Abstract

This chapter turns to the most basic puzzle about Nietzsche's philosophy – the question about how his well‐known “perspectivism” can be consistent with his assertion of any ontological or valuative claims. Doesn’t that doctrine require that all his theories and values are “just his perspective,” and doesn’t this deprive them of the status he thinks they have? These doubts are reinforced by his attacks on the value and possibility of truth. I proceed by examining Nietzsche's genealogy of the “will to truth” and showing the complex set of senses for “truth” this genealogy reveals. I then argue that Nietzsche projects a new stage in the development of this will to truth, reached by his “new philosophers,” by which this will pursues a “perspectival truth.” With such a truth, his own perspectives can have the privileged status he claims for them.