[1] Perspectivism may be regarded as an early form of epistemological pluralism,[2] though in some accounts includes treatment of value theory,[3] moral psychology,[4] and realist metaphysics.
[5] Early forms of perspectivism have been identified in the philosophies of Protagoras, Michel de Montaigne, and Gottfried Leibniz.
However, its first major statement is considered to be Friedrich Nietzsche's development of the concept in the 19th century,[2][4] influenced by Gustav Teichmüller's use of the term some years prior.
[6] For Nietzsche, perspectivism takes the form of a realist antimetaphysics[7] while rejecting both the correspondence theory of truth and the notion that the truth-value of a belief always constitutes its ultimate worth-value.
[4] According to Alexander Nehamas, perspectivism is often misinterpreted as a form of relativism, whereby we acknowledge the true virtue of fully rejecting the 'Law of excluded middle' regarding a particular proposition.
The origins of perspectivism have also been found to lie also within Renaissance developments in philosophy of art and its artistic notion of perspective.
[2] In fact, a major cornerstone of Plato's philosophy is his rejection and opposition to perspectivism—this forming a principal element of his aesthetics, ethics, epistemology, and theology.
They never present things just as they are but twist and disguise them to conform to the point of view from which they have seen them; and to gain credence for their opinion and make it attractive, they do not mind adding something of their own, or extending and amplifying.
Nietzsche views this collapse to reveal, through his genealogical project, that all that has been considered non-perspectival knowledge, the entire tradition of Western metaphysics, has itself been only a perspective.
[24][26] His perspectivism and genealogical project are further integrated into each other in addressing the psychological drives that underlie various philosophical programs and perspectives, as a form of critique.
[4] Here, contemporary scholar Ken Gemes views Nietzsche's perspectivism to above all be a principle of moral psychology, rejecting interpretations of it as an epistemological thesis outrightly.
One indication of their obscurity is that on an initial reading he appears either blatantly inconsistent in his use of the words 'true' and 'truth', or subject to inexplicable vacillations on the value of truth.
[34] He noted that war transpires due to the lack of perspective and failure to see the larger contexts of the actions among nations.
[38] Studies of perspectivism have also been introduced into contemporary anthropology, initially through the influence of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and his research into indigenous cultures of South America.