Nietzsche's Philosophy Of The Body

Nietzsche was a revolutionary author and philosopher who has had a tremendous impact on German culture up through the twentieth century and even today. Nietzsche's views were very unlike the popular and conventional beliefs and practices of his time and nearly all of his published works were, and still are, rather controversial, especially in On the Genealogy of Morals. His philosophies are more than just controversial and unconventional viewpoints, however; they are absolutely extreme and dangerous if taken out of context or misinterpreted. After Nietzsche's death it took very little for his sister to make some slight alterations to his works to go along with Nazi ideology.

Christianity had become the enemy of life and nature and the church has stifled its followers by turning them into closed minded and weak humans. Nietzsche ultimately believed that religion creates a concept of anti-natural morality which damages our development as humans quite

“the body” in a few ambiguous ways. So, why does he use “the body” so

The body is the vessel in which an individual carries out their pursuit of the good life. One's current body and their attitudes towards it can reflect their answer towards the question of this course.

Humanity, according to Nietzsche, is infected by an illness. It is the kind of illness that has infected every single man, religious or non-religious alike. It is his aim to release his readers from the illness. In much the same way as a doctor, he wishes to do so by primarily sourcing the cause of the illness, and secondly by diagnosing it. It is Nietzsche’s belief that this metaphoric illness is morality.

In Nietzsche’s aphorisms 90-95 and 146-162 he attacks what he believes to be the fundamental basis of the “slave” morality prevalent in the Judeo-Christian tradition as well as other religions and societies. From the beginning, he distinguishes the two different types of moralities he believes to exist: the “master morality”, created by rulers of societies, and the “slave” morality, created by the lowest people in societies. The former stresses virtues of the strong and noble while looking down upon the weak and cowardly. This type of morality, however, is not as widespread as the “slave morality” that has been adopted by so many religions. Nietzsche looks through the psychology and logic of

Nietzsche points out that morals were not given to humans by God, nor was knowledge or instinct instilled in us by God: we have created morality just as we have decided standards for "truth" and explanations for our "human nature," and so there is no transcendent external standard. If God is dead, there are no objective values and we are free to create our own values. Nietzsche says that although the death of God liberates us, leaving us free to rule ourselves, this results in a cage-like freedom: while no value is objectively "right" or "true", if we can not choose then we are not free. Nietzsche supports the individual who, despite a lack of objective correctness or "truth", makes a decision anyway, accepting responsibility for her self-created values and actions, knowing she is these actions.

Nietzsche believes that this value system of suffering, which was at the heart of ancient civilization, did not go against life but celebrated the vitality of it,

Nietzsche concludes that people tend to be insecure about themselves when compared to people around them, which can lead to destruction of oneself (652). "Inner facts", which include the will, the ego and the spirit. With these "inner facts" humans project their subjectivity onto the world through the doers from which every doing follows (652). Nietzsche argued that there are no causes that originate from will and through mental causes (652). This has led them to consider ego as the concept of being and they have put spirit as the cause, instead of reality, thus establishing a measure for that reality

In his Discourse on Method, Rene Descartes offers the above proposition, in response to the radical doubt (Discourse on Method 15)This implies that, even the human ability to doubt one’s existence is proof that humans are thinking beings, and therefore must exist in the universe, despite all else. Nietzsche has written in contrast to this statement, discussing the contradictions and assumptions surrounding the proposition. Stemming from this initial premise, both Descartes and Nietzsche go on to discuss the mind/body problem. Descartes argues for the separation of mind and body, while Nietzsche offers a premise based on a deep connection between the two. I seek to compare the writings of both philosophers, and explore holes in judgment and scope on the part of Descartes, and prove as to why Nietzsche’s discussions are superior of the two.

Nietzsche views nature as God or the ultimate goal for humans. To act on our animal forms and master forgetfulness is be truly free, according to Nietzsche. All of the problems that he presents such as ressentiment, bad consciousness and idealism are solvable by forgetfulness. This is done by only acting on our subconscious impulses and disregarding our conscious. To be like an animal, the ideal form, conscious thoughts such as questioning, deep thinking and painful subjects are eliminated. There seems to be general trend between most of the philosopher that we discussed. From Plato, to Augustine, to Descartes and to Nietzsche the “I” becomes more and more important. The self is put into the center and the individual is glorified more and more

Although the problem of the relationship between Nietzsche and metaphysics might seem to be a settled issue, this is in fact a quite complicated and fascinating problematic. The difficulty with this subject lies in the often unacknowledged ambiguity that the term ‘metaphysics’ exhibits in Nietzsche's writing, as this word assumes different nuances and connotations in different contexts. Therefore, if we can get past the usual rhetoric on the topic, we come to realize that Nietzsche addresses the topic of metaphysics in at least two distinct ways.

We have our body, our soul, and our love or hate for the body, however Nietzsche argues that within the body we have our senses. Our senses are the only thing the body has for guidance and thus we should respect them. If we explain everything in terms of the body that means even philosophies that deny the body can be explained in terms of the body. This would mean that it has to be understood in the bodies of the philosophers that believe this. Nietzsche believes that we are in fact the body. Nietzsche argues that we should be able to explain everything in terms of the body including will to power.

Nietzsche says that every person and every society have different views on what is good and bad. So he believed that one must look “Beyond Good and Evil” to entertain the idea that both extremes, and the variants in between, may be part of being human. There’s no absolute truth. He opposed the whole idea of Christian morality; he saw its stress on charity and kindness as a “celebration of weakness”. So he believes that

Nietzsche introduced an idea of philosophy that was more than simply a rational groundwork of existence or as the pursuit of an absolute truth. Instead, he suggested that philosophy is something to be respected as a personal interpretation of life and all its faculties (morality, existentialism etc.) and that was – for him - focused on life affirmation. Furthermore, this thinking implies that philosophy is not a be all and end all answer to life’s questions; rather, it is merely a