TOWARD SCIENTIFIC CONSTRUCTIVISM

Nietzsche embraces scientific constructivism, I submit, because he embraces object constructivism. If a fact is just an object’s instantiating a property, and an object o’s identity is essentially dependent on the properties o instantiates, then if o has some property F by virtue of our descriptions, the fact that o has F is by virtue of our descriptions. Does Nietzsche think a fact is just an object’s instantiating a property?

Let us examine Nietzsche’s conception of fact [Tatsache]. Unfortunately, although he regularly mentions facts, he does not often discuss what a fact is.²²⁰ Some passages provide useful hints. In HH, for example, he criticizes those who assume that there are “unalterable facts of mankind” by saying “everything has become: there are no eternal facts, just as there are no absolute truths” (I: 2). For Nietzsche a fact is not something that obtains without change over time. Facts appear to change because they depend on interpretations indexed to various needs, values, and interests that undergo development (see, e.g., HH I: 16). In the notes he even remarks, “one and the same milieu may be interpreted and made use of in opposite ways: there are no facts” (LN 2[175]). The context shows that Nietzsche is not denying facts, but that facts obtain as they do independent of our interpretations (see also WP 481, 604; LN 11[113]). Now, it might be the case that Nietzsche believes facts depend on our interpretations because they are obtaining states of affairs that require our interpretations to be intelligible as facts. As Schacht writes, “There are ‘facts’ only in the context of interpretations which endow our experiences

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220 See BGE P, 234, 253; GM I: 9, 11, III: 11; EH “Clever” 3; A 20, 39, 59; GS 99, 355; HH I: 234, 267; TI “Errors”

3; LN 2[131], WP 120, 472, 475, 486, 521, 549, 605.

with whatever ‘meaning’ they have” (1983: 85). Nietzsche appears to support this when he comments, “a meaning must always be projected” before there can be “‘facts’” (WP 556). In that passage, however, he says something stronger:

There are no ‘facts-in-themselves’ [Tatbestand an sich], for a meaning [Sinn] must always be projected into them before they can be ‘facts’ [Tatbestand].²²¹ The question

‘what is that?’ is an establishment of meaning [Sinn-Setzung] from some other viewpoint.

The ‘essence’ [Essenz], the ‘essential nature’ [Wesenheit], is something perspectival [Perspektivisches] (WP 556).

A fact in itself, or a noumenal fact, is a fact that is in principle inaccessible by any method available to humans. Nietzsche denies that noumenal facts exist because he claims that fact-hood depends on the identities of objects established through meaningful interpretation, not merely that facts require our interpretations to be intelligible as facts. According to Nietzsche we must determine “what” something is, or determine the “essence” of something, in order for there to be facts. Facts are determined by the identities of objects. Hence it is reasonable to maintain that for Nietzsche a fact is just an object’s instantiating a property. So, if Nietzsche is committed to object constructivism, it is likely that he also endorses scientific constructivism.

Does Nietzsche endorse object constructivism? I argued in Chapter 4 that he does about ordinary objects, or those composed of bundles of forces. Many facts are brought into being when ordinary objects are constructed. For example, astronomical objects appear to be in fact planets by virtue of our descriptions. Objects are planets just in case they have properties that satisfy the conditions astronomers have decided constitute being a planet. Pluto, for instance, fails to be a planet because it does not satisfy the conditions under which something counts as a planet. Thus, fixing the representational boundaries of the concept planet is constitutive of

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221 The “them” in this sentence sounds strange because it seems to refer to facts in themselves. However, the context reveals that it is best read as a placeholder for whatever it is that we “project” a “meaning” into in order for it to become a fact.

bringing about the fact that there are objects which are planets. The fact that some object is a planet or is not a planet depends on our descriptive contributions. Since on Nietzsche’s account no object composed of bundles of forces has the properties it does constitutively independent of our descriptions, the same argument for planet extends to all objects composed of bundles of forces.

Nonetheless, constructivism about ordinary objects does not establish scientific constructivism. Scientific constructivism ranges over facts about all objects, which include microscopic objects, or bundles of forces, not just ordinary, macroscopic objects. Certainly, Nietzsche thinks there are facts about bundles of forces that compose ordinary objects in addition to there being facts about objects composed of bundles of forces. In order to show that Nietzsche embraces scientific constructivism there must be good reason to believe he thinks we construct macroscopic and microscopic objects.

Initial evidence for the claim that for Nietzsche we construct all objects comes in the passage cited above, where he maintains that fact-hood requires us to determine the identities of objects. In another passage about facts, he says:

Against positivism, which halts at phenomena – ‘There are only facts [es gibt nur Tatsachen]’ – I would say: no, facts are just what there aren’t, there are only interpretations [nein, gerade Tatsachen gibt es nicht, nur Interpretationen]. We cannot determine any fact ‘in itself’ [Faktum ‘an sich’] (LN 7[60], cf. GM III:

24).

Nietzsche reiterates that there are no facts in themselves and suggests something must be interpreted to be a fact.²²² On my reading, interpretations determine the identities of objects, and

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222 The last sentence of the passage makes it clear that he does not deny the existence of facts simpliciter. Elsewhere he asserts that our descriptions can indeed deliver facts: “With this invented and rigid world of concepts and numbers, man gains a means of seizing by signs, as it were, huge quantities of facts” (LN 34[131], cf. TL, HH I: 3, 11). Elsewhere he suggests this includes scientific facts: “All the presuppositions of mechanistic language – matter, atom, pressure and impact, gravity – are not ‘facts-in-themselves’ but interpretations” (LN 14[82], cf. BGE 14).

so if something must be interpreted to be a fact, then there is reason to believe Nietzsche thinks we construct facts.

Unfortunately, these passages fail to establish scientific constructivism on their own. It could be argued Nietzsche’s criticisms only target noumenal facts. If this is the case, then Nietzsche’s view is perfectly consistent with fact objectivism, the thesis that some facts obtain constitutively independent of our descriptive representations. A denial of noumenal facts only requires commitment to the position that all facts are conditionally, but not constitutively, dependent on our actions. Facts are conditionally dependent on our actions if we must grasp facts from some standpoint or other determined by particular values, needs, or interests, while that grasping does not constitute the facts. The passages cited above do not indicate that Nietzsche endorses the stronger, scientific constructivist claim that all facts are constitutively dependent on our actions.

In the remainder of the chapter, I contend that Nietzsche denies noumenal facts and fact objectivism in favor of scientific constructivism. The next section makes a case for thinking Nietzsche’s object constructivism extends to all objects by examining his remarks about what is required for a proposition to have a truth-value.²²³ Whether facts are thought to be some obtaining states of affairs or an object’s instantiating a property, they are typical candidates for what makes propositions true or false.²²⁴ It will emerge that according to Nietzsche what

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223 In what follows I use ‘proposition’ as a general indicator to mark out bearers of truth-values, whatever they may be (for an account that attributes propositions as the bearers of truth-values to Nietzsche in a more technical sense see Nola 1987: 547). I do have some reservations about using propositions for Nietzsche. Insofar as propositions are regarded as abstract objects that exist independent of the sentences that express them, he does not believe in propositions. Propositions are usually intended to capture the intuition that truths are eternal (see Young 1995: 3), which Nietzsche denies (see HH I: 2).

224 Nietzsche suggests an even stronger claim that some properties of facts are also properties of truths: “there are no eternal facts, just as there are no absolute truths” (HH I: 2, italics mine). The view that facts are typical candidates for what makes propositions true or false was also common in Nietzsche’s historical context. For instance, Kant

constitutes the truth-conditions of our propositions is essentially related to our descriptions. If this is the case, then there is reason to think that for Nietzsche facts are constitutively related to our descriptions as well.