Talk:Perspectivism

Analysis

In all morphological occurrences through the prospect of time, I believe it is unmistakeably doubtless that Friedrich Nietzsche is the first (inasmuch is to be so far considered apparent) perspectivist, which is immediately notable from his manuscripts--specifically note, The Will to Power Vintage Books Edition, September, 1968, edited by Walter Kaufmann, p. 149, subh. 259 (1884). Now, someone can very easily grasp the essence of perspectivism as a view, but it is also important to represent how Nietzsche also viewed perspectivism within its own context (viz., its tenability, wherefores, etc.), and that could thus be tied in his corresponding article. In any event, the case stands thus. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.136.148.208 (talk) 19:51, 5 December 2004 (UTC).

The problem is that the The Will to Power is not a reliable source of Nietzsche's thinking. As a chaotic collection of fragments of his writing by his sister, it has been considered unscientific by a majority of philologist. As such, i find that presenting Perspectivism through this book is quite misleading for the layman not acquainted with the work of Nietzsche and should be deleted and/or presenetd in another way. 176.179.110.38 (talk) 20:34, 3 November 2015 (UTC) Giboulot Q

This article could do with some revision.

From a lay persons point of view reading this article it comes out as being completely cryptic. I think maybe it needs to be broken down or simplified to aid understanding. I admit Ive not got the widest vocabulary of all Wikipedias readership but in its current form this article is totally unassailable without extensive use of Wiktionary. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.113.57.163 (talk) 17:06, 23 February 2007 (UTC).

I'm with that guy ^. The article tells essentially opens with what perspectivism isn't! e.g. "contrasted with objectivism"... "differs from the many kinds of relativism". And then when it does tell us what perspectivism is, it does so in a way that is vastly obtuse and verbose, "Perspectivism is the delineation of vantage points as formal constituents within networks or systems of perspectival schemata, it moreover emphatically assesses rules according to contingent circumstances of those contextual perspectives". I have two post graduate degrees and all I have to say about that sentence is: huh? Someone, please fix this stuff up so that someone without a degree is philosophy can figure it out. Bilz0r 08:45, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I think the most important thing the article can express is how a third view (the first and second being absolutism and relativism) is possible, and what such a view would be. That, in and of itself, would neatly explain "perspectivism," as well as how it fits in with the two more familiar schools of thought. -69.47.186.226 05:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I had quite a hard time understanding this article. I am sure it is an interesting concept, but it is not readily accessible to a lay person or non philosophy student. 69.21.24.44 18:36, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not certain even Nietzsche would understand what the author of this article is trying to say. The concept itself doesn't seem to be that complicated but all substance is lost in pretentious babble. 213.112.137.175 17:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I was definelty surprised that there are theories making Nietzsche the "founder" of the perspectivism! Persepectivism is a philosophy having it's roots earlier than the 19th century. Perspectivism started when art started, when perspective paintings were painted, when music started using a perspective (Bach!) ... and the perspectivism is from a philosophic point of view nothing more or less than to look at things from all sides without juging (a priori) only from one point of view. Taking Nietzsche's philosophy to explain the perspectivism is like using a blind man's description of a landscape. I'd really like to get deeper into this, but there's too much investigation on the right sources to do. I'd suggest to take this article off for some time ... before the world believes that Nietzsche invented the perspectivism! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.169.79.176 (talk) 00:26, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I've just registered myself to Wikipedia to document that the statement before was made by me ... and, that I'll soon take the time to prove my statement in a scientific and resumable way ...

Yo Ralf, thanks for registering. Have you considered the possibility that the term "perspectivism" describes different things in different contexts? Nietzsche may have been the originator of an obscure philosophical theory that happens to be called "perspectivism" that is not directly related to the painting/music theories. Skomorokh ^incite 00:44, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Skomorokh, if what you say is the case then there must be a split -> between this (and many other) obscure theories Nietzsche had and an existing philosophical root ... binding "Perspectivism" to Nietzsche in a way this article does is misleading many that can not know otherwise! Let me ajust that it was exactly art and music that led to a new way of looking at, behind, over, under and from any direction at one object ... not saying it's all green just because the front of that object is green, but from behind it's white, from under it's blue and at a certain angle it has a small red point ... I like the discussion very much but I'm close to twenty years out of this subject ... please give me the time to research my own resources and to provide reliable information ... thanks already for your time and attention, Ralf —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ralf.klatt (talk • contribs) 01:05, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

No problem Ralf, take your time. Wikipedia has a rule against original research, so if you can dig up some reliable sources that explicitly link the perspectivism attributed to Nietzsche to these art movements, we can go ahead and correct the article accordingly. Skomorokh ^incite 01:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Italian article

I found in the Italian wikipedia a much better historical delineation of Perspectivism: "Prospettivismo è un termine che è stato coniato da Gustav Teichmüller (Die Wirkliche und die Scheinbare Welt, 1882). [...] In età moderna, con Montaigne, la scoperta del Nuovo Mondo e i conseguenti problemi etici e antropologici portano a un orientamento prospettivistico del filosofare. In seguito, Leibniz ha sottolineato come una stessa città vista da diverse angolature appaia totalmente differente, pressoché moltiplicata prospettivamente. Usando le parole di Goethe: "Nella stessa città, un evento importante sarà raccontato, alla sera, diversamente che al mattino".[1] La necessaria prospetticità è stata oggetto del pensiero gnoseologico della corrente storica dell'Illuminismo. Il prospettivismo filosofico si riafferma con Emerson nel contesto pluralistico-democratico degli Stati Uniti negli anni precedenti la seconda rivoluzione industriale. La sua scia sarà seguita, ma con precisi intenti di restaurazione gerarchico-aristocratica, da Nietzsche. Nel '900, Ortega y Gasset rilancia la difesa d'un prospettivismo storico, ossia l’idea che esistano una serie di prospettive che si possono scoprire soltanto nel corso della storia." In this sense something should be revised/added to this article. Ingrid—Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.204.148.73 (talk • contribs)

Assuming that you know Italian and can grab similar references in English, then I would highly recommend that you do this. My modest grasp of the language tells me that it does indeed have a nice overview on the concept's history.— ^ignis _scripta 17:44, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

DamnPinguin

After comparing & comparing I found that NickPinguin added that idiot part titled 'Interpretation' citing certain Richard Schacht that adds nothing usefull to the article, on contrary, rather confusing series of words without meaning, sorry but I can't use another expression for this than mental j. It seems the style of some people that teach philosophy and teach it (and spread the idea) in a way "if you can't understand it or prove it does not say anything, or prove that it does say the same simple thing but in a much more complicated way, then it is philosophy". (Anyway it is similar as saying that the Earth is flat but is not uniform, and his extrems are connected through hyperspace - could be, but it is much simpler to have our Earth round). How can we remove it?

You could start by clarifying what your objection is. In theory, such sections – interpretation of the concept by eminent Nietzsche scholars – is very welcome, but of course if a section is poorly written it can be revised or removed. Are we to understand that your problem with the paragraph is its incoherence? Skomorokh 01:08, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

'objection'? I can only restate "adds nothing useful...", in theory or not in theory interpretations of the concepts should be welcomed only if they say something, clarify something, explain better, deepen e.t.c. and not based on so called "eminent Nietzsche scholars". Question: who defines / chooses those 'eminent' and what are the criteria? Dirty trick if this arguments go towards giving credits or gives these labels (eminent N. scholars) implicitly. Regarding the interpretation ... there was an article (maybe NY Times) about a country where today people talk about the meaning of the semaphore's red light. Let's talk about what is told not by whom is told. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.50.176.90 (talk) 00:18, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Nehamas references

@Oeqtte: In this edit you added some inline citations to a book by Alexander Nehamas. I skimmed the page range from that book that you provided, but I did not see how it supports the claims to which you attached the inline citations. In this edit I added {{Page needed}} tags where a specific page number is needed to verify that the book supports the claims. Can you provide here on the talk page quotations from Nehamas that you think support the claims, especially in the lead paragraph?

After you provide those quotations, we can discuss whether that book by Nehamas is the best source for a current overview of perspectivism. That book is fine as a source on Nietzsche since Nehamas is (among other things) a Nietzsche scholar, but the book is not a good current overview of perspectivism, since it was published in 1998, 23 years ago, and important work on perspectivism has been published since then. Also, the subject of that book is apparently not perspectivism; its LCSHs are "Socrates" and "Conduct of life". I do not have a positive impression of the Barry Sandywell reference either (although you didn't add that one); it is very superficial. The book Understanding Perspectivism, edited by Michela Massimi and Casey McCoy, is deeper and more current, as it was published barely over a year ago. Biogeographist (talk) 15:50, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Happy to help. Hopefully these excerpts (and the passages surronding them) help to clarify:

• "He does not believe that [...] a single informative explanation why all our true views are true, exists. Many people believe that unless there is such a definition, none of our views can ever be true; or that, if they are, they are true for no reason at all. But that is wrong. [etc. etc.]" p. 146
• "That is the second, evaluative, and more controversial component of perspectivism: people need not believe something just because it is true, just as they need not reject it just because it is false. [...] From a first-person point of view, if I already accept a certain view, I cannot also believe that I have a choice whether to believe it or not. [...] From a third-person point of view, however, perspectivism becomes more disturbing. From a third-person point of view, truth and value diverge." p. 148
• "Perspectivism may therefore be true after all, and perspectivists have no difficulty in holding that many of their views are themselves true." p. 148
• "[B]ut it does not, as many people believe and in contrast to relativism, undermine itself on purely logical grounds." p. 147

On its own, a matter of decades isn't enough to write off a source. However, if you think you can draw good material from Massimi/McCoy source I strongly encourage you to do so—though it does seem a bit more limited to the philosophy of science side of perspectivism (rather than broader epistemology, value theory, metaphysics etc.) but the article is also severely lacking information in this regard too (besides the mere mention of perspectivism in philosophy of science). As it currently stands, this article does not have a surplus of information for cutting well-sourced material to be a serious consideration for simple contemporaneity biases—not that this isn't sometimes a good course to take. Also just keep in mind differences between secondary and tertiary sources. I think it'd be best to try growing the article with some of the sources you've added and to expand on what these sources actually say. I'm happy to discuss further though. Thanks for your work, Oeqtte^[t] 23:50, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I will look more closely at those Nehamas quotations in context. On its own, a matter of decades isn't enough to write off a source: I agree; my aim is to find better sources, which I will try to do if warranted after a closer study of the Nehamas source. Reading the quotations above, it sounds like Nehamas is summarizing Nietzschean perspectivism; if so, it would not be appropriate to cite Nehamas in the first paragraph as if his summary of Nietzschean perspectivism were sufficient to summarize all perspectivism. But I still have to think through this by comparing Nehamas to other sources. Biogeographist (talk) 13:33, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't so much disagree though I think its worth noting that the line is somewhat blurred between "Nietzschean perspectivism" and both its pre-Nietzschean forms and later developments within continental philosophy. That is to say, just because a source treats Nietzsche as the main figure of traditional perspectivism the information may not be limited only to Nietzschean perspectivism. (See for example Nehamas' use of "perspectivists" in the plural.) In the cases of Heraclitus, Protagoras, and Montaigne, their perspectivism is of this form (though perhaps focusing even more on value-theory than epistemology compared to Nietzsche; see their respective sources). The newer scientific / analytical philosophy forms of perspectivism seemingly have little to do with value-theory however, and so the "evaluative [...] component of perspectivism" should be carefully portrayed to neither over- nor understate its position within perspectivist thought as a whole. The Sandywell source seems to fall very short in this regard too. Cheers, Oeqtte^[t] 10:35, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

create page: ontological perspectivism

Ontological perspectivism (also called ontological perspectivalism) is the ontoaxiomatic principle (principle of how the axiomatics of substantiality create Everettian causal connectomes = things that exist inside universes or other universe-like worlds which allow ontoaxiomatic operations) that the existence of anything substantial is probabilistic, relative and Everettian (one outcome of the wave function of the universe) bound to the particular perspectives of the sub-universal reality around the specific object (see: Hubble volume for the space of possible interactions around something; but Hubble volumes are infinite and overlapping which doesn't change the range of possible interactions but merely acts to hold the universe as a whole; see also: probabilistic entanglement [even extremely afar Hubble volumes that should have near zero causal correlation, do have partial entanglements with the Hubble volume of the observer because statistically some quantum rotations align by chance).

Some old atheists were afraid that ontological perspectivism is tautological/identical to ontological arbitrariness; but that's not the case because causality has rules for every ontoaxiomatics = universe. Each different ontoaxiomatic phase space (universe-like world) keeps its main characteristics, but the microstates inside it Everettianly/manyworldedly vary.

___________

What is an ontoaxiomatics = ontological axiomatic system = axiomatic system of substantiality?

It is causally coherent axioms that ARE/COMPRISE the world (there is no causoimpermeability; due to causal permeability/causopermeability the ontoaxiomatics itself is the world. Any universe-like world is an ontological Turing machine which is its own computer AND program which both are of the same nature and ARE the physical world itself.

The difference between ontoaxiomatics and scientoaxiomatics is that ontoaxiomatics has causally coherent axioms (otherwise causality fragments and the foundations of the particular cosmos decay); scientoaxiomatics is an eclectic list of axioms which are useful to make science (ontoaxiomatics isn't usually good for generic calculations; thus the ontological Turing machine usually it is not a general computer) but [the axioms of scientoaxiomatics/scientific axiomatic systems] they are NOT (usually; because artificial neural network experiments and other experiments exist) creates by the same axiomatic algorithm.

Ontoaxiomatics is usually an algorithm and not a static/unmoving list, because any axiomatics faces the problems of incompleteness and/or inconsistency; and our ontoaxiomatic reality (universe) deals the axiomatic incompleteness and/or inconsistency with entropy (our universe expands = its own ontoaxiomatics = substantiality expands; there's no causoimpermeability thus there's one and the same) and with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is of substantial/ontological importance and not merely interpretational/observed; it is a core ontoaxiomatic component of substantiality; but the full Everettian alternatives and not a single observer's reality is the full ontology of the wave function of the universe).

By no means our own universe is the sole possible substantiality, thus we cannot use it as the general template, but many of its properties are generalizable. There is no omniontoaxiomatics / there's not a single recipe for creating physical substantialities. Absolute empiricism is wrong because it blocks the fields of study: quantum foundations and its hypernym: (the) foundations of substantiality.

Allomathematics are extremely important in ontoaxiomatics.

allomathematics = allo-/different mathematics = mathematics with different axiomatics than the mainstream axiomatics (but still logical, procedural, antispiritual, etc.)

natural worlds = ontoaxiomatics (they're one and the same with their ontological foundations because there's no causoimpermeability per stratified order of magnitude [reality is more like a connectome with pseudostratified densities which are causopermeable; see: Leonard Susskind)

Natural worlds have usually allomathematical foundations (not mathematics useful for general purpose calculations).

Allomathematics cannot (usually) be transcribed into mathematics as an overall system transcription, but particular operations are transcribable with different adjustments to each ontoaxiomatic operation. Thus we can have a better physics, but it's really difficult to discover the exact correct allomathematical axiomatic system of our universe (our universe isn't Everything: the Everything isn't a set, a system, etc. It cannot exist as a single standalone ontological Turing machine; the purported "theory of everything" is a misnomer because it's falsely used with the meaning "Theory of Our Local Universe").

see separately: The University of Edinburgh, David Deutsch

substantiality weight (see: Sean M. Carroll's Everett[ian]ism, many-worlds theory)

In ontological perspectivism not all Everettian alternatives have the same substantiality weight (some theorists even use the dying of of some Everettian alternatives as the cause of dark matter because that excessive energy boosts the surviving actualities).

see the lectures and the books of: Sean M. Carroll