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contrary to Clark’s claim, never abandoned the language of falsification. I shall draw on an argument put forward by Lanier Anderson in present-

ing this evidence.69

First, in On the Genealogy of Morality, which Clark maintains signals Nietzsche’s rejection of the falsification thesis, Nietzsche continues to employ the language of falsification. In section 24 of the third treatise he identifies interpretation with falsification. This, coupled with his claim in section 12 of the same treatise that interpretation is an essential com- ponent of knowledge, suggests that for Nietzsche our human claims to knowledge involve error. Second, despite Clark’s claims to the contrary there is little to suggest that Nietzsche radically altered his view in his last six books. Clark maintains that the passage in Twilight of the Idols enti- tled ‘How the “Real World” at last Became a Myth’ provides evidence that Nietzsche, at this stage of his career, has abandoned the falsifica- tion thesis and the view that our knowledge is apparent rather than real. In support of this claim Clark maintains that Nietzsche distinguishes between steps 5 and 6 of the aforementioned passage:

5. The ‘real world’ – an idea no longer of any use, not even a duty any longer – an idea grown useless, superfluous, consequently a refuted idea: let us abolish it!

(Broad daylight; breakfast; return of cheerfulness and bons sens; Plato blushes for shame; all free spirits run riot.)

6. We have abolished the real world: what world is left? the apparent one, perhaps? — But no! with the real world we have also abolished the apparent world!

(Mid-day; moment of the shortest shadow; end of the longest error; zenith of mankind; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.)70

According to Clark, stage 5 represents Nietzsche’s view up to and includ- ing book 5 of The Gay Science, that is, in her estimation, a simultaneous commitment to both phenomenalism and subjective idealism, whilst stage 6 is said to represent Nietzsche’s realist view from On the Genealogy of Morality onwards. Step 6 represents, Clark contends, a rejection of the falsification thesis because there, she argues, Nietzsche has abandoned the view that our empirical knowledge is merely apparent. However, steps 5 and 6, contrary to Clark’s claim that they are separate positions, may in fact be construed as two aspects of just one position. Nietzsche’s use of two steps to make one point is consistent within the overall structure of his outline of the history of philosophy in Twilight of the Idols. For the initial two steps represent two aspects of just one metaphysical position, that is, the metaphysics of Platonism/Christianity. Consequently, the significant aspect of Nietzsche’s outline of the history of philosophy, and

Nietzsche’s Perspectival Theory of Knowledge 73

which also appears in The Gay Science, 354 (which belongs, in Clark’s view, to Nietzsche’s earlier period and so is subject to the falsification thesis), is the rejection of the ‘true’ world in stage 5. With this rejection the justification for denigrating the empirical world as apparent should be removed. Furthermore, the removal of the appearance/reality distinction should, in turn, entail a rejection of the language of falsification. However, Nietzsche’s conclusion that ‘with the real world we have also abolished the apparent world ’ does not result in his abandonment of the falsifica- tion thesis. In The Gay Science, 354 Nietzsche claims that the opposition between the thing-in-itself and appearances is an illegitimate one whilst also writing that ‘all becoming conscious involves a great and thorough

corruption, falsification, reduction to superficialities, and generalization’.71

Therefore Nietzsche continues to employ the term ‘appearance’ despite his

claim that ‘No shadow of a right remains to speak here of appearance’.72

Considering this, Anderson’s argument correctly concludes, contrary to Clark, that we have no internal evidence to suggest that Nietzsche aban- doned the falsification thesis or that he altered his view between book 5 of

The Gay Science and On the Genealogy of Morality.73

It might appear, on the basis of this alone, that the internal realist interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophical project reaches an impasse. Nietzsche’s claim to have dissolved the appearance/reality dichotomy seems only to castigate our knowledge as ‘merely’ apparent. The view that our knowledge is ‘merely’ apparent suggests that it is radically divorced from the ‘true’ nature of reality, thus reopening the question of scepticism. The critic who wishes to embrace this reading and suggest that Nietzsche is inconsistent in his rejection of scepticism has the evi- dence presented above that Nietzsche never abandoned the language of falsification to fuel their claim.

However, any earnest attempt to present Nietzsche as a sceptic merely serves to present him as grossly contradictory and therefore of dimin- ished philosophical interest. I therefore suggest that we should adopt the principle of interpretive charity when approaching Nietzsche’s writings. Acceptance of this principle demands that we try to make the most philosophical sense of Nietzsche’s claims and thus that we avoid, wherever possible, committing him to inconsistencies. This is not only possible with regard to Nietzsche’s writings but is demanded by those very writings themselves, particularly by those sections where he both criticises the appearance/reality distinction and deems our perspectival theories to be false in the same passage or where he continues to speak of the ‘apparent’ world even after declaring it to be an illegitimate philo- sophical practice. These sections suggest that Nietzsche was aware of this