Self-Knowledge

Abstract This chapter is concerned with Nietzsche’s scepticism about introspective knowledge. More precisely, it is claimed that Nietzsche rejects the traditional conception of introspective self-knowledge as something that is direct and privileged. To the contrary, he argues that self-knowledge is interpretive, for it is obtained by applying to oneself the same folk-psychological framework we apply in order to read the mind of other people. Furthermore, and relatedly, Nietzsche claims that introspective self-knowledge involves a falsification of what we actually think and do. Finally, it is argued that Nietzsche does not conclude from this that self-knowledge is impossible, but rather that third-person psychological and genealogical inquiry about oneself is a more reliable source of self-knowledge than introspection.