Corpus · The Gay Science · Full-text route

Our New Infinite: Perspective and Its Limits

Optional full-text route · Station 32 of 35

Read: Book V, §§371–376, in full, added in 1887. Begin at §371 and stop before §377.
Allow: About 50–70 minutes, including the passages, this guide, rereading, and a short written response. This is an editorial estimate, not a measured reading time. The six sections total about 1,800 words in the free edition; §373 is the longest, and §376 is only a few lines. If you need two sittings, stop after §373.

Preferred translation: Walter Kaufmann. Free alternative (Thomas Common, The Joyful Wisdom): begin at §371 · §373 · §374 · §376.

Quotations on this page follow Common’s free translation, including his section titles. Kaufmann’s wording differs, and none of it is quoted here; this lesson has not been compared with Kaufmann’s text. Where a word drives the interpretation, this page notes the German, from the Projekt Gutenberg-DE text.

Before you read

Book V, added in 1887, now turns from artists to knowers. Philosophers who feared the senses, scientists who would count the world, and “we” who cannot see round our own corner. §374 is the second section of the introduction’s Reading 9; you read the first, §354, at station 28. After this station you can take Reading 9 as a checkpoint.

The main question: Do limits of perspective entail that views are equal?

Keep using the marks: P, H, V, and ? for Nietzsche’s own hedge only.

What to notice

1. Corners. §374 says “We cannot see round our corner”; §375 speaks of a former lingerer in the corner. Common varies “corner” and “nook,” but the German word in both sections is Ecke. Track it.
2. Health. §372 asks whether “we moderns are merely not sufficiently sound” for Plato’s idealism. The German, nicht gesund genug, is the phrase of the Wagnerian’s reply in §368 (station 31).
3. Rankings. §373 calls one interpretation of the world possibly “one of the stupidest.” Keep that verdict beside §374’s openness.

Close reading

One way to group the sections

These groups are this guide’s, not Nietzsche’s.

• Growing and misunderstood: §371.
• Against idealism and mechanism: §§372, 373.
• Our new infinite: §374.
• Caution and slowness: §§375, 376.

Growing and misunderstood

§371, “We Unintelligible Ones,” accepts being misunderstood as “our lot” and “our distinction,” for a long time yet: “say, to be modest, until 1901.” The section does not explain the date; this guide reads it as irony about the book’s own future readers. “We grow like trees”: “upwards and outwards, as well as inwards and downwards,” thrusting roots “into the deep—into evil.” Mark it V. Compare §371’s growth with §365’s masks (station 30): there the anchorite hid; here the “we” cannot be pinned down because it keeps changing.

Against idealism and mechanism

§372, “Why we are not Idealists,” opens with a hedged question: “have we, perhaps, been far too forgetful of this fear?”, the old philosophers’ fear of the senses (German vielleicht; mark ?). For those philosophers, “‘Wax in the ears,’ was then almost a condition of philosophising.” The section inclines to the opposite judgment, and at once hedges it: the reversal “in itself might be just as false” (German könnte; mark ?). Ideas are “worse seducers than the senses”; “philosophising was always a species of vampirism” (German Vampyrismus). Spinoza is the example: of his amor intellectualis dei, what remains “is rattling and nothing more!” Plato is the exception: his idealism was “the prudence of superabundant and dangerous healthfulness.” The section ends on a hedged question, “Perhaps, is it the case that we moderns are merely not sufficiently sound to require Plato’s idealism?” (German Vielleicht; mark ?), and breaks off mid-sentence. Mark it P and V. §372, why we are not idealists

§373, “‘Science’ as Prejudice,” opens with a ranking. Scholars, “in so far as they belong to the intellectual middle-class,” cannot even see “the really great problems.” Common writes “the laws of class distinction”; the German is Rangordnung, order of rank. Herbert Spencer’s dream of a final reconciliation of “egoism and altruism” “almost causes nausea to people like us”: “a humanity with such Spencerian perspectives as ultimate perspectives would seem to us deserving of contempt, of extermination!” The German word is Vernichtung, annihilation. State this verdict plainly: the section says such a humanity would seem to deserve annihilation. Do not soften it into a metaphor or turn it into a programme; the text gives neither. Mark it V. §373, Spencer

The section then turns to materialist scientists, who believe in “a ‘world of truth’” measurable by “our insignificant, four-cornered human reason.” “We should not, above all, seek to divest existence of its ambiguous character.” Perhaps the surface of existence is what is grasped first, “perhaps alone” (German vielleicht sogar allein; mark ?). So a “scientific” interpretation “might consequently still be one of the stupidest” (German könnte; mark ?). The last image is music: count it and formulate it, and you apprehend “Nothing, absolutely nothing of what is really ‘music’ in it!” Mark it P and V. Compare §344 (station 26): science also rests on a faith.

Our new infinite

§374, “Our new ‘Infinite,’” asks how far “the perspective character of existence extends,” and says the question cannot be settled by the intellect’s self-examination, “because in this analysis the human intellect cannot avoid seeing itself in its perspective forms, and only in them.” “We cannot see round our corner.” The section then hedges its own claim to modesty: “But I think that we are to-day at least far from the ludicrous immodesty of decreeing from our nook that there can only be legitimate perspectives from that nook” (German ich denke; mark ?). §374, our new infinite

Notice exactly what follows. The world has “once more become ‘infinite’ to us”: “in so far we cannot dismiss the possibility that it contains infinite interpretations.” That is a possibility we cannot rule out, not a proof that interpretations are infinite. The section then refuses to worship this unknown “in the old fashion”: there is “too much devilment, stupidity and folly of interpretation” in it, “also our own human, all too human interpretation itself, which we know.” Mark it P and V. Compare §124 (station 14, 1882), “In the Horizon of the Infinite,” where the infinite was the frightening open sea; in 1887 it is the open field of interpretation.

Caution and slowness

§375, “Why we Seem to be Epicureans,” explains “our” caution about “final convictions.” “Perhaps one may see in it a good deal of the caution of the ‘burnt child,’ of the disillusioned idealist” (German Vielleicht; mark ?). The better part is “the joyful curiosity of a former lingerer in the corner,” who now revels in “the unbounded.” The result is “an almost Epicurean inclination for knowledge.” The section ends with a rider who holds back fiery steeds; if we delay, Common has, “it is certainly least of all the danger which causes us to delay.” The German has wohl, which usually softens a claim, so Common’s “certainly” reads firmer than the original; mark it ?. Compare §370 (station 31), where Epicurus was “the opposite of a Dionysian pessimist”: here “we” only seem Epicurean. §375, why we seem to be Epicureans

§376, “Our Slow Periods,” is a few lines on “the maternal species of men” (compare §369’s “mother,” station 31): at each finished work they feel “we are ripe for it.” Then “the tempo of life slows down.” Common’s “long pauses” renders the musical term Fermaten, fermatas.

A difficulty

Do limits of perspective entail that views are equal?

§374 says the intellect sees only through its own perspective forms, and forbids decreeing that only our perspective is legitimate. But §373 calls the mechanical interpretation possibly “one of the stupidest,” and §374 itself finds “stupidity and folly of interpretation” in the unknown, including our own.

Three readings are possible.

• Ranking without a view from nowhere. The limits remove a final standard, not all judgment. Interpretations can still be ranked by what they grasp or miss, as §373 ranks the counting of music.
• A tension left open. If no perspective can check itself from outside, §373’s verdicts are themselves perspectival, and the sections do not say what gives them authority.
• A modesty clause. §374 hedges its own modesty (“I think”) and allows only a possibility. It leaves room for strong judgments while refusing to make ours the only legitimate one.

Decide which the text best supports. Name one sentence from §373 and one from §374.

Check your understanding

Try answering before opening each suggested response.

Writing prompt

Write 200–250 words answering:

Can §373’s verdict on the mechanical interpretation stand after §374?

• Quote no more than two short phrases.
• Distinguish what §374 says is possible from what it says is known.
• Say what, if anything, still gives §373’s ranking its force.

A successful response states both sections accurately, keeps the hedges, and does not turn “possibility” into proof.

Continue

Optional checkpoint: Reading 9. You have now read both of Reading 9’s sections (§354 at station 28, §374 here). Its full close reading of them is a useful review; it takes about 60–75 minutes, an editorial estimate. Reading 9 belongs to the ten-session introduction, and its own Next link leads to Reading 10, which assigns §§382–383. Those sections come at station 33, so return here instead; Reading 10’s checkpoint comes after station 33.

Continue to station 33: We Homeless Ones: Hierarchy, Health, and the Book’s Close →

Read next: Book V, §§377–383, the end of Book V. Its question: can homelessness and great health coexist with §377’s hierarchy?

Previous station: station 31, §§366–370. Return to the route list in the book guide.

A reading guide from Reading Nietzsche · Revised September 27, 2026.

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