to the problem of opposites are really
two ways of rejecting the appropriateness of the question. On the one hand, the
metaphysician deals with the problem of something coming from its opposite by denying
that this is, in fact, what occurs. Specifically, he agrees that there are opposites, but denies
that something can in fact come from its opposite. Instead, the metaphysician holds that the
more valuable thing is supposed to have "a miraculous source in the very kernel and being of
the 'thing in itself" (HH 1). On the other hand, the historical philosopher deals with the
problem by denying that there are what I have called absolute opposites. That is, he deals
with the problem by insisting that if there are opposites at all, they are somehow united and
dependent upon each other.
As HH 1 and the sections that follow make clear, Nietzsche sides with the historical
philosopher's claim that "there are no opposites" and therefore his rejection of being and
acceptance of becoming. For our purposes, it is important to note Nietzsche's reasons for
rejecting the metaphysical solution and accepting the historical solution. Specifically, he
claims that the metaphysical solution is based on the erroneous assumption that there are
opposites, and Nietzsche identifies both language and reason as the twofold source of this
error. That is, opposites are only to be found "in the customary exaggeration of popular or
metaphysical interpretations." Whereas we can link the "popular" interpretation to the
"people's metaphysics of language" by way of the 1888 revision of the passage (KSA 14, p.
119), we can link the metaphysical interpretation to "a mistake in reasoning" that "lies at the
bottom of this antithesis" (HH 1).
The link between the linguistically based metaphysics of the people and the
rationalist metaphysics of the philosophers is important because it allows us to see the way in
which Nietzsche's project in HH can be understood as an extension of the worries in
modern science about the dangers of anthropomorphism. The idea is that just as early
modern science rejected Aristotle's belief that everyday language was an adequate starting
point for philosophical inquiry, Nietzsche is now rejecting the claim that reason can be used
as a means for unpacking the structure of nature. Based on our reading of PTA and
Aristotle's defense of PNC, we can say that the "mistake in reasoning" that Nietzsche is
attacking here is not some sort of fallacious inference, but rather the Parmenidean
assumption that there is an identity between thinking and being. As we have noted above, to
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assume that there is such an identity is to commit the anti-scientific sin of what Glatzeder
has called "logical anthropomorphism."
In contrast to a metaphysical philosophy rooted in the errors of language and reason,
Nietzsche's commits himself to a "historical philosophy" that "can no longer be separated
from the natural sciences." Given that we have just shown how this historical philosophy is,
at the same time, an expression of Nietzsche's commitment to both becoming and a version
of UO, the task that we now confront is making sense of how these two doctrines are
supposed to fit together given the language of HH 1. We can begin with an understanding
of UO. In the first chapter, I argued that UO is best understood as the view that everything
exists and is what it is only in relation to something else. In chapter two, we saw how
Aristotle concluded his defense of PNC-ontological by arguing that the Protagorean could
avoid the violation of PNC-ontological by making everything relative. Moreover, we will see
in the next chapter that Plato in the Theaetetus links the Protagorean and Heraclitean
positions together by way of what we have called UO, and finally, in chapter five, we will
find this view—although not linked to the problem of opposites—in important passages
from Nietzsche's late Nachlass. It is for these reasons that I think this is the best
understanding of UO and that it is also at work in HH 1, even though by no means explicit.
In order to push the case for this reading of UO a bit more, I want to argue that
Nietzsche's explicit rejection of things-in-themselves in HH 1 actually entails his acceptance
of UO or the view that everything exists and is what it is only in relation to something else.
To understand why this is the case, we must recall the three ways of Parmenides discussed in
PTA, namely the way of "it is" or being, "it is and is not" or becoming, and "it is not" or
nothingness. The idea is that once we rule out "things-in-themselves," "beings," or self-
identical entities, as Nietzsche is doing in the first book in HH, then we are forced to
develop an ontology that does without such things. Specifically, we have to develop an
ontology that does without anything that has what philosophers have alternatively called
primary or intrinsic or essential properties. Given that we have eliminated the first way in
Parmenides' scheme, only two options remain. That is, either we say there is nothing or we
say that the world somehow "is and is not." Whereas Nietzsche would likely follow
Parmenides in ruling out the possibility of the "is not," we have seen how the unity of
opposites can be thought of as endorsing a worldview in which things both are and are not.
Although Parmenides rejected such a position on the grounds that it violates an ontological
formulation of PNC, we argued that it is best understood as the view that everything has
only relative existence and, as such, does not violate our logical formulation of PNC.
The idea, then, is that if what we have said above is correct, then Nietzsche must be
committed to the view that everything only has relative existence given his rejection of
things-in-themselves and the reasonable assumption that he also rejects an ontology of
nothingness. In other words, once Nietzsche rejects things that exist and have the
properties they do in virtue of themselves, he must be committed to the view that everything
has only relative existence. The question that therefore remains is showing how this view
relates to the doctrine of becoming present in the 1888 reworking of the passage. As we
have seen from our analysis of PTA, one way to make this connection is by saying that the
world is made up of interrelated qualities or forces that are continually affecting each other.
Although this is the version of UO and becoming that we find most readily throughout
Nietzsche's late Nachlass fragments, such an understanding of UO and therefore becoming is
not readily found in HH 1. However, in our analysis of PTA, we developed another way of
understanding the relationship between UO and becoming that does resonate with the
language of HH 1. Specifically, in the passage, Nietzsche speaks of "unegoistic actions" and
"disinterested contemplation" as "sublimations," where "the basic element seems almost to
have dispersed and reveals itself only under the most painstaking observation." Although
Nietzsche seems to want to reduce things such as selflessness and disinterestedness down to
selfish interest, we can also read him as saying that all disinterested or selfless behavior is
somehow united with some sort of interested selfishness that has been, in one way or
another, sublimated in the relationship. In this sense, we can say that we have a unity of
opposites, and the appearance of one opposite in relationship simply means that the other
has been sublimated, just like two "wrestlers where sometimes the one, sometimes the other
is on top" (PTA 5, p. 54).
In PTA, we said that this understanding of UO could explain change in two ways,
and these two ways can help us explain, first, why change is an essential feature of nature and
how something can come from its opposite, i.e. the guiding question of HH 1. The first
understanding says that change is an essential feature of nature because even if some
property appears to be relatively stable and unchanging, it is nevertheless bound up and
continually in tension with its opposite. Thus, even though there is an apparent stability,
change is going on all the time under the surface. The second way of explaining change
allows us, in turn, to see how something can come from its opposite. Since there are no
absolute opposites in the sense of being ontologically separate from each other, opposites
can be said to come from each other when one opposite becomes the dominant partner in
the relationship. By understanding change in this way, we avoid the twofold danger of
saying that something comes from nothing and denying the possibility of change altogether.
On the one hand, something does not come from nothing because both contraries are
already co-present in the object. On the other hand, even though this understanding rules
out absolute change in the sense of one contrary completely replacing the other, it does
allow for change to occur when, again, the once sublimated partner in the relationship
becomes the dominant one. In this sense, we can say something can and does come to be
from its opposite precisely because opposites are eternally united with each other.
At this point, one might harbor worries that Nietzsche's concerns with the problems
of antiquity and the language he employs to give expression to such problems might render
the philosophical project of HH a bit, well, antiquated. To remedy such worries, we need to
recall that Nietzsche, like Lange, wants to link the questions that animated antiquity to
contemporary debates in the natural sciences. Thus, although we find in H H 1 talk of
opposites coming from opposites and are forced to infer from such talk that Nietzsche is
expressing his commitment to Heraclitus' philosophy of becoming and the related doctrine
of UO, there is reason to think that Nietzsche wants to leave behind Heraclitean metaphors
of bitter and sweet wrestling with each other for a more straightforward scientific account of
reality. Evidence of this can not only be found in his talk of the natural sciences and "a
chemistry of concepts and sensations" in H H 1, but also in HH 19, where we are told that
science has had as its task the reduction of all matter to motion.
That said, one might wonder why Nietzsche would bother to link the gradual
dissolution of matter in the contemporary natural sciences to debates in ancient philosophy.
If the goal of H H is simply to provide us with a proper construal of reality, then why link
such a construal of reality to ancient philosophy? On the one hand, it might be that
Nietzsche simply wants to show how the developments in modern science can be
understood as the Greek Enlightenment in reverse, where we gradually move from the
Aristotelianism of the Scholastics and the Democriteanism of the early moderns to the
Heracliteanism of the nineteenth-century. On the other hand, there are good reasons to
think that there is more at work. Specifically, once we recall the arguments of BT and PTA,
we can begin to speculate that the reason why Nietzsche wants to show how recent
developments in the natural science point to the rebirth of Heraclitean becoming is because
he wants to show us how contemporary science has effectively re-established the "tragic
worldview" of ancient Greece, and once this worldview has been reborn, the necessary
framework will be in place for the possibility of a corresponding rebirth of Dionysian art.
Thus far, we have expended a fair amount of interpretive effort on showing why
HH 1 can be read as an expression of Nietzsche's commitment to UO and becoming.
Whereas some version of UO is readily evident in HH 1, we had to turn to Nietzsche's 1888
revision of the passage to find an explicit mention of becoming. Here, however, it should be
noted that if we did not have recourse to the revised version of HH 1, we would still have
significant evidence that Nietzsche's scientific commitments are bound up with a dynamic
conception of reality. This is because Nietzsche appeals to becoming in HH 2 to reject the
philosopher's belief in an "aeterna Veritas" (HH 2). Specifically, we are told that the family
failing of philosophers is that they have lacked a historical sense, and this lack of historical
sense is evidenced by the fact that they involuntarily think of the human being as something
that "remains constant in the midst of all flux, as a sure measure of things." According to
Nietzsche, the problem with this way of thinking is that it looks at the human being for only
a limited period of time. Once we step outside of our typically narrow view of things, we see
that everything about the human being, including his faculty of cognition, has come from
something non-human, something irrational. It is for this reason that the human being is
not an aeterna Veritas, and what is true of the human being is true of everything else. Thus,
Nietzsche concludes the section with the claim that there are no eternal facts, no absolute
truths.
There are two interpretative difficulties that emerge from HH 2. The first is the
problem of developing a precise definition of becoming within the context of HH. The
second has to do with the potential presence of Nietzsche's perspectivism in the work.
Evidence for the latter point appears at the beginning and the end of the section. On the
one hand, Nietzsche refers to the Protagorean doctrine that man is the measure of all things.
His point, however, is to refute the view that man functions as the measure of all things on
the grounds that he is fully submersed in the flux of nature. As we will see in HH 18,
Nietzsche's rejection of the Protagorean teaching will go hand in hand with his rejection of
self-identical entities, as self-identity is a fundamental law of human cognition, not a
fundamental law of nature. The idea is that once we join Copernicus and stop thinking of
ourselves as the center of the world and the measure of all things, we will overcome our
unscientific and anthropomorphic belief that there are self-identical entities that have a
foothold in a mind-independent reality.
The other potential expression of perspectivism comes with Nietzsche's claim that
there are no eternal facts, no absolute truths (HH 2). This is because this claim seems to be
a shortened version of what many take to be the essence of Nietzsche's mature
perspectivism: "there are no facts, only interpretations" (WP 481, KSA 12, 7[60]; see also
BGE 22). Although the claim is less extreme in HH, insofar as it simply denies eternal facts
and absolute truths, it is nevertheless close enough to the later formulation to warrant
209
discussion. Here, it is important to note two things. First, I will argue in chapter five that
Nietzsche's claim that there are no facts is equivalent to the view that everything exists and is
what it is only in relation to something else. In other words, Nietzsche's claim that there are
no facts is equivalent to UO. What this means is that Nietzsche's denial of facts is a denial
of non-relative facts only, and his denial of non-relative facts goes hand in hand with his
acceptance that all facts are relative facts or, what he calls, interpretations. The second point
is that Nietzsche grounds his denial of facts in what we, in turn, might call the "fact" of
becoming or the "fact" of UO. Evidence for such a reading can not only be found in the
late Nachlass, where Nietzsche tells us that there are no facts because everything is in flux (WP
604; KSA 12, 2 [82]), but also in HH 2 itself, where we are told that there are no "eternal
facts" and no "absolute truths" because everything has become (HH 2).
There are two advantages to this reading of Nietzsche's denial of facts, both in HH
and elsewhere. The first is that it explains why Nietzsche believes that there are no facts. In
HH, the basic idea is that science reveals a world in which becoming and UO are true, and if
we accept becoming and UO as being true, then we must accept the further claim that there
are no non-relational facts. Indeed, it is here that we see the way in which the claims put
forth in HH 2 simply follow from the position mapped out, however obscurely, in HH 1.
The second advantage to this reading is that it avoids the problem of self-refutation. In
denying that there are facts, Nietzsche does not also deny that becoming and UO are true.
Instead, it is Nietzsche's belief that becoming and UO are true that then forms the basis for
his denial of all factual claims about the independent existence of things and their non-
relational properties.
210
By limiting Nietzsche's denial of facts in this way, we are faced with another
interpretive difficulty with respect to our understanding of becoming. This is because
Nietzsche's denial of eternal facts and absolute truths suggests that becoming simply entails the
denial of eternal substances that might populate a metaphysical world beyond the senses. So
construed, becoming would not entail the rejection of temporarily existing commonsense
things. That is, becoming would simply be the view that all existing entities are subject to
generation and corruption. Indeed, such a reading of becoming could be supported by a
more commonsense reading of the problem of opposites in the first section. Here, we
would say that there is rationality in the world, but Nietzsche's point is simply to remind us
that this rationality came to be from non-rational elements. In both instances, Nietzsche
does not want to undercut our basic ability to think and speak about the world of
commonsense, but rather to disabuse us of our metaphysical beliefs in God, transcendent
freedom, immortality, etc.
Although Nietzsche undoubtedly targets such metaphysical beliefs, this deflationary
reading of the first two sections not only fails to resonate with Nietzsche's articulation of
becoming in PTA and PPP, but it also fails to make sense of his critique of language and
logic in the other sections of the first chapter of HH. In H H 11, Nietzsche again addresses
the issue of eternal truths (aeternae veritates). This time it comes in the context of his attack on
the view that language and logic provide us with knowledge of the world. While people of
previous times believed that the creator of language was expressing certain discoveries about
nature through his linguistic creations, Nietzsche claims that this has proven to be a
"tremendous error." As the section continues, we learn that this is also the case with logic.
211
Specifically, Nietzsche contends that logic, like language, "depends on presuppositions with
which nothing in the real world corresponds" (HH 11).
Although it is clear that Nietzsche thinks that language and logic somehow dupe us
into adopting false beliefs about reality, he does not articulate the point with much precision.
In particular, it is not entirely clear what he means by "depends upon" in the previous claim
about logic. The context suggests that Nietzsche's point is not that we cannot speak or draw
logical inferences without these presuppositions, but that in order for logic and language to
provide us with knowledge about the world, the world needs to be structured in a certain
way. Here we can say that language and logic can only provide us with knowledge about the
world if, at the very least, there are self-identical entities that correspond to the logical law of
identity and can function as subjects in the subject-predicate structure of language.
In HH 11, Nietzsche does not explicitly deny the existence of self-identical entities.
However, his language is hardly free of ambiguity. What he says is that logic depends on
presuppositions such as that "there are identical things, that the same thing is identical at
different points of time." Nietzsche's articulation of the point lacks clarity because "identical
things" could be read as meaning "self-identical things" or, perhaps more straightforwardly,
two numerically distinct but qualitatively identical things. While the latter reading seems to
best fit with the text at hand, the former reading does find support in later sections and
makes better sense of Nietzsche's critique of logic. This is because there does not seem to
be any reason why the application of logical principles to the world requires the existence of
two qualitatively identical things. Indeed, one could argue that the application of logical
principles to the world does not even require diachronic self-identity. Instead, what the
application of logical principles to the world requires is synchronic self-identity, that one
thing is identical with itself at any given point in time.
While Nietzsche does not explicitly deny synchronically self-identical entities in HH
11, it is important to note that the passage contains nothing that would commit him to their
existence. Moreover, Nietzsche's remarks in this section indicate that he rejects not only
sempiternal entities and entities that exist beyond time, but also entities that remain
qualitatively identical from one point in time to the next. What this shows is that Nietzsche
is indeed engaged in the project of dissolving our commonsense world into the flux of
becoming. Whereas he rejects eternal entities in HH 2, he takes aim at our belief that there
are persisting things HH 11. The issue that remains open, however, is whether he rejects the
existence of synchronically self-identical entities. Based on other sections from the first
chapter of HH, I will argue that he does.
For our purposes, the next two sections of significance are HH 16 and HH 18, and
important here is the fact that Nietzsche refers to the "rigorous" and "distinguished"
logician Afrikan Spir in each. Recently, Green has argued that Spir's work is crucial for
understanding Nietzsche's thought more generally and the falsification thesis in particular.60
While I differ with Green on certain details of his account, we agree insofar as he argues not
only that Nietzsche follows Spir in establishing a deep antithesis between Parmenidean being
and Heraclitean becoming, but also in that the differences between Spir and Nietzsche can
be understood in terms of the respective sides that they take in this debate. Whereas Spir
opts for Parmenidean being or absolutely self-identical substances, Nietzsche turns toward
60
Green (2002, 2004, 2005).
Heraclitean becoming or the realm of multiplicity and change. Indeed, we have argued that
this dynamic not only plays a central role in PTA, but also forms the cornerstone of
Nietzsche's philosophical project in HH.
The title of HH 16—"appearance and fhing-in-itself"—indicates that the issue at
hand is the all-important distinction between appearances and things-in-themselves. Much
like HH 2, where he attacks the philosopher's lack of historical sense, Nietzsche begins the
passage with a critique of the philosopher's general tendency to see the world of life and
experience as the appearance of some greater reality. For philosophers who look upon the
world in this way, the question that emerges has to do with the relationship between the
world of appearance and the world of things-in-themselves. Whereas some—and Nietzsche
seems to be thinking of Schopenhauer here—have contended that there is a connection
between the two worlds insofar as the latter serves as the sufficient reason for the former,
others—and Nietzsche's reference to "more rigorous logicians" suggests Spir—have
disputed any connection between these two worlds. Nietzsche, however, believes that both
these thinkers have failed to recognize that the world "has gradually become" and "is indeed
still fully in course of becoming" Because of this, Nietzsche contends that one cannot draw
any conclusion as to the origins of the world of appearance. Nevertheless, he proceeds to
argue that both these parties have failed to see that "it is the human intellect that has made
appearance appear and transported its erroneous basic conceptions into things." According
to Nietzsche, once one develops a scientifically-grounded account of the "history of the
genesis of thought," these debates will be rendered superfluous. While science is only capable
of partially detaching us from the world as idea (1/orstellung) by revealing that it is the
61
Green (2004, 178f.).
outcome of ingrained errors, it can nevertheless "illuminate the history of the genesis of this
world as idea (Vorstellung)" and when it does, everyone involved will recognize that the
thing-in-itself is "empty of significance" and "worthy of Homeric laughter" (HH 16).
Although the details of Nietzsche's call for a "history of the genesis of thought" are
not immediately clear, we can shed some light on the issue by looking back to PTA and
forward to HH 18. With PTA in mind, we can see how the three positions identified in H H
16 parallel Nietzsche's earlier interpretation of the philosophies of Anaximander,
Parmenides, and Heraclitus. Whereas Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's Anaximander both
believe in a thing-in-itself that functions as the cause of and the from-which the world of
appearance arises, Spir and Nietzsche's Parmenides completely detach these two worlds
from each other and declare the true world to be that of absolute being. In contrast to these
two positions, Nietzsche and Nietzsche's Heraclitus reject being and the thing-in-itself
altogether in opting for a philosophy of becoming, a move which not only puts an end to the
debate about the relationship between appearance and things-in-themselves, but also entails
the rejection of stable and self-identical entities in the world of experience.
While PTA allows us to associate Nietzsche's historical philosophy in HH with
Heraclitean becoming and interpret it in terms of a complete rejection of being or things-in-
themselves, the question remains as to how this position relates to his call for a "history of
the genesis of thought." The key here is HH 18, a passage that begins with Nietzsche
forecasting the results of this history. Specifically, Nietzsche contends that one day new
light will be shed on the following sentence of "a distinguished logician," i.e. Spir: "The
primary universal law of the knowing subject consists in the inner necessity of recognizing
every object in itself as being in its own essence something identical with itself, thus self-
215
existent and at bottom always the same and unchanging, in short as a substance." According
to Nietzsche, the history of the genesis of thought, a project already announced in HH 2,
will soon reveal that this "primary universal law" has developed from the inability of lower
organisms to detect change in the world. Specifically, Nietzsche contends that the plant
cannot detect change because it lacks the ability to sense pleasure and pain, as it is through
the experience of pleasure and pain that we become conscious of change in the external
world. Because of this inability, Nietzsche claims that to the plant "all things are usually in
repose, eternal, every thing identical with itself." From this example, Nietzsche not only
concludes that we have inherited from plants the belief that there are "identical thing?'—
although this locution retains the ambiguity of HH 11, the quote from Spir suggests that
Nietzsche does have synchronically self-identical things in mind—, but he also speculates
that "the original belief of everything organic was from the very beginning that all the rest of
the world is one and unmoving" (HH 18)
It must be said here that Nietzsche's scientific analysis borders on parody, and what
he is doing is parodying Parmenides' philosophy by tracing it, via the "rigors" of his
evolutionary analysis, back to the plant's underdeveloped capacity to sense pleasure and pain.
At the same time, Nietzsche's analysis does have a serious point. Specifically, his goal is not
simply to deny the existence of identical things—as HH 18 indicates, he already assumes that
science contradicts this proposition—, but rather to articulate the reasons why we have, for so
long, populated our ontologies with self-identical things, whether these self-identical things
be located in a world beyond the senses or play an essential role in our descriptions of the
empirical world. Here, Nietzsche's claim is not that Spir misunderstood the fundamental
laws of the knowing subject, but that these laws have emerged from the irrational
underworld of primitive life, and once we recognize the irrational origins of these laws, we
will no longer be inclined to presuppose that our intellects have been designed for knowledge.
That is, we will no longer be inclined to presuppose that there is, to use the language of
Parmenides, an identity between thinking and being. Indeed, once we fully develop a history
of the genesis of thought, we might even be inclined to adopt the position found in
Nietzsche's late Nachlass: "Parmenides said, 'one cannot think of what is not,'—we are at
the other extreme, and say 'what can be thought of must certainly be a fiction'" (WP 539;
KSA 13,14[148]).
Before moving on to HH 19, where Nietzsche explicitly connects science with a
form of becoming that rejects things altogether, we need to highlight two more aspects of
Spir's work that are important for our purposes. The first allows us to substantiate the link
between becoming and the denial of self-identical entities. Specifically, we know from an
independent reading of his work that Spir holds that if the world were an "unending flux or
change," the principle of self-identity would not apply.62 The reason why Spir thinks that a
world of unending flux or change violates synchronic self-identity is because anything that is
(essentially) changing with respect to itself is not identical with itself.63 To understand Spir's
line of reasoning, we need to recall that on this version of becoming, change is an essential
feature of the object, where essential change is to be distinguished from accidental change.
With accidental change a self-identical thing alters at least one of its accidental properties.
While the accidental properties change, the thing nevertheless remains identical with itself
throughout. With essential change, however, the thing is changing with respect to itself, and
62
Here we can follow Green (2002, 61 ff.) in contending that the issue is not merely one of diachronic self-
identity, but rather synchronic self-identity.
63
Spir (1877, Vol. l,277f.).
217
because it is changing with respect to itself, it is not identical to itself. The second point that
we can glean from Spir's work comes in his speculations on what a world of "absolute
becoming" would be like. Here, Spir contends that one would have to accept a view much
like that of Boscovich, where the world is made up of centers offeree that do not cause
change, but rather simply are the power to continue the change.64
The reason for introducing Spir's attempt to connect becoming to Boscovich's
theory offeree is that in HH 19 Nietzsche refers to the scientific reduction of everything
material into motions. Nietzsche's claim comes within the context of his reflections on the
relationship of numbers to the world. Here, Nietzsche returns to the issue of the HH 11, i.e.
the existence of things, by opening with the potentially ambiguous claim that the invention
of number is based on the erroneous belief that there are identical things, which seems to
mean here the existence of two qualitatively identical things. Nevertheless, as the section
continues, Nietzsche does commit himself to the outright denial of things. Not only does he
claim that "there is no 'thing'," but he also contends that the assumption of plurality
depends upon "fabricating beings, unities which do not exist."
It is through our reading of these passages that we come to see the way in which
Nietzsche's attacks on things and substances are not limited to the metaphysical world of
Parmenides and Plato, but also includes the substances or things found in the realm of
commonsense. Indeed, as the argument of HH 19 unfolds, Nietzsche attacks not only the
things of the commonsense world, but also the atom of mechanistic science. Just as
Aristotle mistakenly posited a substance that was the bearer of properties, Nietzsche argues
that the materialist feels himself compelled to posit the existence of a 'thing' or 'substratum'
64
Spir (1877, Vol. 2, 112ff.).
218
that is moved in the process of change.65 In both cases, we are positing entities that do not
exist, and the reason why we know that they do not exist is that, according to Nietzsche, the
"the whole procedure of science has pursued the task of resolving everything thing-like
(material) in motion" (HH 19).
It is here that we see the importance of Lange and Boscovich for Nietzsche's
interpretation of the developments in the natural sciences. Although by no means explicit,
Nietzsche's remark parallels Lange's analysis of the gradual dissolution of the atom in
modern science. However, we have also seen that while Nietzsche accepts Lange's
characterization of this development, he nevertheless parts with Lange in the conclusions he
draws from it. Whereas Lange uses it to argue for his (materio-)idealism, Nietzsche sees
such developments as marking the transition from Newton's mechanistic worldview to the
dynamic materialism of Boscovich. Insofar as Nietzsche equates these developments in the
natural sciences with Heraclitean becoming, we can read the claim in HH 19 as an attempt to
link science to the doctrine of becoming implicit in the historical philosophy of HH 1.
Nietzsche concludes HH 19 with a significant, yet puzzling claim. It is significant
because it raises the issue of the basis of the falsification thesis in HH. It is puzzling because
Nietzsche speaks of a "world which is not our idea," and it is not clear whether this world is
the metaphysical world of being or the scientific world of becoming. The portion of the
passage in question begins with Nietzsche's appeal to Kant's claim that we do not draw
concepts such as number and self-identity from nature, but rather prescribe such concepts to
it. While he quotes Kant approvingly, Nietzsche nevertheless modifies the point by noting
that the "nature" to which we apply our concepts is merely the world as Vorstellung and
65
Cf. KSA8, 23 [150].
therefore the world as error. Here we are also told that the world as Vorstellung is the
summation of a host of errors made by the understanding, errors that have been ingrained in
"our being from time immemorial." Nietzsche then compares the world of Vorstellung to a
second world and contends that to "a world which is not our idea {Vorstellung) the laws of
numbers are wholly inapplicable: these are valid only in the human world." As we can see,
the ambiguity of the passage lies in deciphering what other "world" Nietzsche might have in
mind here. This is an important issue because it is clear that Nietzsche thinks that the use of
numbers and other related concepts, e.g. unity, self-identity, etc., commits us to error, and
the reason why these concepts are erroneous is not because they do not apply to the human
world, but rather because they do not apply to some other world that implicitiy functions as
the standard of truth and therefore the basis of the falsification thesis.
While Clark has argued that it is the possible existence of a metaphysical world that
functions as the standard by which our best theories might falsify reality in HH and has
appealed to the final line of HH 19 as evidence for her position, 66 1 am agruing here that it is
the scientific world that functions as the standard of truth in this passage and grounds
Nietzsche's claim that unity, self-identity, number, etc., do not apply to reality.67 My reasons
are six-fold. First, Nietzsche's claim is not that the aforementioned concepts might falsify
reality, as Clark contends, but that they do. Because of this, Nietzsche needs to be
committed to a much stronger belief in a metaphysical world than its mere possibility. The
problem is that HH provides, at best, evidence for the mere possibility of a metaphysical
world. I say at best here because other than HH 9, where Nietzsche acknowledges the
«• Clark (1990, 96).

67
It should be noted, however, that Clark is aware of the scientific basis of the falsification thesis in H H
(1990,97).
220
absolute possibility of a metaphysical world, and perhaps HH 20, where Nietzsche thinks
that skepticism alone can effectively put an end to metaphysical speculation, the general
thrust of the work is the progressive rejection of the metaphysical world through scientific
explanation. Thus, it seems highly unlikely that Nietzsche would then appeal to the
metaphysical world as a standard of truth to reject the commonsense world as erroneous.
Indeed, and this is the second reason, for Nietzsche to claim that our concepts of unity,
number, self-identity, etc., do not correspond to the metaphysical world, he would not only
have to know that this world exists, but know enough about it to know that such concepts
do not apply. Third, if Nietzsche were committed to a metaphysical world and knew
something about it, it would be surprising to find that concepts such as unity, number, and
self-identity did not apply to it. This is because these are precisely the concepts that a
metaphysician like Parmenides used to construct his metaphysical world. Fourth, if we look
at HH 19 itself, we find Nietzsche direcdy appealing to the progress of the sciences and how
they have gradually dissolved the atom into motions. As we know from Lange, it is precisely
the atom that is the last remnant of the self-identical in the scientific picture, and it is for this
reason that Nietzsche's appeal to a dynamic conception of reality, one that excludes the
atom, can be seen as going hand in hand with his claim that concepts such as unity, number,
and self-identity falsify the world of the natural sciences. Fifth, in both HH 16 and HH 29,
Nietzsche implicidy contrasts science with the world of Vorstellung. In the former, we are
told that science possess a limited capacity to free us from this world. In the latter,
Nietzsche tells us that science provides us with knowledge of the true nature of the world (as
opposed to the world as Vorstellung). Finally, interpreting HH 19 in this way means that the
world of science is opposed to the human world, and while this opposition might seem
221
strange to some, I have argued in this chapter that this is the dichotomy at work in early
modern science and I would contend that this is the central argument of HH. To the anti-
anthropomorphic scientist, the world of commonsense is nothing more than a host of
errors, something human, all-too-human.
What this means is that on this reading Nietzsche does know enough about reality to
be able to use it as a standard by which to adjudicate the truth or falsity of human
judgments, and the means by which he comes to know this reality is scientific observation of
the empirical world. Just as we have seen in HH 2, where Nietzsche declares that there are
no eternal facts because the world has become, we find in central passages of the first chapter
of HH the claim that concepts such as unity, self-identity, and number do not apply to reality
because the sciences have dissolved everything into motion (HH 19). The reason why these
concepts do not apply is that motions (or relations) go all the way down, such that there is
no self-identical thing that functions as the substratum for movement and change. The
problem, however, is that by dissolving the self-identical atom into the flux of becoming, the
natural scientists of Nietzsche's day have discovered a world that cuts against the basic
structures of language and thought. It is for this reason that the Heraclitean ontology
unpacked in the opening stages of the first book of HH forms the basis for Nietzsche's
claims in the latter stages of the book that error and injustice are necessary features of
human existence and that the world is deeply illogical, unintelligible, and unknowable. In
this sense, the argument of the first book of HH simply follows basic point that Plato puts
forth at the end of the Cratylus, where we are told that if becoming is true, then there can be
222
no knowledge (Cra. 440a-d),68 and Aristotle's general strategy of highlighting the "terrible"
consequences of the Heraclitean position. The difference, of course, is that Nietzsche
remains committed to such an ontology, despite its "deadly" consequences.
3.6. The Tragic Consequences of Becoming in Human, All Too Human
Thus far, we have concentrated on the first nineteen sections of HH with a view to
explicating Nietzsche's critique of metaphysics and the role that the doctrines of becoming
and UO play in underwriting the falsification thesis. To conclude this analysis, I want to
discuss the cultural and existential consequences of these scientific investigations that
Nietzsche details in the final fifteen sections of the first chapter of HH. In so doing, we will
see the way in which Nietzsche highlights the potentially tragic or life-denying consequences
of these investigations, but nevertheless stresses the fact that one cannot make any
immediate inference about the value of life given his newly won insights. As we will also see,
the reason why Nietzsche refrains from making any assessment about the value of life is that
he is writing qua objective scientist in HH, and as a scientist, his sole task is to further the
quest for "knowledge," not to assess the value of this "knowledge" for the purposes of life.
The title of the HH 20—"A few steps back"—signals a shift in Nietzsche's analysis.
Until this point, Nietzsche had concentrated on developing arguments that culminated in the
conclusion that metaphysics is the science that treats the fundamental errors of mankind as if
they were fundamental truths (HH 18). In taking a few steps back, Nietzsche now wants to
provide a historical and psychological account of why we came to accept these erroneous
ideas. Here Nietzsche claims that such ideas have been primarily responsible for the
68
See Nietzsche's remarks about the end of Plato's Cratyks (PPP, p. 84). Also see WP 517; KSA 12, 9[87]. I
have dealt with the apparent paradox found in this position, where our knowledge that becoming is true leads
to the denial of knowledge, in both chapters one and five.
advancement of the human species. Given the fact that false metaphysical thinking has
hitherto contributed to human culture, the new question is what form society will now take
given its mistrust of metaphysical explanations (HH 21).
While he discusses the cultural consequences of the anti-metaphysical turn in the
following sections, I want to focus here on the way in which he staves off the potentially
"deadly" effects of becoming in the final sections of the chapter, an effort that begins in H H
28, where Nietzsche commands us to do away "with those overused words optimism and
pessimism!" As we have noted above, HH can be read as a certain kind of tragic or
pessimistic work in that it establishes a deep tension between truth and life. Indeed, we have
just seen in H H 20 that much of what has been revealed as false was nevertheless conducive
to the advancement of mankind. At the same time, Nietzsche wants to put an end to
assessing nature according to the categories of pessimism and optimism precisely because
these distinctions are nowhere to be found in nature herself. Here again, arguing that the
world is either good or evil rests upon the presupposition that the world conforms to these
categories. This presupposition, however, is just one more instance of our tendency to
project anthropomorphic categories onto the wall of nature, and this is precisely what the
scientific method of H H enjoins us to avoid.
Whereas he calls upon us to refrain from assessing the world according to the all-
too-human categories of optimism and pessimism in HH 28, Nietzsche nevertheless
highlights the disappointing consequences of his scientific investigations in HH 29. Here,
Nietzsche claims that if we were ever to succeed in fully unveiling the secrets of nature via
science, "the nature of the world would produce for all of us the most unpleasant
disappointment." Again, the reason for this is that the "errors" of art and religion are what
have made "the world as Vorstellung (error)" so profound, so marvelous, and so full of
significance. Despite these disappointing consequences, however, Nietzsche emphasizes
that this philosophy of "logical world-denial" can be united with "a practical world-
affirmation just as easily as with its opposite" (HH 29). Again, the point is that although his
scientific quest for truth shows the wonderful world as idea (Vorstellung) to be an error, such
insights leave open the question as to whether one should affirm or deny this world on a
practical level.
After contending that the free spirit must completely divorce truth from its
consequences in H H 30, Nietzsche uses, in the following section, a term that has been
associated with the later problem of nihilism, namely despair (HH 31).69 Here, the cause of
despair is knowledge of a certain fact, namely that "the illogical is a necessity for mankind,
and that much good proceeds from the illogical." In HH 32, Nietzsche makes a similar
claim about the falsity or injustice of all our judgments and the discomfort that the
recognition of this fact causes for the thinker. All our judgments are unjust not only because
we will never have complete and exhaustive knowledge of an object, but also because the
knowing subject cannot function as a fixed standard for judgment given that he is fully
immersed in the flux of nature. Due to this situation, Nietzsche wonders whether we should
refrain from judging altogether. The problem, however, is that we could not live without
judging and evaluating, and it is this problem that forms the crux of what I have called
Nietzsche's tragic philosophy. We are illogical and unjust beings in the sense that we must
69
See Reginster (2006).
falsify reality for the purposes of life, and the fact that we "can recognise this" forms "one of
the greatest and most irresolvable discords of existence" (HH 32).70
In the penultimate section, Nietzsche deepens the existential crisis caused by his
tragic insights. The section begins with the assertion that "every belief in the value and
dignity of life rests on false thinking," and it continues with the claim that we are able to live
only because we have a feebly developed capacity for empathizing with the "suffering of
mankind" (HH 33). Here, Nietzsche supports these assertions by showing that even the
more universally minded thinkers, i.e. those who reflect on existence as such and not just
their own, can find value in life only by overlooking the ugly and disharmonic elements of
existence. In contrast, if an individual could overcome this myopia and fully participate in
the experiences of other beings, he "would have to despair (l/er^weifelung) of the value of
life" and "collapse with a curse on existence." The reason, according to Nietzsche, is not so
much because of the poverty, disease, and war that characterize much of human life, but
rather because "mankind has as a whole no goal" (HH 33).
In the final section, we encounter textual support for characterizing Nietzsche's
efforts as an exercise in tragic philosophy. This is because Nietzsche opens the section by
asking whether his philosophy will not become a tragedy (HH 34). Indeed, he is even more
emphatic about the point in the initial version of the section, where he not only states, in the
form of a declarative sentence, that his philosophy will become a tragedy, but also refers to
the recognition that human life in entangled in untruth as "a preparation for a tragic
philosophy" (KSA 14, p. 125). To be sure, Nietzsche's self-proclaimed tragic philosophy is
not the same as the tragic affirmation of life that takes center stage in BT. Instead,
70
Cf. KSA 8, 9[l],p. 135ff.
226
Nietzsche's tragic philosophy resembles the tragic wisdom of the mythical Silenus and the
philosophy of Schopenhauer. In both instances, the human being is depicted as something
thrown into a natural world that is hostile to his desires for meaning and happiness. As a
result, the quest for knowledge does not lead to a blissful look at a metaphysical heaven, but
rather culminates with a glimpse into the abyss of meaningless and suffering. It is for this
reason that Nietzsche sees in Oedipus, not Socrates, the paradigmatic man of knowledge and
the reason why Nietzsche's own quest for knowledge in HH culminates with him wandering
the desert as a man alone with himself (HH 638).
Despite these tragic reflections on the suffering and meaninglessness of existence,
Nietzsche puts a halt to an Oedipus-like tearing out of the eyes or a "philosophy of
destruction" in the final section of the chapter (HH 34). Much like the argument of BT,
where Silenic wisdom does not necessarily culminate in the denial of life, Nietzsche contends
here that "the nature of the after-effect of knowledge is determined by a man's temperament."
Specifically, it is possible that one could learn to weaken the passions through the quest for
knowledge, with the result that "one would live among men and with oneself as in nature,
without praising, blaming, contending, gazing contentedly, as though at a spectacle." To do
this, however, one needs to have the good temperament of the theoretical man, "a firm, mild
and at bottom cheerful soul." Here, the individual frees himself from the fetters of ordinary
life so that he can pursue the knowledge that he cherishes. In so doing, he hovers above
men, laws, and customary evaluations of things and takes pleasure in this condition (HH 34).
Indeed, it is as this type of free spirit that Nietzsche will continue his scientific investigations
in HH, where he will, in the chapters that follow, develop "a chemistry of the moral, religious
and aesthetic conceptions and sensations, likewise of all the agitations we experience within
227
ourselves in cultural and social intercourse and indeed even when we are alone" (HH 1).
That is, Nietzsche will continue, in the chapters that follow, to unpack the consequences of
his initial turn to Heraclitean becoming and therefore further develop his tragic philosophy.
3.7. Human, All Too Human and the Development of the Free Spirit
In certain respects, Glatzeder is right to read HH as the key to understanding
Nietzsche's philosophical project. Although he has yet to formulate the teachings that play a
central role in his later philosophy such as the eternal return, the will-to-power, and
perspectivism, Nietzsche has laid out the rudiments of his ontology and what I have called
his tragic philosophy in HH, and he will remain true to this picture throughout his career.
As we have seen, Nietzsche had already articulated his critique of metaphysics and
announced his corresponding turn to Heraclitean becoming as early as 1873, and he
continued to develop this picture by supplementing his reading of pre-Socratic philosophers
with his studies in contemporary natural science. The reason for thinking that Nietzsche
remains committed to this view in his post-HH works stems from the fact that he not only
re-articulates the central arguments of PTA in GS 109-112 and TI "Reason," but also from
the fact that he returns to the problem of opposites in BGE. As I will contend, Nietzsche is
still committed to becoming and the corresponding critique of metaphysics in BGE, and it is
his commitment to becoming or an ontology of force that forms the basis not only for his
teaching of the eternal return and the will-to-power,71 but also his perspectivism.
At the same time, there is something peculiar about H H and the role that it plays in
Nietzsche's larger corpus. As we have noted, the peculiarity of HH stems not so much from
the fact that Nietzsche adopts a positive attitude toward science—for he is science-friendly
71
SeeWhitlock(1996).
228
even in BT and remains so throughout his career—, but that he values science more than art
in HH, and this, in contrast, is not to be found in either BT or his later writings. While hints
of his criticism of art can already be found in the first chapter of HH (HH 29), Nietzsche
dedicates the fourth chapter to showing how the "scientific man is the further evolution of
the artistic" (HH 222). In terms of his larger corpus, Nietzsche's hostility to art in H H is
problematic not only because he values science in BT insofar as it ultimately leads to a
rebirth of tragedy, but also because Nietzsche returns to praising art in GS and writing his
own poetry in both GS and Zarathustra.
As I have indicated in the introduction, the key to dealing with the interpretative
puzzle that HH poses is to read it as the first work in a series of texts that concludes with the
1882 edition of GS (cf. KSB 6, 251). In so doing, we begin to see that HH is simply the first
stage of what will become Nietzsche's internal critique of Enlightenment science, one that
uses science and the values of the Enlightenment to undermine these values and therewith
give rise to a rebirth of tragedy in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. While this self-overcoming of
Enlightenment values does include what could be called Nietzsche's critique of science, it is
important to distinguish between criticizing the capacity of science and empirical observation
to provide us with an understanding of nature and criticizing what I have called the morality
of truth and science, the view that we ought to de-anthropomorphize nature so that we can
know the world as it is, in itself. Because I hold that Nietzsche justifies his belief in a
dynamic conception of nature through his appeal to the results of the natural sciences and
that Nietzsche remains committed to this dynamic understanding of reality throughout his
later works, I hold that he remains committed to the view that the natural sciences can
provide us with some access to the way the world is, even if this world is in flux and
ultimately resistant to conceptualization and rational comprehension. As the free spirit
develops, I hold that what Nietzsche attacks is therefore not the scientifically grounded
conception of becoming developed in HH, as this very conception is present both in his
later publications and throughout his late Nach/ass, but rather the morality of truth and
science, and he does so on scientific grounds. For Nietzsche, science destroys the morality
of truth and science because the morality of truth and science is rooted in the unscientific
view that attaining a true or de-anthropomorphized understanding of nature is more valuable
than life itself and therefore that we ought to strip away everything human in our quest to
discover a naked world. However, once we disabuse ourselves of unscientific notions such
as Plato's Form of the Good or the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, we will see that
truth has no value in itself, but rather that our desires are what give the world both structure
and value, and once we see our desires as the source of the structure and value of the world,
we will see that there is no reason why we ought to extirpate our life, will, and subjectivity to
know the world in-itself. Indeed, we will begin to realize that our life, will, and subjectivity
are necessary means to creating a determinate world that is both worthy of our affirmation
and can function as an object of knowledge. In so doing, science will no longer be seen as a
duty as it is in HH, but rather as an experiment, and as an experiment, science will unite with
life and laughter and ultimately become a gay science (GS 324).
In terms of our reading of HH, what the eventual developments of the free spirit
mean is that Nietzsche will soon leave behind the "good temperament" of the scientific
inquirer articulated in the final section of the first book (HH 34). In terms of the
interpretation of BGE that we will present in chapter five, the developments of the free
spirit are important because Nietzsche writes BGE not from the point of view of a spirit
engaged in the process of liberating himself from the morality of truth and science, but rather
from the point of view of a fully liberated free spirit. As such, he will no longer be seeking
to provide a scientific analysis of nature that reveals the world as it is, in itself, but rather he
will endeavor to unpack a new project that falls under the rubric of the "philosophy of the
future," where the task will be nothing less than the artistic creation of a self and a world
such that both are justified as an aesthetic phenomenon. Of course, the self and the world
that this philosopher-artist creates will not have an interpretation-independent foothold in
reality, but rather will be constructions that ultimately make life livable and knowledge
possible.
Indeed, I will contend in chapter five that the emergence of perspectivism in BGE
goes hand in hand with Nietzsche's re-ordering of the relationship between truth and life. In
our analysis of HH, we have seen how Nietzsche's quest for truth led to the possible onset
of despair about the value of life as such. While he fended off the denial of life through an
appeal to the good temperament of the scientific man, Nietzsche nevertheless did not turn
to art to affirm life. In BGE, the relationship between life and truth will be reversed such
that the goal will no longer be a scientific quest for a de-anthropomorphized world, but
rather the artistic affirmation of life. However, even in reversing this relationship, it is
important to note that Nietzsche nevertheless remains committed to the tragic tension
between life and truth, and I will argue that he remains committed to this tension because he
remains committed to the doctrines of becoming and UO. Because of this, the task of
chapter five will be to show how Nietzsche can both remain committed to the becoming of
HH and PTA and, at the same time, develop a doctrine of perspectivism that does not
reduce becoming to a mere perspective. This task will not be easy, and to establish a
231
theoretical frameworks for dealing with this problem, I will turn to Plato's Theaetetus in the
next chapter to show how Heraclitean becoming might relate to a view roughly equivalent to
Nietzsche's perspectivism, namely Protagoras' homo mensura doctrine.

CHAPTER FOUR
B e c o m i n g , Perspectivism, and the Unity of O p p o s i t e s
in Plato's Theaetetus
If we could not distinguish reality from

appearance through thinking, we would have to
declare with Heraclitus and Protagoras, that the
apparent world is the real world and therefore that
the one real world is not simply this and then that,
as it appears differendy from each standpoint and
for each person, but rather that it, being at the
same time constantiy different, contradicted itself
in every respect, that man, with his sensibility, is
therefore the measure of all things, because things
always really are just as they appear at that
moment to each. (G. Teichmiiller, Die wirkliche und
die scheinbare Welt, 184)1
4.1. Introduction
In the first and third chapters, our goal was to highlight the centrality of Heraclitean
becoming for Nietzsche's philosophical project and to show how it is intimately related to
the unity of opposites (UO) doctrine implicit in the question that he places at the beginning
of H H . In the second chapter, we turned to Aristode's defense of the principle of non-
contradiction (PNC) in Metaphysics I V in order to substantiate the connection between
Heraclitean becoming and the unity of opposites and to argue that Nietzsche's related
rejection of an ontological version of P N C amounted to a rejection of the identity or
correspondence between thinking and being. Highlighting this radical disjunction between
thought and language on the one hand and being or reality on the other was important n o t
only because it explained Nietzsche's break with the Western metaphysical tradition, but also
because it established the basis for what we have called his tragic philosophy. Specifically,
1
My Translation.
233
we argued in the last chapter that the philosophy of H H is tragic not only for philosophy
because it underwrites a certain form of skepticism, but also for "life" because it makes it
impossible to live according to the truth.
For many commentators, HH is the work of a young philosopher who has yet to
reach full maturity, and it is for this reason that Nietzsche's later works, in particular BGE,
are thought to surpass his earlier efforts. Indeed, some might argue that the so-called mature
Nietzsche ultimately replaces the scientifically grounded, dogmatic philosophy of becoming
found in HH with a more refined, self-reflective, and non-dogmatic philosophy of
perspectivism in BGE. The idea here is not so much that Nietzsche completely abandons
becoming and his related ontology of force, but rather that he subordinates these views to an
even more fundamental commitment to a doctrine of perspectivism which, on such an
account, rejects the possibility of any view being objectively true. Instead, all views are only
true for a particular person or group who espouses them.
I will devote the next two chapters to working through the complex of problems
associated with the emergence of perspectivism in Nietzsche's later works, arguing that this
doctrine does not undermine the objective truth of the Heraclitean ontology established in
HH, but rather that it derives from Nietzsche's attempt to deal with problems associated
with life and value in light of his continued commitment to such a Heraclitean ontology.
Whereas I will turn to Nietzsche's post-Zarathustra works in the next chapter, I will devote
this chapter to unpacking a model for interpreting Nietzsche's perspectivism as deriving
from a flux ontology by again turning to sources in ancient Greek philosophy. Specifically, I
will turn to the opening stages of Plato's Theaetetus, where we find not only a critical analysis
of a position that closely resembles Nietzsche's perspectivism, namely the Protagorean thesis
234
that man is the measure of all things or homo mensura, but also an attempt to support this
thesis with a Heraclitean flux doctrine that closely resembles the ontology we outlined in
chapters one and three.
Perhaps the most important feature of our analysis of the Theaetetus is that it will help
us think through what Bernard Reginster has called the paradox of Nietzsche's
perspectivism.2 As we noted in the introduction, the paradox is stated as follows: If
perspectivism is the view that all knowledge claims are somehow bound up with the interests
and categories of the knower, then how can Nietzsche advocate views in ethics and
metaphysics and even consistently advocate perspectivism itself? What this means is that
Nietzsche's perspectivism seems not only to undermine the authority of his other doctrines,
but also to be self-refuting. What is so striking about the emergence of this problem within
Nietzsche scholarship is that worries about self-refutation point back to the Protagorean
doctrine as it is articulated in the Theaetetus. This is because the Theaetetus contains what
many have taken to be Plato's attempt to show that Protagorean relativism is self-refuting.
Important for our purposes is the fact that Plato's self-refutation argument only works
against a certain version of the doctrine. Specifically, it works when the doctrine both
applies to itself and is held to be true for everyone regardless of whether they think it is true.
The upshot of Plato's self-refutation argument is that this version of the Protagorean theory is
self-refuting, and therefore the proponent of the view must drop one of the two claims in
order to avoid self-refutation. That is, the proponent must either limit the scope of the
doctrine such that it does not apply to itself or claim that it is true only for those who believe
it. Interestingly, these two solutions to the self-refutation argument parallel the two possible
2
235
responses that, according to Reginster, scholars have adopted in attempting to deal the
problems associated with Nietzsche's perspectivism. On the one hand, there is the
perspectivist solution, whereby Nietzsche avoids the paradox of perspecdvism by entertaining
hypotheses or presenting views only valid "for him." On the other hand, there is the two-level
solution, where it is held that perspecdvism is not universal in scope and therefore does not
apply back to his central view on ethics, metaphysics, and even perspectivism itself.3
Whereas I will argue for a two-level solution to the paradox of perspectivism in the
next chapter, I will indirectly respond to a criticism that Reginster raises against such a
solution in this chapter. Specifically, Reginster notes that the two-level solution is
"suspiciously ad hoc" and therefore a proponent of such a solution "must show why
perspectivism, together with its metaphysical underpinnings, does not apply to itself or does
not, if it does so apply, generate the worrisome self-referential paradox."4 In our analysis of
the Theaetetus, we will find reasons for thinking that such a solution is not ad hoc and show
why a certain version does not generate the self-referential paradox. Not only does Plato
leave the option open to Protagoras of refraining from applying the doctrine to itself, Plato
links the Protagorean position to certain objective or dogmatic claims about the world—
most notably the Heraclitean ontology—throughout the opening stages of the dialogue.
What this suggests is that the Protagorean relativism of the Theaetetus is a theory that depends
on certain non-relative truths, and therefore if the doctrine is going to be refuted, it must be
shown that these non-relative truths are, in fact, falsehoods.
3
Reginster (2001, 217f.). Reginster is following Richardson (1996, lOf.) here.
4
236
Indeed, recent scholarly work on the Theaetetus has shed some important light onto
the position that Plato brings in to support the Protagorean doctrine. Specifically, it has
often been thought that the "secret" doctrine Protagoras was supposed to have taught
privately to his students is simply the Heraclitean flux doctrine in which all things are
reduced to active and passive, fast and slow motions or powers. Although this ontology
plays an important role in the Theaetetus and directly corresponds to the dynamic ontology
that we have attributed to Nietzsche in chapters one and three, more sophisticated readings
of the Theaetetus have shown that there is a second, perhaps even more fundamental claim
put forth in the exposition of the secret doctrine, namely the claim that nothing exists and is
what it is in and for itself. As we will see, the positive formulation of this position is the
claim that everything exists and is what it is only in relation to something else. Of course,
this is what I have called UO and, as I have argued, this is the view that Nietzsche expresses
when he raises and answers the question of how something can come from its opposite at
the beginning of both H H and BGE.
In the following exposition of the Theaetetus, I will focus only on a selected portion of
the dialogue (Tht. 151d-186e) and touch upon only those themes relevant to the larger aims
of this study. However, before delving into such an interpretation, I do want to provide
justification for turning to the Theaetetus in this context. After doing this, I will begin my
exegesis of the text, not only showing how the Heraclitean-Protagorean position is bound
together by UO, but also emphasizing the way in which Plato links the position to the
empiricist claim that "knowledge is perception." In developing these theses, I will also
discuss the theory of perception developed in the dialogue. In the final sections of the
chapter, I move through some of the key objections that Plato levels against the position. In
so doing, I not only provide an analysis of the self-refutation argument, but also emphasize
the way in which Plato's claim that a unified soul is a necessary condition for the unity of
experience functions as an implicit rejection of UO.
4.2. Justifying the Turn to the Theaetetus
Just as we needed, in chapter two, to justify our turn to Aristotle's defense of the
principle of non-contradiction in Metaphysics IV, some might worry about the legitimacy of
using Plato's Theaetetus to wrestle with problems associated with Nietzsche's later philosophy.
Here, one might raise such worries because we do not have, as we do with Aristotle's
defense of PNC, specific passages in which Nietzsche explicitly refers to the Theaetetus in the
context of developing his perspectivism. There are, however, a number of points that
legitimate a turn to the text at this juncture. The first is simply the number of parallels that
one finds between Nietzsche's own views and the views that Plato attributes to both
Heraclitus and Protagoras in the dialogue.3 Although establishing such parallels is always a
complex affair, we will see the way in which the account of becoming that we have
developed in the first and third chapters of this work shares deep affinities with the account
of becoming that Plato unpacks in the Theaetetus. Indeed, Plato not only spells out a doctrine
of becoming that does away with things by reducing nature to active and passive motions,
but he also singles out—as Nietzsche does in PTA—Parmenides as the lone philosopher
willing to take a stand against an army of flux theorists who have Homer as their general.6
Moreover, commentators such as Brian Leiter have noted Nietzsche's general affinity with
the Greek Sophists and how certain positions he takes in moral philosophy can be rooted in
5
Indeed, one might argue here that Nietzsche's Heraclitus is Plato's Heraclitus. Whether the Heraclitus found
in both Nietzsche and Plato corresponds to the "real" Heraclitus is an issue that I will not address here.
6
Nietzsche also cites the Theaetetus in his description of Parmenides' philosophy in PPP (85f).
238
the thought of Protagoras and Heraclitus.7 Following this interpretive line, Joel Mann has
argued in more detail that Protagoras' homo mensura doctrine is woven into the fabric of
Nietzsche's philosophy, even if explicit references to the view are rarely found in his
published works.8
Nevertheless, Thomas Brobjer has contended that Nietzsche's attitude towards
Protagoras is more ambivalent than scholars like Mann might think. In arguing his case, he
points out that in Nietzsche's lecture notes on the Theaetetus—the one piece of evidence we
have attesting to Nietzsche's direct engagement with the text—, little enthusiasm is exhibited
for Protagoras' homo mensura doctrine.9 Although Brobjer's objection is significant, his
challenge can still be met. Indeed, we can glean two points from Brobjer's own work to
make our case. Specifically, Brobjer tells us that, "in the early 1870s Nietzsche was deeply
involved in reading Plato and preparing his lectures about him and his thinking. He
discussed and summarized all of the Platonic dialogues for his students and discussed Plato's
life and thinking in detail, but mostly it was the conscientious teacher Nietzsche, not the
iconoclastic philosopher, who spoke in these lectures."10 Thus, the first point we get from
Brobjer's claim is that Nietzsche had clearly immersed himself in the work of Plato, probably
more than any other philosopher with the exception of Schopenhauer. As a result, even if
we do not find explicit references to the Theaetetus in his published works, we can
nevertheless be confident that Nietzsche knew the arguments of the work.11 The second
7
For the general claim about the Sophists, see Leiter (2002, 39). For the specific claim about Heraclitus and
Protagoras, see Leiter (2002, 105ff.)
8
Mann (2003).
9
Brobjer (2005, 266ff.). Also see Brobjer (2001).
10
Brobjer (2008, 27). For Nietzsche's lectures of Plato's Dialogues, see KGW II/4.
11
Indeed, we have noted above that Nietzsche cites the Theaetetus in developing his interpretation of
Parmenides.
239
point is that although one might expect Nietzsche to include some praise of the Protagorean
position in these lectures if the doctrine is to play such a central role in his own philosophy,
the absence of such positive remarks can be explained by the fact that it is, as Brobjer tells
us, the conscientious teacher Nietzsche, not the iconoclastic philosopher, who is speaking in
these lecture notes.
Although Brobjer is right to note that we lack any explicit evidence immediately
connecting Nietzsche's perspectivism to the Theaetetus, we do have one important piece of
evidence that solidifies a mediate connection. We know that Nietzsche borrowed the term
"perspectivism" from Gustav Teichmuller's Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt}1 For our
purposes, Teichmuller's work is important because he explicitiy claims, in the passage quoted
at the beginning of this chapter, that one will be forced to adopt the Heraclitean-Protagorean
position if one rejects the distinction between the real and apparent world. Given that
Nietzsche differentiates himself from Teichmuller by rejecting precisely this distinction
(BGE 10; TI "Fable"),13 we have good reason to think that when Nietzsche approvingly
speaks of "perspectivism" in the opening stages of BGE, he would also follow Teichmuller
in thinking of his perspectivism in terms of the Heraclitean-Protagorean position.
Because I will provide an in-depth discussion of Nietzsche's own perspectivism in
the next chapter, the point here is simply to show that there is enough evidence in or
surrounding Nietzsche's texts to motivate a turn to the Heraclitean-Protagorean position
articulated in Plato's Theaetetus. However, having provided such a justification, I do want to
note that the primary point of this exercise is not merely to identify the historical influences
12
See Brobjer (2008, 28).
13
SeeNohl(1913).
on Nietzsche's thought, but rather to show that the Theaetetus provides us with both a model
for thinking about Nietzsche's perspectivism and its relation to his other ontological
commitments and a resource for reflecting on the various philosophical challenges that
confront Nietzsche in adopting this view.
4.3. Knowledge is Perception and the Four Theses
The section of the Theaetetus (151d-187a) to which we now turn begins with
Theaetetus' first attempt to define knowledge as perception and contains Socrates' refutation
of the Heraclitean-Protagorean position that is brought in to support it. The section
concludes with a direct refutation of Theaetetus' first definition and is marked off by
Theaetetus' renewed attempt to define knowledge as true belief (187b). The section itself
can be divided into two halves. Whereas the first half runs from 151d to 160e and contains
the exposition of the Heraclitean-Protagorean position that is initially designed to support
Theaetetus' definition, the second half runs from 160e to 187a and contains a critique of the
various positions that Socrates develops to support Theaetetus' initial claim. The latter
section can be roughly divided into three further subsections. The first subsection (160e-
171d) contains a series of arguments against Protagoras' homo mensura doctrine and
Theaetetus' definition that knowledge is perception. For our purposes, the highpoint of this
section is Plato's much-discussed attempt to show that Protagoras' doctrine is self-refuting.
The second subsection (171d-177c) is a digression in which Plato has Socrates contrast the
life of the philosopher with those non-philosophers who waste their time in law courts. The
final subsection (177c-187a) consists of a brief argument against Protagoras and then two
arguments that will be important for our purposes. The first of these is the claim that the
Heraclitean position results in the breakdown of language and therefore fails to support
241
Theaetetus' definition of knowledge. The second consists of a final and direct refutation of
Theaetetus' claim that knowledge is perception. As we will see, the final refutation is
significant not only because it results in Theaetetus abandoning his first definition of
knowledge, but also because Plato has Socrates appeal to an entity called the soul that is one,
functions itself by itself, and has the power to grasp non-empirical entities such as being and
not-being, likeness and unlikeness, sameness and difference (185c-d).
On the reading that I will propose here, Socrates' introduction of a soul that is one
and functions itself by itself is also significant because it implicitly rejects a central thesis that
supports the view that knowledge is perception, namely UO. In drawing attention to the
importance of this doctrine and referring to it as UO, we are deviating from more recent
scholarship in two respects. The first is that no one, to my knowledge, has referred to the
position detailed above as the unity of opposites and thereby suggested further connections
to Heraclitus.14 The second—and this offers a partial explanation of the first point—is that
this feature or principle of what Plato calls Protagoras' secret teaching often falls into the
background because it is typically thought that there are three theses at work in Theaetetus'
first definition of knowledge, rather than the four that I will now be presenting.ls
Specifically, the three theses are understood to be: (1) Theaetetus' claim that (T) knowledge
14
This is due in part because the unity of opposites claim, both in Plato and elsewhere, is often understood in
terms of Heraclitus wanting to predicate two contrary or contradictory properties to one object, where
Heraclitus is then accused of having dropped the qualifiers that would tie each predicate to a particular
perceiver or a particular context. On my view, the purpose of pointing out the way in which things change for
different perceivers and in different contexts is not to highlight the fact that some one thing has contrary or
contradictory properties independently of these relations, but rather to show that all these properties, and the
thing itself, are relational. If this reading is correct, then one can see how the unity of opposites amounts to the
view that everything exists and is what it is only relation to something else.
15
Cf. Burnyeat (1990, lOff.) and Fine (1994, 211). For important exceptions to this point, see Dancy (1987,
72ff), who refers to what I am calling (UO) as the juncture claim (JC) because it is said to bind the Heraclitean
and Protagorean positions together, and Lee (2005, 77), who refers to it as the "relativist principle that nothing
is anything in itself, but is whatever it is relative to something else."
242
is perception (151el-3); (2) Protagoras' claim that (P) man is the measure of all things
(152a2-4); and (3) Heraclitus' claim that (H) everything is motion (156a5).16 On the three-
theses reading, UO is typically subsumed under (H), as it is presented along with (H) as part
of a "secret" doctrine that Protagoras allegedly taught to his students. Admittedly,
subsuming UO under (H) does make some sense, especially because I am implicidy linking
the doctrine to Heraclitus (or Plato's Heraclitus) by referring to this fourth thesis as UO.
However, because I will follow Lee in arguing that what I am calling UO is perhaps the most
important feature of the secret teaching because it effectively links (H) and (P) together, I
will develop a reading of the text based on the claim that there are a total of four theses at
work in Theaetetus' first attempt to define knowledge.
Unfortunately, the existence of a fourth thesis only complicates an already
complicated picture. This is because there has been much debate about how we should
understand each thesis in its own right and about how these theses might relate to each
other. Perhaps the most urgent question is whether there is some sort of entailment
relationship between what many have taken to be three theses. As a proponent of the
entailment relationship, Myles Burnyeat has argued not only that (T) entails (P) and (P)
entails (H), but also that (H) entails (P) and (P) entails (T).17 In other words, Burnyeat thinks
that these three theses are equivalent. If one is true, all are true, and if one is false, then all
are false. For Burnyeat, the most significant piece of support for this reading comes at 160d-
e, where we are first told that these three theses coincide or fall together into the same
16
As we will see, there is some variation on the Heraclitean position. It can also be read as the view that
everything is in motion. However, I will argue that the best reading of the position, at least for our purposes, is
the one stated above, i.e. that everything is motion.
17
Burnyeat (1990, 7-19).
thing and that because of (P) and (H) holding thusly,19 (T) must be considered true. So
understood, all Plato has to do is refute one of these arguments and all of them are refuted
together. According to Burnyeat, what Plato ultimately does is reject Theaetetus' definition
of knowledge by way of a reductio ad absurdum in which (H) is rejected on the grounds that it
leads to the impossibility of language.20 Since (H) is a necessary consequence of (P) and (P)
is a necessary consequence of (T), the rejection of (H) entails the rejection of (P) and (T) by
modus tollens.
There are, of course, reasons to worry about Burnyeat's construal of the three theses
and their relationships. One reason is that Plato never has Socrates refute (H), but rather
has him show that (H) does not in fact support (and therefore does not entail) (T) on the
grounds that it leads to the impossibility of language. Moreover, we will see that there is
little reason why a defender of (P) is necessarily committed to the ontology in (H). Instead,
(H) is brought in because it provides the defender of (P) with an ontology that seems to best
support the position. Thus, even if (H) were refuted, the refutation of (H) would not entail
the rejection of (P), but rather show that (H), as an untenable position in its own right, does
not support (P).
For these and other reasons, others have not only denied that there is an entailment
relationship, but also questioned whether the various theses do in fact support each other.
Indeed, Dancy has argued that while (H) is intended to support (P) by explaining how the
world can be so arranged that (P) is true, (H) actually ends up contradicting (P).21 The
reason, according to Dancy, is that (P) tells us that there is no saying what the world is like,
18
The Greek reads: sic TOUTOV OUpTTETTTCOKSV.
19
The Greek reads: TOUTCOV OUTCOC SXOVTCOV.
20
We will highlight some problems with Burnyeat's reading even on this point below.
21
Dancy (1987, 62 and 74).
244
but (H) tells us that (P) is true because the world is in constant flux.22 More recently, Lee has
raised similar worries about the entailment relationship and the potential inconsistencies in
the strategy of appealing to (H) in order to support (P). Specifically, she rightly notes that
there does not seem to be any reason why the claim that everything is in motion should
support Protagoras' denial of mind-dependent objects. While she refrains from arguing, as
Dancy does, that (P) and (H) contradict each other, she does contend that (P) decidedly does
not entail (H). Indeed, she goes on to argue that the principle of the secret doctrine that
ultimately supports (P) is not (H), but what she calls the relativity principle or what I have
called UO, i.e. the view that everything exists and is what it is only in relation to something
else.
On my reading, I will avoid the temptation of holding that the relationships between
the various theses must all be of one kind and instead argue that in some cases there is an
entailment relationship and in others it is a case of one thesis simply supporting the other.
Specifically, I will contend that (P) is a reformulation of (T) that is designed to cope with the
problem of conflicting appearances. I will then argue that (P) entails UO. On my reading,
UO functions as what Dancy has called a juncture claim,25 insofar as it is the principle that
binds together (H) and (P). Although UO does not entail (H), as we could think of a world
in which UO holds and (H) does not, (H) provides an ontology that conforms to UO, and in
this sense provides the ontological backdrop for a theory of perception that ultimately
22
Dancy (1987, 95f.).
23
Lee (2005, 90ff.)
24
Cf. Lee (2005, 93). I have slightly modified her formulation of it the principle for the purposes of
consistency. Although I follow Lee on a number of points, I differ with her in thinking that the secret doctrine
is a "vague cluster of ideas in the air" at the time (117). Instead, by understanding the relativity principle as
Heraclitus' unity of opposites doctrine, I see the secret doctrine as primarily, although not exclusively,
Heraclitean.
25
Dancy (1987, 72).
supports (P). Nevertheless, we will see that (H) can be interpreted either as (HI) everything
is in motion or (H2) everything is motion, and I will contend that it is the latter formulation,
rather than the former, that best supports (P) and (T). Indeed, I will argue that H2 entails
UO, UO is entailed by (P), and (P) is supposed to entail (T), but does not because Plato
argues that perception cannot attain knowledge in a world in which UO is true.
4.4. Knowledge is Perception
There are three striking features about the first definition of knowledge that Socrates
examines in the dialogue, namely knowledge is perception (151e2-3). The first is that this
decidedly empiricist thesis is placed in the mouth of Theaetetus, a student of geometry. This
is striking because Plato lists in the Republic geometry as one of the disciplines that turns the
soul away from the realm of sense experience (Rep. 523f£). Indeed, not only does
Theaetetus study geometry, he studies under Theodorus who also teaches subjects such as
astronomy and arithmetic (Tht. 145c-d). Like geometry, these are again disciplines that,
according to the Republic, are designed to turn the soul away from the realm of sense
experience. Thus, by way of his association with Theodorus, Theaetetus has engaged in a
number of the pre-requisite studies that should lead to the rejection of any empiricist
commitments. At the same time, his first definition of knowledge shows that he has yet to
recognize that these studies can indeed have the function of liberating the soul from
becoming and turning it toward being. In other words, Theaetetus has yet to grasp the
philosophical significance of these disciplines.
Given the implicit tension that Plato establishes between Theaetetus' studies and his
initial definition of knowledge, one could argue that one of the purposes of the Theaetetus is
to provide us with a step by step account of how someone with a basic training in geometry
and mathematics can be shown that the senses alone do not provide us with knowledge and
to encourage such an individual to search elsewhere for knowledge and an alternative
account of what knowledge is. In this sense, we could say the argument of the Theaetetus is
designed to liberate Theaetetus (and the reader) from his empiricist commitments by means
of Socratic refutation and thereby open him up to Plato's own rationalist epistemology.26
The second striking feature of Theaetetus' first definition is that it fails to capture
any of the techne, e.g. geometry and cobblery, that he provides as examples of knowledge in
his failed response to Socrates' initial demand for a definition (146c-d).27 This is because the
claim that knowledge is perception makes perception a necessary condition of knowledge.
Since we do not actually perceive with our senses the various techne that Theaetetus lists, the
definition that he provides actually excludes the aforementioned examples of knowledge.
Applied to Theaetetus' studies, the definition that he has provided makes it impossible for
him to attain knowledge through the study of geometry.
The final striking result of Theaetetus' definition is that it makes perception a
sufficient condition for knowledge. Although the claim that knowledge is perception might
seem like a crude attempt to articulate the commonsense idea that what you see is what you
get, Theaetetus' failure to qualify the kind of perception that one needs to have for it to
count as knowledge quickly leads him into a web of philosophical difficulties. This is
because the definition implies, insofar as getting it right is a necessary condition for
knowledge, that perception is infallible, and, as we will see, it is the infallibility of perception
26
I follow Chappell (2004, 38) in reading the dialogue as a critique of empiricism: "It can be proposed that a
certain sort of empiricism is one of the principal targets of the argument of the Theaetetus." For more on the
relationship between Socratic midwifery and Platonism, see Sedley (2004).
27
For more on techne, see Roocknik (1990).
that forces Theaetetus into accepting much of the Heraclitean-Protagorean account that
Socrates brings in to support the view.
4.5. From Knowledge is Perception to Homo Mensura
Perhaps another surprising feature of Theaetetus' first definition is the rapidity with
which Socrates translates it into the language of Protagoras' homo mensura doctrine. The link
between (T) and (P) is established as soon as Socrates' restates Theaetetus' claim. Here,
Socrates notes that what Theaetetus is saying is nothing trivial {logon ouphaulori) because it is
the same thing as Protagoras' claim that man is the measure of all things, of the things which
are, that they are, and of the things which are not, that they arenot(152a2-4). 28 Having
secured Theaetetus' agreement that the two positions are equivalent, Socrates proceeds to
reformulate the Protagorean theory. Specifically, he contends that by "man is the measure
of all things," Protagoras means that each thing just is the sort of thing it appears to be to
each individual perceiver (152a).29
Socrates' next move is to provide justification for the doctrine so formulated and
presumably for the transition from (T) to (P), and he does this by appealing to a problem
that has enjoyed a long philosophical life after the Theaetetus, namely the problem of
conflicting appearances.30 This problem arises because we often find that two different
perceivers have conflicting perceptions of what seems to be one and the same object. For
instance, when what seems to be the same wind blows, some perceivers get really cold,
others only slightly, and still others not at all. Because our perceptions of what seems to be
28
The Greek reads: TTOVTCOV xpriuaTcov pETpov av0pcoTTOv EIVCU, TCOV UEV OVTCOV coe EOTI, TGSV 5E ur|
OVTCOV COC OUK EOTIV.
29
In my mind, this reformulation of the doctrine indicates that, at least as it is understood here, homo mensura
cannot mean that man qua species is the measure of all things, but rather that each individual man or perceiver
is the measure of all things. Cf. McDowell (1973, 118).
30
Cf. Burnyeat (1979), to which my discussion here is indebted.
248
the same wind vary or even conflict, we are faced with a number of possible answers when
we try to determine the status of the wind and its properties and therefore which perception
is correct. First, we could argue that one perceiver is correct while the others are wrong.
Second, we could embrace a form of contradictionism and say that both perceptions are
correct insofar as the wind is both F, where F stands for the relevant property, and not F.
Third, we could strip the wind of the relevant property by contending that it, in itself, lacks F
if some perceiver also perceives it to be not-F. Fourth, we could follow the Pyrrhonian
skeptic and suspend judgment about the properties belonging to the wind. Fifth, we could
follow the third position, but nevertheless insist that that wind is either F or not-F in relation
to some perceiver. Finally, we could say that not only the properties of the wind exist in
relation to some perceiver, but also that the wind, i.e. the object bearing the properties, exists
only in relation to the perceiver.
At this point in the argument, it is clear that Protagoras' measure doctrine is meant
to express one of the latter two solutions to the problem of conflicting appearances.
However, it is not specified just how deep Protagorean (ontological) relativism is supposed
to go. That is, it is not clear whether Protagoras' doctrine is designed to relativize properties
only or to relativize properties and the objects that supposedly bear these properties. I will
ague for the latter, and in so doing, I will be showing how a problem concerning the
potential co-presence of opposites ultimately leads to the view that everything exists and is
what it is only in relation to something else or what I have called UO.
Having laid out the argument for the position, Socrates now sets out to explain how
we can move from Theaetetus' initial claim that knowledge is perception to the reformulated
Protagorean claim that things are for somebody the way they appear to that person. To
make this transition possible, Socrates first gets Theaetetus to agree that to appear
(phainesthai) is the same as to perceive iaisthanesthai) (152bl2).31 According to Socrates, the
justification for this move stems from the fact that phantasm32 and aisthesis or perception are
the same thing with respect to perceptual experiences, and as a result, things are for each
person such as he or she perceives them to be (152b). In getting Theaetetus to equate
perception with phantasia, Socrates is securing the point that perception is neither the mere
perception of a given quality, e.g. seeing red, nor the perception of a thing independently of
its qualities, e.g. seeing a rock, but rather the perception of a quality as belonging to
something. In other words, Socrates is arguing that for Theaetetus to be committed to his
initial definition of knowledge, he also needs to be committed to the view that perceiving is
perceiving something as something, e.g. the wind as cold.
With perception understood in terms of appearances that take on a propositional
form, we can now speak of perception in terms of a subject (a) perceiving some object (x) as
having some property (F), and understanding perception in this way makes possible the
transition from the claim that (a)perceives (x) to be (F) to the claim that (x) is (F) to (a). This
transition is made possible by two moves. The first is simply seen as a retranslation of
perception into the language of appearance, made possible by Theaetetus' agreement that
perceiving and appearing are the same. In this sense, if (a) perceives (x) to be (F), then (x)
appears to be (F) to (a) (152cl-2). The second move is secured by the principle derived from
the Protagorean resolution to the problem of conflicting appearances, where things are for
31
See Lee (2005, 153) and Burnyeat (1990, 11) for further discussion.
32
Because of the difficulties associated with this term and the improper connotations it has when translated as
"imagination" or "fantasy", I will leave phantasia untranslated here, noting only its deep association with
phainesthai at 152bl2.
each the way they appear to each. Thus, we can now say that if (x) appears as (F) to (a), then
(x) is (F) to (a) (152c2-3). Taken together, if (a)perceives (x) to be (F), then (x) is (F) to (a).
Having secured the principle that things are the way a given perceiver perceives them
to be, Socrates can now move on to the claim that perception is knowledge. Interesting
here, however, is the fact that Socrates tests the claim by implicitly identifying two necessary
and sufficient conditions for knowledge. For something to be knowledge, it must be
infallible and be of the things that are (152c5-6).33 Perception, so understood, meets these
two criteria because things are unerringly perceived exacdy as they are. Perception never errs
because things are the way they are perceived to be. Perception is of the things that are
because, according to the preceding argument, things just are the way they appear to be.
Although Plato will have Socrates object to this latter claim on the grounds that perception
decidedly does not grasp things that are or ousia (186c-d), at this stage of the argument we
have provided sufficient justification for Theaetetus' claim that knowledge is perception.
4.6. From Homo Mensura to the Secret Doctrines of Heraclitus
Thus far, we have attempted to detail the transition from (T) to (P). On our reading
of the text, there are two more theses that need to be discussed and how they relate to (T)
and (P), namely UO and (H). What we have seen thus far is that Protagoras' homo mensura
translates into a view that denies any distinction between appearance and reality, and to
garner support for this view, we were introduced to the problem of conflicting appearances
and the related solution of either property relativism or property-cum-object relativism.
Whereas the transition from (T) to (P) is not entirely surprising, some commentators have
33
The Greek reads: a'io0r|Oic apa TOG OVTOC asi EOTIV Kai CXVJJEUSEC COC ETnoTrjuTi ouaa.
found it hard to take seriously Plato's attempt to attribute to Protagoras a secret Heraclitean
doctrine in which everything is flux.34
Admittedly, if Plato were to have Socrates move directly from (T) and (P) to a
Heraclitean flux doctrine, it would be nearly impossible to make any sense of how or why
Protagoras would teach his students such principles as support for homo mensura. After all,
what does a doctrine of change, however one might construe it, have to do with a denial of
the appearance-reality distinction and a related claim that man is the measure of all things?
Here, however, it is important to note that the secret doctrine also includes UO or the view,
negatively stated, that "nothing is one in and of itself' (152d).35 As noted above, Lee rightly
holds that what I am calling UO to be the most important element of the secret doctrine
because it ultimately provides support for the Protagorean principle that something (x) is (F)
to a perceiver (a) only if (x) seems (F) to (a).36
Although I differ from Lee in wanting to stress the potential connections of UO to
Heraclitus' thought in general and a Heraclitean flux doctrine in particular,371 still follow her
in explaining why UO is introduced at this point in the dialogue. Specifically, although we
might agree with Protagoras that if some (x) appears to (a) as (F), then (x) is (F) for (a), we
still might wonder about the status of (x) if it does not appear to any perceiver at all.
Specifically, we might wonder if (x) exists and has some of its properties independendy of
34
For a discussion of this, see Chappell (2004, 63). Also see Dancy (1987, 61) for an expression of just how
difficult it is to grasp the relationship between (P) and (H). Sedley (2004, 39) suggests that it might be the most
surprising move of the whole dialogue.
35
The Greek reads: Iv HEV auTO Ka8' caJTO ou5ev EOTIV.
36
Lee (2005, 93).
37
Lee (2005,117).
252
being perceived.38 In my mind, the introduction and application of UO to the perceptual
sphere eliminates this possibility, thereby making man the measure also of things that are
not. Since everything exists and is what it is only in relationship to something else, which, at
this juncture in the argument, means standing in relation to some perceiver, (x) must appear
to some (a) in order for it to exist and have the properties it does.
By expanding UO to include the existence of the things in the perceptual sphere, e.g.
wine and wind, and not just their properties, e.g. red and cold, my reading runs the risk of
committing Protagoras to a Berkeley-like idealism about material objects. Although Berkeley
found deep affinities between his own philosophy and the position articulated in the
Theaetetus, I think that Plato has Socrates introduce the ontology of Heraclitean flux
precisely because he wants to avoid such a reading.40 That is, once we relativize the existence
of perceptual objects to perceiving subjects, we are left with the possibility that nothing
exists independently of perceivers and therefore idealism. Any worries we might have about
idealism are exacerbated by the fact that there are no thinking substances in the Protagorean
picture. Thus, the Protagorean theory on its own terms would leave us with what we might
call a mindless idealism. As we have seen, however, we cannot avoid this mindless idealism
by simply introducing minds or mind-independent things that have the properties they do in
virtue of themselves, as this would violate UO and establish an appearance-reality distinction
that would, in turn, undermine Theaetetus' definition of knowledge. Thus, if this sort of
38
See Matthen (1985) for a reading of the Protagorean position that holds that there are public or non-relative
objects such as wind and wine.
39
SeeBurnyeat(1982).
40
This claim provides an implicit response to Matthen's (1985, 37) worry that without mind-independent
objects, there can be no "parents" to give birth to offspring in the theory of perception that we will soon
encounter. On my account, there are parents, but these parents are not ordinary objects like wind and wine,
but rather collections of interrelated motions.
253
idealism is to be avoided and Theaetetus' definition preserved, we need to develop a realist
ontology that nevertheless conforms to UO. In my mind, (H) is introduced to fill precisely
this need.
In presenting the relationship between the various theses in this way, I am effectively
arguing that (P) does not entail (H). Instead, I am arguing that (P) entails UO, and UO
places restrictions on the kind of ontology that the Protagorean can have—assuming he has
any at all. Therefore, although UO does not entail (H), as we could think of an alternative
ontology that conforms to UO, (H) is introduced as the best available ontology that
conforms to the principle. In fact, (H) not only does not violate UO, but, as I will argue,
entails it. So construed, (H) entails UO and UO is entailed by (P). This, then, is the reason
why Dancy is right to interpret what I have called UO as the juncture claim and why Lee is
right to argue that it is the most important principle of the secret doctrine.41
Even though we have developed an understanding of the relationship between the
four theses, we still have to work out a host of details associated with each position. One
problem, for instance, is that Lee has argued that UO is a moving target in that it is
expressed in a variety of ways.42 In response to such worries, I read the secret doctrine as
fundamentally denying one principle, namely that of self-identity or self-relation captured in
the phrase in itself and for itself {auto kath' hauto) as it is applied to three different features of
beings. Here self-identity or self-relation simply stands in contrast to other-relation (pros ti or
pros alia or pros allela), and the first position of the secret doctrine that Socrates puts forth is
that there is nothing that is one (hen) in relation to itself (152d2-3). This, of course, is not to
Dancy (1987, 72ff.) and Lee (2005, 93). However, I will voice disagreement with some of Dancy's analysis as
my own interpretation unfolds.
42
Cf. Lee (2005, 86ff.).
reject the notion of oneness or unity all together.4 This is because the position does
maintain that there is unity insofar as we understand that all unity is a unity between two or
more things that stand in relation not to themselves, but rather in relation to each other. In
other words, all unity is a unity of multiplicity.
As Socrates unpacks the secret teaching, we find that the secret doctrine also denies
that things are anything {ti) or a definite something {hopoios) in relation to themselves
(152d6). In other words, not only is it the case that nothing constitutes a unity in relation
to itself, but also that nothing exists {ti) or has any determinate properties {hopoios) in relation to
itself. In the latter two claims, we find that the secret teaching not only insists that things
can only have the properties they do by standing in relationship to something else, but also
that things, perhaps as indeterminate substratums or bare particulars, only exist in relation to
other things. In other words, on this view, nothing is capable of independent existence.
Although some might be uneasy with the complete relativity of existence, such that
there are no relata independent of their relations, the remainder of the passage does, I think,
make it clear that this is what is at stake. This is because immediately after we are told that
nothing is one, an indeterminate something, or any sort of thing in relation to itself, we learn
instead that all "things" of which we improperly say "are" only come to be in relation to each
other from local movement (phora), motion {kinesis)., or mixture {krasis) (152d8),4i and it is for
this reason that the theory ultimately holds that nothing is or exists, but only and always
becomes (gignesthai) (153el).46 Although this claim raises the ever-difficult problem of the
43
Cf. Polansky (1992, 86ff.) for such a reading.
44
The Greek reads: coc |jr|6ev6c OVTOC EVOC ur|TE TIVOC prJTE OTtoiououv.
45
The Greek reads: EK 5s 5r| ctpopae TE Kai KIVTJOECO<; xai KpctOEcoc irpoc aXXr|Aa yiyvsTcu TTOVTCX a 5r|
4>auEv slvat, OUK opScoc TtpoaayopEuovTEC.
46
The Greek reads: EOTI (JEV ydp OUSETTOT' OUSEV, del SE yiyvsTOti.
255
distinction between being and becoming in Plato,47 we can say that, as the distinction is
presented here, it is not so much a difference between stability and change as it is a
difference between self-relation and other-relation. On this reading, beings are those things
that are one, exist, and have determinate properties in relation to themselves. In contrast,
something that always and only becomes is something that is one, exists, and has
determinate properties only in relation to something other than itself.
Another difficulty that arises with the presentation of the secret teaching is the
introduction of Heraclitean flux or change in this context. While we have suggested that
becoming is best understood, at least from this passage, in terms of relations rather than
changes, there is no doubt that change or flux is a crucial element of the secret doctrine.
This is because in addition to the verb gignesthai or becoming, we also learn that things come
to be from local motion, motion, and mixture (152d9-el). In my mind, worries about the
degree to which the introduction of change in this context can actually support (P) and (T)
arise from ambiguities in the presentation of this portion of the Heraclitean flux doctrine.
Specifically, (H) can be interpreted either as the view that (HI) all things are in motion or the
view that (H2) everything is motion (kinesis).,48 On the first view, change applies to the things
of the commonsense world, and what it says is that these things are changing with respect to
one or more of their properties (including the property of being in some place) at any given
point in time. On the second view, the world itself is said to be a collection of interrelated
motions, and the things of the commonsense world are said to emetgefrom or come to be as
a result o/"the interaction of these active and passive motions. When worries about the way in
47
Cf. Bolton (1975) and Irwin (1977).
48
Here I am exploiting a distinction noted by Bostock (1988, 99), Silvermann (2000, 120), and Lee (2005,112).
which (H) supports (P) arise, it is often because (H) is being interpreted as HI rather than
H2. Indeed, the passages that best support the HI reading come from Socrates' later
attempt to show that (H) is ultimately incompatible with (T) by applying the flux theory so
construed to perceptions and perceptual qualities (179c-183c). However, I will contend that
insofar as (H) is interpreted as H2, then we have an ontology that not only entails UO, but
also provides the backdrop for a theory of perception designed to support (P).
On the reading that I advocate, (H), in the sense of H2, is both a reductionist and an
eliminativist position with respect to the basic components of the commonsense world, as it
ultimately tries to explain how our qualitative experience emerges from active and passive
motions that are not perceived as active and passive motions—instead they are perceived as
qualities proper to each sense. Evidence for reading (H) in this way can be found in the
passage that introduces the position in the initial formulation of the secret doctrine: "the
things which we say 'are,' when we are not speaking properly, come to be in relation to each
other from movement and motion and mixing" (152c7-8).49 This passage makes two
important points for our purposes. First, (H), as it is expressed here, eliminates, in
accordance with UO, self-identical things that exist and persist through time. It does so by
replacing them with properties, rather than things, that become only in relation to something
else. Second, it identifies the source of this relational coming-to-be. Specifically, it says that
the properties of the sensible world come to he from motion.
The second passage that supports this reading is found immediately after we are told
that all of the ancients, with the exception of Parmenides, were proponents of this view—it
is an army, Socrates claims, with Homer as its general (152d-153a). Specifically, Socrates
49
My translation. For Greek, see fn. 46.
257
claims that there is sufficient evidence for this view because motion (kinesis) makes or
produces becoming and the things that seem to be (153a6-7).50 To make sense of this,
Socrates makes three claims: (1) heat and fire give birth to and are the guardians of
everything; (2) heat and fire are themselves born from movement (phord) and friction (tripsis);
and (3) these latter two are both types of motion (kinesis) (153a). In other words, all the
stuffs of the material world are born from heat and fire, and heat and fire are ultimately
reducible to types of motion. Thus, on this reading, (H) is not a claim stating that the things
of the sensible world are changing at all times with respect to one or more of their
properties, but rather it is a view that explains how the things of the perceptible world are
born from more fundamental interactions between active and passive motions. More
specifically, we will see that what immediately emerges from the interactions of these forces
are perceptions and perceptual qualities, and it is from these perceptions and perceptual
qualities that the subjects and objects of the sensible world are constructed.
4.7. A Preliminary Account of Perception and a Puzzle
Admittedly, we are not immediately introduced to the claim that the things of the
sensible world, e.g. wind and wine, are mere collections of perceptual qualities. Instead, in
what McDowell has called the "preliminary account of perception,"51 we are only introduced
to the relativity of perceptual properties, where the ontological status of things is left
untouched. Socrates introduces the perceptual theory by first noting the fact that what we
typically call white has no existence independently of the eyes (153d-e). Nevertheless, such a
color cannot be said to be in the eye, just as it cannot be said to be in an object external to
50
The Greek reads: TO UEV elvou SOKOUV KOI TO yiyvEoSai Kivriaic Ttapsxsi.
51
McDowell (1973, 30).
the eye. Indeed, it cannot be in any place at all. The alleged reason for this requirement is
that if the color were in some fixed place, it would remain stationary, and if it remained
stationary, it would not be coming to be.52 Because Theaetetus is surprised by the claim,
Socrates elaborates further. First, he reminds Theaetetus of the guiding principle of the
discussion: Nothing is one in and of itself (153e4-5). As a result, we need to construct a
theory of perception that does not violate this principle or, similarly, so that it conforms to
the positive formulation of the principle that everything exists and is what it is only in
relation to something else. So construed, a perceptual quality like white must be something
relational. According to Socrates, a perceptual quality like white can be understood as
relational by construing it as coming to be from the interaction between an impacting eye on
an appropriate motion, so that what we call color is neither the impacting motion (eye) nor
the motion that is impacted, but rather something that comes to be between the two and
therefore is private (idios) to the each particular interaction (153e-154a).
Even though Socrates has just introduced Theaetetus to the seemingly shocking
notion of the relativity of perceptual properties, this is just the beginning of his attempt to
unpack the consequences of the secret teaching. Specifically, Socrates' next move is to show
Theaetetus how his commitment to the secret doctrine that things come to be F when
someone perceives them to be F is incompatible with the commonsense view that things are
intrinsically F or not-F. This is made plain when Socrates claims that if things had intrinsic
properties, they would not come to have those properties simply by virtue of entering into a
new relationship without a corresponding change in themselves (154M-3). In other words,
Here is an instance where becoming is being applied to things in the sense of H I .

259
the claim that (x) becomes (F) when it enters into some relation with (a) without any
corresponding change in (x) requires that we reject the claim that (x) is also intrinsically (F).
The problem for commentators has been that Socrates makes his point by presenting
Theaetetus with a puzzle that has no explicitly stated purpose (154c-155c).53 Although this
puzzle is ultimately designed to expand upon the consequences of the Protagorean position
by forcing Theaetetus to deny intrinsic properties, there is reason to think that Plato has
nevertheless embedded within the puzzle a subtle critique of UO and therefore the entire
secret doctrine. To present the puzzle, Socrates directs Theaetetus' attention to sets of four,
six, and twelve dice and asks Theaetetus to compare them. When we compare the six dice
with the twelve, we should say that the six dice are less than twelve. However, when we
compare the six dice with four dice, we should say that they are more than the four. The
question that Socrates puts to Theaetetus is whether something, in this case the six dice, can
become bigger without increasing in number. Here Theaetetus is puzzled. When he thinks
about this very question, i.e. whether six dice can become bigger without becoming some
greater number of dice, he thinks that it cannot. However, when he thinks about the six dice
in relation to the various other sets of dice, he thinks that this is indeed possible (154d).
To specify the problem, Socrates presents three statements designed to give
expression to the source of Theaetetus' puzzlement.
1. Nothing can become larger or smaller, either in size or in number, so long as it
remains equal to itself (155a3-5).
2. A thing to which nothing is added and from which nothing is taken away neither
increases nor decreases, but is always equal (155a7-9).
53
See Chappell (2004, 69ff.) for a summary of the various approaches to the puzzles discussed here.
260
3. It is impossible for something not to exist before but then to exist afterward without
having come to be and coming to be (155M-3).
As Lee has pointed out,54 the ambiguity that Socrates is drawing out in each of these
statements rests on the failure to make the distinction between what something is in relation
to itself and what something is in relationship to something else. Indeed, the idea of the
puzzle is to show that insofar as we focus on the number of dice in relationship to itself, we
are convinced that the dice cannot become larger or smaller without increasing in number.
However, if we understand the properties of the dice (greater and smaller) in relationship to
the other sets of dice, the dice can change their properties without undergoing any intrinsic
change.
At this point, many of us would be inclined to say that this ambiguity simply shows
the need to introduce a distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties and the
corresponding distinction between real change, i.e. a change in intrinsic properties, and what
might be called a mere Cambridge change, i.e. a change in extrinsic properties.55 Indeed, I
would argue that Plato's appeal to quantities here and Theaetetus' subsequent state of
philosophical wonder {to thaumaêin) highlights the fact that Plato also wants us to move in this
direction (155d). Specifically, the puzzles to which Socrates has introduced Theaetetus run
parallel to the kinds of puzzles that are described in Republic VII, where Socrates highlights
the fact that the ring finger can have contrary properties insofar as we try to determine its
size in relation to the two fingers adjacent to it (Rep. 523cff.). In Republic VII, these puzzles
are supposed to lead the student to the study of the one and number and ultimately the grasp
54
My account here is deeply indebted to the one provided by Lee (2005, 103f.).
55
See Fine (1996,122ff.) for more on the distinction and how it might relate to these puzzles.
261
of being through reason. In the Theaetetus, Plato does have Socrates speak of Theaetetus'
state of wonder at these puzzles and the way in which this state of wonder is the beginning
of philosophy (Tht. 155d), but rather than leading him on to the study of self-identical or
self-related entities via mathematics and other such disciplines, Socrates immediately reminds
Theaetetus of his Protagorean commitments and plunges him further into the mysteries of
the secret doctrine by revealing an alternative answer to the puzzles. Specifically, the un-
Platonic answer to these puzzles consists not in the recognition of self-identical things with
intrinsic properties, thereby providing the necessary condition for the corresponding
distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties, but rather in the denial that things have
any intrinsic properties whatsoever. In other words, the Protagorean solution is to insist,
contrary to mathematics and commonsense but in accord with the secret teaching, that
nothing exists and is what it is in relation to itself, but rather that everything exists and is
what it is only in relation to something else. In this sense, the secret doctrine denies that the
lessons of number and even geometry can be applied to the study of nature on the grounds
that, unlike numbers, there is nothing in nature that is identical with itself.
4.8. Heraclitean Flux and a Secret Theory of Perception
In developing the secret doctrine, Socrates' next step is to introduce Theaetetus to an
invisible world of motions and powers and to contrast this worldview with those who
believe that nothing exists beyond what is tangible. Specifically, Socrates urges Theaetetus to
make sure that none of the "uninitiated" is listening as he introduces the secret teaching.
The uninitiated are those who "think that nothing exists but what they can grasp with both
hands; people who refuse to admit that actions and processes and the invisible world in
general have any place in reality" (155e4-7). Having made sure that they are now speaking
in private, Socrates explains the teaching to Theaetetus:
These mysteries begin from the principle on which all that we have just been saying
also depends, namely, that everything is really motion, and there is nothing but
motion. Motion has two forms, each an infinite multitude, but distinguished by
their powers, the one being active and the other passive. And through the
intercourse and mutual friction of these two there comes to be an offspring infinite
in multitude but always twin births, on the one hand what is perceived, on the other,
the perception of it, the perception in every case being generated together with what
is perceived and emerging along with it. (156a3-b2)57
For our understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy, there are two points that are
important here. O n the one hand, we are introduced to what can be called a dynamic
worldview that closely resembles Nietzsche's own. This is because we are told not only that
motion {kinesis) is the fundamental principle (arche) of nature, such that everything is motion
and nothing besides (H2), but also that these motions can be further reduced to the interplay
of active and passive powers (dunameis) (156a6). : ' 8 O n the other hand, this dynamic
conception of nature is contrasted with a cruder form of materialism that places a heavy
emphasis o n touch. Interesting here is the fact that this cruder form of materialism bears a
striking resemblance to the atomistic materialism of early modern philosophy, and this, as we
56
The Greek reads: Etaiv 5s OUTOI oi OU5EV dAAo OIOLIEVOI elvcu f| ou dv SUVCOVTCU dirpi^ TOIV XEpotv
AaPsaSai, rrpdÊic 5E Kai YEVEOEIC Kai TTCXV TO dopaxov OUK CJTTO5EXO|JEVOI COC EV ouoiac HEpEi.
57
The Greek reads: dpxri 8E, E£ T\Q Kai d vuvSr) EAEVOHEV irdvTa ripTiyTai, f]5E auTcov, coc TO trdv
Kiur|oic rjv Kai dAAo irapd TOUTO OUSEV, Try; 5E KIVTIOECOC 5UO E'IST], TTATISEI WEV dtTEtpov EKctTEpov
Siivauiv 5E TO (JEV TTOIEIV EXOV, TO 5E TtdaxEiv. EK 5E TT\Q TOUTCOV ouiAt'ac TE Kai Tpivj^coc. Trpoc
dAAr|Aa yiyvETai EKOVO TTATISEI UEV diTEipa, 5(5uua 5E, TO UEU aio0r|T6v, TO 5E dia0r|aic, ctsi
ouuEKTriTTTOUoa Kai ysvvcouEvri METCX TOU aia9r|Tou.
58
For more on dunamis, see Cornford (1935, 234ff.)
263
have argued in chapter three, is precisely the view that Nietzsche's dynamism is designed to
1 59
replace.
In the passage that we are now examining (156a-c), the precise relationship between
modon and power is left unspecified. However, I want to engage in a bit of speculation on
this issue and say that the relation between motion (kinesis) and power [dunamis) is one of
actuality and potentiality.60 That is, a motion just is an actualized power, where these powers
are actualized when they are affecting and being affected by other powers. Thus, we have an
ontology where if we were to ask what the world at the most fundamental level is like, we
would be forced to say that it is one of indeterminate powers or potentialities. However, in
trying to grasp these powers in themselves, we also need to keep in mind that, in accordance
with UO, these powers can only exist and have the properties they do insofar as they are
affecting or being affected by other powers. In other words, these powers can only exist as
actualized motions, and as actualized motions they must always stand in some affective
relationship to other powers or motions. It is for this reason that we not only can say that
on this view the world, in itself, is radically indeterminate and, much like an irrational
number, unintelligible,61 but also that motion or change is an essential feature of it.
The other issue that requires a bit of speculation is trying to understand how this
"secret" world of powers and motions relates to the qualitative world of perceptions and
59
Polansky (1992, 96) speculates that Plato has Democritean atomists in mind here. If this is correct, this
would further secure the parallel to early modern mechanistic philosophy.
60
My admittedly speculative position here is drawn in part from Jansen (2002), who details the relationship
between kinesis and dunamis in Aristode and Aristode's reference to Protagoras' theory of perception in his
discussion of Megarian actualism in Metaphysics IX (1047a4-10).
61
Cf. Sayre (1969, 57ff.) on the way the language of powers in the initial discussion of mathematics (147d8-9)
foreshadows key concepts in the Heraclitean ontology sketched here. In particular, Sayre notes that the powers
of the Heraclitean theory are "in themselves totally irrational, and can be 'given an account' only from the
vantage point of a higher context" (61).
perceived qualities. Here, one might think that the interactions of these motions cause
perceptions. This is suggested when we are told that it is through the intercourse and
friction that an infinite multitude of offspring come to be in relation to each other (156a7-
b2). At the same time, it is important to note that the perception (aisthesis) and the perceived
property {to aistheton) just are (fast) motions.62 More specifically, we can say that perceived
properties just are motions now understood from a first-person point of view, i.e. from a
standpoint within the perceptual interaction. For our purposes, this point is important
because it explains the transition from the Heraclitean realm of motions to the Protagorean
realm of perception and ultimately commonsense.63
Although the text does not provide direct evidence for the two speculative points
that I have just made, it does provide us with a further explanation of what Socrates means
when he speaks of perceptions and perceived properties. Specifically, we are told that
perceptions in this case include seeings, hearings, smellings, chillings, burnings, pleasurings,
painings, desirings, fearings, and an infinite number of others that do not have names. On
the other hand, perceived properties are, for instance, colors that correspond to seeings,
sounds that correspond to the various hearings, and pains that correspond to various
painings (156b-c). As we will see, Socrates' account here is important for our purposes
because it provides evidence for reducing ordinary objects such as wind and wine to the
status of mere collections. For what we start with at the perceptual level are not pre-existing
selves and independently existing objects, but rather active and passive motions, and what
62
As Lee (2000, 73) notes, Plato does not speak of qualities or properties until 182a9-bl. Here, to aistheton
simply means "what is perceived."
63
Here I am roughly following Burnyeat (1982, 13).
265
we get from these motions are not things, but rather perceptions and perceived properties
that always come to be in relation to each other.
After connecting each perception to a perceived quality, Socrates reminds Theaetetus
of their agreement that all things are moving (156c8),64 and he proceeds to explain how the
various elements found in perception can be understood in terms not only of active and
passive motions, but also fast and slow motions (156c8-9). Here, we are told that the slow
motions remain relatively stable in that they are able to maintain their position in space, and
when they come into contact with other slow motions in their vicinity, they give birth to fast
motions that move between the two slow motions. These fast motions are of two kinds,
and they correspond to the previous distinction between the perception and the perceived
property. In the example that Socrates provides here, it is the interaction of what is now
referred to as the eye and something corresponding to it, which are both slow motions, that
produces seeing and whiteness (fast motions) (156d). With these fast motions moving
between the respective slow motions, the eye is filled with sight and becomes a seeing eye
and the thing being seen, such as a stick or a stone, becomes not whiteness, but white.
With the introduction of slow motions into the account, we do encounter a theory of
perception that roughly corresponds to the subject-predicate structure of language and a
doer-deed distinction that Nietzsche wants to reject. What I mean by this is that on this
model although the fast motions may not be causes of perceptions and perceptual properties
but rather just are these perception and perceptual properties, we now have slow motions
that seem to cause the interaction of these fast motions and therefore play the role of
64
The Greek reads: coc TCXUTa TTCXVTa |Jev coansp Xeyouev Kl VEtTCU. Notice, however, the shift in language
that suggests HI or the view that things are in motion.
something like a thing-in-itself that bears certain properties and exists independently of the
perceptual interaction.
In trying distance the account of perception in the Theaetetus from such a model,
there are two points to keep in mind. First, even if we can say that there are eyes and sticks
out there existing as slow motions that then cause the perceptual interaction, it is not the
case that these objects have the properties they do prior to the perceptual interaction.
Instead, these things come to be white or cold only when they are seen or touched, just as the
eye or the hand only become a seeing eye or a feeling hand insofar as they are perceiving. In
this sense, these objects qua slow motions can be understood as relatively permanent
possibilities of sensation, just as the perceiving organs qua slow motions can be understood
as relatively permanent potentialities for perceiving. This is an important point not only
because it reduces our commonsense world to a collection of motions that only have
determinate natures in relation to other motions, but also because it forces us to abandon
the question as to whether our perceptions do or do not correspond to the nature of things
independently of the perceptual transaction.
Whereas the first point is designed to undercut the idea of objects having the
properties they do independently of perceptual transactions, the second point calls attention
to the relational existence of both the fast and the slow motions.65 This is because as the
account progresses, we also learn that these slow motions only exist and have the properties
they do in relation to other motions. To make this point, Plato has Socrates repeat a general
version of the secret doctrine, namely that nothing is anything in itself (156e9), but
65
Although I am contrasting my argument with Matthen (1985), I do agree that there is a world beyond the
private worlds of perceptions. However, as the next point makes clear, I do insist that what Matthen calls
"public objects" are actually motions that only have relational existence.
everything comes to be in association with each other as the result of motion (157al-2).
Then he has Socrates apply the teaching to the motions themselves. Indeed, this is where
we see the way in which (H), construed here as H2 or everything is motion, conforms to
UO. Specifically, Socrates contends that it is impossible to think these active and passive
motions as one (157al-3).66 This is because just as the perception and the perceptual
properties are always born in tandem, the active and passive motions have neither existence
nor determinate qualities prior to the interaction. That is, unlike the way we think of wine,
wind, and eyes as being unities capable of independent existence and having the properties
they do in virtue of themselves, these motions can only exist insofar as they are actively
affecting other motions and therefore they only take on the qualities that they have, e.g. fast,
slow, active, passive, insofar as they stand in this relation. As a result, what is an active
motion in one relationship can be a passive motion in another and vice-versa (157a).
Here, it is important to note further two points. First, as Lee has argued, the central
component of the secret teaching is not so much the flux doctrine, but rather what we have
called UO. Specifically, it is the unity of opposites that places strictures on the kind of
ontology that can be used to support (P). Thus, it is not that UO entails (H), but rather that
(H), as H2, has to conform to UO. What this means is that H2 is an ontology in which the
fundamental stuffs of nature, in this case powers or motions, neither exist nor exist as
something determinate in virtue of themselves, but only in relation to something else.
Second, it is this position that underwrites an eliminativism about the supposedly self-
identical entities of the common sense world, and this, in turn, underwrites what I will call,
66
The Greek reads: TO TTOIOUV EIVOCI Tt Kai TO Ttctoxov OUTCOV em evoc vofjaai, a k (|>aatv, OUK EIVCU
TTayicoe.
in line with our reading of Nietzsche, a version of the falsification thesis that appears in the
next part of Socrates' exposition of the secret doctrine.
To recall, the falsification thesis is the view that language and thought seduce us into
adopting false beliefs about the way the world is. As we have seen above, the motions of the
Heraclitean world are construed in such a way that thought cannot properly grasp them as
unities—and therefore, we might add, that thought cannot properly grasp them at all. What
we now encounter in Socrates' articulation of the doctrine is the view that much of our
language fails to express properly the true nature of these motions. To make the point,
Socrates begins with a restatement of UO, this time emphasizing the denial of unity or
oneness, and he proceeds to argue that we must therefore purge language of all forms of "to
be" (to einai), even though we might be driven by habit and lack of culture to continue using
the verb (157bl). For if we want to speak according to nature (katapbusin), we should
expunge words such as "something" or "of something" or "mine" or "this" or "that" or any
other name that makes things stand still (157b4-5). Instead, we are told that we should
speak of "becoming," "being produced," "passing away," and "changing" (157b6-7).
This brings us to a second point. Socrates argues that this principle of not making
things stand still applies equally to what he calls the parts (kata mews) and to the aggregates
{peripollon hathroisthenton) (157b8-c3). Although this passage has been the source of some
controversy,67 on the reading I favor, the parts here are the individual qualities that are
perceived, e.g. colors, sounds, smells, etc., whereas the aggregates are combinations of these
perceived qualities that, when bundled together, make up the objects of everyday, ordinary
experience, e.g. rocks, tables, cows, and human beings. What this suggests is that if this
67
See Day (1997, 60f.). For an alternative reading, see Brown (1993, 207f.) and Matthen (1985).
269
theory acknowledges the existence of commonsense objects at all, it is as bundles of
perceived qualities. Taken in combination with the earlier claim that things such as eyes and
stones are really slow motions, this passage from the Theaetetus therefore offers us a twofold
account of things that is in line with Nietzsche's own position. On the one hand, we have
what we might call a scientific account of things as complexes of interrelated powers or
motions. On the other hand, we have an account of the things that populate the
commonsense world as mere bundles of perceived properties. What is common to both
accounts is that they do away with the notion of things that exist and are what they are in
themselves and explain everything in terms of entities that only have relational existence.68
4.9. The Final Stage of the Secret Doctrine
In the final segment of Socrates' exposition of the secret doctrine (157c4-160e5), not
only are the ordinary objects that we take to populate the commonsense world further
dissolved into the individual qualities of each perception, but the perceiving subject is also
divided into a series of distinct perceptual states, thereby allowing each perceptual state to be
tied to a perceived quality. Although some commentators have understood this final section
of the secret doctrine to be an argument for the view that what we ordinarily think of as a
single persistent perceiver is actually a series or a collection of short-lived perceptual states,69
Lee has rightiy noted that the primary purpose of this section is to show that ^//perceptions,
even in cases of sickness and madness, are infallible by articulating a view of perception in
which each qualitative experience is bound to a particular perception.70 This is not to say
68
Here again I follow Burnyeat's (1982) general view that Plato is only gradually revealing the theory of
perception, one that continually whittles away at our belief in independently existing properties, objects, and
subjects, such that in the end we are only left with relational entities.
69
Bostock (1988, 71). Also see Chappell (2004, 79ff.)
70
Lee (2004, 109).
270
that the argument of this section does not also show that what we take to be the person of
Socrates is really a bundle of distinct perceptions, but rather that the primary aim is to argue
for the relativity of both the perception and the perceived property such that it guarantees the
truth of each perception.
To recall, the Protagorean conflation between appearance and reality was motivated
by the desire to preserve the definition of knowledge that Theaetetus provided in the face of
conflicting appearances. Each person was said to know the things that he or she perceives
because what each person perceives only exists for that person. The problem that has now
emerged is that this solution also allows for the inscrutability of the visions and opinions of
dreamers and madmen. Again, if Theaetetus holds that perception, without any kind of
qualification or restriction, is knowledge, then dreams and mad visions, as forms of
perception so as to includephantasia and judgments, must also be forms of knowledge.71
Rather than urging Theaetetus to modify his original definition of knowledge in light
of this potential consequence, Socrates tries to alleviate any worries Theaetetus might have
by reminding him of just how difficult it is to distinguish between waking and dream states
(157e-158a). Here, Socrates contends that we can rightfully say that insofar as we spend half
our lives awake and half our lives asleep and that we grant equal conviction to both waking
and dream states when we are in those states, we live in two separate worlds (158d).
According to Socrates, a similar argument holds for disease and madness (158e). Since there
is no proper criterion for determining who is mad and who is not—if most of us were what
we now call mad, we would think the now sane were in fact the man ones—and we assent to
the perceptions that we have when we are in a state of madness, we must grant that the
71
It is interesting to note the introduction of doxa at this point (158b2).
271
perceptions of mad and sick individuals are indeed forms of knowledge according to
Theaetetus' definition.
To further the case, Socrates launches into a line of argumentation that has not been
easy for commentators to decipher and has resulted in complaints that Socrates is appealing
to principles that are "blatandy false."72 Although I share similar worries about the passage,
I think we can make some sense of the argument by keeping in mind the relationalist
ontology at work in the background. The most crucial premise of the argument is that if
something (x) comes to be {gignesthai) qualitatively unlike {anomoion) something else (y), then
these two things are also completely different [heteroti) (159a), where different here suggests,
at a minimum, numerical distinctness. In terms of the example provided in the text, if a
healthy Socrates becomes qualitatively unlike a sick Socrates, the healthy Socrates and the
sick Socrates will also be numerically different. We are now told that if something (x) such
as wine mixes with a healthy Socrates (y) and then at a later time a sick Socrates (z), the first
combination (x-y) will produce offspring that are numerically and qualitatively distinct from
the second (x-z) combination (159a-c). More specifically, when the healthy Socrates mixes
with the wine, it gives birth to a perception of sweetness and a perceived sweetness. Thus,
the tongue of Socrates becomes a tongue that perceives sweetness in relation to the wine and
the wine becomes a sweet wine in relation to the tongue of Socrates. In contrast, if the wine
were to approach the sick Socrates, it would be approaching something qualitatively
different, and since it is approaching something qualitatively different it will generate
qualitatively different offspring. In this case, the perception of bitter and a perceived
72
See Brown (1993, 208). Also see McDowell (1973, 148ff.), Dancy (1987, 88ff.), and Bostock (1988, 7Iff.).
272
bitterness will be produced, where the wine is now bitter and the tongue of Socrates will
now be a tongue that is perceiving bitterness.
Socrates employs these principles and this example to generalize over all other
instances of perception, and what results from this argument is the eventual linking of each
perception to its perceived quality and vice versa. The idea is that if the active and passive
forces that combine to give birth to the perception are in any way qualitatively unlike, then
both the perception and the quality perceived will be qualitatively unlike and numerically
different. Thus, the passive powers that make up the perceiving Socrates could never mix
with anything else and get the same perception. Similarly, the active powers that constitute
the thing perceived could never mix with another set of passive powers and produce the
same perception and perceived quality (159e-160b). Since I am, qua perceiver, a result of
this interaction, I will never be the same as I am now—that is, assuming that this exact
constellation of powers never returns to the same state that it is now (160a). This is also true
for the thing perceived; it will never exist as precisely the same quality that it is now
perceived to be.
At this point, we might grant that while I, qua perceiver, may never have the exact
same perception as I have had in the past, just as the wine may never have the exact quality of
sweetness or bitterness that it was once perceived to have, I nevertheless persist as a
perceiver through time, just as the wine continues to exist as a thing perceived. As we have
seen, however, such a view is not available to the proponent of the secret doctrine. This is
because it would posit the independent existence of something beyond each perceptual
encounter, and in so doing it would violate the fundamental teaching of the secret doctrine,
namely UO.
Indeed, I have indicated above that the primary purpose of the final stage of the
exposition of the secret doctrine is to argue that perceptions and perceptual qualities exist
and are what they are only in relation to each other. This, of course, is precisely the view
that Socrates is trying to support when he contends that all perceptions must be perceptions
o/~somefhing, just as all perceptual qualities must be perceived as a part of perception (160a-
b). Because of this, Socrates contends that our being, i.e. each perceptual act, is necessarily
tied to a specific partner, and it will never be bound to anything else, not even itself (160a6-
7). In fact, Socrates claims that it does not really matter if we use the language of becoming
or being here, as the truly important point is that all things exist in relation to something else,
and it is because all things exist only in relation to other things that we should never speak of
anything or anyone either being or becoming itself of itself {auto de eph' hautoii) (160M0), but
rather always speak of things as being for something or of something or relative to
something (160b9). This, then, is the true meaning of the secret doctrine (160c).
Having established the relational existence of all elements at the perceptual level,
Socrates now returns to the three theses and briefly shows how UO provides the necessary
support for at least two of them. Specifically, it is by tying each perception to a perceiver
that each perceiver becomes the judge of the things that are and the things that are not (P)
(160c). Moreover, since what a perceiver perceives is literally generated with each
perception, a perceiver can never misperceive, even in cases of dreams and madness, and
since a perceiver can never misperceive, a perceiver must always perceive correctly.
Therefore, all perceptions will be true, and since all perceptions will be true, each perceiver
can be said to know everything that he or she perceives (T) (160d).

What we see in this final argument is that it is through the application of UO to
perceivers and perceptual qualities that (P) and (T) are secured. In contrast, H2 or the view
that everything is motion is left hovering in the background. Nevertheless, Socrates brings
in (H) when he concludes by listing the three theories and stating that they fall together into
the same thing (160d6). The first theory is that of Homer, Heraclitus, and the other
members of this band who hold that all things move like streams (160d8). The second is
Protagoras' claim that man is the measure of all things (160d9-10), and the third is
Theaetetus' claim that knowledge is perception (160el-2)
It should be noted that Socrates' final summation of the position not only provides
support for the reading that are three doctrines at work ((T), (P), and (H)), rather than four,
but it also suggests that these three doctrines are equivalent. Although the claim that these
three positions fall together into the same thing does suggest the latter point, it by no means
provides unambiguous evidence for it. Indeed, perhaps the best evidence of an entailment
relation between any of three theses can be found in Socrates' claim that because (P) and (H)
are true, (T) must be true as well (160el). Of course, this only supports the entailment
relation in one direction, and it again does so only ambiguously. That is, it is not clear
whether (T) is true because both (P) and (H) are true or because (P) and (H) each provide
independent support for the truth of (T), so that either (P) or (H) could be true and (T)
would nevertheless be the case. On my reading, the truth of (P) is, at this point in the
dialogue, held to be enough to secure the truth of (T), and (H) adds indirect support for (T)
by way of providing an ontology and a related theory of perception that supports (P). In
particular, what (H) does is provide us with an understanding of nature in which UO holds,
and UO is the principle that is entailed by both (P) and (H).

275
4.10. The Critique of the Four Theses
Part of the reason for turning to the Theaetetus within the context of this study is the
belief that the secret doctrine provides us with a way of understanding how Heraclitean flux
and Protagorean relativism might relate. The other reason for turning to the Theaetetus is to
examine the philosophical difficulties that a proponent of such a view might face. As we will
see, Plato has Socrates launch a number of attacks against the Heraclitean-Protagorean view
that is brought in to support Theaetetus' initial definition of knowledge. The purpose of this
section is to explore the nature and strength of these attacks and do so in way that will help
us further understand the Heraclitean-Protagorean position that is articulated in the dialogue.
According to Chappell, Plato presents twelve different arguments against the secret
doctrine and Theaetetus' definition of knowledge, extending from 160e-187a.73 For a variety
of reasons, I will primarily focus on the three objections to the theory that are the most
important within the context of the Theaetetus and most relevant to our larger aim of better
understanding Nietzsche's perspectivism and how it might relate to his Heraclitean
commitments. First, I will examine the apparently self-refuting character of the Protagorean
doctrine and some of the preliminary objections that set the stage for this argument. In so
doing, I will contend that Protagoras' doctrine is not a form of truth relativism, but rather a
relativism of fact, and that the upshot of the refutation is not the rejection of the theory tout
court, but rather a restriction of the doctrine so that it does not apply, at the very least, to
itself. Second, I will examine Plato's critique of Heraclitean flux and contend that it is not
designed to show that the doctrine is self-refuting because it leads to the break down of
language, but rather that the doctrine fails to support Theaetetus' definition of knowledge.
73
Chappell (2004, 86ff.)
Third, I will detail Plato's rejection of Theaetetus' definition of knowledge on the grounds
that perception fails to grasp being and therefore cannot provide us with knowledge. In so
doing, I will highlight a fourth point, namely the implicit criticism of UO found in Plato's
appeal to a unified soul that unifies our sense experience. However, before I turn to each of
these criticisms, I do want to discuss two important preliminary objections.
4.11. Some Preliminary Objections
As we will see, one of the most pressing questions we face in dealing with Plato's
refutation or critique of the Protagorean position is whether the doctrine should be
interpreted as something that is true for everyone, regardless of whether they agree with it.
Prior to presenting what Socrates claims to be his most exquisite argument against the
Protagorean doctrine (171a), we encounter a number of less forceful criticisms directed
against both the Protagorean thesis and Theaetetus' definition of knowledge. Although we
will forgo an examination of the attacks that Socrates directs against the latter, his first two
criticisms of the Protagorean view are important for our purposes because they help us
understand the nature of the Protagorean position as presented in the dialogue.
Socrates' attack on the complex of doctrines associated with Theaetetus' original
definition of knowledge begins with what he will later admit to be arguments acceptable to
the mob (162e). That is, they seem to be rhetorical ploys that are meant to persuade not by
proving the falsity of the view in question, but rather by highlighting its seemingly unsavory
consequences. Indeed, such a strategy should already be familiar to us from Aristotle's
defense of PNC in Metaphysics IV, where he highlights the potentially disturbing
consequences that the denial of PNC entails. In the Theaetetus, the focus is not on the denial
of PNC, but rather on the shocking consequences of Protagoras' doctrine, and Plato has
Socrates put forth two objections that are important for our purposes. The first is that no
one perceiver will be more knowledgeable or a better measure than any other, and because
of this, humans, animals, and gods will all be equal with respect to wisdom (161c-d). Since
perceivers cannot go wrong with respect to what they perceive to be the case, no one
individual can be more of an authority than any other. Indeed, this is a particular problem
for Protagoras because he often presents himself as being wiser than others insofar as he
takes on the role of a teacher and demands great fees for his services (161el). The second
objection is that it renders Socrates' own techne of midwifery poindess, one that includes
philosophical discussion [dialegesthai) and the examination {episkopein) and refutation (elenchein)
of each other's appearances (phantasiai) and judgments {doxai) (161e-162a). Since the
appearances and judgments of each are true, there is no reason to subject them to critical
examination and refutation. In this way, the Protagorean position seems to entail the end of
philosophy, at least as Plato's Socrates understands the activity.
For our purposes, what is so striking about the latter point is not so much that the
Heraclitean-Protagorean position entails the end of a certain sort of philosophy—indeed, we
have seen such an argument in Aristotle's defense of PNC—, but rather that this does not
prevent Socrates from subjecting the Protagorean doctrine to critical examination and
refutation. What this suggests is that even if the truth of the Protagorean doctrine puts an
end to Socratic examination of our appearances and opinions, the truth of the doctrine itself
can still be subjected to such an examination. Indeed, after the Protagorean thesis is said to
entail the end of dialogue, examination, and refutation, Plato goes on to describe Socrates'
subsequent examination of the Protagorean position in precisely these terms. That is, Plato
repeatedly uses the terms elenchein (162a6, 166bl, and 166c4), skopein and episkopein (166a7,
168b4, and 168b6-7), and dialegesthai (167e5 and e7) in referring to Socrates' activity.
Moreover, Plato incorporates a lecture about the proper way of refuting the position into
Socrates' eventual speech on behalf of Protagoras. Thus, the initial criticisms of the
Protagorean position listed above are rejected on the grounds that they fail to provide us
with the proof (apodeixis) and necessity (ananke) that we would expect in matters of geometry
(162e). Similarly, Socrates has Protagoras distinguish between serious inquiry or discussion
(dialegesthai) and mere controversy or argumentative competition (agoniêsthai), where the goal
of the latter is not to discover the truth but to conquer the opponent in a verbal battle
(167e).74
The fact that Socrates has Protagoras demand proof and necessity when trying to
refute his position is important for our purposes because it speaks against the reading that
the Protagorean view, as Plato presents it, is one that is true merelyfor Protagoras and his
like-minded followers. This is because what is at stake, at least at this point in the dialogue,
is not whether Protagoras believes the doctrine to be true for him, but rather whether the
doctrine accurately captures the nature of perception, knowledge, and wisdom so as to make
everyone the measure of all things. If, by contrast, it were merely a matter of a private truth
that Protagoras holds for himself, the task would not be to show that Protagoras' beliefs are
somehow inconsistent or fail to get things right, but rather to persuade Protagoras into
giving up his belief in his own doctrine, thereby no longer making it true for him. Of
course, the problem with pursuing the latter alternative is not so much that we would find
ourselves in the realm of persuasion rather than geometrical proof, but that Protagoras is
dead at the time of the conversation.
74
See Prof. 335aff. for a similar distinction.
The fact that the Protagoras of the Theaetetus holds that the doctrine is true for
everyone, whether they agree with it or not, is a point explicitly made prior to the self-
refutation argument (167d3-4). On the one hand, the point is linked to the view that, insofar
as wisdom is defined in terms of having true opinions, all individuals are self-sufficient with
respect to wisdom (169d). On the other hand, the view that all men are measures whether
they agree with the view or not actually conflicts with the claim that all are self-sufficient
with respect to wisdom. This is not because wisdom can be understood differently, as
Socrates has Protagoras claim in his defense (166df£), but rather because Protagoras' claim
that everyone is a measure, whether they believe this or not, indicates that people can be
wrong and therefore ignorant rather than wise on precisely this point. In this sense, if
Protagoras' doctrine is true for everyone as he claims it to be, then he is wiser than those,
like Socrates, who fail to recognize this fact, even if they are wise with respect to all their
other beliefs simply by virtue of the fact that they believe them. I make this point here
because Plato will have Socrates exploit a version of this very tension to show why the
doctrine, in its current formulation, is self-refuting.
As a final preliminary point, it is important to note the way in which the scope of the
Protagorean position gradually expands from initial concerns about immediately perceived
qualities such as warm and cold to judgments or beliefs about matters such as health (171d-e),
politics (172af£), and the future (178af£). While we noted an important shift from brute
sensations to appearances immediately after Theaetetus presented his definition of
knowledge (152b) and indicated the emergence of doxastic language in the final phase of
Socrates' unpacking of the secret doctrine (158b), the claim that judgments as well as
perceptions are infallible becomes most prominent precisely when Socrates begins to
criticize the Protagorean position (161d3). This gradual expansion of the Protagorean thesis
is important in this context because we will eventually see the way in which the self-
refutation argument only works if the Protagorean thesis is applied to all judgments,
including the Protagorean doctrine itself.
4.12. Protagoras and the Problem of Self-Refutation
We now turn to one of the most famous passages in the Theaetetus (168c-171d). It is
what is known as the peritropeor table-turning argument against Protagoras' homo mensura,
where the doctrine is supposedly shown to be self-refuting. There are a number of reasons
for its importance and fame. In terms of the text, this argument is presented as being more
important than what are dismissed as the seemingly childish objections that Socrates levels
against the equation of knowledge and perception in his conversation with Theaetetus from
160e to 168c. This point is highlighted not only by the fact that the peritrope argument comes
immediately after Socrates has given a lecture, supposedly on Protagoras' behalf, on the
proper way to refute the homo mensura doctrine (167d4-168c2), but also by the fact that
Socrates drags the older Theodorous into the conversation, insisting that he, rather than the
younger Theaetetus, should defend his friend from Socrates' criticisms (168c2-169d2).
One of the reasons why the passage has enjoyed such fame is that the argument also
appears in other ancient writers. 7s Most notably, Sextus Empiricus believed the self-
refutation argument to be successful. On this reading, what Plato shows is that if
Protagoras' doctrine is false, then it is false, and if the doctrine is true, then it is also false;
thus, in all cases, it is false. Sextus' position is significant because if it is correct, it means
that Plato will have provided us with a knockdown argument against the founding father of
75
Cf. Burnyeat (1976a and 1976b).
relativism and therefore a substantive roadblock to anyone who wants to revive such a
position.76
More recently, the argument has become the focal point of much discussion among
Plato scholars because Myles Burnyeat has taken issue with Sextus' interpretation of the
Protagorean position as it is presented in the Theaetetus, and this in turn has led to a debate
about the precise content of the claim that Plato is trying to refute.77 Specifically, Burnyeat
has argued that Sextus misinterpreted the Protagorean position because Sextus held it to be
what Burnyeat calls subjectivism or the view that every belief is true simpliciter. According to
Burnyeat, the Protagorean position that is being attacked in the Theaetetus is not the
subjectivist thesis so defined, but rather the truth-relative view that "every judgment is true
for (in relation to) the person whose judgment it is."78 This distinction becomes important
once we apply it to the self-refutation argument. If Protagoras' opponents believe the
doctrine is false, then it is, by virtue of Protagoras' theory, only falser/or them, rather than
false absolutely, and if it is only falser/or them, then it does not seem to be immediately
obvious that Protagoras must agree that it is also false for him. Therefore, this reading sheds
some initial doubt on the success of the self-refutation argument.
While he endeavors to show that Plato's argument does in fact work against the
Protagorean position so construed, Burnyeat's interpretative proposal has generated a
number of responses in turn. Some have agreed that Burnyeat properly construes the
Protagorean position in terms of truth-relativity, but have disagreed with some of the details
of the critique itself and ultimately whether it is successful against the position so
76
Cf. Meiland (1979).
77
Burnyeat (1976c).
78
Burnyeat (1976c, 172).
282
interpreted. Others, however, have argued that Burnyeat misconstrues the position. Most
notably, Fine has contended that Protagoras is portrayed in the Theaetetus not as a truth
relativist, but rather as an infallibilist, such that Protagoras' homo mensura doctrine amounts to
the view that all beliefs are true absolutely or simp/iciier.m
Perhaps the reason why so much debate has swirled around the self-refutation
argument is that there is some tension between the claims put forth in the original exposition
of the Protagorean position and the claims that are put forth as the self-refutation argument
unfolds. As we are told throughout Plato's unpacking of the view and in the phase leading
up to the self-refutation argument, the Protagorean position amounts to the claim that things
are for every man what they seem to be for him (170a3-4).81 As we have done above, this can
be reformulated as the claim that if (x) appears as or seems to be (F) to (a), then (x) is (F) to
(a). For our present purposes, there are two points left untouched by this formulation.
First, it says nothing explicit about truth.82 Instead, we are left to infer the consequences this
formulation has for thinking about truth. What is clear is that if (a) asserts that, "x is F in
relation to a," then his belief will be true absolutely because (x) is (F) to (a). What is not so
clear is what happens when (a) simply asserts that "x is F." On the one hand, we might
claim that all such assertions are necessarily false. On this reading, the bald claim that "x is
F" implies that there is some perceiver-independent reality in virtue of which (x) is (F).
Since there is no such reality, "x is F" is false. On another reading, we might say, with
someone like Burnyeat, that "x is F" is true for (a). The problem, however, is that we need
79
Meiland (1979), Emilsson (1994), Chappell (1995).
80
Cf. Fine (1994, 1996, 1998a, and 1998b). Also see Bett (1989) and Ketchum (1992).
81
The Greek reads: TO SOKOGV EKCXOTCO TOUTO KCU Etvcu §\\o'\ TTOU co SoxsT. Other formulations occur at
(152a6-8), (160c7-9), (161d6-7), and (167a7-8). Cf. Lee (2005, 49).
82
Unless, of course, we read the "to be" veridically, thereby insisting that truth is built into the formulation.
an analysis of the "for relation, and this is where Burnyeat's account is somewhat
ambiguous. On the one hand, he claims that the Protagorean doctrine amounts to a theory
of relative truth. On the other hand, he analyzes the position in such a way that he (rightly)
commits Protagoras to a relativism of fact.83
Perhaps the best way to explain the difference between these two positions is by
noting how contemporary truth-relativists often think of truth as being a three-term, rather
than a two-term, relation. For the non-relativist, it is typically thought that truth is a two-
term relation that expresses a certain correspondence between facts and the world. In
contrast, the truth-relativist insists that this relation must be viewed from or mediated by
some third thing such as a person, set of principles, or worldview.84 While the relativist does
bear the burden of saying more about this third factor, the point is that by introducing this
third factor, we cannot determine the truth of a belief simply by comparing it to a certain
fact. Instead, assessing this truth relation will always take place from a particular point of
view and will inevitably vary according to varying subjective conditions, whether these are
specific to an individual, some culturally determined semantic framework, other beliefs, etc.
Hence, on this view, we cannot speak of an absolute truth that is independent of such
conditions, but rather we must always tie truth to a third term and therefore speak of beliefs
as being true for or relative to something or someone.
From this analysis, we can see that if this is what relative truth is, the Protagorean
D
position in the Theaetetus cannot be understood as a doctrine of relative truth. Based on the
argument of the Theaetetus, the reason why homo mensura does not amount to truth relativism
83
Burnyeat (1976c, 181). For his use of "simpliciter," see Burnyeat (1976c, 186f.) and Burnyeat (1976b, 46).
84
Meiland(1977, 571f.).
85
Indeed, Lee (2005, 34) has argued that truth relativism is a fairly recent notion.
is that truth is understood as a two-term relationship. That is, truth is constituted by a
relationship between a certain belief and the way things are. Nevertheless, the Protagorean
position is more complicated than this because it asserts that there is more than one way that
things are, as each fact or set of facts is tied to a particular perceiver.86 Because of this, even
though Protagorean relativism is not a version of truth relativism, it is a relativism of sorts,
namely what Lee has dubbed a "relativism of fact," where properties or states of affairs are
relativized or tied to particular perceivers.87 On this model, beliefs are not true simply
because they are believed, but rather because beliefs create facts that are relative to the
believer and these facts, in turn, function as the standard by which a given belief is said to be
true. Thus, if some (a) believes that "x is F," then (a)'s belief that "x is F" generates a world
relative to (a) in which (x) is (F), and this generated state of affairs, in turn, guarantees that
the belief "x is F" is true.
Thus, the upshot of the Protagorean position is not three-term truth relativity, but
rather a relativism of fact, and it is this relativism of fact that generates multiple standards of
truth. If the world generated by my beliefs functions as the standard of truth, then my
beliefs in the form of "x is F" will all be true, and they will be true not just for me, but true
absolutely (in relation to the world created by my beliefs). Moreover, we have seen that on
this model potentially contradictory beliefs are avoided by emphasizing that each truth claim
is about a private world. Thus, if I claim that the wind is warm and you insist that it is cold,
what we discover through the Protagorean doctrine is that we can both be right without
86
On this point, I agree with much of Burnyeat's (1976c) analysis.
87
Lee (2005, 46). Cf. Waterlow (1977, 32).
285
contradicting each other because we are actually talking about two different winds, each
existing only in relation to our perceptions or beliefs.
One of the difficulties with the self-refutation argument is that it seems to ignore this
very point. Quite simply, in eliminating the possibility of contradiction by privatizing the
objects of judgment, the Protagorean model also eliminates the possibility of genuine
disagreement. The problem, however, is that the self-refutation argument takes for granted
the possibility and reality of disagreement and uses this as a key premise in getting
Protagoras to reject his own position. In my mind, this is one of the most confusing
features of the self-refutation argument and therefore stands in need of further explanation.
Although the premise that people disagree runs throughout the argument, it is most
explicit when Socrates asks Theodorus if people agree with him whenever he expresses his
judgment (170d8-9).88 Here, Theodorus responds by noting that thousands of people rise up
against him whenever he presses his point (170e). For our purposes, this passage is
significant not only because it rhetorically exaggerates the degree of opposition that
confronts Theodorus, but also because Plato seems to qualify Theodorus' beliefs by the use
of the relevant pronoun to indicate that his beliefs are, in some sense, trueôr him and,
perhaps, true for him alone (170d5). This latter point is important because it is often thought
that for Plato to argue properly against the Protagorean position, he must include qualifiers
that tie the truth of each belief to a particular believer, and the fact that he sometimes fails to
do so, especially in the self-refutation argument, suggests that he is being unfair to
88
The Greek reads: r[ uuptot EKOCCSTOTE OOI UCCXOVTOU dvTi5o£d£ovTSC, rryouuEvoi 4ûSfj Kpivstv TE KOU
OIEOSOU.
286
Protagoras.89 The idea, then, is that in the instances where he does use qualifiers, he is
usually being true to the Protagorean position that things are for everyone exactly as they
seem to be to each (170a3-4). The problem with this line of reasoning is that, at least in this
case, Plato's use of the dative pronoun (soi) at 170d5 cannot not mean that Theodorus' belief
is true for him either in the sense of being tied to a private world of relativized facts or in the
sense of truth relativity. Instead, it is simply, as Fine has argued, a dative of person judging.9
The reason for preferring this latter reading is that the former two renderings of the qualifier
do not make sense of the passage. Quite simply, at the heart of the passage is the claim that
people like Theodorus live in a world in which, at the very least, people believe that beliefs
conflict. If we were to read the dative pronoun at 170d5 as indicating that Theodorus' belief
is true for him or true in his private world, then what his opponents would be disputing is
some fact that is only true for Theodorus (truth relativism) or true of Theodorus' private
world (relativism of fact). While we could imagine someone disputing the way things seem to
another perceiver, this is not what Theodorus and Theodorus' opponents are disputing in
the passage. Specifically, what they are disputing is a claim such as "x is F" put forth in a
non-Protagorean way, namely as true simpliciter about a non-relative fact. Thus, when the
argument concludes with the claim that Theodorus is judging what is true for Theodorus,
but false for the tens of thousands who oppose him, what we are being told, on this reading,
is that "x is F" is true {simpliciter) because Theodorus judges it to be so and "x is F" is false
{simpliciter) because his opponents judge it to be so (170e4-5).91
89
This argument can be found as far back as Grote (1867, Vol. II, 347ff.).
'0 Fine (1998a, 219).
91
The Greek reads: ou TOTS OCXUTGS |JEV aAr)8fj So^dÊic, To7e 61 pupioK; v|(gu5fj.
If we are right in reading the qualifiers here in this way, the problem that Plato seems
to face is that of ignoratio elenchi. That is, he is arguing against a view that Protagoras or even
the Protagoras of Plato's Theaetetus does not hold. This, of course, would be quite odd given
that Plato is the one who has Socrates carefully develop the Protagorean claim in the earlier
portion of the dialogue and give a lecture on the proper way to refute the position. To make
sense of this, it is important to note that in the self-refutation argument we are not
confronted with committed Protagoreans, but rather individuals who either reject or are
ignorant of the Protagorean thesis. Thus, they hold that the beliefs of others can be and
even are false and that genuine disagreement is possible. Given this, we might think that
Protagoras could overcome the worries raised by the reality of disagreement by simply
reminding the disputing parties that, in fact, there are no genuine disputes because every
claim in the form of "x is F" needs to be reformulated in the language of "x is F for a."
Once this is done, each statement will be about a private set of facts and therefore no
genuine disputes will be possible, unless of course someone wants to dispute the way things
are in the private world of another.
The problem with such a response is that it implicitiy commits Protagoras to the
view that there are false beliefs. Specifically, on this view, people like Theodorus and his
opponents have false beliefs about beliefs, i.e. second-order beliefs.92 Specifically, such
people falsely believe that some beliefs can be and are in fact false. This is a problem for
Protagoras because, as the homo mensura doctrine currentiy stands, he is committed to the
view that there are no false beliefs, not even second-order beliefs. Thus, he cannot correct
I adopt the language of second-order beliefs from Lee (2005).

288
the second-order beliefs of non-Protagoreans because this would imply that there are, in
fact, false beliefs and therefore amount to an implicit refutation of his position.
The idea, then, is that if Protagoras is committed to the view that there are no false
beliefs, i.e. not even second-order false beliefs, he must accept the beliefs of non-
Protagoreans in the way that non-Protagoreans take them to be, namely as straightforward
assertions that are neither truth-relative nor tied to a relativized set of facts. Once we
examine the arguments in this light, then Plato is successful in showing that the homo mensura
doctrine is self-refuting as it is currently understood. That is, it is self-refuting if the doctrine
is held to be true for everyone, i.e. even non-Protagoreans, and true of all beliefs, including
second-order beliefs and therefore homo mensura itself.
With these considerations in mind, we can now turn to the argument. While there is
some dispute about how to portion out the various steps in the arguments, we can say that
Plato levels two broad attacks. The first runs from 170a6 to 170e6 and is designed to show
that there are, contrary to what Protagoras' doctrine entails, false beliefs. The second stretch
of text runs from 170e7 to 171c7 and is designed to show that even Protagoras must admit
that there are false beliefs and therefore that the doctrine is self-refuting.
The first argument begins with the claim that everyone thinks that he is wiser than
others in some matters, while others are wiser than he in other matters (170a8-9). In the
next step, wisdom and ignorance are explicitly tied to having true and false beliefs, where
wisdom is having true thoughts and ignorance is making false judgments (170b8-9). Given
that at least one person believes that others judge falsely, the argument is structured to show
that it must be the case that there are false judgments. If the second-order judgment that
others judge falsely is true, then others judge falsely and therefore there are false judgments.
If the second-order judgment that others judge falsely is false, then again there are false
judgments. Thus, insofar as people think that there are false judgments, it is the case that
humans do not always render true judgments, but rather judgments that are true and false
(170c4-5). Therefore the view entailed by Protagoras' homo mensura doctrine, namely that all
judgments are true, is false.
In what seems to be a continuation of the same point (170d4-e6), Socrates then
appeals to the fact that people often disagree with Theodorus whenever he renders a
judgment. As noted above, this passage only makes sense if we read Theodorus as making
judgments in the form of "x is F," not in the relativized sense of "x is F for a." This is
because we are told that it is not only possible for others to criticize Theodorus' judgments,
but that others do in fact criticize them. In so doing, they claim that Theodorus' judgment is
false. Now if Protagoras' doctrine is correct, then Theodorus' judgment must be both true,
because Theodorus believes it, and false, because others believe that it is false (170e4-5).
Therefore, Theodorus' judgment must be both true and false simpliciter.
A question that arises from the interpretation put forth here has to do with the
conclusion that we are supposed to draw from the fact that Theodorus' judgment is now
both true and false. Are we supposed to stop at his point, concluding that it is true and false,
or are we supposed to conclude that it is false either because Theodorus' opponents
outnumber Theodorus or because a belief that it is both true and false violates the principle
of bivalence or perhaps PNC and is therefore false? Thus far, the text itself does not say.
However, judging from the arguments that follow, it seems that Plato wants us to draw the
conclusion that Theodorus' belief is, at the very least, more false than true because it is
opposed by a greater number of people.

290
At this point in the refutation, Plato now applies the same logic to Protagoras'
doctrine itself to show that, in its current form, Protagoras must admit that the doctrine will
not be true for anyone at all, not even himself (170e7-171d7). The first part of the argument
begins with a simple disjunction: On the one hand, if neither Protagoras nor anyone else
believes the doctrine, then his book, Truth, will be true for no one (170e7-171al); on the
other hand, if Protagoras believes the doctrine but the many do not, then the doctrine will be
more not (true) than be (true) (171a3).93 While the reasoning in the first part of the
disjunction is straightforward, the reasoning in the second part deserves some discussion.
The idea is that since many people believe that the doctrine is false, the doctrine will be false
even if Protagoras holds it to be true. Following the same pattern of reasoning in the first
argument, the homo mensura doctrine as it is now understood renders beliefs about beliefs
true, and therefore if someone believes that the homo mensura doctrine is false, then it is true
that it is false and therefore the doctrine is false. Since Protagoras also believes that it is true
and it is true because Protagoras believes it, the doctrine is, like Theodorus' belief above,
both true and false, and Plato has Socrates move on to conclude that the doctrine more is-
not than is, which I take to mean, interpreting "to be" veridically, more not-true than true.94
Having shown how Protagoras' belief in his own doctrine will conflict with and be
overthrown by the true beliefs of others who think it is false, Plato now has Socrates make
what is supposed to be a most exquisite point (171a6), namely that Protagoras, in a moment
of intrapersonal conflict, must dispute the truth of his own doctrine (171a6-b2). Socrates
begins by noting that Protagoras must admit that the belief of his opponents that his
93
The Greek reads: (jdAAou OUK SOTiu fj eoxiv.
94
Cf. Ketchum (1992, 100) for some considerations concerning the veridical interpretation of this passage.
291
doctrine is false is true (171a6-9), and in so doing, Protagoras will be admitting that his own
opinion is false (171M-2). At this point, if the argument were presented in terms of private
worlds, there would not be much of a problem for Protagoras. In Protagoras' world, homo
mensura would be true, and in the respective worlds of his opponents it would be false. The
problem with this reading is that it not only eliminates the possibility of genuine
disagreement, but also that it does not fit with the conclusion that Socrates then puts forth.
The fact that there is genuine disagreement is suggested when Protagoras' opponents refuse
to admit that they are wrong, presumably resisting Protagoras' claim that they are wrong and
therefore should change their beliefs accordingly (171b4-5).95 Here, Protagoras must admit
that his opponent's judgment is true in the way his opponent takes it to be true, namely true
simpliciter, and therefore he will be forced to admit that neither a dog nor any other man is
the measure of all things (171bl0-c3). Since Protagoras and any like-minded follower must
now dispute the doctrine, the doctrine will be disputed by everyone, and since it will be
disputed by everyone, it will not be true for anyone at all, not even Protagoras himself
(171c5-7).
For reasons I will not discuss in detail here, I do not think that the self-refutation
argument would work if Protagoras held a doctrine of relative truth and applied it to his own
teaching, so that homo mensura would be true only for Protagoras and other like-minded
individuals. Although this is an option open to the contemporary truth-relativist, it is not an
option that, in my mind, Plato genuinely considers for Protagoras. Instead, the option that
Plato does consider is limiting Protagoras' doctrine to make room for distinctions between
the wise and ignorant and the corresponding possibility of false beliefs. Such a reading is
95
Also see 171bl2, where Socrates refers to Protagoras' opponent as one who contradicts him.
supported by the fact that Socrates not only suggests that Protagoras is wiser than they and
therefore that he would likely be able to defend himself if he were still alive (171cl 1), but
also that Socrates indicates that the upshot of the previous argument is that some men are
wiser than others (171d6-7). In particular, we can say that the self-refutation argument
shows that if homo mensura is true, then Protagoras must admit that he is wiser than Socrates
insofar as he holds the true belief that all first-order beliefs are true, as opposed to Socrates
who thinks that first-order beliefs are both truth and false. In other words, Protagoras must
admit that if homo mensura is correct, then there is at least one point about which he can be
wiser than others and about which others like Socrates can get it wrong, namely the measure
doctrine itself.
Reading the self-refutation argument as a strategy in limiting the scope of the
Protagorean thesis and not an outright rejection of the view is also supported by Socrates'
claims in the passage following the argument. Specifically, it is noted that although homo
mensura might not fare so well when it comes to matters of health, it might very well be true
of immediately perceived qualities such as warm, dry, and sweet (171e). Indeed, Socrates
repeats this very point after arguing that the Protagorean thesis also fails in matters relating
to future benefit (179a). There he claims that it is more difficult, if not impossible, to
convict the Protagorean theory of being untrue so long as it remains within the limits of
immediate sense experience and judgments about such experiences (179c). In fact, because
the Protagorean doctrine is more resistant in such matters, Socrates claims that if they are
going to show that the deliverances of the senses are not always forms of knowledge, then
96
The Greek reads: Ttspi 5E TO Ttocpov EKaoTco TTC<0OC, E£ GOV a i ata9rioEic Kai a'l KOTO: TCCUTCCC 56§CU
yiyvovTai, XOIAETTCOTEPOV EAETV COC OUK dAri0E7c.
they will have to return to the first principle of the secret teaching and test Heraclitus'
doctrine of moving being, subjecting it to critical examination (179d3).
4.13. The Incompatibility of Heraclitean Flux and Knowledge is Perception
For our purposes, there are two striking features about Plato's critical examination of
Heraclitus' flux doctrine. The first is that the initial distinction we made between (HI)
"everything is in motion" and (H2) "everything is motion" goes unacknowledged, and Plato
directs his critique exclusively at the former formulation.97 The second is that the primary
goal of the passage is not to refute the former formulation of the doctrine. Instead, it is to
show that Heraclitus' flux doctrine does not, in fact, support Theaetetus' definition of
knowledge. As we will see, this is because the flux doctrine, as Plato construes it here, leads
to the complete breakdown of language, and the complete breakdown of language prevents
Theaetetus from saying anything about anything, including knowledge. As commentators
have also noted, the breakdown of language also entails the impossibility of stating the flux
thesis itself, and while some have thought that this functions as a reductio ad absurdum of the
theory, it is better to say that if this is argument is to be understood as a refutation of the
Heraclitean theory at all, it is better understood as what Silverman has called an "operational
self-refutation."98
The impossibility of stating the Heraclitean thesis is, of course, a familiar theme from
Aristotle's defense of PNC in Metaphysics IV. There we are told that Heraclitus denies the
ontological formulation of PNC, and in so doing, he makes significant speech impossible.
As a result, the Heraclitean position results in Cratylean silence. In the Theaetetus, the
" Cf. Bostock (1988, 99) and Silvermann (2000, 120).

98
Cf. Silverman (2000, 150). Chappell (2004, 133ff.) presents a similar reading.
conclusion is similar, but the means are quite different. Specifically, what Plato has Socrates
do is respond to Theodoras' complaints about the difficulty of getting the followers of
Heraclitus to say anything definite by encouraging him to study the matter like a problem in
geometry (180c6). According to Socrates, the proper starting point is motion (181cl), and
here we are told that there are two types of motion, namely local movement (phora), which
includes turning around in the same place, and alteration or qualitative change (alloiosis)
(181d6). Socrates then gets Theodorus to admit that the Heracliteans will be committed to
the view that all things are always undergoing both types of change. The reason is that
otherwise there will be a kind of standing still, a possibility that the Heracliteans must reject
(181d-e).
At this point, Socrates brings in the theory of perception that was developed earlier
in the dialogue as part of the secret teaching. The strategy is to show that once we apply the
principle of change to the twins involved in perception, the thesis that knowledge is
perception becomes unintelligible. Specifically, we are told that warmth and whiteness are
generated as they move between the active and passive factors, where the passive factor
becomes a perceiver and the active factor becomes a certain sort of thing, e.g. warm or
white, that is perceived (182a-b). At this point, the key principle of the secret doctrine is
repeated, namely that nothing, including the active and passive factors, is in itself just one
thing (182b4), and this is followed by the related assertion that perceptions and perceptual
295
qualities come to be in association with each other. Here the active factor becomes a certain
sort of thing, while the passive factor becomes percipient (182b).99
Having laid out these preliminaries, Socrates initiates his critique, and he does so,
first, by pointing out that the Heraclitean principle of universal change entails that everything
both undergoes local motion and qualitative change (182c6-7). The problem that this
generates is that since everything is undergoing qualitative change at any time, we can never
say what sort of thing the local motion is while it is flowing (182c9-l 1). As a result, we
cannot say that the whiteness generated between the passive and active factors flows white
precisely because it must be changing into something else at all times, and because it is
always changing into something else, it is impossible to speak properly about it all (182d4-5).
Although one might think that we cannot speak about these things because they are flowing
too fast, perhaps the best explanation of why we cannot speak about them is that when they
are changing, they are just as much what they are changing from as what they are changing
to. As a result, qualities such as white, on this view, are equally not-white, and therefore they
are not anything definite, and since they are not anything definite, we cannot properly say
what they are.100
It is from this example that Theodorus introduces the general principle that if
anything is flowing in the way we have just described, then one cannot speak properly about
that thing, and Socrates proceeds to apply this principle to the perceptions themselves,
namely seeings, hearings, etc. (182d-3). In so doing, Socrates tells us that we may not call
99
The Greek reads: iv ur|5ev OOJTO KcxO' aiiTO elvai, ur|5' au TO TTOIOUV T\ Ttdaxov, dXA' E£ du())OTspcov
rrpoc dAAriAa ouyytyvo|jEVcov xdc aio6r|OEic xai TO: aio0r|Td diroTiKTOVToc TO: MEV TTOI' OTTO
yiyvEoSai, TO 5E aiaSavouEva.
100
Here I follow Denyer (1990, 104).
296
any perception a seeing rather than a not-seeing nor can we call anything a perception rather
than a not-perception (182e4-6). Thus, if we define knowledge in terms of perception, the
Heraclitean doctrine actually forces us to admit that knowledge is also not-perception. Here,
we might think that these two contradictory answers should both be considered false, but we
are first told that if we follow the Heraclitean doctrine of putting everything in motion, then
we end up making every answer correct, as everything both is (or becomes) thus and is (or
becomes) not thus (183a). This, however, is quickly corrected by Socrates when he notes
that even using "thus" and "not thus" would fix or stabilize things in a way that would be
contrary to the Heraclitean principle of moving being. Indeed, it is for this reason that the
Heracliteans either need to establish some other language that is consistent with their
principle of moving being or content themselves with saying "not thus" in a manner that is
indefinite (apeirori) (183a5).
For Burnyeat, this argument is supposed to function as a refutation not only of the
Heraclitean position, but the entire secret doctrine. 01 He argues this because he thinks there
is an entailment relationship between the three theses from Theaetetus' definition of
knowledge, to Protagoras' measure doctrine, to Heraclitus' flux doctrine, and so once it is
shown that Heraclitus' flux doctrine is false because it entails the breakdown of language, the
other two theses will be false as well by modus tollens. The problem with Burnyeat's argument
is twofold. The first is that it is questionable that the argument put forth in the passage
amounts to a refutation of the Heraclitean thesis. The second is that Plato's primary
intention is not to show how the Heraclitean position is self-refuting, but rather to
disassociate the doctrine from Theaetetus' claim that knowledge is perception. Thus, the
101
Burnyeat (1990,9).
argument implies that Theaetetus' position not only does not entail the doctrine, but it even
fails to support it.
The reason why Plato's argument does not constitute a straightforward refutation of
the Heraclitean position is because even if he establishes that the position entails the
breakdown of language, there is no corresponding argument to establish the denial of the
consequent. While one might think it obvious that significant speech is possible, the
Heraclitean could turn the argument into a modusponens and argue that because the flux is
true, we must give up our commonsense belief in significant speech. In light of this fact,
perhaps the best defense of the view that the Heraclitean position is refuted comes from
Silverman, who contends that the argument should be read as an operational self-refutation,
where the doctrine is not shown to be false, but rather unpresentable.102 The worry with
Silverman's proposal, however, is that Plato does suggest that proponents of the Heraclitean
view might establish some other language to present their doctrine.103 While we should not
take this suggestion as a straightforwardly serious proposal, it is important to note that the
critique of the Heraclitean position began with Theodorus issuing complaints about how the
Heracliteans only speak in enigmatic phrases (179e-180b), and therefore these enigmatic
phrases could be construed as the Heraclitean attempt to articulate the doctrine in an
alternative language or to indicate that the doctrine itself is radically incompatible with
significant speech.
^Silverman (2000, 150).

103
Silverman (2000, 149) tries to eliminate the possibility of a language that uses only negations by arguing that
even negative statements are themselves definite. While I agree with Silverman that negative statements are
definite, I disagree that the Heraclitean has to abandon these as well on the grounds that the Heraclitean of the
sort that Plato portrays here is only committed to the indeterminacy of nature, not the indeterminacy of
statements.
298
In any case, the main thrust of Plato's argument is not to refute the Heraclitean
position, but rather to show that the Heraclitean position does not support Theaetetus'
initial definition.104 Indeed, the Heraclitean position is not only incompatible with
Theaetetus' initial definition of knowledge, but any definition of knowledge, and it is not
only incompatible with any definition of knowledge, but any definition whatsoever. Thus,
what the argument here shows is that the Heraclitean position is radically incompatible with
the Socratic search for definitions, and what this means is not that the Heraclitean position
must be rejected, but rather that one cannot be committed to both. Since the argument here
offers no explicit rejection of the Heraclitean thesis and Plato wants to preserve the quest for
Socratic definitions, we will need to see if the Heraclitean position is, in the end, refuted, and
it is with this question in mind that I now turn to Socrates' direct examination of Theaetetus'
original claim that knowledge is perception.
4.14. The Refutation of Empiricism and the Unity of Opposites
In the final stretch of text that we will be covering here, we encounter Plato's direct
refutation of Theaetetus' initial definition of knowledge, namely knowledge is perception
(184b4). On the one hand, the refutation appears to be short and simple. As we noted at
the beginning of our analysis, two criteria for what counts as knowledge have already been
provided by Socrates: knowledge must be of what is and it must be unerring (152c5-6).
Alternatively phrased, we can say that knowledge is of being or ousia and it must be true. The
reason why I provide this alternative phrasing is because if it is correct, then it maps directly
on to the argument that Plato uses to reject Theaetetus' definition of knowledge as
perception in the section now under consideration. In particular, Plato rejects Theaetetus'
104
In this, I follow Lee (2005, 114f.).
definition because perception fails to grasp being and truth, and since perception fails to
grasp being and truth, perception cannot, given the two aforementioned criteria, be
knowledge (186c-3).
The swiftness of Plato's refutation cannot but leave the reader bewildered in at least
two related respects. The first issue is that if this argument is successful in the way that both
Socrates and Theaetetus take it to be, then why was it not introduced as an immediate
objection to Theaetetus' definition? That is, if we know that the senses cannot grasp being
and truth, and grasping being and truth are necessary conditions for knowing anything at all,
then there does not seem to be any obvious reason why Socrates should have to move
Theaetetus through the entire Protagorean-Heraclitean teaching and the various objections
leveled against it in order to disprove Theaetetus' position. Instead, Socrates could simply
bypass these points, insist that the senses cannot grasp being and truth, and conclude that
knowledge is not perception. This brings us to a second question: why does Socrates reject
what he seemed to grant at an early stage in the dialogue, namely the claim that perception
grasps what is (152c5-6)?
The answers to these two questions are by no means clear, and this portion of the
dialogue has given commentators just as much trouble as the claim that Protagoras' doctrine
is self-refuting.105 However, there is good reason to think that the answer to both questions
can be found in the introduction of the "secret" teaching brought in to support Theaetetus'
initial definition. This is because although the secret teaching eliminates error by making
More recent debates begin with Cooper's (1970) response to Cornford's (1935) view that the argument
indirecdy shows that we can only have knowledge of the Forms. Since then, a number of authors have sought
to address this and other issues in the passage. Cf. Bostock (1988), Burnyeat (1976a), Frede (1987), Kahn
(1981), Kanayama (1987), Lee (2005), Lorenz (2006), McCabe (1994), McDowell (1973), Modrak (1981),
Polansky (1992), and Silvermann (1990). I cannot pretend to do justice to diese debates here.
300
everything in the perceptual realm relative to the perceiver, it does so by way of sacrificing
being or things that exist in and for themselves. Thus, if we are committed to the view that
episteme necessarily involves grasping being or something that is, the Heraclitean-Protagorean
position, by doing away with beings or things that are, necessarily leads to a denial of
knowledge so construed. In this sense, we can say that the Theaetetus provides us with an
extended account of the point made at the end of the Cratylus, where we are told that if
Heraclitus is right, then there can be no knowledge (gnosis) (Cra. 440a). Thus, the reason why
it takes Socrates so long to raise this "fatal" objection to Theaetetus' position is that he first
needs to unpack the implications of the claim that everything exists and is what it is only in
relation to something else, and one of these implications is that it denies being and therefore
makes knowledge impossible.
Indeed, when we take a closer look at Socrates' direct refutation of Theaetetus'
position (186c-e), we see that the Heraclitean-Protagorean theory of perception plays a
central role in the argument. In contrast to the earlier claim that perception deals with things
that are (152e), we are now introduced to a distinction between "experiences" or the
pathemata that reach the soul through the body and calculations (analogismatd) and reasoning
{sullogismos) about being (pusid) and future benefit (ophelia) (186cl-3; 186d2-5), and it is with
this distinction in hand that we are then told that perception does not grasp being and
therefore truth and knowledge. In other words, prior to the unpacking of the secret
doctrine, the presupposition is that perception provides access to non-relative entities and
their essential natures. However, after the secret teaching has been introduced, we now see
that this commonsense understanding of perception is wrong. What we immediately
perceive are not independently existing things and their determinate natures, but rather mere
affections (pathematd) that exist only insofar as they are being perceived, and although these
pathemata might point to beings that we then discover through the process of reasoning, the
pathemata themselves are not beings. Therefore perception, operating independentiy of
calculation and reasoning, cannot provide us with knowledge.
If this account of the rejection of what we can call Theaetetus' empiricism is correct,
then the rejection of empiricism actually depends on the Heraclitean-Protagorean theory of
perception that is unpacked as the refutation proceeds. That is, the refutation depends on
shifting us away from the commonsense view that we immediately perceive things that exist
and are what they are independently of being perceived toward the view that what we
immediately perceive are mere qualities that can be equated with affections of the body or
pathemata. If it sounds strange that Plato should employ the Heraclitean-Protagorean theory
of perception to refute Theaetetus, we should not forget that Plato has Socrates
acknowledge on two occasions that insofar as we restrict the Protagorean theory to the
realm of immediate experience—the term again Is pathos—then the theory is much more
difficult to convict, if it can be convicted at all (171e and 179c). Thus, the argument of the
Theaetetus is that if there is going to be knowledge, there must be something more than
immediate sense perception. In this sense, we can say, controversially, that the Theaetetus
provides us with a dramatic exposition of the thought processes that Aristotle claims to have
led Plato to develop his doctrine of the Forms (Met. 987a32-987M5).106
106
In putting forth this controversial claim, I am roughly following Cornford's (1935, 7) general position that
the point of the Theaetetus is to show that we cannot get along without the Forms. Where I differ from
Cornford, however, is that I think a good case can be made for dating the Theaetetus prior to works like the
Republic and the Phaedo. For a direct response to Cornford's reading, see Robinson (1950). Also see Hackforth
(1957) and Sedley (1996).
302
Although there is certainly textual evidence in the Theaetetus to suggest that Plato
does have the Forms at least in the back of his mind in his refutation of Theaetetus' view
that knowledge is perception, it would be a mistake to read the passage as Plato's attempt to
convince us of the existence of Forms based on the inability of the senses to grasp being and
the demand that the grasp of being is a necessary condition for knowledge. Not only is such
an argument absent from the text, it would fail if it were present. This is because I cannot
infer from the demands of knowledge that there are beings out there that somehow conform
to these demands. In other words, skepticism is always a genuine possibility. Nevertheless,
even though Plato does not provide us with a full-blown account of the Forms in the
dialogue and supplement this account with arguments as to why they exist, we do get an
argument for something that is, in the language of the Cratylus, not at all like the Sowings or
motions of the Heraclitean world (Cra. 440b4-cl). Specifically, we get an argument for the
existence of the "that which knows" (togignoskon) (Cra. 440b5). In the language of the
Theaetetus, we get an argument for the existence of some single form (mian tina Heart) that one
could call the soul (psuche) (Tht 184d3).
The idea that I am putting forth here is that although the presence of Forms-like
language at this juncture in the Theaetetus is certainly a matter of controversy, one should not
underestimate the significance of Plato's claim that a unified entity like the soul is necessary
to explain the unity of experience (184dl-5) and how we can engage in the process of
examining the common features of our sense data (185b-e). Regarding the first point,
Socrates argues that if it were the case that our eyes were what did the seeing and our ears
were what did the hearing rather than having one thing see and hear through the eyes and
the ears, respectively, we would have nothing that unified the data that each of the senses
303
receive.107 In other words, Plato is arguing here that the necessary condition of the unity of
experience is some unified entity like the soul. Regarding the second point, Socrates
introduces the questionable principle that it is not possible for a particular sense to grasp
what is common to more than one sense (185b8-9) and based on this principle he argues
that it must be the soul that functions itself through itself when investigating such features of
things (185d8-e2).108
On the one hand, Plato's argument here is important because what we are seeing is
the denaturalization of the knowing subject and therefore an indirect attack on what
Aristotle called the general mental outlook of the pre-Socratics (Met. 1009al5-16).109 On the
other hand, and perhaps more importantly, I hold that even though this argument is
embedded within Socrates' rejection of Theaetetus' claim that knowledge is perception, it
nevertheless functions as a direct refutation of what we have identified as the fundamental
principle of the Heraclitean-Protagorean position, namely UO. That is, the identification of
the soul as something that is one and functions itself by itself is a rejection of the claim that
there is nothing that is one and exists itself by itself. What is interesting to note about this
argument is that it is the only one that, if true, directly refutes the Heraclitean-Protagorean
position as an accurate and exhaustive account of what there is. This is because the final
argument against (T) simply shows that knowledge is not perception because perception
does not, first and foremost, grasp being or ousia. It says nothing about (H), (P), or UO, and
in fact seems to depend on them. Similarly, the argument against (P) ultimately shows that
Protagoras must admit that there are at least some judgments that admit of truth and falsity.
107
See Bumyeat (1976a).
108
The Greek reads: aAA' auTr| 5i' auTrjc r| ^ X 1 ! Tc* KOIVCC uoi (JJOUVETCU trspi TTCXVTCOV EmaKOTreiv.
109
For an account that emphasizes the activity of the mind in contrast to the passivity of the senses, see Lee
(2005, 157).
304
It does not, however, say that (P) is false in all its forms. Finally, the argument against (H) is
not that it is false, but rather that it does not support (T) and, perhaps, that the doctrine itself
cannot be linguistically articulated. For this reason, I would suggest that Plato's greatest
challenge to the relationalist ontology that he has outlined here is that of explaining certain
features of our mental life without recourse to a soul that functions itself by itself and exists
and persists through time.
To recall, the primary purpose of providing this lengthy exposition of the Theaetetus
has been to develop a framework for thinking about Nietzsche's own perspectivism and its
potential relationship to his Heraclitean commitments. Because this is the focus of the next
chapter, it will be helpful to summarize briefly our results. The first point is that the
Heraclitean-Protagorean position was developed in response to certain problems that
emerge from careful observation of the empirical world. In particular, we saw how the
problem of conflicting appearances led not to the view that opposites properties should be
predicated of the same thing, but rather to the view that every appearance should be made
relative to some perceiver. Although the problem of conflicting appearances relates only
peripherally to Nietzsche's project, the result is a doctrine that is central to his philosophical
program. Specifically, we saw that these worries were resolved by rejecting the existence of
things-in-themselves and by replacing them with an ontology in which relations go all the
way down. Furthermore, we saw how this ontology was completed with the claim that all of
reality can be reduced to interrelated powers or motions that are continually affecting and
being affected, and it was from this dynamic ontology that we built our way back up to the
commonsense world. In so doing, we saw that the commonsense world was not one of
305
independently existing selves and things, but rather one in which both selves and things were
explained either in terms of interrelated slow motions or reduced to bundles of interrelated
perceptions and perceived qualities. Finally, we saw that the self-refutation argument did not
lead to a refutation of the doctrine as such, but rather only forced the defender of the
Protagorean theory to acknowledge that there was at least one thing of which man was not
the measure, namely the measure doctrine itself. In these ways, we saw how the Protagorean
theory as presented in the Theaetetus is both meant to be true for everyone on account of its
objective authority and can be readily linked to two further claims, namely UO and a
Heraclitean ontology of interrelated powers or motions, that are also meant to be true for
everyone on account of their objective authority. It is therefore with this framework in hand
that I now return to Nietzsche's work to show how his doctrine of perspectivism does not
undermine the objective truth of his Heraclitean commitments, but rather emerges from it.
CHAPTER FIVE
B e c o m i n g , Perspectivism, and the Unity of O p p o s i t e s
in Beyond Good and Evil
What distinguishes us just as much from Kant as

from Plato and Leibniz: we believe in becoming
alone even in spiritual matters, we are historical
through and through. This is the great reversal.
Lamarck and Hegel—Darwin is only an
aftereffect. The way of thinking of Heraclitus and
Empedocles has risen again. (Nietzsche, Nachlass
1885;KSA11,34[73]) 1
5.1. Introduction
In the first three chapters, we focused our attention on Nietzsche's understanding of
Heraclitean becoming, the unity of opposites doctrine, the denial of the identity or
correspondence between thinking and being, and finally h o w becoming forms the basis for
the falsification thesis and, more generally, what we have called Nietzsche's tragic philosophy
in H H . Although there are a number of facets to Nietzsche's tragic philosophy, perhaps the
most important is the tension that it generates between truth and life. In H H , we saw how
Nietzsche adopts the values of the Enlightenment in attributing an absolute value to truth
and dedicates his life to its pursuit. As we turn our attention to B G E , we find that Nietzsche
has subordinated truth to the requirements of life. N o w that G o d has died at the hands of
the scientific program initiated in H H and extended in D and GS (GS 125), there is n o
metaphysical basis for what I have called the morality of truth and science. As a result,
Nietzsche, now writing qua free spirit, is free to make life and the promotion of life the
standard for assessing judgments, and this is precisely what he does in B G E .
1
My translation.
As noted in the introduction, Nietzsche's turn to life in BGE disrupts any
straightforward reading of his published works. This is because one can find Nietzsche
already attacking something like the morality of truth and science, i.e. the very position
upheld in HH, in early works such as TL and HL. In both, truth is presented as something
hostile to life, and Nietzsche goes on to argue that the quest for truth at any cost must be
subordinated to life and a kind of art that is capable of affirming life. Because H H amounts
to a rejection of this latter claim but BGE constitutes a return to it, it would seem that
Nietzsche has repeatedly changed his mind. In the early works, truth and science are
subordinate to life and art, then life and art are subordinate to truth and science in HH, and
now truth and science are again subordinate to life and art in BGE.
It is in response to these interpretive difficulties that I have developed the reading of
Nietzsche's texts outlined in the introduction of this work and defended elsewhere.
Specifically, I argue that what Nietzsche is doing in HH and the other works of the free
spirit is starting with the basic principles of the Enlightenment project and walking himself
and his reader through a series of reflections designed to show how this project self-
destructs, where the drive for truth undermines the absolute value of truth and ultimately
makes possible the rebirth of a tragic art that affirms life in Zarathustra. On this reading,
BGE is a further step in this development and marks a full-fledged return to Nietzsche's
original position in TL and HL. That is, just as Nietzsche argues in HL that history should
not be a science serving the demands of truth but rather an art form that serves the demands
of life, Nietzsche develops a philosophy of the future in BGE where judgments will be
assessed not so much according to their truth or falsity but rather according to the way in
which they promote and enhance life (BGE 4).

308
The argument of HL is also important for our purposes because Nietzsche identifies
the need to construct "horizons" or limited and defined life-worlds in response to the deadly
truth of Heraclitean flux (HL 1). This argument is important not only because there is
reason for seeing in his concept of horizons a predecessor to his later notion of perspectives,
but also because I will argue that Nietzsche's perspectivism develops in large part as a
response to his continued commitment to the deadly doctrine of Heraclitean becoming. In
this sense, BGE continues Nietzsche's commitment to Heraclitean becoming expressed in
both HL and HH, but reverses the relationship between life and truth expressed in HH so as
to return to the view already present in HL, and it is in returning to the view already present
in HL that Nietzsche develops a perspectivism in BGE that resembles his concept of
horizons in HL.
In this chapter, I will expand upon and provide evidence for this way of
understanding the emergence of perspectivism in Nietzsche's post-Zarathustra publications.
Specifically, the argument will be that Nietzsche's perspectivism not only does not undermine
what might be viewed as a dogmatic commitment to Heraclitean becoming and UO, but
actually derives from it. In other words, Nietzsche's perspectivism is not something that
undermines the objective validity of his tragic philosophy or worldview, but rather is just one
important feature of such a worldview. In the previous chapter, we turned to Plato's
Theaetetus to develop a model for understanding how Nietzsche's Protagorean perspectivism
could be embedded within a Heraclitean ontology by analyzing Plato's account of
Protagoras' homo mensura doctrine. In so doing, we also argued that Plato's famous self-
refutation argument did not refute the position, but rather forced the defender of the claim
to admit that there was at least one thing of which man was not the measure, namely the
309
measure doctrine itself. Thus some people like Socrates can be wrong in denying the truth
of homo mensura, just as they can be wrong in denying the truth of the Heraclitean principles
brought in to support the doctrine.
One of the main reasons for thinking of Nietzsche's perspectivism as just one aspect
of a larger philosophical project as opposed to a guiding principle that embraces all his other
positions is that his published works offer very litde straightforward explanation of what the
doctrine—assuming we can even call it such—is supposed to mean. Of course, this fact
makes it extremely difficult to develop a proper understanding of perspectivism and it
explains why commentators have offered such a wide range of interpretations of the
position. In my mind, we can address such difficulties and get a better understanding of
what Nietzsche's perspectivism is by turning to his source for the term, namely Gustav
Teichmuller's Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt. As we will see, Teichmiiller's work provides
us with not only a reason for thinking that Nietzsche's own perspectivism can be tied to the
Heraclitean-Protagorean position articulated in the Theaetetus, but also with a fairly detailed
description of what perspectivism is and how it contrasts with dogmatism. For Teichmuller,
a dogmatist is not, as Alexander Nehamas has claimed, someone who believes that his views
should be accepted by everyone on account of their objective validity, but rather someone
who believes that the objects of knowledge are genuine substances or, in Nietzsche's
language, things-in-themselves. What the dogmatist fails to recognize is that these objects
are ultimately projections of or perspectival images created by the knowing subject. This, then,
is part of what perspectivism means for Teichmuller: the knowing subject effectively
2
Nehamas (1985, 4).
310
constructs a world of intelligible objects by projecting categories such as unity and self-
identity onto what might be called the chaos of sensations.
As we will see, one of the difficulties that Teichmuller's account of perspectivism
poses for my reading is that he also sees the natural sciences as merely perspectival
projections. This fact, coupled with Nietzsche's apparent criticisms of the natural sciences in
BGE, poses a problem for my reading because we have argued thus far that Nietzsche
justifies his commitment to Heraclitean becoming and UO with evidence provided by the
natural sciences. If Nietzsche follows Teichmuller on this point, then we must think of
Nietzsche's doctrine of becoming as just another perspectival projection of the knowing
subject and therefore hold that, in his post-Zarathustra writings, the doctrine of perspectivism
is indeed the dominant teaching that embraces all other positions. To defend my reading, I
will first argue that both Teichmuller's claims and Nietzsche's attacks on science are directed
primarily at a mechanistic understanding of nature that includes self-identical entities in the
form of the atom. I then argue that Nietzsche's broader attack on science, objectivity, and
the will to truth does not amount to a rejection of a scientifically grounded Heraclitean
becoming, but rather a rejection of the morality of truth and science. That is, Nietzsche
rejects the idea, forcefully at work in HH, that we ought to seek the truth at all costs and even
try to live accordingly. In contrast, the purpose of BGE is to outline a philosophy of the
future where the will to power supplants the will to truth and the task of philosophy is not to
discover a pre-given world of things-in-themselves but rather to create a world of order,
meaning, and value that makes life possible, intelligible, and ultimately worthy of our
affirmation (BGE 211).

311
With the introduction of will to power, another challenge to my reading emerges
because Nietzsche characterizes the teaching as interpretation rather than fact or text.
Insofar as the will to power can be understood as expressing Nietzsche's commitment to a
dynamic ontology, it would seem that his dynamic construal of reality itself is not a fact, but
only an interpretation. My response to this will involve a hair-splitting distinction, but my
efforts thus far do make such a distinction possible. In particular, I have shown that
Nietzsche is committed to a dynamic ontology of force long before the development of the
will to power and he has, in HH, articulated his commitment to this view in the language of
the natural sciences. The will to power, therefore, is something over and above the
Heraclitean flux doctrine and can be understood as "completing" the scientific concept of
force. In particular, I hold that Nietzsche's will to power is his attempt to make an
otherwise unintelligible dynamic reality intelligible so as to provide the necessary basis for
explaining a wide variety of phenomenon. In so doing, Nietzsche will leave behind the strict
methodology of the natural sciences applied in HH by consciously interpreting nature
through the analogy of man. At the same time, the will to power is not a doctrine that
openly conflicts with the dynamic worldview of the natural sciences, but again is something
designed to complete it.
In what follows, I begin with a brief overview of the variety of readings of
Nietzsche's perspectivism that have been developed over the past few decades largely in
Anglo-American scholarship. I then turn to Teichmuller's account of perspectivism in order
to provide a backdrop for my own reading of the position. Before delving into the contents
of BGE, I develop a framework for understanding Nietzsche's perspectivism from his late
Nach/ass, one that largely dovetails with my reading of Protagoras' homo mensura doctrine from
the Theaetetus. With this theoretical outline in hand, I provide a commentary of the key
sections from the first chapter of BGE. Then I turn to a reading of two important passages
from Nietzsche's post-BGE publications that refer perspectivism, namely GS 354 and GM
III 12, and I conclude with some remarks about how Nietzsche's perspectivism relates to his
larger effort to reconceive the philosophical project in terms of a conscious creation of a
world that reflects the drives of the knower. In so doing, we will encounter reasons for
thinking that EH is Nietzsche's philosophy of the future and that this philosophy of the
future has something to do with Dionysian comedy.
5.2. Nietzsche's Perspectivism
The fact that we are beginning a chapter dedicated to unpacking the contents of
BGE with an extended discussion of Nietzsche's perspectivism is due not so much to the
central role that the concept plays in BGE, but rather to the significance it has taken on in
the past fifty years in Anglo-American Nietzsche scholarship. On the one hand, Nietzsche
refers to perspectivism, along with the seemingly related language of interpretation, just
enough to warrant serious discussion and to justify the claim that Nietzsche has something
that could be called a doctrine of perspectivism. On the other hand, references to the
doctrine are limited and obscure enough so as to leave scholars not only at a loss as to how
the doctrine should be defined, but also wondering about how to deal with the various
theoretical difficulties that emerge from the position once it is defined.
To a large extent, it was Arthur Danto who made what we can now call the doctrine
of perspectivism a central part of the discussion surrounding Nietzsche's philosophy in
Anglo-American scholarship. Not only does he devote an entire chapter to the topic, he also
makes much of the problem of self-refutation. Danto initially tells us that perspectivism is
the view that we "score the blank surface of reality with the longitudes and parallels of
concepts, but the concepts of ideas are ours, and they have not the slightest basis in fact."4
Then, in the chapter dedicated to an extended discussion of the doctrine, he offers an
alternative formulation of the view: there are "no facts but only interpretations." According
to Danto, this means that there is no real structure to the world. As a result, we can either
say that our interpretations do not distort reality at all because there is no reality for them to
distort or we can say that every interpretation is a distortion precisely because it fails to
correspond to anything beyond the interpretation.5
The problem of self-refutation emerges not only when we begin to think about how
perspectivism so defined might apply to Nietzsche's other doctrines, such as the will to
power and the eternal return, but specifically when we apply the view to perspectivism itself.
Thus, Danto asks: "Does Perspectivism entail that Perspectivism itself is but a perspective,
so that the truth of this doctrine entails that it is false?" Although Danto hesitates to
provide an answer, he eventually tells us that Nietzsche would demand that we judge his
theories not according to whether they are true, but rather according to the pragmatic
criterion of whether they work in life.6 In other words, Nietzsche would want us to follow
him in replacing a correspondence theory of truth with a pragmatic theory of truth and,
ultimately, judge his own philosophy, including his perspectivism, accordingly.7
3
Kaufmann (1974, 204ff.) does however briefly address the issue.
4
Danto (1965, 67).
5
Danto (1965, 76f.).
(• Danto (1965, 230).
i Danto (1965, 80).
In the work of Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche's perspectivism takes on an even
more pronounced role, so much so that he begins his study with a discussion of
perspectivism and the paradoxes it tends to generate. According to Nehamas, perspectivism
is "Nietzsche's famous insistence that every view is only one among many possible
interpretations, his own views, particularly this very one, included."8 For Nehamas,
perspectivism is opposed to dogmatism or the effort to present views that "should be
accepted by everyone on account of their rational, objective, and unconditional authority."9
On the one hand, Nehamas argues that Nietzsche escapes the danger of dogmatically
presenting and insisting on the objective truth of his own views by employing a variety of
literary styles that continually call attention to his activity as an author and therefore the fact
that his views are just that, his views. On the other hand, Nehamas argues that Nietzsche's
perspectivism can avoid the problem of self-refutation once we recognize that Nietzsche's
emphasis on the interpretive character of all views, including perspectivism itself, does not
amount to the claim that these views are false. Instead, Nietzsche is simply claiming that his
views, as interpretations, may be false. Thus, in emphasizing the interpretive character of
perspectivism itself, Nietzsche is telling us that perspectivism may be false, not that it is in
fact false. In this way, Nietzsche's perspectivism avoids the problem of self-refutation.10
Similar to Nehamas, Schrift believes that Nietzsche is effectively trying to avoid the
Scylla of dogmatism, again defined as the view that one has a correct and definitive
interpretation, and the Charybdis of an unmitigated relativism, where any view is just as good
as any other. According to Schrift, Nietzsche does this by situating his philosophy between
8
Nehamas (1985, 1).
9
Nehamas (1985, 4).
10
Nehamas (1985,66).
315
perspectivism, i.e. the view that there are no uninterpreted facts or truths,11 and philology, a
discipline that provides Nietzsche with the tools to adjudicate between competing
interpretations.12 In developing his reading, Schrift contends that perspectivism is not an
ontological but an epistemological position that ultimately provides a description of what we
can know.13 In so doing, he distinguishes between interpretations and perspectives: An
interpretation emerges with the organization of multiple perspectives, where each
perspective is determined by a series of factors outside our control. That is, perspectives are
due to human finitude: "because human beings are situated bodily at a particular point in
space, time, and history, their capacity for knowledge is inevitably limited."14 It is this
"empirical" insight into human situatedness—physiological, instinctual, and socio-
historical—that then, according to Schrift, plays a crucial role in Nietzsche's deconstruction
of the traditional objects of epistemology. Because knowledge is perspectival, Nietzsche can
now deny the existence or reject the privileged status of epistemic objects such as "fact",
"truth", "meaning", and "reality".
The general approach of Danto, Nehamas, and Schrift has generated a number of
critical responses, most notably in the work of Maudemarie Clark and Brian Leiter.15 Clark
sets out to reject the notion that Nietzsche's perspectivism entails that knowledge somehow
distorts or falsifies reality, and she does this by focusing on what she takes to be
Nietzsche's mature account of perspectivism articulated in GM III 12. In focusing on the
passage, Clark argues that Nietzsche uses the metaphor of perspectivism to reject Cartesian
11
Schrift (1987, 82).
12
Sheriff (1987, 91).
13
Schrift (1987, 92).
14
Schrift (1987, 93).
15
Also see Wilcox (1974) and Schacht (1983)
16
Clark (1990, 127).
316
foundationalism.17 That is, Nietzsche's perspectivism is designed to show that just as we
always see things from a particular point of view, we always come to know things with a
certain set of beliefs already at work. Similarly, just as we cannot observe an object from
nowhere at all, Nietzsche's perspectivism with regard to knowledge states that we cannot
come to know any object without some set of prior, perspective-constituting beliefs. Since
foundationalism is the claim that we can generate some set of beliefs independently of all
other beliefs, Nietzsche's perspectivism amounts to a rejection of foundationalism.
Brian Leiter follows Clark in attacking what he calls the "received view" (RV) of
Nietzsche's perspectivism, a position promoted by the likes of Danto, Nehamas, and Schrift
that consists of the following four claims: (1) the world has no determinate nature or
structure; (2) our concepts and theories do not describe or correspond to the world because
it has no determinate character; (3) out concepts and theories are "mere" interpretations or
"mere" perspectives, usually said to reflect our pragmatic needs; (4) no perspective can enjoy
any epistemic privilege over any other. According to Leiter, RV fails to account for the fact
that Nietzsche criticizes other views on their epistemic merits and privileges his own views on
these grounds. In particular, Nietzsche privileges those views that best correspond with the
data provided by sense experience and those explanations of phenomena that are derived
from naturalfacts, most notably those gained through psychological investigations.
Moreover, RV generates an appearance/reality (A/R) distinction that Nietzsche adamantly
rejects. This is because proponents of RV attribute to Nietzsche, on the one hand, some
"Clark (1990, 130).

indefinite, unknowable, and perhaps even transcendent world as it really is, and, on the
other, a multiplicity of perspectives that falsify this very world.18
Having shown the problems with RV, Leiter proceeds to sketch his alternative
reading of perspectivism, and following Clark's developmental scheme, he turns to GM III
12 for a sustained discussion of Nietzsche's mature views to develop what I will call the
"point of view" reading of Nietzsche's perspectivism.19 According to Leiter, the passage
establishes an analogy between seeing and knowing, and it is based on this analogy that he
develops two points: (1) all knowledge presupposes some interest or affect and therefore can
never be disinterested; (2) knowledge is perspectival precisely because it presupposes such
interests. In developing (2), Leiter has us think of knowing objects in much the same way
that we would see everyday objects such as a chair.20 Even though we necessarily see the
chair from a particular point of view, we can nevertheless come to have greater objective
knowledge of the chair by viewing it from an infinite variety of perspectives, all the while
establishing a visual hierarchy in which some perspectives provide us better insight into the
"real visible nature of the object" than others.21
In developing (1), Leiter worries about the way in which having knowledge mediated
by our interests and needs might undermine the capacity of the world to place epistemic
constraints on our interpretations of it, for without such constraints it would be hard to
make sense of the idea that various interpretations have different epistemic merits. In
18
Leiter (1994, 334ff.).
19
Another example of the point of view reading of Nietzsche's perspectivism can be found in Magnus (1988a,
152f).
20
Leiter (1994, 355, fn. 23) uses the example of the chair. In a similar account, Leiter (2002, 273) incorporates
the example of seeing a door from the front or back sides into his analysis and speaks of perspectivism as a sort
of map-making, where our interests guide the kind of map that we ultimately make.
21
Leiter (1994, 345).
318
responding to this concern, Leiter claims that Nietzsche is simply urging us to give up the
demand that we see reality as independent of all human interests. At the same time,
Nietzsche is not endorsing the idealist claim that reality just is whatever our interests take it
to be. To make sense of his position, Leiter seems to borrow a distinction introduced by
Clark between a thing-in-itself and a thing-itself.22 Whereas the former has definite qualities
and a nature or essence independently of any mind or representation, the latter has only
mind-independent existence.23 The thing-itself, therefore, allows Nietzsche to avoid an
idealism in which objects are constituted by our interests and nevertheless argue that our
interests are necessary conditions of knowing any object whatsoever. In this way, we can
aspire to a modest objectivity about non-transcendent objects and be guided by these
interests in focusing on particular features of the objects that we come to know.24
In developing the analogy between seeing and knowing, one of the points that Leiter
assumes is when there is seeing, there are both seers and things that are seen prior to the
relationship. The problem with this model is that it is hard to square with Nietzsche's
repeated denials of pre-existing objects or subjects, and it is for this reason that Christoph
Cox has criticized both Clark's and Leiter's construals of Nietzsche's perspectivism.25 In the
reading I developed of both PTA and HH, I emphasized the fact that Nietzsche's
commitment to becoming and the related unity of opposites doctrine led to the denial of
both independently existing subjects and objects, and Cox generally follows this idea in his
account of Nietzsche's philosophy. Cox, however, does not see becoming as the basis for
Nietzsche's perspectivism, in the way that I am arguing, but rather he contends that
22
Leiter (1994, 350).
» Clark (1990, 82 and 136).
24
Leiter (1994, 351).
25
Cox (1999,120ff. and 148ff.).
Nietzsche's perspectivism and his talk of interpretation resist any attempt to attribute to
Nietzsche a commitment to scientific realism and to see his doctrine of becoming as
emerging from such commitments, as I have argued in my analysis of HH. This is because
Nietzsche, according to Cox, wants to navigate between a dogmatic scientific realism and
relativism.26 For Cox, Nietzsche finds dogmatism objectionable because it "cuts off all
further inquiry and questioning," and it is for this reason that he develops his perspectivism,
a doctrine which is designed to undermine the tendency to present one's views as the
absolute and final truth.
In casting Nietzsche's commitment to becoming in this way, Cox effectively revives
the idea that Nehamas makes so central to his reading and that Clark and Leiter tend to
downplay, namely that Nietzsche is an anti-dogmatist who avoids presenting his views as
those that should be accepted by everyone on account of their objective validity.28 The same
understanding of dogmatism can be found in Hales and Welshon's more recent work,
Nietzsche's Perspectivism. As the tide suggests, they also follow Nehamas in making
perspectivism the centerpiece of Nietzsche's philosophical project by arguing that it is a
protean concept that unifies various themes in Nietzsche's works.29 The claim that
Nietzsche's perspectivism is designed to combat dogmatism or, as they call it, absolutism is
found in their analysis of Nietzsche's views on perspectival truth in the first chapter. There
they contend that Nietzsche's perspectival notion of truth is understood as standing in
opposition to truth absolutism, the view that if a statement is true or untrue, it is true or
26
Cox (1999, 3).
27
Cox (1999, 51).
28
See Clark (1990, 201 f.) for her differences with Nehamas on the issue of dogmatism. Leiter (1994, 2002)
omits dogmatism from his discussions.
29
untrue for everyone. Unsurprisingly, Hales and Welshon's attempt to cast Nietzsche as
denying truth absolutism quickly leads to the problem of self-refutation, and they provide a
much more detailed attempt to deal with the issue than their predecessors, one that turns on
a distinction between a self-refuting strong perspectivism, where every statement is true in
some perspective and untrue in another,30 and a non-self-refuting weak perspectivism, where
there is at least one statement such that there is some perspective in which it is true and some
perspective in which it is untrue.31
Rather than rehashing the details of Hales and Welshon's interpretive proposal and
going through the numerous other versions of Nietzsche's perspectivism that have been put
forth in recent scholarship,32 what I want to do here is begin to develop my own
understanding of perspectivism, one that embraces Cox's view that Nietzsche is committed
to a doctrine of becoming that does away with unified subjects and objects that persist
through time but rejects, in the spirit of Leiter and Clark, the view that Nietzsche wants to
avoid the dogmatist's sin of putting forth his views as those that should be accepted by
everyone on account of their objective validity. In order both to ground my own reading
and to respond to the accounts above, I will first turn to Nietzsche's source for the term
"perspectivism," namely Gustav Teichmuller's Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt. In so
doing, we will find reasons for rejecting those readings which see Nietzsche as trying to
avoid the dangers of dogmatically presenting his own views as objectively true and, at the
30
31
32
For instance, Lanier Anderson (1998) has compared Nietzsche's perspectivism to Putnam's internal realism;
Bernard Reginster (2000) has followed Clark in reading Nietzsche's perspectivism as a claim about justification;
Jessica Berry (2005) has argued that Nietzsche's perspectivism is an epistemological doctrine that relates to
ancient skepticism, having litde to do with an ontology of flux; most recendy Welshon (2009) has pushed for a
reading of perspectivism that has to do with truth and truth relativity.
same time, reasons for rejecting those readings that construe perspectivism in terms of
seeing from a particular point of view and knowing by way of a pre-established conceptual
framework. This is because Nietzsche takes from Teichmuller the view that the objects of
knowledge are not things that exist in their own right, but rather are projected unities that
are generated through the synthesis of qualitative sensations. Nietzsche, however, breaks
with Teichmuller by rejecting a substantial knowing subject that is said to be the source of
this projective activity and to serve as the basis for distinguishing between a real and an
apparent world. That is, in rejecting the Teichmuller's substantial knowing subject,
Nietzsche will have abolished the distinction between the real and apparent world.
5.3. Perspectivism in the Work of Gustav Teichmuller
The general influence of Teichmuller on Nietzsche's work and, in particular his
doctrine of perspectivism has long been recognized. In 1913, Heramnn Nohl wrote a brief
article identifying Teichmuller's Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt as the source of
Nietzsche's perspectivism and showing that it is the immediate target of many of Nietzsche's
criticisms in the opening stages of BGE. Although Nohl's work has exerted some influence
on later scholarship,33 Teichmuller still has yet to play a major role in contemporary
discussions of Nietzsche's perspectivism, especially in Anglo-Saxon scholarship.34 In my
mind, this is unfortunate because a brief look at Teichmuller's work can help clear up much
of the confusion surrounding Nietzsche's perspectivism and provide some needed
constraints on how one should and should not understand the view.
33
Dickopp (1970), Holub (2002), Small (2005), Emden (2005), and Brobjer (2008).
34
Nehamas (1983) does mention Teichmuller in his article, but then proceeds to offer a definition of
perspectivism both in the article and in his book (1985) that has little to do with Teichmuller's understanding
of perspectivism. Hussain (2004) also mentions Teichmuller, but focuses more on the potential relationship
between Nietzsche and Ernst Mach. Green (2002) cites Teichmuller as a source for Nietzsche's thinking, but
focuses on the influence of Afrikan Spir.
322
One reason for turning to Teichmuller is that we find an understanding of
perspectivism that avoids the paradoxes often associated with it. As we have seen, the
paradox of perspectivism largely arises once one interprets the doctrine as opposing
dogmatism or absolutism. In turning to Teichmuller, we do find him contrasting
perspectivism with dogmatism,35 just as Nietzsche does at the beginning of BGE, but
defining dogmatism and perspectivism in a way that has little to do with worries about
presenting doctrines that are true for everyone on account of their objective authority. In
contrast to Nehamas, Teichmuller understands a dogmatist to be someone who believes that
the objects of knowledge are not projections of the knowing subject. That is, Teichmuller's
dogmatist is essentially a realist about intelligible substances or things. As opposed to
dogmatism, Teichmuller understands perspectivism to be claim that all objects of knowledge
are ultimately projections of the knowing subject, where the latter is the genuine substance in
Teichmuller's system.
To get a better understanding of how the knowing subject projects certain categories
onto the chaos of sensations, we need to take a closer look at Teichmuller's exposition of the
theory. To begin, we can say that Teichmuller implicitly provides us with what Reginster has
called a two-level solution to the paradox of perspectivism.36 This is because Teichmuller's
perspectivism is situated within a series of what Nehamas would call dogmatic claims about
the nature of the world and the status of the knowing subject. That is, Teichmuller thinks
that his account of knowing subjects and projected objects and his related distinction
between the real and apparent world should be accepted by everyone on account of its
35
Teichmiiller (1882, xvii).
36
Reginster (2001, 217)
323
objective authority. According to Teichmiiller, this latter distinction is made possible by
what he calls an intellectual intuition of the knowing subject as the only genuine substance,37
and it is through our understanding of this genuine substance that we obtain the concept of
being. Teichmiiller's perspectivism is one aspect of this larger argument because he uses it to
reject the claims of previous systems to have discovered beings that exist and are what they
are independently of the knowing subject. For Teichmiiller, Aristotelian substances, Platonic
Forms, and Democritean atoms are all projections or perspectival images of the knowing
subject.38
For our purposes, Teichmiiller's exposition offers two more important insights.
First, we can say that Nietzsche's attacks on the distinction between the true and apparent
world are directed primarily against Teichmiiller's knowing subject and more generally
against the Parmenidean-Platonic tradition in which Teichmiiller's work finds its home. This
is important because both Cox and Leiter have used Nietzsche's denial of the
appearance/reality (A/R) distinction to reject readings of perspectivism that attribute any
version of the A / R distinction to Nietzsche, including a distinction between the world of
commonsense and the world of science. Second, because Teichmiiller dedicates the latter
half of his work to describing the apparent world, we can get some sense of what the world
will be like once we abolish the so-called real world of Parmenides, Plato, and Teichmiiller.
Specifically, Teichmiiller thinks that if we were to deny the A/R distinction, we would find
37
Teichmiiller (1882, 32ff.).
38
Teichmiiller (1882, xvi).
ourselves in a world best captured by the Heraclitean-Protagorean position that developed in
the previous chapter.39
In detailing what the apparent world is like, Teichmuller speaks of it as nothing more
than a "perspectivische Bild" or a "perspectival image."40 In so doing, he provides us with
two descriptions of what he means by calling the apparent world something perspectival.
The first employs the notion of a particular "Standpunkf or "standpoint" and it highlights
the way in which things appear differently from different points of view. Although this idea
can be grasped through a visual metaphor, it is not limited to it. Specifically, Teichmuller
provides three different examples of this understanding of perspectivism in this sense: (1)
depending on whether we are standing on the sun or the earth, the senses provide evidence
for either the Copernican or the Ptolemaic systems, respectively; (2) a mouse will squeal
when it is caught by the cat, but the cat will rejoice in his catch; (3) progressive politicians
praise a piece of presumably progressive legislation, while conservatives scorn it. Although
these examples might suggest the "point of view" perspectivism discussed above,
Teichmuller uses them to introduce the already familiar point from the Theaetetus that the
apparent world is a world in which relations go all the way down. In other words, this
version of perspectivism amounts to what I have called UO and what has been identified as
the central teaching of the Heraclitean-Protagorean position in the Theaetetus.
At the same time, it is important to note that Teichmuller provides a second version
of perspectivism that helps us understand Nietzsche's own perspectivism in terms of world
creation. He does this by first noting that our opinions about the sensible world are not
39
TeichmMer (1882,184).
40 Teichmiiller (1882, 183).
about things-in-themselves, but rather about the manifold of sensations that occur in us.
Teichmuller then claims that substances or things are not to be found in these sensations.
Instead, it is through the activity of the knowing subject that "ein perspectivisches Weltbild"
or "a perspectival worldview" is constructed from the manifold of sensations, where space,
time, motion, and the abstract notion of a thing are all a priori forms of intuition.41
Although Teichmuller provides us with a section-by-section account of the
perspectival nature of space, time, and motion, his detailed discussion of how the knowing
subject generates objects of knowledge is the most important for our purposes. According
to Teichmuller, objects such as stones, trees, and dogs—these are Teichmiiller's examples—
are not themselves unities, but rather complexes of sensations that are grasped by the
knowing subject as unities and projected into "so-called real space."42 To explain his claim
that unity is not found in the empirical world but rather projected by the knowing subject,
Teichmuller appeals to the teachings of Buddhism. Specifically, he tells the story of the
Buddhist sage Nagasena who held that his name was merely a word, referring to nothing in
the world of appearances. This is because when we strip away all the appearances of
Nagasena, we find nothing real that holds these appearances together. In this sense, there is
no Nagasena. For Teichmuller, this lesson is true not just of Nagasena, but of everything
from wagons and stones to more scientific constructs such as atoms, matter, and
substratums. In the end, unity is not something out there waiting to be discovered, but
rather something that is projected by the knowing subject onto the multiplicity of sensations.
4
'Teichmuller (1882,186).
« Teichmuller (1882, 333).
What we see here is that Teichmiiller's account of perspectivism provides us with
detailed evidence against any realist reading of Nietzsche's perspectivism with regard to
"things." At the same time, Teichmuller contends that the natural sciences also deal with
merely perspectival projections, and therefore one might see in Teichmuller support for
Cox's claim that Nietzsche's perspectivism is designed to undercut the potential dogmatism
inherent in his naturalist commitments. The problem with such a reading is that although
Teichmuller argues that the natural sciences deal with entities that are projections of the
knowing subject, he does not accuse those committed to the natural sciences of presenting
their views as being true for everyone on account of their objective validity.
What then is Teichmiiller's complaint about the natural sciences? Specifically, it is
directed against those systems that hold that there are unities that exist independently of the
knowing subject. Here, the atom of the mechanist worldview is one of this primary targets.
This is important to note because Nietzsche's commitment to the natural sciences is rooted
in his belief that, when carried to their proper conclusion, they ultimately do away with any
notion of unified atoms or substrates that are out there waiting to be found. In this sense,
Nietzsche uses the results of the natural sciences to present the same understanding of the
so-called apparent world as Teichmuller presents in the latter half of his book. In short,
both Nietzsche and Teichmuller hold that any system, scientific or philosophical, that
includes intelligible entities that are said to be "one" in themselves should be rejected as a
misunderstanding of the world that is revealed to the senses. Again, this is because sensation
nowhere reveals unities, but only relations or relative being.
In conclusion, we should not overlook the fact that Nietzsche does not accept every
aspect of Teichmiiller's philosophical project. Although Nietzsche largely follows

Teichmuller in his twofold understanding of perspectivism, he nevertheless campaigns
against Teichmiiller's distinction between the real and apparent world, and he does so by
rejecting Teichmiiller's claim that the knowing subject is a genuine substance. In making this
move, however, Nietzsche is rejecting the very thing that, in Teichmiiller's system, is
responsible for generating perspectives, and this raises the question as to what is responsible
for ordering the chaos of sensations into something that is ultimately intelligible for the
knowing subject. As I will argue in the following sections, perhaps one of the most
important features of Nietzsche's doctrine of the will to power is that it allows him to
provide a naturalistic explanation of how perspectives or life-worlds are formed that make
life and even knowledge possible.
5.4. Becoming and Perspectivism in Nietzsche's Late Nachlass
Although Teichmuller associates his account of the apparent world with the
Heraclitean-Protagorean position presumably found in the Theaetetus^ his account of
perspectivism does lack the Heraclitean ontology that plays a crucial role in the dialogue and
forms the backdrop for Nietzsche's own perspectivism. As I have argued in chapters one
and three, it is this Heraclitean element that is most prominent in Nietzsche's earlier project,
and I will contend here that the doctrine is also at work in the opening stages of BGE.
However, because Nietzsche does not explicitly refer to the Heraclitean doctrine in BGE,
there might be some question as to whether he remains committed to it. In order to address
these issues and provide a framework for interpreting the opening stages of BGE, I now
want to turn to Nietzsche's late Nachlass to construct an understanding of his perspectivism
43
We can be sure that Teichmuller knows the Theaetetus quite well because he tried to develop a chronology of
Plato's dialogues based on the stylistic issues that are addressed in the opening portion of it. See Teichmuller
(1876).
328
that links the insights we have gained from our reading of Teichmuller's work to the
Heraclitean ontology we have been discussing up to this point.
As we have seen in the first chapter, one of the problems faced by the reading I am
putting forth here is that it seems to endorse an appearance-reality distinction that Nietzsche
adamantly rejects. In response to this issue, we have argued that Nietzsche does reject the
distinction between the real and apparent world advocated by the likes of Parmenides, Plato,
and Teichmuller, but he nevertheless preserves the distinction between the apparent or even
false world of commonsense and the real world as described by science. In two passages
from the Nachlass that we already cited in the first chapter, we find evidence for such a
distinction. In one, we learn that the antithesis of the so-called phenomenal world, i.e. the
commonsense world of self-identical things, is not the so-called true world of Platonic-
Christian metaphysics, but rather what Nietzsche calls the "chaos of sensations," which is
another kind of phenomenal world that is, for us, "unknowable" (WP 569; KSA 12, 9[106]).
In the second, Nietzsche catalogues a series of concepts, such as number, thinghood,
subject, motion, cause and effect, that he regards as phenomenal, and then he tells us that
once these are eliminated, we find only "dynamic quanta, in a relation of tension to all other
dynamic quanta," such that "their essence lies in their relation to all other quanta, in their
'effect' upon the same" (WP 635; KSA 13,14[79]).
This latter passage not only highlights the distinction that Nietzsche posits between
the commonsense world of things and the scientific world of forces, but also indicates that
his scientific world conforms to the Heraclitean ontology found in the Theaetetus. As we
have already argued, Nietzsche believes that the rebirth of Heraclitus' philosophy amounts to
44
Cf. KSA11,34[73].
a rebirth of a dynamic worldview, and he sees the rebirth of the dynamic worldview as a
product of the developments in the natural sciences in general and the work of Boscovich in
particular (KSA 11, 26[410]). In this dynamic worldview, Nietzsche speaks alternatively of
nature being made up of "force" (KSA 10, 1 [3]), powers or "dynamis" (WP 618; KSA 11,
36[34]), "dynamic quanta," "will to power," and "pathos" (WP 635; KSA 13, 14[79]).
Although Nietzsche does not use these terms synonymously, what is common to each is that
they refer to entities that exist only insofar as they stand in an effective relationship to each
other. In other words, the principle that governs this dynamic ontology is UO, and it is a
principle that allows Nietzsche to do away with things-in-themselves and place change,
suffering, strife, war, and contradiction at the heart of the world.
Thus Nietzsche's dynamic ontology is a relational ontology, and it is this essential
feature that motivates his attack on thing-in-fhemselves and grounds his further claim that
the world has a fundamentally interpretative, rather than fact-based, character. This point is
evidenced by a Nach/ass fragement: "Interpretation, not explanation There are no facts,
everything is in flux, incomprehensible, elusive" (WP 604; KSA 12, 2[82]). As Willard
Mittelman has noted,45 the structure of this passage shows that Nietzsche's commitment to
becoming forms the basis for (or is equivalent to) his replacement of facts with
interpretations. To understand how this is supposed to work, we simply have to recall the
intimate connection between becoming and UO and the opposition that Nietzsche posits
between facts and things-in-themselves, on the one hand, and relations and interpretations,
on the other. Because the world of becoming is a relational world, the world of becoming
does away with things-in-themselves. Insofar as Nietzsche thinks of (intrinsic) facts as
45
Mittelman (1984, 5). My account of Nietzsche's perspectivism follows a number of Mittelman's insights.
equivalent to independently existing things having intrinsic properties, Nietzsche's rejection
of things-in-themselves amounts to a rejection of such (intrinsic) facts. Moreover, insofar as
Nietzsche thinks of interpretation as synonymous with relations or relational facts,47 his
claim that there are only interpretations amounts to the claim that there are only relations or
relational facts. In this sense, Nietzsche's claim that there are no facts but only
interpretations is simply an alternative formulation of UO.
In other passages, however, Nietzsche does seem to think of interpretation and
perspectivism as amounting to something more than merely emphasizing the relational
character of the world. This is because Nietzsche's talk of interpretation goes hand in hand
with his talk of drive-determined values and valuations. Thus Nietzsche writes: "It is our
needs that interpret the world; our drives and their For and Against. Every drive is a kind of
lust to rule; each one has its perspective that it would like to compel all the other drives to
accept as a norm" (WP 481; KSA 12 7[60]). As we know from other fragments, Nietzsche's
talk of drives and needs can be equated with his talk of values and valuation (KSA 11,
40[61]), and, as Mann has argued, Nietzsche's talk of values and valuation can be linked to
Protagoras' homo mensura doctrine.48 In this sense, we can say that Nietzsche's first step in
moving from a Heraclitean ontology of interrelated powers to a Protagorean-like
46
Cf. WP 556; KSA 12, 2[149]. Also KSA 12, 2[131]: "Good and evil are only interpretations, and certainly no
fact, no in itself." (my translation).
47
"That things possess a constitution in themselves quite apart from interpretation and subjectivity, is a quite
idle hypothesis: it presupposes that interpretation and subjectivity are not essential, that a thing freed from all
relationships would still be a thing" (WP 560; KSA 12, 9 [40]).
48
Mann (2003, 417). Of particular importance are two passages from the published works. The first is BGE 3,
which we will discuss in the next section, where Nietzsche speaks of valuations as demands for the
preservation of a certain type of life. In Zarathustra, Nietzsche has Zarathustra speak of the "ego" as a creative,
wanting, and valuing entity "that is the measure and value of things," and he does so in the context of teaching
that we should overcome our desire for any kind of metaphysical world and acknowledge that the ego is the
creator of all values (Z I 3).
331
perspectivism comes by way of injecting the interrelated forces of the Heraclitean world with
needs and desires that seek to interpret and ultimately "rule" the world.
By agreeing with Mann that Nietzsche's Protagoreanism is to be found in his talk of
values and valuations, we must note that Nietzsche does disagree with a straightforward
reading of the homo mensura doctrine. This is because it is not the organism man that
functions as a measure, but rather each drive with its for and against. At the same time, this is
not to say that individual organisms are not also measures. This is because the process of
evaluation is also at work as we move from micro- to macro-levels of reality. Thus we find
perspectival evaluation going on even at the level of sense perception: "Egoism as the
perspectival seeing and judging of all things for the purpose of preservation: all seeing (that
something is perceived at all, this selection) is already a valuation, an accepting, in contrast to
a rejecting und not-wanting-to-see" (KSA 11, 26[71]).49
Although the language here suggests that perspectival evaluation at the level of
sensation is a matter of selecting from or focusing on certain elements in a pre-existing
world waiting to be perceived, we must not forget that Nietzsche reduces all of nature to
relations of forces, powers, drives, and wills to power. Therefore it would be a mistake to
think of even basic qualitative sensations as something given by the external world. Instead,
it is better to think of perception in the way that Plato describes it in his account of the
Heraclitean-Protagorean position in the Theaetetus. That is, basic sensations such as red, blue,
hard, and soft are generated from two or more powers affecting each other. For Nietzsche,
these powers or motions bring with them an evaluative standard, and the reason why we
experience the qualities that we do can be explained by the evaluative standards that
49
Cf. KSA 11, 26[72] and WP 505; KSA 12, 2[95].
Nietzsche attributes to the basic forces of nature. Thus Nietzsche writes: "Everything,
which is to each his 'external world', that represents a sum of value estimations, that green,
blue, red, hard, soft are inherited value estimations and their symbols" (KSA 11, 34[247]).50
In these remarks, we have touched upon the difficult task of understanding how we
are to transition from the scientific world of forces and drives to the first-person world of
qualitative experience. Here it should be noted that part of the reason for turning to the
Theaetetus in the previous chapter is that it provided some sort of solution to this problem:
First-person qualitative sensations just are certain types of motions or powers interacting in
certain ways. In terms of Nietzsche's philosophy, we can say that the kind of qualitative
sensations we have are determined by the value standards embedded in each of the
interrelated drives. Thus, if a sick Socrates and a healthy Theaetetus were to taste a wine as
bitter and sweet, respectively, then we could say that what determines Socrates' experience
of bitter as opposed to Theaetetus' experience of sweet is ultimately a set of interrelated
evaluative drives that make up Socrates and Theaetetus. In this way, we can attribute to
Nietzsche the Protogorean view that insofar as every perceiver is constituted by a different
set of interrelated drives, every perceiver lives in his or her own private world of qualitative
experience, a point evidenced by the following fragment: "it is obvious that every creature
different from us senses different qualities and consequently lives in a different world from
that in which we live" (WP 565; KSA 12, 6[14]).
Another important feature of the model of perception in the Theaetetus is that it does
without any sort of thing-in-itself or something that stands outside and is the cause of the
50
My translation.
perceptual interaction. In terms of Nietzsche's philosophy, it eliminates the doer-deed
distinction applied to perception. On this model, perception just is a motion or a process,
and there is nothing beyond or behind this process that is the cause of this process. This is
an important point because it eliminates the idea that basic sensations falsify some world
beyond these sensations, and it is for this reason that we can say that the chaos of sensations
is just as much the real world as the continual interactions of interrelated forces or drives.
50 construed, we can agree with Hussain that Nietzsche is indeed a kind of neutral monist,52
where perceptual interactions constitute the fundamental stuffs of the world and unified
subjects and objects are ultimately constructed from these stuffs, but also note that
Nietzsche, like the Protagoras of the Theaetetus, couples this neutral monism with a dynamic
ontology of interrelated forces or powers.
Although we have denied that basic sensations falsify some more fundamental reality
of things-in-themselves, this is not to say that Nietzsche does not think that the perspectival
world we experience in sensation is somehow free of falsification. As we have seen,
Nietzsche thinks that falsification enters the picture once we begin to sort through, select
from, and organize the chaos of sensations, and Nietzsche thinks that even the sense organs
are engaged in this falsifying, perspective-forming process: "This perspective world, this
world for the eye, tongue, and ear, is very false, even if compared for a very much more
subtle sense-apparatus" (WP 602; KSA 12, 25 [505]). The idea here is that our senses falsify
the world because they only detect and preserve those sensations necessary for our survival.
Although we might be able to overcome the crudity of the senses by training or refining
51
Although the account in the Theaetetus suggests that the slow motions are the causes of the perceptual
interaction, it is nevertheless the case that, in accord with Nietzsche's dynamic reality, these slow motions do
not exist independendy of their relations to other motions.
52
Hussain (2004).
them to capture as many of our qualitative sensations as possible and thereby reduce or
eliminate such falsification, such a process would be hostile to life. This is because
Nietzsche tells us that our senses are engaged in this process of selection, simplification, and
falsification precisely because it is through this process that we create ordered worlds that
allow us to function (WP 505; KSA 12, 2[95]), and if we were to inhibit or reverse this
process, we would plunge ourselves back into the deadly world of the chaos of sensations.
That said, it should be noted that the senses are not the primary locus of falsification.
Instead, Nietzsche's talk of falsification enters primarily when this world of sensation is
schematized through the concepts, judgments, logic, and language that Nietzsche associates
with consciousness: "Everything of which we become conscious is arranged, simplified,
schematized, interpreted through and through" (WP 477; KSA 13, 11 [113]). Indeed, it is
with the introduction of a conceptualizing consciousness that Nietzsche follows Teichmuller
in arguing that we effectively project the basic forms of thought such as unity and self-
identity onto the chaos of sensations in the formation of perspectives. For Nietzsche, this
schematizing activity is itself a product of the demands of life and the value judgments
determined by these demands: "Life is founded upon the premise of a belief in enduring
and regularly recurring things; the more powerful life is, the wider must be the knowable
world to which we, as it were, attribute being. Logicizing, rationalizing, systematizing, as
expedients of life" (WP 552; KSA 12, 9[91]).53
In schematizing the world for the purposes of life, we now experience an apparent
or commonsense world that reflects, like a mirror, our cognitive apparatus and our needs for
life. On the one hand, Nietzsche follows Teichmuller in holding that perspectives, in the
53
Cf. WP 515; KSA 13,14[152].
narrower sense discussed above, just are private worlds created by the activity of the
knowing subject insofar as the basic categories of thought are projected onto the chaos of
sensations. On the other hand, Nietzsche rejects the idea that there is some substantial
knowing subject that projects itself onto the chaos of sensations: "What distinguishes me
most fundamentally from the metaphysicians is that I do not grant them that the 'ego' is that
which thinks; much more I take it to be the case that the ego itself is a construction of
thinking, having the same rank as 'matter,' 'thing,' 'substance,' 'individuum,' 'purpose,'
'number'; therefore only as a regulative fiction, with the help of which a kind of permanency,
consequently 'intelligibility,' is inserted into, projected into a world of becoming" (KSA 11,
35[35]).
In characterizing the subject as a mere regulative fiction, we are left wondering just
what, on Nietzsche's account, is interpreting and generating perspectives. As Nachlass
fragments make clear, this is nothing other than the will to power: "One may not ask: 'who
then interprets?' but interpreting itself, as a form of the will to power, has existence (but not
as a 'being,' but rather as ^process, a becoming as an affect" (WP 556; KSA 12, 2[151]).M As
we have seen, Nietzsche understands this interpretative process to be something that
ultimately serves the demands of life and satisfies the desire for power. At the same time,
the wills to power that ultimately generate life-worlds do so in a way that make a world
intelligible to organisms like us. Thus Nietzsche speaks of the "will to power as knowledge,"
where the knowable world is not something discovered, but rather created: "not 'to know'
but to schematize—to impose upon chaos as much regularity and form as our practical
needs require" (WP 515; KSA 13, 14[152]).
54
My translation. This is a slight modification of Kaufmann's rendering of WP 556.
As we will see, Nietzsche introduces the notion of the will to power in BGE with
some reservation, and this has suggested to some commentators that he sees the will to
power as an interpretation rather than some discovered truth. In my reading of BGE, I
argue that Nietzsche sees the will to power as an interpretation in that he is consciously
projecting human psychology onto the wall of nature, but that the interpretive status of the
will to power does not render it necessarily false, just possibly false. At the same time, I
want to argue here that the interpretive status of the will to power does not undermine his
more fundamental commitment to the dynamic worldview that he finds expressed in the
natural sciences of his day. In other words, I follow Deleuze, Schacht, and Williams in
distinguishing between the understanding of nature as an unintelligible sea of forces that
Nietzsche inherits from the natural sciences of his day and his characterization of these
forces as wills to power.55 Although Nietzsche does not always distinguish between these
two notions,56 there are two reasons for making this distinction. The first is that we have
traced Nietzsche's commitment to Heraclitean becoming or a dynamic worldview,
independently of any notion of the will to power, from PTA and PPP, through HH, and
even into TI. The second is that Nietzsche does, in one significant fragment, speak of
completing the physicist's notion of force by means of the will to power: "The victorious
concept 'force,' by means of which our physicists have created God and the world, still
needs to be completed: an inner will must be ascribed to it, which I designate as 'will to
power,' i.e., as an insatiable desire to manifest power; or as the employment and exercise of
power, as a creative drive, etc." (WP 619; KSA 11 36[31]).
55
Deleuze (1983), Schacht (1983), and Williams (2001).
56
Cf. WP 1067; KSA 11, 38 [12]
This fragment is also significant because Nietzsche tells us that he is going to
"employ man as an analogy" to understand all appearances, all organic life, as symptoms of
the will to power. It is here that we find Nietzsche not only rebelling against the scientific
ethos of avoiding anthropomorphism at all costs, but also following Schopenhauer's claim
that in order to understand the so-called outer world, we simply need to turn inward and
examine the nature of our own desires. Schopenhauer is important here not only because
Nietzsche borrows the basic methodology of turning inward to generate his doctrine of the
will to power, but also because, as Reginster and others have noted, Nietzsche's will to
power can be seen as a modification of Schopenhauer's will to life.57
Nietzsche's will or wills to power diverges from Schopenhauer's understanding of
the will and the will to life in three important respects. The first is that Nietzsche's wills to
power do not stand behind and project phenomena, but rather are identical with the
phenomena. That is, they are the phenomena seen from the "inside." The second is that
Nietzsche's will to power is perhaps better understood as wills to power precisely because
they are a multiplicity of interrelated powers, not a unified entity as Schopenhauer would
have it.58 As we have stressed throughout this paper, the fundamental "stuffs" of
Nietzsche's world, whether they be the forces of his earlier works or the wills to power of
his later efforts, necessarily exhibit plurality because they can only exist insofar as they are
affecting each other. Finally, the most fundamental distinction between Nietzsche's will to
power and Schopenhauer's will to life is whereas the latter stems from lack or deficiency,59
the former is an "inexhaustible creative will of life" (Z II 12). In both cases, the will can be
57
Reginster (2006, 105ff.).
58
Cf. Muller-Lauter (1999b, 25ff.).
59
For instance: "The basis of all willing, however, is need, lack, and hence pain, and by its very nature and
origin, it is therefore destined to pain" (WWR I 57).
seen as a sort of suffering and therefore a central component of Schopenhauer's and
Nietzsche's pessimistic claims that all life is suffering. However, whereas Schopenhauer
thinks that suffering is a form of lack or hunger, Nietzsche's understanding of the will to
power makes possible a suffering from an overabundance of strength and life (GS 370).
At this point, it is important not to overlook the fact that Nietzsche's modification
of Schopenhauer's will to life can be derived from his Heraclitean ontology. Because every
"thing" in nature is ultimately composed of forces or wills to power that are continually
struggling for domination over one another, desire will never come to rest. Even when
certain desires are satisfied, new desires necessarily arise. In this sense, we can follow
Reginster in saying that "insatiability is an essential feature of the will to power."60
Moreover, we can follow Reginster in holding that another essential feature of the will to
power is the overcoming of resistance. Indeed, it is the Heraclitean unity of opposed forces
that makes resistance and struggle an essential feature of nature. However, we must disagree
with Reginster's claim that overcoming resistance is something that defines the will to power.
This is because the will to power is, as many of Nietzsche's texts suggest, the will to control,
to take possession, and to appropriate something that stands outside of its sphere of
influence. Thus, on this reading, although the overcoming of resistance is an essential
feature of the will to power, a complete definition of the will to power must include the aim
of control and mastery.
Another aspect of the will to power that Reginster rightly emphasizes is that of
creativity,61 and it is the association of the will to power with creativity that allows us to link
so Reginster (2006, 138).

« Reginster (2007, 41 ff.).
339
the will to power to Nietzsche's perspectivism and ultimately his hopes for a philosophy of
the future. To recall, we introduced the will to power in wondering what generates
perspectives given that Nietzsche rejects Teichmuller's knowing subject. The basic idea is
that the will to power is "what" interprets or, better stated, it is the process of interpretation
itself. Here we can add that interpretation is the primary manifestation of the will to power
as appropriation precisely because "interpretation itself is a means of becoming master over
something" (WP 643; KSA 12, 2[148]). In particular, we can say that the creativity of the
will to power consists in imposing the character of being on that of becoming such that the
world is both inhabitable for and intelligible to creatures like us (WP 617; KSA 12, 7[54]). In
this sense, the will to power is a form of lawgiving, and insofar as the philosopher of the
future is the most spiritual embodiment of the will to power, the philosopher of the future is
also a lawgiver, and in giving laws to a world that otherwise lacks them, the philosopher of
the future effectively creates a perspectival world. In so doing, his knowing becomes
creating, and the will to truth reveals itself as the will to power (BGE 211).
5.5. Becoming, Perspectivism, and the Unity of Opposites in BGE
One of the dangers of turning to the Nachlass is that one can construct a wide variety
of so-called Nietzsches from the various fragments we possess. Although my reading of the
relationship between Nietzsche's flux ontology and his perspectivism follows the broad
outlines o£ Nachalss-dvp&nd&nx. readings put forth by the likes of Poellner and Miiller-Lauter,
my ultimate purpose in turning to the Nachlass has been to develop a framework for
interpreting the opening chapter of BGE. This is in line with my broader project of showing
how Nietzsche's post-1877 published works exhibit a coherent structure aimed at reviving a
tragic worldview and the life-affirming arts that correspond to this worldview and my more
340
specific project of showing how the ontology that commentators have found in the Nachlass
is implicit in Nietzsche's denial of absolute opposites in both HH 1 and BGE 2.
In turning to the preface of BGE, we immediately encounter evidence that Nietzsche
has designed the work as a direct response to Teichmiiller's efforts in Die wirkliche und die
scheinbare Welt and as an attack on a more distant target in Plato and Platonic philosophy.
This is because Nietzsche weaves together his famous worries about truth being a woman,
expressed in the opening question of the text, with concerns about the dogmatism of
philosophers, their denial of perspectivism, and the invention of the pure spirit and good as
such. As we have seen, the dogmatist for Teichmiiller is one who believes that we can know
mind- or interpretation-independent objects. Nietzsche's worries about the dogmatism of
philosophers are bound up with his suggestion that truth is a woman because woman
represents, for Nietzsche, superficial appearance rather than the essential character of things-
in-themselves. So understood, dogmatic philosophers have failed to grasp truth and
knowledge because they have failed to understand that every "truth" is always only an
appearance that stands in relation to some knowing subject.
At the end of the first paragraph, we are told that "all dogmatism is dying," and it is
this claim, along with the suggestion that such dogmatism has been nothing more than "a
noble childishness and tyronism," that Nietzsche begins to transition to talk of perspectives
as "the basic condition of all life." Again, the opposition between dogmatism and
perspectivism is familiar from Teichmiiller, and the fact that Nietzsche is working with
Teichmiiller and his understanding of these terms in the background is evidenced in two
places. First, Nietzsche indicates just how little it took for the dogmatists—Teichmiiller
included—to get their philosophical systems off the ground: All it required was the "soul
superstition" in the form of the subject and ego superstition," something that "has not
even yet ceased to do mischief." As we have seen, Teichmuller grounds his distinction
between the real and apparent worlds in his belief in a substantial self. The second point is
less direct, but it bespeaks of Teichmuller's reverence for "Plato divinus."62 Specifically,
Nietzsche blames Plato for having spread "the worst, most durable, and most dangerous of
all errors so far," namely his "invention of the pure spirit and the good as such" (BGE
"Pref").
In HH, Nietzsche appealed to the insights of the natural sciences to undermine the
metaphysical belief in a thing-in-itself and to replace it with his philosophy of becoming. In
BGE, Nietzsche attacks Plato's invention of the pure spirit and the good as such not so
much because it is false, but because it denies "perspective, the basic condition of all life." To
grasp this point, we need to recall Teichmuller's dual understanding of perspectivism: the
first was just what we have called UO; the second was the claim that the knowing subject
organizes the chaos of sensations by way of constructing things through the imposition of
unity onto a multiplicity of sensations. By claiming that perspectivism is the basic condition
of life, Nietzsche likely has both these definitions in mind. On the one hand, he is indicating
that every effective relationship is also an evaluative relationship, where each power center
assesses the other in terms of its desire to grow and expand. On the other hand, his talk of
perspectives suggests the organizing and schematizing of basic sense data for the purposes
of both life and knowledge. So construed, we can say that Plato violates Nietzsche's
perspectivism in three different ways. First, the Form of the Good is one component of a
larger metaphysical position that holds that there are objects that exist and are what they are
62
Teichmuller (1882, xviii).
342
independently of the knowing subject. Second, the Form of the Good underwrites a realism
about value that violates Nietzsche's view that each drive functions as the evaluative measure
of all things and therefore that all value is determined only in relation to some drive. Third,
Plato's invention of the pure spirit not only made the knowing subject into something that
exists independently of the world it comes to know, but it separated the knowing subject
from the appetites and drives associated with the body, thereby making possible the life-
denying asceticism expressed in Schopenhauer's philosophy.
In turning to the first two aphorisms of BGE, we continue to see the way in which
Nietzsche is targeting Platonic philosophy and those, like Teichmuller, who have followed in
Plato's footsteps. In BGE 1, Nietzsche voices his suspicions about "the will to truth," that
"famous truthfulness of which all philosophers so far have spoken with respect" (BGE 1).
Based on the ending of BGE, where Nietzsche refers to Plato's Symposium by indicating that
gods do indeed philosophize (BGE 294, 295), we can say that Nietzsche's suspicions about
the will to truth have, in part, to do with his quest to replace it with the will to power. The
idea, following the reference to the Symposium, is that both are forms of Eros. The
difference, however, is that whereas the will to truth, like Schopenhauer's will to life,63
springs from lack and therefore seeks the Good, the will to power emerges from overfullness
and ultimately, as the gift-giving virtue par excellence (Z I 22), bestows value on the world. So
understood, Nietzsche's unmasking of the will to truth and the will to life as a will to power
is precisely what makes it possible for gods to philosophize and allows us to understand
value not in terms of something out there waiting to be found, but rather as something that
63
Schopenhauer also sees the will to life as a form of Eros (WWR I 60). Cf. Kaufmann (1974, 248) and
Poellner (1995, 231 £).
343
is created and bestowed upon the world. On this model, something is desired not because it
is valuable, but rather something is valuable because it is desired.
Nietzsche's suspicions about the will to truth also go hand in hand with his return to
life in BGE. To recall, Nietzsche presented himself in HH as one who has dedicated his life
to the pursuit of truth. In BGE, however, Nietzsche presents himself as one of the "free,
very free spirits" (BGE "Pref"). Perhaps the best way to understand Nietzsche's claims to
liberation is through the lens of his relationship to what we have called the morality of truth
and science. Because the value of truth is no longer grounded in a metaphysical beyond in
BGE, Nietzsche is now free to ask the value of the will to truth and do so by assessing it
according to the demands of life. As we know from HH and his other earlier works,
Nietzsche thinks that the desire for truth is actually hostile to life. Indeed, we have placed
this tension between life and truth at the heart of what we have called Nietzsche's tragic
philosophy. Thus, even though Nietzsche merely raises the question of the value of the will
to truth in BGE 1, we know from his remarks elsewhere that he sees in the traditional
understanding of the will to truth a concealed will to death (GS 344). For anyone committed
to the philosophical project of transforming the soul into a glassy mirror that reflects the
structure of reality, the knower's drives, desires, and what Nietzsche calls life can be nothing
other than a disease. This then is why Socrates wanted to die (GS 340).
Nietzsche's engagement with Platonic philosophy continues in BGE 2. As we have
argued in our analysis of HH, the question of opposites—phrased here as "how could
anything originate out of its opposite?"—is intimately bound up with the Parmenidean-
Platonic distinction between being and becoming. Similar to HH, Nietzsche's examples
have largely to do with the kinds of things related to the metaphysical project: truth, the
desire for truth, selflessness, and the pure sun-like gaze of the sage. According to Nietzsche,
the answer that the metaphysicians developed to this question was quite simple: these things
do not come from their opposites. Instead, they participate in a world beyond the world of
the senses and the desires of the body. That is, they come "from the lap of Being, the
intransitory, the hidden god, the 'thing-in-itself" (BGE 2).
Here again, one might argue for a deflationary reading of the text: all that Nietzsche
is saying is that things like selflessness and the will to truth have at some point come from
selfishness and the will to deception. Such a position, however, would not entail that the
former can be reduced to the latter or even that the former simply do not exist. Based on
the text alone, this reading cannot be refuted. However, our efforts thus far have been
dedicated to highlighting the significance of the question concerning opposites and the
consequences of taking one side or the other in the debate. In chapter three, I showed how
Nietzsche links the question of opposites to issues concerning being and becoming, and in
chapters one and four, I argued extensively that the denial of opposites goes hand in hand
with an ontology of becoming that reduces everything to effective relations. Finally, I have
devoted significant attention to Nietzsche's post-Zarathustra Nachlass in order to show that
Nietzsche remains committed to his Heraclitean ontology. Indeed, we have a fragment in
which Nietzsche explicidy links his rejection of opposites to the denial of subjects, objects,
self-identical things, and being (WP 552; KSA 12, 9 [91]).
In the context of BGE, I would argue that Nietzsche's rejection of opposites does go
hand in hand with the dynamic flux ontology found in the Nachlass. However, Nietzsche
raises the question of opposites in BGE not to rehash the Heraclitean ontology of HH, but
rather to apply the principle to problems associated with life and value. Thus, Nietzsche's
main target is the metaphysicians' "faith in opposite values" and the related theory of value
realism. Nietzsche targets the faith in opposite values because he believes that the "logical
procedures" implicit in this faith led a philosopher like Plato to construct the Form of the
Good or a standard of value that exists independently of its relations to any living, desiring,
and therefore valuing entity. In terms of contemporary philosophy, Nietzsche holds that it
was the metaphysicians' faith in opposite values and the application of logical principles to
problems in ontology and value that led to their value realism. If such philosophers had
realized that these logical procedures presuppose an illegitimate belief in a correspondence
between the way we think and the way the world is structured, they would have never
constructed anything like the Form of the Good and therefore would have never attacked
the Protagorean view that every organism, every drive, functions as the measure of all things.
Immediately after presenting the unity of opposites doctrine in BGE 2, Nietzsche
introduces a revised version of the Protagorean doctrine in BGE 3. However, before he
does, he first engages in the kind of reductionist program that the unity of opposites entails.
That is, he takes aim at the traditional distinction between conscious thinking and instinctive
desire, claiming that "by far the greater part of conscious thinking must still be included
among instinctive activities, and that goes even for philosophical thinking." Thus, we are
told that '"being conscious' is not in any decisive sense the opposite of what is instinctive;
most of the conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly guided and forced into certain
channels by his instincts." As the next lines make clear, the instincts Nietzsche has in mind
are those instincts for the preservation of life and, as we will see, the enhancement of the will
to power. This is what Nietzsche means when he contends that "behind all logic and its
seeming sovereignty of movement, too, there stand valuations or, more clearly, physiological
demands for the preservation of a certain type of life" (BGE 3).
As we have seen, BGE 2 is central to the overall argument of BGE because it
introduces the Heraclitean principle of the unity of opposites to undermine the kind of
realism about value that finds its strongest expression in Plato's Form of the Good. The
basic idea behind a realism about value is that nature, rather than man or a particular
organism or a particular desire, is the measure of the value of all things. Having rejected this
position in BGE 2, Nietzsche now introduces us to his alternative, namely a revised version
of the Protagorean teaching that man is the measure of all things. As Mann has shown,
Nietzsche's Protagoreanism is implicit in his continual talk of measuring, valuing, and value-
estimation. In BGE 3, we find Nietzsche not only referring to value-estimations as
expressions of certain forms of life, but also concluding with the claim: "supposing, that is,
that not just man is the 'measure of things'."64 Although the reference is undoubtedly to
Protagoras' doctrine, one might doubt that Nietzsche is giving us a wholesale endorsement
of the position. Here one might claim that Nietzsche is actually rejecting the doctrine
because of its anthropocentric focus. However, there is reason to think that Nietzsche is
simply following a version of Socrates' correction of Protagoras' formulation of the doctrine.
Protagoras' theory should not be limited to man alone, but rather extended to all sentient
creatures, even dog-faced baboons. Indeed, Nietzsche extends the theory so far that he
attributes perspective measuring and valuation to the drives and forces that make up both
the organic and even inorganic world.

64
This is Kaufmann's translation of the text. However, the German reads: "dass nicht gerade der Mensch das
'Maass der Dinge' ist" (KSA 5, p. 18). According to an alternative translation of the text, Nietzsche is saying
that man is not the measure of all things. On this reading, Nietzsche's point here is to say that man is not die
measure because the ultimate measure of things are the drives and affects that make up the organism man.
347
Implicit in our reading of BGE 2 and 3 is the view that Nietzsche's Heraclitean-
Protagorean position is a positive claim about the nature of the world that denies any
position that entails its negation. On the one hand, it rejects any entities that can be said to
be self-related, determinate unities. On the other hand, it affirms the truth of the view that
relations go all the way down. Nietzsche's introduction of the Protagorean doctrine, along
with his talk of perspectives and interpretations, is therefore not designed to undermine the
truth of the unity of opposites in a campaign against presenting one's views as being true for
everyone on account of their objective validity, but rather such talk emerges once one
applies the doctrine of relations to values. Similarly, Nietzsche's attack on dogmatism is
therefore not an attack on presenting views as true for everyone, but rather an attack on the
belief that things have both a constitution and a value in virtue of themselves. Such an
understanding of dogmatism is supported not only by our reading of Teichmuller, but also
by a Nachlass fragment: '"Things that have a constitution in themselves'—a dogmatic idea
with which one must break absolutely" (WP 559; KSA 13, 11[134]).65
In moving to BGE 4, we find not only further evidence of Nietzsche's belief that
Heraclitean becoming captures the way the world is, but also a full-blown expression of what
we have called Nietzsche's tragic philosophy. To recall, Nietzsche's tragic philosophy posits
a sharp tension between the traditional notion of truth and the demands of life. In contrast
to HH, we find Nietzsche urging us to adopt a new standard for assessing judgments,
namely life: "the falseness of a judgment is for us not necessarily an objection to a
judgment;" instead, the real question is "to what extent it is life-promoting, life-preserving,
65
Perhaps the strongest support that Nietzsche's attack on dogmatism goes hand in hand with a truth
relativism can be found in BGE 43. However, this passage can be read as endorsing a relativism of fact, rather
than a relativism of truth, thereby making it consistent with my reading of BGE 2.
species preserving, perhaps even species cultivating." BGE 4 gives expression to
Nietzsche's tragic worldview because we are also told that the judgments that are (the most)
false are precisely those that are most necessary for life. As Nietzsche tells us, the "falsest"
of judgments are precisely those associated with the metaphysical tradition, namely those
involving numbers and the "unconditional and self-identical." Here Nietzsche repeats a
point from HH: "without a constant falsification of the world by means of number, man
could not live." Thus, "renouncing false judgments would mean renouncing life and a denial
of life." This then is why we need to "recognize untruth as a condition of life" (BGE 4).
Important here is the fact that Nietzsche not only gives expression to his tragic
philosophy, but also that this tragic philosophy presupposes some standard of truth by
which he can then claim that the judgments necessary for life are in fact false. The standard
of truth that Nietzsche has in mind seems to be none other than a world of interrelated
forces or powers that exist only in relation to each other. In our analysis of HH, we argued
that Nietzsche's rejection of number was intimately related to his belief that the natural
sciences have dissolved everything thing-like into motions (HH 19) and further contended
that this claim was ultimately tied to the Heraclitean becoming implicit in the denial of
opposites in HH 1. Although Nietzsche says little about Heraclitean becoming in BGE 4,
we have just seen him appeal to the unity of opposites principle in BGE 2 and will see him
appeal to Boscovich and his dynamic worldview in BGE 12. Because of this, we again have
good reason to hold that Nietzsche's positive commitment to some sort of Heraclitean
ontology underlies his claim that the unconditional and self-identical are merely fictions of
logic, i.e. that they do not correspond to anything in the real world (BGE 4).
In the next four sections, Nietzsche sets out to show the way in which philosophers
have been self-deceived about the true nature and origin of their philosophical projects. In
other words, Nietzsche sets out to show that all previous philosophy that claims to have
discovered intelligible entities and values that exist in themselves is really a perspectival
projection of the needs, drives, and desires of the philosopher. In terms of the Theaetetus, we
can say that Nietzsche's task here is to show that the philosophers of the past have been
lacking in self-knowledge, and they have been lacking in self-knowledge because they have
failed to understand that they are indeed the measure of all things, whether they like it or
not.
Indeed, Nietzsche is not out to politely instruct the philosophers of the past on this
point, but rather to mock them for being self-deceived actors And fools. In BGE 5, Nietzsche
tells us that for all the noise that philosophers have made about truthfulness, they themselves
have not been truthful and honest enough. While they think that they have discovered their
"truths" through cold, pure, and disinterested investigations, what has really been at work is
"a kind of 'inspiration'—most often a desire of the heart that has been filtered and made
abstract—that they defend with reasons they have sought after the fact." In this sense,
Nietzsche calls them all "advocates who resent that name, and for the most part even wily
spokesmen for their prejudices which they baptize 'truths'" (BGE 5).
In BGE 6, Nietzsche follows these reflections with a claim that is crucial for
understanding his philosophy of the future: "Gradually it has become clear to me what
every great philosophy so far has been: namely, the personal confession of its author and a
kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir." Similar to BGE 5, we are told that
philosophers have always believed that their activity results from a drive for truth.
According to Nietzsche, it is actually the case that "another drive has, here as elsewhere,
employed understanding (and misunderstanding) as a mere instrument." To back up his
claim, Nietzsche indicates that his investigation of the "basic drives of man" shows that
every drive "would like only too well to represent just itself &s the ultimate purpose of
existence and the legitimate master of all the other drives. For every drive wants to be
master—and it attempts to philosophize in that spirit' (BGE 6). In other words, every drive,
and not just the organism man, wants to establish itself as the master and measure of all
things and to philosophize, i.e. to create a world (BGE 9), in that spirit.
Before delving into the will to power that is lurking in the background of these
comments, we need to touch on an important distinction that Nietzsche makes and how it is
relevant to his philosophy of the future. Specifically, Nietzsche concludes BGE 6 by
distinguishing between scholars and philosophers. Here he acknowledges that there might
be something like a drive to knowledge at work in the former, but when it is, this drive to
knowledge is ultimately in service of some other drive that has ends different from
knowledge. Here cold and sober objectivity become a means to something like professional
advancement and perhaps the related desire to support one's family. In this sense, it is the
personal interests of the scholar that lead him or her to adopt an impersonal and objective
approach to dealing with the problems of a given field of research. As such, we can wind up
these scholars, much like a machine, and place them in any field of investigation whatsoever
and watch them go to work in a disinterested manner. In contrast to such a type, Nietzsche
claims that for the philosopher "there is nothing whatever that is impersonal." This is
because "his morality bears decided and decisive witness to who he is—that is, in what order
of rank the innermost drives of his nature stand in relation to each other" (BGE 6).
351
The distinction between the philosopher and the scientist is important because one
could argue that Nietzsche has taken on the role of the former in HH, and what this
suggests is that the doctrine of becoming he derives from the natural sciences and expresses
in the work is precisely something that does wo/bear the stamp of who he is. Indeed, one of
the central upshots of the morality of truth and science adopted in HH is that the knower is
enjoined to de-anthropomorphize nature as much as possible and therefore strip away
anything that bears the stamp of who he is. In contrast, Nietzsche's claim that for the
philosopher everything is personal is important for understanding his philosophy of future
because it suggests that all philosophy, as opposed to mere science and natural science, will
be what it always has been, namely some form of autobiography. However, what distinguishes
the philosopher of the future from the philosopher of the past is that the former will be fully
aware that his philosophy emerges from and bears the stamp of the rank of his innermost
drives. In this sense, the philosopher of the future will be one who fulfills the Delphic
command to know oneself and understands philosophy to be a kind of conscious act of
autobiography. Indeed, it is for this reason that I read EH as the centerpiece of Nietzsche's
philosophy of the future.
Nietzsche's attempt to portray the philosophers of the past as lacking in self-
knowledge takes center stage in the aphorisms that follow BGE 6. In BGE 7, we are told
that Epicurus once accused Plato and the Platonists of being flatters of the tyrant Dionysius.
According to Nietzsche, what this meant was that they were all "actors" because there was
"nothing genuine about them." In line with our previous claims, we can say that they were
actors precisely because their philosophizing was in service of a playwright otherwise
unknown to them, and as we will see, Nietzsche thinks that this playwright is none other
than the will to power. Indeed, Nietzsche contends that Epicurus too was an actor and he,
just like the Platonists, was driven by a "secret rage and ambition," one that drove him not
only to hurl slanderous accusations at Plato, but also to write some three hundred books in
what was supposed to be his garden of peace and tranquility. In BGE 8, Nietzsche presents
a similar argument. Here, the philosophers of the past are not actors but assess, and they
become assess every time their "convictions" or their claims to have discovered some pre-
established set of values appear on the world historical stage.
In BGE 9, Nietzsche weaves elements of his tragic philosophy into his continued
attempt to show that the philosophy of the past was nothing more than an unconscious
memoir. This is because he begins the passage by expressing his surprise that the Stoics
would ever think that they could live according to nature. As we have seen both in HH and
in BGE 4, Nietzsche, qua tragic philosopher, thinks that living according to nature is
impossible, and in BGE 9, we are told why: "Imagine a being like nature, wasteful beyond
measure, indifferent beyond measure, without purposes and consideration, without mercy
and justice, fertile and desolate and uncertain at the same time; imagine indifference itself as
a power—how could'you live according to this indifference?" On this view, nature conflicts
with life precisely because life just is "estimating, preferring, being unjust, being limited,
wanting to be different" (BGE 9). Again, what such a passage suggests is that Nietzsche
does have an interpretation-independent understanding of what nature is like, even if this
understanding is nothing more than the chaotic world of becoming.
In arguing that the philosophers of the past have projected their biographies onto
the wall of nature, one might again wonder if Nietzsche is not doing the same when he
speaks of a nature that is wasteful and indifferent to human needs. The problem with this
353
reading, however, is that Nietzsche thinks that all philosophy has ultimately served the needs
and drives of the philosopher. The description of nature in BGE 9, however, does not serve
the needs and desires of anyone. In other words, it is completely hostile to any sort of
existence. So understood, the claim that nature is hostile to life cannot be an expression of
Nietzsche's own biography precisely because it is hostile to the conditions of his own
existence.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that Nietzsche will ultimately see his philosophy
of the future as a conscious projection of his own needs and drives onto the wall of nature
such that it will bear a decisive witness to who he is. If this seems to conflict with our attempt
to argue that the understanding of nature in BGE 9 is not to be considered as a projection of
Nietzsche's biography onto the wall of nature, it is only because we have yet to develop the
definition of philosophy at work in BGE. In particular we need to follow the claims of
BGE 6 and distinguish the philosophy of BGE from the cool, sober, and objective science
of HH. In so doing, we can say that the so-called tragic understanding of nature as
something that is indeterminate, indifferent, and wasteful, is an understanding that Nietzsche
gains from his scientific investigations, where nature is de-anthropomorphized to the
greatest extent possible. In contrast, Nietzsche understands the philosophy of the future to
be distinct from scientific objectivity precisely because the philosophy of the future is not a
process of discovering a de-anthropomorphized world, but rather an act of "world" creation,
the most spiritual form of the will to power (BGE 9). If talk of creating worlds sounds a bit
grandiose or even hubristic, we must note that by world creation Nietzsche does not mean
creating the forces or powers that make up the indeterminate and indifferent nature
described at the beginning of BGE 9, but rather creating the perspectives, customs, cultures,
and worldviews that define our commonsense worlds and ultimately make life and even
"knowledge" possible.
Given that talk of the will to power and the creation of worlds or worldviews
appears BGE 9, it is not surprising to find Nietzsche re-introducing the notion of
perspective in BGE 10 as he attacks Teichmiiller's distinction between the real and apparent
world. As Nohl has argued, Nietzsche's initial mention of "the problem of the 'the real and
the apparent world'" in the passage is a clear reference to the tide of Teichmiiller's book.66
Specifically, the passage starts out with a critique of those thinkers who cling to such a
distinction but have yet to speak of "perspective," and what is interesting about Nietzsche's
argument is that it follows the standard of judgment introduced in BGE 4. This is because
Nietzsche again admits that there might be something of a will to truth involved in this, but
he nevertheless rejects the position because it is "nihilism" and a "sign of a despairing,
mortally weary soul." In other words, the quest for the metaphysical world is rejected here
not so much because it is false, but because it is rooted in a psychology that is hostile to, or
just tired of, life.
In contrast to the weary nihilists, Nietzsche thinks that Teichmiiller belongs to those
stronger and livelier thinkers who are still eager for life because he sides against appearance
and speaks of "perspective." Admittedly, one might wonder why, given that Teichmiiller
characterizes the apparent world as perspectival, Nietzsche contrasts appearance with
perspective in the passage. The answer is that Nietzsche is praising Teichmiiller for
attacking naive positivists who believe that they can simply read off from sense experience
crucial concepts such as unity, equality, and difference. Teichmiiller explicitly rejects such a
66
Nohl (1913,109).
355
position, as its proponents fail to understand that we project these concepts onto the chaos
of sensations.67 At the same time, Nietzsche casts suspicion on Teichmuller's project
precisely because Teichmuller's emphasis on the perspectival nature of the apparent world is
designed to win back "an even securer possession" such as the "immortal soul," perhaps "the
old God" (BGE 10).68
In many respects, BGE 10 can be read as the first in a series of sections in which
Nietzsche, on the one hand, embraces Teichmuller's and Plato's resistance to immediate
sense evidence and their emphasis on the relativity or perspectival nature of the sensible
world and, on the other hand, rejects the attempt to employ such insights to motivate a turn
away from the sensible world in search of a second, metaphysical reality accessible to reason
alone. This process begins with BGE 11, where Nietzsche takes aim at Kant's table of
categories. Whereas Kant argued that synthetic judgments were possible a priori by virtue of
a transcendental faculty, Nietzsche contends that such an argument is no different from
claiming that opium induces sleep by virtue of a sleeping faculty. According to Nietzsche,
the real question is why it is necessary for us to believe in such judgments, and his answer
again is that these judgments are necessary for the preservation of creatures like ourselves.
This, however, does not make such judgments true, but rather shows that they belong to
"the perspective optics of life" (BGE 11).
Here again, the presence of the falsification thesis in BGE raises the question of
what the world must be like such that synthetic a priori judgments are false. While we have
already encountered some sort of an answer in BGE 9, Nietzsche's remarks in BGE 12
67
Explicitly borrowing from Plato, Teichmiiller contends that the positivists are misguided on this point (1882,
15), and for this reason he claims that "positivism is not a doctrine (Lehre), but only emptiness (Leere)."
Elsewhere, he tells us that positivism deals only with shadows without recognizing the sun (1882, 344f).
68
Teichmiiller concludes his book by praising Christianity (1882, 348ff).
356
indicate that he is indeed committed to the dynamic worldview that we first discussed in
PTA and then developed through our analysis of HH. Nietzsche begins the passage by
telling us that "materialistic atomism is one of the best refuted theories there are," and this is
"thanks chiefly to the Dalmatian Boscovich: he and the Pole Copernicus have been the
greatest and most successful opponents of visual evidence so far." Just as Copernicus has
taught us that the earth does not stand fast, Boscovich has taught us "to abjure the belief in
the last part of the earth that 'stood fast'—the belief in 'substance,' in 'matter,' in the earth-
residuum and particle-atom." This, Nietzsche tells us, is "the greatest triumph over the
senses that has been gained on earth so far" (BGE 12).
As we have seen in BGE 10 and will see again in BGE 14, Nietzsche seems to be
launching a series of attacks on the senses, and this might lead one to think that he does
indeed want us to follow Plato in leaving behind the sensible world (BGE 14). The problem
with such a reading is that it is not only hard to square with Nietzsche's attacks on Plato's
conception of the pure spirit and good as such, but also that it relies on a false dichotomy of
either accepting the commonsense world of sense experience or accepting some
metaphysical beyond that is available to reason alone. Nietzsche's attacks on the senses are
actually attacks on the unrefined and crude use of the senses at work in commonsense
perception, positivist philosophy, and mechanistic science, and he launches these attacks not
because he wants us to reject the world of the senses, but rather because he wants us to
come to a better understanding of it, just as Copernicus sought a better understanding of the
cosmos in rejecting commonsense, philosophical, and religious conceptions of it.
In BGE 12, Nietzsche also employs Boscovich and his victory over mechanistic
atomism in order to continue his attack on a non-naturalized understanding of the subject,

and he does so by establishing a parallel between the need to cling to the last remnant of
unity in the external world, namely the atom, and the need to have some indivisible unity
called the soul. Here Nietzsche tells us that just as the atom has been expelled from science,
so too should any conception of the soul "as something indestructible, eternal, indivisible, as
a monad, as an atomon." In rejecting this conception of the soul, Nietzsche nevertheless tells
us that we do not need to do away with the soul entirely. Instead, we can reconceive of it
"as 'mortal soul,' and 'soul as subjective multiplicity,' and 'soul as social structure of drives
and affects'" (BGE 12). For our purposes, the latter formulation of the soul is perhaps the
most important, for two reasons. First, Nietzsche's account of the soul in terms of "drives"
and "affects" again suggests a parallel to the dynamic worldview that he finds expressed in
the work of Boscovich. This is because there is reason to think that these "drives" just are
the forces of the scientific worldview now couched in psychological terms. So understood,
we can say that what Nietzsche is offering us is a dynamic conception of the soul. Second,
such an account of the soul allows for a smooth transition to BGE 13, where we encounter
the will to power for a second time in the text.
The link between Nietzsche's hypothetical understanding of the soul as a social
structure of drives and affects and the natural sciences is also important because it allows us
to further connect his speculations about the will to power to the natural sciences. This is
not to say that Nietzsche's concept of the will to power is a product of the natural sciences,
but rather that it is something meant to be continuous with the natural sciences. It is
continuous with physics because, as we have seen, it is meant to "complete" the notion of
force by ascribing an inner will to it. Thus, unlike Schopenhauer, who sees the forces of the
phenomenal world as projections or objectifications of the will qua thing-in-itself, Nietzsche

358
injects the notion of will into the forces themselves. Second, in ascribing an inner will to
these forces, Nietzsche's wills to power are not to be understood as existing as unified
somethings in themselves, but rather as a multiplicity of entities that only exist insofar as
they stand in an effective relationship to each other. As Miiller-Lauter has stressed,
Nietzsche holds that there are wilLr to power, not a will to power, and these wills to power
only exist, in accordance with what we have called UO, only insofar as they are affecting
each other.69
Here we can also note the continuity of the will to power with the natural sciences by
seeing it both as a modification of Schopenhauer's will to life and then linking it to
Nietzsche's readings in biology. By interpreting Nietzsche's will to power as a modification
of Schopenhauer's will to life, we are seeing the will to power as intimately related to, but
nevertheless different from, the drive for self-preservation that is so often found in
discussions associated with Darwinian evolution. In this sense, we can say that although the
doctrine may not be strictly scientific on the grounds that it anthropomorphizes nature, it
nevertheless parallels discussions in biology in which we are invited to think of organisms or
even genes as being inherently "selfish" or striving for self-preservation. Indeed, Miiller-
Lauter has shown at length that Nietzsche's understanding of the will to power developed
through his reading of the anatomist and zoologist Wilhelm Roux.70 At the same time,
passages from BGE indicate that Nietzsche is fully aware of the anthropomorphic and
interpretive character of the position (BGE 21 and 36). That is, once we begin attributing to
everything in nature the drive for something like power, then we have already taken a step
69
Miiller-Lauter (1999b, 25ff.).
70
Miiller-Lauter (1999b, 97ff.).
359
toward seeing the world in terms of human categories of agency, intentionality, and purpose.
In this sense, Nietzsche's will to power might very well be part of his philosophy of the
future, where the drives and categories of man are consciously projected onto the wall of
nature.
However we come down on just how scientific or interpretive Nietzsche's doctrine
of the will to power is supposed to be, what is clear is that it is like Schopenhauer's will to
life in the sense that he understands it to be a "master drive" or the "ultimate end" for the
sake of which we pursue all our other projects.71 This difference, of course, is that Nietzsche
sees the drive for self-preservation as just one manifestation of the will to power:
"Physiologists should think before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the
cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—
life itself is will to power, self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results"
(BGE 13). Nietzsche's claim here is not only directed against certain physiologists, but also
Schopenhauer and an entire tradition of understanding the nature of human desire that dates
back to Plato's Symposium. As noted above, Nietzsche's target here is Diotima's claim that
desire presupposes a certain need. According to Nietzsche, the will to power is something
that wants to discharge itself, not from need but rather from an excess of strength.
In BGE 14, Nietzsche furthers his critique of mechanistic science by launching an
attack on what seems to be all of physics: "It is perhaps just dawning on five or six minds
that physics, too, is only an interpretation and exegesis of the world (to suit us, if I may say
71
Here I disagree with Richardson (1996, 154), who rejects this view. In response to his claim, I hold that his
evidence attesting to a multiplicity of drives is weak, as it comes from D, well before the introduction of the
will to power. Second, Nietzsche tells us that we should beware of superfluous teleological principles and that his
method demands an economy of principles. In this sense, it is the method of BGE that pushes Nietzsche to
reduce all drives to a single master drive of the will to power.
so!) and not a world-explanation. Given that we have argued thus far that Nietzsche s
dynamic worldview is itself rooted in the work of physicists like Boscovich (BGE 12) and
that his will to power is at least continuous with the natural sciences (BGE 13), it would
seem that this passage conflicts with the science-friendly reading that we have put forth thus
far. However, there is good reason for thinking that Nietzsche is not attacking all of physics
in this passage but rather the mechanistic physics dominate in his day. There are three
reasons for thinking this. The first is that we are told that physics is an interpretation and
exegesis of the world that "suits us". As we have argued, the dynamic worldview neither
suits us in the sense of serving our needs and purposes—again it is tragic in the sense of
being hostile to life—nor suits us in the sense of reflecting our cognitive apparatus—again
the dynamic worldview is philosophically tragic because it conflicts with the basic structures
of grammar and logical thinking. Second, even though Nietzsche seems to be launching an
attack on the senses, his emphasis of the "eyes and fingers" and "visual evidence and
palpableness" indicate that his attack is limited to those who think that we see or touch things
and then transfer the idea that we see and touch macro-things to a micro-world of tiny,
indivisible atoms. Indeed, Nietzsche refers to Plato's noble way of resisting "obvious sense-
evidence," and this move recalls Plato's distinction in the Theaetetus between the crude
empiricists who reject anything that cannot be grasped with both hands and refined
empiricists who hold that everything is motion alone (Tht. 155e-156a). So construed, what
Nietzsche is attacking here is not all sense evidence, such as the sense of smell that reveals
motion (TI "Reason" 3), but rather the seemingly "obvious" sense evidence provided by the
hands and eyes that lends credence to the mechanistic worldview. Finally, Nietzsche
concludes the section by contrasting Plato's noble way of thinking about the senses with an
361
"industrious race of machinists and bridge-builders of the future" who think that they have
no further business when there is nothing to see or grasp. Although not explicit, we can
link, via Nachlass fragments, Nietzsche's talk of bridges and machines to mechanistic theory
(Mechanik) (KSA 9, 11 [243]) and therefore to his larger critique of the mechanistic worldview
(WP 634-636; KSA 13, 14[79]).72 So understood, BGE 14 is not an attack on physics as
such, but rather the mechanistic theory that was dominant in the physics of Nietzsche's time,
and his critique is designed not to push us away from the sciences altogether, but rather to
replace the mechanistic worldview with a dynamic one.73
BGE 15 is notoriously difficult to interpret and has generated some discussion in
recent literature. Here Nietzsche writes: "To study physiology with a clear conscience, one
must insist that the sense organs are not phenomena in the sense of idealistic philosophy; as
such they could not be causes! Sensualism, therefore, at least as a regulative hypothesis, if
not as a heuristic principle." Clark has argued that this passage exhibits Nietzsche's
realization that he must presuppose the existence of real, independently existing things, such
as brains, sense organs, and the bodies to which such things belong for the purposes of
giving an empirical account of human knowledge and therefore this passage marks
Nietzsche's rejection of his previous view that the chaos of sensations is the ultimate
reality.74 Hussain, however, has argued against this reading, contending that it actually
provides support for understanding Nietzsche as a neutral monist in the spirit of Ernst
72
For this reason, I reject the reading of Clark and Dudrick (2004, 374) that "Nietzsche places himself among
(probably at the head of) the 'engineers and bridge-builders of the future'."
73
In this sense, BGE 14 can be read in tandem with WP 618; KSA 11, 36 [34].
74
Clark (1990, 124).
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Mach, where basic sensations or what he calls elements constitute the fundamental building
blocks of both the self and the world.75
The problem with Clark's reading is that it is generated through the imposition of a
limited set of theoretical options onto Nietzsche's thought. Specifically, Clark argues that if
Nietzsche accepts representationalism, presumably understood here as the view that what we
immediately perceive are ideas or sense-data, then he must either hold that there are things-
in-themselves beyond such sense-data, as the indirect realist would have it, or that there are
not, as the idealist would have it. Since Nietzsche rejects things-in-themselves, Clark argues
that if he also accepts representationalism, he must accept an idealism that equates reality
with the chaos of sensations. Nietzsche, however, rejects idealism in BGE 15, and because
Nietzsche now rejects both things-in-themselves and idealism, he must necessarily reject
representationalism. So understood, BGE 15 marks not only Nietzsche's rejection of
idealism, but also representationalism, and since it marks a rejection of representationalism,
Nietzsche must now think that the senses provide us with direct access to a world of
commonsense things like brains and bodies.
Clark's analysis falters because it fails to consider the possibility that Nietzsche could
(1) reject things-in-themselves, (2) hold that what we immediately perceive are ideas or
sense-data, and (3) maintain that the chaos of sensations does not capture the whole of
reality. As we have seen, the Heraclitean-Protagorean view of perception described in the
Theaetetus provides us with just such a model. First, it rejects things-in-themselves in favor of
an ontology of dynamic relations. Although these relational entities must be constantly
affecting each other, they do not have to generate perceptions in order exist. Instead, they
75
Hussain (2004, 345).
363
must simply be affecting each other. Thus, we can say, contra idealism, that brains and
bodies do exist in this ontology without being perceived. However, we must note that these
brains and bodies are not things in the way that the man of commonsense perceives them to
be, but rather they are, from a third-person point of view, further analyzable into relations of
force or, in the language of BGE, wills to power. At the same time, we also need to note
that the brains and bodies of the commonsense world, now seen from a first-person point of
view, are constructed from the basic qualities of sense perception. In other words, in
stressing his Heraclitean ontology (third-person), we cannot overlook the Protagorean aspect
(first-person) of Nietzsche's philosophy. Interesting here is not only the fact that Lange sees
Protagoras as the primary representative of sensualism in ancient Greece,77 which Lange
defines as the view that all contents of consciousness are referred back to sensations, but
also that Protagoras' theory roughly squares with the neutral monism that Hussain attributes
to Nietzsche by way of Ernst Mach. On this reading, the brains and bodies that a conscious
"I" perceives are actually constructed, much like the "I" itself, from basic qualitative
sensations. As noted above, these basic sensations are not caused by the effective interplay
of forces, but rather they just are these force-relations now experienced in terms of
qualitative sensations. In terms of the passage, we can say that the organs of the
commonsense world constructed from brute sensations (first-person) are the work of the
organs now understood from a scientific account in terms of relations of force (third-
person). This, perhaps, is what Nietzsche means when he tells us in a Nachlass fragment that
"our image of the eye is a product of the eye" (KSA 10, 24[35]).
76
The idea at work here is that perception or aisthesis is just one type of affect or pathos. Thus while all
perceptions are affects, not all affects are perceptions.
77
Lange (1950, 39).
78
Lange (1950, 37).
In BGE 16 and 17, we find more evidence for leaving behind the debates about
direct realism, indirect realism, and idealism that emerge once we follow Descartes in
assuming a conscious "I" and proceed to inquire about the status of the objects that it
perceives. This is because Nietzsche again takes aim at the knowing subject, arguing that it is
not the immediate certainty that thinkers like Descartes and Teichmuller take it to be.
Indeed, Nietzsche tells us that talk of "immediate certainty," "absolute knowledge," and a
"thing in itself all involve a contradictio in adjecto. Although there is reason to think that
Nietzsche's claim, one he will repeat "a hundred times," that such concepts are contradictory
exhibits a certain rhetorical excess, the basic point of BGE 16 should be familiar from both
PTA and HH. Whereas sense experience shows us a world of ever changing relations, it is
the "seduction of words" (BGE 16) and "the superstitions of logic" (BGE 17) that mislead
us into believing that there are immediate certainties like the conscious "I" and things-in-
them selves.
In the final portion of BGE 17, Nietzsche continues his assault on mechanistic
atomism in the name of his dynamic worldview. Similar to BGE 12, Nietzsche contends
that it is a "falsification of the facts" to say that there is some " I " that is the subject of the
predicate "thinks." Indeed, Nietzsche tells us that we cannot even say "it" here because "it"
is already an interpretation of the process (Vorgang) and does not belong to "the process
itself {Vorgange selbst). Such reasoning not only belongs to the superstitions of the logicians,
who presume, with Parmenides, that there is a correspondence between thinking and being,
but also to the "grammatical habit: 'Thinking is an activity; every activity requires an agent;
consequently." According to Nietzsche, it was this same grammatical habit that forced the
ancient atomists like Democritus to posit, in addition to force, a piece of matter or atom
wherein the force resides and whence it affects. This, however, is again a falsification of
"the process itself and, presumably, the Heraclitean world of flux.
What we find in this passage is a theme that we have repeatedly emphasized over the
course of this study. Nietzsche believes that language and logic seduce us into thinking
falsely about the world precisely because he is committed to a dynamic understanding of
reality that does away with self-identical entities. With the exception of BGE 20, where we
are told that language-based philosophizing is really the discovery of physiological valuations
originally posited in certain grammatical functions, Nietzsche devotes the remainder of the
first book of BGE to discussing his understanding of the will and ultimately the will to
power. For our purposes, the most important of these sections is BGE 22, where Nietzsche
opposes his interpretation (Amkgung) of nature as the will to power to the interpretation of
those physicists who think that nature exhibits some sort of "conformity to law." As we
know from the Nachlass, Nietzsche understands the will to power to be his interpretation of all
events,79 and the question we are left to answer is whether Nietzsche's claims here
undermine our reading that he is committed to a dynamic worldview that everyone should
accept on account of its objective authority.
In approaching the issue, we need to recall our claim that although the will to power
is consistent with the dynamic ontology that Nietzsche finds in the natural sciences, it is not
equivalent to it. Here again, Nietzsche understands the will to power to be something that
completes the unintelligible forces, the qualitas occulta of the natural sciences, and as BGE 36
indicates, he does so by following Schopenhauer in turning inward to unlock the secrets of
nature. Moreover, we must also keep in mind that Nietzsche grounds his claim that
79
KSA 11, 38[12], 39[1] and 40[2]; KSA 12, 1 [35] and 2[73].
366
everything is interpretation in the claim or fact that everything is flux, incomprehensible, and
elusive (WP 604; KSA 12, 2[82]). Finally, we have seen that Nietzsche not only appeals to
the physics of Boscovich in BGE 12, but also speaks of processes as if they were something
"in themselves" in BGE 17. What all this suggests is that Nietzsche's will to power is
designed to be an interpretation of the dynamic ontology he finds in the natural sciences,
one that explains what these otherwise unknown forces are and attributes to them an aim or
goal of their ceaseless striving.
Given that the will to power can be understood as completing the dynamic ontology
that Nietzsche finds in the natural sciences, one might argue that such an interpretation is
superior to the mechanistic interpretation when judged in terms of truth and falsity. This is
correct insofar as we follow Nietzsche in thinking of truth and falsity in terms of degrees
(BGE 34). In so doing, we can say that Nietzsche thinks of the will to power as a
falsification of nature, but notwithstanding less false than alternative interpretations. Reasons
for holding that Nietzsche thinks of the will to power as a anthropomorphic simplification
or falsification of nature come not only from the questioning and hypothetical style of BGE
36, but also from the fact that Nietzsche begins the second book of BGE with the claim that
all science (Wissenschaft) seeks to keep us in a simplified and falsified world (BGE 24). What
this suggests is that if the will to power is to be privileged for its alethic or epistemic merits,
it is only because it is less false than those systems that posit self-identical entities that exist
and persist through time.
At this point, we also need to recall that Nietzsche begins BGE with the claim that
judgments are no longer going to be assessed according to their truth or falsity, but rather to
the degree that they promote and enhance life, which, as we learned from BGE 13, is
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effectively equivalent to the will to power. Thus, although we might argue that the will to
power is superior to the mechanistic worldview for its alethic or epistemic merits, the real
issue in BGE is whether interpreting the world as will to power ultimately enhances and
promotes life or the will to power, and when we turn to BGE 22, we see that this issue is
very much at stake. On the one hand, Nietzsche implicitly appeals to the dynamic
conception of reality in denying that "nature's conformity to law" represents anything like
what the philologists would call text. In other words, Nietzsche rejects, as false, the view that
nature's conformity to law is something out there to be found, either through sensation or
reason. However, Nietzsche goes further and declares it to be an interpretation, and in
labeling it as such, he is indicating that such an understanding of nature is ultimately an
expression of the values and demands of particular type of spirit. In particular, Nietzsche
tells us that it is one that makes "abundant concessions to the democratic instincts of the
modern soul." In opposition to this "plebian" reading of nature, Nietzsche notes that
someone might come along and read from this same phenomena "the tyrannically
inconsiderate and relentless enforcement of claims of power." In so doing, such an
interpreter might assert that necessity and calculability do hold not because nature is
governed by a set of laws external to it, but rather because every power "draws its ultimate
consequences at every moment" (BGE 22).
Nietzsche concludes the passage with a now famous question and reply: "Supposing
that this also is only interpretation—and you will be eager enough to make this objection?—
well, so much the better." Here we are confronted with two questions. First, why is
Nietzsche's interpretation better than the plebianism of mechanistic physics? Second, why is
it even better if the will to power is only an interpretation, not text or explanation? The short
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answer to the first question is that it furthers the will to power. However, this short answer
only raises the question as to why this is so. The answer is that by stripping nature of all
laws external to it, Nietzsche is effectively transforming nature into a war of power centers
forever engaged in commanding and obeying (Cf. BGE 19; KSA 11, 40[55]). In so doing, he
is following Heraclitus in placing resistance or even agon at the very heart of nature, one that
sees all events as the result of domination and subservience (cf. PTA 5, p. 55). The second is
that by stripping nature of all laws, he is preparing the way for the philosopher of the future,
the most spiritualized embodiment of the will to power who effectively creates worlds by
creating laws in his own image (BGE 9 and 211; KSA 11, 40[12]). With these two points in
mind, we can say that Nietzsche welcomes the accusation that the will to power is only an
interpretation first because it would incite a battle among interpretations and therefore
provide an opportunity to exercise the will to power, and second because it would indicate
that the doctrine of the will to power is itself imposed on nature or philosophically legislated
and therefore an expression of the will to power.
It is with this latter claim that we see a certain amount of circularity in Nietzsche's
presentation of the will to power in BGE. Rather than showing why this circularity is not a
vicious form of circularity, what I want to emphasize here is that this circularity is limited to
the will to power itself. That is, although Nietzsche highlights the interpretive and
potentially anthropomorphic character of the will to power (BGE 22 and 36), it is hard to
find passages in which Nietzsche indicates that the unity of opposites doctrine, the related
flux ontology (insofar as it is distinct from the will to power), and even perspectivism are
themselves understood to be interpretive or perspectival claims that are somehow conducive
to life. Instead, we have seen in our analysis of HH how the unity of opposites and the flux
ontology undercut human values and fail to support the demands of life, and we have seen
in our analysis of BGE and the late Nachlass that this relational ontology underwrites
Nietzsche's claims that there are no facts but only interpretations and paves the way for a
perspectivism in which private worlds are created for the purposes of life. Finally, given that
Nietzsche's sees the will to power as completing the dynamic worldview he finds in the
natural sciences, there is again reason to think that this doctrine is just one more element of
a larger worldview. Indeed, I have not only traced his dynamic ontology and his
perspectivism back to the Heraclitean-Protagorean position of the Theaetetus, but I have also
suggested above that the will to power can be understood as a form of Dionysian Eros. In
this sense, the will to power qua Eros would be the principle responsible for ordering an
otherwise chaotic world (GS 109). Of course, by articulating Nietzsche's understanding of
nature in terms of an Eros and that orders a Chaos, we will have found in his philosophy the
two dominant principles of a cosmogony that appears not only in Hesiod, but also in the
parabasis of Aristophanes' Dionysian comedy, Birds.
5.6. Perspectivism in GS 354 and GM III 12
Before making some final remarks about the potential connections between
perspectivism, the philosophy of the future, and what I take to be Nietzsche's Dionysian
comedy in his 1888 works, I want to discuss briefly two other passages in Nietzsche's
published works where perspectivism plays a prominent role, namely GS 354 and GM III
12. Thus far, we have associated Nietzsche's language of interpretation and perspectivism
both with his denial of facts and things-in-themselves and with a certain sort of falsification
of nature or the chaos of sensations for the purposes of life. On the one hand, we have
noted contexts in which Nietzsche's talk of interpretation gives expression to his view that
evaluative relations hold at the most fundamental level of reality, such that even our basic
sense perceptions are shaped by our wants and needs. On the other hand, we have said that
although these basic sense perceptions technically do not falsify because there is nothing
beyond them to falsify, we nevertheless noted that falsification does begin at the level of
sense perception as certain sense data are picked out and preserved in memory while others
are ignored and "forgotten." Furthermore, we claimed that this process of falsification
reaches its apex once concepts are employed by linguistic creatures for the purpose of
organizing sense data and communicating with others.
Of the two passages mentioned above, this reading of perspectivism finds its most
support from GS 354. This is because Nietzsche not only highlights the way in which the
contents that are brought into a conceptualizing consciousness are necessarily falsified, but
he also associates the "surface and sign-world" of consciousness with "phenomenalism and
perspectivism." As Katsafanas has argued, consciousness here is not to be equated with
mere awareness but with conceptualization.80 This is because Nietzsche tells us that "we
could think, feel, will, and remember, and we could also 'act' in every sense of the word, and
yet none of this would have to 'enter our consciousness'." Although we could delve more
deeply into this subject, the important point for our purposes is that GS 354 provides us
with an explicit articulation of the appearance-reality distinction within the empirical world
where conscious perspectives are understood to be superficial falsifications of a non-
conceptual reality. Thus, perspectives can be understood here in the more limited sense of
imposing a conceptual framework onto non-conceptual content. Such a reading not only
resonates with Teichmuller's more restricted definition of perspectivism, but also makes
80
Katsafanas (2005)
371
sense of why Nietzsche would argue that all knowledge is perspectival. Specifically, it is only
through the imposition of certain concepts that a world of intelligible objects is created and
can, in turn, be known.
Perhaps the most challenging passage for our reading of Nietzsche's perspectivism is
found in GM III 12. Indeed, a number of commentators have used it to argue against those
readings of Nietzsche's perspectivism that hold that he does away with any sort of objective
truth as well as the kind of reading that I am proposing here, where both knowing subjects
and intelligible objects are held to be interpretive constructs. The passage is challenging
because it supports the "point of view" reading of Nietzsche's perspectivism insofar as it
suggests that there is some pre-given object that we view from different angles or
perspectives, and it is a reading supported by the following claim in the passage: "There is
only a perspective seeing, only a perspective 'knowing'; and the more affects we allow to speak
about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more
complete our 'concept' of this thing, our 'objectivity' be" (GM III 12).
Although Nietzsche's talk of "one thing" {eine Sache) and "the same thing" [dieselbe
Sache) in this passage suggests a commitment to an inter-subjectively available object, there
are a number of reasons to resist such a reading. The first comes from the ambiguity found
in the larger passage. Specifically, Nietzsche tells us in the same section that it is only
through "active and interpreting forces" that "seeing becomes seeing something" Based on
this claim, we can say that Nietzsche follows Teichmuller in denying that things are given in
sensation and holds instead the view that such things are the product of interpreting forces.
Applied to the analogous case of knowing, the objects of knowledge are not discovered, but
made in the interpretive process. The second comes from GM 113, where Nietzsche issues
372
a warning about the seductive and falsifying nature of language. Specifically, we are told that
we need to beware of positing any sort of neutral substratum in addition to an action and an
effect. Applied to perception, the lesson is that nothing causes the qualitative sensations we
have and that there is nothing that either bears the qualities or possesses the power to cause
the qualities that we perceive. Given that this argument is presented in the first essay, it
would be strange if Nietzsche would want us to return, in the third essay, to thinking of
perception and knowledge in terms of objects that bear properties and cause perceptions in
knowing subjects. Finally, such a reading is hard to square with a handful of Nachlass
fragments from this time.81 Perhaps the most important of these is WP 556. This is because
Nietzsche couples a description of defining a thing by asking all creatures "what is that?"—
an idea also presented in GM III 12, where objectivity is said to increase through the number
of eyes viewing an object—with the further claim that there are no interpretation-
independent things. Specifically, we are not only told in the passage that there are no things-
in-themselves or facts, but also that "the origin of 'things' is wholly the work of that which
imagines, thinks, wills, feels" (WP 556; KSA 12, 2[149-152]).
Illuminating parallels between GM III 12 and WP 556 can also be found regarding
the subject. In the latter passage, we are told that "even 'the subject' is such a created entity,
a 'thing' like all others." Similarly in GM III 12, we find Nietzsche speaking not of a single,
unified knowing subject that is doing the interpreting, but rather of a number of "eyes" that
engage in seeing and a number of "affects" that engage in knowing. What this suggests is
that Nietzsche is working with a model of the subject that resembles the dissolution of
81
Cf. WP 549; KSA 11:36[26]: WP 551; KSA 13, 14[98]: WP 552; KSA 12, 9[91]: WP 557; KSA 12, 2[12]; WP
558; KSA 12, 10[202]; WP 560; KSA 12, 9[40]; WP 569; KSA 12, 9[106].
373
Socrates into a series of Socrates-stages in the Theaetetus and one that has already been
introduced in BGE 12, namely as a multiplicity of "drives and affects." In this sense, we can
say here, as we have above, that Nietzsche is replacing Teichmuller's substantial knowing
subject with a multiplicity of drives and affects. However, we must also note that this is a
crude way of understanding the relation between affects or drives and interpretations, as we
want to avoid falling into the trap of transforming drives and affects into the kinds of
subjects, now writ-small, that Nietzsche wants to reject. To avoid such linguistic and logical
blunders, we need to recall that Nietzsche explicidy reminds us that we cannot ask who or
what is doing the interpreting. Instead, we must think of the interpretation itself as a form
of the will to power and the will to power as a process and an affect (WP 556; KSA 12,
2 [149-152]).
What we see from a reading of these two passages is not only that there is reason for
thinking that Nietzsche designs the will to power to replace Teichmuller's substantial, non-
natural knowing subject, but also how the will to power might be linked to Nietzsche's
perspectivism and, as BGE 9 and 211 indicate, his talk of world creation. The basic idea is
that perspectives are worlds of created subjects and objects, and they are created through an
interpretative process that just is a form or execution of the will to power. On this reading,
the reason why Nietzsche tells us in GM III 12 that the more affects we employ, the more
complete our concept and objectivity will be is not because he thinks we will discover mote.
aspects or features of an object by way of variously directing our attention upon it, but rather
because these affects are precisely what create the qualities and the objects that we ultimately
come to perceive and know. Conversely, if we were to castrate our intellect and eliminate
the will altogether in pursuing the ascetic ideal, we would suppress and eventually destroy the
very drives that create both subjects and objects and therefore eliminate these interpretation-
dependent selves and worlds. It is for this reason that asceticism and the related project of
trying to know the world by transforming the soul into a glassy mirror leads to a certain
form of nihilism. This is because if we eliminated the will altogether, we would not only
"castrate the intellect" (GM III 12), but also find our "selves" and our "worlds" dissolved
into nothingness, just as it is described at the end of Schopenhauer's WWR I: "to those in
whom the will has turned and denied itself, this very real world of ours with all its suns and
galaxies, is—nothing" (WWR I 71).
If we are right to construe Nietzsche's perspectivism in this way, then we can also
argue that his perspectivism and, I would contend, his related philosophy of the future are
not designed merely to modify the quest for an objective truth, but rather to repudiate it or,
in typically Nietzschean fashion, completely redefine "knowing" and "objectivity."82
Specifically, we can say that Nietzsche's task in his post-Zarathustra works is to re-conceive
the philosophical project as a form of art, and it is a form of art because we must create the
very "things" that our created "selves" come to know (BGE 211). On the one hand, we can
think of such a project as completely inverting the traditional quest for knowledge by
understanding it in terms of a knowing subject projecting his or her drives onto the wall of
nature and saying "Ecce Homo!" Here, philosophy is something that is entirely personal such
that is bears the stamp of who one is, and therefore can be understood as a form of conscious
82
As noted above, this position has been taken by Leiter (2002, 273), who invites us to think of Nietzsche's
perspectivism in terms of map-making. The idea is that when we make a map, we make it with particular
interests in mind. Without any interests, we would not make a map and therefore we would have no
knowledge of the object being mapped. In contrast, if we make a multiplicity of maps guided by a multiplicity
of interests, we will have a better understanding of the object we are trying to map. On my reading, the
problem with Leiter's account is that it presupposes some non-interpreted, non-relational entity or set of
entities out there waiting to be mapped.
375
biography (BGE 6, 9). On the other hand, we must not forget that the self that is the
subject of this philosophical autobiography is also a created entity and therefore a product of
the will to power. In other words, the "I" of this autobiography is not a subject hovering
over nature, but rather is a piece of nature itself.
To recall, the purpose of this chapter has been to argue that Nietzsche's
perspectivism develops from his commitment to Heraclitean becoming and his turn to
problems related to life and value in BGE. In so doing, we have claimed that his talk of
interpretation and perspectivism relates to four important strands in his philosophy. First,
his claim that there are no facts but only interpretations can be understood as the claim that
there are no things-in-themselves with intrinsic properties but only entities that exist and are
what they are in relation to each other. Second, we encountered an additional version of
perspectivism that had to do with creating worlds of order and value through the imposition
of certain categories onto the flux of sensations. Third, we contended that although there is
some continuity between the will to power and the natural sciences, key passages from BGE
suggest that the will to power itself is an exercise in interpretation insofar as Nietzsche is
consciously projecting his life-affirming psychology onto the world. Finally, we argued that
it was Nietzsche's concern with life that not only led him to develop his perspectivism in
BGE, but also to map out a philosophy of the future in which the task is nothing less than
the creation of a perspectival self and world.
In making these claims, we argued that Nietzsche's philosophy of the future is
designed to leave behind the traditional quest for objectivity. In particular, we said that the
traditional quest for objectivity presents a great danger for Nietzsche because when it is
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coupled with his denial of thing-in-themselves, it can lead to nihilism in the form of the
dissolution of the self and world, and we argued that Nietzsche dedicates his ôst-Zarathustra
works to overturning or even revaluing the values that lead to such nihilism. Here,
philosophy is no longer a process of discovery, but rather a form of artistic creativity, and
the task of the philosopher is not to purge himself of his natural desires in the quest to know
the world in-itself, but rather to exercise his most fundamental drives in actively creating the
world that he inhabits and ultimately knows.
At this point, it might be thought that on my reading Nietzsche is calling for an end
to philosophy as we know it. In some sense, this is true. This is because Nietzsche is
attacking the philosophical project as Plato portrays it, where the goal of philosophy is to
transform the soul into a glassy mirror so as to properly reflect a pre-given structure of the
world in itself. That said, we need to note that even though Nietzsche's philosophy of the
future is meant to be a rejection of Plato's philosophy of the past, it is nevertheless rooted in
claims about the structure of the world that admit of truth or falsity. This is because
Nietzsche is committed to the objective truth of UO and becoming, and these are principles
that he not only considers true, but he also uses them to reject as false views that entail their
negation. In particular, it is Nietzsche's commitment to UO that forms the basis for his
rejection of things-in-themselves. What this means, however, is that although Nietzsche's
project is an attack on Plato's ontology and a call for an end to Plato's corresponding
understanding of philosophy, the fundamental principles of Nietzsche's philosophy
nevertheless fit comfortably within the confines of philosophy as we practice it today. This
is because we can subject UO and the related doctrine of becoming to critical examination,
ask whether they are true, and ask whether Nietzsche is indeed justified in believing them.
In the introduction, I noted that I would primarily focus on the theoretical
significance of UO and the related doctrine of becoming for understanding Nietzsche's
tragic philosophy and ultimately how they relate to his perspectivism. In so doing, my main
task was to show that Nietzsche's perspectivism did not undermine his view that the
principles of his tragic philosophy should be accepted by everyone on account of their
objective authority, but rather that his perspectivism is just one more feature of a tragic
worldview that has as its guiding principles UO and becoming. At the same time, I also
noted in the introduction that my interest in locating these two principles at the beginning of
both HH and BGE had largely to do with mounting an argument about how we should read
Nietzsche's post-1877 published works. Specifically, I suggested that once we locate
becoming and UO at the beginning of HH and BGE and see how a number of the
aphorisms that follow in these texts relate to these two fundamental principles, we will have
reason to think that Nietzsche's published works exhibit an internal order and structure.
Indeed, we pushed this idea further in the introduction and suggested that Nietzsche's works
are not only internally coherent, but that there is reason for thinking this post-1877
published works can be grouped together into two related yet distinct projects. Based on
points that I have argued elsewhere, I suggested that just as the principles Nietzsche
develops in HH and the other works of the free spirit form the basis for his turn to the
tragedy and the satyr-play of Zarathustra, the principles he develops in BGE and GM form
the basis for his turn to Dionysian comedy and dithyrambs in his 1888 works. In this sense,
HH and BGE can be understood as Nietzsche's effort to establish the principles of his tragic
worldview that then pave the way for his artistic affirmation of the world in works such as
Zarathustra and EH.

Nevertheless, the point of this work has not been to prove that this is how we should
read Nietzsche's post-1877 published works. Instead, the goal on a textual level has simply
been to take a small step in this direction. On a smaller scale, the idea is that if the
aphorisms of the opening parts of HH and BGE do exhibit a certain structure and unity,
then we should be inclined to think that his other aphoristic works do too. At the same
time, we introduced this interpretative framework as a way of making sense of the
differences between HH and BGE. Specifically, we contended that the difference between
these two works is not so much a matter of Nietzsche maturing, but rather that they are
written from two different standpoints regarding the tragic tension between truth and life.
In so doing, we situated BGE at the end of Nietzsche's process of coming to be a free spirit,
where he is fully liberated from the morality of truth and science and therefore is free to
write and think from the standpoint of life and value.
In the interpretation of BGE that we put forth in this chapter, we not only dealt with
problems concerning Nietzsche's perspectivism, but also suggested that key passages from
BGE proleptically point to EH as the centerpiece of Nietzsche's philosophy of the future.
In this way, we highlighted evidence for thinking that BGE is the beginning of a series of
works that culminate in Nietzsche's autobiography, where he creates himself and even the
world. Although I have defended the rudiments of this basic idea elsewhere,831 do want to
conclude this work by noting that BGE also provides us with reasons for thinking that
Nietzsche's philosophy of the future is, at the same time, a Dionysian comedy. Not only
does he speak of the "Aristophanean derision of the world" and the way in which "our
laughter may yet have a future" in BGE 223, Nietzsche concludes the work by telling us that
83
Meyer (2008).
gods such as Dionysus enjoy mockery and that he is therefore going to risk "an order of
rank among philosophers depending on the rank of their laughter—all the way up to those
capable of golden laughter" (BGE 294). Although there is no explicit mention of the works
that follow, what this passage suggests is that the Dionysus of the post-Zarathustra works is
now the god of laughter and comedy and therefore insofar as Nietzsche presents himself in
EH as the last disciple of the philosopher Dionysus (EH "Pref" 2), we have reason for
thinking that E H functions as the centerpiece of Nietzsche's own comedy. If one wonders
how laughter and comedy might be linked to Nietzsche's critique of Christianity, his
revaluation of values, and his project of affirming life, we must not forget that laughter is the
opposite of Christian pity84 and that comedy, according to Schopenhauer, is "an invitation to
the continued affirmation of this will" (WWRII 37). Thus, if this reading is correct, we can
say that for the "mature" Nietzsche it is not just tragedy that allows us to "say yes to life
even in its strangest and hardest problems" (TI "Owe" 5), but also Dionysian comedy.
Indeed, we could say that it is for this reason that Nietzsche takes on the role of "the grand
old eternal comic poet of our existence" (GM " P r e f 7), and in becoming the last disciple of
the philosopher Dionysus, he transforms his life into an aesthetic phenomenon (BT 5).
84
The key here is understanding laughter as an expression of Schadenfreude (GS 200), and to recognize that
Schadenfreude, as a taking pleasure in suffering, is the opposite of pity or Mitleid, a suffering from suffering.
380
APPENDIX I
A Chronological List of the Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)1
I. The Rebirth of Tragedy at Wagner's Festspielin Bayreuth (1872-1876)

A. The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit ofMusic (1872/1878/1886)
B. Two important unpublished essays:
1. "On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense" (1873)
2. Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (1873)
C. Untimely Meditations (1873-1876):
1. David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer (1873)
2. On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life (1874)
3. Schopenhauer as Educator (1874)
4. Richard Wagner in Bayreuth (1876)
II. The Free Spirit and Nietzsche's Rebirth of Tragedy (1878-1885)
A. The Free Spirit (1878-1882)
1. The Cycle of Human, All Too Human I and II
a. Human, All Too Human (1878/1886)
b. Human, All Too Human II
i. Assorted Opinions and Maxims (1879/1886)
ii. The Wanderer and His Shadow (1980/1886)
2. Daybreak (1881/1887)
3. Idylls from Messina (1882)
4. The Gay Science I-IV (1882/1887)
B. The Rebirth of Tragedy (1883-1885)
1. The Tragedy: Thus Spoke Zarathustra I-III (1883-1884)
2. The Satyr Play: Thus Spoke Zarathustra TV (1885)
III. The Philosophy of the Future and the Rebirth of Old Comedy (1886-1888)
A. Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (1886-1887)
1. Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
2. The Gay Science V (1887)
3. On the Genealogy ofMorals (1887)
B. The Rebirth of Old Comedy (1888)
1. The Comic Agon:
a. The Case of Wagner (1888)
b. The Twilight of the Idols (1888)
c. The Antichrist (1888)
d. Nietzsche contra Wagner (1888)
2. The Comic Parabasis: Ecce Homo (1888)
C. Dionysian Dithyrambs (1888)
The divisions marked here are my own. The dates are approximate!}' when Nietzsche completed the work.
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VITA
Matthew H. Meyer was born on August 8, 1973, to Dennis C. and Judith A. Meyer in
Fairmont, MN. He received a BA in economics from the University of St. Thomas in 1996,
graduating summa cum laude, and an MTS from the Harvard Divinity School in 1999. After
spending one year at the Institute for Systematic Theology at the University of Vienna as a
Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellow from Harvard University, he enrolled in the doctoral
program in philosophy at the University of Vienna in 2001. He then enrolled in the PhD
program in philosophy at Boston University in 2004. He is currentiy a lecturer in philosophy
at the University of Vienna and will begin lecturing at Boston University in 2010.

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BOSTON UNIVERSITY

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

READING NIETZSCHE THROUGH T H E ANCIENTS:

A N ANALYSIS OF BECOMING, PERSPECTIVISM, A N D

B.A., University of St. Thomas, 1996

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS

Second Reader a^g/

I would like to express my gratitude to my first reader, Professor Daniel Dahlstrom,

University Department of Philosophy, the Boston University Humanities Foundation, and

these people, none of this would have been possible.

AN ANALYSIS OF BECOMING, PERSPECTIVISM,

Boston University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2010

Major Professor: Daniel Dahlstrom, Professor of Philosophy

objective truth or falsity.

backdrop for his perspectivism.

these doctrines function as cornerstones to Nietzsche's philosophical project, but also to

doctrines at the beginning of the aforementioned works might be related to Nietzsche's

Part One: Nietzsche's Philosophy

CHAPTER FIVE 306

Ancient Authors and Texts

Nietzsche's Works and Translations

[That] everything which coexists in space and time

Part I: N i e t z s c h e ' s Philosophy

commentary on Nietzsche's On the Genealogy ofMorality as contributing to a growing list of

Freud in granting primacy to the naturalist strand in Nietzsche's thinking.4

change is said to be an essential feature of nature, and (3) a Protagorean-like perspectivism,

backdrop for the emergence of perspectivism in BGE.

In terms of the contemporary debate, linking Nietzsche's philosophical project to

longer be a process of discovery but rather one of artistic creation.5

of the seemingly post-modern positions that I attribute to Nietzsche is rooted in his

in relation to something else.

about things-in-themselves, determinacy with regard to things-in-themselves, Truth that is a

property of things-in-themselves, knowledge of things-in-themselves, and the philosophical

understood as a property of things-in-themselves. Since he believes that UO is true and UO

entails the rejection of thing-in-themselves, he holds that there is no Truth. Similarly, he

things-in-themselves. This is because he follows Plato and Schopenhauer in holding that

genuine knowledge or episteme is necessarily of things-in-themselves.9 Since he knows that

In trying to understand Nietzsche's relationship to the philosophical project, we can

create a world and a self that only have relative existence.

Wolfgang Miiller-Lauter. However, I diverge from commentators such as Nehamas not

solution to the problem of opposites to a Heraclitean "philosophy of becoming" and the

metaphysical solution to the problem of opposites to a Parmenidean philosophy of being

opposites or what I take to be UO has to do with a philosophy of becoming, we know from

UO to becoming by developing a dynamic ontology that conforms to UO, where nature is

being affected by each other.

Because PTA provides us with a key to understanding the relationship between UO

structure and argument of H H 1 . Whereas Nietzsche sees Anaximander as introducing the

problem of opposites or becoming into ancient Greek philosophy, Heraclitus and

Nietzsche calls, in HH 1, historical and metaphysical philosophy, respectively.

In turning to PTA, we will also be able to link Nietzsche's acceptance of these

Heraclitean doctrines to his empiricist commitments and his corresponding rejection of

rationalism. Whereas Heraclitus is portrayed as a thinker who develops his doctrines of

becoming and UO by way of drawing inferences based on empirical observations, Nietzsche

portrays Parmenides as rejecting Heraclitus' philosophy not because it misconstrues the

principle of non-contradiction (PNC). In other words, Nietzsche's Parmenides grants that

of being, something that corresponds to the logical principle of identity, A=A.

what Nietzsche does is reject Parmenides' assumption that there is a correspondence

existing relata, predicates without subjects, deeds without doers.

Although Parmenides does not provide us with a defense of the correspondence

purposes is that he supplements it with an extended defense in Metaphysics IV. Indeed,

Metaphysics IV as a defense of the Parmenidean presupposition that there is a correspondence