Perspectivism, Perception, Action

Insofar as Perspectivism is a model of Empirical perceptual experience, Subjects of experience are mutually radically alterior, i. e. absolutely inaccessible to one another, a condition often characterized as the 'problem of the existence of other selves'. Thus, when Zarathustra, in 'The Convalescent', describes another as an "afterworld", he might be expressing a commitment to Perspectivism that Nietzsche briefly makes explicit in Beyond Good and Evil #10.  However, such a concept of Perspectivism does not take into account the possibility that Perception is not autonomous, but is ingredient in Action.  On that basis, a Perspectivist Subject is not only a center of Perception, but also, and primarily, a center of Action.  Thus, while the mutual alteriority of two perceptual fields remain fixed, two fields of action can converge, e. g. in a collaborative project.  Likewise, while for Zarathustra, music may charm the listener into forgetting that alteriority, the Dionysian recognizes that the overcoming of alteriority is actual in dancing.  Regardless, if Nietzsche's aim is to promote a Morality that is a corrective to enfeebling conformism, it is unclear how a model of Experience, even if potentially Egoistic, that abstracts from Action conduces to it.

Perspectivism, Egocentrism, Particular

Perspectivism entails that the Subject is the point of reference of Experience.  Thus, despite obvious other indications, e. g. that the objects of vision are mere facets, in the absence of a self-awareness as such, the perspectival character of ordinary Experience remains latent, the commonality of which is why Perspectivism is widely regarded as a somewhat esoteric theory, even by Empiricists.  Now, because according to Perspectivism, the Subject is at the center of their World, it is equivalent to Egocentrism, in the strictest sense of the term.  But, the awareness that one is at the center of one's World entails the awareness that each other is at the center of their World, i. e. that one is merely one Particular among others.  Likewise, concepts such as Pluralism and Diversity are grounded in Perspectivism.  Thus, in the absence of the Self-Awareness that is essential to Perspectivism, utterances such as "self-interest", "pluralism", and "diversity" are no more than mere political rhetoric, as is typically the case in contemporary American public discourse.  And, without the understanding that such Self-Awareness entails that one is a Particular Self among other Particular Selfs, "self-interest" is empty rhetoric for a second reason.

Perspective, Particular, Morality

In Beyond Good and Evil #10, Nietzsche briefly expresses an advocacy of Perspectivism, but without developing it.  Continuing in that direction: a Perspective does not falsify Reality; rather, it presents a part of it, which is false only if taken as the whole.  Accordingly, the subject of a Perspective can be classified as a Particular.  Now, a Particular has internal characteristics qua Particular, and characteristics qua Part of a Whole.  So, Morality can be conceived as a program for how Particulars qua Particulars relate to one another, for the benefit of the Whole, e. g. more or less diversely, depending on circumstances.  Thus, Nietzsche could have explicitly jettisoned the concept of the member of the human species as an Individual, and replaced it with Particular.  On that basis, a Self is a Particular, Selfishness a tendency toward greater diversity among Particulars, e. g. as a corrective to enfeebling conformism, and Morality, with the Moralist as its mouthpiece, not a fiction.  As is, this development of Perspectivism remains only a possible interpretation of Nietzsche's later doctrine.

Self and Selfishness

The concepts of Self-Interest, Selfishness, etc. entail a concept of Self.  Nevertheless, a persistent incoherence in Modern Philosophy is a discrepancy between the latter and the former.  For example, Hume, on the one hand, conceives the Self to be a bundle of perceptions, but, on the other, accepts Selfishness as a simple behavioral instinct.  Likewise, Schopenhauer conceives the Self to be a mere Representation, yet accepts the Reality of a Selfish instinct.  Now, Nietzsche is briefly more consistent, recognizing, in The Gay Science #1, that if the concept of the Self is a fiction, then so, too, is any Moral evaluation of it.  However, that brief glimpse seems forgotten later when he converts Selfishness from a Vice to a Virtue, which is tantamount to an inversion of the conventional valuation of the characteristic in his era.  But, because its original Real basis has been obscured, that inversion has been distorted, and what is intended as a correction to a degenerative condition of the species, has been widely accepted as, instead, an advocacy of Individualism, a position which is antithetical to Nietzsche's Dionysianism.  Now, at the root of that confusion is his concept of the Self as a fiction, which has its ground in his uncritical acceptance of the concept of the Species-Member relation as that of Universal-Individual.  Thus, while the lapse of method of his predecessors is in the derivation of the concept of Selfishness from that of Self, Nietzsche's is in the derivation of the concept of Self to begin with.

Genesis, Diversification, Individuation

Nietzsche begins his transformation of traditional Philosophy by re-discovering the pre-conditions of the putative Socratic origin of the tradition.  An analogous project could apply to the account of the widely accepted origin of the human species presented in Genesis 2-3, within the same context, long before Darwin challenges it from without. For, in Genesis 1, the principle of propagation of the species is "be fruitful, and multiply", a blessing that entails Diversification as a positive value.  However, that principle has been obscured by the principle, according to Genesis 3, of the propagation of the species as a curse, salvation from which is possible only on an Individual basis.  Accordingly, Diversification has been eclipsed, in the Philosophical tradition influenced by that Theology, by a Universal vs. Individual antithesis.   But, Nietzsche misses this genealogy of the concept of Individuation, leaving him constrained to accept, via Schopenhauer, the concept of it as inferior in some respect, the inferiority of which is not remedied by merely inverting the antithesis in which it is a term, e. g. by transforming Selfishness from a Vice to a Virtue.  In contrast, because it conceives Variation to have potential Evolutionary value, Darwinism has more in common with Genesis 1 than with Genesis 3, regardless of the well-known conflict with the former.

Vitalism, Conformism, Individual

Nietzsche promotes a Vitalist doctrine.  Will to Power is an energizing principle, and the concept of Eternal Recurrence functions as a necessary condition of the doctrine--a Vitalist is one who loves Life even if all events eternally recur. His Vitalism is a corrective to what he diagnoses as centuries of de-vitalizing Christian Morality that promotes conformism.  Intended or not, the most powerful dimension of that Theological tradition is the concept of the Immortal Individual Soul, which, as the identical in all in its incarnations, levels any corporeal distinctions, and, hence, is egalitarian. Now, Nietzsche struggles with the concept of the Individual because, like not only Schopenhauer and Kant, but the entire Modern Philosophical tradition, he accepts the relation between Universal and Particular as antithetical.  As a result, the status of Individualism only complicates his presentation of the doctrine, e. g. The Gay Science #1.  But, the complication is unnecessary--the problem with the concept of Individual is not that it is a fiction, but, rather, that it is the product of an abstraction. For, the concept of the process of Individuation is an abstraction from the concept of the process of Diversification, which Darwin recognizes as having Evolutionist value, i. e. his 'variation'.  Now, Diversification can vary infinitely, between fragmentation and homogenization.  But, with Individual a univocal cardinal Quantifier, those variations cannot be distinguished, nor can each be evaluated on the basis of a Vitalist criterion.  So, missing in his Revaluation of All Values is Individualism, leaving his Vitalism susceptible to reduction to the former, e. g. by some contemporary Capitalists.  However, because Nietzsche fails to redefine Individuation as Diversification, those contemporary Individualists, e. g. Randians, perpetuate anti-Vitalism, in two ways--by promoting social fragmentation, and by failing to recognize that 'individual' is the most generic, and, hence, conformist attribute possible.

Zarathustra, Dionysian, Morality

In 'The Convalescent' section of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Zarathustra asserts that "Every soul is a world of its own; for every soul, every other soul is an afterworld. . . . For me, how can there be an outside-of-me? . . . But we forget that, when we hear music."  Now these concepts are completely antithetical to the Dionysian principles articulated at the beginning of Birth of Tragedy.  Thus, the passage settles the uncertainty, previously discussed, of whether or not Zarathustra is a non-Dionysian Individualist Moralist defined in The Gay Science #1. Accordingly, even if Naturalistic, cardinal concepts of Zarathustra's doctrine, notably Will to Power and the Overman, are as fictitious as those of his predecessors.  However, an alternative classification of them is available to Nietzsche, though he does not consider it.  For, it is on the basis of the Reality vs. Appearance dichotomy that Nietzsche inherits from Kant and Schopenhauer that he is constrained to consign the elements of an Individualist Morality to the status of fiction.  However, his allusion to the Species as Reality entails the possibility of conceiving an individual member of the species as a Part of a Whole, and, thus, just as Real as the latter.  Furthermore, just as there are parts of an organism, e. g. the proprioceptive part of the brain, that are capable of a holistic function, there can be individual members of the species, e. g. a Moralist, who can grasp Reality, and hence, can articulate a doctrine that is adequate to it.  Finally, freed of Super-Naturalist commitments, the concept of Reality need not be eternally true, so provisional soundness can suffice as a criterion for a doctrine, as the Pragmatists propose.  So, even if Zarathustra himself is a mere Individualist Moralist, his doctrine can have Real value in a different context, e. g. in an Organicist doctrine, such as a variety of Evolutionism.