Justin Remhof

Nietzsche as Metaphysician defends the controversial view that Nietzsche is a metaphysician against a long-standing tendency to sever Nietzsche from metaphysical philosophy. Remhof presents a metametaphysical treatment of Nietzsche’s writings in order to show that for Nietzsche the questions, answers, methods, and subject matters of metaphysical philosophy are not only perfectly legitimate, but also crucial for understanding the world and our place within it. The book examines aspects of Nietzsche’s thought that have received little attention in the literature, including his view of what makes metaphysics possible; his metaphysics of science; his naturalized metaphysics; his view of metaphysical grounding; how he appeals to the intuitions of his readers; how he employs a priori reasoning; and how metaphysics is intertwined with his practical philosophy. Nietzsche as Metaphysician will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Nietzsche and the history of metaphysics.

Like Kant, the German Idealists, and many neo-Kantian philosophers before him, Nietzsche was persistently concerned with metaphysical questions about the nature of objects. His texts often address questions concerning the existence and non-existence of objects, the relation of objects to human minds, and how different views of objects impact commitments in many areas of philosophy―not just metaphysics, but also language, epistemology, science, logic and mathematics, and even ethics. In this book, Remhof presents a systematic and comprehensive analysis of Nietzsche’s material object metaphysics. He argues that Nietzsche embraces the controversial constructivist view that all concrete objects are socially constructed. Reading Nietzsche as a constructivist, Remhof contends, provides fresh insight into Nietzsche’s views on truth, science, naturalism, and nihilism. The book also investigates how Nietzsche’s view of objects compares with views offered by influential American pragmatists and explores the implications of Nietzsche’s constructivism for debates in contemporary material object metaphysics. Nietzsche’s Constructivism is a highly original and timely contribution to the steadily growing literature on Nietzsche’s thought.

Table of Contents

1. Interpreting Nietzsche on Objects

2. Against Constructivism

2.1. The Texts
2.2. Constructivism and Objectivism 
2.3. Commonsense Realism
2.4. Object Eliminativism
2.5. Subject Eliminativism
2.6. Unificationism
2.7. Summary

3. For Constructivism

3.1. Macroscopic Objects    
3.2. Microscopic Objects        
3.3. Constraints and Conceptualism
3.4. Summary

4. Objections to Constructivism

4.1. Anthropomorphism
4.2. Problems with Language
4.3. Contradiction and Construction
4.4. Unperceived Objects
4.5. Circularity and Construction
4.6. Summary

5. Consequences of Constructivism
   
5.1. Truth      
5.2. Science        
5.3. Naturalism
5.4. Summary        

6. Nihilism and Constructivism

6.1. Defining Nihilism
6.2. Life-Negating Categories    
6.3. The True World
6.4. Art, Nihilism, and Constructivism
6.5. Summary

7. Nietzsche, Constructivism, and American Pragmatism

7.1. Nietzsche and James      
7.2. Nietzsche and Goodman    
7.3. Nietzsche and Rorty
7.4. Summary

8. Nietzsche’s Constructivism and Current Debates

8.1. The Argument from Vagueness
8.2. Arbitrariness Arguments
8.3. The Debunking Argument
8.4. Indeterminate Identity
8.5. Summary

This paper argues that Nietzsche is a panpsychist. Panpsychism holds that mental features are ubiquitous and fundamental in reality. I first argue that Nietzsche's rejection of Cartesian dualism leads him to substance monism. To better understand his monism, I examine Nietzsche's rejection of Newtonian atomism. Nietzsche holds that bundles of forces, or will to power, are more fundamental than hard, extended atoms. So, will to power is fundamental. I then investigate Nietzsche's remarks on organic and inorganic nature to show that he believes both are will to power. So, will to power is ubiquitous. The final step I take requires showing that Nietzsche believes will to power exhibits mental qualities. If all goes well, then Nietzsche thinks mental features are fundamental and ubiquitous in reality.

This paper argues there are crucial points in Nietzsche's texts where he offers a priori epistemic justification for views he believes are correct, contrasting with the dominant view that Nietzsche's philosophical naturalism is incompatible with a priori justification. My aim is to develop Nietzsche's brand of a priori justification, show that he employs this account of justification in the texts, and suggest how it might be compatible with naturalism.

European Journal of Philosophy Nietzsche appears to adopt a radical Kantian view of objects called constructivism, which holds that the existence of all objects depends essentially on our practices. This essay provides a new reconstruction of Nietzsche’s argument for constructivism and responds to five pressing objections to reading Nietzsche as a constructivist that have not been addressed by commentators defending constructivist interpretations of Nietzsche.

Perhaps the most fundamental disagreement concerning Nietzsche’s view of metaphysics is that some commentators believe Nietzsche has a positive, systematic metaphysical project, and others deny this. Those who deny it hold that Nietzsche believes metaphysics has a special problem, that is, a distinctively problematic feature which distinguishes metaphysics from other areas of philosophy. In this paper, I investigate important features of Nietzsche’s metametaphysics in order to argue that Nietzsche does not, in fact, think metaphysics has a special problem. The result is that, against a longstanding view held in the literature, we should be reading Nietzsche as a metaphysician.

This essay examines a particular rhetorical strategy Nietzsche uses to supply prima facie epistemic justification: appeals to intuition. I first investigate what Nietzsche thinks intuitions are, given that he never uses the term ‘intuition’ as we do in contemporary philosophy. I then examine how Nietzsche can simultaneously endorse naturalism and intuitive appeals. I finish by looking at why and how Nietzsche uses appeals to intuition to further his philosophical agenda. Answering these questions should provide a deeper understanding of how Nietzsche does philosophy.

Abstract: Nietzsche’s presentation of the eternal recurrence in Gay Science 341 is often viewed as a practical thought experiment meant to radically transform us. But exactly why and how we are supposed to be transformed is not clear. I contend that addressing these issues requires taking a close look at the psychological setting of the passage. The eternal recurrence is presented in our “loneliest loneliness.” I argue that facing the eternal recurrence from a state of profound loneliness both motivates self-transformation and contributes toward helping us succeed at that project.

In this paper, I first suggest that Nietzsche and James, two otherwise very different thinkers, both endorse the controversial constructivist view that human representational practices bring all material objects into existence. I then explore their views concerning why and how constructivism can play a vital role in helping us find reality and our lives valuable.

This article concerns whether Nietzsche is sympathetic to monism about concrete objects, the heterodox metaphysical view that there is exactly one concrete object. I first dispel prominent reasons for thinking that Nietzsche rejects monism. I then develop the most compelling arguments for monism in Nietzsche's writings and check for soundness. The arguments seem to be supported by the texts, but they have not been developed in the literature. Despite such arguments, I suggest that Nietzsche is actually not sympathetic to monism about objects—but his reasons for siding against monism are not at all obvious. The result should be a new understanding of some of Nietzsche's fundamental ontological commitments.

The radical skeptic argues that I have no knowledge of things I ordinarily claim to know because I have no evidence for or against the possibility of being systematically fed illusions. Recent years have seen a surge of interest in pragmatic responses to skepticism inspired by C. S. Peirce. This essay challenges one such influential response and presents a better Peircean way to refute the skeptic. The account I develop holds that although I do not know whether the skeptical hypothesis is true, I still know things I ordinarily claim to know. Although it will emerge that this reply appears similar to a classic contextualist response to radical skepticism, it avoids two central problems facing that response.

European Journal of Philosophy

Nietzsche appears to adopt a radical Kantian view of objects called constructivism, which holds that the existence of all objects depends essentially on our practices. This essay provides a new reconstruction of Nietzsche’s argument for constructivism and responds to five pressing objections to reading Nietzsche as a constructivist that have not been addressed by commentators defending constructivist interpretations of Nietzsche.

In the Refutation of Idealism, Kant aims to defeat the Cartesian radical skeptical hypothesis that empirical reality might not exist and we cannot have knowledge of it. Kant intends to demonstrate that conscious experience presupposes direct experience of empirical reality. This paper presents new challenges to the conclusions Kant reaches in the Refutation. Kant’s argument turns on the claim that the past must exist, and my challenges concern the possibility that there is no past.

In this article, I begin to develop Nietzsche's scientific fictionalism in order to make headway toward resolving a central interpretive issue in his epistemology. For Nietzsche knowledge claims are falsifications. Presumably, this is a result of his puzzling view that truths are somehow false. I argue that Nietzsche thinks knowledge claims are falsifications because he embraces a scientific fictionalist view according to which inexact representations, which are false, can also be accurate, or true, and that this position is not inconsistent.

There is a difficulty in understanding Nietzsche's epis-temology. It is generally accepted that he endorses the naturalized epistemological view that knowledge should be closely connected to the sciences. He also holds the evolutionary epistemological position that knowledge has developed exclusively to benefit human survival. Nietzsche's evolutionary epistemology, however, appears to imply a debunking argument about the truth of our beliefs that seems to undermine his commitment to a naturalized epistemol-ogy. This paper argues that Nietzsche's evolutionary epistemology does not, in fact, undermine his naturalized epistemology.

Nearly every common theory of truth has been attributed to Nietzsche, while some commentators have argued that he simply has no theory of truth. This essay argues that Nietzsche’s remarks on truth are better situated within either the coherence or pragmatist theories of truth than the correspondence theory.  Nietzsche’s thoughts conflict with the correspondence framework because he  believes that the truth conditions of propositions are constitutively dependent on our actions.

Nietzsche was persistently concerned with what an object is and how different views of objects lead to different views of facts, causality, personhood, substance, truth, mathematics and logic, and even nihilism. Yet his treatment of objects is incredibly puzzling. In many passages, he assumes that objects such as trees and leaves, tables and chairs, and dogs and cats are just ordinary entities of experience. In other places, he reports that objects do not exist. Elsewhere he claims that objects exist, but as mere bundles of forces. And sometimes he proposes that we bring all objects into existence. Nietzsche’s writings, then, appear to support various secondary readings, which are jointly inconsistent. My chief aim is to present and defend the reading that Nietzsche embraces constructivism about objects, the neo-Kantian view that all objects are socially constructed. I first explain this view and argue that all non-constructivist readings are not supported by Nietzsche’s texts. I then present Nietzsche’s object constructivism, reconstruct his argument for the position, and defend it from an internal objection. I finish by suggesting that Nietzsche might have embraced such a radical conception of objects because it plays a crucial role in overcoming nihilism

There is a disagreement over how to understand Nietzsche’s view of science. According to what I call the Negative View, Nietzsche thinks science should be reconceived or superseded by another discourse, such as art, because it is nihilistic. By contrast, what I call the Positive View holds that Nietzsche does not think science is nihilistic, so he denies that it should be reinterpreted or overcome. Interestingly, defenders of each position can appeal to Nietzsche’s understanding of naturalism to support their interpretation. I argue that Nietzsche embraces a social constructivist conception of causality that renders his naturalism incompatible with the views of naturalism attributed to him by the two dominant readings

This is a forward for the reissue of Moles's book, Nietzsche's Philosophy of Nature and Cosmology. I first summarize the main arguments in the book and then explain why contemporary readers should be very interested in engaging with this book.

This is a review of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Adrian Del Caro, trans. The Joyful Science / Idylls from Messina / Unpublished Fragments from the Period of The Joyful Science (Spring 1881– Summer 1882): Volume 6 (The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche). Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023. x + 772 pp. $28.00, paper, ISBN 978-1-5036-3232-5.