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The Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Volume 46, Number 2, Summer2015, pp. 152-176 (Article)

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JOURNAL OF NIETZSCHE STUDIES, Vol. 46, No. 2, 2015

Copyright 2015 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

152

Was Afrikan Spir a Phenomenalist?

And What Difference Does It Make for Understanding Nietzsche?

Michael S. Green

abStract: I have argued that Nietzsche was influenced by Afrikan Spirs falsification thesis, according to which all empirical judgments are false because they attempt to impose the necessity, unity, and timelessness of thought upon the contingency, plurality, and successiveness of sensations. My reading has been challenged by Nadeem Hussain, who claims that it ignores Spirs phenomenal-ism. For the phenomenalist, true judgments about sensations are possible. I argue here that Hussain reads Spir as a phenomenalist only because he mistakenly concentrates on the first book of Spirs major work, Denken und Wirklichkeit, before Spir presented his argument for falsificationism. When the rest of Spirs work is considered, it is clear that Spir believes that even sensations cannot be thought without falsity. I end with a brief discussion of the consequences of my argument for understanding Nietzsche.

KeywordS: Afrikan Spir, phenomenalism, neo-Kantianism, falsificationism

This article is a response to Nadeem Hussains criticisms of the reading of Afrikan Spir and Nietzsche that I offered in Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition.1 My primary goal in writing the book was making sense of Nietzsches falsification thesis: his view that all our judgments about the world (including mathematical judgments and judgments about inner experience) are false. My approach was initially ahistorical. Since Nietzsches own arguments for the thesis were so elliptically formulated, could I come up with any plausible ones myself ? Perhaps the thesis was similar to J. L. Mackies error theory about moral judgments. Or maybe Nietzsche thought all judgments misdescribe the way judgments predicating secondary qualities of the world arguably do.

But the ahistorical approach failed: I simply could not come up with a halfway plausible argument for the thesis. It was only then, in desperation, that I took a look at Afrikan Spirs book Denken und Wirklichkeit.2 I happened to be liv-ing on Capitol Hill at the time, and the Library of Congress was one of the few

waS afriKan Spir a phenoMenaliSt? 153

American libraries that had Spirs book (in particular the second edition, which was the one Nietzsche owned).3 I knew Nietzsche had read and made notes on the book repeatedly during the 1870s and 1880s, and at least one formulation of the falsification thesis (HH 18) contained a quotation from it.

One hundred pages into Denken und Wirklichkeit, I was not that impressed. There were some interesting observations that were arguably of some influence on Nietzsche, but not much that could explain the falsification thesis as I saw it in Nietzsches writings. About to give up, I happened to look at a much shorter but even more obscure book. This was one of the few secondary works on Spir: Theodor Lessings doctoral dissertation, African Spirs Erkenntnislehre.4 It was Lessings book that gave me a feel for the highly unusual nature of Spirs epistemology and made me realize that after one hundred pages I had not yet gotten to Spirs main thesis.

This is, incidentally, a cautionary tale for those interested in making a study of Spirs book themselves. Denken und Wirklichkeit consists of two volumes, each of which is divided into parts that Spir calls books. The first volume contains four booksVorbereitung (Preparation), Grundlegung (Foundation), Hauptfolgerungen (Main Conclusions), and von der Erklrung (On Explanation). The second volume contains twodie Auessere Welt (The Outer World) and das Ich (The Self). It is a striking fact (which may in part be responsible for the books failure to garner the attention it deserved) that it takes a very long time for Spir to present his radical thesis: that the true nature of reality is an uncon-ditioned unity that can be expressed only through the logical laws of identity and noncontradiction and that empirical judgments (including judgments about inner experience) are contradictory, for they attempt to establish a relationship between the unconditioned unity of thought on the one hand and the plurality and change revealed to us by the senses on the other. The first book, Vorbereitung, which runs from pages 25 to 149, is devoted not to presenting the thesis, but to necessary background for an argument in its favor. The argument itself is offered only in the second book, Grundlegung.

Armed with some understanding of Spirs general argument, I returned to Denken und Wirklichkeit. By the time I made it to Grundlegung, it became clear that I had found the keyor, at least, a keyto making sense of Nietzsches falsificationism. When I had finished the second volume, charitable readings emerged of a good deal else that was odd in Nietzsches philosophysuch as curious claims about time, substance, causality, and force.

Hussain agrees with me that Nietzsche accepted a falsification thesis derived from Spir and that Nietzsche held the thesis up until his final period of productiv-ity in the winter of 188889.5 But he disagrees with my argument that Nietzsche took an antinaturalist theory of cognition from Spira theory that occasionally pushed Nietzsche into a form of global noncognitivism. Indeed, Hussain argues that Spir did not have an antinaturalist theory of cognition either (or, at least, not

154 Michael S. Green

the one I attribute to him). The problem with my reading is that I ignore Spirs phenomenalism.6 In the end, Hussain argues, this phenomenalism, denuded of Spirs commitment to the thing-in-itself, inspired Nietzsche to adopt a form of monism similar to that offered by Ernst Mach:7 [T]he position we should accept, once we have dropped the thing-in-itself from Spirs version of Kant, is neutral monism, i.e., the sensory elements shouldnt be thought of as subjective. They shouldnt be thought of as belonging to some particular mind.8

The bulk of my response here is focused on Spirs falsification thesis and its connection to his antinaturalist theory of cognition. Only at the end do I speak, very briefly, of the payoff for interpreting Nietzsche. In addition, because Denken und Wirklichkeit is not widely available and has not been translated into English, I include a large number of very long translated passages from the book. Rather than solely describing what Spir said and citing supporting passages, I use, as much as possible, Spirs own words. Until Denken und Wirklichkeit is translated (a matter that I believe has become a serious priority for Nietzsche studies), it is important to offer as much Spir in English as possible.

I will begin with a terminological point. In Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition I attributed an antinaturalist theory of cognition to Nietzsche,9 not an antinaturalist theory of judgment.10 As I used these terms, a theory of judgment is a descriptive theory about what actually goes on when we make empirical judgments (or, if one prefers, those events that we call empirical judgments), without any assumption that what goes on is thought.11 According to an antinatu-ralist theory of judgment, judgment involves faculties that cannot be described naturalisticallyfor example, faculties that are free in an incompatibilist sense. An antinaturalist theory of cognition, by contrast, is a normative theory about what judgment must be like in order to be understood as thought, that is, as representing something in a manner that makes it true or false of its object.12

Kant and Spir, I argue, held antinaturalist theories of cognition and judgment. They understood thought as requiring a nonnatural faculty, and they considered such a faculty to actually be in play when we judgedeven though, as we shall see, their accounts of empirical judgment differed in very important respects. But I argue that Nietzsche held an antinaturalist theory of cognition only. He did not think that what actually took place when we judged implicated a nonnatural facultyhence the tendency of Nietzsches thought to devolve into a compre-hensive form of noncognitivism, something not evident in either Spir or Kant.

With this terminological clarification in place, I can now offer a brief descrip-tion of the argument I will present in the rest of this essay. I start by again presenting, with more supporting material, the reading of Spir in Nietzsche and the Transcendental Traditionthe one that Hussain thinks is not supported by the textual evidence. Under this reading, Spir held antinaturalist theories of cognition and judgment. Furthermore, these antinaturalist theories are tied to Spirs falsificationism, for the falsity of our empirical judgments stems from the


impossibility of connecting the plurality, succession, and change that is given in the senses to the unity of the thinking subject.

I then consider Hussains reading of Spir as a phenomenalist. One problem with this reading is that Hussain focuses on passages in Vorbereitung, the first book of Denken und Wirklichkeit. These passages, in which Spir claims that what we cognize as a body is really our own sensations, occur before Spir has presented his main thesis and are meant as preparation for the more radical argu-ment for falsificationism offered in the second book, Grundlegung. Seen in the light of this more radical argument, a phenomenalist reading of Spir is untenable.

Following this I consider how we should understand those passages, empha-sized by Hussain, in which Spir claims that our empirical judgments can have a certain conformity to our sensations. As Hussain makes clear, Spir must have thought that certain empirical judgments (for example, that there is currently a computer in front of me) conform to sensations and that others (for example, that there is currently a tiger in front of me) do not, even though all empirical judgments are false. This is not surprising, given that Spir insisted that his falsi-ficationism is a philosophical insight that has no consequences for the empirical sciences. I conclude that Hussain has identified an important element of Spirs thought, although it is one that is completely compatible with my interpretation of Spir.

Finally, I very briefly consider the consequences that all this has for under-standing Nietzsche. Here I repeat my argument that the antinaturalist theory of cognition that Nietzsche inherited from Spir made his epistemological position unstable and at times forced him into a form of global noncognitivism.

Spirs Antinaturalist Theories of Cognition and Judgment

The first piece in Spirs theory of empirical judgment is the antinaturalist theory of cognition that he took from Kant. Kant famously denied that the cognitive unification of particulars that occurs in thoughtsay the unification of two events in a judgment about causal connectioncan be explained empirically.13 To the extent that we understand a causal judgment as simply the product of psychological laws of association of the sort identified by Hume, there is no representation of causal connection at all.14 The fact that the mind moves, for example, from the idea of a cause to the idea of an effect does not mean that these two particulars are united together in thought and so can have the capacity to be about anything.

Spir offers the very same argument:

Take a simple example of a judgment and a conclusion. When I recognize and claim that two things, A and B, are connected to each other, this is a judgment. If only one of two things, A, is given to me and as a result


of that knowledge I claim that the other thing (B) is present, this is a conclusion. What carries out the association? The whole performance seems to consist solely in the fact that the appearance of the content A in me brings with it or results in the appearance of B in my consciousness. That this is no judgment and no conclusion anyone can see. Association is just a purely objective causal law, in essence very similar to other causal laws that exist in nature. But as soon as one adds the capacity of the subject to refer its contents to objects, association of necessity leads to judgments and conclusions. This is because the appearance of a con-tent in my consciousness is bound up with the affirmation or the belief that a corresponding object in reality exists. Only then is the connection, the association of the representations of A and B in my consciousness, brought to a basis of knowledge, from which I deduce the existence of the thing B from the existence of the thing A. The relationship of the content to objects is therefore the only basis for the possibility of judgments and conclusions. But this relationship could never arise by association. (I:7778)

The fundamental mistake of the Sensualists, Spir argues, is that they take representation to be an objective, almost a physical process, which is equiva-lent to a mere combination of various real contents or follows from them by physical laws (I:51).

The unity that occurs in a judgment is necessary even to recognize that two things are similar to one another:

For things [Dinge] to be similar, there must be at least two of them, for similarity is agreement [Uebereinstimmung] in the qualities of several things. These can be as far away as possible from each other, indeed, they can occur at the opposite ends of the world, without there being a discontinuity in their similarity. That which recognizes the similarity of two or more things, on the other hand, must necessarily be one. It is only by grasping the things together, with express consideration of them both, that it can recognize the similarity or dissimilarity. The recognition of the similarity of two things thus cannot be contained within these things themselves: it is an affirmation which, although relating to these similar things, takes place or comes into existence outside of them. (I:52)

Kant tried to account for the unity that occurs in judgment by identifying it with the noncontingent laws of a knowing subject.15 Spir does the same thing:

If you look at the theories which the sensualists have erected concerning the facts of knowledge, it is immediately evident that they implicitly presuppose what they ostensibly deny, namely the original relationship of the knowing subject to objects, precisely the capacity to recognize


objects, which cannot rest in any real [realen] content, whether it is in me or outside me, and cannot take place through physical laws, like those of association. [T]he laws of association are only laws of the represented contents and can only mediately become those of the knowing subject. The knowing subjects own laws are of a very different sort, because they relate to the interpretation of objects that lie outside of representation; they are original norms of knowledge, principles of affirmations, of a logical, not a physical nature. (I:7879)

Furthermore, like Kant,16 Spir understands the cognizing subject to possess spontaneity:

Representations are not like our mental or psychic atoms that in an unme-diated fashion conflict with each other and assemble themselves, but are instead acts of a cognizing subject. By activity or spontaneity one means the original participation of a unity in a multiplicitous occurrence. Such an activity is demonstrable in judgments, conclusions, and all forms of representation and cognition. One must understand, therefore, that the laws of the representing and cognizing subject are themselves different from the laws of the content that occurs in the subject. (I:7475)

And like Kant,17 Spir speaks of us as having awareness of the unity of the know-ing subject, although this unity cannot be met with in experience:

[I]t is the knowing subject in us that is the common and persistent unity that brings together not only that which currently exists (however different and various what exists may be), but also unifies within consciousness what is presently given with both the past and future. It is possible that we can never create an adequate concept for this unity, or for the unity of the self at all; but we cannot on this ground deny that the unity exists. For to deny the unity of the subject means denying yourself. . . . (I:74)

And:

The object of inner experience, our own self [Ich], presents itself to us unquestionably as something that always remains the same as itself, that is, as a substance. I am the same today as I was yesterday or several years ago, from the very beginning of my self-conscious life to whatever might come to pass during this period. But if one asks: What really am I? or, What is this persistent self in me? one finds no real [realen], individual object [Gegenstand] there, only the mere unity of my self-consciousness. The content of my being [Wesens] and existence [Daseins] consists of tempo-rary feelings, thoughts, strivings, and other inner states; what is unchang-ing is only the law of the knowing subject to see all these states as its own and thus to see [erkennen] itself as something persistent. (I:27677)


It follows that Spir held antinaturalist theories of cognition and judgment. He held an antinaturalist theory of cognition, because he insisted that thought cannot be explained naturalisticallyit cannot be found in experience or arise through causal laws. If it exists, it must be the product of a nonnatural faculty. And he held an antinaturalist theory of judgment because he thought that we are aware of this nonnatural faculty in our own judgments.

It is worth noting how Spirs discussion of the cognizing subject differs from the quietistic form of Neo-Kantianism that appeared in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Under this approach, the failure of thought to appear in experience is not a ground for speaking of a subject outside of experience (or for denying that thought occurs at all). Nothing can be meaningfully said about the subjectindeed, even the claim that nothing can be said about it is, strictly speaking, nonsense.

Perhaps the best expression of quietistic neo-Kantianism is the work of Hermann Cohen. Cohen argued that by talking about the source of thought in the apperceptive self, Kant inevitably inclined his followers either toward psy-chologism or rationalist metaphysics.18 Rather than speaking of the source of the laws of thought, Cohen argued, these laws are justified immanently, through the laws themselves.19 As Cohen put it, We begin with thought. Thought may not have an origin outside itself, if its purity is to be unlimited and clear. Pure thought, in itself and exclusively, must alone give birth to itself.20 This form of neo-Kantianism is evident not merely in Cohen, but also in Frege and the early Wittgenstein, as well as Carnap, cited by Hussain.21 It is also arguably evident in Ernst Mach, at least as described by Hussain, for whom sensory content is given to no subject.

If Spir had held such a quietistic Neo-Kantianism, he could both deny that cognition can be explained naturalistically and insist that we nevertheless do think, without speaking of an entitythe thinking subjectthat violates natu-ralistic principles. But Spir was not a quietist. His approach was dualistic.22 On the one hand, there is the realm of beingthe unconditionedthat is evident in ourselves as thinking subjects. On the other hand, there is the realm of becom-ing, of which we have direct awareness in our sensations. He insisted that both worlds exist, even though he denied that any relationship between the two could be articulated and that the world of becoming was, as we shall see, false.

In short, the conclusion that Spir held antinaturalist theories of cognition and judgment is inescapable. But perhaps Hussain would admit that Spir held the antinaturalist theories of cognition and judgment I outline above. What he says is that there is no textual evidence for ascribing [Greens] specific antinaturalist theory of judgment to . . . Spir.23 By using the word specific he may have meant to claim only that Spir did not hold the antinaturalist theories I attributed to him, under which falsificationism follows from the inability to connect thought with sensation. As Hussain puts it, [For Spir], association by itself cannot


explain judgment and logical laws are different from physical ones, but there is no fundamental failure of reference because of the necessity, timelessness, and unity of thought.24

What Hussain thinks is missing in my reading is Spirs phenomenalismSpirs view that what we cognize as bodies are really our own sensations. For Hussain, Spirs falsificationism has its source, not in the problem of connecting thought with sensation, but in the fact that we think of sensations as things that they are not, namely material objects. If we thought about sensations purely as sensations we could judge truthfully.

I shall discuss the issue of phenomenalism later. But I would like to repeat here, with supporting material, my argument that Spirs falsification is indeed connected to his antinaturalist theories of cognition and judgment. To see why, we must begin with his view that we are directly aware of temporal succession.

The Objective Reality of Succession

Although Spir understands representation to occur through the cognizing subject, which is an unconditioned substance, he nevertheless insists that sensations, with their multiplicity, particularity, and change, are directly present to conscious-ness. It is because we have immediate certainty of change through our sensations that Spir criticizes Kants theory of the ideality of time.

For Kant, temporal succession is not given passively in experience, but is instead an a priori intuition.25 As Spir puts it,

Kants doctrine of the ideality of time is, as we know, the assertion that in reality there is no succession and change, that all succession is only one way in which the contents of the cognizing subjects perceptions appear to it, the way that the subject according to its own nature must represent the given. According to Kant, time and succession are only a part of and consequence of the subjects form of intuition or receptivity, or its inner sense. A mind organized differently from ours would observe, accord-ing to Kants view, no succession in the same content that to us appears successive. (I:2078)

But in an argument that was of great importance to Nietzsche,26 Spir asserts that temporal succession must be objectively real:

How can the beginning and the end of conscious life itself, together with all its inner and outer senses, exist only in the view of the inner sense? The actual fact is that one cannot deny the reality of change. If you throw it out the window, it will slip back in again through the keyhole. One can say: It merely seems to me that representations and conditions change, but


this semblance is itself something objectively given. Within it, succession indubitably has objective reality; within it something actually follows upon something else. (I:20910)

Once succession is recognized to be objectively real, Kant has no coherent story about how sensory content is taken up and unified by the cognizing subject. Kants putative solution is to appeal to schemata, which are rules created by the productive or figurative imagination for connecting sensory intuition to concepts.27 The easiest examples of schemata are those involving empirical concepts, such as the concept of a dog. No particular sensory image of a dog (or set of sensory images of dogs) could be adequate to the concept of a dog. The capacity to apply the concept of a dog to empirical intuition means the posses-sion of a rule according to which my imagination can always draw a general outline of the figure of a four-footed animal, without being restricted to any particular figure supplied by experience or to any possible image which I may draw in the concrete.28

With respect to pure concepts of the understanding, such as substance and causality, which have no specific empirical markers for their application, Kant argues that the relevant schemata are rules for the unification of temporal succes-sion within apperception.29 For example, Kant describes the schema of substance as the permanence of the real in time, that is, the representation of the real as a substrate of empirical determination of time in general, and so as abiding while all else changes.30

If sensory content were presented to the cognizing subject outside of temporal successionif such succession arose only after sensory content had been rep-resented to the subject through inner sensethen the notion that some faculty allows sensory content to be taken up by a cognizing subject that is not itself in time would make some sense. But once sensory content is understood as directly given to us as successive, it is hard to see how schemata can bridge the gap between sensation and thought. To act upon successive sensations, the imagination must work in time. But, so understood, it would be no different from Humean principles of association and so fail to connect to the apperceptive unity of thought. The fact that my mind has the psychological capacity to move from one image of a dog to another does nothing to generate the thought of a dog. On the other hand, if the faculty of the imagination functions outside timeif it is on the side of the unity of apperception, one is left wondering how it connects with the particular sensory intuition of a dog, occurring as it does in time. The capacity to think about sensory content remains a mystery.

Hussain notes that Kants failure to recognize that sensations are given to us passively and that they obey laws over which the cognizing subject has no control was essential to Spirs critique of Kant. Here is how Hussain puts it: Once we realize that the sensations have an order to themindeed hang together according to immutable laws of their ownthe entire doctrine of Kants Analytic


falls apart.31 But it is important to see what follows for Spir from Kants failure. The transcendental analytic was meant to show how the unity demanded by the thinking subject (through the categories) could be satisfied by the objects met with in experienceor, to use Kants lingo, how the categories have objectively reality. If the transcendental analytic fails, then these objects fail to satisfy the requirements of thought. As we shall see, it is precisely for this reason that Spir argues that the evidence of the sensesdespite being given to us directlyis false.

How Can We Think of Plurality and Change?

The best way of understanding the significance of the failure of Kants transcen-dental analytic for Spir is to consider the problem of how a subject can represent succession. As we have seen, for Spir succession is given to us directly through our sensations. But there is an important distinction between the temporal flow of sensations and our representation of that temporal flow. The succession of inner states is indeed given with the inner states directly, but the consciousness or knowledge [Erkenntniss] of the succession can nevertheless be reached only through a conclusion, never through direct perception [Wahrnehmung] (I:53). And like Kant, Spir insists that this representation of change is possible only if it is united in my consciousness: Now it is clear, first, that I can know nothing about succession as such unless I have the successive members together [zugleich] in my consciousness. The representation of a succession itself is not successive, and thus is completely different from the succession of our representations (I:209). The question, therefore, is how the temporal flow is represented by the knowing subject, given that Kants resolution of the problemthat temporal flow exists only as representedhas failed.

In one respect, Spirs solution sounds much like Kants: the representation of succession is possible only in reference to enduring substances and causal relations.32 Thus, Spir argues that succession can be thought only if it is put in relationship to something enduring:

The original general law of the knowing subject consists . . . of the inner necessity to know [erkennen] every object in itself, in its own being as self-identical, as self-existent, and fundamentally as always the same or unchangeable, in short, as substance. Only through the relation-ship between successive states to an object that remains self-identical [sichselbstgleichbleibenden] can the same succession be recognized [eingesehen]. (II:177)33

And:

On the basis of this principle [that every real object is equal to itself or not different from itself] . . . the past can be recognized as such and


the consciousness of any succession whatsoever rendered possible at all. (I:88)

But in fact Kants and Spirs solutions to the problem are profoundly different. For Kant the recognition of succession is possible by reference to everyday empirical objectsa plurality of bodies with multiple qualities (for example, both round and heavy) that interact with one another in causal relations. The self-identical substance to which Spir refers, however, cannot be such an object. An unconditional object cannot be both round and heavy, any more than it can be both round and square (I:17879, 19091). The unconditioned must be understood as an unchanging, unitary, undifferentiated Parmenidean One. The very capacity to represent the succession and plurality we receive through the senses involves reference to an entity thatlacking all plurality and changecannot be connected to succession and change at all.

Thus, Spir argues that we can represent change only by denying that change is an essential characteristic of the world. He makes this point repeatedly in his second proof of the highest law of thought (des obersten Denkgesetzes). The highest law of thought is the belief in the unconditioned essence of things (I:185). The second proof of the law proceeds from the nature of change (I:20620). Spir argues that the change that is presented to us in the senses is a creation out of nothingness (Entstehen aus Nichts) (I:214). Sensations arise out of nowhere and disappear into nothing; they come and go according to no causal relations. But even though we are directly aware of this change, we cannot think it without denying its reality:

There is only one way that succession can show itself as a determina-tion essential to successive or sequential contents, that is, only when the successive is connected together. Through the connection each element has a fixed certain place and is therefore an integral constituent of the connection. But when the different are in a unity together [Verschiedenes unter einander in Gemeinschaft steht], so it is necessary for them to pres-ent themselves at the same time, their birth and death therefore as mere appearance. For if all the different things really emerged out of nothing, the only commonality between them would be nothingness itself; in other words, they would have nothing in common with each other. (I:21516)

Although we are presented with sensations coming out of nothing, this cannot be thought:

The mere acceptance of the emergence of a real content out of nothing is contradictory; indeed it is senseless. For with that it is asserted that a noth-ing changes itself into a something, which indicates an obvious confusion of concepts. . . . For in order to know from experience that something is created out of nothing, we would have to have the experience of nothing-ness itself, which is an obvious impossibility. (I:216)


Putting the flow of sensations together in consciousness means denying that this flow is the true essence of reality. To cognize the succession of sensations we must impose upon it a conceptthe unconditionedwith which it can have no connection. For this reason, the objects of experience (the everyday material objects with multiple qualities that exist in causal connection to one another over time) have a contradiction within them. This, for Spir, is the lesson of the Kantian antinomies.

For Kant, of course, the antinomies do not identify a problem with objects of experience. It is only when categories such as substance and causality are taken beyond all possible experience that the contradictions in the antinomies arise. For Spir, in contrast, the antinomies are latent in our empirical objects themselves. They show the failure of thought to connect to the change we are presented with in our sensations. The fact that we find ourselves driven to appeal to first causes or absolutely simple substances is not a philosophical mistake, in which reason goes beyond possible experience. It is instead a manifestation of the failure of thought to succeed in its projectthat is, to think plurality and change. Empirical objects themselves indicate their contradictory nature. They both demand explanation of change in terms of the unconditioned and show that such explanation is impossible. This is the fundamental antinomy (fundamentale Antinomie):34

That the conditional presupposes a condition, is an analytical proposition, says Kant, but that one looks from the conditioned to the unconditioned, according to a synthetic principle a priori, about which the understanding [Verstand] knows nothing, to grasp that a very special faculty, so-called reason, is necessary. . . . However the second proposition is a direct consequence of the first. For if all the conditions themselves are in turn conditioned, to be sure each conditioned would have its conditionbut the conditioned as a whole, as such, would have none. If the conditioned in general, as such, has a condition, it must necessarily be unconditioned. But that the conditioned, as such, can have no conditionthat the uncon-ditioned cannot be thought of as a condition or cause and that a condition or cause cannot be thought of as unconditionedin that lies the funda-mental antinomy. (I:377)

At this point, the basics of the reading of Spir I offered in Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition are in place. The first is Spirs falsificationism: The antinomies show empirical judgments to be contradictory and this manifests their failure to reveal the true nature of the world. The second is the connection between falsificationism and Spirs antinaturalist theory of judgment. The dif-ficulty with empirical judgment is tied to its attempt to thinkthat is, to bring to the unity of the thinking subjectthe succession that is met with in experience. Plurality and change can be thought only to the extent that they are brought


in relationship to the unconditioned, even though the attempt to establish a connection between the two must fail.

For Hussain to claim that there is no evidence for such a reading is fantastic, not merely because once one moves beyond Vorbereitung, the first book of Denken und Wirklichkeit, to Grundlegung and the subsequent books, the evidence for the reading is pervasive, but also because Hussain himself recognizes that Spir argues for falsificationism on the basis of the fundamental antinomy (although he finds Spirs arguments unpersuasive).35

Was Spir Consistent about His Falsificationism?

A brief comment should be made here about the following passage from Denken und Wirklichkeit, which Hussain quotes to argue that Spir does not consistently advocate a form of falsificationism based upon the fundamental antinomy: The objects of experience are therefore neither identical with themselves, nor logi-cally contradictory in themselves, and they stand neither in contradiction nor in agreement to the fundamental law of our thought (I:197). From this passage Hussain concludes, Spir does not consistently think that empirical objects are contradictory. The basis of Spirs falsificationism is instead misdescription: [Spir] emphasizes our thinking of sensations as unconditioned when in fact they are nota comparative argument.36

In fact, the passage that Hussain quotes is consistent with my reading of Spirs falsificationism. First of all, the passage is not unusual. Spir repeatedly says that the objects of experience, although having plural qualities, are not in fact unconditional unities:

Each body has, as we know, multiple properties, but these properties in it are not unconditionally one. When a body is concurrently red, round, sweet, heavy and hard, so is the red not in itself, as such, sweet, and the sweetness is not in itself unconditionally round or heavy. . . . If we isolate in thought a single body from all other objects, we are not able to find in it any ground for a plurality and multiplicity of qualities. (I:195)

The same point is true of our self. Although we are aware of our self as an unconditional unity, the objects of inner experience (a world of spirits [Geister] or souls [Seele]) are not such unities (I:195):

That is why the unity of our own self is incomprehensible and cannot be perceived [wahrgenommen] by us, despite the fact that we are this unity ourselves. For all perception is an act of representation, and so necessarily rests on one side, the side of the subject, and therefore cannot encompass within itself the point of unification between the two. (I:196)


If the unconditioned unity of multiplicity actually presented itself in experience, it would be logically contradictory:

If experience were to present an unconditioned unity of multiplicity, it would be logically contradictory in its own essence [Wesen] and so stand in contradiction to our law of thought [the law of identity]. Then we would be presented with the alternative, either of rejecting the validity of our law of thought or the testimony of experience. (I:194)

Rather than being unconditioned unities, objects of experience are conditioned unities, unities in terms of that which is itself conditioned. We do not experience a first cause, only causes that are themselves causes. We do not experience simple substances, only substances that are themselves composite. And a conditioned unity of various qualities in an object is not a difference in the object in itself [von sich selber], i.e., not a contradictory opposite to the principle of identity (I:191). But even though objects of experience are not logically contradictory, they nev-ertheless do not stand in agreement with the fundamental law of thoughtonly a substance without plurality and change is in complete logical agreement (vollkommener logisher bereinstimmung) with that law (I:194).

This explains the passage Hussain quotes. The objects of experience are not identical with themselves [for they have multiplicity], nor logically contra-dictory in themselves [for they are not unconditional unities], and they stand neither in contradiction nor in agreement to the fundamental law of our thought (I:197). They would be in contradiction with the fundamental law if they were unconditional unities of plurality and in agreement if they were a unity without plurality and change.

This does not mean that I was in error to argue in Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition that Spirs falsificationism was based on the view that empirical objects (or empirical judgments) are contradictory.37 In addi-tion to logical contradiction, Spir speaks of a real contradiction [einen realen Widerspruch] that occurs when an object contains elements that are foreign to it, such that the object is not self-identical (I:34950). Empirical objects, he argues, are contradictory in this sense.

The idea is that empirical judgment contains elements that cannot be connected to each other without logical contradiction. Insofar as one thinks about sensa-tion one seeks to put it in relationship to the unconditioned. Logically, no such relationship can be established, which is why the empirical objects that we judge are not in fact logically contradictory. But without the project of establishing a relationship, one would not have begun looking for conditions for plurality and change in the first place, and thus would not have judged empirical objects to exist. The elements of thought and sensation within empirical judgment separate upon reflection. I find that speaking of empirical judgment as contradictory is the best way of getting across to readers the heart of Spirs falsificationism.


But an alternative formulation is that empirical judgments are false because sensation, upon which such judgments are based, is false. The essence of the world is unconditioned unity. Sensation, by presenting us with plurality and conditionality, is contrary to this essence:

Now we also see how experience, precisely due to its non-conformity with the basic law of thought [that reality is unconditioned] offers proof of the objective validity of the law. This proof rests in the fact that in experience everything is conditioned, that in experience every object and every state of affairs of an object exists in connection with other objects according to common laws, without being one with those objects. Thus the conditionality of an object means . . . the presence of elements in it that are alien to the nature of things in themselves. The conditional unification of the different, as in the relativity of empirical objects, . . . is therefore an indubitable sign that experience contains elements that are alien to the nature of things in themselves. Thus experience is also testimony to the law of thought. (I:199)

Phenomenalism?

With my reading in place, we can now move on to the question of whether Spir was a phenomenalist. I take it that phenomenalists believe that the evidence of the senses presents us with the truth about reality. By identifying the objects of knowledge with sensations, phenomenalists are able to explain why we know what reality is like, rather than treating sensations as an imperfect and distorted view about reality. But if any philosopher thought that the senses did not offer us the truth about reality, that philosopher was Afrikan Spir. Because what is given to us by the senses has multiplicity and so cannot be unconditioned, experience cannot tell us about the essence of things:

We can arrive at the insight that what is given is contingent and presup-poses something unconditioned that is distinct from it only through a genuine metaphysical consciousness, namely that that which is real and actual is identical to itself in its essence, and therefore not so constituted as we know it in experience; and therefore, that the empirical given nature of the real or actual contains elements that are alien to its true essence. This way it is immediately clear why we necessarily must contribute the unconditioned to all that is conditioned and yet are not able to grasp the unconditioned as the condition of the same. (I:379)

The view that the succession and change that we experience through the senses does not reflect the true nature of reality is not mentioned once or twiceit is the main thesis of Denken und Wirklichkeit. I think that it is fair to say that someone


who writes a book arguing that the senses cannot tell us about the essence of things cannot be a phenomenalist.

Although there is little secondary literature on Spir, what exists does not pres-ent him as a phenomenalist either.38 Consider, for example, Theodor Lessings doctoral dissertation on Spirs epistemology. Like me, Lessing argues that Spir thought that sensations fail to reveal the essence of reality:

In the very nature of things there is complete identity with itself, but in the empirical presentation [Darstellung] of things, however, there is no self-identity, and this itself is a sign that in it lies an alien abnormal ele-ment which makes itself felt as contradiction and untruth to the intellect, and as pain and evil to the feelings.39

One might ask how, if what we are given is sensation, Spir can claim that it is falseespecially since such a claim leaves it an utter mystery how the plurality and change of sensation connects to the unconditioned true nature of things. How can something that is real be false? If reality is an unchanging unity, how can the error of plurality and change arise? How can being give rise to becoming?

But this apparent gap in Spirs epistemology reveals the truly distinctive character of his approach. Unlike past philosophers, who have sought to explain the experi-enced world, Spir denies that an explanation (Erklrung) is possible, even though our very nature as thinking beings impels us to demand it (I:31986). Empirical judgment contains within it an irresolvable puzzle that results from its attempt to bridge two worldsthe worlds of being and becomingthat cannot be put into a relationship to one another. Indeed, Spir argues that the goal of explaining the experienced world is the original and fundamental error (Ur- und Grundirrthum) in philosophy (II:290) as much evident in Kants exploration of the faculty of knowledge (Erforschung des Erkenntnisvermgens) (II:289) as it is in metaphysi-cal speculation.

Hussains phenomenalist reading of Spir draws, not upon passages from the second book (Grundlegung), in which Spir presents his thesis that the essence of reality is the unconditioned, but on passages from the first book (Vorbereitung),40 in particular those in which Spir argues that what we cognize as a body [Krper] is really nothing other than our own sensations.41 But, as Spir makes it clear at the end of Vorbereitung, the claim that our judgments about bodies are actually about our own sensations is not there to show that phenomenalism is truebut just the opposite. It shows that the essence of things is unconditioned, despite the fact that the concept of the unconditioned fails to correspond with anything we meet in experience. The view that all we have in our knowledge of bodies is our sensations is meant to show that our sensations fail to reveal the essence of things:

Now let us quickly summarize the results of previous investigations. It has been proved that our knowledge of bodies cannot arise through the process of induction, nor through a conclusion concerning the causes


of our sensations on the basis of an a priori concept of causality, nor also, as Mill claimed, through mere association of ideas. It has also been ascertained that in the bodies we encounter in our experience we know nothing other than our own sense-perceptions and that, conceptu-ally, bodies are substances, that is, unconditioned. Through all of this it is shown beyond doubt that behind our knowledge of the body is an original law of thought, not derived from experience, and that this law can be nothing else than a concept of the unconditioned, an inner disposition of the subject, to think of each object in itself as absolute, or as a substance. (I:14748)

The failure of sensations to correspond to our concept of an object is a prepara-tion for an even more radical argument offered in the second book:

This result is an introduction or substructure for the insights discussed in the second book. For although the proof of the objective validity of the law of thought treated there will be derived from other facts, it remains the case that the law serves as the foundation of our knowledge of bodies and provides powerful subjective evidence for it, that is a powerful proof of its presence. (I:148)

The fact that when we judge our sensations we see them in relationship to a material object is simply one example of the broader phenomenon described in the second book: the plurality and change of sensation can be thought only in relation to the unconditioned, even though no relationship between the two can be established.

Indeed, Spir claims that one way that the argument that what we judge to be objects are really our sensations prepares us for his more radical argument for falsificationism is by removing a bias in favor of the senses:

At the same time the previous studies have offered something of educa-tional value, a result that can contribute much to necessary discipline of thought. People are in fact currently too prone to trust exclusively only that which can be seen and grasped, and to look down contemptuously on each abstract representation and inquiry. Such a disposition of mind would now, if firmly held, clearly make the emergence of a broader world view completely impossible, in spite of all its inherent legitimacy. But once the reader has seen in the 4th Chapter [of the first book] that sensory appearancewhich convinces us of a world of external things through what we can grasp with our hands and see with our eyesis refuted by the facts themselves, he will be receptive to the important insight of the 2nd Chapter, that the certainty and reliability of our ideas has its basis in their own nature, and is independent of whether the representations are abstract or concrete and whether the represented objects are near or far,


or before or behind us. It is necessary that the reader has appropriated this insight for himself, if he is to follow the investigations of the next book with genuine understanding and benefit. For the investigations of the second book concern the concept of the unconditioned, which we have ascertained so far as the law of thought grounding the knowledge of objects. There is no object in the whole wide scope of experience that truly corresponds to this conceptand yet the concept is not only in itself certain, but also the basis of the certainty in any knowledge that proceeds from the immediate perception [Wahrnehmung] of our inner states and modification. (I:14849)

Hussain might respond, however, that he did not consider Spir to be, in fact, a phenomenalist. Rather, he would be a phenomenalist if he got rid of his commit-ment to the unconditioned.42 Since what we cognize as material objects are our sensations, we could simply replace those objects with our sensations.

As Adelaide said about her fianc Nathan Detroit, Ive always thought how wonderful he would be, if he was different.43 Spir without the unconditioned is not Spir. Astonishingly, Hussain treats Spir as having adopted the concept of the unconditioned without argument: Spir simply accepts that there is an uncondi-tioned thing-in-itself; he thinks that this is simply not an issue since no one questions its existence!44 In fact scores of pages in Denken und Wirklichkeit are devoted to showing that belief in the unconditioned is the fundamental law of thought. Spir accepts it, not because no one questions its existence, but because he thinks no one can question its existenceit is implicated in the very act of thought itself.

I think Hussain believes a phenomenalist Spir is viable, because, as he sees it, Spir considered thought about our sensations to be possible without assuming the unconditioned. For Spir [t]here is no special problem referring to sensations since they lie within us.45 The unconditioned is implicated only when we move from judgments about sensations to judgments about material objects. Thus, we could imagine Spir giving up the unconditioned and reducing material objects to sensations. This also explains why Hussain thinks I am wrong in consider-ing Spirs falsificationism to be tied to the problem of connecting the flow of sensation to the thinking subject: since we can think about sensations without the unconditioned, the connection between thought and sensation is likewise unproblematic.

Although Hussain cites seven passages (I:11, I:2729, I:3739, I:45, I:64, I:7172, I:8283) in favor of this reading,46 in none of them does Spir say that we can refer, that is represent, our sensations without the unconditioned. To be sure, Spir insists that we have immediate awareness of our sensations:

All I find in my mind is, as a mere fact of consciousness, immediately certain. When I see an object, there can be doubt about whether the object seen exists outside of my consciousness, but there is no doubt that I have


the given visual impressions which awaken in me the representation of an observed object outside of me. . . . The same applies to all the content of our consciousness. It is doubtful whether this content corresponds to anything outside of us, but the given content of consciousness itself is beyond all doubt. In the content of our consciousness, we have all and any immediate certainty of a factual [factischer] nature. (I:2728)

But this is distinct from the representation of sensations. And, as we have seen, because representation of sensationsindeed the very recognition that they fol-low upon one anotherrequires uniting them in thought, it requires connecting them to an unconditioned substance:

That the representation of internal states is something distinct from the states themselves is first proved by the fact that they are compared to each other, that their relationships and their succession upon one another is recognized, which is not detectable in the flowing internal states them-selves, but only in a consciousness that is capable of determining them, at once grasping them together. (I:57)

If this substance is not an external object, it is the self:

In our self-knowledge the foundational law of our thought claims valid-ity in the same way as in the knowledge of bodies, namely through the necessity to interpret given objects as substances. That is why we see ourselves in fact as a substance. . . . (II:179)

In short, a phenomenalist reading of Spir is a nonstarter. For Spir, nothingnot even those sensations of which we are directly awarecan be thought with-out implicating the concept of the unconditioned. Spirs falsificationism is pervasive.47

The Conformity of Our Empirical Judgments to Sensation

But if Spir thought that all empirical judgments, even those about sensations, are in error, how can we explain his occasional statements, which Hussain emphasizes, that such judgments are not completely in error, for they have a certain conformity to our sensations? Hussain quotes from the following passage:

The law of thought requires that we conceive of each object [Gegenstand] in itself as something identical with itself, as a substance. But the subject stepping into life cannot possibly reach consciousness of the fact that we do not experience things the way they are in themselves. Therefore, it is physically compelled to see [erkennen] objects as substances. The presup-position that experience must agree with our law of thought . . . however,


is quite natural and inevitable in the knowing subject, in which it has its first function. And with this presupposition, the subject is not completely in error. For although the given objects (the sensations) do not logically agree with the laws of thought, that is, they are not things truly identical to themselves and therefore not real substances, they are factically [factisch] accommodated to them and in conformity with them. This is because our sensations are so arranged by nature that we can cognize [erkennen] in them without real incongruence a world of bodies in space. In this lies the empirical truth of this cognition. (II:74)48

It is a brute fact that sensations have patterns that allow us to make judg-ments about stable empirical objects, even though those judgments are false.49 Furthermore, some judgments (e.g., that there is currently a computer in front of me) conform to sensations while others (e.g., that there is currently a tiger in front of me) do not.

Here, I think Hussain is clearly right. Indeed, Spir must think that certain empirical judgments are empirically supported in some sense, for he insists that his philosophy is not in conflict with the natural sciences (I:3132). But this does not justify phenomenalismin which objects are simply identified with these patterns of sensations. To the extent that I think about these patterns of sensations, my judgments are no less false than judgments about material objects. When making judgments about objects of inner sense, I also must understand them in reference to an unconditional substance (in this case, the self) (II:179). Insofar as I represent these sensations as successive or as similar, a connection with the unconditioned has been assumed. Indeed, Spir argues that inductionthe very notion that the future will be like the pastdepends upon the concept of the unconditioned (II:27374).

In the end, an account of the sensory support for our empirical judgments that Hussain identifies must rely not upon a phenomenalist view that representation of sensation is unproblematic, but upon a notion of unconscious sensation.50 Sensations are unconscious not in the sense that we are not aware of them, but because they have not yet been made any object of thought. For this reason the conformity of our judgments to sensations is completely compatible with the falsificationism I identified in Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition, in which the falsity of our judgments is tied to the problem of uniting the succes-sion of sensation with the unity of the thinking subject.

Conclusion

We can now briefly turn to what lessons can be drawn from Spirs falsification-ism for Nietzsche. Because Hussain has given me no reason to alter the interpre-tation of Spir I offered in Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition, I remain


committed to the account of Spirs relationship to Nietzsche that I presented in that book. I can therefore be brief.

In two respects, Nietzsche fundamentally disagrees with Spir. First of all, Nietzsche sees the concept of the unconditioned, rather than sensation, as the source of falsity:

It is what we make of [the senses] evidence that first introduces a lie into it, for example the lie of unity, the lie of materiality, of substance, of duration. . . . Reason is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. Insofar as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie. (TI Reason 2)51

In their details, however, Nietzsches arguments for falsification mirror Spirs. For Nietzsche, the problem with empirical judgment is that it seeks a connection between the conditioned and the unconditioned, between being and becoming, that cannot exist.52 And like Spir, Nietzsche believes that falsification is as much in play when we speak of inner experience as material objects.53

To be sure, we should add to Nietzsches falsificationism, as we did to Spirs, Hussains insight that empirical judgments must, in some sense, conform to sensations. As Hussain rightly notes,54 this helps explain those passages in which Nietzsche endorses empirical judgments, despite their falsity, as approxima-tions (BGE 21). But to the extent that Nietzsche borrowed Spirs falsification-ism, we cannot understand him as a phenomenalist, for judgments about inner experience are as false as those about material objects.

The second way that Nietzsche differs from Spir is the following: Spir is a dualist. Both being and becoming are real, although becoming is false or, as Lessing puts it, abnormalit is an inexplicable deviation from what should be.55 But Nietzsche is a monist. All that exists is becoming. Thus, Nietzsche is not the perfect converse of Spir: he does not argue that being, although real, is somehow deviant or abnormal. Instead, becoming creates the deception of being.56

As I argued in Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition, this position is unstable. As we have seen, Spirs falsificationism is tied to his antinaturalist theory of judgment. The falsity of our empirical judgments is due to the impos-sibility of successfully connecting the plurality and change of sensation to the unity of the thinking subject. But if everything is becoming, then there is no unity of the thinking subject and thus no reason for falsificationism. If there is no thinking subject, all that is going on in our judgments is the flow of sensations. There is therefore no reason to think that our judgments (for example, about causality or substance) falsify.

For this reason, I have difficulty understanding the position Hussain ultimately attributes to Nietzsche. On the one hand, he thinks Nietzsche has given up on the notion that there is a thinking subject. For Nietzsche, as for Mach, sensations are not owned by a self.57 On the other hand, Nietzsche is supposed to have somehow


retained his falsificationism. Our judgments attribute more to sensations than they are (by treating them as material objects in causal relations).58 But what are these falsifying thoughts? Where do they come from, now that the think-ing subject has been abandoned? If sensations are all there is, shouldnt causal judgments or judgments about substances simply be understood in terms of the flow of sensations? And, so understood, how can they be false?

In contrast, in Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition I argue that Nietzsches monism put pressure on his Spirean falsificationism and moti-vated him to adopt two other positions. Under the first, Nietzsche retains Spirs antinaturalist theory of cognition (while rejecting his antinaturalist theory of judgment) and concludes that what goes on in our judgments does not count as thought. This is the global noncognitivism that I think is a neglected theme in Nietzsches thought.59 The second, antirealist, positionwhich is the dominant interpretation among Nietzsche scholarsis to resurrect an account of true judgment that is compatible with Nietzsches description of what actually goes on when we make judgments. Since what counts as thought under the antinatu-ralist theory of cognition cannot be satisfied, Nietzsche embraces a naturalized theory of cognition,60 which allows for thought without falsification. This is, in broad outlines, Maudemarie Clarks interpretation of Nietzsche, and, although I disagree with some of the details,61 I think she has unquestionably identified one epistemological theme in Nietzsches writings.

The problem with relying solely upon Clarks interpretation is whyas Hussain rightly notes62Nietzsche returns again and again to falsificationism, including right up to the very end of his period of productivity in the late 1880s. Why does he vacillate between three epistemological positions: noncognitivism, antirealism, and falsificationism? Although I cannot elaborate on the matter here, I think the fundamental reason is the Kantian antinomies, which Nietzsche reads in a Spirean fashion as forcing falsificationism and an antinaturalist theory of cognition upon us.63 Having accepted a naturalized theory of cognition and the truth of our judgments about the empirical world, the antinomies return to undermine them both.

College of William and Mary School of [email protected]

noteS

This article is based on a paper I presented at a session of the North American Nietzsche Society on Nietzsche as a figure in the history of philosophy. I would like to thank the participants in that session, Paul Loeb and Gary Shapiro, and the sessions organizer, Jessica Berry, for helpful comments. Thanks also to Robert Leventhal for checking and suggesting revisions to my translations of Spirs German, and to Kristin White for editorial help. Support for writing this essay was provided by the Robert E. and Elizabeth S. Scott Research Professorship.


1. Michael Steven Green, Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002).

2. Afrikan Spir, Denken und Wirklichkeit: Versuch eine Erneuerung der kritischen Philosophie (Leipzig: J.G. Findel, 1877). All citations to this book, indicating volume and page number, are presented parenthetically in the text.

3. The evidence is that Nietzsche studied Spirs book in 187374, early 1877, 188082, and 1885. See Green, Transcendental Tradition, 46.

4. Theodor Lessing, African Spirs Erkenntnislehre (Giessen: Mnchow, 1900).5. See Nadeem J. Z. Hussain, Nietzsches Positivism, European Journal of Philosophy 12.3

(2004): 35558. For an early argument for the continuity of falsificationism in Nietzsches thought, see R. Lanier Anderson, Overcoming Charity: The Case of Maudemarie Clarks Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy, Nietzsche-Studien 25 (1996): 30741.

6. Nadeem J. Z. Hussain, Review of Michael S. Green, Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition, Philosophical Review 113.2 (2004): 276. More recently, Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick have offered a somewhat different phenomenalist account of Spir. Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick, The Soul of Nietzsches Beyond Good and Evil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 10312. Although Hussain differs from Clark and Dudrick in their respective readings of Spirs alleged phenomenalism, my criticism of Hussains reading applies to Clark and Dudricks as well. See, e.g., notes 40 and 41 below.

7. Hussain, Nietzsches Positivism, 34055.8. Hussain, Nietzsches Positivism, 348.9. Furthermore, he expresses a commitment to an antinaturalist theory of cognition only at

times. He vacillates between such a theory and a more naturalistic account of cognition.10. For an example of a misreading of my book due to a failure to distinguish between

the two, see Alan White, Nietzsche and Transcendental Philosophy, International Studies in Philosophy 38 (2005): 2944. Hussain speaks of me as attributing an antinaturalist theory of judgment to Nietzsche, but he recognizes that it is a normative not a descriptive theory; see Hussain, Review of Michael S. Green, 275.

11. Green, Transcendental Tradition, 173 n. 9.12. Green, Transcendental Tradition, 173 n. 9.13. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York:

St. Martins, 1965), B142. Hussain inexplicably attributes the reading of Kant that I offered in Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition, the brief details of which are presented here, to Henry Allisons reading of Kant, e.g., in Henry E. Allison, Kants Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983). Hussain, Review of Michael S. Green, 276. But the reading I present is sufficiently basic that it is uncontested among Kant scholars. I quote liberally from Kant himself and only occasionally cite Allison. Hussain does nothing to show my reliance on Allisons reading.

14. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B45.15. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B14142.16. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A445/B473.17. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B13133.18. Andrea Poma, The Critical Philosophy of Hermann Cohen, trans. John Denton (Albany:

State University of New York Press, 1997), 19, 74.19. Poma, Critical Philosophy of Hermann Cohen, 52, 6163; see also Thomas E. Willey,

Back to Kant (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1978), 1028.20. Hermann Cohen, Logik der reinen Erkenntnis (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1914), 13.21. Rudolf Carnap, Der logische Aufbau der Welt (Hamburg: Meiner, 1998), 65, cited in

Hussain, Review of Michael S. Green, 277.22. E.g., Lessing, African Spirs Erkenntnislehre, 108.


23. Hussain, Review of Michael S. Green, 276.24. Hussain, Review of Michael S. Green, 276.25. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B54/A37.26. See PTAG, 15. For a discussion, see Green, Transcendental Tradition, 4650.27. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A7778/B1023, A13742/B17681.28. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A141/B180.29. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A142/B181.30. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A143/B183.31. Hussain, Nietzsches Positivism, 341.32. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A18289/B22432, A189211/B23256.33. Part of this passage is quoted by Nietzsche in HH 18.34. I discuss the fundamental antinomy in connection with Spirs discussion of judgments

about causality and substance in Green, Transcendental Tradition, 6387.35. Hussain, Review of Michael S. Green, 277: Spir is not a source for better error-theory

arguments. Two arguments for an error theory perhaps would avoid a comparison with sensations: (i) the argument that all true claims have to be analytic and (ii) the fundamental antinomy: the given is not self-identical, thus contains elements that are foreign to the real, but where could something to the real come from other than the real? Neither of these is better than the argument that Green rejects on philosophical grounds. Although this passage shows that Hussain is aware of the argument from the fundamental antinomy, he actually makes a basic mistake in it about Spirs philosophy. Spir never declares that all true claims have to be analytic. Granted, he thinks that the true unconditioned nature of reality can be described only through the laws of identity and noncontradiction. But he very clearly and emphatically states that the laws of identity and noncontradiction are synthetic rather than analytic (I:16267).

36. Hussain, Review of Michael S. Green, 277.37. E.g., Green, Transcendental Tradition, 58, 62.38. Robin Smalls excellent discussion of Spirs thought does not read him as a phenomenalist.

Robin Small, Nietzsche in Context (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001), 120. The same is true of Paolo D'Iorio, La superstition des philosophes critiques: Nietzsche et Afrikan Spir, Nietzsche-Studien 22 (1993): 25794. The only exceptions, besides Hussain, are Clark, who is motivated to call him a phenomenalist for much the same reason as Hussain, and Steven D. Hales and Rex Welshon, Nietzsches Perspectivism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 38, who, without discussion, describe Spir as a sort of neo-Kantian phenomenalist.

39. Lessing, African Spirs Erkenntnislehre, 49. One may wonder about Lessings reference to pain and evil. Spir takes the existence of pain as one of three proofs that reality is unconditioned. In my book, I did not discuss the proof from pain, choosing instead to emphasize his proofs from the relativity of empirical objects and from the essence of change. But I hope to explore this aspect of Spirs thought, which is of critical importance in understanding his relationship to Nietzsche, more fully later. For a brief discussion, see Michael Steven Green, Eternal Recurrence in a neo-Kantian Context, Kriterion: Revista de Filosofia 54 (2014): 45973.

40. Of the twenty-six passages from Denken und Wirklichkeit cited or quoted in Hussains review, eighteen are from the first book, before Spir has presented his main thesis. Furthermore, four more passages are from a section in the second volume in which he discusses our knowledge of external objects. Only four passages are from Grundlegung, in which Spir presents the foundation of his position, and two are those are quoted by Hussain only to reject Spirs argument as implausible. Hussain, Review of Michael S. Green. When attributing phenomenalism to Spir, Clark and Dudrick also never get past the first book. Clark and Dudrick, Soul of Nietzsches Beyond Good and Evil, 10312.

41. Hussain, Review of Michael S. Green, 276, quoting I:113. Hussain also cites I:23, but that is a blank page. Spir expresses the same point elsewhere, however (e.g., II:73). Clark and


Dudrick follow Hussain in seeing phenomenalism in Spirs statement that what we cognize as an object is only our own sensations; see Clark and Dudrick, Soul of Nietzsches Beyond Good and Evil, 109.

42. Hussain, Nietzsches Positivism, 34144.43. Frank Loesser, The Guys and Dolls Book (London: Methuen, 1982), 117.44. Hussain, Nietzsches Positivism, 342.45. Hussain, Review of Michael S. Green, 277.46. Hussain, Review of Michael S. Green, 278 n. 6.47. In Nietzsches Positivism, Hussain takes back his statement that for Spir sensations can

be unproblematically referred to: This does not mean that we have some other way of positively stating in detail what the flux of sensations is likeour language and thought, given our concept of body, just doesnt allow for this. In one sense then the groups of sensations are given, but in another sense they arent since anything we attempt to say about themor at least almost anythingwill involve falsification (343). With this concession, however, I have difficulty understanding just what Hussain finds objectionable in my reading of Spir.

48. I have changed Hussains translation slightly.49. Hussain, Nietzsches Positivism, 342. In addition to I:27677, where this statement can

be found, Hussain cites I:164 in favor of this proposition. But all Spir says on that page is that the law of identity is synthetic.

50. In the end, Hussain appears to agree. See note 47, above.51. Here I use R. J. Hollingdales translation; otherwise, translations are my own.52. See, e.g., Green, Transcendental Tradition, 6387.53. KSA 12:2[204] (Autumn 1885Autumn 1886), translated as The Will to Power 475;

KSA 11:26[49] (SummerAutumn 1884), translated as The Will to Power 476; KSA 13:11[113] (November 1887March 1888), translated as The Will to Power 477. See also Green, Transcendental Tradition, 11516.

54. Hussain, Review of Michael S. Green, 277.55. Lessing, African Spirs Erkenntnislehre, 56.56. E.g., KSA 9:11[329] (SpringAutumn 1881). See Green, Transcendental Tradition, 6770,

9293.57. Hussain, Nietzsches Positivism, 346.58. Hussain, Nietzsches Positivism, 34950.59. See especially Green, Transcendental Tradition, chap. 4.60. Here naturalized is being used roughly to refer to an account of thought as occurring

within becoming.61. Green, Transcendental Tradition, 10213, 14446.62. Hussain, Nietzsches Positivism, 35558.63. Green, Transcendental Tradition, 14849.

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