Nietzsche and the methodological fictions: from logical unity to methodological pluralism

Márcio José Silveira Lima

doi:10.31649/sent45.01.062

Authors

Márcio José Silveira Lima Federal University of Southern Bahia (Porto Seguro, Bahia, Brazil) https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6813-8864

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31649/sent45.01.062

Keywords:

language, psychophysiology, unity of consciousness, metaphorical character of concepts, semiotics, symptomatology

Abstract

The paper offers a systematic interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s reflections on language and logic by arguing that they function as methodological fictions grounded in a psychophysiological account of cognition. It first shows that Nietzsche’s early claim that language is fundamentally rhetorical, while still shaped by Kantian assumptions, generates a tension between the metaphorical character of concepts and the logical requirement of unity. The paper then argues that Nietzsche resolves this tension by rejecting the unity of consciousness and reconceiving the human being as a multiplicity of drives. From this shift, it follows that logical principles such as identity and non-contradiction are not conditions of truth, but simplifying functions rooted in the organism’s need to stabilize experience. On this basis, language is reinterpreted as a semiotic and symptomatic process rather than a representational system. The paper concludes that Nietzsche's later philosophy adopts a pluralist methodology: insofar as cognition expresses a plurality of drives, the philosopher's own writing manifests itself in multiple forms and styles.

Author Biography

Márcio José Silveira Lima, Federal University of Southern Bahia (Porto Seguro, Bahia, Brazil)

Ph.D. in Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy

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