How Nietzsche Outwits Descarte Essay Research Paper

How Nietzsche Outwits Descarte Essay, Research Paper

Friedrich Nietzsche is not only one of the most influential

philosophers the world has seen, but he is also one of the most

controversial. He has influenced twentieth century thought more than

almost any other thinker. In his numerous works, Nietzsche constantly

criticizes and restructures the strongly held philosophical and

religious beliefs of his time. One such principle that he refutes

belongs to his predecessor Rene’ Descartes, and concerns the apparent

distinction and significance of the human mind over the body. Descartes

explains this elaborate theory in his Meditations on First Philosophy,

claiming that the mind (the conscious) is the lone essential part of the

human essence. On the other hand, Nietzsche expresses in his work, On

the Genealogy of Morality, his beliefs that the body (the unconscious)

is key to the human essence. One may find it difficult to decide

between these two ideas, for both philosophers pose good arguments on

the contradicting sides of this famous dilemma.

However, by analyzing them further, I realize

that the qualities of their arguments are only as good as the

foundations that they are based upon; one cannot have an understanding

of the mind or the body without first having knowledge of the essence of

human existence. With this in mind, I will prove that the body is

superior to the mind by showing that the center for Nietzsche’s ideas,

the human essence, is more valid than that of Descartes.

Descartes’ idea of the human essence is based solely on his formed

concept of “radical doubt.” He believes the essence of human existence

to be simply “a thinking thing” [1]. We must now analyze how he

arrived at this conclusion. Descartes is famous for radical doubt, a

concept that questions everything, and assumes nothing to be true unless

it can be proved so with his idea of “clear and distinct perception.”

From this he states that the only thing he can clearly and distinctively

perceive is that “I exist” [2]. He concludes that since he ceases to

exist when he ceases to think, he can then clearly and distinctively

call himself a “thinking thing” [3]. Descartes explains this train of

thought when he says:

From the fact that I know that I exist, and that at the same time I

judge that obviously nothing else belongs to my nature or essence except

that I am a thinking thing, I rightly conclude that my essence consists

entirely in my being a thinking thing. And although perhaps I have a

body that is very closely joined to me, nevertheless, because on the one

hand I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, insofar as I am merely

a thinking thing and not an extended thing, and because on the other

hand I have a distinct idea of a body, insofar as it is merely an

extended thing and not a thinking thing, it is certain that I am really

distinct from my body, and can exist without it [4].

It is obvious that Descartes’ arrival of the human essence as a

“thinking thing” in this way is fully based on his beliefs of radical

doubt and clear and distinct perception. He bases all of his inferences

on other inferences.

Descartes also devaluates the human body and places the mind at the

essence of the human existence based on his concept. Due to his radical

doubt, Descartes quickly omits the body and the entire physical world as

having any significance because of the simple fact that they can be

doubted. He establishes a strong sense of doubt in his senses, because,

according to Descartes, one cannot know clearly and distinctly that they

are not being deceived into their physical sensations [5]. Descartes

thus condemns the significance of the body when he proclaims that it is

“not a substance endowed with understanding” [6]. He places the body

into the physical, unintelligible realm of his concept of dualism,

opposite from the thinking, knowledgeable realm. Descartes now

acknowledges the body as being useful only within the limits of “moving

from one place to another, of taking on various shapes, and so on” [7].

It is from this condemnation of the body into the physical,

unintelligible !

realm that Descartes further places the mind on a pedestal, and at the

essence of human existence. To him the mind is superior because it

thinks, which is in itself our essence. He explains this in the

indented quote I have already cited (4), saying that the mind can exist

without the body. Analyzing things with radical doubt clearly finalizes

all of Descartes’ ideas.

Therefore, Descartes’ argument is not valid because of the fact that it

is solely derived from assumptions. His idea of the superiority of the

mind is based on the assumption that humans are thinking things, which

itself is based on the assumption of clear and distinct perception,

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