Clark M and Dudrick - Nietzsche's Post-Positivism

Nietzsche’s Post-Positivism

Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick

As Nadeem Hussain tells us, Nietzsche has been interpreted recently as ‘similarin many ways to contemporary naturalists’ (Hussain 2004: 326).1 This inter-pretation makes Nietzsche in effect a post-positivist, an empiricist and naturalistwho had learned, long before Quine, to dispense with the various dogmas thatoften accompany these positions (cf. Quine 1961). Hussain resists this inter-pretation because of Nietzsche’s apparent commitment to the thesis thatknowledge falsifies reality. Maudemarie Clark has argued at length that thisfalsification thesis, which has inspired much postmodernist rejection of scienceand truth, is found in Nietzsche’s early works but is abandoned in his later andgreater ones (Clark 1990). Hussain therefore seeks to undermine Clark’s accountof Nietzsche’s development. Focusing on the passage that Clark takes to be thecrucial one for understanding Nietzsche’s ultimate rejection of the falsificationthesis, he argues that her account of the passage is problematic in several ways,not the least of which is that Nietzsche’s historical context makes it seemimplausible. Interpreting it instead as expressing Nietzsche’s commitment toMachian positivism offers us a more historically accurate and philosophicallysatisfactory interpretation of the passage, he thinks, and it also explains how laterNietzsche could have accepted the falsification thesis while at the same timepraising science and dismissing the thing-in-itself as incoherent.

Although we applaud Hussain’s close attention to the details of Nietzsche’sargument and the contemporary sources on which he drew, we remainunconvinced by his case for interpreting Nietzsche as a Machian who remainedcommitted to the falsification thesis. Hussain does pinpoint important problemsfor Clark’s account of Nietzsche’s development, but we will argue that he drawsthe wrong conclusion from them. We contend that the problems can be fixed, andthat attention to the contemporary sources for Nietzsche’s thought actually helpsto provide an improved defense of Clark’s thesis that Nietzsche abandoned hiscommitment to the falsification thesis.

Although Hussain understates a crucial component of Clark’s developmentalstory (her stress on the subjective idealism presupposed by Nietzsche’s originalcommitment to the falsification thesis), his account of Clark’s 1990 interpretationis basically accurate. Nietzsche originally held that knowledge falsifies becausehe believed that all knowledge is empirical and he accepted the Kantian positionthat empirical knowledge does not correspond to things as they are inthemselves. When he came to reject the whole idea of the thing-in-itself asincoherent, he therefore had reason to reject the falsification thesis. And we havereason to believe that he did precisely that because we find no evidence of a

European Journal of Philosophy 12:3 ISSN 0966-8373 pp. 369–385 r Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004. 9600 Garsington Road,Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK, and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

commitment to that thesis in any of his last six books, those written after BeyondGood and Evil (Nietzsche 1886, henceforth BGE). The main problem for Clark’sstory of Nietzsche’s development is that she thinks he continued to accept thefalsification thesis in BGE, the same book in which he dismisses the whole idea ofthe thing-in-itself.2 Clark attempts to explain how Nietzsche could have gottenhimself into this intolerable situation by suggesting that he now believed hecould infer the falsification thesis from a ‘naturalized version of Kant’s theory ofknowledge’ and therefore did not need the thing-in-itself for this purpose (Clark1990: 121). He took reality to be the ‘chaos of sensations’ that is falsified by the apriori elements that our organization imposes on it. In Clark’s story, BGE 15 is theturning point in Nietzsche’s development because it offers an argument againstidentifying reality with the chaos of sensations. Thereafter Nietzsche had no basisfor the falsification thesis because he no longer posited a reality that could beseen as falsified by our knowledge claims, and this explains why it plays no rolein the six works that come after BGE.

1. Beyond Good and Evil and the Falsification Thesis

Hussain’s first objection to Clark’s account of Nietzsche’s development is that itis implausible to suppose that Nietzsche understood the argument of BGE 15 asClark claims—i.e., in a way that undermines the falsification thesis—given that,as she also claims, he remains committed to that thesis in BGE (Hussain 2004: 327,330). We concede this objection to Clark’s account, but point out that she canrespond to it by abandoning her claim that BGE retains Nietzsche’s earlier viewthat knowledge falsifies. In fact, Clark proposes precisely this solution in a paperthat Hussain cites but does not discuss (Clark 1998b).3 She explains the textualbasis for this solution in a forthcoming paper (Clark 2005), and we will brieflysummarize it here.

BGE’s two problematic passages for those who believe that Nietzscheovercame the falsification thesis are 4 and 11, for they apparently claim thatlogic, mathematics, and synthetic a priori judgments all introduce falsificationinto thought and yet are indispensable for it, thereby implying that all thoughtfalsifies. But we find reason to doubt that this is the correct interpretation of thesepassages if we pay sufficient attention to their context. At the beginning of BGE 4,Nietzsche says that falsity ‘is to us not necessarily an objection to a judgment; it ishere that our new language may perhaps sound strangest’. This seems to comeout of the blue. What ‘new language’ is he talking about? Where else is hespeaking it? Nothing in the surrounding text seems to explain these matters. Butthat is an illusion. As always, when reading Nietzsche, and especially BGE, weshould remember his request in the preface to the new edition of Daybreak,written just after he finished BGE, that we ‘learn to read [him] well’, that is, to‘read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft, with reservations, withdoors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers’ (Nietzsche 1997 [1886]: 5).

370 Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick

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To follow this request in the case of BGE 4, we should consider its claims aboutthe falsification involved in logic and mathematics as made in the context ofNietzsche’s suggestion that he is speaking a ‘new language’ in which falsity ‘isnot necessarily an objection to a judgment’. We should also consider the threesentences that immediately precede this suggestion.

Behind all logic and its seeming sovereignty of movement standevaluations. . . . For example, that the definite should be worth morethan the indefinite, and illusion [Schein] worth less than ‘truth’: suchvaluations might be, in spite of all their regulative importance for us,mere foreground appraisals, a particular type of niaisierie, precisely whatmay be necessary for the preservation of beings like us. Supposing, thatis, that not just man is the ‘measure of things’. . . (BGE 3)

The final sentence indicates that the passage’s earlier claim—that the evaluationsstanding behind logic might be ‘mere foreground appraisals’ or a kind of ‘folly’or ‘stupidity’—presupposes that man is not the sole measure of things. But doesNietzsche accept that presupposition? The formulation of the final sentence andthe ellipsis in which it ends are surely designed to raise that question for anyserious reader. Although we cannot argue this here, it seems plausible thatNietzsche denies this precisely in the sense that is relevant to the passage. That is,he denies that there is some measure beyond human beings to which ourcognitive norms (or our moral norms, but that is a different issue), certainlyincluding those of logic, are answerable. This is one of the main claims of BGE.When he suggests that the evaluations standing behind logic might be ‘mereforeground appraisals’ or a kind of ‘folly’ or ‘stupidity’, he is therefore speaking a‘new language’, one in which these words have a different meaning than they doin his (and our) normal language. This is why he warns us in the very next line,the opening sentence of BGE 4, that falsity ‘is not necessarily an objection to ajudgment; it is here that our new language may perhaps sound strangest’. This‘new language’ is a matter of talking as if there is some ‘measure of things’beyond us, something to which our cognitive norms are intended to measure up.

This is how we should understand the claim of BGE 4 concerning the ‘fictionsof logic’ and the ‘purely invented world of the unconditional and self-identical’.Nietzsche is here speaking as if ‘not just man is the ‘‘measure of things’’ ’. If wepresuppose that there is some outside standard to which the basic norms of logicare supposed to measure up, then we should consider them false, for they do notmeasure up to any such standard. But when Nietzsche is not presupposingsomething he takes to be false, it makes no sense for him to say that logic is a‘fiction’ or that it falsifies. Indeed, except for BGE 11, of which a similar analysiscan be given, there is no further evidence of such a view of logic in the restof BGE, or in any later book (Clark 1990: 104–5; cf. Clark 2005), and no reasonto think it plays a part in the important arguments of BGE. And, as we will seeand as Hussain certainly agrees, BGE contains other passages in which

Nietzsche’s Post-Positivism 371


Nietzsche’s meaning does not become clear without a lot of hard thinking aboutthe rhetorical features and the structure of the argument.

2. The Argument of Beyond Good and Evil 15

We turn now to the heart of Hussain’s case against Clark’s developmental thesisand in favor of interpreting Nietzsche as a Machian.4 Recall that, according toClark, BGE 15 is the turning point in Nietzsche’s development, that it exhibits hisgrounds for abandoning the falsification thesis. Hussain finds it implausible,given the contemporary philosophers Nietzsche was reading, that his argumentin BGE 15 is the one Clark claims to find in it. He argues that Nietzsche’shistorical context suggests that his argument is actually a quite different one infavor of Machian positivism or sensualism, and that this interpretation offers asatisfactory explanation for several striking features of the passage that Clark’sinterpretation leaves unexplained.

We will focus on Hussain’s discussion of the first half of the argument of BGE15, which we divide below into segments A and B.

[A] To do physiology with a clear conscience, one must insist that thesense organs are not phenomena in the sense of idealistic philosophy; assuch they could not be causes!

[B] Sensualism, therefore, at least as a regulative hypothesis, if not as aheuristic principle. —

Hussain’s most important objection to Clark’s account of the passage is that itleaves segment B unexplained. Clark never mentions that Nietzsche is evidentlyarguing for sensualism in the passage or that, as Hussain claims, he seems toendorse sensualism on the basis of segment A of the argument. This is animportant objection. Without an account of how Nietzsche thinks he can get fromA to B, how can one be sure of the interpretation of A? After all, it should be aconstraint on the interpretation of A precisely that it allow one to conclude to B.Although Clark does not explain the logic of the move from A to B, we suggestthat she could have explained it in a way that coheres well with the rest of herinterpretation as follows.

1. If one is to pursue physiology with a good conscience, then one mustaccept the findings of physiology. (premise)

2. Among the findings of physiology is that the sense organs are causes,i.e., are causal conditions of knowledge. (premise)

3. Therefore, if one is to pursue physiology with a good conscience, thenone must accept that the sense organs are causal conditions ofknowledge. (1, 2)

4. If one accepts that sense organs are phenomena in the sense ofidealistic philosophy, then one must deny that the sense organs arecausal conditions of knowledge. (premise)



5. Therefore, if one is to pursue physiology with a good conscience, thenone must deny that the sense organs are phenomena in the sense ofidealistic philosophy. (3, 4)

6. Sensualism is the claim that the sense organs are causal conditions ofhuman knowledge. (definition)

7. If one is to pursue physiology with a good conscience, then one mustaccept sensualism. (3, 6)

This makes explicit howNietzsche can validly conclude to sensualism from segmentA (steps 1–5), given Clark’s reading of segment A. Clark reads A straightforwardly:Nietzsche is committed to pursuing physiology with a good conscience and so heconcludes that the sense organs are not mere phenomena, but are causes. Ourrendering of the argument makes clear that the point of this is that the senses arecausal conditions of knowledge, and that this is precisely what sensualism is.

This still leaves a number of things unclear, however, for instance, what itmeans ‘to pursue physiology with a good conscience’, why sensualism is taken asa ‘regulative hypothesis’, and the role of the rejection of idealism in the argument(steps 4 and 5 seem superfluous). We will return to these matters after weconsider why Hussain would reject our view of the argument’s structure.

3. Sensualism as Empiricism

Hussain agrees, indeed insists, that Nietzsche is committed to sensualism, thusthat segment B endorses sensualism in Nietzsche’s own voice. He denies,however, that Nietzsche understands sensualism in the way we define it in step6. Whereas we take sensualism to be a claim about the role of senses in knowledge,he takes it to be a claim about the world of which we have knowledge. He readsthe doctrine Nietzsche endorses in segment B as ‘Machian positivism orsensualism’, which is clearly an ontological doctrine ‘according to which theworld consists of sensations’ (Hussain 2004: 354, 345). Mach—and, by Hussain’slights, Nietzsche in BGE 15—endorses ‘neutral monism’ (Hussain 2004: 348) onwhich ‘sensations’ are better called ‘elements’, ‘to emphasize that these elementsare not to be understood as belonging to some particular self . . . and because theyare the most basic building blocks—elements—of the world’ (Hussain 2004: 345).

Why does Hussain reject an epistemological reading of Nietzsche’s sensual-ism? He considers it an ‘obvious interpretation . . . that sensualism refers to theepistemic claim that all knowledge comes from the senses’, but he just does notsee how it could be ‘a presupposition of doing physiology with a goodconscience’ that ‘there are no other sources of knowledge’, say, a priori ones, norhow it could be a result of physiology that the senses give us knowledge.‘Physiology has to take the senses as causes since according to such accounts thesense organs were part of a causal process leading from external stimuli tosensations within us. But how does it follow from this that the sensations give usknowledge?’ (Hussain 2004: 336). The problem, then, is that on our definition ofit, Hussain does not see how sensualism could be entailed or presupposed by



physiology. He therefore does not see what grounds Nietzsche could have foraffirming the truth of our step 2 (that physiology shows us that the senses arecausal conditions of knowledge, i.e., that they are necessary for knowledge).Although our definition of sensualism in step 6 makes it possible for Nietzsche toget validly to his conclusion from step 2, it therefore also makes it difficult to seehow he could have thought he had a sound argument for that conclusion.

We can begin to answer Hussain on this point, and to clarify the matters leftunexplained by how we have laid out the argument, if we consult BGE 14 forhelp in understanding BGE 15. Hussain quotes its opening suggestion that‘physics too is only an interpretation and arrangement of the world’, but that it isand ‘must for a long time to come be regarded as more’, namely, as a ‘world-explanation’, ‘insofar as it is based on belief in the senses’ (BGE 14; Hussain 2004:326). But Hussain fails to consider how this ‘belief in the senses’ is related to thesensualism of BGE 15. Surely it is relevant to the interpretation of the latter thatBGE 14 tells us that basing physics on belief in the senses makes it

fascinating, persuasive, and convincing [to] an age with fundamentallyplebian tastes [because] it follows the instinctive canon of eternallypopular sensualism. What is clear, what ‘explains’? Only what can beseen and felt—this is as far as one must pursue any problem. (BGE 14)

Is this the same sensualism that Nietzsche endorses in BGE 15? On the one hand,he suggests that it isn’t by linking it to what he takes to be the erroneous viewthat physics is a ‘world-explanation’ and by disparaging it in comparison to ‘thePlatonic way of thinking, which was a noble way of thinking, [and] consistedprecisely in resistance to obvious sense-evidence’ (BGE 14). On the other hand,however, consider the final sentence of BGE 14:

‘Where man cannot find anything to see or to grasp, he has no furtherbusiness’—this is certainly an imperative different from the Platonic one,but for a tough, industrious race of engineers [Maschinisten] and bridge-builders of the future, it may be precisely the right imperative. (BGE 14)

Given the parallel to the subtitle of BGE, ‘Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future’,one must assume that Nietzsche places himself among (probably at the head of)the ‘engineers and bridge-builders of the future’, i.e., those who are planning andbuilding the means to the future. He is saying, then, that the imperative inquestion ‘may be precisely the right imperative’ for him.

But isn’t this imperative precisely the ‘eternally popular sensualism’ hedisparaged earlier in the passage? Compare 1) ‘What is clear, what ‘‘explains’’?Only what can be seen and felt—this is as far as one must pursue any problem’and 2) ‘Where man cannot find anything to see or to grasp, he has no furtherbusiness’. The two formulations are very close, both telling us that all we need forknowledge is empirical evidence. The only difference is that the first, but not thesecond, takes empirical evidence to ‘ ‘‘explain’’ ’. The obvious way to interpretthis difference—given Nietzsche’s apparent commitment to empiricism in the



passage combined with his disparagement of the ‘eternally popular’ version—isthat the latter assumes that views based on the evidence of the senses give us anultimate explanation, one that goes beyond the kind of explanation a goodHumean empiricist would be willing to give. That would be an explanation thatis more than a higher-level description, one that shows that the way the world ishas what Kant calls ‘unconditioned necessity’ (which is precisely what wouldmake it a ‘world-explanation’). On the second characterization of sensualism, ittells us simply that after we have provided the empirical evidence for a doctrineof physics, say, there is no more theoretical work to do. Not because we nowknow why the world has to be the way it is, but because the way we gainknowledge of the world is through the senses. This is the sensualism that BGE 14implies ‘may be precisely the right imperative’ for Nietzsche—eternally popularsensualism, but stripped of its assumption that empirical theories offer more thanhigher-level descriptions. It also appears to be the doctrine of sensualism we havealready attributed to Nietzsche to make sense of the logic of BGE 15, namely, theclaim that the senses are causally necessary for knowledge.

If this is correct, then the last sentence of BGE 14 not only defines thesensualism to be endorsed in BGE 15 but also sets up Nietzsche’s endorsement ofit. For the obvious question raised by the ending of BGE 14 is: why exactly wouldsensualism be ‘precisely the right imperative’ for Nietzsche? The beginning ofBGE 15 gives us the answer, that if one is to ‘pursue physiology with a goodconscience’, one must accept that the senses are causal conditions of knowledge.

4. Pursuing Physiology with a Good Conscience

Of course, we have yet to explain why accepting sensualism—that the senses arecausal conditions of knowledge—is required if one is to ‘pursue physiology witha good conscience’. Or even what the latter phrase means. Turning to theseissues, consider the somewhat striking fact, which is not apparent in any of thefour English translations of BGE we have consulted, that Nietzsche uses the sameverb ‘treiben’, which we have translated as ‘to pursue’, both in relation tophysiology in BGE 15—‘to pursue physiology with a good conscience’ [‘UmPhysiologie mit guten Gewissen zu treiben’]—and to characterize ‘eternallypopular sensualism’ in BGE 14—‘this is as far as one must pursue any problem’[‘bis so weit muss man jedes Problem treiben’]. It could, of course, be accidentalthat Nietzsche uses the same word in these two quite different contexts. But wedoubt it, given Nietzsche’s mastery of the language he uses, especially in BGE,and the fact that ‘der Trieb’—the noun ‘drive’—which is derived from ‘treiben’, isone of key terms in the book. We suggest that he is trying to signal that there issome important connection between the two contexts, something to think abouthere. What might that be?

It is helpful to bring in Lange’s work here, agreeing with Hussain thatNietzsche certainly had Lange in mind in writing in BGE 15. We add that he alsohad Lange in mind in writing BGE 14 and in constructing the transition to BGE



15. Eternally popular sensualism says that sense evidence is the bottom line, thatthis is the point to which we must pursue or push or drive every problem. ButLange disagreed with the popular view, insisting that there is a further point towhich we can push or drive knowledge, namely, to physiology. As Hussain putsit, ‘Lange suggests that the physiology of the sense organs ‘‘leads us to the verylimits of our knowledge’’ ’ (Hussain 2004: 331; Lange 1879 [1873]: III 202). It doesthis by explaining how the senses work to give us the information about theworld of material objects that we already take ourselves to have. Of course, asHussain makes clear, Lange adds that physiology also shows us that the sensesgive us only ‘effects of things’, thus that what we take to be material objects areonly ‘pictures of an unknown object’ (Hussain 2004: 332). This is precisely thesubjective idealism (or ‘representationalism’) against which Clark took Nietzscheto be arguing in BGE 15 (Clark 1990: 123–4). We agree. Nietzsche’s point insegments A and B, as we have laid out the argument, is that if one pursues orpushes physiology—that is, uses physiology, as Lange does, to go beyondpopular sensualism to explain how we got the knowledge it takes us to have—then one must, to be consistent (i.e., to have a good conscience), accept that thesense organs are causal conditions of knowledge and deny that they are mere‘pictures’. For ‘as such they could not be causes!’ (BGE 15).

Hussain’s concern about how the physiology of the sense organs couldpossibly show that we have knowledge makes sense if he means how it couldjustify the claim that we have knowledge. That is, of course, the project oftraditional epistemology, but there is good reason to think Nietzsche rejects thatproject. In Twilight of the Idols, he says:

Today we possess science precisely to the extent to which we havedecided to accept the testimony of the senses—to the extent to which wesharpen them further, arm them, and have learned to think themthrough. The rest is miscarriage and not-yet-science—in other words,metaphysics, theology, psychology, epistemology. (Nietzsche 1982 [1889]:‘ ‘‘Reason’’ in Philosophy’ 3, emphasis our addition; henceforth TI)

The distinction Nietzsche implies here between ‘miscarriage’ and ‘not-yetscience’ is presumably the distinction between those fields that cannot be doneon an empirical basis (metaphysics and theology) and those that have nottraditionally been done on such a basis (psychology and epistemology) (cf. Clark1990: 105). We take it that Nietzsche rejects the traditional justificatory project ofepistemology, that of providing a philosophical grounding for knowledge. For him,the empirical inquiry of the natural sciences stands in no need of philosophicaljustification, and his ‘epistemology’ is an empirical, explanatory doctrine.

5. Sensualism as a Regulative Hypothesis

But doesn’t Nietzsche’s sensualism belong to the traditional epistemologicalrealm of justification? After all, he calls it an ‘imperative’ and formulates



it as a claim about where we have ‘no business’, namely, in the realm ofa priori theorizing. Hussain’s question is how physiology could justify suchan imperative. Our answer is that it doesn’t, certainly not all by itself. Aswe have been arguing, Nietzsche’s claim is that if we are going to use physiologyas Lange did—to explain how we get the knowledge or gain the informationwe take ourselves to have—then we must accept that the senses are causalconditions of knowledge. But if we are to explain how the senses are involvedin our coming to have knowledge, we must already accept that we haveknowledge. The justification for taking ourselves to have knowledge isindependent of the use of physiology to explain it.5 Nevertheless, once wehave a physiological explanation for the knowledge we take ourselves to have onsome independent grounds, we have a reason to rule out the pursuit of non-empirical knowledge. This does not mean that we have shown that a prioriknowledge, say of the existence of God, is impossible. Obviously, no physiologicaltheory could show that. But according to our theory, all knowledge is conditionedby the senses, which are therefore causally necessary for knowledge. So the projectof using physiology to explain the knowledge we take ourselves to have commitsus in all consistency to doubting claims to a priori knowledge.

The resulting theory is, of course, a hypothesis, an empirical theory. It mayturn out that there is knowledge for which the senses are not necessary. Aconsistent sensualism must accept the possibility that we might be led (byempirical evidence) to reject sensualism as false. That is, dogmatic empiricismmust be rejected. Nevertheless, Nietzsche claims we have reason to acceptempiricism ‘at least as a regulative hypothesis’—as an imperative to regulate ourcognitive behavior, to keep us ‘faithful to the earth’, as Zarathustra puts it(Nietzsche 1982 [1883–85]: e.g., Prologue 2, ‘On the Gift-Giving Virtue’ 2; cf. ‘OnImmaculate Perception’). Of course, we may or do also accept it as more thanthat, as the truth about how all knowledge is acquired. But the point is that ourdegree of confidence in its truth need not be greater than it is for other empiricaltheories in order to accept the theory as having regulative implications for ourbehavior.

But why introduce norms or regulations at all—why not be satisfiedwith a purely descriptive theory about how we acquire knowledge? ClearlyNietzsche thinks the history of philosophy shows us that we need morethan that. Claims against the role of the senses in knowledge are all too attractive.We take Nietzsche at his word when he says that such challenges arisefrom ‘a noble way of thinking’ (BGE 14). If we are concerned less with honorthan with truth, however, we ought to resist easy assent to such claims; Nietzsche’sformulation of sensualism as an imperative is designed to foster this resistance.6

6. The Rejection of Idealism in BGE

If we have now answered Hussain’s objections to interpreting Nietzsche’ssensualism as an epistemological doctrine that is equivalent to a consistent or



non-dogmatic empiricism, we yet haven’t answered his objection to takingNietzsche to be arguing against Lange’s idealism. We have agreed, in effect, withClark that BGE 15 exhibits ‘Nietzsche’s realization that for purposes of giving anempirical account of human knowledge, he must presuppose the existence ofreal, independently existing things: brains, sense organs, the bodies to which theybelong, and the bodies with which they interact’ (Clark 1990: 123). Hussainresponds that this is implausible given Nietzsche’s historical context, because ‘inLange Nietzsche would have come across a reductio of precisely the kind ofempirical theory of knowledge Clark wants to ascribe to’ him (Hussain 2004:331). We offer two answers.

First, why think Nietzsche would have accepted Lange’s ‘reductio’? Hussaintakes Lange’s argument to be that

physiology itself undermines the reliability of the evidence it is based onand thus undermines the theories of physiology themselves. In theprocess it also undermines the materialistic worldview of mind-, orbrain-, independent physical objects in three dimensional space and time.(Hussain 2004: 334)

Hussain denies that this argument, which he claims Nietzsche would haveencountered in Lange, depends on the traditional demand for a securefoundation for knowledge (Hussain 2004: 8–9). But this is not easy to accept.

What physiology in the end shows us . . . is that for all I know I could be,for example, a brain in a universe which consists only of my brainsurrounded by a thin membrane that generates just the right pattern ofelectrical impulses for the optical nerve, the auditory nerve, etc. (Hussain2004: 333)

But what, then, does physiology add to the traditional skeptical problem? How isthe ‘challenge’ posed by physiology (‘Physiology shows that it is possible that Iam a brain-in-a-vat’) fundamentally different than that posed by Descartes (‘It ispossible that I am deceived by an evil genius’)? If Nietzsche gave no credence tothe latter challenge, why think he was moved by the former?

The argument Hussain attributes to Lange appears to be something like this:Physiology tells us that what is happening when we claim to know that P is thatsome particular nerves are stimulated, etc. But those nerves being stimulated, etc.is compatible with a wide range of accounts of the external world. What reasonhave we to suppose that the one we had taken to be true is in fact true? Withoutsome such reason, our account of the external world is unjustified. And as wehave seen, physiology furnishes us with no such reason. Therefore, our accountof the external world, including that of physiology, is unjustified—and we learnthis by attempting to do physiology with a clear conscience, and while findingout that it can’t actually be done with one.

Hussain’s Lange may be right that physiology furnishes us with no (non-question-begging) reason to hold that our account of the world is true. But it does



not follow that ‘for all I know’ that account may be false and I might be a brain ina vat. For among the things I know are many which imply that that account istrue and that I am not a brain in a vat. Now the argument here offered is,admittedly, circular. But the circle is vicious only if we are trying to give afoundational justification for our knowledge claims. For even if many accounts ofthe world are compatible with what physiology tells us is happening when wemake claims about the world, that is problematic only if we restrict our sources ofevidence to physiology itself. And we would do so only if we were attempting touse physiology to give a foundational justification for knowledge. Therefore, theargument Hussain attributes to Lange is effective only if one thinks that onemust, and cannot, supply a theory which provides foundational justification forour knowledge claims (which include those that result from our everydaysensory interaction with the world, as well as its extension and refinement innatural science). We have reason to doubt that Nietzsche would have acceptedthis.

Second, Nietzsche would have come across the very argument Clark claimedto find in BGE 15—against using physiology to conclude to idealism—in one ofthe authors Hussain sees as constituting Nietzsche’s historical-intellectualcontext, namely, Afrikan Spir. Nietzsche studied the first edition of Spir’s Denkenund Wirklichkeit from 1873 on, quoted from the second edition of 1877 in Human,All Too Human 18 (Nietzsche 1996 [1877] henceforth HA), clearly was referring toSpir as a ‘distinguished logician’ in HA 16, and was re-reading and taking noteson Spir’s book in 1885, while he was writing BGE (Green 2002: 46). Manypassages of BGE reflect its presence in Nietzsche’s thought (most obviously: BGE10, 15, 16, 17, 34, 43). Here is a relevant passage from Spir:

John Stuart Mill was one of the very few thinkers who saw perfectlyclearly that what we cognize as bodies are our own sensations. Amongthese thinkers, however, Mill was, as far as I know, the only one whomade the attempt to derive our knowledge of the world of bodies solelyfrom the given sensations, without pulling in physiological knowledge,which would not be permitted since physiological experience alreadypresupposes the knowledge of the world of bodies and consequentlycannot be used for the explanation of its origin. (Spir 1877 I: 135)

The first sentence makes clear that, as Hussain also notes, Spir held that materialobjects are in fact ‘our own sensations’. Spir thus accepted a phenomenalismsimilar to the Machian one Hussain attributes to Nietzsche (more on whichbelow), a position that makes bodies or material objects, in Nietzsche’s phrase,‘phenomena in the sense of idealist philosophy’. But Spir argues in this passagethat one cannot consistently derive phenomenalism from physiology because thelatter ‘already presupposes knowledge of the world of bodies’. Thus, accordingto Spir’s argument, someone who ‘pursues physiology’ in the way Lange did, toexplain the origin of our knowledge, and who makes no appeal to a prioriconsiderations, cannot consistently conclude to phenomenalism (which Clark



called ‘representationalism’ or ‘subjective idealism’). This is the argument wetake Nietzsche to be giving in BGE 15 and it is basically the one that Clarkclaimed to find there.7

Of course, on our account, Nietzsche disagrees with Spir’s conclusion thatphysiology ‘cannot be used to explain the origin of such knowledge’. Butconsider the footnote in which Spir explains that conclusion:

That is, physiological knowledge may be used for explanation of theknowledge of bodies, but only from the viewpoint of physiology, ofempirical knowledge in general, which shows [what is in fact] oursensations as a world of bodies. The theory of knowledge, in contrast,cannot use such empirical knowledge, for it has to show first how ingeneral we come to cognize our sensations as a world of things outside ofus. (Spir 1877 I: 135; bracketed material our addition)

In other words, physiology cannot ‘explain’ knowledge in a way that willcontribute to the traditional foundational project of epistemology, to which Spir iscommitted and on which he bases his phenomenalism, as we will argue below.Since, as we have already argued, there is good reason to think that Nietzscherejects that project, he is free, as Spir puts it, to use ‘physiological knowledge . . .for explanation of the knowledge of bodies’, and to deny the need for anexplanation from some ‘viewpoint’ that goes beyond that of ‘empirical knowl-edge in general’.

We conclude, then, that it makes perfect sense, given his historical context andhis other philosophical views, for Nietzsche to be offering the argument Clarkclaimed to find in segment A of BGE 15—an argument against using an empiricaltheory to conclude to idealism. And the earlier parts of our discussion fill in whatClark leaves unexplained—how Nietzsche can conclude to sensualism (whichSpir treats as equivalent to basic empiricism) from segment A. We therefore seeno basis for seeking an alternative to Clark’s interpretation of BGE 15 (Hussain2004: 328), much less for supposing that Mach’s ontological version of sensualismhas anything to do with its argument.

7. Nietzsche’s Rejection of Spir’s Foundationalism

Hussain offers a final argument for attributing Machian sensualism to Nietzschethat takes seriously Spir’s influence on him. Although it will not salvage hisreading of BGE 15, it is helpful in setting out Nietzsche’s historical context, andultimately in seeing why that context would not have led Nietzsche to Machiansensualism. Hussain tells us that several features of Spir’s work help to shed lighton Nietzsche’s.

The first is the conception of the world of experience in phenomenalistterms as made up of sensations that come and go in various clustersaccording to their own laws. The second is the conception of our



thoughts, and of our language, as referring to clusters of sensations usingconcepts given which all such claims, literally construed, are false. Whatis important to see is that according to such a view our claims aboutmiddle-sized objects would be false even if there were no thing-in-itself.. . . [The third is that although] my representations are false . . . they [may]convey information about something in the world of experience otherthan them. (Hussain 2004: 342–3)

The Spirean views Hussain highlights here are important for understandingNietzsche. Nietzsche did indeed accept Spirean phenomenalism at some point—e.g., in HA and the first edition of GS—and that is why he thought he still hadgrounds for accepting the falsification thesis after he rejected the thing-in-itself. Itwas (at least mostly) from Spir that Nietzsche took over the theory that Clarkclaimed Nietzsche was rejecting in BGE 15. In these earlier works, he acceptedfrom Spir that the necessary a priori components of knowledge falsify the ‘chaosof sensations’, which he considered ‘reality’ precisely because sensations are thereal content of knowledge, the only part we don’t contribute or ‘make up’. But theconcept of the thing-in-itself plays an important part in Spir’s theory, andHussain claims that ‘if we were to remove the thing-in-itself’ from Spir’s account,as Nietzsche did, ‘then the apparent world we would be left with would be thatof Mach’s sensory elements’ (Hussain 2004: 347). This seems right: Mach’sneutral monism, according to which ‘sensations’ are not ‘subjective’, in that theydo not belong ‘to some particular mind’, does seem to follow if one simplyremoves the thing-in-itself from Spir’s view. But we doubt that Nietzsche everaccepted the Machian view. Nietzsche would have been forced to adopt Mach’sneutral monism only if, while rejecting the thing-in-itself, he continued to acceptSpir’s commitment to traditional epistemology. But since he rejects both,Nietzsche steps off the Spirean boat before it steams into the Machian port.

To see this, consider that Spir begins his book with a chapter on ‘theimmediately certain’ in which he argues for the Cartesian position that ‘aphilosophy worthy of the name must begin with immediate certainty’ (Spir 1877I: 28)—for ‘immediate certainty is the source of all certainty’ (26) and it wasDescartes’ insight that immediate certainty ‘of a factual nature’ (in contrast to therational certainty we have of logical truths and principles of knowledge) is to bediscovered only ‘in the content of our consciousness’ (28). This is what the cogitoamounts to, ‘expressed in universal and precise terms’: ‘Everything that I find inmy consciousness is immediately certain as simple fact of consciousness’ (27).Spir explains that when I see an object, there is room for doubt

whether the seen object exists outside my consciousness. But that I havethe given impression of sight which awakened in me the representationof a seen object outside of me admits of no doubt. . . . The same holds forthe whole of the contents of consciousness. So one may doubt whetheranything outside of us corresponds to this content, but the given contentof consciousness itself stands beyond all doubt. (Spir 1877 I: 27–28)



This Cartesian argument not only gets Spir aboard the traditional epistemologicalproject, but it also sets him on course towards phenomenalism. Hussain implies,without exactly saying, that Spir agreed with Lange that one can get tophenomenalism from physiology (Hussain 2004: 332, 333). But this is simply notthe case. We have already quoted a passage in which Spir denies just that.Further, Spir makes clear that his phenomenalism comes from two differentsources: the ‘teachings of physiology’ and the ‘facts of perception’:

Physiology teaches that all perception is mediated by the sense organsand that every sense organ is capable of a specific, unique stimulation,which is always the same, however different the objects that affect theorgan. The optical nerve gives only light and color sensations . . . whetherit is affected by electricity or light waves. . . . Physiology thus teaches thatour sensations are completely separate from real external things,completely unlike and incommensurable with them. (Spir 1877 I: 119)

Hussain quotes this passage to show that Spir uses the ‘teachings of physiology’to conclude to phenomenalism, but he ignores the role played by what Spir callsthe ‘facts of perception’ in arriving at this conclusion. These ‘facts’ are that‘external things are themselves immediately perceived, the material objects of ourexperience are themselves seen and touched, smelled and tasted, have directly todo with these and know nothing of any mediated process of perception’. It isfrom the combination of these ‘facts of perception’ with the teaching of physiologythat Spir thinks phenomenalism follows, specifically, the thesis ‘that which wecognize as material objects are nothing but our own sensations’. But how does thisfollow? Spir reasons that because we have no awareness of sensations thatmediate our perception of a chair, the immediate object of perception is the chairitself. Physiology, however, tells us that the perception of the chair is in factmediated by sensations. Spir thinks the only way to reconcile this finding ofphysiology with the ‘facts of perception’ is to conclude that the chair oneimmediately perceives is a collection of one’s own sensations.

But this clearly doesn’t follow. Granted that the perception of an object ismediated by sensations, why can’t the object perceived belong to the world thatis external to consciousness? Spir’s answer can only be the Cartesian position heargues for at the beginning of his book, as we have seen, namely, that we haveimmediate certainty concerning—and only concerning—the contents of conscious-ness, i.e., the immediate objects of consciousness. The immediate object ofperception must therefore be something of which we can be immediately certain.According to Spir’s argument for the Cartesian position, one can never be certainthat one is aware of a chair that is external to consciousness, but only of being‘appeared to chairly’, to use Chisholm’s formulation (Chisholm 1966). Therefore,the immediate object of perception must be this chairly appearing and not a chairthat is external to consciousness. Spir thus needs the claim that we haveimmediate certainty of the contents of consciousness to get to his phenomen-



alistic conclusion that the object one perceives is in fact of a collection of one’sown sensations.

Nietzsche clearly must reject this argument. In BGE 16, he rejects ‘immediatecertainties’, starting with the Cartesian cogito, along with the thing-in-itself and‘absolute knowledge’, and he uses one of Spir’s characteristic Latin phrases to doso, saying that these concepts involve a ‘contradictio in adjecto’ (BGE 16; Spir 1877,e.g., II: 132). Thus, while Spir’s position minus the thing-in-itself may wellresemble Mach’s sensualism, Nietzsche had no reason to accept the latter becausehe rejects much more of the former than the thing-in-itself. He rejects the wholerole that immediate certainties allegedly play in knowledge and certainly do playin Spir’s thought, and therefore has no reason to accept phenomenalism, northerefore to move in Mach’s direction.

For Hussain, the attraction of Mach’s sensualism is that it ‘allows us to seehow, unsurprisingly in the end given his historical context, it is possible toreconcile the falsification thesis with Nietzsche’s empiricism’ (Hussain 2004: 355).But this reconciliation requires Nietzsche to be a phenomenalist who takesmaterial objects to be ‘phenomena in the sense of idealist philosophy’. In BGE 15,as we argued earlier, Nietzsche rejects Lange’s view that physiology impliesphenomenalism. We have just argued that in BGE 16 he also rejects Spir’s viewthat one can get to phenomenalism by combining physiology with ‘the facts ofperception’. Clark’s 1990 account is thus largely right about the central role ofBGE 15 in Nietzsche’s move away from the falsification thesis. It would havebeen more accurate, however, if it had presented BGE 15 and 16 (the former asilluminated by its connection to BGE 14) as the twin bases of Nietzsche’srecognition that he must abandon his commitment to the falsification thesis.

We conclude that Hussain’s paper is a valuable attempt to look to Nietzsche’scontemporaries for insight into the structure of his thought and that it offersimportant arguments against Clark’s 1990 account of Nietzsche’s development.These arguments have driven us to illuminate more of Nietzsche’s argument inBGE 15 than Clark was originally able to do. Yet, we still think that Clark, guidedlargely by the principle of charity, gave a better reading of Nietzsche’s argumentin BGE 15 than does Hussain, even though he takes into account more ofNietzsche’s intellectual-historical context. This is probably because Nietzschewas actually a better and more far-seeing philosopher than Hussain gives himcredit for being, a judgment for which we think our brief examination ofNietzsche’s contemporaries provides some evidence.

Maudemarie ClarkDepartment of Philosophy and ReligionColgate University13 Oak DriveHamilton, NY [email protected]

David DudrickDepartment of Philosophy and Religion

Colgate University13 Oak Drive

Hamilton, NY 13346USA

[email protected]



NOTES

1 The main sources for the interpretation to which Hussain refers are Leiter 2002, Clarkand Leiter 1997, and Clark 1990, 1998a and 1998b. Schacht 1983 and Wilcox 1974 representearlier versions of the interpretation of Nietzsche as a naturalist.

2 For purposes of simplification, we ignore here the role of The Gay Science (Nietzsche1974 [1887]), henceforth GS). Clark claims that the falsification thesis is found in GS andthat it contains an argument that is the basis for Nietzsche’s rejection of the thing-in-itself,but not that he actually recognizes the thing-in-itself as incoherent in this work.

3 Unfortunately, in this paper Clark also denies that the falsification thesis is present inGS. This is implausible. Clark’s current view is that the falsification thesis is present in thefirst four parts of GS, which was published in 1882, but not in the fifth part and preface,published in 1887, thus the same year as GM and the year after BGE.

4 We are ignoring here Hussain’s second objection to Clark’s account, namely, that itleaves certain puzzles regarding the empirical theory of knowledge that, according toClark, BGE 15 gives Nietzsche a reason to abandon (Hussain 2004: 331). Although there issomething to what he says here, we think that our overall account shows that he draws thewrong conclusion from it—that Nietzsche actually accepted Mach’s theory. The realproblem is rather that Clark did not make clear enough the necessary a priori component ofthe theory Nietzsche accepted. For some clarification, see our discussion of Spir’sfoundationalism in the last section of this paper.

5 Of course, physiology can in no way offer a complete explanation of how we come tohave knowledge of the world. There are many other dimensions of the explanation—e.g.,historical, social or cultural, and conceptual. BGE 16 alludes to the conceptualrequirements for having any knowledge at all, and GS 110 suggests something ofNietzsche’s account of the historical and social dimensions of knowledge. In the passagesunder consideration in this paper, Nietzsche’s point is that to the extent that we accept thatknowledge depends on the evidence of the senses, we can explain how this works onlythrough physiology—by explaining how the senses allow us to gain information about theworld.

6 In TI, Nietzsche tries to foster resistance in a different way, by presenting inquiry intothe role of the senses in knowledge as itself tempting. Just before the passage quoted above,Nietzsche says,

And what magnificent instruments of observation we possess in our senses! Thisnose, for example, of which no philosopher has yet spoken with reverence andgratitude, is actually the most delicate instrument at our disposal: it is able todetect minimal differences of motion which even a spectroscope cannot detect.(TI, ‘ ‘‘Reason’’ in Philosophy’, 3)

7 Clark notes the connection between the argument of BGE 15 and this passage fromSpir in Clark 1998b: 75.

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Clark M and Dudrick - Nietzsche's Post-Positivism

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