Parlor Trick Clarification

Upgraded and adapted from my exchange in the Moot with Jim:

When I said that those who dismissed as "self-referential incoherence" Nietzsche's "truth and illusion" declaration were indulging in a parlor trick, my point was that they're either impatiently misunderstanding or dishonestly circumventing -- rather than "refuting" -- Nietzsche through a stubborn clinging to the customary definitions of truth and illusion it is Nietzsche's whole point to trouble in the passage.

If some illusions under Nietzsche's perspectivism can be good in the way of belief then it will not be a distinction between truth and illusion premised on Platonic essentialism or naive correspondence that facilitates our reasonable or warranted beliefs. That is to say, when mobile metaphors replace word-world correspondence, when occasion replaces certainty it no longer makes much sense to declare as forceful a truth-illusion distinction in the way those asserting the formulation to be self-refuting are doing.

What they are really saying is something like, "Nietzsche is using the words truth and illusion in uncustomary ways." Thus rephrased, their objection not only no longer seems a stunning refutation but seems instead to name the obvious in the clumsiest most clueless manner imaginable. Of course, Nietzsche depends on an awareness of both the customary and non-customary usages and the play between them for the force of his point. Hence, the "parlor trick distraction for undergraduate theory-head pricks" comment.

I am far from saying that self-referential incoherence is always a useless parlor trick. Indeed, scouting for logical, topical, tropological incoherences butters your bread if you are in the business -- as I am -- of textual close reading!