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Perspectivism is the philosophical view developed by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that all perception and ideation takes place from a particular perspective in terms of inner drives as elucidated by the “will to power”.

In so far as the word “knowledge” has any meaning, the world is knowable; but it is interpretable otherwise, it has no meaning behind it, but countless meanings.—“Perspectivism.”

It is our needs that interpret the world; our drives and their For and Against. [Emphasis added] Every drive is a kind of lust to rule; each one has its perspective that it would like to compel all the other drives to accept as a norm.

– Friedrich Nietzsche; trans. Walter Kaufmann , The Will to Power, §481 (1883-1888)

Perspectivism is sometimes contrasted with objectivism but this is not its sole defining feature. It also differs from the many kinds of relativism, in some of which the truth of a particular proposition cannot be evaluated with respect to an “absolute truth” independent of, for example, culture and context (i.e., relativism as such abnegates there are any objective evaluations transcending cultural formations or subjective designations by reference to, for instance, some particular moralities which may then be either justified or assessed). Perspectivism, in this way, is the delineation of vantage points as formal constituents within networks or systems of perspectival schemata, it moreover emphatically assesses rules (i.e., those of philosophy, the scientific method, etc.) according to contingent circumstances of those contextual perspectives (to which Schacht refers as perspectivism's “D-relativity”^[1]). Thus within perspectivism, there is “truth” formalized as a whole directly related to the integration of vantage points within these schemata. Hence this eliminates the incumbent contrast between absolutism and relativism and thus expands the framework to a scale of validity or falsity in relation to a contextual grounding that is irreducible. Further, this can be expanded into a revised form of “objectivity” in relation to “subjectivity” as an aggregate of singular viewpoints that illuminate, for example, a particular idea in seemingly self-contradictory ways but upon closer inspection would reveal a difference of contextuality and of rule by which such an idea (e.g., that is fundamentally perspectival) can be validated. Therefore, it can be said each perspective is subsumed into and, taking account of its individuated context, adds to the overall objective measure of a propostion under examination. Nevertheless, perspectivism does not implicate any method of inquiry nor a structural theory of knowledge in general.^[2]

1. ^ Schacht, Richard, Nietzsche, p 61.
2. ^ Schacht, Richard, Nietzsche.

• Value-pluralism
• [La Voluntad de ilusión en Nietzsche; bases del perspectivismo| in Konvergencias | spanish

v • d • e Friedrich Nietzsche
Major Works	The Birth of Tragedy · Human, All Too Human · The Gay Science · Thus Spoke Zarathustra · Beyond Good and Evil · On the Genealogy of Morals · The Case of Wagner · The Twilight of the Idols · The Antichrist · Ecce Homo · Nietzsche contra Wagner
Philosophy	Apollonian and Dionysian · Eternal return · God is dead · Herd instinct · Last Man · Master-slave morality · Perspectivism · Ressentiment · Übermensch · The Will to Power
Related	Works by Nietzsche · Works about Nietzsche · Comparison with Kierkegaard