Panagiotis Laganas 1 Nietzsche's conception of truth and perspectivism The vein in Nietzsche’s account of truth pertains mostly to its value as an ideal, and the accompanying will to truth. Let us begin by recognizing that Nietzsche does not use the term ‘truth’ consistently throughout his works, or even within the same work. For him truth does not have a universal meaning or definition, on the contrary he attempts to locate the different senses that it has been traditionally employed, and proceed with his critique. Yet, it does not seem likely that Nietzsche wishes to abandon the concept of truth altogether. Rather, he is better construed as discarding particular conceptions of truth in order to make room for his own alternative conception, which he thinks is the only sustainable one. While not conforming to traditional theories of truth, he wants to reclaim truth from the exclusive labour and produce of reason. Nietzsche wants to recover and redefine truth, to bring it back within life’s bosom; his notion of truth springs from this world, from his perspective, which he does not attempt to veil. What follows is an attempt to explore these themes in what could be thought of as his genealogy of truth, and the notion of perspectivism. For Nietzsche truth is elusive and illusory, it resists a definition precisely because of its not being some fixed, rigid, eternal thing, inscribed in the fabric of the universe. For him truth is not metaphysical, located beyond the world or outside our reality. The more one tries to trace it, it eludes and escapes them. It is because truth has a long history as a concept and as Nietzsche writes: “only something which has no history can be defined.” 1 For Nietzsche concepts are susceptible to appropriation and reinterpretation, and truth has been particularly subjected to this process since it has had an abundance of epistemic claimants. However, instead of trying to polish and embellish existing truths which are seen as established, indubitable facts, he wants to apply his genealogical method on truth and reveal the various disguises it has undergone. In his earlier works Nietzsche introduces the problem of truth while discussing the formation of concepts and language. He claims that humans developed concepts arbitrarily and in order to categorize, make sense and control the world. Thus, he offers a tentative description of truth: “What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms...a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions– they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force.” 2 Humans differ from animals insofar as they have the ability to create a “regulative” world, the ability for “the construction of a pyramidal order according to castes and degrees, the creation of a new world of laws, privileges, subordinations, and clearly marked boundaries.” 3 They create from themselves regulative schemata of abstractions according to which they conduct themselves. In this pyramidal construction, humans have placed themselves at the top and they have immersed in this realm of 1 GM II, 13. 2 TLNMS p.117. 3 Ibid. p.118.