Faith is an attitude of the entire self, including both will and intellect, directed toward a person, an idea, or-as in the case of religious faith-a divine being. Modern theologians agree in emphasizing this total existential character of faith, thus distinguishing it from the popular conception of faith that identifies it with belief as opposed to knowledge. Faith indeed includes belief but goes far beyond it, and in the history of theology the distinction has more often been drawn between faith and works than between faith and knowledge. This distinction was powerfully expressed by the apostle Paul, who argued that the sinful human being cannot achieve salvation through good works, but only through faith in the free grace of God. In this view, forcefully revived by Martin Luther at the time of the Reformation, good works are consequences of faith. The faithful relation to God enables the believer to transcend limitations and bring forth good works.
The Book of Hebrews, which some scholars speculate was written for Jewish converts to Christianity in the 1st century, encouraged Christians to maintain their faith despite the possibility of persecution under Roman authorities. This excerpt, the eleventh chapter of the epistle, lists great heroes from the Old Testament, as well as Jesus himself, who because of their faith and devotion to God did not fear death. This passage is from the King James Version of the Bible.
The most evocative description of faith in the New Testament is found in Hebrews 11:1, where faith is heralded as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Here, the word for faith is the Greek pistis, which denotes the act of giving one's trust. The New Testament conception of faith involves an amplification and an alteration of the older, Hebrew idea of faith as that quality of stability and trust that informs the living relationship between two beings. For the New Testament writers, faith has found its centre in the believer's relationship to Jesus Christ. But the New Testament idea of faith goes beyond that of the Hebrew scriptures in its addition of the concept of “belief in” or “belief that.” Hence, Christian theology has traditionally distinguished between the “subjective” element in faith, which involves the supernatural action of God upon the human soul, and faith's “objective” component, which is characterized as adherence to a body of truth found in creeds, in definitions of church councils, and especially in the Bible.
During the Middle Ages, Roman Catholic theologians distinguished two kinds of separate but ultimately compatible religious truths: those that are accessible to unaided human reason, such as belief in the existence of God; and those that require faith in order to be grasped, such as belief in the resurrection of the dead. Historically, the Roman Catholic church has defined faith as the complete acceptance of doctrine and of the absolute authority of God in what he reveals or promises to reveal.
Not all Christians have believed that the demands of faith are compatible with those of reason. Many early Christians, including St. Paul and the 2nd-century theologian Tertullian, insisted that faith resembles folly to the eye that has not been opened by the grace of God. In a similar vein, the 19th-century Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard felt that a chasm separates human reason from faith, and that the would-be believer must make a “leap of faith” across this abyss in order to find salvation. In general, modern Protestant theologians have emphasized, as Kierkegaard did, the subjective or individualistic aspect of faith and have concentrated on the risk and moral effort involved in attempting to lead the life of faith, rather than on the acceptance of creeds as an expression of faith
In polytheism, there are many holy beings, each manifesting some particular divine attribute or caring for some particular aspect of nature or of human affairs. Polytheism was the most common form of religion in the ancient world and was well developed in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and elsewhere. It tends, however, to develop into a form of religion that has a unitary conception of the divine, either through philosophical criticism or through one of the deities in the polytheistic pantheon (assemblage of gods) acquiring an overwhelming superiority over the others. The gods of a pantheon were usually conceived in some family relationship, which ensured from the beginning a sense of their unity. Polytheism probably developed out of a more primitive form of religion (still practised in many parts of the world) called animism, the belief in a multitude of spiritual forces, localized and limited in their powers, some friendly and some hostile. In animism the sense of Holy Being is diffused throughout the environment.
Although conceptions of God have varied considerably by historical period, culture, and sect, a belief in Holy Being in some sense has been predominant in almost all societies throughout history. This belief has been challenged, however, since ancient times by the philosophical doctrines of skepticism, materialism, atheism, and other forms of disbelief. The proportion of unbelievers is higher in modern societies than in most societies of the past.
Arguments against belief in God are as numerous as arguments for it. Atheists absolutely deny the existence of God. Some, for instance, believe the material universe constitutes ultimate reality; others argue that the prevalence of suffering and evil in the world precludes the existence of a sacred being. Agnostics believe that the evidence for and against the existence of God is inconclusive; they therefore suspend judgment. Positivists believe that rational inquiry is restricted to questions of empirical fact, so that it is meaningless to either affirm or deny the existence of God. American psychologist and philosopher William James helped to popularize the philosophy of pragmatism with his book Pragmatism: A New Name for Old Ways of Thinking (1907). Influenced by a theory of meaning and verification developed for scientific hypotheses by American philosopher C. S. Peirce, James held that truth is what works, or has good experimental results. In a related theory, James argued the existence of God is partly verifiable because many people derive benefits from believing.
If, as Paul Tillich argues, God is the ground or source of being and not simply another being, even the highest or supreme being, then he does not exist in the sense in which things exist within the world. It may even be misleading to say, “God exists,” although this is the traditional way of speaking. To believe in God is to have faith in the ultimate ground of being, or to trust in the ultimate rationality and righteousness of the whole scheme of things. This way of expressing the matter also leaves open the questions of transcendence and immanence, personal being and impersonal being, and so on. The primary basis for belief in God is to be found in experience, especially religious experience. There are many experiences in which people have become aware of Holy Being manifesting itself in their lives-mystical experiences, conversion, a sense of presence, sometimes visions and verbal communications-which may come with the force of a revelation. Besides specifically religious experiences, there are others in which people become aware of a depth or an ultimacy that they call God-moral experiences, interpersonal relations, the sense of beauty, the search for truth, the awareness of finitude, even confrontation with suffering and death. These are sometimes called limit situations (a term used by the 20th-century German philosopher Karl Jaspers), because those who undergo such experiences seem to strike against the limits of their own being. In so doing, however, they become aware of a being that transcends their own, yet with which they sense both difference and affinity. They become aware of what 20th-century German Protestant theologian Rudolf Otto, in a classic description, called Mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the mystery that at once produces both awe and fascination.
During the 13th century, Saint Thomas Aquinas sought to reconcile the empirical philosophy of Aristotle with the mystical theology of Saint Augustine. Aquinas wrote that reason and faith are fully compatible with one another and that furthermore, God can be known through both methods. While Aquinas himself accepted the existence of God on faith, he offered five rational arguments to support this belief.
To many people experiencing the Holy Being are self-authenticating, and they feel no need to inquire further. All human experience, however, is fallible. Mistakes of perception are everyday experiences, and false conceptions of the natural world, the earth, the heavenly bodies, and so forth have prevailed for thousands of years. It is therefore possible that the experience of Holy Being is illusory, and this possibility has led some believers to look for a rational basis for belief in God that will confirm the experiential basis. Numerous attempts have been made to prove the reality of God. Medieval Scholastic theologian Saint Anselm argued that the very idea of a being than which nothing greater or more perfect can be conceived entails his existence, for existence is itself an aspect of perfection. Many philosophers have denied the logical validity of such a transition from idea to factual existence, but this ontological argument is still discussed. Thirteenth-century theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas rejected the ontological argument but proposed five other proofs of God's existence that are still officially accepted by the Roman Catholic church: (1) The fact of change requires an agent of change; (2) the chain of causation needs to be grounded in a first cause that is itself uncaused; (3) the contingent facts of the world (facts that might not have been as they are) presuppose a necessary being; (4) one can observe a gradation of things as higher and lower, and this points to a perfect reality at the top of the hierarchy and (5) the order and design of nature demand as their source a being possessing the highest wisdom. Eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant rejected Aquinas's arguments but argued the necessity of God's existence as the support or guarantor of the moral life. These arguments for the reality of God have all been submitted to repeated and searching criticism, and they continue to be reformulated to meet the criticisms. It is now generally agreed that none of them constitutes a proof, but many believers would say that the arguments have a cumulative force, which, although still short of proof, amounts to a strong probability, especially in conjuction with the evidence of religious experience. Ultimately, however, belief in God is, like many other important beliefs, an act of faith-one that must be rooted in personal experience.
The self-communication of God; that is, God's disclosure of divine being or divine will to human beings. Most of the major world religions affirm revelation in some sense as a basis for their doctrines and practices. Revelation may be in the form of a vision, often accompanied by words, or may consist only of words. In the Old Testament, Moses saw a burning bush and heard God's voice proceeding from it. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, heard a noise like a bell that resolved itself into words. As recounted in the Hindu epic the Bhagavad-Gita, Prince Arjuna saw his charioteer Krishna transformed into his true form as a divine being. Historical events may also be understood as revelation-for instance, the exodus of Israel from Egypt, or the life of Jesus Christ. General revelation refers to the knowledge of God communicated through the order of nature, a conception that is found in Eastern religion and in some romantic poetry, such as that of the English poet William Wordsworth. Special revelation refers to the knowledge of God that comes through specific experiences, such as visions, dreams, or events. The two kinds of revelation may be complementary. Christianity and Islam both teach that the natural order is revelatory of God, but their emphasis is on the special revelations communicated by their founders. In Judaism too the special revelations given to Moses and the prophets, which are described in the Bible, are fundamental to the faith. In all revelation, the primary element is the encounter with the divine, which it is the task of religious doctrine and of religious tradition to interpret and convey.
Heaven, in religion, place where God, gods, or other spiritual beings dwell, and the place or condition of perfect supernatural happiness for the redeemed in the afterlife.
In simple societies the concept of life after death was substantially that of a shadowy continuation of life on earth. Even in that concept, however, the principle of the necessity for vindication of divine justice was manifested. This principle is illustrated in the distinction between Elysium (a place of reward for the virtuous dead) and Tartarus (a place of damnation where the wicked were punished) in the Greek and Roman religions and in the various depths of Sheol (abode of the dead) of the Jewish Scriptures. Later Jewish mystics regarded the heavens as contained in the seven spheres of the firmament, and they found in the Persian doctrine of resurrection a hope of release from Sheol to a new life on earth or in the heavens.
Aristotle declared that all (polytheistic) religions united in placing the abode of the gods in the most elevated place in the universe. Such regions were, in classical times, considered as closed to ordinary mortals. The Islands of the Blessed, sometimes identified with Elysium, were reached only by heroes, demigods, and favourites of the gods. The heaven of later polytheistic religions was conceived of as a place where mortals might continue the pleasures of earthly life, as in the Valhalla of the Germans and Scandinavians and the happy hunting ground of the Native North Americans.
The general belief of Christians is that, since the resurrection of Christ, the souls of the just who are free from sin are admitted immediately after death into heaven, where their chief joy consists in an unclouded vision of God known as the beatific vision. Their bliss is eternal, but at the general resurrection their souls are to be reunited to their perfected, or glorified, bodies. Some Christians believe that, before entering heaven, souls first pass through a state of purification called purgatory.
Islam, in the Qur'an (Koran), adopts the concept of the seven heavens of the firmament, differing in degrees of glory from the seventh, the abode of the Most High, downward to the first, or most earthly, paradise. Although the Qur'an portrays the happiness of heaven as the unrestricted and inexhaustible partaking of the joys of physical sense, many writers consider this portrayal to be purely allegorical.
Nirvana, the heaven of Buddhism, is a state of extinction of all desire and of union with Brahma, the creator god, achieved by perfecting the soul in the course of its successive transmigrations. Literally, “discourse about the last things,” is the doctrine concerning life after death and the final stage of the world. The origin of this doctrine is almost as old as humanity; archaeological evidence of customs in the Old Stone Age indicates a rudimentary concept of immortality. Even in early stages of religious development, speculation about things to come is not wholly limited to the fate of the individual. Such devastating natural phenomena as floods, conflagrations, cyclones, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions have always suggested the possibility of the end of the world. Higher forms of eschatological thought are the product of a complex social organism and an increased knowledge of natural science. Often myths of astrological origin, the concept of retribution, or the hope of deliverance from present oppressions provided the material or motive for highly-developed eschatologies. Prolonged observation of planetary and solar movement made possible the conception of a recurrence, at the end of the present cycle, of the events connected with the origin of the world and a renovation of the world after its destruction.
The development of eschatological speculation, therefore, generally reflects the growth of human intellectual and moral perceptions, the larger social experience of men and women, and their expanding knowledge of nature. The outward forms of the doctrine of eschatology vary, however, according to the characteristics of the environment and of the peoples.
Belief in a life of the spirit, a substance inhabiting the dead body as long as food and drink are furnished, is typical of primitive eschatology. The concept of the future life grew richer as civilization advanced and cosmic forces became objects of worship associated with departed spirits. The belief in judgment after death was introduced when standards of right and wrong were established according to particular tribal customs; the spirits themselves were made subject to the laws of retribution. Through this twofold development the future life was thus made spiritual and assumed a moral character, as in the eschatology of ancient Egypt. In Persia and Israel, the old conception of a shadowy existence in the grave, or in some subterranean realm, in general retained its hold. Escape from such an existence, however, into larger life, with the possibility of moral distinctions among individuals, was provided by the conception of a restoration and reanimation of the old body, thus ensuring personal identity. In other cultures, as in India, the spirit was conceived as entering immediately upon death into another body, to live again and die and become reincarnated in new forms. This concept of transmigration, or metempsychosis, made possible the introduction into the future life of subtle moral distinctions, involving not only punishments and rewards for conduct in a previous stage of existence but also the possibility of rising or falling in the scale of being according to present conduct. In spite of the seemingly perfect justice thus administered on every level of being, the never-ending series of births and deaths of the individual may come to appear as an evil; in which case deliverance may be sought from the infinite wheel of existence in Nirvana. The ancient Greeks arrived at their eschatology by considering the functions of the mind as a purely spiritual essence, independent of the body, and having no beginning or end; this abstract concept of immortality led to the anticipation of a more concrete personal life after death.
The ideas held throughout history concerning the future of the world and of humanity are only imperfectly known today. The belief in a coming destruction of the world by fire or flood is found among groups in the Pacific islands as well as among American aborigines; this belief probably did not originate in astronomical speculation, but was rather engendered by some terrifying earthly experience of the past. The ancient Persians, who adopted the doctrines of their religious teacher Zoroaster, developed the basic idea of the coming destruction of the world by fire into the concept of a great moral ordeal. According to this belief, at the end of the world the worshippers of the lord Mazda will be distinguished from all other people by successfully enduring the ordeal of molten metal, and the good will then be rewarded. This concept is found in the Gathas, the earliest part of the Avesta, the bible of Zoroastrianism. It is not certain that the idea of a resurrection from death goes back to the period represented by the Gathas. But the Greek historian Herodotus seems to have heard of such a Persian belief in the 5th century Bc, and Theopompus of Chios, the historian of Philip II, king of Macedon, described it as a Mazdayasnian doctrine.
Similarities can be seen between the ancient Greek concepts of heaven and hell and those of Christian doctrine. The Homeric poems and those of Hesiod show how the Greek mind conceived of the future of the soul in Elysium or in Hades. Through the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries this thought was deepened. That the future of nations and the world also played an important role in Greek and Roman thought is evident from the prophecies of the Sibyls. An eschatological philosophy dominated the epoch ushered in by the conquests of Alexander the Great, and Greco-Roman thought became suffused with Oriental ideas in its speculation upon the future of the world. In a similar manner the Scandinavian idea of the destruction of the earth by fire and its subsequent renovation under higher heavens-to be peopled by the descendants of the surviving pair, Life and Life’s thrustor (as set forth in the Elder Edda)-reflects an early Nordic interpretation of the idea of hell and heaven.
In early Israel the “Day of Yahweh” was a coming day of battle that would decide the fate of the people. Although the people looked forward to it as a day of victory, prophets such as Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah feared that it would bring near or complete destruction, associating it with the growing military threat from Assyria. To Jeremiah, this forecast of judgment was the criterion of true prophethood. Later, the books containing their pronouncements were interpolated with prophecies of prosperity, which themselves constituted significant signs of the expansion of eschatological hopes. The Book of Daniel voices the hope that the kingdom of the world will be given to the saints of the Most High, the Jewish people. A celestial representative, probably the archangel Michael, is promised, who, after the destruction of the beast representing the Hellenistic kingdoms of the Middle East, will come with the clouds and receive the empire of the world. No messiah appears in this apocalypse. The first distinct appearance of this deliverer and king is in the Song of Solomon.
After the conquest of Palestine by the Roman general Pompey the Great in 63 Bc, the Jews longed for a descendant of the line of David, king of Israel and Judah, who would break the Roman yoke, establish the empire of the Jews, and rule as a righteous king over the subject nations. This desire ultimately led to the rebellion in Ad 66-70, which brought about the destruction of Jerusalem. When Jesus Christ proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of heaven, it was natural, therefore, that despite his Immortality, unending existence of the soul after physical death. The doctrine of immortality is common to many religions; in different cultures, however, it takes various forms, ranging from ultimate extinction of the soul to its final survival and the resurrection of the body. In Hinduism, the ultimate personal goal is considered absorption into the “universal spirit.” Buddhist doctrine promises nirvana, the state of complete bliss achieved through total extinction of the personality. In the religion of ancient Egypt, entrance to immortal life was dependent on the results of divine examination of the merits of an individual's life. Early Greek religion promised a shadowy continuation of life on earth in an underground region known as Hades. In Christianity and Islam, as well as in Judaism, the immortality promised is primarily of the spirit. The former two religions both differ from Judaism in holding that after the resurrection of the body and a general judgment of the entire human race, the body is to be reunited with the spirit to experience either reward or punishment. In Jewish eschatology, the resurrection of the soul will take place at the advent of the Messiah, although the reunion of body and spirit will endure only for the messianic age, when the spirit will return to heaven.
Jews. His disciples were convinced that he would return as the Messiah upon the clouds of heaven. It is unlikely, however, that the final judgment and the raising of the dead were ever conceived by an adherent of the Jewish faith as functions of the Messiah.
In Christian doctrine, eschatology has traditionally included the second advent of Christ, or Parousia, the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, the immortality of the soul, concepts of heaven and hell, and the consummation of the kingdom of God. In the Roman Catholic church, eschatology includes, additionally, the beatific vision, purgatory, and limbo.
Although the great creeds of Christendom affirm the belief in a return to the son of God to judge the living and the dead, and in a resurrection of the just and the unjust, Christianity through the centuries has shown wide variation in its interpretation of eschatology. Conservative belief has usually emphasized a person's destiny after death and the way in which belief in the future life affects one's attitude toward life on earth. Occasionally certain sects have predicted the imminent end of the world.
Islam adopted from Judaism and Christianity the doctrine of a coming judgment, a resurrection of the dead, and everlasting punishments and rewards. Later, contact with Persian thought greatly enriched Islamic eschatology. Especially important was the belief in the reincarnation of some great prophet from the past. Time and again the world of Islam has been stirred by the expectation of Mahdi, the Muslim messiah, to reveal more fully the truth, or to lead the faithful into better social conditions on earth. Iran and Africa have had many such movements.
Liberal Christian thought has emphasized the soul and the kingdom of God, more often seeing it as coming on earth in each individual (evidenced by what was believed to be the steady upward progress of humankind) than as an apocalyptic event at the end of time. Twentieth-century theological thought has tended to repudiate what many scholars have felt to be an identification of Christian eschatology with the values of Western civilization. In the second half of the 20th century, eschatology was equated by some theologians with the doctrine of Christian hope, including not only the events of the end of time but also the hope itself and its revolutionizing influence on life in the world. The most eloquent exponent of this eschatology is the German theologian Jürgen Moltmann.
In modern Judaism the return of Israel to its land, the coming of the Messiah, the resurrection of the dead, and everlasting retribution are still expected by the Orthodox, but the more liberal base the religious mission of Israel upon the regeneration of the human race and upon hope for immortal life independent of the resurrection of the body.
As. too, the doctrine that the existence of God and other spiritual beings is neither certain nor impossible. The term, derived from agnostikos (Greek for “not knowing”), was introduced into English in the 19th century by the British biologist Thomas Henry Huxley. The agnostic position is distinct from both theism, which affirms the existence of such beings, and atheism, which denies their existence.
Although usually regarded as a form of skepticism, agnosticism is more limited in scope, for it denies the reliability only of metaphysical and theological beliefs than of all beliefs. The basis of modern agnosticism lies in the works of the British philosopher David Hume and the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, both of whom pointed out logical fallacies in the traditional arguments for the existence of God
Finally, immortality, deems of an unending existence of the soul after physical death. The doctrine of immortality is common to many religions; in different cultures, however, it takes various forms, ranging from ultimate extinction of the soul to its final survival and the resurrection of the body. In Hinduism, the ultimate personal goal is considered absorption into the “universal spirit.” Buddhist doctrine promises nirvana, the state of complete bliss achieved through total extinction of the personality. In the religion of ancient Egypt, entrance to immortal life was dependent on the results of divine examination of the merits of an individual's life. Early Greek religion promised a shadowy continuation of life on earth in an underground region known as Hades. Judaism in holding that after the resurrection of the body and a general judgment of the entire human race, the body is to be reunited with the spirit to experience either reward or punishment. In Jewish eschatology, the resurrection of the soul will take place at the advent of the Messiah, although the reunion of body and spirit will endure only for the messianic age, when the spirit will return to heaven.
Humanism, in philosophy, lends itself of the attitude that emphasizes the dignity and worth of the individual. A basic premise of humanism is that people are rational beings who possess within themselves the capacity for truth and goodness. The term humanism is most often used to describe a literary and cultural movement that spread through western Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. This Renaissance revival of Greek and Roman studies emphasized the value of the classics for their own sake, rather than for their relevance to Christianity.
The humanist movement started in Italy, where the late medieval Italian writers Dante, Giovanni Boccaccio, and Francesco Petrarch contributed greatly to the discovery and preservation of classical works. Humanist ideals were forcefully expressed by another Italian scholar, Pico della Mirandola, in his Oration on the dignity of man. The movement was further stimulated by the influx of Byzantine scholars who came to Italy after the fall of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) to the Ottomans in 1453 and also by the establishment of the Platonic Academy in Florence. The academy, whose leading thinker was Marsilio Ficino, was founded by the 15th-century Florentine statesman and patron of the arts Cosimo de' Medici. The institution sought to revive Platonism and had particular influence on the literature, painting, and architecture of the times.
The collection and translation of classical manuscripts became widespread, especially among the higher clergy and nobility. The invention of printing with movable type, around the mid-15th century, gave a further impetus to humanism through the dissemination of editions of the classics. Although in Italy humanism developed principally in the fields of literature and art, in central Europe, where it was introduced chiefly by the German scholars Johann Reuchlin and Melanchthon, the movement extended into the fields of theology and education, and was a major underlying cause of the Reformation.
One of the most influential scholars in the development of humanism in France was the Dutch cleric Desiderius Erasmus, who also played an important part in introducing the movement into England. There humanism was definitely established at the University of Oxford by the English classical scholars William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre, and at the University of Cambridge by Erasmus and the English prelate John Fisher. From the universities it spread throughout English society and paved the way for the great flourishing of Elizabethan literature. However, this humanism is directed against all claims for objective universals, both political and religious. As a method of radical empiricism and a doctrine of radical individualism, it denies all gods as ruling principles and all authorities as principal rulers. It replaces patriarchy by fellowship, kinship by merit, theoretical premises and deduction by sense data, experiment, and induction, faith by critical reason, and duty by individual happiness. This sprightliness of the ‘modern’ mind of the past four-hundred years bears sufficiently the affiliations in reserve for science’s ‘passionate interest in the detailed facts and by the rise of naturalism in art in the late middle ages. This particularist and empirical spirit have frequently been combined in various ways with a conviction in the ultimate Order or Creator of Nature, as in the early scientists Kepler and Newton, the philosophers St. Thomas and Occam, and especially the Protestant religious thinkers ranging from Luther to Anabaptists and Deists like Jefferson. However, the general drift of modern thought in the West has been anti-supernaturalistic, empirical, individualistic, and humanistic. In accumulating of these that we are in finding the illustrations for which the dominant schools of contemporary secular philosophy in the West: Realism, positivism, analysis, phenomenology, and existentialism.
Grounded of strict empiricism, this kind of humanism appears to arise in those periods when the old centres of social power are shifting and the corresponding ruling ideologies are called into question. Not disposed to return to orthodoxy and not yet prepared to create a new ideology for a social order still to be born, intelligent and educated men are thrown back upon the immediate evidence of their senses and upon the impulses of their own bodies. Reality, value, and knowledge are to be found in or by the individual human being considered in contrast to the authoritative God of the past; the rebellion of the Titans against their rulers is repeated. The life of value and divine aspiration and fulfilment is attributed to the individual man who alone is God. Thus, the Greek atomists, in a way similar to the Charvakas in India, pictured a cosmos composed of an infinite number of individual atoms moving unhindered through empty space. In this view, the order of society and of the universe can only be a function of their individual inherent properties. The reasonable person becomes correspondingly as similar of a god once he or she understands this order. Modern empirical humanism does not always affirm the order, as it does affirm the actual or potential divinity of the individual man.
Western humanistic criticism, however, has been associated with another tradition of thought, namely, that which has stressed descriptive generalization, integrative reason, first principles, universals, ideals, communal and organic forces and values, and duty rather than individual happiness. This tradition, too, has associated with some principle of reason its acknowledgement of the existence and importance of the divine. From a traditional religious, that is, strictly supernaturalistic, point of view, it has been antireligious and humanistic, for it leaves no place for faith and identifies the divine with the transcendent principle of reason to which man has access. Some Greek speculative philosophers such as Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, and the Stoics, and some Renaissance and Enlightenment rationalists such as Bruno and Hegel fall into this group. The rich development of natural law philosophy is to be found here, branching out successively in Catholic theology through St. Thomas, in democratic theory through Jefferson, who combined it with Lockean libertarianism, and in Marxism where it was fused with materialism and dialectics. Pope John XXII's Pacem in Terris beautifully illustrates how natural law thought provides a matrix for the meeting, communing, and mutual ordering of diverse viewpoints and systems.
Stress is an unpleasant state of emotional and physiological arousal that people experience in situations that they perceive as dangerous or threatening to their well-being. The word stress means different things to different people. Some people define stress as events or situations that cause them to feel tension, pressure, or negative emotions such as and anger. Others view stress as the response to these situations. This response includes physiological changes-such as increased heart rate and muscle tension-as well as emotional and behavioural changes. However, most psychologists regard stress as a process involving a person’s interpretation and response to a threatening event.
Stress is a common experience. We may feel stress when we are very busy, have important deadlines to meet, or have too little time to finish all of our tasks. Often people experience stress because of problems at work or in social relationships, such as a poor evaluation by a supervisor or an argument with a friend. Some people may be particularly vulnerable to stress in situations involving the threat of failure or personal humiliation. Others have extreme fears of objects or things associated with physical threats-such as snakes, illness, storms, or flying in an aeroplane-and become stressed when they encounter or think about these perceived threats. Major life events, such as the death of a loved one, can cause severe stress.
Stress can have both positive and negative effects. Stress is a normal, adaptive reaction to threat. It signals danger and prepares us to take defensive action. Fear of things that pose realistic threats motivates us to deal with them or avoid them. Stress also motivates us to achieve and fuels creativity. Although stress may hinder performance on difficult tasks, moderate stress seems to improve motivation and performance on less complex tasks. In personal relationships, stress often leads to less cooperation and more aggression.
If not managed appropriately, stress can lead to serious problems. Exposure to chronic stress can contribute to both physical illnesses, such as heart disease, and mental illnesses, such as disorders. The field of health psychology focuses in part on how stress affects bodily functioning and on how people can use stress management techniques to prevent or minimize disease.
The circumstances that cause stress are called stressors. Stressors vary in severity and duration. For example, the responsibility of caring for a sick parent may be an ongoing source of major stress, whereas getting stuck in a traffic jam may cause mild, short-term stress. Some events, such as the death of a loved one, are stressful for everyone. But in other situations, individuals may respond differently to the same event-what is a stressor for one person may not be stressful for another. For example, a student who is unprepared for a chemistry test and anticipates a bad grade may feel stress, whereas a classmate who studies in advance may feel confident of a good grade. For an event or situation to be a stressor for a particular individual, the person must appraise the situation as threatening and lack the coping resources to deal with it effectively.
Stressors can be classified into three general categories: catastrophic events, major life changes, and daily hassles. In addition, simply thinking about unpleasant past events or anticipating unpleasant future events can cause stress for many people.
A veteran of the Vietnam War (1959-1975) mourns the death of friends killed in the war during a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Many Vietnam veterans, particularly those involved in combat, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms of this disorder may include extreme, disturbing flashbacks and nightmares, emotional numbness, and irritability.
Life-threatening disasters, such as earthquakes, cause severe stress and can take a heavy psychological toll on their victims. Buildings in Mexico City destroyed by a September 1985 earthquake. The quake left almost 30,000 people homeless and 7000 dead.
A catastrophe is a sudden, often life-threatening calamity or disaster that pushes people to the outer limits of their coping capability. Catastrophes include natural disasters-such as earthquakes, tornadoes, fires, floods, and hurricanes-as well as wars, torture, automobile accidents, violent physical attacks, and sexual assaults. Catastrophes often continue to affect their victims’ mental health long after the event has ended. For example, in 1972 a dam burst and flooded the West Virginia mining town of Buffalo Creek, destroying the town. Two years after the disaster, most of the adult survivors continued to show emotional disturbances. Similarly, most of the survivors of concentration camps in World War II (1939-1945) continued to experience nightmares and other symptoms of severe emotional problems long after their release from the camps.
The most stressful events for adults involve major life changes, such as death of a spouse or family member, divorce, imprisonment, losing one’s job, and major personal disability or illness. For adolescents, the most stressful events are the death of a parent or a close family member, divorce of their parents, imprisonment of their mother or father, and major personal disability or illness. Sometimes, apparently positive events can have stressful components. For example, a woman who gets a job promotion may receive a higher salary and greater prestige, but she may also feel stress from supervising coworkers who were once peers. Getting married is usually considered a positive experience, but planning the wedding, deciding whom to invite, and dealing with family members may cause couples to feel stressed.
Much of the stress in our lives results from having to deal with daily hassles pertaining to our jobs, personal relationships, and everyday living circumstances. Many people’s experience the same hassles every day. Examples of daily hassles include living in a noisy neighbourhood, commuting to work in heavy traffic, disliking one’s fellow workers, worrying about owing money, waiting in a long line, and misplacing or losing things. When taken individually, these hassles may feel like only minor irritants, but cumulatively, over time, they can cause significant stress. The amount of exposure people have to daily hassles is strongly related to their daily mood. Generally, the greater their exposure is to hassles, the worse is their mood. Studies have found that one’s exposure to daily hassles is actually more predictive of illness than is exposure to major life events.
Studies conducted in countries around the world demonstrate that people can actually work themselves to death. Factors such as workplace stress and long hours contribute to the risk of death from overwork. In this article from Scientific American Presents, Harvey B. Simon, a professor at Harvard Medical School, explores recent findings about the dangers of working too hard and suggests ways of developing healthier work habits.
A person who is stressed typically has anxious thoughts and difficulty concentrating or remembering. Stress can also change outward behaviours. Teeth clenching, hand wringing, pacing, nail biting, and heavy breathing are common signs of stress. People also feel physically different when they are stressed. Butterflies in the stomach, cold hands and feet, dry mouth, and increased heart rate are all physiological effects of stress that we associate with the emotion of anxiety.
When a person appraises an event as stressful, the body undergoes a number of changes that heighten physiological and emotional arousal. First, the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system is activated. The sympathetic division prepares the body for action by directing the adrenal glands to secrete the hormone’s epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline). In response, the heart begins to beat more rapidly, muscle tension increases, blood pressure rises, and blood flow is diverted from the internal organs and skin to the brain and muscles. Breathing speeds up, the pupils dilate, and perspiration increases. This reaction is sometimes called the fight-or-flight response because it energizes the body to confront either or flee from a threat.
Another part of the stress response involves the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland, parts of the brain that are important in regulating hormones and many other bodily functions. In times of stress, the hypothalamus directs the pituitary gland to secrete adrenocorticotropic hormone. This hormone, in turn, stimulates the outer layer, or cortex, of the adrenal glands to release glucocorticoids, primarily the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol helps the body access fats and carbohydrates to fuel the fight-or-flight response.
Canadian scientist Hans Selye was one of the first people to study the stress response. As a medical student, Selye noticed that patients with quite different illnesses shared many of the same symptoms, such as muscle weakness, weight loss, and apathy. Selye believed these symptoms might be part of a general response by the body to stress. In the 1930s Selye studied the reactions of laboratory rats to a variety of physical stressors, such as heat, cold, poisons, strenuous exercise, and electric shock. He found that the different stressors all produced a similar response: enlargement of the adrenal glands, shrinkage of the thymus gland (a gland involved in the immune response), and bleeding stomach ulcers.
Selye proposed a three-stage model of the stress response, which he termed the general adaptation syndrome. The three stages in Selye’s model are alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. The alarm stage is a generalized state of arousal during the body’s initial response to the stressor. In the resistance stage, the body adapts to the stressor and continues to resist it with a high level of physiological arousal. When the stress persists for a long time, and the body is chronically overactive, resistance fails and the body moves to the exhaustion stage. In this stage, the body is vulnerable to disease and even death.
The stress test, also called an exercise electrocardiogram, measures the heart rate of a person during exercise and identifies any abnormal changes in heart function. Such changes may indicate the presence of coronary or arterial disease.
Physicians increasingly acknowledge that stress is a factor in a wide variety of health problems. These problems include cardiovascular disorders such as hypertension (high blood pressure); coronary heart disease (coronary atherosclerosis, or narrowing of the heart’s arteries); and gastrointestinal disorders, such as ulcers. Stress also appears to be a risk factor in cancer, chronic pain problems, and many other health disorders. Stress-Related Disorders.
Researchers have clearly identified stress, and specifically a person's characteristic way of responding to stress, as a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. The release of stress hormones has a cumulative negative effect on the heart and blood vessels. Cortisol, for example, increases blood pressure, which can damage the inside walls of blood vessels. It also increases the free fatty acids in the bloodstream, which in turn leads to plaque buildup on the lining of the blood vessels. As the blood vessels narrow over time, it becomes increasingly difficult for the heart to pump sufficient blood through them.
People with certain personality types seem to be physiologically over responsive to stress and therefore more vulnerable to heart disease. For example, the so-called Type A personality is characterized by competitiveness, impatience, and hostility. When Type A people experience stress, their heart rate and blood pressure climb higher and recovery takes longer than with more easygoing people. The most “toxic” personality traits of Type A people are frequent reactions of hostility and anger. These traits are correlated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease.
Stress also appears to influence the development of cancer, but the relationship is not as well established as it is for cardiovascular diseases. There is a moderate positive correlation between extent of exposure and life stressors and cancer-the more stressors, the greater the likelihood of cancer. In addition, a tendency to cope with unpleasant events in a rigid, unemotional manner is associated with the development and progression of cancer.
Ordinarily the immune system is a marvel of precision. It protects the body from disease by seeking out and destroying foreign invaders, such as viruses and bacteria. But there is substantial evidence that stress suppresses the activity of the immune system, leaving an organism more susceptible to infectious diseases. An organism with a weakened immune system is also less able to control naturally occurring mutant cells that overproduce and lead to cancer.
Numerous studies have linked stress with decreased immune response. For example, when laboratory animals are physically restrained, exposed to inescapable electric shocks, or subjected to overcrowding, loud noises, or maternal separation, they show decreased immune system activity. Researchers have reported similar findings for humans. One study, for example, found weakened immune response in people whose spouses had just died. Other studies have documented weakened immune responses among students taking final examinations; people who are severely deprived of sleep; recently divorced or separated men and women; people caring for a family member with Alzheimer’s disease; and people who have recently lost their jobs.
Stress appears to depress immune function in two main ways. First, when people experience stress, they more often engage in behaviours that have adverse effects on their health: cigarette smoking, using more alcohol or drugs, sleeping less, exercising less, and eating poorly. In addition, stress may alter the immune system directly through hormonal changes. Research indicates that glucocorticoids-hormones that are secreted by the adrenal glands during the stress response-actively suppress the body’s immune system.
At one time scientists believed the immune system functioned more or less as an independent system of the body. They now know that the immune system does not operate by it, but interacts closely with other bodily systems. The field of psychoneuroimmunology focuses on the relationship between psychological influences (such as stress), the nervous system, and the immune system.
Stress influences mental health as well as physical health. People who experience a high level of stress for a long time-and who cope poorly with this stress-may become irritable, socially withdrawn, and emotionally unstable. They may also have difficulty concentrating and solving problems. Some people under intense and prolonged stress may start to suffer from extreme anxiety, depression, or other severe emotional problems. Anxiety disorders caused by stress may include generalized anxiety disorder, phobias, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. People who survive catastrophes sometimes develop an anxiety disorder called post-traumatic stress disorder. They re-experience the traumatic event again and again in dreams and in disturbing memories or flashbacks during the day. They often seem emotionally numb and may be easily startled or angered.
Coping with stress means using thoughts and actions to deal with stressful situations and lower our stress levels. Many people have a characteristic way of coping with stress based on their personality. People who cope well with stress tend to believe they can personally influence what happens to them. They usually make more positive statements about themselves, resist frustration, remain optimistic, and persevere even under extremely adverse circumstances. What is most important, they choose the appropriate strategies to cope with the stressors they confront? Conversely, people who cope poorly with stress tend to have somewhat opposite personality characteristics, such as lower -esteem and a pessimistic outlook on life.
Psychologists distinguish two broad types of coping strategies: problem-focussed coping and emotion-focussed coping. The goal of both strategies is to control one’s stress level. In problem-focussed coping, people try to short-circuit negative emotions by taking some action to modify, avoid, or minimize the threatening situation. They change their behaviour to deal with the stressful situation. In emotion-focussed coping, people try directly to moderate or eliminate unpleasant emotions. Examples of emotion-focussed coping include rethinking the situation in a positive way, relaxation, denial, and wishful thinking.
To understand these strategies, consider the example of a permed student in college who faces three difficult final examinations in a single week. She knows she must get top grades in order to have a chance at acceptance to medical school. This situation is a potential source of stress. To cope, she could organize a study group and master the course materials systematically (problem-focussed coping). Or she could decide that she needs to relax and collect her for an hour or so (emotion-focussed coping) before proceeding with an action plan (problem-focussed coping). She might also decide to watch television for hours on end to prevent having to think about or study for her exams (emotion-focussed coping).
In general, problem-focussed coping is the most effective coping strategy when people have realistic opportunities to change aspects of their situation and reduce stress. Emotion-focussed coping is most useful as a short-term strategy. It can help reduce one’s arousal level before engaging in problem-solving and taking action, and it can help people deal with stressful situations in which there are few problem-focussed coping options.
Support from friends, family members, and others who care for us goes a long way in helping us to get by in times of trouble. Social support systems provide us with emotional sustenance, tangible resources and aid, and information when we are in need. People with social support feel cared about and valued by others and feel a sense of belonging to a larger social network.
A large body of research has linked social support to good health and a superior ability to cope with stress. For example, one long-term study of several thousand California residents found that people with extensive social ties lived longer than those with few close social contacts. Another study found that heart-attack victims who lived alone were nearly twice as likely to have another heart attack as those who lived with someone. Even the perception of social support can help people cope with stress. Studies have found that people’s appraisal of the availability of social support is more closely related to how well they deal with stressors than the actual amount of support they receive or the size of their social network.
Research also suggests that the companionship of animals can help lower stress. For example, one study found that in times of stress, people with pet dogs made fewer visits to the doctor than those without pets.
A patient at a biofeedback clinic sits connected to electrodes on his head and finger. Biofeedback is a technique in which patients attempt to become aware of and then alter bodily functions such as muscle tension and blood pressure. It is used in treating pain and stress-related conditions, and may help some paralysed patients regain the use of their limbs.
Biofeedback is a technique in which people learn voluntary control of stress-related physiological responses, such as skin temperature, muscle tension, blood pressure, and heart rate. Normally, people cannot control these responses voluntarily. In biofeedback training, people are connected to an instrument or machine that measures a particular physiological response, such as heart rate, and feeds that measurement back to them in an understandable way. For example, the machine might beep with each heartbeat or display the number of heartbeats per minute on a digital screen. Next, individuals learn to be sensitive to subtle changes inside their body that affect the response system being measured. Gradually, they learn to produce changes in that response system-for example, to lower their heart rate voluntarily. Typically individuals use different techniques and proceed by trial and error until they discover a way to produce the desired changes.
Scientists do not understand the mechanisms by which biofeedback works. Nonetheless, it has become a widely used and generally accepted technique for producing relaxation and lowering physiological arousal in patients with stress-related disorders. One use of biofeedback is in the treatment of tension headaches. By learning to lower muscle tension in the forehead, scalp, and neck, many tension headache sufferers can find long-term relief.
Through meditation, people can achieve relaxation and reduce stress. Here a yogi, or practitioner of yoga, meditates in the cross-legged “lotus position.
In addition to biofeedback, two other major methods of relaxation are progressive muscular relaxation and meditation. Progressive muscular relaxation involves systematically tensing and then relaxing different groups of skeletal (voluntary) muscles, while directing one’s attention toward the contrasting sensations produced by the two procedures. After practising progressive muscular relaxation, individuals become increasingly sensitive to rising tension levels and can produce the relaxation response during everyday activities (often by repeating a cue word, such as calm, to themselves).
Meditation, in addition to teaching relaxation, is designed to achieve subjective goals such as contemplation, wisdom, and altered states of consciousness. Some forms have a strong Eastern religious and spiritual heritage based in Zen Buddhism and yoga. Other varieties emphasize a particular lifestyle for practitioners. One of the most common forms of meditation, Transcendental Meditation, involves focussing attention on and repeating a mantra, which is a word, sound, or phrase thought to have particularly calming properties.
Both progressive muscle relaxation and meditation reliably reduce stress-related arousal. They have been used successfully to treat a range of stress-related disorders, including hypertension, migraine and tension headaches, and chronic pain.
The empirical and the rational forms of humanism stand opposed to blind faith and other irrational and super-experiential claims. Both are anti-clerical, though the latter tender-minded humanism is not anti-authority, since it sees ultimate authority as residing in the reason of the universe, history, or man. However, whereas the rationalist humanist takes such social values of the Judaic-Christian tradition as love, compassion, fraternity, and mutual aid to be basic, the empirical humanist tends to subordinate these values in favour of individuality, liberty, and equality of rights and opportunities. Because rationalistic humanism is closer to the Christian tradition than is the empirical type, it can enter dialogue more easily with theism. For example, as the heir of Hegel, Marxism offers, without God, the authority of social history as mediated through the interpretation of basic texts, a philosophical tradition, and a political party. Empirical humanism offers the world a simple but a prevailing authority of the autonomous individual without God. This difference indicates not only why social, rational Christians and Marxists can talk as genuine rivals on a ground of common issues, but also why on social issues throughout the world Marxist humanism is strong and individualistic humanism is weak.
One may ask why Billy Graham-the epitome of the personalistic, revivalist spirit of North American Protestant Puritanism--has had such success in his visits to the Soviet Union and other parts of Eastern Europe. His theology is individualistic and non-rational in the extreme. In think one reason for the cordial relation that has grown up between him and Soviet authorities and believers are the overriding concern for peace and human life on both sides. By contrast, the personalistic apocalypticism of President Reagan, Jerry Falwell, and the others of the religious far right is so twisted by anti-communism and unconcern about Apocalypse and nuclear holocausts that they refuse dealing with the Soviets in a sensible and cooperative way.
It was Greek rationalism that provided the early intellectual framework and defence of the Christian faith. Before Christ this rationalism had held that there is a principle of universal order in which ‘we live and move and have our being’ and that ‘we are members one of another’. Empirical humanism, dating from Democritus who held the state in high regard and apparently believed in mortal gods appearing in dreams and premonitions, was derived from both physical and human considerations and was directed against the official and popular cults. Epicureanism developed into a humanistic ideal and a way of life. However, being intellectual, sophisticated, and attractive to the individualistic aspirations of the middle-class, it could not compete with Christianity that provided mystical fellowship. Thus, the opposition of empirical humanism to theism has been rooted in its anti-authoritarian and anti-metaphysical attitudes, and in its individualistic independence and analytical science. Rationalistic humanism, on the other hand, has simply sought something other than the supernatural warrant for the extra-individual.
Modern Western empiricism in its definitive Humean form, following the course of the economic system that gave it birth, has declined into the niceties of scholastic linguistic analysis, irrelevant to the great social issues of the times. Cybernetics and a revised positivism have themselves revealed the key role of non-sensuous factors in our adjustment to the world. Since the crisis in empiricism has reflected the continuing crisis in capitalism, while the latter moves from one crisis to another, one may expect to see individualistic sensate philosophy in the final stages of its dissolution enacted in the meaninglessness of an increasing number of lives.
Just as the major rival to capitalism is socialism and the anti-dehumanizing national liberation movements, the major rivals to sense empiricism are Marxism, which is based in socialism, and, in the Western world, Christianity is situated ambiguously in both capitalist and socialist nations. Though both the empiricism of capitalism and the rationalism of Marxism are non-theistic and opposed to Christian theism, the former is much farther from Christianity in outlook and approach, for true Christianity is neither sensate in its knowledge nor profit-oriented in its values. Christianity has never been unequivocal in its response to capitalism, but the rise of Marxism as a major alternative, which is non-theistic but on the side of commitment and meaning in history, is forcing it now to take a stand. The emerging dialogue between Marxists and Christians is evidence of a sense of rivalry accompanied by a sense of unity. While Marxists oppose capitalism and theism and Christians oppose individualism and atheism, both oppose the collapse of meaning in a history threatened by economic and social disorder and by a nuclear exchange between capitalist and socialist nations that would bring omnicide to our planet. Hence, in the next section we shall look at the relations between Marxist humanism and Christian theism in the field of ethics.
The dialectical relation between theists and humanists has taken many forms in history. They have been continuously united, opposed, interpenetrating, and mutually transforming. This dialectical relation has not been merely abstract and philosophical. It has reflected the real conflicts of history between the gods of civilization and the totemic spirits of prehistory, between city dwellers and country people (‘pagans’-pagani-were peasants), between masters and slaves, between literate clergy and illiterate laity, between feudalists and merchants, between capitalists and proletarians, between Western colonialists and ‘heathen’ Africans or Asians. The conflict between theism and humanism has also been associated with more permanent oppositions in persons and human societies: Receptivity vs. active dominance, dependence vs. critical detachment, loyalty to the group vs. individual independence, and authority and tradition vs. questioning and innovation. Theism has been associated preponderantly with the first side of these oppositions, since religion has tended to take institutionalized forms and to become affiliated with the dominant structures of society, while atheisms have functioned as subordinate and critical movements in society. Many ‘theisms’, however, which began as dissident minority movements and were initially denounced as ‘atheism’, later modified or even supplanted the reigning ‘theism’, which in turn, came to be considered ‘atheism’. The genocidal Gods of Samuel and the miracle-working God of Elijah calling for human sacrifice, while ascendant in their own day over unbelievers, appear as false and atheistic in the perspectives of Amos and Jesus. The Yahweh whom Moses found in Midian and who made a covenant with the Israelites was not the same as the gods of nature whom his people had hitherto worshipped.
In modern times in the West, secularism and science stress an appeal to observable facts and are correlated with a nonreligious attitude. Here, humanism has become associated with sensation or experience as the source and referent of knowledge, with the relativity of values, with the material world, and with the power and importance of human beings. Theism, in contrast, emphasizes reason, absolute values, the spiritual and ideal unlike the actual world, and the power and importance of God. Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, the leading critics of theism in modern times, accentuated human existence against the abstract ‘essence’ of religion. This contrast, dating from the direct attack of 18th century mechanical materialism upon a feudalized theology, oversimplified the relation. Marx was deeply enough steeped in German religious idealism and Hegel's dialectical method to realize that religious behaviour and thought, though alienated, spring from a profound need of man to fulfill him. He reconceived the categories of rational, absolute, spiritual, ideal, possible, essential, which had been exalted one-sidedly by religion, upon a material base and in dialectical relation with the categories of empirical, relative, bodily, material, actual, and existent. Repudiating supernaturalism and idealism, the prevailing forms of religious thought, Marx pursued a humanized naturalism1 that sought to discover in those forms, as in all forms of human consciousness, what he had found in Hegel's Phenomenology, namely, ‘the -genesis of man as a process’. A search of this type was required by his humanistic method and goal.
Many influences shaped the personality and thought of the young Karl Marx. Here we may mention his Jewish and later Christian parents; his father with his faith in the Enlightenment, the ideals of the French Revolution, and his ‘pure belief in God’; his Gymnasium teachers who taught him, among other things, Christian doctrine and who were in trouble with the police; his mentor, von Westphalen, a Saint-Simonian utopian socialist who called for a ‘new Christianity’; and his teacher at the University of Bonn, E. Gans, also a Saint-Simonian.
As a student of philosophy the young Marx was centrally concerned with the problem of humanity's alienation and freedom, which he had inherited indirectly from the Judaic-Christian tradition by way of German idealism. The Jewish prophets, Jesus, the early Church Fathers, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and many others had provided formulations and answers for this problem. The synthesis of St. Thomas did not prevent the development of two divergent tendencies: Duns Scotus' emphasis on individuality and will and Meister Eckhart's mysticism that defined the human soul as potentially God and realizable as God. The first tendency helped to produce empirical science, bourgeois society, Protestant dualism, and humanism; the second tendency promoted rationalism and idealism in philosophy and their alliance with religion. Spinoza intellectualized the mysticism, which had been carried forward by Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno. However, Leibniz, who could not tolerate Spinosa's deterministic mechanism or the duality of both Spinosa and Descartes, recalled the principle of the identity of part and whole22 developed by Cusanuss and Bruno, and stressed the unity of creatures in continuity of vital and sensitive activity leading up to God.
More like Descartes, Kant (1724-1804) was shaped by the influence of mathematics and the empiricism of the industrially advanced countries. Him a scientist and a Pietist, Kant was aware of the deficiencies of empiricism, rationalism, and moral-religious feeling when took alone, as well as of the crisis in thought threatening traditional religious values and concepts. He believed that the disputes of metaphysicians on the soul, freedom, and God produced of a greater amount than that as a result of its containing masses becomes of its causal implications of materialism, fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, unbelief, fanaticism, and superstition.
The young Kant, imbued with the philosophy of Wolff, a follower of Leibniz, took as axiomatic the primacy of the mind in knowledge and the formative and universal character of the mind. As he developed, however, particularly under the impact of empiricists like Hume, Kant became convinced that the establishment of both science and religion must avoid ‘dogmatism’ and be ‘critical’ in taking into account both rationalism and empiricism, and hence the origins, possibilities, limits, and rights of the human mind. Kant's conclusion was to found the structure of perception and understanding on the innate forms of the mind that, as in Leibniz, are universal and not merely subjective; to reject speculative metaphysics; to affirm a ‘categorical imperative’ for the practical reason; and to argue that ideas like God are ‘postulates’ of the moral will. Kant was thus more eclectic than synthetic. A Protestant in an age of reason and science, he did not move beyond the autonomy of man's will and reason but reinforced that autonomy. Whereas Leibniz, basing him on the microcosm-macrocosm of medieval mysticism, had tried to hold all individuals in unity with one another and with God, Kant absorbed Leibniz' stress on active reason but remained essentially modern and scientific in an outlook, considering religion to be adventitious and God unprovable. From the point of view of a comprehensive system like that of St. Thomas or Leibniz, Kant's philosophy appears cautious and divided. What prevented him from making the great leap forward, as Marx's criticism of Feuerbach indicates, was his incapacity to conquer empiricism-and individuality, subjectivity, alienation-in a creative way. Though the medieval mystics, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, and Fichte had all in their own ways tried to transcend empiricism, their solutions either were static or denied the empirical component of human life.
Kant influenced Marx both directly and, through German idealism, indirectly in the following ways. (1) Because of its autonomy, which Marx accepted, human reason may be alienated in the form of ‘false consciousness’, and from its generic functioning. (2) Since our mind is active and creative, human beings can make their own history. (3) Theological and metaphysical speculations are futile and have no foundation in experience or reason; hence religious thought must be explained by non-rational forces behind the moral will it. (4) The human being has a generic nature by which he or she is distinguished from a merely empirical being. From such a view Marx constructed his theory of alienation, dehumanization, and ‘socialized humanity’. Rousseau had been a critical influence upon Kant's position in this regard, and Rousseau in turn had translated the Christian view of the fall and redemption into secular terms: ‘God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil.’25 Also, ‘the general, the will is always right and tends always to the public advantage’.26 (5) In contrast to some empiricists, Kant believed in progress. Like similar ideas held by his contemporaries, this was a secular variant of the Judaic-Christian idea that stood in opposition to the Greek theories of fate (Moira), cycles, and degeneration. Marx adopted the idea, and developed his own interpretation.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814), the most important and immediate heir of Kant, took up his teacher's theme of autonomy. Under the influence of the French Revolution with its ‘rights of man’ and the Romantic Movement of Germany with its affinities to Christian mysticism, Fichte amplified the function of Kant's ‘practical reason.’ For Fichte, man's life and experience originate in his ego or will; out of the commitment of the will the person posits an opposite in the world and then fuses the with that. Through a series of dialectical and -transcending steps one thereby ascends to full knowledge of the absolute. Though in his later work Fichte called this process God, in his early work the dialectical process is clearly the creative praxis of persons who are rational, active, and social. In Fichte humanity and God, humanism and theism were indistinguishably fused.
The influence of Fichte on Marx is evident in Fichte's notions of the -creative freedom of humanity, of the human being as a practical and social being, of the person's continuous -transcendence, of the dialectical process of development, and of the revolt against theoretical and social dualisms.
The most powerful intellectual influence on the young Marx during his university years was the thought of George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). In his youth Hegel was a theological student at the Protestant seminary at Tübingen. The problem occupying him then and throughout his life was the rationality of Christianity, or the spiritual character of reason: What is the relation of faith to intellect, of humanity to God? The work of Kant and the Enlightenment converged with that of German Romanticism (especially Herder) and Rousseau to produce in Hegel a unique synthesis. Whereas Kant made a Copernican revolution by showing how a person's understanding revolves around its own forms, Hegel's revolution was bolder: it turned everything into history, the divine history of Spirit that culminates in the reason of humanity. Hegel combined the Romantic view that humankind is evolving through history and becoming like God with the view that the whole of history is the work of Reason. Here the unifying concept was Geist, which means both Mind and Spirit. The young Hegel's historical studies of Christianity led him, on a Kantian basis, to distinguish the interior moral power of reason from the external forms of religion. ‘Pure Reason completely free of any limit or restriction whatsoever is the deity him. In explaining the alienation of Christianity, he contrasted the rigid and ‘positive’ religion of Jewish law with the free religion of the Greeks, and the anti-naturalism and dualism of the Jews with the naturalism and mysticism of the Greeks.29 Christianity has ‘fallen’ from its ideal unity into the ‘depravity’ of the privatized and fragmented Roman world. God has been objectified and alienated, and human lives have been divided between religion and secularity, church and state, and piety and virtue. The overcoming of such estrangement is Jesus' ‘pantheism of love’ and the Kingdom of God.
Hegel's mature philosophy was an elaborate reformulation of this early statement of the problem and its solution. One may in finding that he persistently argues in the state of alienation (Selbst-Entfremdung) from him, others, one's own moral law, and society. Such -alienation takes the form of ‘objectification’ (Vergegenständlichung), in which one's world is hastened into separate objects that stand over against one and appear as real things. In such a world of alienation and otherness (Entausserung) one either becomes master (subject) or slave (object); nevertheless, in either case one has fallen from the realm of freedom or -consciousness into the realm of blind necessity or ignorance. As one comes to recognize one's true in the other, one began the movement back toward an unalienated and unified -consciousness (Aneigung). This movement of -reconciliation in the person, via Reason, is nothing more than the activity of Geist or God in the world. Though the reworking of the Christian theme of the drama of salvation is apparent in this theodicy, Hegel has substituted human Reason for a personal God, made illusion the Tempter, and replaced moral Sin with intellectual Gullibility.
Was Hegel an atheist? Some orthodox religious leaders suspected so, and some philosophers, especially the Young Hegelians, believed so. Feuerbach took up the attack on Hegel from a materialist viewpoint, arguing that the subjective being of God resolves into the predicates of the human being, that theology is reducible to anthropology. Feuerbach completed the humanizing, subjectivizing tendency in German thought that had begun with mystics like Eckhart and with Reformers like Münzer and Luther, and ran through Kant, Fichte, and Hegel.
Hegel's philosophy displayed the double irony of starting out as a critique of orthodox religion and society and ending as a justification of them, and of starting out as a philosophy of religion and ending as an implicit atheism. He sought to heal dualisms and to take the Incarnation of his faith seriously, but in so doing he assimilated God to the world-process, and eventually to the Prussian State.
The radical Young Hegelians, among whom were counted Marx and Engels, saw what was the most radical feature of Hegel's philosophy: It’s emphasis upon change, movement, interconnection, transformation, and development -in a word, upon dialectical process. The one constant and absolute reality is the creative process it; Its contents and the forms of what it creates are transient and relative. The creative process it, however, is moving toward triumph over its obstructions in history. This was a new version of the dynamic and majestic sovereignty of God, recalling in a materialist and dialectical form the visions of the Old Testament prophets and sages, the Messianic expectations of the early Christians, the yearning of the mystics, and the nostalgic and fugitive fantasies of Christian millennialists. In its romantic exaltation of action, will, freedom, and the organic unity of humankind and history, it belonged with those other visions that inspired men at this time, such as the dream of Rousseau that impelled the plebeian revolutionaries of the Year II in France. In its assurance of a victory in progress which humanity might join, it evoked again the apocalyptic dream that had haunted the imaginations of Christians for almost two-thousand years. It set it against not only the ideology of feudalism but the modern ideology of the ascendent class of rationalists, mechanists, and Newtonian liberals of the bourgeois order. In the hands of the philosophies this liberal vision had helped to undermine French absolutism but, in turn, it became suspect in the eyes of many who saw it as an anti-populist viewpoint. This Romantic suspicion also had its conservative roots, for while the Romantic imagination was allied to the spirit of the Revolution, with its mood of ‘alienation’, it sought to recover its lost harmony in primitive man, in the ‘folk’, and even in the middle ages. For many Romantics the non-alienated unity of man could be recovered only in and through humankind with its history and its goals transcending the in dividual what Hegel called the March of God on Earth.
Insofar as Marx took over the grand dialectic of Hegel, he was a Romantic. Under the impact of his reading of Feuerbach (1804-1872), however, the young Marx saw that Hegel's dialectic must come down to earth and enter practice, and that its speculative view of the state did not explain the contradictions in society. Marx attacked Hegel from a Feuerbachian base: the state is derived from people and not vice versa; The ‘heavenly’ political life is alienated from our ‘species-life’, and religious alienation rests in economic life. He substituted ‘socialized man for Hegel's abstractive and spiritual idea for Feuerbach's individualized substantia of man.
What leads to the alienation of our ‘species-life’? As Marx developed his answer to this question posed by Hegel and Feuerbach, he developed his own philosophy. Religion is an expression of a widespread alienation of men in society, of ‘private interest . . . property . . . and . . . egoistic persons’. With that the Christian State ‘is not the genuine realization of the human basis of religion’. The theological state has not succeeded in instituting in human, secular form ‘the human basis of which Christianity is the transcendental expression’. Marx's appreciation of ‘the human basis’ of religion appeared later in his ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right’ (1843), which states that ‘religion is the fantastic realization of the human essence because the human essence has no reality. Here religion is not described as a fantasy or as a phenomenon isolated from man; it is an expression of man, but of alienated man.
Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.
Marx's criterion for this criticism is his humanism. Inheriting the notion of -alienation from German idealism, this humanism sees its roots not in illusion as such but in the material and social condition of human life. Consequently in his critique of religion Marx's main attack is directed against ‘a condition that needs illusions’. In answer to Hegel, Marx insists that religious criticism must not remain in the domain of the Idea and ‘the other world’, but must come downwards to trajectories that equally stabilize the earth and the suffering of real men, ‘the halo of which is religion’. Criticism as well to expose of all other forms deemed -alienating, later described on one side that Marx legally, politically, religiously, aesthetically, and philosophically pursued of a ‘superstructure’ of class society. All of them are abstractions and distortions of the really human being; Yet, seem utterly mistaken as the false human being for the true one. They do not make humanity, nor does humanity make them as forms of its mythical illusory and unhappy discernment for which is in the lacking of consciousness, as there be of that which enables us to think. At the same time Marx dialectically recognized in humanity's religion its revolt against its suffering, and humanity and its discontent with false consciousness, that is, with the human ‘spirit’ in a ‘spiritless situation’. Rather than seeing the person as fallen and alienated from the institution and thought of religion, Marx sees religion and the religious person as a fall or alienation from the real person, while humanism is a first but an abstract step toward positive communism. It should be noted that because Marx was opposed to theism ultimately because of its anti-humanism, any joining of the argument between Marxist humanism and theism must be joined on the issue of humanism. It has been demonstrated, Marx presumably would have accepted a faith humanistic and naturalistic in all respects, however religion appeared to be identified historically with alienated ideology and a set-class society? Marx had an appreciation for the humanism of the story of ‘the carpenter whom the rich men killed’ and the religion ‘that taught us the worship of the child’; Engels expressed admiration for the revolutionary character of early Christianity; While Lenin believed that cooperation between Marxists and believers was possible.
Marx's emphasis on the material and social world of practice as the source of our delineation culminated in the notion of the working class as the chief bearer of the new society. Marx probably first learned about the role of labour in human life from the Phenomenology of Hegel, who had been influenced by his reading of Adam Smith. The labour theory of value has, if not alone, the virtue of qualities, finding its roots in the medieval communism of many Christian groups as well as in the Scholastics, and, beyond that, in the Bible. It echoed Christian-Stoic organicism and the Cusanus-Bruno-Leibniz notion of the macrocosm in the microcosm, especially as the revolutionary labour movement mirrored the dialectical movement of the whole universe. Whereas, the mysticism from Eckhart to Hegel had spoken of the alienated individual as returning home by way of individual, contemplative knowledge, Marx insisted that it must be accomplish by collective political action. That is, it must be carried out by the members of that remnant class in society who is most dehumanized by ‘radical chains’, and hence most likely to pass over the stage of bourgeois society as -delusive dehumanization and then become genuinely human. Analogously, Eckhart and the other mystics argued that the man who is most empty and ignorant is the most likely to become divine, as Jesus declared that the last shall be first. Thus Hegel's abstract form of alienation, Entaüsserung (externalization), becomes Marx's veraüssern (selling). Religious and philosophical accounts of this alienation (Christian ‘sin’, and Hegel's ‘appearance’) have been, for Marx, only alienated reinforcements of the alienation inherent in the exploitive labour situation of class society. Similarly, Christian and Hegelian notions of the unity of workers yet to be achieved by some formality of indirect abstraction for being a truth but away from ‘the real movement’ of working people and of communism ‘to abolish the present state of things’ and to create the unity longed for in religion and philosophy.
Marx and Engels' Manifesto of the Communist Party, with its militant call for the workers of the world to break their chains and build a new world, was the climax of a rich period of German philosophy in its struggle to solve the problem of human alienation and freedom. As we have seen, this problem was inherited from Christianity. Most of all Christians have taken to be of an article of faith that human beings have an organic connection with Spirit (Logos). Hegel started here, finding this Logos to be supremely revealed in the -consciousness of the human being. For Christianity's authoritarian autonomy, however, this was a fatal step; For the young followers of Hegel soon saw that the preexistent Logos may go and leave only the human being. Spirit is already characterologically secularized in humanity. On this view, the vehicle of the human spirit, which the young Marx called ‘species-being’ and the mature Marx called ‘development’, is not the Church or any other institution but is potentially everywhere. The working class, organized to bring to pass the de-alienated unity of persons with one another and with nature, becomes the major source of value in history. A social prometheanism has replaced a religion of sacrificial submission, however, human compassion and privily superseded humility.
The promethean insistence on the power of human -transcendence had been operatively Christian it, as had been the notion of creative practice, which was strong in German idealism and was carried to its conclusion in Marx's social praxis. Engels asserted that ‘the German working-class movement is the inheritor of German classical philosophy’. Through that it is also the heir of the humanistic vision in Christianity that laid emphasis upon the mutuality and solidarity of people in actual living relations and upon the value of work as such. Paul enjoined the first Christians: ‘If any would not work, neither should he eat.’ Engels approving recognition of Christianity have remarkedly made ‘notable points of resemblance with the modern working-class movement’: an oppressed people's movement, slaves and poor people expectant of liberation from bondage, and people against whom the persecution of the ruling groups is directed but who struggle victoriously against it. The working people who responded to the humanist vision of Marx, Engels, and Lenin was responding to a vision that was similar to that of early Christianity, but which are largely medieval and modern Christianity, having become a movement of the ruling and privileged classes rather than of the suffering classes, had abandoned.
Though for Marx humanity and its ideas continuously change, he also believed, following Hegel and Feuerbach, that it has an essence (Wesen). Some things in the human being remained constant: Generic needs, general relations to one's fellow-man and nature, and the laws of development. Such development is intrinsically dialectical, social, and historical, for the human essence is dividual but communal, being ‘the ensemble of the social relations’. Not only human values but also human knowledge is social tasks and achievements. Further, human development is not fixed at a certain limit; it is open-ended, bounded only by species-death. It is this-worldly and not other-worldly-which for Marx and Engels means life-affirming and not life-denying. This concept of the human essence had an affinity to the Christian concept that ‘we are members of one-another’ and that we are creative: Together with others we can transcend the present forms of our thoughts, actions, and values toward a new and fulfilled future.
Such values of Christianity have been articulated principally within the Neo-Platonic framework of Greco-Roman civilization, the dualisms of the medieval period, the individualistic and predestinarian theologies of early bourgeois Protestantism, and the ambiguous liberal theologies of the 19th and 20th centuries. Conscious of the material origins of ideologies, Marx and Engels were able to point to the limits of these formulations. At the same time they undertook to express the values of our sociality and creativity, with the necessary changes made, in materialistic, economic, and political terms, though demanding drastic changes to realize them. In this way, Marxism absorbed, negated, preserved, and transformed those values of Christianity.
Because Marx's humanism represents a fusion of empirical humanism (from the Enlightenment) and rationalistic humanism (from German idealism), Marxism has taken two different positions toward theism. Following the French materialists and Feuerbach and applying the ‘sensuous’ test, Marx's early criticisms of humanism stress that theism does not meet this principle of verifiability, and hence is involved in a flight from sensuous, material reality. However, the Hegelian critique also appears: because ‘every historically developed social form [is] in fluid movement . . . and . . . transient’, from this ‘critical and revolutionary’ point of view, the idea of God must be a symptom of alienation and the reification of an abstraction in order to secure comfort in ‘an unspiritual situation’. Drawing support from science, Engels affirms that what is real is not a timeless, isolated, fixed, completed, metaphysical reality that is the Deity, but ‘a process’ or world ‘in constant motion, change, transformation, development.’ Hence a ‘system of natural and historical knowledge’ that is all-inclusive and final, not to mention supernatural knowledge that claims to pass beyond history, is ‘a contradiction to the fundamental law of dialectical reasoning’. Ultimate reality and value are to be found neither in the depths of individual subjective experience nor in a supernatural God, but in the processes and relations of social history and physical and biological nature.
In its criticisms of theism, Marxism need not simply point to the supersensuous presumptions of theism. In the spirit both of empiricism and of the rationalism developed in Hegel and still further in modern science, it also can call attention to theism's unwarranted transcendence of relativities and to its violation of the best established principle in the modern mind, that is, the relativity of sensuous knowledge. In his Theses on Feuerbach, Marx saw that Feuerbach him by his mechanical materialism had falsely absolutized the sensuous, static object of contemplation. When it is concrete, that activity, ‘developed by idealism . . . Took to contradistinctions to materialism’, defines what is real. Accordingly, either God must be a concrete activity or some aspect of such activity, or He must be a non-entity.64 Marxism finds no such activity.
Christian theism has also been affected by such developments in the modernity of some physical theory as bounded by an unformidable combination of equations that to some understanding that make change and relativity essential to the comprehension of reality. Among Roman Catholics, Karl Rahner and Edward Schillebeeck have sought to find divinity by way of our existential and interpersonal situation, while a theology of hope and of the future has been developed by Johannes Metz and Leslie Dewart. This latter theology has its counterpart in the work of Protestants like Jürgen Moltmann and Herbert Richardson. These theological innovations in Catholicism have been evoked in large part by the Ecumenical Council, it the result of the sensitivity of Pope John XXIII to the material and cultural changes throughout the globe. They have been more dramatic than the changes in Protestant theology, whose existentialist, Kierkegaard, had to wait for the disintegration of bourgeois civilization before his voice was heard. Most Protestant theologians of the present epoch-Bonhoeffer, Bultmann, Tillich, Robinson, Macquarrie-in various ways reflect this existentialist, secular trend. The Catholic Teilhard de Chardin and the Protestant Alfred North Whitehead have made heroic attempts to interpret religious concepts within the framework of an ontology required by a universe of process as portrayed in the sciences.
Such new theologies, while secular and relative in many ways, have also sought to take account of the sacred and the absolute. On the other side, Marxism, with Engels and Lenin's insistence on naturalistic or materialistic categories, has never given up the categories of the objective and the absolute. The secularizing of Christian theists learned in part from the worldly successes of Marxism, and the emphasis of the Marxists on a natural or secular absolute, brought Christian theism and Marxist humanism together at the level of theory. There they can begin to understand one-another, and dialogue may become fruitful, and practicably cooperative.
The standard of absolute, ultimate value for the Christian is a transcendent God as revealed in the Jesus Christ of history. Among persons this takes form of forgiving and redemptive love as exemplified in the fellowship of the faithful. Nevertheless, this value is said to be a pattern of personal being independent of such a fellowship and beyond history as its source and end. The status of Jesus Christ is thus both immanent and transcendent, both historical and super-historical. It is known by all those who, through faith from within and grace from without, receive revelation mediated through Scripture and Church tradition. This way of knowing is -authenticating.
For the Marxist, the standard of ultimate value is a pattern of events immanent in man and in history. Though it has neither a supernatural status nor lies beyond history, it transcends man's present state of development as an order of human fulfilment that is actualized in history past and future, and in history as a whole. This pattern is exemplified by the individual in relation to other persons and to the nonhuman world of nature, and by humanity as a species in relation to the world of nature. The concrete possibilities of the pattern of value can never be exhausted, since it is of the nature of historical events to be incomplete. This standard is known by the critical-practical method of dialectic, that is, interaction with other persons and with the world in order to transform them in accordance with the demands of human need.
It is a mistake to say either that Christian theology is wholly transcendental, or that Marxism's theory of value is wholly arbitrary or narrowly humanistic. Some Christian theologies, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, have stressed the absolute otherness of God; However such theologies could never consistently take account of the incarnation by which God not only is in history but takes its evils unto him, suffers, dies, and triumphs over the world's evils. Other Christian theologies, chiefly liberal-Protestant, have stressed the historicity of God, at times reducing Christ to the man, Jesus; however, such theologies have made Christianity simply one relative factor alongside many others. Christian orthodoxy, as established in the early Councils, maintained both positions in balance, i.e., the divine transcendence and historicity.
Similarly, there have been both extremely humanistic and extremely materialistic and necessitarian Marxists; the classical writings may be partially quoted in support of both. If not read carefully and comprehensively, the work of Marx could easily give the impression that values are relative only to class or to a given historical stage of development. His over-all position, however, is that, like facts, values are not only relative and subjective, but also non-relative and objective. Nevertheless, Marx is not always clear on the exact status of these values: are some values unconscious, either in individual or in society? In history, are their impersonal processes, such as machines and processes of industrial production, which participate in human value processes; in what sense are human values subtended by such historical processes or by processes in nature; and what is the relation to pre-human processes of the first distinctively human values arising out of social production?
Because of his concern with historical studies and political practice, the emphasis of Marx's writings is humanistic and historical. At the same time, he is quite aware of the wider background of nature within which history moves. It is this awareness, developed explicitly in Engels, which has led some to transform Marxism into a transcendentalism of nature, according to which nature or physical laws transcend history and completely determine it. This is a historical deviation from Marx, just as mechanical predestinarianism is an a-spiritual deviation from Christian orthodoxy. In both cases’ humanism is sacrificed to mechanism, and the human to the nonhuman, the free to the necessary, individual project to totalitarian control, and the unformed to the formed.
Within Christianity the impulse toward such transcendentalism has been associated with a variety of motives, such as the longing for unity in Augustine, a sense of vocation in history in Calvinism, and disapproval of liberal views in Jansenism. Marx believed that only a proper grasp of the objective existence of matter. Independent of us and in dialectical motion in both nature and history, can correct the tyrannies of a ‘false consciousness’, false idealism, and false materialism. This objective world with its ‘laws’ is required by Marx for human reality and value. Similarly, Christianity has taught that, except for establishing a correct relation to things other than us and transcending our own purposes, if it is left alone, cannot be saved from its own -destructive tendencies. In both cases, the irony is that in enforcing the transcendental law, people have sometimes generated bloodier tyrannies than the evils they intended to forestall or rectify.
In opposition to the individualistic and mechanistic cosmologies, Christianity and Marxism hold social or organicist views, in that both are philosophies of community or social order. Because of classes and class struggle, in Christian history socials order has been interpreted ambiguously both as elitist and as democratic in character. On the other hand, Marxism, as a product of late-feudal and modern revolutions, has merely been a theory of unambiguously democratic certainty, also thee deviations have yielded to the temptation of elitism. In fact, the main reason for Marxism's vehement rejection of religion was precisely its alliance with ruling elites and oppressive social orders, and its suppression of a democratic social order. Although the feudal Roman Catholic Italian Church had to reject both capitalism and Protestantism because together they opposed its economic and ecclesiastical power, like Marxism it was compelled in principle to reject all individualism and sectarianism because, from an organicist viewpoint, freedom and dissent carried to the point of fragmentation are great evils. On this point Christianity and Marxism are agreeing. At the same time, should the Church or a socialist society become an instrument of oppression, its prophets must arise to criticize it by its own best standards, and call it back to its historic mission of binding people together in mutual care and labour.
Because Christianity and Marxism also converge in belief in the non-mechanistic, creationist, spiritual attribution of quality values existent to the world and of its history, they give priority in their world-views to the domain of values over that of facts. This means that they look ultimately to practice, and not to theory alone, for the resolution of their problems, though for Christianity, unlike Marxism, this priority ultimately originates outside of history and nature. Both Christianity and Marxism see the universe as a value-universe that is orderly and hence intelligible, in its workings and responsiveness to human creative activity. Human, spiritual history represents the end and significance of natural history. This is finally understandable only by means of spiritual history, though not reducible to its categories. The history of nature displays a tendency toward the history of the human being, who, as the highest expression of value in nature and as ‘crowned with honour and glory’, is endowed, in turn, with ‘dominion . . . over all the earth’69 and with a responsibility for what happens upon it.
We are able to understand, control, appreciate, and thus unite with and elevate nature because we are formed of the same dust and ordered according to the same laws, though possessed of the higher law of spiritual freedom. For Marxism the value-standard is the immanent and ultimately intelligible dialectical law of development; For Christianity it is the transcendent will of God, which, though its natural laws can be understood, is ultimately unintelligible and must be accepted on faith. For the Marxist our transcendence is a function of our immanence since spirit comes from and depends upon dialectical matter; Whereas for the Christian, spirit has a chronological and logical priority over matter that is purely contingent. Here Marxism has struggled to give our transcendent spirit its proper place, whereas all metaphysical transcendentalism attenuates matter and human history. For both, that we must be guided by the provisional, relative ethics and by categorical, absolute morality. However, whereas for Marxism the latter are always progressively revealing it through the former as we approximate to full knowledge of the absolute, Christian thought has emphasized the discontinuity between natural theologies with virtuousness on the one hand, and revealed theology, on the other.
Marxism and Christianity share the view that transcending and determining the individual's present act is one's own past. One’s own imagined future as presently operative, other persons and things of one's particular community and human society, and the established world of nature. In the broad sense of the term, these are all social orders, each of which supports the other. Where for Marxism, however, this sociality in its ultimate dialectical character is a final metaphysical fact, for some traditional Christian theologies, at least, the sociality is contingent. The only necessary fact is Gods who, even as love, is not always thought to need a world outside him to love. For the Marxist humanist to whom love is equally mutual, in care and creation ever being transformed, love is historical if not a metaphysical necessity. We cannot conceive history without it; More accurately, our own natural history, as the only history we know and that matters, is in its essence the history of loving beings in their struggle to be and to develop their being and to help others to do so.
In Christian orthodoxy the ultimate value, or God, remains essentially unchangeable and impassible in relation to the world. In the Incarnation, the Divine became man, not in order to change or improve the divine nature-for that would be impossible-but either to provide a ransom for the Devil who had humanity in his power, or to pay for the infinite satisfaction for humanity's infinite sin against the divine, or to persuade, by sacrificial example, sinful persons to repent of their sins. In short, the divine entered history to reveal their perfection to imperfect people and to rescue them from the Fall that defines history. The Fall requires an Incarnation and Redemption, just as history requires a super-historical Creation. The Incarnation occurred because, according to the respective theories, God's supreme power, honour, and goodness had been violated by humanity and demanded vindication. Because God cannot suffer and people have fallen beyond -help, the significance and fulfilment of history lie not in history among people, but outside of history in God alone.
These pre-feudal and feudal views of the Atonement reflect the sharp distinction and separation between the lord and his subjects. The more humanistic view, suppressed but never destroyed by hierarchal power and thought, found God in the very depths of men's hearts, the Living Christ and Emmanuel in the midst of history, recurrently suffering, dying, and rising again to transform persons. The mystical, communal, reformative, apocalyptic, and revolutionary movements within Christianity were alive to the Presence of Christ in history, and derived their energy and inspiration from a sense of that Presence. Such movements fed the modern streams of socialist thought and German idealism, which having converged with such other streams as materialism and science issued, in turn, in the dialectical and historical materialism of Marx.
For Christian Theology the divine or ultimate value became human in order to display the divine more fully and to draw human beings to it. For Marxism, on the contrary, persons approached the divine, understood as an ultimate value already immanently within them as their human potential, in order to become more fully human and draw the divine unto persons. For the first, one is raised by God into eternity; for the other, humanity evolves by its collective struggle from prehistory into genuine human history. For both, there is a qualitative transformation into a new being and a fulfilled, non-alienated life. Once more, though the difference between Christian transcendence and Marxist immanence is evident, historically the difference is not a simple one. Alongside its emphasis on the impossibility of God, Christian theology has given an important place to the sufferings of Jesus, the historical fellowship of the visible and invisible Church as the body of Christ, and the historical continuity of the Church through its apostolic succession, its army of martyrs, and the communion of the faithful. Practically speaking, the belief in God's impossibility as the eternity of the realm of value did not always arrest activity in history; At times it spurred efforts to improve people and their conditions in history. Though this activity might not add to God's superabundant goodness, which for the orthodox Christian is finished and perfected, it might be a win for persons’ eternal bliss or participation in that goodness.
Similarly, while for the Marxist value is process and hence ever changing, it manifests at the same time a universal, absolute, objective structure embedded in its various manifestations. This structure does not lie beyond history, but is inherent in history to which it provides the directive norm. The process of the material dialectic rises ideals that both reflect and selectively guide humanity into interactive relations with the world in order to transform these ideals into actualities. Such interactions are themselves dialectic and therefore have awareness; They modify both man and the world so that values are embodied and new values conceived and actualized. Thus, whereas for the Marxist history is a material process of the realization of value, for the Christian value has already been realized outside of history. For the Marxist, the creating of values by which humanity transcends it is a function of natural history and is contained in it; For the Christian, this transcendent creating lies beyond the limits of history and nature. Whereas the human ideal for the Marxist is to struggle to contribute to the creative historical process, for the Christian the ideal is to seek and find God in eternity. The Christian stresses our dependence upon and determination by God, while the Marxist calls on us to be independent and -determinative.
Does this difference irreconcilably divide a religious perspective from a scientific one, and separate theism from humanism? ; Might, so, that it does stem from an ancient Platonic-Aristotelian way of conceiving things, as contrasted with the dialectical materialist approach to the world? If, then, that both are one in the same of a regional orientation course. In short, can a religious person hold to dialectical materialism, and can a dialectical materialist be religious? If the answer is no to both, then the remaining question is where the two can converge in belief and cooperate in practice.
In Christian thought evil has been understood as (1) a power or powers resistant to or destructive of God, (2) an unthinkable distribution in power that lays propositional to the order of God's creation, and (3) the absence of good (the view of St. Augustine and others) or of perfection (St. Thomas). Evil finds its expression in the world at large (symbolized by the figure of the Devil) and in the sin and falls of human beings (Genesis 2:4-3:24). In sin the arrogantly exalts it above its Creator, and His creation, refusing faith in God. Nonetheless, evil is dependent of the world and God. Embedded in the context of God's created order and creativity, it draws its existence and meaning from its relations within this wider domain of good. Evil obstruction and destruction in humankind represent forms of alienation from God, from, from others, and from nonhuman nature. Yet such sin and its alienation are not absolute and final. Human idolatry can be transformed if the sinner, in confession and repentance, will give him or her to God, who will grant forgiveness and restoration to a right order. God is the redemptive power in the world, at work in Christ and ‘reconciling the world unto Him’. He is overcoming evil with good.
Marxism's views of evil are kindred to this position, namely, that there is no absolute opposition between the progressive force in history and the reactionary force; in particular societies this is the opposition of the ruled to the ruling class. Some Marxists, like some Christians, have tended to say that evil people and groups in history will be judged, defeated, and cast into the outer darkness of damnation. In general, however, Marxism is neither Manichaean nor dualistic; it maintains that in the dialectical movements of history opposites are always united, interpenetrate, and transform one another. In this view, evil is transformed (aufgehoben) in the Hegelian sense, that is, in the moving order of history brought from a state of alienation to a state of creative contribution as far as possible.
So far as possible, Marx and Engels argued, socialism should be achieved by peaceful means; Each person should become a ‘midwife’ assisting in the birth of the new society. Struggle with resistant forces, though sometimes violent, cannot always be avoided, for violence will sometimes issue from the ruling groups intent on fighting against change. Marx's attitude toward evil is not radically different from Christian teaching according to which temptations will come, ‘but woe to the man by whom the temptation comes’. The sinner ought to cut off violently the offending member; the money changers ought by force to be driven from the temple. In the face of evil Christianity is not passive nor is Marxism terroristic, but both desire to maintain and to humanize the underlying order of society and history.
Our views of the universe and of history, which stretch beyond our limited capacity to perceive and to comprehend, are reflections and extensions of our own experiences. Our inner life, the images that we gather and store, the concatenations and developments of those images in the consciousness and unconsciousness, the construction, destruction, and reconstruction of connections between them, all represent the source of those world-views we present to ourselves and others. As the inner life or formation of personal identity is an introjection of the world, the construction of a picture of the world's identity is a projection of the inner life of man.
The earliest, most formative, and essential relation of ourselves to the world is our relation to another human being. The ideologies of many religions are ways of dealing with this relation in the most primordial terms of the relation of an infant to parentals motivations. Whether the Others be conceived as bountiful mother, a lawgiving father, etc., this relation is conceived in the religions as that of our dependence on the Other. In such a relation each person is seen to be what he or she is, namely a helpless child necessitates of a face-to-face relation of mutual recognition, confirmation, and creation. In the Judaic-Christian religious tradition, the Fall is the individual's separation from this state of innocent bliss through the intervention of our own autonomous activity. From time to time congratulatory and mere unregenerated -presumptuousness disrupts the relation held of mutuality, the bonds between and Other are voluntarily sundered? The consequence is separation, isolation, suffering, and spiritual death-in a word, the lovelessness of the abyss. The only way for us to be restored to the paradise of love is to acknowledge our dependence on the Other, to confess and repent of our prideful sin, and to commit ourselves once more to that relation ‘in whom we live and move and have our being.’
For the Jews, Jesus, and the early Christians, that relation of and Other was always personal: the Divine was defined as a relation whose terms were the and Other. The author of the letters of John put this matter succinctly: Beloved, let us love one-another; For love is of God, and he who love is born of God and know in Him. He who does not love does not know God; For God is love.
In the course of Christian history this ideal was sometimes distorted or displaced by a rigid, punitive morality that cowed people through superstition, cruelty, and fear of eternal punishment in the afflictions of hell. Though with the dissolution of civic life under the Empire, people were thrown back to their fundamental relations in families, villages and, in time, feudal estates, these relations remained brief and transient, forever threatened by famine, diseased and war. became estranged from Other. Accordingly, God was transformed into that Supremely Distant and Totally Other, who was simultaneously inscrutable and all-powerful and sent both good and evil alike on the world. With the periodic upsurge of mysticism among the solitary monks, he was defined as existing in the depths of the. In both cases the divine was always defined as an unknown being apart from persons because persons, being parted from their counterparts, could not know who he was. God remained the unconscious representation of the 's mystery to the; the divine was the alienated expression of human -alienation.
With the revival of commerce and urban and civic life in Europe in the 10th and 11th centuries, human being’s relational attributions were of one another had commenced a change, and where there is the given choice of change there is chance. Sustained by new food supplies and other necessities for physical existence, the whole institutional structure of secular life began to spread and elaborate it. The rediscovered the Other, and hence it, in the manifold dimensions of their mutuality: Commercial, industrial, political, linguistic, religious, aesthetic, sensuous, and scientific. The ‘revolutions’ of this secular transformation worked themselves out in every sphere of human life. Often they took two forms, though in much historical writing one form has obscured the other. The most successful form, whose development has been responsible for the writing of such history, was the revolution of the against the Other. This expressed the new mercantile movement seeking to break free from traditional feudal restrictions. In Theology, it appears in both human and divine manifestations as a conflict between the insurgent individual and autonomous and the Church or totalitarian Other. Hence emerged the preoccupation of philosophers at this time with the problems of the particular and the universal, mysticism and authority, pantheism and classical theism, Manichaeism and God's omnipotence, and the like. After capitalism, and its religion of semi-autonomous Protestantism, had secured a certain autonomy for the, these problems were superseded by a more detailed examination of the relation of sin and grace, and of the degree of human freedom alongside that of God's determination of humanity.
The subordinated form of revolution against the totalitarian Other is to be found in the mystical, communal, and apocalyptic sects, commencing with the heretical Cathari and continuing through the recurrent clerical and lay thinkers and movements who demanded and sometimes achieved reform. These groups, gripped by a vision of the early Christian community, wished to return to the pristine fellowship of and Other which had infused the life of that archetypical community. They longed to feel Christ as incarnate in people's relations one to another. Although they looked backward for inspiration and remained utopians in their idealism, they were the predecessors of modern secular socialism and the bridge between first-century Christianity and the contemporary world.
Like its antithesis, capitalism, Marxism defiantly asserts before the authoritarian Other and proclaims the modern hatred of arbitrary human limitation. At this point the similarity ends, for the capitalistic man still lives under the shadow of his feudal past and feels the vague urgings of conscience to store up merit in -regarding works. The capitalist ethic is only this harsh and Oedipal conscience made secular and respectable in the name of some human aims; it is a persistent will that makes the other pure means to as an end. For the last four centuries the principal problem of Western man has not been the inquisitions and crusades of the Christian Church, but the deprivations and wars inflicted by the capitalistic enterprise on humanity. This enterprise is driven by the need to negate the Other in all forms; it reincorporates in its own behaviour the harsh external conscience it negates; passing over remains arrested at the level of autonomy and initiative, unable and authenticate of the requisite trust of childhood affiliations or forward to the matured determination of toward Other. The destiny of the capitalistic spirit, consistently pursued, is the despondency and destructiveness of the fascist state. Forever directed against the Enemy, its ‘collective’ spirit is only a facade for the underlying emptiness of its component individuals. For them God the Other, the Enemy, is transformed into God the. Like the feudal Other, such is God, doomed to become an empty void, for its inability to relate lies beyond its redactional foundation as it to is meaningless.
Marx found the answer to this problem neither in that pathological affirmation of that fears the absorption of the in the Other, nor in that pathological fear of that seeks refuge and submission in the Other. Marx's answer was similar to that of the early Christians: and Other define and create one another in a developing relation of mutual care and responsibility. The directive of human living is to be found neither in the autonomous nor in some Other, whether earthly ruler or heavenly lord, whose nature and purpose are closed to us. It is to be found in the mass of exploited and dispossessed men, who in the particular and universal connections of and Other can form a world-wide community of interdependence: ‘an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all’ In its continuous unfolding such a community would combine the freedom of the with the conditioning care of the Other, the Immanence of individual or social achievement with the Transcendence of history, Independence with Interdependence, Individuality with Universality, and Activity with Receptivity.
In this light, Marxism and Christianity converge at the point of affirming the interdependence and mutual creation of and Other. When Christianity asserts that God is Love in such a relation, it means both (1) that God is the relation in virtue of which persons achieve a fulfilment that they alone cannot consciously achieve, and (2) that God is the personal being who is the source and end of the relation, and who accordingly must be the Supreme Other toward which our love is directed. For one to love another means implicitly to love that creative, transforming and saving relation that both enable one to love and make the other lovable. Our personal love for the other person, nonetheless very well intentioned, is always confined by immature development, -concern and defensive operations that must be broken and restructured by a process coming from beyond the powers of thought and will of the most virtuous person.
One of the stumbling blocks in this Christian thought is the essential fundamental whose associates leave ahead to the spoken exchange with ‘God,’ and through its substantiated possessions bequeathing to philosophy, and hence the tendency to conceive deities as fixed and removed from interpersonal relations. Teilhard's process cosmology has begun to overcome this by using the term ‘divine’ as an adjective that qualifies its operations. Marxism's naturalistic position is that the only personal Others whom we encounter are other persons like ourselves, and that it is a confusion and reification to identify our interpersonal relations with a supernatural or superhuman being. Nevertheless, Marxism implies that as individual persons we can relate to those concrete interpersonal relations of men whose ‘ensembles’ compose the very essence of humanity as a species-being78 and which are the very creators of history. That is, as individuals, we can either understand and facilitate those creative interpersonal relations or remain blind to them and obstruct them.
In Marxists as in Christian thought, these relations are not entirely of our own doing and thinking; They stand over against us and make and break us. Marxism agrees with Christianity that the true and rightful objects of our human devotion are not merely finite, individual people but the creative, loving relations we are enabled to sustain with them, persons come and go, but this creative relation abides. It is this capacity to enter such relations that we really cherish in others. Dating from Jesus' own teachings, like that on the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 and the parable of the Last Judgment in Matthew 25, there has been a humanistic, pragmatic tradition in Christianity. According to this what counts is, not a person's concepts, but one's responses too human need, that is, one's capacity to relate one’s affirmative others. This is the last judgment under which all stand, humanist and theist, Marxist and Christian.
Because Marxist and Christian agree on the essential nature of the -Other relation, they are already involved in dialogue. Nevertheless, a dialogue presupposes differences within unity, for it would be meaningless between two who are in accord in every respect. The differences between Marxist and Christian are ample enough to furnish vivifying contrast in the context of a basic agreement.
Christians understand the incompleteness, dependence, and receptivity of human nature; Accordingly, on the one hand, they value human humility, gratitude, reverence, submission, obedience, and confession, and, on the other hand, forgiveness, nurturance, succory, solace, and compassion. Marxists understand the phases of human fulfilment, independence, and activity as accordingly they value -reliance, resourcefulness, criticism, struggle, and ‘revolutionizing practice.’ Where Christians believe that a person is and remains a child or a finite creature who derives one's being and fulfilment from beyond one’s history, Marxists hold that the person, while not totally -sufficient, is in essence the maturing creator of history, and that this in turn is both the place and the goal of his fulfilment. Where Christians understand the threat to the in, its own isolation and solitude, and value both man's need of the other and the gift of the other that fulfills that need, Marxists understand the threat to the in the absorption or oppression of the other, and value the integrity of the. Where Christians discern in our fulfilment of grace or power at work beyond our own to generate advantageous favour in one's individual and collective life, Marxists emphasize the power of the person's own body and intellect to maximize ‘all right’ and minimize ‘wrong’. Where Christians see our limitations and alienations and tend to stress the tension between the actual and the ideal, Marxists see our possibilities and stress the conquest of his conditions and limitations.
A creative dialogue would have each participant express candidly, freely, and fully his perspectives, listen sensitively to the perspectives of the other, and differentiate and integrate so far as possible the perspectives thus expressed. The differentiation and integration must occur not only in individual persons, but in their relations one to another. In dialogue people change their perspectives in relation to each other; the very integration of qualities, forms, intentions, etc., which defines their personality is defined by its relation to the perspectives comprising the other. Furthermore, these contents of personality are not inert images entertained by an idle mind, but the very forms of our response to others and to the world; they pertain to the world upon which the personality intends to act. As one is known by one's fruits, the point of dialogue is not only to interpret the world but to change it. Hence, the final situation and test for dialogue between Christians and Marxists must be human society it, with its problems of war, poverty, political tyranny, racism, and cultural deprivation. The forms and extent of the exploitation of people on our planet are urgent enough to destroy us if we do not cooperate in discussion and action to solve them. They are deep and widespread enough to keep us all, theists and hedonist’s coincidingly busy and the human in our dealings with one-another for centuries to come.
Though it has taken different forms, the principle of dialogue is basic to both Christianity and Marxism: the Christian ‘speaking the truth in love’ to friend and opponent alike, and the Marxist engaged in the dialectic of critical practice. In the past, these two forms have sometimes seemed diametrically and irreconcilably opposed. The first did not vaunt it, but were patient and kind, and in suffering took the evils of the world upon it; The second strove strenuously to change and control the material conditions of the world. However, the present crisis of technology, of nuclear and other genocidal weaponry, and of massive poverty and indebtedness, has brought them closer together. Many Christians living in a secularized world can see the impact of material conditions, while many Marxists recognize the limits and dangers of force in human affairs. Not only has the threat of mutual destruction driven them together; they also share a common faith in the saving value of dialogue between people working in a common cause.
Both Christians and Marxists have also recognized the transforming and revolutionary nature of dialogue and dialectic between persons when it touches them not only in conversation but in action as the outcome and test of conversation. To interact expressively, sensitively, and creatively with other persons and the world is an act of great faith, for it means that one considers one's own system of ideas and values to be subject to the transformation that might emerge in such interaction, generating new insights and new ways of doing things. It means that the reality of the creative, transforming power working between persons and their world takes priority over what they as individual persons and institutions desire and conceive. It means that, although one cannot foresee how he or she and others will be changed, the relation of mutual trust in their communication and common labour provides them with a bond of security that will enable them to tolerate frustration, conflict, and suffering and to rejoice in new problems and truth. The demand and opportunity of our age are dialogue and common labour at all levels, between as many persons and groups as possible. We must learn either to live in this way or to die; we must learn either to love with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, or to face a physical and spiritual torment.
The readiness and willingness to enter dialogue and cooperation are growing on both sides. Recalling the influence of ‘that extraordinary figure’ of Jesus Christ on his political faith and his concentration since youth on ‘the revolutionary aspects of Christian doctrine and of Christ's thought’, Fidel Castro has said: In my opinion, religion from the political point of view is not anaesthetic or a miraculous remedy. It can be an opiate or a wonderful cure to the degree that it is used or applied to defend the oppressors and exploiters or the oppressed and exploited--depending on the way in which one approach the political, social, or material problems of the human being who, apart from theology or religious beliefs, is born into this world and must live in it.
From a strictly political point of view-and In believe that In know something about policies In even think that one can be a Marxist without giving up one's being Christian and can work united with the Marxist Communist to transform the world. The important thing is that, in both cases, they are sincere revolutionaries willing to overcome the exploitation of persons by others and to struggle for the just distribution of social wealth, equality, fraternity, and the dignity of all human beings -that is, to be the bearers of the most advanced political, economic and social consciousness, even though, in the case of the Christians, starting from a religious conception.
The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (USA) has called on the educated Christian to engage in ‘seriously studying’ Marxism. The Bishops criticize Marxism's atheism, anti-transcendence, the economic interpretation of alienation, as such is an exclusively human eschatology and hope, and the reduction of moral norms to social, revolutionary practice. For all this, they assert, that still the ideological outlook of the communist movement is not the only factor that determines cooperation on the part of Christians. In some areas of universally human concern collaboration with communist governments or communist parties has become a practical necessity. Due to the socialization that Pope John XXIII recognized as one of the distinctive characteristics of our time, modern life requires the cooperation of all men and women of good will. Citizens of a world united by unrestricted technology and instant communication, yet devoid of an effective international authority, has no choice but to seek common approaches and concerted action in attacking global problems.
As we, the very wide and long procession of people in history, do solve our problems and turn to new creative tasks, we shall know more fully the answers to our present questions about humanity and the divine. The very forms in which we pose the questions are limited by our own perspectives. Love moving into the creative dialectic of practice is the only path by which new positions can be attained and our eyes lifted to new horizons. Mysteries that mislead theory find their ultimate solution, if such can be found at all, in reflective practice: Faith without practice is dead. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart conceived, what is prepared for those who truly practice love, for now we see ourselves and our fulfilment only through a glass darkly, but in the triumphant future we shall see them face to face.
Nietzsche never offers his readers a lengthy, coherent discussion of the role of instinct in human life, but makes brief, frequently contradictory remarks on the subject throughout his works. Additionally, Nietzsche uses the term to refer to two distinct forms of human action-any non-conscious mental process and -created dispositions to act in which the latter are a species of the former and both are related to the instincts found in animals. In order to clarify Nietzsche's comments on instinct, all three of these usages will be examined in turn.
In common parlance, instinct refers to inborn patterns of behaviour in animals that respond to specific external stimuli. A cat playing with a mouse before killing it or a lioness hunting down a fleeing antelope does not seem to arise from the type of conscious, -aware choices possible to humans; they are representations of those animals' innate drives. Nietzsche notices and admires the grace and fluidity found in these unconscious animal actions, qualities that are absent in much of human behaviour, due to the misuse and overuse of reason by humans. Nietzsche regards the voice of reason as halting and uncertain and therefore sees that action arising from a conscious process of relational deliberation as similarly halting and uncertain. As a result, the proper wellspring of moral action for Nietzsche is not rational deliberation but something akin to animal instinct. Thus Nietzsche applies the term ‘instinct’ to human action sharing the grace, certainty, and spontaneity of animal action, i.e., to patterns of action originating in unconscious mental processes and to -created moral dispositions that have become subconscious.
In certain passages, Nietzsche uses the term instinct broadly to describe any unconscious mental processes. For example, in a discussion of the frequently-made distinction between the ‘true world’ and the ‘apparent worlds, Nietzsche writes, appearance is an arranged and simplified world at which our practical instincts have been at work; it is perfectly true for us, which is to say, we live, we are able to live in it.’ Because we created the ‘apparent world’ on a buried, subconscious level, Nietzsche considers it to be instinctual.
However, Nietzsche most frequently uses instinct to refer to a specific type of unconsciously mental process-those -created dispositions that unconsciously give rise to certain types of action. Although these instincts often originate in a conscious process initiated by the individual, they are then internalized and automated, thereby yielding fluid and spontaneous responses to moral situations. Those actions guided by instincts are acted unconsciously on a certain level and are thus deserving of their metaphorical connection to the concept of innate animal drives. It is, of course, this particular moral conception of instinct that is of direct interest to this thesis.
The vast majority of Nietzsche's commentary on instinct is focussed on its relation to rationality and consciousness. However, in, On the Genealogy of Morals, we find a rare explanation of the process of creating instincts embedded within Nietzsche's discussion of the development of the right to make promises. Nietzsche begins this discussion with an examination of the positive force of forgetfulness, which he equates to a door-keeper, a preserver of psychic order, repose, and etiquette’ and without which ‘there could be no happiness, no cheerfulness, no hope, no pride, no present.’ In opposition to this force is the ‘memory of the will,’ which requires that a man ‘must undergo the fundamentally learnt necessities to distinguish between events from chance ones, to think causally, to see and anticipate distant eventualities as if they belonged to the present, to decide with certainty what is the goal and the means to it, and in general be able to calculate and compute’. This memory of the will, then ‘makes men to a certain degree necessary, uniform, like among like, regular, and consequently calculable. This memory of the will that allows men to make promises is, in fact, a product of the socialization by the herd to the morality of mores, and so it gives the herd neither the right to make promises nor the true responsibility for those promises.
This is the background against which the instinct of responsibility to one's promises is created in the autonomous individual. In that individual, the conflict between forgetfulness and memory of the will that inhabits a turning-side paradigm of being outdone, such that he ‘has his own independent, protracted will and the right to make promises’. According to Nietzsche, there is in him ‘the proud consciousness, quivering in every muscle, of what has at length been achieved and become flesh in him, a consciousness of his own power and freedom, a sensation of humanity comes to completion’. So, ‘the proud awareness of the extraordinary privilege of responsibility, the consciousness of this rare freedom more than one and fate, has in this case penetrated to the depths and become instinct, the dominating instinct,’ which he without a doubt calls ‘his conscience’.
The instinct created in the sovereign individual is not a moral principle enjoining him to honour his promises; in fact, that ‘morality of mores’ is precisely that which the sovereign individual has overcome. Being that his responsibility flows from his conscience, rather than from social code of ethics to be deliberated about, the sovereign individual spontaneously honours his promises as a natural expression of his inner character.
In this example of the sovereign individual, three distinct elements can be highlighted in the instinct created -its origin, the process by which it is created, and the results, in action, of possessing the instinct. The instinct begins with the individual's conscious, almost bodily awareness of the unique and valuable capacity to honour promises that he created for him out of the morality of mores. This sense of -responsibility is, over time, deeply integrated into the very ‘soul’ of the sovereign individual to become his conscience, such that he could not separate him from it. In concrete action, this instinct result in a certain type of attitude and certain behaviours toward the promises he makes, without thought or question, he honoured those promises, not because of the opinions of his neighbours or fear of negative consequences, but because to do otherwise would be a travesty against his very person.
These three elements found in the instinct of responsibility, relating to its origin, the processes by which it is created, and the results in action, are also found, although in a more general form, in all Nietzschean instincts. First, instincts originate from within the individual, not in response too outside pressures; they are created, with a certain degree of consciousness, by autonomous agents. Second, over time, instincts go beyond the conscious awareness in which they arise, to the depths of subconscious. Finally, the result of this process is the fluid, spontaneous action characteristic of animals.
A central element in Nietzsche's conception of virtue is that genuine virtues are -created, in the sense that the impetus for their creation must lie within the individual rather than from external circumstance. In a comparison of the ‘higher man’ to the ‘herd animal’ in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche describes the essential constitution of that higher man. The greatest man will be ‘the most solitary, the most concealed, the most divergent, the man Beyond Good and Evil, the master of his virtues, the superabundant of will’. He will possess ‘the creative fullness of power and mastery’ and ‘the ability to be different’. This comparison highlights the role of -creation and -mastery in Nietzsche's ideal; the higher man does not acquire his virtues from outside sources such as teaching or socialization; he creates his virtues for him. As a type of virtue, instincts followed the same pattern of being created by an initiated process and directed by the individual, although not necessarily controlled. Although we will want to make room for moral insights that are hastened by external events or individuals in our lives in our account of moral dispositions, Nietzsche's focus on -determination and autonomy will prove useful to that account of moral dispositions.
Nietzsche devotes much attention to the second element of instinct -the process by which instincts are created particularly to the complicated relationship between instinct, consciousness, and the subconscious. In essence, Nietzschean instincts originated in conscious awareness and then transform of becoming validated in the affirmation of the internalized and automated, such that we are no longer particularly aware of possessing or acting on them. The fact that instincts come to reside deep within the individual, rather than on the surface of consciousness makes them far superior to any conscious moral principles. They regulate action better, because they do not depend upon the fumbling deliberation of reason at the moment of moral choice. Additionally, because our instincts contribute to an individual's inner person, they are authentic and genuine in a way that any conscious moral theory adopted or absorbed from others will never be.
Contrary to common thinking, conscious awareness of our motives, for Nietzsche, is not necessarily a virtue. In fact, he regards that which is not consciously intentional in an action as more revealing than an individual's deliberate or professed intentions. In a discussion of the view that the value of an action lie in the intentions behind it, Nietzsche writes, ‘today, when among us immoralists at least the suspicion has arisen that the decisive value of an action resides precisely on that which is not intentional in it, and all that in it that is intentional, of all that can be see, known, 'conscious,' consciously still belongs to its surface and skin-which, increase excessively upon the smooth exteriors, in that it betrays something but conceals still more?’ This perspective on the meaningfulness and value of intentionality even leads to the idea that the reasons for which an instinct was created, i.e., the original intentionality of an instinct, is not particularly important. Because instincts lose much of their intentionality in the process of internalization, they are not subject to the great suspicion Nietzsche accords to consciousness and reason.
The will to power, though related to Freud’s explorations of aggression and destruction, does not contain or imply a death instinct, however, there is a notion of death o sorts involves in the sense of the individual’s creative, expansive growth involving a willingness to die to the in its current form, that is, one’s expansion and may break the boundaries of the as currently constituted and experienced. Zarathustra states that, Yours [is] what it would do above all else, to create beyond it? Also, least of mention, has affinities. We use the realm of Eros. Kaufmann suggests that the will to power have aspects or manifestations that can be described as a creative Eros, and, quoting from Plato’s Symposium, ‘the love of generation and of birth in beauty,’
Of course, Nietzsche recognized the aggression instincts and will to power in various forms and manifestations, including sublimated mastery, all of which ae prominent in Feud’s writings. We can also note in Freud’s description of the power and importance of rational thinking and scientific laws. However ‘bright’ the world of science is and however much reason and science represent the highest strength possessed man, to a withholding enemy that imposes ‘strict discipline with ‘relentlessness and monotony’. However much this language pertains to a description of universal problems in human development, one of reason as relentless, monotonous disciplining force to which he reluctantly (labouriously?) submit.
Nietzsche's views on intentionality and his positive evaluation of instincts are well-integrated into his broader perspective on the role of reason in moral action, such that the former cannot be understood but through the latter. Throughout his works, particularly The Will to Power, Nietzsche adamantly criticizes the common ideal of moral action achieved through a rational, methodical process of deliberation. Nietzsche characterizes this view as the idea that ‘one must imitate Socrates and counter the dark desires by producing the permanence of daylight -the daylight of reason. One must be prudent, clear, bright at any cost; Every yielding to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads downward’. Rational deliberations in moral choice, according to Nietzsche, are ‘merely tentative’ and ‘show a far lower standard of morality’ than thinking and action directed by instincts. Conscious thinking is pained, labourious, and unwieldy; it ought to be considered only a stepping stone toward moral action, as an aspect of human life to be overcome, through the creation of instincts. In fact, at times, Nietzsche advocates that we do more than simply use instincts to go beyond rationality and consciousness, that actually lose our awareness of the reasons for those instincts. Nietzsche writes ‘we must in fact seek the perfect life where it has become least conscious (i.e., least aware of its logic, its reasons, its means and intentions, its utility) the demand for a virtue that reasons is not reasonable’.
Despite this strong language against any intentionality in moral action, Nietzsche is not wholly rejecting the power of reason in moral decision-making. He is vehemently opposed to the ‘return to nature’ advocated by Rousseau, because it constitutes regression rather than its overcoming. In the section of Twilight of the Idols entitled ‘Progress in my sense,’ in which Nietzsche differentiates him from Rousseau, he writes, ‘In too speak of a 'return to nature' although it is not really a going-back but a going-up-up into a high, free, even frightful nature and naturalness’ That ‘going-up’ represents the overcoming of both reason and animality made possibly by -created instincts. In other words, Nietzsche's disdain for reason and conception of virtue as arising from instinct does not constitute ‘a reversion to the level of the 'beast of prey’.
Nietzsche's view that instincts represent an overcoming of reason, rather than a regression into the animality, tempers some of his more extreme denunciations of reason. For example, Nietzsche comments that the ‘absurd overestimation of consciousness’ and the association of the unconscious with ‘falling back to the desires and senses’ and ‘becoming the primordial animal’ by philosophers resultants in the erroneous view that ‘every advance lies in an advance in becoming conscious, whereby every regression in becoming unconscious’ Given his sharp criticism of Rousseau, Nietzsche ought not be understood as advocating the exact opposite perspective, i.e., that blind unreason is necessarily an advance over consciousness. Reminisces for arguing that the process of becoming less conscious through creating instincts is a great advance over attempts rationally to calculate the moral course of action. Nevertheless, there are aspects of Nietzsche's attacks on reason that are deeply troublesome to his account of instincts because they prevent him from distinguishing between emotions and instincts.
Although most of Nietzsche's discussion of instinct focuses on the relationship between instinct and reason, he does occasionally speak of creating instincts through the passions. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes, ‘once you suffered passion and called them evil. Nonetheless, it now seems that you have only your virtues left: They grow out of your passions. You commended your highest goal to the heart of these passions: Then they became your virtues and passions you enjoyed’. In this instance, instincts are not created by the usual process of animalizing reason, only the spiritualising of the passions. Thus, Nietzschean instincts are not necessarily created by one and only one process; There are variational possibilities in that their becoming a process of creation
Moving now from the origin and creation of instincts to the final element of instinct, Nietzsche regards the type of action made possible through instincts as the fluid and spontaneous action found in animals. Nietzsche's basic perspective is summed up in his expressed words that genius resides in instinct, as well of belonging goodness also. One acts perfectly when one is to act instinctively. Moral action is the natural outcome of a set of healthy, well-formed instincts.
In his book Nietzsche, Richard Schacht illustrates the animal-like grace of Nietzsche's conception of instinctual action through a comparison between instinct and the body's ‘knowledge’ of a certain set of movements. In learning physical tasks, such as typing or playing musical instruments, Schacht writes, one may be said to know how to do them once one has learned how to execute certain rudiments of them, but so long as one's mastery of them is only partial, one's performance will be halting, tentative, uncertain, and flawed. One is still in the position of having to think about how various procedures are and must be mediated by one's consciousness.
Only when one has been able to ‘dispense with the mediation of conscious deliberation and reckoning at each step of the way’ does ‘one's engagement in the activity [take] on the appearance of complete 'naturalness'’. A person who has made an activity ‘second nature’ or ‘instinctual’ does not lose consciousness, accept, that Schacht points out, often experiences ‘a higher degree of psychic intensity and sensitivity’. Instinct creates this naturalness in action; acting morally becomes second nature, intrinsic to whom we are, rather than something that reasons must force us to do.
Nietzsche's theory of instincts, then, can be summed up as follows. The work of the reason is hesitant and labourious, while animal instincts are blind and lacking in -direction and -control. Instincts unify the spontaneity and beauty of animal action with the intentionality and -mastery of rational action, by internalizing and automatizing certain types of moral actions . . . The result is that, ‘so long as life is ascending, happiness and instincts are one’.
Nietzsche's account of instinct, as compelling at it is, faces serious challenges. To begin with, the moral stratification of men into higher and lower types, which we find throughout his ethics, also permeate his theory of instincts, thus unnecessarily limiting the application of his theory to a few rare individuals. A more significant problem, however, lies in Nietzsche's view that the genuinely moral agent ought not be aware of the reasons, logic, and intentions of his instincts, because it prevents Nietzsche from differentiating between mere emotional responses and genuine instincts, as well as hampers and severely complicates the development of a real method by which old instincts can be overturned in favour of new ones. Although the problems posed by Nietzsche's focus on moral stratification within humankind can be resolved, the unconsciousness that Nietzsche advocates placing between moral action and the reasons for that action will strip Nietzsche's theory of instincts of much of its force and power.
(In) Nietzsche's assumptions of moral stratification depends upon a division of men into higher and lower types, into the master and the slave or into the beast of prey and the lamb. This form of stratification is almost deterministic; The herd and the nobles are set, well-defined groups in which individuals remain. There is no gradual process of moral growth, only perhaps the rare man who breaks free from the ‘morality of mores’ to becomes a higher form of life. This stratification permeates Nietzsche's perspective on instincts, because instincts are so intimately bound up with the ideals of control and -mastery found in the supramoral individual. In the discussion of the sovereign individual who creates an instinct of responsibility in On the Genealogy of Morals, for example, such an individual, clearly rising to overcome the morality of custom, is a rare phenomenon. The creation of such an instinct requires such an attenuated sense of -awareness and -mastery that it be only attainable to a few; the rest, ‘the feeble windbags who promise without the right to do so,’ do not have the power even to create such an instinct for themselves.
This moral stratification is unwelcome essentially because a normative account of moral decision-making ought to have a wider audience than the rare supramoral individual, who, in all likelihood wouldn't need or want a philosopher's judgment of how moral choices ought to be made. Those ‘lower’ individuals who struggle with moral choices might be able to use instincts in order to become more -determined and spontaneous in their actions. Placing Nietzsche’s moral stratification on the periphery of his theory of instincts would not be particularly difficult, however, such that, although the creation of instincts would necessitate some degree of -disciple, sovereignty, and -awareness, an individual would not have to be fully supramoral in order to benefit from the power of moral instincts. The power, efficacy, and authenticity of these instincts would, in all probability, be dependent upon degree to which Nietzschean virtues were present in that individual. Nevertheless, instincts could still be effectively created and used to achieve moral action, even by that Nietzsche would consider being lesser men
Differentiating Nietzschean instincts from simple emotions are found in Nietzsche's ethics, however, is not the most formidable challenge to Nietzsche's account of instincts. It is Nietzsche's view that ‘we must in fact seek perfect life where it has become least conscious, i.e., least aware of its logic, its reasons, its means and intentions, its utility that is most troublesome, emphasis added. Such a gulf between the origin of instincts in consciousness and the unconscious expression of them would prevent individuals from properly and easily differentiating between simple (non-moral) emotional responses and genuine, -created instincts. Because our passions do resemble instincts and, in fact, our instincts can be seen as a particular type of passion, we must remain aware, on some level, of the intentionality behind instincts in order too properly separate instinct from emotional responses that do not provide the moral guidance as instincts do. Additionally, critical examination of the instincts possessed by individuals and the entire process of overturnings old instincts in favour of new ones would be impossible with the separation of instinct from intentionality that Nietzsche advocates.
The passions do not hold the moral weight of Nietzschean instincts. Emotional responses, whether in the form of pleasure or blind rage, do not necessarily reflect an individual's deeply-held moral values; They often arise from socialized beliefs or superficial attitudes. We can often only differentiate instincts form (other) passions by retaining an awareness of the purpose of the instinct, of the reasons for creating the instinct for ourselves. Instincts are consciously created in order to serve a specific moral function, namely enabling spontaneous moral action in response to specific types of situations. It is, however, precisely this critical consciousness and intentionality that Nietzsche believes individuals ought to separate themselves as exampled from its subjective matters and physical theories. Based on his comments in The Will to Power, we ought to become completely unconscious as to the reasons why we have the instincts we do. However, if we do make ourselves unaware of the justification for our instincts, then we cannot determine whether any particular emotional response is the result of caprice, socialization, or instinct. Therefore, although we still may act spontaneously, with animal-like grace and speed, the awareness and intentionality behind our actions vanquish as we no longer have a method of moral decision-making which results in moral outcomes of choices.
It is not the case that an account of moral dispositions requires an individual to be aware, at any given time, of the reasons for the dispositions she has or even to know when she is acting on those dispositions. Still, an individual must have that knowledge available to her consciousness in order to engage in the -reflection required for genuinely -directed moral decision-making.
This position taken by Nietzsche on the distance that ought to arise between instincts and intentionality also would effectively prevent the moral growth naturally resulting from an overturning of old, obsolete instincts in favour of new, life-relevant ones. Although many of our moral dispositions remain constant through changes in our lifetimes, others are refined or completely overhauled. New dispositions are constantly created in the wake of new relationships, new jobs, or simply the fact of growing older. An individual might, for example, realize that she is too argumentative in intellectual discussions, thus impeding good philosophical discussion. In response to this realization, she might try to cultivate an instinct for joint philosophical exploration and jettison the old instinct for appositional debate. These sorts of changes are inherent to life and must be taken into consideration, even promoted, in a normative account of moral decision-making.
If however, the ideal that we are trying to achieve is a lack of awareness of the intentionality behind our instincts, then we have no standard by which to judge whether our instincts are serving us or whether they have put us on the path of descending life. We could not reflect upon what our instincts were created to achieve and whether they are actually achieving results for which they were designed. For example, under Nietzsche's ideal, a woman who was being taken advantage of by ‘friends,’ because of her instinct for benevolence and generosity toward others, would not be able to examine and change what was wrong with the moral situation. Because she had driven her reasons for her benevolence from her consciousness, she would not be able to reflect upon at what end benevolence was aimed to accomplish or examine the ways in which that instinct was harming her. Perhaps she could engage in a long chain of analytical reasoning to determine how best to modify her instinct, but at that point having retained some awareness of the intentionality behind her instincts would have been more useful for her.
Nietzsche could respond to this particular criticism by arguing that old instincts are easily overturned by new ones. Nonetheless, that without any awareness of the intentionality of instincts, it is unclear why new instincts would arise in the first place or how an individual could tell, if they did emerge, whether they were essentially in the service of life than the old instincts.
These criticisms of Nietzsche, which arise out of his strong stand against rationality and conscious awareness in ethically decision-making, do not fully undermine his account of moral dispositions. His insistence that instincts are -created and freely chosen, rather than unconsciously absorbed from society, is essential to an account of moral dispositions that values -determination and autonomy. Additionally, the connection that Nietzsche makes between instinct and the smoothness and spontaneity of animal action is essential for a conceptualization of instinct as integrating rational judgment and emotional motivation. Nevertheless, an alternative to the relationship that Nietzsche construes between moral dispositions and conscious intentionality would greatly strengthen the account of moral dispositions. Aristotle offers such an alternative, for he posits a much stronger connection between moral dispositions and rational deliberation.
The psychological genre as it relates to sociologically and medicinal matter has gained an increasing amount of scientific approval. Impartiality and the scientific method are both integral components to a psychologist's mode of practice. However, even the most esteemed of psychologists can only speculate at what is to understand that the human being is to interaction in the way they do. Absolutes play no function in psychology. Everything is relative and open to conjecture. Theologians give us their visions or thoughts about life. In the field of psychology, there have been many different regions of interest and speculation. Psychoanalysis has been the pinnacle of arenas to examine within the vast field of psychology. Psychoanalysis has been an area that Carl Jung has explored, critiqued and perfected in his lifetime. Jung was not alone in his exploration of the psyche; there were many other psychoanalytic perspectives as well. Carl Jung was said to have been a magnetic individual who drew many others into his circle. Sigmund Freud was Carl Jung's greatest influence. Although he came to part company with Freud in later years, Freud had a distinct and profound influence on Carl Jung's psychoanalytic perspectives, as well as many others. Within the scope of analytic psychology, there exist two essential tenets. The first is the system in which sensations and feelings are analysed and listed by type. The second has to do with a way to analyse the psyche that follows Jung's concepts. It stresses a group unconscious and a mystical factor in the growth of the personal unconscious. It is unlike the system described by Sigmund Freud.
Analytic psychology does not stress the importance of sexual factors on early mental growth. The best understanding of Carl Jung and his views regarding the collective unconscious are best understood in understanding the man and his influences. In keeping with the scope and related concepts of Carl Jung, unconscious is the sum of those psychic activities that elude an individual's direct knowledge of him or her. This term should not be confused either with a state of awareness, that is, a lack of knowledge arising from an individual's unwillingness to look into him or her (introspection), nor with the subconscious, which consists of marginal representations that can be readily brought to consciousness. Properly, unconscious processes cannot be made conscious at will; Their unravelling requires the use of specific techniques, such as free association, dream interpretation, various projective tests, and hypnosis.
For many centuries, students of human nature considered the idea of an unconscious mind as contradictory. However, it was noticed by philosophers such as St. Augustine, and others, as well as early experimental psychologists, including Gustav Sechner, and Hermann Von Helmholtz, that certain psychological operations could take place without the knowledge of the subject. Jean Sharcot demonstrated that the symptoms of post-traumatic neuroses did not result from lesions of the nervous tissue but from unconscious representations of the trauma. Pierre Janet extended this concept of ‘unconscious fixed ideas’ to hysteria, wherein traumatic representations, though split off from the conscious mind, exert an action upon the conscious mind in the form of hysterical symptoms. Janet was an important influence on Carl Jung, and he reported that the cure of several hysterical patients, using hypnosis to discover the initial trauma and then having it reenacted by the patient, was successful. Josef Breuer also treated a hysterical patient by inducing the hypnotic state and then elucidating for her the circumstances that had accompanied the origin of her troubles. As the traumatic experiences were revealed, the symptoms disappeared. Freud substituted the specific techniques of free association and dream interpretation for hypnosis. He stated that the content of the unconscious has not just been ‘split off,’ but has been ‘repressed,’ that is forcibly expelled from consciousness. Neurotic symptoms express a conflict between the repressing forces and the repressed material, and this conflict causes the ‘resistance’ met by the analyst when trying to uncover the repressed material. Aside from occasional psychic traumas, the whole period of early childhood, including the Oedipus situation or the unconscious desire for the parent of the opposite sex and hatred for the parent of the same sex, has been repressed. In a normal individual, unknown to him or her, these early childhood situations influence the individual's thoughts, feelings, and acts; in the neurotic they determine a wide gamut of symptoms which psychoanalysis endeavours to trace back to their unconscious sources.
During psychoanalytic treatment, the patient's irrational attitudes toward the analyst, referred to as the ‘transference,’ manifests a revival of old forgotten attitudes toward parents. The task of the psychoanalyst, together with the patient, is to analyse his resistance and transference, and to bring unconscious motivations to the patient's full awareness. Carl Jung considered the unconscious as an autonomous part of the psyche, endowed with its own dynamism and complementary to the conscious mind. He distinguished the personal from the collective unconscious; the later he considered to be the seat of ‘archetypes’ -universal symbols loaded with psychic energy.
As new approaches to the unconscious came about, Jung introduced the word association test, that is, spontaneous drawing, and his own technique of dream interpretation. His therapeutic method aimed at the unification of the conscious and the unconscious through which he believed man achieved his ‘individuation,’ the completion of his personality. Both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung's concepts of the unconscious have provided a key to numerous facts in psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and sociology, and for the interpretation of artistic and literary works. (Ellenberger) Hypnosis has contributed largely to our understanding of psychoanalysis. Carl Jung understood this and utilized hypnosis throughout his many experiments and tests. In recent times, our understanding of the unconscious has been expanded due to experimental hypnosis and as well projective psychological tests. It has been observed that Jung's relations with the other significant people in his life appear to have been as unsatisfactory as his own. It has been observed that Jung despised his pastor father as a weakling and failure and had mixed feelings about his mother. After Jung broke with Freud, his former collaborator and mentor, Jung went on to develop his own psychological system. This incorporated a number of key concepts that included the collective and conscious, the repository of mankind's psychic heritage, and realm of the archetypes -inherited patterns in the mind that exist through time and space. Then there were the anima/animus, the image of contrasexuality in the unconscious of each individual, and shadow, the repressed and wanted aspect of a person. There is also the theory of psychology types, i.e., introverts, and extraverts, which influenced William James' dichotomy of tough and tender minded individuals. Jung also developed his theory of individuation, which holds that each individual's goal in life is to achieve his own potential. These theories on the different approaches to psychoanalysis each have valid points. As such, theories will always have to deal with paradigmatic assumptions. These are ideas that the theorist has taken for granted as facts. An example is Freud's notion that women suffer from a lack of -esteem or worth all their lives because of penis envy. Freud's assumption possibly could have been derived for being merely because of the time when he lived, and it was a time when women were treated as second class citizens. Freud's assumption that sex is the driving force behind everything could also be a product of his times. Sexual feelings were often repressed. The problem with paradigmatic assumptions is that each person grows up in a different culture and some theories do not apply to everyone. The problem with psychology remains that it is not an exact science. Though Jung's ideals may have been moulded by Freud and further critiqued and perfected, it may further be perfected in the future. Such is the arena of science, an ever-changing, dynamic field that undergoes much scrutiny and much refinement.
All we really know about feeling is: it is only expressed within our own minds, the feelings we understand as sensory impressions seem to draw our attention to the material world around us; pain leaves us little choice to focus on anything other than the unique material object in the real world, our own body, and sensibilities that spread off the feeling by equally establishing by its owing reflections that does not endure its own pain nor neurological affiliations, indicate the current emotional tone of our own thoughts and consciousness. While this is probably, all unconscious understandings need immediately to grasp a difference between feelings representing real conditions and their meanings to ourselves, we can only share a model of unconscious thought processes if these differences are translated into rational terms. If we discount moralized rationalizations of feeling experiences to isolate a purely rational conception of what our feelings are trying to tell us, there is no choice in where to look for the meanings that will replace them; we must turn to an introspective evaluation of feeling already recognized as leading to an individuated personal value structure. An awareness of this possibility always seems advisable when considering the worth of unshareable ideas, but there is something a little different about personal rationalizations of profoundly instinctual values-accepting them as true doesn’t entail denial of established rational conceptions there are any conceptions of emotionally felt meanings that meet the standards for shareable rational truth. All we are doing when considering unconscious values as they will be described in this model, is looking for a way to overcome an impasse created when obviously really human experiences are beyond representation in purely rational terms-and if this sound’s familiar, we need look no further than moral values to find an everyday example of already doing it. This is where the risk of individuation in an investigation like this can be found, in individuating our personal perspective on the moral meanings of emotion experiences. It’s an important factor to be sure, but whether one sees the source of our moral sense in an innate human conscience, or ressentiments embedded in our personal value structures during early childhood (as this model does), by the time a mind can understand the complexities of the conception that will follow, if shared moral norms are not believed to be unquestionably necessary in human interactions (as this model’s supports), they will never be. This leaves us with only one real issue to deal with; if we don’t look into our own mind for an understanding of instinctually formulated feeling values, we must live with the conception our rational thoughts will produce-‘one would like to say: Human mental life can’t be described at all; it is so uncommonly complicated and full of scarcely graspable experiences.’ While this is probably the most reasonable position, a highly rational mind can take when considering the human mental experience, this comment by Ludwig Wittgenstein is not typical of his viewpoint. His carefully considered comments and questions more often point out the rationally understandable aspects of confusing mental experiences; Chosen between the complications and complex relationships is the existent simultaneous presence that await to feelings, experiences, and consciously understandable values, whereby a collection of his observations (quotes without notation of an author) are included in the following. However, understanding unconscious values as this model sees them actually employed in unconscious thought, means each of us must find our own way to grasp them as they are actually experienced in our minds; Which leaves us with the uncomfortable prospect of looking for them in a form that cannot be communicated to, or verified by, anyone else. Science will eventually explain the how, why and what of the mortality will innately assemble by some sorted cognation for life will never exhaust it, and those who have no immediate need for an answer can await the presence to the future, for its careful methods to come up with a clear description everyone can share. In the meantime, those of us with a more pressing need can avoid an entirely personal interim understanding by relating what we find to mental phenomena we can safely assume are, in a general sense, the same in our own minds as they are in others; Like the mental image/feeling relationship Wittgenstein’s comments, and Nietzsche’s idea of ressentiment as well, seem to establish as something we all find in consciousness at times. It would have the course of been comforted by knowing what physical processes are creating the things of our consciousness, and what sensory ability then makes us aware of them, but this model aspires to nothing more than a description of the role mental phenomena play in helping us deal with reality. Consequently, its conception of underlying physical processes can be metaphorical rather than real.
There are any number of philosophical and theological reasons we can find for the existence of feelings in consciousness and yet, if we leave emotion aside for a while, one seems particularly relevant here; Because ‘pain could be regarded as a kind of tactile sensation’, but it is not what we would describe as a tactile experience in the realm of consciousness. All tactile experiences in a given moment-from the pain of a toothache, to sensations arising from a breeze passing over exposed skin-are included in the flood of real time impressions continuously bringing us a comprehensive grasp of current real conditions. Simultaneously representing all of it in the images and feelings of consciousness cannot give us our best understanding of reality however; it would overwhelm our current thoughts with mostly commonplace data; while feeling pain like any other tactile impression would inhibit our ability to isolate an immediate personal threat in current sensory data. A process that edits and separates the sensory impressions coming to consciousness must exist somewhere in our thought processes, because the results are apparent when we compare a recollection with an original visual impression-‘the tie-up between imaging and seeing is close, but there is no similarity.’ What we actually see is more comprehensive and robust, while recalled images seem clearly to highlight the data we need to understand an object’s meaning in the context of the thought it’s related kin by some sortal formality that is addressed only through and by it. Because the process for accomplishing this is beyond conscious recognition, it’s an unconscious function that presumably would, in a model of thought employing only one thought process, similarly simplify representations for all of this in the language of unconscious thought as well. Whether simplified or not felt values would still be indistinct, distracting and confusing and yet, if the sensory information being confused highlights what’s instinctually important, unconscious thought would then be a medium in which a limited number of currently meaningful feeling values are unavoidably mingled, in essence confused, to establish a combined impression of everything being sensed in a given moment (reality as a whole). This perspective makes what we feel in consciousness much more than an accidental by-product of brain processes; it’s a meaningful representation of current conditions that extends our human cause and effect logic, by juxtaposing values that cannot be quickly related to each other with physically connected memory associations. We can physically connect them if they become consistently relevant to each other, creating another among the countless experience-proven sets of associations existing in our memories, but when unusual conditions arise, we cannot rely on rigidly ordered remembered data; we need sensory qualities tailored to represent unfamiliar conditions. In such circumstances, an ability to find and understand what is currently important is paramount, so both feelings and images alike would be more clearly understandable if they did not include all of the information gathered by our senses, as is actually the case when images in our minds do not include enough information to get confused with concurrent pictures of the world. Whether it’s the difference, we see in actual and recalled visual images, or one we feel between tactile sensations representing a breeze and pain, the mind and brain seem to share a closed-loop representational system for sensory data that is closely related to, but not identical with, the full range of sensations produced by sensory organs.
Individual values in the mind/brain representational system must be created and edited somehow, and without proof of how it really works, the best we can do is represent this process in a way that accounts for what we do understand about these processes. We know the values of consciousness are related to physical brain processes somehow, because people who experience physical brain (memory) damage also experience a change, of one sort or another, in the value mix coming into their consciousness. Our model assumes this mind/brain relationship exists at the level of individual memories-each physical memory being converted into a representation compatible with the intangible things of thought. Whatever information our senses discover begins its existence as personal knowledge when an energetic sensory signal interacts with the living brain tissues this model describes as perceptual memories. As a physical process the assumption is this: sensory information reaches the brain as many specific and separate signals, each of which is an elemental part of a noticeable quality-a vertical line would arrive as a set of specific elemental parts (signals) that in a rational sense, would come together to represent understandable line qualities like width, orientation, duration and colour. Each elemental part of a noticeable quality is stored in a separate perceptual memory site retaining a representation of that part alone; so any sensory quality or object we may require in unconscious thought, or even conscious images, is constructed from an associated set, or pattern of these one-element memory sites. Because individual memory sites can store only a single, very basic elemental part of sensory data in this scheme, any memory in a pattern representing one object can be part of any other object (pattern) that includes the same elemental part-a line element representing part of a curve in the pattern representing our sensory grasp of an egg’s shape, would represent the same part of a curve in all others.
Translating these wholly physical events into the values of consciousness is a role played by feelings that are generated when the tiny energy potentials of physical brain processes stimulate a microscopic memory site. It’s a feeling only strong enough to contribute a consciously indistinct feeling value to consciousness, and to keep descriptions of these representations of memory stimulations clearly separate from familiar, consciously understandable sensory qualities-loud, red, sour, smooth or toothache-the feelings arising from memory stimulations, which this model sees as individually too faint for even an unconscious grasp, are described as perceptual feelings. Because they originate in groups representing the pattern of physical memories needed to store all of the individual elemental parts of a particular sensory quality, the pattern of perceptual feelings produced would, if we could isolate them, represent the same sensory quality as a value in the feeling language of unconscious thought. This conception describes a memory site like any other object; a thing make real through sensory impressions of it, but the sensory ability that detects the feelings we find in our consciousness remains beyond our understanding. Still, whatever eventually does prove to be the mechanism bringing us an awareness of our own feelings and consciousness must conform to a basic truth of human knowledge: in order to communicate the existence of anything we must eventually ground our proof in an ability to grasp its reality with our senses-we must be able to feel it. ‘We learn to describe objects, and thereby, in another sense, our sensations.’ In fact, the only mental values not already represented by feelings of one sort or another are rational images, facts, and ideas. If this outline of how they are created proves to be a valid metaphor only allows one to an alliance with the -gratification. Yet rational values will join everything else in reality and become conceivable as essentially feelings as well. ‘The ground of perception precedes all intellectual things, all philosophy, and it is the first assumption linking inner and outer things simultaneously . . .
Perception remains a largely mystical experience when we recognize the impressions of reality we see in our minds are mental images created to represent them in thought, rather than pictures of it. Because the physical process that creates them remains unknown, this proposal for how thought works are limited to the mental representations, we find in our thoughts-one value structure to represent reality, and another for our knowledge of it. Because it is by compatibility with an underlying language that must include both. In the language of unconscious thought proposed by this model, vanishingly faint perceptual feelings represent everything we can sense in the real world of objects, events and ideas-from chemical adjustments in the brain, a change in the quality of light entering the eye, to the softness, weight, taste or pain we feel when in contact with an external object. They represent the truth about reality in a multitude of elemental bits that form patterns unconscious thought processes then employ as for differing sensory value qualities; As a result, the patterns they form don’t represent distinctly different ideas like we find in rational thoughts; they are feelings. If we try to keep track of the feeling value (pattern) representing a particular sensory quality, or the collections of patterns representing different objects in each of many concurrent thoughts, the feeling values of unconscious processes run into the same problem rational processes would if we could think several simultaneous conscious thoughts, all using the same value structure -confusion. Our model’s solution to his problem will eventually dispense with the idea of separate unconscious thoughts and values altogether; in a sense, embrace confusion by mixing everything we can feel into a single pattern representing all of the information currently being gathered from reality, current thoughts, and the endless supervision of body controls carried out in unconscious processes as well. It’s an undivided reality represented by all perceptual memories currently in consciousness, and it feels like the constantly evolving sensory aspect of -aware existence, from the perspective of the sense currently dominating our sensory data stream-a pervasive taste, smell, sound, and particularly pains, can dominate the reality of consciousness; However, it’s usually our current visual image. While this generalized feeling experience must serve as the unconscious representation of reality from this perspective, the memories producing it retain their integrity in associative groups related to individual thoughts in underlying physical processes. When stimulated, these associated physical perceptual memories come into consciousness as a wide variety of sensory qualities, which seems to indicate the individual perceptual feelings creating sensory values might include a range of feeling tones as well. We do not know this to be the case however, and without a need to identify specific elements in this model’s representation of unconscious reality, which will become more apparent later, modelling each perceptual feeling as a different value adds a conceivable imaginary, surely daunting layers of complexity. Instead, the model opts for clarity by simply representing perceptual feelings that are always beyond our grasp anyway, as identical; While the patterns they create account for the describable differences in feeling values, we find in consciousness.
Individual perceptual memories represent an endless variety of sensory elements, each a specific interchangeable part of reality that is routinely incorporated into a wide variety of familiar qualities (patterns), which are then understandable parts in mental images of really remembered events. They can also be elemental parts in images that transcend the truths of any real experience, as in dreams, fantasies, and the creative acts that create something new from existing and familiar parts. Yet most of the time, the feelings arising from perceptual memories aggregate into patterns that simply allow our thoughts to distinguish red from blue, straight lines from curves, horizontal from vertical and, if one has learned to differentiate them, Chenin Blanc from Chablis. Perceptual feelings do not establish which colour or wine we like best or even why they differ, they combine to create distinct values that allow our unconscious thoughts to tell them apart without recourse to rational descriptions. They are faint, nondescript values combining to represent real things unconscious thoughts need for instinctual understandings of causes (objects) that may or may not eventually appear in a conscious thought or noticeable sensory impressions. An unconscious representation like this wouldn’t look like an object as it appears in conscious thought, but it would otherwise unconsciously feel like it through representations of sensory impressions we will invariably experience when we encounter it. They cannot be the values that determine whether we desire or want to avoid an object either because, as Wittgenstein observed about the words we see and hear, they ‘should explain only in the stream of life’. Perceptual memories determine nothing beyond the truth of existence, so whenever we hear a word-red, bright, doctors, down -it can sometimes cause us to feel fear, and sometimes joy. To understand unconscious representations of our changing affinities and aversions to particular truths, we must look to more subjective feelings that have little to do with the shareable realities found by less than of what contained the greater of an equal neurological ability.‘The idea is that although no doubt is possible in the case of what the senses tell us, there is always a doubt possible as to interpretation.’
Subjective feelings are evaluations ultimately based on each individual’s varying reactions to what is sensed rather than its bare truth value -it is the difference between the sensory truth of a person’s existence when we see them, and the feeling of how that person affects our life -affection, jealousy, respect, fear, curiosity a message conveyed by emotion. A real object that has been experienced before is represented by an established pattern of perceptual memories and when current sensory impressions stimulate them, they produce a pattern of feelings to represent it in thought, which means the mind must utilize a clearly different type of feeling value to represent what we think about the prospect of that object continuing to generate effects on us. If the object is far away and sensed only by sight, current sensory data cannot convey pain or any other instinctually meaningful tactile value because there has been no physical contact, but it can bring anticipatory anxiety to consciousness. For this to happen, we must be capable to occasion of our ability to contribute, and as yet, the presence of the unknown (future) experiences within to occur the internationalities that give rise to cause harm or satisfy as needed. When we think rationally, ‘An intention is embedded in its situation, in human customs and institutions’; while an unconscious dialogue between one kind of feeling representing external conditions and another representing their personal meanings, cannot symbolize some of these more subtle rational understandings. In the simple language of feeling, if a rock in ones paths are not treated as having an intent to cause harm, it’s likely we will get proof it had one when it trips us-and because experience is the only proof with instinctual meaning. We will have to trip over a few unconsciously to understand their intent. Our instincts eventually determine that rocks intend to force us into the instinctual reactions our experiences prove are necessary to avoid falling afterward, and because the unconscious -realization, producing the immediate reactions that cannot include complex deliberations when they must quickly determine the ill-reasoning implications that guide its course within the unconscious manifestations to endeavour upon that which implicates their application to the actions that best serve the momentary survival needs. The unconscious meaning for a rock in our way, always remains upon the deprivation in reflection to this urgency by being essentially the same as a decision about what action to take, not whether one is desirable or required. This gives us the opportunity to equate the instinctual meaning for an object with our reaction to it-recalling instructions for the body movements that prevent a fall after tripping, produces a feeling to represent these memory stimulations (reactions) in unconscious thought, just as perceptual memories produce perceptual feelings to represent the sensory elements they store. Nevertheless, if we relate all emotionally meaningful feelings to instinctual reactions as this formula indicates, experiencing one that doesn’t accompany a noticeable body movement, means we must answer an important question, ‘could one . . . if to be done, could it achieve something in ones mind or head, which one cannot do perceptibly, for which there is no such thing as a perceptible equivalent?’ Our model says yes; it maintains that emotionally toned feelings originate as stimulations of specialized body control memory sites, each of which codes for a very specific element in the suite of instructions necessary for carrying out a particular action-an external change in body configurations is the most obvious example of an action, but physical brain processes retrieving more information through memory stimulations are also actions in the real world of material things, only different in being confined to the brain. Speaking for example, would result from many separate instructions, each found in a different memory site that, when associated together, control the lung, throat, mouth and facial muscle actuations necessary to say a word or phase. If not speaking for some reason seems best, we might still think what we were going to say (act it out in mind), and each stimulation of a memory site necessary to retrieve memories of words that will not be expressed in this situation, would also produce feelings to represent them in thought, perhaps some of the same ones required for speech. Like the perceptual feelings that aggregate into consciously understandable patterns representing sensory impressions (objects), these feelings combine into sometimes noticeable felt meanings (emotions) built from elemental parts that represent body control memories. Each memory relates to a store of some single instruction for a body change (reaction) that is a part of what we do in specific circumstances, and together they represent a reaction strategy. These unnoticeable components are then, in essence feelings that represent elemental parts of conceptions. Our model describes them as concept feelings, produced by control memories.
Complex animal life must make choices and to make choices, and animals must have an ability to prejudge what is about to happen. Forming abstract notions is perhaps understandable that our human ability (concepts) seems unique to our kind, but it is least that is abstractive by any animal that determines it should avoid something experience proves will be detrimental, without actually experiencing its ill effects again. This judgment to avoid a recurrence of something that was unpleasant in the past (or embrace something proven to be rewarding) is a concept for specific dynamic functioning, a grasp of what is not actually existing at a given moment. An instinctual understanding that knows nothing about concepts can become aware of the success or failure of a remembered action represented in perceptual memories without rational help, if the feeling value in an unconscious thought parallel with a rationalized feeling like anxiety, as our model maintains-a felt concern for what is going to happen if current conditions are not changed to avoid either or embrace what memory tells us might soon be actual. Conscious thought can rationalize such information into specific mathematical probabilities for what will eventually happen, but unconscious thought must also have represented probable effects when we instinctually react to imminent threats because, aside from manners, the unconscious processes that produce immediate reactions often accomplish almost everything rational thought would have. Concept feelings, when they combine to form a pattern we notice as a distinct tone of anxiety, reflect the meaning (effect) a familiar object -a dog for instance is likely to produce through vicariously re-living the reactions usually required when this particular object shows up in our sensory data. ‘If In say ‘In am anxiously awaiting his coming’, this means: In am occupied with his coming (in thought, and one can also say: in thought and action).’ If we see a snarling dog fifty feet away, that sensory image stimulates (acts on) memories of similar experiences, and through associating memories of seeing angry dogs twenty, ten feet and one foot away, together with others representing an actual attack (even a memory of being told it could happen), they create a felt context in unconscious thought something like a god’s eye view of all these memories at once, which feels like fearful anxiety to most of us. By associating, and concurrently experiencing all relevant memories, instinctual understanding is creating a concept to represent what can be expected from an object that has, as yet not produced a senseable effect in the current context. It may not a very refined abstractive idea of what might really happen, not that it is not a very specific possibility, but the only predictably interesting possibilities in instinctual considerations are not very specific either, these entwining threats and intuitive celebrations are met by -gratification. A concept built from feelings we can sometimes notice as anything from fear to affection, has a quality specific to a particular possibility, and this kind of understanding can be applied to represent similar effects produced by a wide variety of objects; even rule structures can become unconsciously apparent when memories depicting how they affect specific behaviours are recalled.
When the memories controlling body functions give rise to concept feelings they serve two purposes. Concept feelings give consciousness mental values that, in aggregate patterns, represent remembered opinions of an object as an undistinguished part of its current context, while the physical memory sites producing them instruct the body to act in an established way for that particular combination of control elements. It is the complete collection of these unconscious physical reactions in a particular moment that determines how we feel, and some become consciously apprehensible. We usually think of body feelings as produced by sensory organs, but before we can actually sense how it feels to carry out a reaction, the instructions for it are felt in consciousness. Even reactions that do no more than seek out new memory associations are changes in external conditions from the perspective of mind altering the existing circumstances (remembered data) our thoughts must take into consideration if they are accurately to represent all we currently know about reality. Until we sense a result, concept feelings represent something like the anxiety that accompanies conscious thoughts while awaiting completion of a pending action. Assuming it our instinctual unconscious understandings also have cause to feel anxious about the still unknown effect of what they have just done seems reasonable or thought about doing (acted out within the mind)-‘Fear hangs together with misgivings, and misgivings are thoughts.’ The emotional values that bring meaning to unconscious thoughts are then, resentment-like feelings similar to the felt valuations we feel in conscious thoughts; they are anxieties representing the physical effects (personal meanings) of remembered concepts and ideas. If we are to succeed in integrating conscious and unconscious values, this seems to give us reasonable grounds to establish a dual conscious/unconscious need for meaningful resentment-like feelings, and since the range for them has already been established, the extremes of these similarly subjective feeling experiences are the same; Love and fear -feelings that represent our judgment of an object’s worth (meaning). With respect to love we are dealing with a conception implying no more than a very strong affinity for an object that, to avoid confusion will be described as joy, reserving love for the special kind of joy accompanying ecstatic saintly experiences. These seem to be easily understandable as clearly subjective feelings familiar in consciousness, and have the advantage of being recallable by everyone in memories we can nebulously describe as the most fearful and blindly joyful experiences we have ever had. These are strong sensations, readily recognized as permeating our consciousness (mood) and there are other anxiety feelings that are familiar because they represent strong effects in our minds; Feelings that routinely accompany and add meaning to ideas like anger, war, injustice, envy, Hitler, and by comparing with positive feels, as happiness, home, kittens, God and contentment. The feeling representations of these concepts are apparent in our conscious attention, modifying our mood, posture, gestures and tone of voice to include, often even if we choose not to, a message about the feelings we are experiencing. Not all changes in our emotions and body states are senseable however, objects and ideas accompanied, least of mention, by that which is less extreme anxiety feelings are much more difficult, perhaps impossible to apprehend in an adult human mind because they represent moderate physical reactions. Experience and the authorities that held sway at the time of learning have taught us, with varying degrees of success, that personalized reactions to natural laws and culturally enforced rules of behaviour, language, science and even interpretations of God’s will are not required, useful or acceptable. Until we notice their absence, our survival instincts, tempered by consistent experience, can assume these invisible influences are still there, and are not immediately challenged to respond beyond the point of anticipatory reactions like focussing our attention, or perhaps simply sending precautionary messages within the nervous system. This means a wide range of objects and ideas are accompanied by feelings we cannot name because the reaction is slight, and consequently our ability consciously to identify some fact/feeling relationships is poor, or perhaps simply underdeveloped-they are emotionally neutral mental images with resentment-like feelings that are neither good nor bad, happy or apprehensive, angry or content. However, we can give them names by accepting one of the model’s premises: a concept feeling is produced by a reaction that, for emotionally neutral rational ideas, is a search for a perceptual memory needed to create a mental image; and this process gives us an equation of concept feeling = reaction = mental image. This formula allows us to equate any fact we can conceive as a mental image. With a pattern of concept feelings that each represents a physical reaction required to complete the image of the idea in consciousness; a feeling values we cannot sense except as an element of the mental image. It’s a long way from conceiving of anger as rationally communicable idea accompanied by a consciously apprehensible feeling, to a similar understanding of what we experience in obtaining a concise representation of the colour we all describe as red, but in essence they are the same.
When aggregated into anxiety feelings, concept feelings are similar to the ‘somatic markers’ postulated by Antonio Damasio in Descartes Error, body feelings accompanying rational thoughts that ‘have been connected, by learning, to predict outcomes of certain scenarios’, that are by their inductive apprehension of thoughts that stem from their controlling omission by gathering forces that manifest the beginning inclinations through intuitive certainties that succumb with one important qualification. Wherefore, Wittgenstein goes forward to explicate upon its functional contribution: ‘If In say every time In thought about it In was afraid-ill-satisfactions having brought forth the ill’s succumbing to hesitorial anticipations for which accompany my thoughts?-How is one to conceive of separating what does, the accompanying from what is accompanied?’ Our model’s equivalent of a somatic marker (an anxiety feeling) would not be accompanied by, but would represent the stimulus for, an internally generated image of a rational fact. This modulation of unconscious thought into the values of rationality happens only for our sole conscious thought. Perceptual (truth) memories and body control (concept) memories give us a feeling of truth conveyed by our senses (that the object is there) and a feeling of anxiety associated with that object (the effect it usually produces contributes as one stand alone), and whether we notice any of it depends on the quality of the anxiety value. We physically react to all sensory impressions, but we are only aware of them when they produce acts or feelings we can, and actually do, consciously notice. In a simplified scenario, a pattern of perceptual elements we might rationally describe as dryness or a bit of dust, stimulates various body control elements (reactions) we could only notice as a blink, but usually do not. Similarly, the perceptual pattern that indicates a lack of oxygen produces a body reaction sometimes noticeable as an increased rate of breathing and perhaps a little anxiety; a nearby moving object produces reactions that result from control memories involved in maintaining eye contact, and is accompanied by anxious anticipation. While an oncoming bus is a pattern of perceptual elements that consciously feels like fear, and represents very noticeable and usually unanticipated body controls for running or jumping-all happening together with many others and sensed in a complex rational/moral/instinctual totality of understanding that feels like the current state of our consciousness.
The body’s reaction to a particular object is represented in thought as an anticipated effect but, our assessment of what can be expected is not limited to something everyone can understand as right or wrong, it’s based on the unique reactions each of us has learned are appropriate through personal life experiences. To be sure, the one conscious thought that holds our interest usually represents reality according to values maintained by culture, while the concurrent unconscious ‘multiple drafts’ that Daniel Dennett identified in Consciousness Explained, represents possible future conscious thoughts following in the same line of enquiry that, in this model, are allied unconscious thoughts being considered as feeling alone. We have been taught with good reason, which productive thought is rationally thought, and we learn to be obsessed with shared rules and symbols because they bring clearly, shareable understandings that hold the promise of being beneficial to distribute equally among those that are without others. It’s also quite true that this negation of feeling in favour of fact is made easier by realizing that we cannot relate a specific feeling to most conscious images. This limitation does not apply in the opposite sense however; the language of unconscious thought can produce a pattern of concept feelings for every rational fact we have retained in memory, but red is still red, D-O-G still spells’ dog, and good behaviour is still good. The difference is that they are not associated to other concepts based on the logic endorsed for rational thought-as red would be associated with an idea like colour; dog with a shape, word or pet, and good behaviour would not mean emotional contentment or rewards. Unconsciously, one pattern of concept feelings is associated to another, the juxtaposition of which is beyond our knowledge until they are brought to conscious thought and yet, when we hear ourselves speak without first thinking of what we are going to say, or understand a sequence of rational symbols suddenly occurring to us as a logical thought about words or numbers, the underlying unconscious thoughts that produced them seem closely related to coherent and cognitive lines.
That we believe human minds can only think in rational concepts, ideas, and images are a result of our reliance, like all animals, on sensory information to provide the ultimate strand of truth for our actions and thoughts. The model treats our shared rational symbols like all other objects, they exist in the brain as remembered perceptual elements that are recalled to unconscious thought by a specific suite of control memories that, in turn can be apprehended by conscious thought as mental images. In a sense, the phenomenon of mind in this model is the place where we are made aware of the actions of the body and it’s understandably a little difficult to conceive of thinking about dog or red as a body reaction, but if we consider it for a moment, the body is the only part of us that materially exists in the world and its sole aim is to keep on existing. Mind allows us to establish an overview of its ongoing struggle, and when we think rationally (react to rational concepts) we modify its behaviour to conform to agreed upon rules that are unimportant to a solitary animal’s needs. Unconscious thought is the one mental arena in which all of the various concept feelings generated by many concurrent reactions can be considered, combined and sorted to find the one concept that means most to our survival. When we identify it, by becoming aware of the one with the highest anxiety value, we then associate it to experiences in order to experience past reactions mentally and the results they brought. As we have evolved from a simple consciousness of feelings, into an awareness of how others are affected by our actions, we have created special, unchanging patterns of concept feelings (reactions) to represent meanings that are shared, and each particular culture does its best to establish the feelings associated with important ideas as good or bad so we will all react to them in the way we collectively intend. Wittgenstein’s search for the feeling of red was truly a monumental undertaking from this perspective. While we all represent it with more than once are less at the same tine, only can the same perceptual feelings that everyone would experience an anxiety feeling (meaning) solely dependent on the reactions they have learned is necessary to recall the sensory experience we all describe as red. It’s easier to see the personal qualities included in a fact/feeling relationship if we consider an idea like mother, country, or God-these are clearly different feeling experiences in different minds, although most of us believe our personal feeling (idea) is the one that represents objective truth for everyone, or at least should.
When we look into the implications of this model, the survival of rational concepts depends solely on their continual iteration into developing individual minds, through sensing symbols along with instructions as to how they should feel (how we should react to them), and if culture fails constantly to preestablish their validity with rewards and penalties, as European Culture failed to do for many scientific and philosophical concepts during the middle ages, those ideas are lost to that segment of humanity because they cannot enter our perceptual memories (truths) in any other way except a new creative act. If we insist that a moral code would seem like a good idea whether we have lost a rational understanding of its foundations or not, that’s true; our sensory grasp of its existence in human interactions would be the same as long as it remains in use; and the felt meanings (physical effects) of its rules would continue to encourage acceptance of it. We would still experience anxiety feelings, from a conscience perhaps, indicating where and when to apply rules appropriate to familiar situations-though recalling images representing the absence of ill effects when our actions conform to it, is that the usual penalties and punishments that will be felt when it’s violated as well. This is the way young children understand the rules of their proven stability as situated for parental care environments; only once we enter the outside world, the value of a consistent rational understanding shared by culture and one becomes apparent. It’s the only way we can avoid an endless series of trial and error derivations of each rule’s personal meaning to others when conflicts arise. Because each individual’s replacement for a rational foundation, can only be a sense of justice that is unavoidably skewed to their own life experiences. Regardless of the rigour of our objectivity, the basis of its ideas is that each of us exercises for a conscious understanding, are limited to those we have learned. If we have learned that faith in family loyalty, nationalism, or God’s will, not science and ethics, are the foundation of cultural order, any transgression is a violation of felt beliefs-meanings that are, no matter how hard we try to see it otherwise, essentially incommunicable felt understandings that cannot be rationalized in precisely the same way by anyone else.
In the chaotic context of the mind’s many thoughts and feelings, being aware of but one conscious thought at a given moment gives us an opportunity to see an inherent problem this model of unconscious processes brings into the light of reflective rational thought. When internal reactions stimulate memories, the pattern of perceptual feelings representing them in consciousness is an abbreviated copy of what was actually sensed-the difference between consciously looking at an object or event and imaging it in thought; it seems the same but ‘It appears to us as if memory were a secondary experience when compared with experience of the present.’ The real time mental image of an object is generated by all of the information being gathered at that moment, each element of information activating its specific memory site; while a recalled mental image of it is constructed from only those perceptual elements that played a role in causing our original reaction to the object; and here we come face to face with our prejudices and stereotypes. However sketchy our memory is, recalling it to reflective thought seems equivalent to sensing a real object, and it is then the stimulus for a pattern of conceptualized feelings (reactions) directed toward what seems like a real object but is really an object represented by only those sensory elements we considered meaningful (worthy of a reaction) when it was created-some of which were not characteristics of the object it, but a part of the now past context that is largely beyond conscious recall, since much of it was only noticed unconsciously and never symbolized in rational values. Each time the thought moves from generating an imprecise object created from remembered perceptual elements, to a reaction, thoughts follow ones own familiar, trusted associations that are actually reactions to a limited and distorted object; and as a result, we have created a realistic conscious image accompanied by a felt valuation constructed from some rationally valid concept feelings (reactions), together with many rule-poor instinctually formulated allied unconscious thoughts that include unidentified influences from no longer existing contextual factors, obscure associations, and even errors in the perceptual images caused by instinctually unimportant similarities in truth feelings. These movements in thought can easily bring currently irrelevant, rationally invalid anxiety into the conscious values representing an otherwise desirable object or idea. It’s unavoidable if we do not take an interest in understanding feeling values, because they seem like the felt valuations our cultures encourage-resentments.
‘One of the mistakes oftenest committed in human affairs, is that of supposing that the same name always stands for the same aggregation of ideas’ (J.S. Mill). Concept feelings personalize sensory truths, even names, by giving them felt meanings we can only fully understand with complete knowledge of the experiences of the individual who created them and . . . ’the only way to understand someone else would be to go through the same upbringing as his-which is impossible.’ The shared meanings to a word for which, a rational standard and the best we can do insofar as our individualized representation can carry it with a stereotypical meaning that, because it cannot include all of the shared qualities of our original experience, must be prejudicially abbreviate, and regardless of our intent. Without resorting to simplified stereotypes, physical memory sites would have to store not only the whole range of meanings we can find and imagine for words, but the complete images of every recallable idea and object experienced during our lifetime. Even estimates ranging to trillions of cells and synaptic connections in the brain are insufficient for a task like this. Poorly detailed prejudices are solutions to this inconceivable data storage problem and they work very well when confined to survival issues judged by animal (instinctual) values-the only issues and values we were concerned with until a few thousand years ago-and assuming the worst possible intent is almost always instinct’s first solution and quite often its last principle, at least for those of us who survive. When societal forces move to discourage a particular prejudice, they ask each of us to acquire more detailed knowledge to augment what we have previously relied on to represent the specific object or idea being revalued; they ask us to make new associations to old concepts. It might be racial prejudice, ethnic stereotypes, evolving personal relationships or accepting X as a symbol for a number, but the perennial problem is the same, associating new, more detailed, and presumably more enlightened facts to explain away an ingrained and therefore dependable reaction strategy. If an outdated idea is accompanied by a highly anxious feeling tone, the new information, no matter how egalitarian it may be, will be represented by a concept feeling pattern, sharing many elements with the original stereotype because they both deal with closely related subject matter -the real object has changed very little (only invisible rules) and it will be a long time before experience based instinctual understandings are convinced (have enough evidence to prove) the changes are dependable reflections of real conditions. Whether we can actually change an ingrained prejudice remains and open question in this model, because it seems to indicate that the only way to avoid a reliable instinctual prejudice is to begin with a fresh new mind; accept there is always a way to resolve conflict internally if we want it badly enough to think about it. We must add the new knowledge, not as an association to the original subject of the prejudice, but to some other nonthreatening stereotype, and the trick is to do it while culturally approved tastes for entertainment and ethnic diversity are busy drawing ever more stereotypical pictures of the world around us.
The solution will come when we are forced to give up something we think we cannot live without. Emerging science, as represented by Galileo, forced the all-powerful church of his time to justify its most sacred texts without the support of historically unassailable proof they had previously found in Aristotle’s ethics and simple cosmology. Slavery was abolished at a time when millions were willing to die to defend it. It’s a bit more difficult to understand that something as rationally worthwhile and widely enjoyed as ethnically specific foods and lifestyles can provide reinforcement for out-dated rational ideas-and it’s not a problem limited to those who willfully twist good intentions into something else, because they are utilizing the same tools on which we all must rely. The feelings (reactions) we use to prove the worth of conscious ideas are naturally occurring human qualities; some are even encouraged as support for moral and ethical standards, and problems only arise when shared rational meanings are changed, while the unconscious processes of individual minds continue to produce unchanged felt valuations to reinforce the new rational meanings. The solution is to accept the unavoidable fact that human communal life is a unique order imposed on nature: one that can only control violence and deliver what we want when we want it, if shared rules dominate our interactions-some of which produce conflict in consciousness. Shared standards cannot solve these conflicts because rational conceptions don’t include understandings of feeling experiences, so it’s up to each individual to recognize that felt valuation can easily be confused with instinctual inclinations our cultures have simply legislated away. If we make a plea for returning to the essential truths of nature instead, all we know about what naturalized perceptivity would be like, is that we would experience unrationalized feelings and react to external stimuli in a reasonable manner: no symbols, rational understanding, felt valuations, words, or sensory impressions with a meaning extending beyond their usefulness in the present moment. The simple truths of nature often seem appealing in our complex social arrangements, but experiencing them without the support of reason is really inaccessible to humans because, when ‘one thinks one is tracing the outline of the things in nature over and over again, . . . one is merely tracing around the frame through which we look at it’ . . . so you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?-It is what human beings represent that is true and false, and they agree in the language they use. That is no agreement in opinions but in a form of life.’
In his writings (Essays on Aesthetics, Untimely Meditations, The Gay Science and others) Nietzsche wishes to be considered by his readers and viewed in and by history as a psychologist who practice’s psychology and who has devised 'a new psychology'. Many aspects of Nietzsche's work are viewed by several authors (for instance, Kaufmann and Golomb) as psychological ones, a fact that is disregarded by numerous authors who regard Nietzsche as a mere anti philosopher and a writer of short, beautiful verse. Nietzsche has also sought to bring the nature of man, the unconscious, the conscious, conscious, analysis, relationships with other individuals, the inner state (emotions, sensations, feelings and the like), irrational sources of man's power and greatness as well as his morbidity and -destructiveness into the scope of existence.
Further, in his numerous writings Nietzsche also talks of the mind, the mental, instincts, reflexes, reflexive movements, the brain, symbolic representations, images, views, metaphors, language, experiences, innate and hereditary psychological elements, defence, protective, mechanism, repression, suppression, overcoming, an overall battle, struggle and conflict between individuals etc. As an illustration, Nietzsche describes how blocked instinctual powers turn within the individual into resentment, -hatred, hostility and aggression. Moreover, Nietzsche strives to analyse human being, his crisis, his despair and his existence in the world and to find means so as to alleviate human crises and despair.
These aspects of Nietzsche's work elicit a tendency to compare Nietzsche's doctrine with that of Freud and psychoanalysis and to argue that the Freudian doctrine and school (the psychoanalytic theory of human personality on which the psychotherapeutic technique of psychoanalysis is based) and methods of treatment (psychoanalysis) have been influenced and affected by Nietzsche's philosophy and work and the Nietzschean doctrine. As a demonstration from the relevant literature, according to Golomb's (1987) thesis, the theoretical core of psychoanalysis is already part and parcel of Nietzsche's philosophy, insofar as it is based on concepts that are both displayed in it and developed by it-concepts such as the unconscious, repression, sublimation, the id, the superego, primary and secondary processes and interpretations of dreams.
Nevertheless, the actual situation in the domains of psychotherapy, psychiatry and clinical psychology is, by no means, strictly so. While the two savants (Nietzsche and Freud) endeavour to understand man, to develop the healthy power that is still present in the individual and the neurotic patient so as to overcome and suppress the psychological boundaries that repress his vitality and inhibit his ability to function freely and creatively and attain truth, the difference between the psychodynamic school, approach, movement and method of treatment, in general, and psychoanalysis, in particular, and the existential approach to psychotherapy, the existential movement and the existential, humanistic school of psychology and method of treatment that have been stemmed from the doctrines and views of Freud and Nietzsche is profound and significant, as far as the actual psychotherapeutic treatment is concerned. The reason as for these differences lies in the variation in the two savants' view and definition of man and human existence, the nature and character of man and his relationship with the world and the environment, as well as in the variation in the intellectual soil, that nourished and nurtured the two giant savants' views, doctrines (that is, the pundit philosophical and historical roots and influences) and the manners according to which they have been devised and designed.
In fact, Freudian psychoanalysis (as part of the psychodynamic movement and approach) and existential, humanistic, psychotherapy (which is stemmed from the Nietzschean ideas and doctrine, among others) constitutes two totally independent, distinct and rival approaches of psychotherapy, which employ their own method of treatment, doctrine and principles. As an illustration, Viktor. E. Frankl has been expelled from the Psychoanalytic society and organisation because of his views and critic of psychoanalysis, broke away from psychoanalysis and established Logotherapy, an existential, psychotherapeutic method and school in psychiatry, known as the third force in Viennese psychotherapy (after Freud and Adler), which is based upon the Nietzschean doctrine. Thus, Logotherapy and Psychoanalysis constitute two rival types and methods of psychotherapeutic treatment with their own objectives, principles, theoretical core and doctrines.
Hence, as a response and alternative to the works that compare psychoanalysis and the Nietzschean doctrine and maintain that the Nietzschean doctrine constitutes the theoretical core of psychoanalysis, its current paper endeavours to contrast these works and their thesis and demonstrate that the definition and treatment of both its subject matter (as man’s humanly existence) and key concepts in human existence by Freudian psychoanalysis and the principles and essences of Freudian psychoanalysis totally differ both from the treatment of the same subject matter and key concepts by the Nietzschean doctrine and from the essence and principles of the Nietzschean doctrine. Thus, the main thesis of the present paper is that the Nietzschean doctrine by no means constitutes the theoretical core and essence of psychoanalysis.
Accomplishing the objective might that to establish and strengthen its thesis for which would be carried out by doing two things simultaneously. Firstly, depicting Freudian psychoanalysis and the Freudian psychoanalytic doctrine, the historical and philosophical roots of the psychodynamic movement, the Nietzschean doctrine, the existential movement and Frankl's technique and the psychotherapeutic approach of Logotherapy and its doctrine (and showing that the Nietzschean doctrine, in fact, constitutes the theoretical core of Logotherapy, rather than of psychoanalysis). Secondly, displaying the differences between psychoanalysis and existential psychotherapy (when Logotherapy is utilised as an illustration and as a representative of the existential approach to psychotherapy and is labelled existential analysis) in the domain of psychiatry and clinical psychology, in terms of the differences between the Nietzschean doctrine and the Nietzschean philosophy and the Freudian psychoanalytic method of treatment, school and doctrine, while still acknowledging and demonstrating the similarities between the Nietzschean and Freudian doctrines, mainly as far as terminology is concerned.
Nonetheless, while endorsing the difference and rivalry between psychoanalysis and existential psychotherapy, as well as the distinction between the Freudian and the Nietzschean doctrines, it should be emphasised that it was the relation between Kierkegaard and Nietzsche's ideas, which contributed to the development of the understanding of man and his crisis, and Freud's development of specific methods and techniques for the investigation of the fragmentation of the individual-human-being in the Victorian period that has provided the basis for existential psychotherapy. In fact, both practical approaches (Freudian psychoanalysis and existential psychotherapy), coupled with the Nietzschean theoretical work and doctrine, examine the human being, his existence and his crisis, such as despair and misery (both neurosis and psychosis) in an attempt to alleviate them.
Accordingly, since the technique of interacting directly with the given individual and analysing the analysed individual is almost similar for both approaches and schools of psychotherapy, it is the distinguished variation in the essence, nature and character (as far as the view of man and his character and of the human existence are concerned) between the Nietzschean (and the Kierkegaardian, for that matter) doctrine and the Freudian doctrine as well as in the manner in which they have been devised which makes most of the difference and affects the psychotherapeutic treatment. Hence, it is the difference between the Nietzschean (and the Kierkegaardian) theoretical doctrine, endeavours, system and approach and those of the Freudian psychoanalytic school and doctrine that is responsible for the difference between the two approaches of and to psychotherapy.
Both the Freudian and the Nietzschean doctrines (and for that matter the Kierkegaardian doctrine) strive to comprehend man, his existence and his crisis, each of these doctrines possesses a different theory as for the nature and image of man, i.e., what he is and what determines him and makes him what he is, which they employ so as to obtain this understanding and a knowledge of the manner in which this understanding should be achieved. Consequently, the psychodynamic school and movement (namely, psychoanalysis) and existential psychologies are two distinguished and distinct theories of personality that govern and affect the clinical, psychotherapeutic treatment and method of treatment.
Sigmund Freud was a physician, a specialist in neurology, with a wide education in the life sciences and the natural philosophy and sciences. He practised neurology and medicine and focussed on the cure of ill, neurotic, individuals, or at least on an improvement of and in their condition and state of health. He was a brilliant, distinguished and ambitious member of the community of scientists, neurologists and doctors and strived to make a reputation for him in those fields. Moreover, at the beginning, before his becoming famous, he was dependent on a career as an established physician and neurologist so as to make a living and support him and his dear ones and could not allow him the slightest reputation as an outcast and as an eccentric.
As a result, the psychoanalytic school and the psychodynamic movement that have been created and devised by Freud at the turn of the nineteenth century have their roots and have been immensely influenced by the spirit and mood of the second half of the nineteenth century in which Freud lived and commenced his career. The materialist, reductionist, empiricist, positivist and mechanist ideas of the time have created an ambience that asserted that everything in the universe has an indisputable reason, cause and determinant. Accordingly, nothing in the universe is accidental which may occur due to chance or free will. Moreover, the positivist doctrine and movement maintain that the ultimate goal of man is to find the explications, reasons, causes and determinants for every single element in the universe. Consequently, according to this assertion and to doctrines such as reductionism, empiricism and associationism, even such a complex 'object' as a human being can be fully explained by being reduced to human elements, such as personality, character, behaviour, utterances, emotions, mental processes etc., which are induced and well-determined by the entities which cause and generate them and, thus, have reasons as for why they occur.
Consequently, the Freudian method of psychoanalysis, the psychoanalytic doctrine and the psychodynamic movement have, originally, endeavoured to turn the fields of psychology and psychiatry, and the area of psychotherapy, into a science, which is rooted in the fields of biology and mechanist physiology but spreads outwards into sociology, which describes human personality, behaviour and mental and physical condition in dynamic and goal-directed terms in an attempt to explain them. It aims to look for and find the indisputable reasons, causes and determinants for all aspects and forms of human mental events, human personality, human utterances, human behaviour and human emotions, feelings, disturbances, crisis and hardships (illnesses, both neurosis and psychosis, malaise etc.). As a consequence, the emphasis, and presupposition, of psychoanalysis and the psychodynamic movement is the search for all those elements that define, design and determine this object, called a person, in order for him to understand him by explaining and analysing him. It, thus, comes up with specific theories as for the structure, makeup, components and features of the human psyche and the reasons as for man's crisis, despair and neurotic/psychotic condition.
Wherefore, Freudian psychoanalysis and the psychodynamic schools are approaches that regard all human beings as a single, homogeneous entity that should be treated in a similar manner by a single, predetermined, homogeneous set of theories and a single technique so as to obtain the desired cure, mainly to an organic, physiological manifestation, the cease of paralysis, the end of vomiting and repulsive sensations of food and liquid and the like. Thus, the development of human personality, human nature and morality and the character and the components of the human psyche are induced, determined, innate, predetermined and the same in and for all individuals and constitute solid explanations for human conduct human feelings, emotions, morals, ideologies and the like.
In addition, the disturbances and the crisis of given individuals are also induced and determined by specific events, experiences and stimuli and interruptions with the normal proceeding of the predetermined development of the human personality and morality. The psychoanalytic treatment is, therefore, also one for all patients. The causes, determinants and reasons as for the patient's illness and condition have to be discovered, explained, analysed treated and cured, using the given doctrine and technique of psychoanalysis. The desired outcome of the approach is the alleviation and elimination of the undesired syndromes and, by consequence, the cure of the condition, crisis and illness.
Accordingly, the psychoanalytic, psychotherapeutic technique strives to take the suffering individual and relieve his condition by searching and finding the sources, reasons and causes for it and to make the analysed individual fully aware of the causes, determinants and reasons for his condition, based on the rigid, predetermined, psychoanalytic theories. The examined, analysed individual may lie on a coach or sit on a chair facing the psychoanalyst. So doing, he talks about the things that annoy, distresses or trouble him as well as about his life history (case study) and whatever comes up into his mind (free association). He recounts his dreams, his most intimate feelings, urges and emotions, events that occurred to him (both disagreeable and agreeable) in the course of his entire life and the like.
The psychoanalyst listens very carefully and attempts to study and examine carefully the analysed individual's utterances and find meaning in them and to employ his (the psychoanalyst's) findings so as to alleviate the analysed individual's crisis, annoyance, distress, despair and illness. Thus, the psychoanalyst strives to find the reasons, causes and determinants as for the crisis, distress, neurosis and psychosis of the analysed individual and attempts to cure them and ameliorate the analysed individual's condition and state of being by virtue of finding connections and relations between the analysed individual's life story (events that occurred to him) and his distress, neurosis and psychosis, analyse those sources and causes of the neurotic/psychotic condition and make sure that the analysed individual is fully aware of them and whatever feelings, urges, emotions and sensations that they involve-hatred, frustration, aggression, anger, fear, terror, attraction attractiveness, love and the like.
Hence, the psychoanalytic, psychotherapeutic sessions focus on and work away at the revelation, examination and analysis of these events and items that are, in turn, thought by the psychoanalyst to have induced and determined the distress, neurosis and psychosis in an attempt to scrape and withdraw all the defensives, protective layers, which the analysed individual creates and employs so as to protect him and prevent him from suffering, and find out as much as possible about them. These defensive, protective layers prevent and suppress the painful information, events and experiences from being aware of and felt and experienced by the individual who has undergone and experienced them in the past. The objective of the psychoanalysis is to discuss and analyse the causes for the patient's condition in a free manner, is without restraints and suppression.
As part of the accounting endeavour to find reasons, causes and determinants for everything and every human aspect, in general, and for the patient's condition, in particular, an important aspect and element in the Freudian psychoanalytic doctrine and in the Freudian technique of psychoanalysis is the search for symbolic meanings that are meant to have significant meaning as symbolic representations of other matters, far essential for the understanding of the patient's life and condition than the given, original, items. This technique is normally applied in Freudian dreams interpretation where the unconscious has to be revealed and analysed. With that, a complete innocence, and ordinary, everyday image and object can represent something far more significant, as far as the patient's condition is concerned. As an illustration, an image of a comb may represent a penis and combing one's hair can represent and mean a hidden, subconscious sexual urges that are directed toward a given person and which is taken to be the source of the particular neurosis/psychosis. Likewise, in the famous case of little Hans' phobia of horses (1909), a big horse and Hans' fear of it have represented Hans' father and Hans fear of being castrated by him, the Oedipus complex.
The psychoanalyst, therefore, places meaning into every single word and item that the analysed patient has uttered in her recalling of her dreams by using a series of formerly activated definitions and preconceived theories and explanations (which are likely to involve sex, the Oedipus Complex, for instance) so as to find the reasons and explanations as for the patient's condition. To be fair, Freud has demanded that the interpretation of dreams would be carried out by a professional psychoanalyst who is well trained in this technique.
As a clinical, practical illustration as for the psychoanalytic doctrine and the technique and method of psychoanalysis, the psychoanalyst may conclude from the analysed neurotic patient's utterances during free association, her recounting of her dreams and fragments of memories of events in her life and by virtue of applying symbols and symbolic representations to her utterances and images in the patient's dreams that the patient's inability to have someone touching, grabbing or holding her head and her feeling of severe stress and terror while this action is being carried out is the result and direct consequence of a sexual abuse that occurred during early childhood, in the course of which the abuser has forced the abused child to have oral sex with him by holding and grabbing the young child's head, and was regressing and suppressed by the patient from her consciousness so as to protect her from suffering as part of her defence mechanism.
The psychoanalytic therapy is based on the presumption that once the adult neurotic patient overcomes and overpowers the defence mechanisms and becomes aware of the event and experience that are viewed as the reason as for her neurosis and the feelings, emotions and sensations that these experiences and events induce the patient and, thereby become as a consequent. The Great Theoretical Difference Between the Psychotherapeutic, Existential Application of the Nietzschean Doctrine and Freudian Psychoanalysis.
In his writings (Essays on Aesthetics, Untimely Meditations, The Gay Science and others) Nietzsche wishes to be considered by his readers and viewed in and by history as a psychologist who practice’s psychology and who has devised 'a new psychology'. The many aspects of Nietzsche and the neurotic patient's feelings and emotions toward the abuser, toward her parents and other family members, any feelings of guilt, shame, humiliation etc. The psychoanalytic sessions, thus, endeavour to scrape and remove the protective layers that suppress those feelings and emotions and the traumatic event and experience, it, in order to be able to analyse them and discuss them freely.
Consequently, the sources, causes and determinants of the neurosis/psychosis are, therefore, suppressed, repressed and regressed and buried deep in the human psyche and are obscure and hidden from one's awareness, although active in his psyche. This given neurotic patient holds to some latent causalities, which he has regressively suffered the horrendous, traumatic experiences from an ever vanquishing consciousness, however as part of her defence mechanism so as to defend and protect her and was not conscious of it. Nevertheless, the traumatic experience was embedded and active in her psyche, unaware of by her. It influenced her conscious mental feelings, emotions, utterances, dreams and actions and came up in the form of her neurosis and inability to have her head held, touched or grabbed. The objective of the psychoanalysis is, thus, to crush and overcome the defence mechanisms and have the sources of the neurosis/psychosis released and come up to the surface, where it is aware of by the patient and can be revealed, analysed, explained and observed freely.
The reason posted as for those doctrines, approach and technique lies in the fact that Freud, in his objection to the fact that some of the human mental aspects and human conduct would remain unexplained, obscure and incoherent to the psychoanalyst and his possession of the need to search for means of avoiding this situation and to both explain beyond any doubt for the reason as to the uncertainty might that the human condition may have latently been lost to that of any expressive linguistic utterance, in that of turn, is given to some interpretation or finds to some given or explanation, however lucid, comprehensive ones, maintains both that the essence of regression of information is of information being restrained and withheld from becoming conscious, by the defence mechanism where stress, grief and anguish are involved and by lack of interest and stimulation when no stress is involved, and, thus, forms a part of unconsciousness, a condition of latency that is not perceived by the mind, and that unconscious information becomes known, in the course of psychoanalysis, merely by being translated into consciousness (the objective of psychoanalysis), as merely conscious things are perceived and known? Thus, Freud defines the unconscious as whatever is not conscious and vice versa, whereas the preconscious is defined by him as a screen between the unconscious and consciousness and forms a part of consciousness for the sake of this specific definition. Accordingly, Freud regards all conscious information as unconscious information that became conscious.
Consequently, Freud maintains that since "the data of consciousness are exceedingly defective" (Freud's, The Unconscious, 1915) mental acts can often be explicated merely by assuming and referring to other processes that are outside consciousness. In other words, one is not aware of some of his mental experiences that, nevertheless, affect his actions, bodily, physical, performances (repulsive sensations, paralysis and the case illustrated above of the neurotic patient), dreams and utterances and, thus, these mental experiences are found outside his awareness/consciousness and influence those experiences of which he is aware. Therefore, the individuals fulfill actions and utter utterances that are obscure, unclear inexplicable and unexplainable on their own, by being observed directly by those given individuals, and need to look outside direct observation in order to explain them and make them utterly lucid.
The neurotic patient illustrated in the present paper has not been aware of the real reason (the sexual abuse) as for her inability to let her head be held and taken hold of which, nevertheless, has led to this mental disability, the neurosis. Once this awareness has been achieved by the method, described above, the patient has become cured. Hence, according to psychoanalysis, when the given patient becomes aware of her sexual abuse by her father or another adult that she had to regress as part of her defence mechanism so as to defend and protect her and is able to analyse it and discuss it freely then she is cured.
Thorough look into the procedure in which the unconscious mental information is being revealed and becomes a part of consciousness which permits the awareness of the given individual/patient is beyond the aim of the present paper and should be read in Freud's writings. Here, mentioning that the unconscious information undergoes a main is sufficient censorship, of which if it passes, it goes up to the level of the preconscious, where it is already in possession of consciousness and is being aware of by the agent, although not fully grasped and interrelated within terms of its context (if it does not pass this censorship, then it is occasioned of regressive behaviour that lay back within unconsciousness), then, another censorship awaits to it, of which if it passes, it goes up to the level of consciousness, where it is being directly and fully experienced, related to, sensed and comprehended by the individual. Freud provides clinical illustrations of the hysterics, neurotics, (the classic Interpretation of Dreams, Freud, 1900) so as to demonstrate this theory.
To make sure that the reader who is a philosopher, rather than a psychologist, comprehends the relation between the unconscious and the conscious and consciousness, in The Unconscious (Freud, 1915), Freud asserts that psychoanalysis compares the perception of unconscious mental processes and experiences by consciousness with the perception of the outside, external, world through the sense-organs so as to obtain new knowledge from the comparison. Thus, Freud refers to Kant's work and view of the mind as an activity that manipulates experiences, borrows it for the sake of his argument, takes it out of context, distorts and changes it and comes up with the assertion that just as the external world is not viewed in the way it really is in nature but is subject to the viewer's subjective perception of it (Kant's account of the active mind), so are consciousness and the conscious affected by the unconscious and unconsciousness, manipulated and modified by them and are observed/treated by them.
In devising the Freudian psychoanalytic doctrine and the psychoanalytic technique of psychoanalysis, Freud has devised rigid theories (psychoanalytic theories) as for the nature and character of man and his existence that tailor and fit all individuals and which constitute the basis as for the psychoanalytic treatment, i.e., psychoanalysis. He, therefore, devised his theory as for morality and personality development in both men and women which proceeds through five psychosexual stages in children and adolescents as well as his theory as for the structure of personality and human interaction and moral or immoral conduct, the id, ego and superego. These theories serve as a model for the psychoanalytic treatment of all individuals who undergo psychoanalysis and are meant to be suitable for all individuals-human-beings. Accordingly, the events that occurred in the life of the individual who undergoes psychoanalysis are tailored and fit into these Freudian theories. Thus, the very case of sexual abuse, which is illustrated in the present paper, is tailored and fit into the various aspects of the Electra Complex and the psychosexual stages of personality and moral development and the personality structure, any feelings of guilt and the like.
On the other hand, the existential movement has been formed and devised in the nineteenth century as a protest movement against the established spirit, mood and ambience of the mainstream of the intellectual world-notably of the philosophical domain, natural, moral and metaphysical philosophy, but also of deterministic, rigid theories and schools of thought and movements. The existential movement has protested against the destruction of both the authentic, independent, unreduced and free individual being and the personal, biased, subjective, authentic truth by the established mainstream of the intellectual world, in general, and doctrines such as the Hegelian and the Kantian doctrines, the empiricist doctrine, the positivist doctrine and the psychodynamic doctrine, in particular. Those doctrines have reduced the individual being into metaphysical theories, deterministic, innate, developmental theories, physiological and biological processes, innate releasing mechanisms, information processing devices etc., and made him fit into a single, unified and universal system of truth and reason.
The existential movement in the nineteenth century has maintained that the concept of truth has become unreal, distant, universal, abstractive, and alienated from the individual being him. Accordingly, the concept of truth has become an idea of the manner in which the universe should be like. The individual being has had to make him fit within this kind of truth rather than lead his life in accordance with his own idea of truth and being fully committed to this idea of truth. Thus, the individual being has been swallowed by the idea of whom he should be, which has been dictated to him and forced and imposed upon him by society and deterministic elements, has lost his individuality and uniqueness and has become a part of theories as for whom he should be and why.
Hence, the existential movement objects to the endeavour to reduce the individual-human-being into sets and systems of reasons, explanations, metaphysical and scientific theories and causal determinants as for his nature, his conduct, his mental/inner state (feelings, sensations, emotions and the like) and his mental state of being (neurosis, and psychosis and 'stability/sanity'). Instead, the existential movement endeavours to examine and study the individual-human-being's existence, Being-In-The-World, so as to comprehend it, to have the most agreeable, authentic existence, Being-In-The-World possible and to be able to actualise his personal existence in the world and, as a consequence, him and his life.
As just noted, the existential movement also objects to the notion of universal, objective truth but introduces truth as the subjective, personal entity of the individual who devises it, possesses it and lives his life and designs and determines him as in accordance with it. Thus, according to the existential movement, man is existing of some -determinates, emerging, becoming being who defines him in accordance with his own subjective view of truth and possesses a full responsibility as for his life as well as the capacity and power to choose whatever and whoever he wishes to become and be, his values and ideologies with a view to actualise them and to lead an authentic life and existence.
In other words, man is an individual who determines, designs and realises him in accordance with the choices, deeds and wishes that he makes, rather than a determined entity who is determined by social conformism, genetically hereditary and the environment, i.e., the past and present. Man, according to the existential movement, is, therefore, emerging, proceeding toward the future and becoming being and is defined by his own past and present actions, decisions and choices and by the future outcome of these actions, decisions and choices. That is, man becomes what he is.
The forebears and the devisers of the existential movement, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, were loners who have excluded and isolated themselves from the establishment and from their fellow philosophers and savants and constantly occupied and devoted themselves by spending all their time analysing themselves and studying themselves. Kierkegaard has never had an academic, university post while Nietzsche has been forced, at the young age of thirty-five, to resign of full professorship of philology in Basel, and, therefore, a truly brilliant academic career, due to ill health. The two brilliant savants have lived on their own financial means that freed them from the necessity of having a paid position and from being a part of the establishment and allowed their questioning and critic of the state, society and the establishment and their fellow philosophers and other savants.
Accordingly, the forebears and the devisers of the existential movement, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, devised their doctrines as personal, individualistic, -analytic accounts of their own state of being and as an attempt to solve their personal crisis and to ameliorate their feelings of severe anxiety, depression and desperation (numerous authors also claim that the two were psychotic due to syphilis) and to achieve responsibility as for their lives and realise authenticity and true and to become whoever and whatever they desired to be (authentic individuals, apart from the crowd and the establishment). Nietzsche's writings, unlike those of Kierkegaard who was a tremendous poet (Kierkegaard, in fact has regarded him as nothing other than a poet) and a writer of beautiful, well-structured, literary works, have been written in unorganised note forms, which, many times, constitute beautiful, literary, verse, in small notebooks as part of spills of creativity and ingenuity and an urge to write down his personal thoughts, feelings and sensations so as to alleviate anxiety attacks and to feel better about him. Nonetheless, these two giant savants have written to an imaginary audience to which they wished to preach and inform their teachings as for the authentic manner in which individuals ought to live their lives. In fact, Nietzsche writes as if he were a desperate doctor who suffers the disease and who carries out an analysis and diagnosis in order to propose his views as for a good mental health to his readers and followers with a view to ameliorate their state of being and attain authenticity and truth.
Nietzsche proclaims that "the levelling and diminution of European man are our greatest danger" (as Nietzsche is quoted in May et al., 1958). Nietzsche's ultimate objective is to create a powerful individual who is able to live a true, creative and authentic life and create, construct and reconstruct while in a nihilistic, meaningless world without dogmatic beliefs. Thus, despite an existential vacuum and the need of existential filling, he is able to endure a difficult, authentic, gloomy and tragic truth and actualise him, without succumbing and escaping to the more comfortable option of universal, detached and determined truth, illusive and metaphysical fantasies and consolations, which constitute constant temptations and appeals to him. By doing so he, therefore, avoided destroying him and turning him into a part of this gloomy world and nihilism and of the universal, determined truth and is able to realise him and to lead a meaningful, authentic life.
Accordingly, in the case of this powerful, authentic individual, this gloomy, meaningless world does not provoke the collapse of the, but, the individual manages to resist it and free his creative sources, repressed until then by determined and compelled morality, social norms and psychological, mental, disabilities. Those creative forces lead the individual to destroy the ideologies that have been determined for him and enforced upon him and create and adopt new beliefs and ideologies for him that are, themselves, abandoned and replaced by him once they lose their usefulness for him.
Once obtained in achieving this state of emptiness and blank slate, the individual is able to adopt ideologies as he pleases, rebuild and determine him and renew and reconstruct afresh the temples (morals) which have been imposed upon him. Nevertheless, he always possesses the ability to succumb to the external, determined, imposed ideologies, absorb him in them and, as a consequence, lose and deny him. Thus, the process of The Great Theoretical Difference Between the Psychotherapeutic, Existential Application of the Nietzschean Doctrine and Freudian Psychoanalysis.
In his writings (Essays on Aesthetics, Untimely Meditations, The Gay Science and others) Nietzsche wishes to be considered by his readers and viewed in and by history as a psychologist who practice’s psychology and who has devised 'a new psychology'. Nietzsche's works are viewed by several authors (for instance, Kaufmann and Golomb) as psychological ones, a fact that is disregarded by numerous authors who regard Nietzsche as a mere anti philosopher and a writer of short, beautiful verse. While being a young, frustrated, physically and mentally ill, retired professors of Philology, who has viciously attacked his colleagues, the state, society and the establishment and wrote provocative verses and notes, Nietzsche has also sought to bring the nature of his own ideologies and his own perspectives and wishes so as to obtain power and authenticity. What is most important, the will to power involves what Nietzsche calls surpass? surpasses, or transcendence, is the process in which the individual is able to achieve control, mastery and responsibility over his own life and to fight the urge to adopt and absorb him in the social, biological, hereditary, external, deterministic ideologies, norms, morals, conventions and generalisations. That is the urge to become a part of the crowd and give up the painful, tormenting process of being the sole responsible for him and his existence and determining, adopting and setting up his own ideologies and norms by him. surpasses, therefore, involves overcoming this urge and create and determine one.
Accordingly, the more will to power the individual manifestations seem more to incline to the qualitative and -given will to power, in is that the higher degree of power, truth and authenticity that the individual attains and realises. Similarly, the less qualitative is the will to power for which is possessed by the given individual the more than there is less that the individual wishes to be determined, misplaced and bound by him, as absorbing him in the crowd and deny him.
Nevertheless, in talking about power 'macht' and the will to power, Nietzsche talks about negative power and positive power. The negative power is really a psychological weakness and constitutes a wish to accomplish and acquire power by committing cruel acts and demonstrating muscles while The Great Theoretical Difference Between the Psychotherapeutic, Existential Application of the Nietzschean Doctrine and Freudian Psychoanalysis.
Consequently, the authentic individual is one who wills to (positive) power while the inauthentic individual is an individual who possesses negative power and does not will to power. The more positive power and will to power the individual possesses the higher level of authenticity he possesses and the more negative power and the less will to power the individual possesses the higher level of inauthenticity he possesses and vice versa.
In fact, Nietzsche's philosophy should be regarded as a means to entice its followers to overcome deterministic elements, to will to power, to determine themselves, to achieve responsibility for their lives, to form and actualise their authenticity, to obtain increasing positive power and true and to direct their efforts toward their own positive power, testing their ability to reach it and activate it in the course of their lives. The Nietzschean doctrine should, therefore, be regarded as the granting of therapies, education and intellectual temptations to the individual with a view to prepare him for assuming responsibility and mastery over his life, leading and living an authentic, creative and well worthwhile life and to free his creative resources and realise and actualise him in a nihilistic, meaningless world without dogmatic convictions.
The individual is, thus, enticed to be directed and direct him toward his positive power and a powerful, spiritual, creative resource, to examine whether or not he is able to achieve them and absorb them and to obtain as much positive power, will to power and creativity as possible. Nevertheless, it is merely the individual, him, who is able to actualise his power, facing bravely the numerous temptations to succumb to the easy, comfortable manner of living in accordance with the external, deterministic norms and convictions that surround him, let him be determined by them and deny him and resisting these temptations in an attempt to actualise and fulfil his existence and him. Accordingly, the Nietzschean doctrine mainly intends to entice the individual to will to power.
Hence, enticing the individual's will to power, surpasses and authenticity and truth are the real purposes of the Nietzschean doctrine. Nietzsche employs the method of writing short notes and verses and utilises a provocative, refined, poetic, arrogant language and a manner of writing, full of daring slogans, swaggers, paradoxes, myths and scepticism so as to raise consent and profound emotions and feelings in his readers with a view to obtain enticement and assist him in this process of enticing his readers. This reason joins the reasons that are mentioned above as for the unique type of writing which Nietzsche adopts and employs.
Furthermore, the more qualitative will to power which the individual possesses the more he possesses the enticement to will to power and the wish to obtain increasing power so as to become more authentic, true, perfect and powerful being. Thus, the individual who possesses a weak will to power is likely to deny the enticement to will to power and succumb to continue with the external and, deterministic, norms and convictions that are determined for him and are imposed upon him and, therefore, to possess a negative power and be a weak, unactualized individual. An individual with higher degree of qualitative will to power can and is likely to be enticed to will to power and, thus, to obtain positive power, authenticity and true and to overcome the negative power. Nonetheless, the individual can also be a superman whose level of qualitative will to power is convincing, that he does not need to be enticed to will to power. As a superman, he can, therefore, create him and his ideologies and perspectives on his own without this enticement and without the need to be enticed.
Nietzsche asserts that man is distinguished from the primordial animal in his potentiality to cultivate his nature and image (i.e., who he is, his own ) and his true nature and to create his ideologies, norms and conventions as he pleases, rather than have him and his ideologies and conventions are determined, designed and created for him. This ability raises man above the other animals and permits man to overcome the inclination to deny him and be absorbed and determined and, instead, to surpass him, to realise him and to assume full control and mastery over his existence and life. Nevertheless, the vast majority of men never realised themselves but succumb to the conformism and to society and its norms and ideologies and let themselves be absorbed in them and determined by them.
Thus, according to Nietzsche, man's task and role are to surpass, overcome and transcendent those impediments that suppresses, repress and prevent the mental powers from freeing, creating and realising the (those mental powers are rooted in man). Man has to activate those mental powers in the manner described above so as to obtain increasing power and mastery over his life, his existence and him and, by consequence, increasing authenticity, realisation and true. If man does not do so then he is degraded to the degree of beast (monkey, as influenced by Darwinism that has been devised and was very popular and rigorous in that corresponding period of time). Nonetheless, if man does so then he gains ever more power and mastery over his life, personal existence and him and, in a world where God is dead, man becomes closer and closer to the degree of God, the creator of man, truth, ideologies, norms and the, by virtue of adopting for him God's role of creating and determining him, man, (his image and nature), his own ideologies and his own truth and morality. In fact, man's greatest ambition and possibility is to assume increasing power and perfection and to become closer and closer to the degree of power and perfection of God.
Man, according to the Nietzschean doctrine, is, therefore, responsible for his own existence and life and is free to design, determine and create him and his ideologies freely in accordance with his own ideologies and with whom and what he desires for him to become and be. The purpose of living is, therefore, to detach the living individual from biological, social and mechanical restraints (which determine his image and nature) and take on and follow the difficult, exhaustive and tormenting road and journey of analysis and learning and knowing and changing, with a view constantly to grow, construct and create him, realising him and becoming more independent, powerful and authentic being. Hence, man is an emerging and becoming being who emerges toward the future and becomes. Man is defined and determined by his emergence toward the future and by his becoming. He is, therefore, defined and determined by his choices and actions and their outcome. He, therefore, becomes what he is. In fact, the subtitle of Nietzsche's Ecce Homo is 'How One Becomes What One Is'.
From reading the two accounts, those of Freud and Nietzsche, it is very easy to conclude that the essence of the two doctrines, in terms of the actual psychotherapeutic treatment, is virtually similar. In both doctrines, man has to suppress and overcome a psychological, mental, boundary that has to be scraped and shattered so as to obtain truth, allowing the individual as the neurotic/psychotic patient, to function freely and establish a grasp of the given individual, the neurotic/psychotic patient. This fact has misled readers and researchers into maintaining that the Nietzschean doctrine constitutes the theoretical core of the psychoanalytic technique (psychoanalysis), methodology and approach.
Nevertheless, while according to Freudian psychoanalysis, man is a determined entity that follows universal, successive stages of morality and personality development, which are deterministic, common to all men and according to which all men behave, act, experience, feel and live their life, and have his neurosis/psychosis and crisis induced and determined by specific past events and experiences in his life, the Nietzschean doctrine views to man as an entity that is responsible for him and for his existence in the world. The 'Nietzschean man' possesses the power and ability to choose and determine his ideologies and actions, who and what he wishes to become and be and strives to overcome all boundaries, to surpass him, realise him and become a powerful, authentic individual.
According, to the Nietzschean doctrine, man is neither good nor evil. 'Man is beyond good and evil' asserts Nietzsche and has named one of his important works 'Beyond Good and Evil'. The ability of man to assume control and responsibility for his life and existence, to determine him, to realise him and to achieve his truth and authenticity is suppressed and prevented from doing so by both an inner, psychological, need (such as cowardliness) and external deterministic elements, the state, the establishment, society and the like. Nonetheless, man possesses the power and capacity to overcome and free him from these puissant constraints, surpass, transcendent and overcome him and realise his will to power, his power and him while living in a nihilistic, meaningless, world. Alternatively, he also possesses the ability to succumb to those constraints, than to attempt to overcome them, to absorb him in them, not to will to power only, to adopt a negative type of power and be determined and weak and inauthentic. Accordingly, the psychological, mental, elements and aspects of the Nietzschean doctrine are both ones that prevent man from his -realising ness, that the ones that lead to his will to power, surpasses and realisation.
Freudian psychoanalysis, on the other hand, views the defence mechanism as an element that the given individual has had to construct so as to prevent and suppress painful and stressful information from entering the individual's memory and consciousness in order to protect him from stress and suffering. The patient, with the aid and guidance of the psychoanalyst, has to overcome it so as to find the sources and determinants of his neurosis/psychosis and the feelings and emotions that are induced by those sources of the illness and bring them to the patient's consciousness/awareness, where they can be revealed, analysed and examined freely. The psychoanalyst endeavours to explain the individual patient in accordance with the achievement of comprehension of what determines him, his conduct, his malaise, his illness (neurosis/psychosis) and crisis, as well as his ideologies and morals, in terms of the rigid and predetermined theories, as for the elements that determine the nature of man and his conduct and morality, of the psychoanalytic approach.
Accordingly, despite the fact that both the Freudian, psychoanalytic doctrine (and Freudian psychoanalysis) and the Nietzschean doctrine endeavours to overcome suppressive boundaries so as to both obtain truth and cure, the two constitute two different approaches that vary completely one from the other in terms of essence and by definition. Their view as for their subject matter (Man, and the human prerequisite are within him to exist) and the nature and image of man are contradictory. In order to demonstrate the difference between psychoanalysis further, and the psychoanalytic doctrine, and the Nietzschean doctrine in the domain of psychotherapy and display strong, additional evidence in the existential school, technique and approach of and to psychotherapy in the field of psychiatry Logotherapy, which has been stemmed from the Nietzschean doctrine and devised by Viktor. E. Frankl, needs to be described, depicted and illustrated. This way, the reader would be shown the practical application of the Nietzschean ideas in psychotherapy and psychiatry and be able to compare and contrast it with the psychoanalytic method and with Freudian psychoanalysis.
While crediting Freud with new insights into human nature, Frankl felt that Freud's ideas had hardened into rigid, predetermined ideas that determine the nature of man and the analysed individual and, as a consequence, dehumanise and reduce man. What was needed, according to Frankl, was the understanding of the human-individual-being in his totality as a whole, unreduced, independent, free and -determining to be who emerges toward the fulfilment of a given goal, objective and task in his life and personal existence and who defines and determines him in accordance with those objective and goal and their realisation, rather than focussing on the specific event and experience that the psychoanalysts regard as the cause, reason and determinant of the given crisis and condition and analyse and examine them. Frankl, thus, set on a career in psychiatry in which he introduced the concepts of meanings and values and their realisation into psychiatry. The essence of his doctrine is that all reality has meant (logos) and that the individual never ceases to have fabricated meaning.
Logotherapy is the search for the unique meaning and purpose in one's life in an attempt to design and reveal his particular journey in life and his role and task to do whatever it takes to actualise and realise his meanings, potentials, potentialities and him, determines him, gives him and his experiences and actions and identity and existential meaning and become somebody, a true, actualised and authentic individual being. The Greek word 'logo’, in fact, denotes meaning. Thus, Logotherapy regards the individual's striving to find meaning and purpose in his life (which logotherapists call the will to meaning), as well as a personal identity that would make his life meaningful, fully actualised and worthwhile, as the motivational force in man and as the element that defines and determines the individual, his life and his existence.
For the need of comparison with the rival approach of Freudian psychoanalysis and as an illustration of the motivational force, the primary motivational force in the Freudian doctrine and psychoanalysis is the urge and inclination to seek satisfaction and pleasure, normally in the form of the most brutish and primitive, basic sources of pleasure (sexual pleasure and urge, satiating hunger and thirst and sleeping). This Freudian motivational force plays a crucial role in the Freudian deterministic theory of personality and morality development, which was depicted above, as constituting the motivational force for this development of human personality and morality. For its part, Logotherapy focus man, the unconscious, the conscious, conscious, analysis, relationships with other individuals, the inner state (emotions, sensations, feelings and the like), irrational sources of man's power and greatness as well as his morbidity and-destructiveness into the scope of existence.
Further, in his numerous writings Nietzsche also talks of the mind, the mental, instincts, reflexes, reflexive movements, the brain, symbolic representations, images, views, metaphors, language, experiences, in and instincts or in merely reconciling the conflicting claims of the id, ego and superego or in the mere adaptation and adjustment to society and environment and has him determined by them. Man is, thus, free and responsible for his life and personal existence and defines, creates and determines him by his willing to meanings, purposes and values and striving to surpass him and his existence and actualise those meanings and values and, as a consequence, him, his life and personal existence in the world. Nevertheless, he can always succumb to the world of willing to mere pleasure and its satiation, determinism by others, conformism, genetics and hereditary, mass crowds, industry etc., absorb in it and give up the inclination to search for meanings and values in his own existence and life and actualise them. The destructive result of such a deed is described below Man's life, according to Logotherapy, ought to be a journey of surpassing his everyday existence, situations and existence and realising the meanings and objectives that he sought, searched, found and set to him to actualise.
The process of finding meanings is one of exploring all human values for those that fit best with the given treated individual's own, unique life experiences and that he can most profitably pursue as a surge for meaning. Actually, Frankl teaches that merely through the process of education and through the acceptance of full responsibility as for his personal, individualistic and unique choices of meaning by the treated individual, the treated individual can build an integrated personality with a special life task that will give direction and sense of purpose to his own existence.
In his writings (Essays on Aesthetics, Untimely Meditations, The Gay Science and others) Nietzsche wishes to be considered by his readers and viewed in and by history as a psychologist who practice’s psychology and who has devised 'a new psychology'. Nietzsche's works are viewed by several authors (for instance, Kaufmann and Golomb) as psychological ones, a fact that is disregarded by numerous authors who regard Nietzsche as a mere anti philosopher and a writer of short, beautiful verse. Nietzsche has also sought to bring the nature of man, the unconscious, the conscious, conscious, analysis, relationships with other individuals, the inner state (emotions, sensations, feelings and the like), irrational sources of man's power and greatness as well as his morbidity and -destructiveness into the scope of existence.
Further, in his numerous writings Nietzsche also talks of the mind, the mental, instincts, reflexes, reflexive movements, the brain, symbolic representations, images, views, metaphors, language, experiences, innate and hereditary psychological elements, defence, protective, mechanisms, repression, suppression als etc. As an illustration, Nietzsche describes how blocked instinctual powers turn within the individual into resentment,-hatred, hostility and aggression. Moreover, Nietzsche strives to analyse human being, his crisis, his despair and his existence in the world and to find means so as to alleviate human crises and despair.
These aspects of Nietzsche's work elicit a tendency to compare Nietzsche's doctrine with that of Freud and psychoanalysis and to argue that the Freudian doctrine and school (the psychoanalytic theory of human personality on which the psychotherapeutic technique of psychoanalysis is based) and method of treatment (psychoanalysis) has been influenced and affected by Nietzsche's philosophy and work and the Nietzschean doctrine. As a demonstration from the relevant literature, according to Golomb's (1987) thesis, the theoretical core of psychoanalysis is already part and parcel of Nietzsche's philosophy, insofar as it is based on concepts that are both displayed in it and developed by it-concepts such as the unconscious, repression, sublimation, the id, the superego, primary and secondary processes and interpretations of dreams.
Nevertheless, the actual situation in the domains of psychotherapy, psychiatry and clinical psychology is, by no means, strictly so. While the two savants (Nietzsche and Freud) endeavour to understand man, to develop the healthy power that is still present in the individual and the neurotic patient so as to overcome and suppress the psychological boundaries that repress his vitality and inhibit his ability to function freely and creatively and attain truth, the difference between the psychodynamic school, approach, movement and method of treatment, in general, and psychoanalysis, in particular, and the existential approach to psychotherapy, the existential movement and the existential, humanistic school of psychology and method of treatment that have been stemmed from the doctrines and views of Freud and Nietzsche is profound and significant, as far as the actual psychotherapeutic treatment is concerned. The reason as for this difference lie in the variation in the two savants' view and definition of man and human existence, the nature and character of man and his relationship with the world and the environment, as well as in the variation in the intellectual soil, the tasks, roles, endeavours, relationships and encounters and actualising set and determined (by the individual patient her) objectives and tasks make the old event a matter of the past and the life of the patient too full, excited and actualised so as to analyse and experience the problem and cause of the neurosis/psychosis and, therefore, influence and alleviate the psychosis/neurosis. Frankl and Lukas recount and provide numerous clinical illustrations so as to demonstrate this point.
This has shown that the Nietzschean doctrine may be regarded as a personality theory and, as such, may be employed as the foundations for the devising of a psychotherapeutic approach. The Nietzschean doctrine defines man as a being who is fully responsible for his life and personal existence and possesses mastery over his fate, life and existence as well as his conduct, his nature, identity and image. As such, he possesses the power to determine, create and organise his ideologies, values and morals and, as a consequence, him, who and what he is. Nevertheless, the individual has to suppress and overcome the psychological inclination to have his ideologies and values be determined for him. Then, he has to realise the power to determine him so as to gain as much power as possible and become a powerful, individual being.
In order to demonstrate the applicability of the Nietzschean doctrine in psychiatry and psychotherapy, Frankl's existential approach of Logotherapy was displayed, briefly outlined, described and illustrated. Logotherapy guides the treated patient in overcoming the inclination to conform and be determined and help her seek and realise meanings and purposes throughout her life and personal existence with a view to create, actualise and determine her, to lead a meaningful life and existence and to become whoever and whatever she wishes to become and be.
With that, in the course of Logotherapy, the treated individual must assume power, responsibility and mastery over his own life and personal existence and create and design his life and existence and, as a consequence, him in accordance with his own set values and purposes. Once the individual has found the reasons, meanings and purposes to living and in all aspects of his life and personal existence (the painful ones and the happy ones) he is able to lead a more meaningful life and put up with almost any living conditions. In fact, Frankl employs Logotherapy by two famous quotes from Nietzsche-"whatever does not kill me makes me stronger" and "Man can have the how if he has the why.” Thus, according to Logotherapy, the individual's entire state of being and mental and physical conditions are likely to be ameliorated, alleviated and sometimes even cured once he has established meanings and purposes into, to and in the human existence, as a whole, and his own life and personal existence, in particular, and is able to lead a meaningful, purposeful and actualized life.
Once establishing that the Nietzschean doctrine has many psychological aspects and elements in it and, therefore, possesses the ability and the potentiality to provide the core and essence of a psychotherapeutic approach in psychiatry and clinical psychology, psychoanalysis, which is the most popular and known psychotherapeutic approach (in as well as outside the relevant fields of psychiatry and psychology), immediately comes up to one's mind. In fact, the present paper was commenced by stating the similarity in terms of the terminology and the concepts that are employed in both the Nietzschean doctrine and the Freudian, psychoanalytic, doctrine and psychoanalysis. Moreover, the present paper has described the inclination to compare the Freudian doctrine with the Nietzschean doctrine and the Nietzschean doctrine to the psychoanalytic method and approach of psychotherapeutic treatment (i.e., psychoanalysis). Presently, as far as quoting Golomb's clear and bold assertion that the Nietzschean doctrine, in fact, constitutes not less than the theoretical core of Freudian psychoanalysis. In fact, the present paper has set it the task of examining this assertion by Jacob Golomb.
Nevertheless, it was the present paper's primary objective to refute this assertion and to show that the Nietzschean doctrine does not constitute the theoretical core of psychoanalysis. Both the theoretical, conceptual, and the practical, applied psychotherapeutic, differences between the Freudian doctrine and its method of psychotherapeutic treatment (Psychoanalysis) and the Nietzschean doctrines were displayed, outlined, illustrated and depicted in the present paper in some length. On the other hand, this has demonstrated that the Nietzschean doctrine constitutes the theoretical core and essence of the existential approach to psychotherapy, which, in fact, constitutes the most vicious rival to psychoanalysis.
Moreover, the existential approach of Logotherapy is depicted as a rival approach to psychoanalysis in the same field as psychoanalysis (that is psychiatry and clinical psychology) it is described as the one that really employs the Nietzschean doctrine as its true theoretical core and essence and as its foundation. It seems less feasible to ignore and skip on the similarities in and between the 'will to power' and its realisation and the 'will to meaning' and its actualization, the ambition to surpass and overcome all that prevents and suppresses the will to power/meaning and the individual existence, the idea of free will, the notion of full responsibility for and mastery over one's life and the idea of the freedom to determine and create one. Those last three concepts constitute key concepts in the Nietzschean doctrine, the existential movement and Logotherapy. The existential movement was described in the present paper and Nietzsche have been to forebear and deviser of the existential movement, together with Soren, Aabye Kierkegaard.
The Freudian, psychoanalytic and psychodynamic doctrines, for their part, regard human personality, morality, ideologies, feelings, emotions and conduct as deterministic ones that are either innate or determined by events and other types of stimuli. The Freudian doctrine, therefore, maintains that the best manner to alleviate human crisis and despair (both neurosis and psychosis) is to search and find the reasons, causes and determinants for them. The psychoanalytic method of treatment is, therefore, really a technique of searching and finding and analysing and examining thoroughly and freely the events, experiences and stimuli that it assumes to be the causes and determinants of the neurosis/psychosis.
The process of searching and finding significant stimuli and events in the individual patient's life and of analysing the individual patient's life and existence freely applies the shuttering and overpowering of a defence mechanism that represses those events and stimuli from being revealed and aware of by the given analysed individual who has undergone them and regressed them to his subconscious. This process, therefore, strives to make the stimuli and events, which are assumed to be the cause, reason and determinant of the neurosis/psychosis, come up to the analysed neurotic/psychotic patient's consciousness and become fully aware of by the analysed neurotic/psychotic patient and, thus, revealed and analysed freely and thoroughly by both the patient and the psychoanalyst.
While overcoming the defence mechanism and fully revealing the reasons and causes as for the neurosis/psychosis and exposing them to the patient's consciousness enable their analysing freely and without any restraints. Once the patient is fully aware of the event and stimulus that have generated his illness, crises and despair and those events and stimuli are analysed and examined thoroughly and freely the neurosis/psychosis is cured.
A tendency to assert that the Nietzschean doctrine influences the Freudian, psychoanalytic doctrine and approach and the Freudian method of psychoanalysis and that the Nietzschean doctrine constitutes the theoretical essence and core of Freudian psychoanalysis is erroneous and misleading. The Nietzschean doctrine, on the other hand, is the theoretical basis and core of the existential movement, existential, humanistic psychology and the existential approach to psychotherapy. Specifically, the Nietzschean doctrine constitutes the foundations of Logotherapy, also known as existential analysis.
The two movements, schools and approaches are rival ones and so are Logotherapy and Psychoanalysis. While there are some similarities in their shared ambition to alleviate man's crises and despair, in the terminology that they employ and in their shared endeavour to suppress and overpower the psychological boundaries that repress the individual patient from attaining truth and true and to free truth and the true, the representational notion of what man actually is, an individual being, the, the true, actualisation and the like, which constitute key issues in theories of personality and which define human personality, vary immensely and cannot differ more, in terms of their treatment and definition by the two movements and approaches.
In fact, other movements and schools such as Cognitive Psychology and Artificial Intelligence also employ concepts such as the, consciousness, unconsciousness, memory, recall, morality, revelation, human nature, personality and character. Nevertheless, attempting to compare them with psychoanalysis and the psychodynamic movement would be an absurd task. Their view and definition of those concepts vary immensely from the definition of those concepts by Psychoanalysis and their application and application of those concepts differs greatly from the utilisation of those concepts by psychoanalysis, although Cognitive Psychology has created cognitive psychotherapy and talks about the recall and storage of information by and in the mind and the access and revelation of information-that is the representational model of Cognitive Psychology and the cognitive revolution and movement, which dominates cognitive psychology.
It is, thus, the overall designing, devising and depiction of the approach, doctrine and theory, and of what they endeavour to do and achieve-their definition of their main subject matter (Man, and his existence in the world, his personality, nature, image and character) and of key concepts; Combining of those key concepts by them, their manner of applying those definitions in practice-which make up a given doctrine, approach and method of treatment and applicability and enable the comparison of the particular doctrine (approach) with other doctrines, approaches and methods of applicability and treatment of a similar type. Comparing selected aspects, components and elements of two or more doctrines and approaches may lead to the omission of important features and constituents that, in fact, vary and are contrasted significantly in the two doctrines and approaches and, therefore, to the adoption of the erroneous conclusion that the doctrines and approaches are similar and comparable when they are, in fact, totally different and contrasted. The Nietzschean/Freudians, thus, shown how careful one should be so as not to be misled in comparing two doctrines, theories and approaches and claiming that one doctrine, theory and approach affect and influences another doctrine, theory and approach and constitutes its theoretical core.
According to Nietzsche, tragedy began in the musical, undifferentiated Dionysian chorus and only later developed the discursive and discrete Apollonian action and characters in which Aristotle had located the essence of the genre. Real tragedy, according to Nietzsche, depicts the doomed efforts of the Apollonian heroes to rise above the constraints of their individuality. It celebrates those efforts as a characteristic human gesture in the face of the ultimate irrationality of the world, and in the chorus, which always remains on stage after the hero's destruction, it offers, of The Birth of Tragedy, the "metaphysical comfort . . . that life is at the bottom of things, despite all the changes of appearances, indestructibly powerful and pleasurable.”
Nietzsche resigned from the university in 1879, and, though Schopenhauer and Wagner ceased to be the dominant influences on his thought, many of the questions addressed in The Birth of Tragedy continued to occupy him throughout his life; the book it, despite its many problems, has remained one of his most popular and well-known works.
Too such "dogmatic" or "metaphysical" thought Nietzsche opposed his "perspectivism," a view he once expressed by writing that "facts are precisely what there is not, only interpretations.” He believed that the emergence of the possibility of perspectivism was due in part to the fact that Christianity had provided it’s very own undermining. This is the sense of his notorious dictum, "God is dead.” By this he meant that faith in God, which involves a total commitment to truthfulness, has finally led to the gradually emerging realization that God does not exist after all and that therefore there can be no objective, absolute values.
“God is dead”-and man, in his heart of hearts, is incapable of forgiving him for having done away with Him, he is bent upon punishing him for this, his “greatest deed.” For the time being, however, he will take refuge in many an evasive action. With the instinct of as born hunter, Nietzsche pursues him into all his hiding places, cornering him in each of the morality without religion? Not so: “All purely moral demands without their religious basis,” he says, “must needs end in nihilism.” The time, Nietzsche predicts, is fast approaching when secular crusaders, tools of man’s collective suicide, will devastate the world with their rival claims to compensate for the lost Kingdom of Heaven by setting up on earth the ideological rules of Love and Justice that, by the very force of the spiritual derangement involved, will lead to the rules of cruelty and slavery, and he prophesies that the war fair global domination will be fought on behalf of philosophical doctrines.
Was he, having lost God, capable of truly believing in anything? “He who no longer finds what is in God will find it nowhere-he must either deny it or create it.” Only the “either-or” does not apply. All his life Nietzsche tried to do both. He had the passion for truth and no belief in it. He had the love of life and despaired of it. This is the stuff from which demons are made perhaps the most powerful secret demon eating the heart out of the modern mind. To have written and enacted the extremist story of this mind is Nietzsche’s true claim to greatness.
What, then, is the final importance of Nietzsche? For one, lies in his example that is so strange, profound, confounded, alluring, and forbidding that it can hardly be looked upon as exemplary, but it cannot be ignored either. For it has something to do with living lucidly in the dark age of which he so creatively despaired.
Obnoxious as Nietzsche found the specific values of Christian morality, he reacted even more negatively to its universalism. Christian morality, he believed, prevents the few people who do not belong to "the herd" from going in good conscience against the majority's values and from fashioning their own way of life-a way of life that will differ from one type of person to another and will make no claim to universal validity. Nietzsche constantly praised such creativity and claimed that the only difference between the Christian and the type of character he praises as the Übermensch, the "free spirit" or "new philosopher," is that while both are creators of values, only the latter remains aware of this fact and actually takes pleasure in it.
That Nietzsche believes about life he also believes about interpretation -hence his immense importance for literary theory and criticism. As certain values come to appear binding, so many interpretations cease to display their interpretive status and begin to appear as fact about the texts they concern, which means that they no longer appear as interpretations at all. Just as Nietzsche's "genealogical" method aims to show how the particular interpretations of life that created the moral values of Christianity came about, so literary criticism must turn to an unmasking of what we take for granted in connection with every text. Such "facts" are the products of earlier, accepted, and therefore unacknowledged interpretations. Just as there is not a single mode of life, good for all people, so there can clearly ever be a single, overarching interpretation of a particular text that everyone will have to accept. "The" world and "the" text are equally indeterminate.
All interpretation, moral or literary, is an expression of what Nietzsche calls "the will to power." Much that he wrote about this idea sounds as if he believed in some sort of crude overpowering of "the weak" by "the strong" and has seemed too many to align him with fascist theories of political power. Nevertheless, the idea that interpretations manifest the will to power is the idea that no interpretation is a pure objective mirroring of the facts, since there are no facts to be mirrored in the first place. All the same, it is an effort to fashion a mode of life, or a reading of a text, through which the type of character each interpreter constitutes can best be manifested: "One seeks a picture of the world in that philosophy in which we feel freest, i.e., in which our most powerful drive feels free to function.
Nietzsche therefore urges those who are able to do so not to remain in the grip of dogmatism and to fashion instead interpretations and lives of their own. In his view, being important is much more important than to be good. Even if the interpretation of life we are in the process of fashioning cannot but seem binding to us-because conceiving of another is impossible, at that time, -he still urges that we retain the generalized awareness that there is nothing necessary about it. Any such construct is our own creation. Nietzsche, furthermore, wants his readers to revel in their difference from everyone else, if they are, of course, capable of being different in the first place. However, he cannot possibly convince his readers to be different: one either is or is not capable of that. Accordingly, the nature of his intended audience and the mode of address appropriate to them remain for him questionable throughout his writings.
In doing so, Nietzsche also made the form of his writing essential to its content and thus raised profound questions about the relationship between philosophy and literature. The consequences of his views and of his overall project are still being pursued in philosophy, literature, and criticism. If his perspectivism is, after all, true, then, in appropriately paradoxical fashion, this pursuit will never be finally over.
Nietzsche’s apropos question, it turns out, is a good place to begin regarding his subject. For the Problem of God cannot be defined by any single question but is more an umbrella term covering a variety of ancient and more overshadowing terminological varieties in reassembling the covering umbrella of
modernity and the postmodern questions regarding God. Does God exist? What is the nature of God? Why is there evil and suffering in the world? Although a slight ray of light is obscured but implicitly within these are questions about our own meaning and purpose in the world. If God does exist, why has humanity been created? If God is dead, what is the right way for us to go about conducting our lives?
It is in defining and examining the (for him historical) phenomenon of nihilism that Nietzsche’s attack on Christianity sets in, and it has remained the only truly subtle point that, within the whole range of his more unrestrained argumentativeness, this Antichrist makes against Christianity. For it is at this point that Nietzsche asks (and asks the same question in countless variations throughout his work): What is the specific qualifying that the Christian tradition has instilled a cultivated in the minds of men? They are, he thinks, two fold: on the one hand, a more refined sense of truth than any other civilization has known, an almost uncontrollable desire for absolute spiritual and intellectual certainties, and, on the other hand, the ever-present suspicion that life on this earth is not a supreme value, but in need of a higher, belief transcendental justification. This, Nietzsche believes, is a destructive, and even -destructive alliance, which is bound finally to corrode the very Christian beliefs on which it rests, for the mind exercised and guided in its search adversarial consciousness by the most sophisticated and comprehensive supreme beings that the world has ever known-a theology that through Thomas Aquinas has assimilated into its grand system the genius of Aristotle was at the same time fashioned and directed by the indelible Christian distrust of the ways of the world. Consequently, it ought to follow, with the utmost logical precision and determination, a course of systematically “devaluing” the knowable real.
This mind, Nietzsche predicts, will eventually, in a frenzy of intellectual honestly, unmask a humbug what it began by regarding as the finer things in life. The boundless faith in that, the joint legacy of Christ and Greek, will in the end dislodge every possible belief in truth of any faith. Souls, long disciplined in a school of unworthiness and humility, will insist upon knowing the worst about themselves, and only be able to grasp what is humiliating. Psychology will denigrate the creations of beauty, laying bare the wangle of unworthy desires of which they are “mere” sublimation.
All new knowledge about the soul, knowledge about a different soul, can it ever happen that the freely discovering mind says to the soul, “This is what you are, “is it not quite as if the mind said to the soul: “This is how In wish you to see your. This is the image after which In create you. This is my secret about you: In shock you with it and, shockingly, at once wrest it from you.” Worse: having received and revealed it secret, their soul is no longer what In was when it lived in secrecy. For there are secrets that are created in the process of their revelation. Worse still, having been told its secrets, the soul may create to be a soul. This step from modern psychology to soullessness is imperceptibly distanced from that of modern physics, just as dissoluble the concept of “Matter.”
This valuing quantification is manifest in today’s world, which we live in an age during which many of us have experienced the death of God. Its well-known phrase is recounted as, "God is dead” which was made famous by the 19th Century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Although he was by temperament and atheist, Nietzsche’s controversial statement was more a realization on his part than a pronouncement. He simply weighed the astonishing German military power of his day and the incredible advances in modern science (including Darwinism) and technology against the declining belief in the Christian God. For Nietzsche, human ingenuity and power had reached such heights as to make God psychologically irrelevant. Although he has often been ridiculed and scorned by right-wing fundamentalists who have misunderstood his meaning, Nietzsche him felt great ambivalence concerning the death of God. On the one hand, he feared and predicted humanity, with no system of moral guidance, would plunge it into wars and disasters the likes of which have never been seen. On the other hand, he was hopeful the life denying ethics of Christianity might be replaced with a new life affirming philosophy. "At last," he wrote, "the sea, our sea, lies open before us. Perhaps there has never been so open a sea." If Nietzsche only gave voice to a thought concerning the relevancy of God that was increasingly on the minds of many in his day, it was the horrific Holocaust a few years later that would nail the lid on God’s coffin. In the face of such horror and suffering it became impossible for many to believe in the existence of a just and loving God. As the German Theologian and pacifist, Deitrich Bonhoeffer wrote while imprisoned for plotting to assassinate Hitler, ". . . everything evidently gets along without ‘God,’ and just as well as before." In this statement, like Nietzsche, Bonhoeffer realized that humanity had come of age, no longer needing faith in God when it could rely upon its own inventiveness to determine its fate and control the forces of nature. However, the concentration of human suffering and evil displayed during the Holocaust touched upon a nerve essential to the human condition and much older than recent advancements through science and technology. More than a century before both Nietzsche and Bonhoeffer, philosopher David Hume asked "Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? From what place then is evil? Theologians as renown as C.S. Lewis and thinkers as ancient as Epicurus have voiced similar questions. For many the facts of human suffering is proof enough that God cannot exist. Nonetheless, the problem of suffering has proven such a stumbling block for theologians over the centuries that a range of differing solutions has been proposed. In specific regard to the Holocaust, for example, Robert L. Rubenstein argues in his book After Auschwitz, "To see any purpose in the death camps, the traditional believer is forced to regard the most demonic, antihuman explosion in all history as a meaningful expression of God’s purpose. He goes on to say, "A God who tolerates the suffering that become more even that one single innocent child, may that is either infinitely cruel or hopelessly indifferent. For Rubenstein the reality of such evil proves that even if God does exist, such a being cannot be all-powerful.
Other solutions to the problem suggest suffering is a divine test of some sort, such as the biblical character Job went through. Unfortunately this solution also implicates God in the malicious and intentional suffering humans experience. Some blame humanity it for evil and suffering, through the doctrines of original sin and free will. This argument has several problems. Firstly, if God is omniscient, all-knowing, why create a world that would fall so utterly from its original perfection? Furthermore, even if God is bound by some imposed guideline of non-interference, as Creator such a God must take some, if not full, responsibility for the outcome of Creation. Finally, blaming human beings for the existence of evil and suffering in the world may explain moral evils, but it doesn’t explain the presence of natural evil such as disease, tornadoes, droughts, hurricanes, etc., etc., events’ human beings have no control over. Finally, some theologies give God a get-out-of-jail-free-card by simply concluding the ways of God are incomprehensible to human beings. That is, God may appear indifferent, malicious, uncaring, but this is only because we, in our limited capacity, cannot understand the mind of God. All of these arguments, however, may be last ditch efforts to cling to the belief in God even amid what some have concluded is overwhelming evidence that such a God does not exist.
In fairness, it should be noted that the hope for a perfect world without suffering and evil may be typical of modern humanity and not indicative of humanity in general. With the advent of science and the increasing sufficiency of technology, both mechanical and medical, is our latent hope that we will one day solve all our problems by ushering in a techno-utopian world. To do so, however, many have come to the conclusion that we must kill first kill God, which is to say, if we are to advance we must move beyond our antiquated and traditional beliefs. In his book, The Problem of God, Yesterday and Today, John Courtney Murray describes two types of postmodern atheists, the atheist of the communist world Revolution and the atheist of the Theatre, For the Marxist, according to Murray, the goal is to build a new world, free of all misery, by giving human beings their freedom, a freedom from belief in God and from religion it that is viewed as an opium of the people. "He has discovered that it is history, not God, that makes the nature of man." Inscribes Murray, "This discovery was the death of God. When man came to know him through history, when he came to understand that he is the creature of history and not of God, God was dead. He died out of history, leaving man as its master."
The fatal flaw of pure reason is, of course, the absence of emotion, and purely rational explanations of the division between subjective reality and external reality had limited appeal outside the community of intellectuals. The figure most responsible for infusing our understanding of Cartesian dualism with emotional content was the death of God theologian Friedrich Nietzsche. After declaring that God and ‘divine will’ do not exist, Nietzsche reified the ‘essences’ of consciousness in the domain of subjectivity as the ground for individual ‘will’ and summarily dismissed all pervious philosophical attempts to articulate the ‘will to truth’. The problem, claimed Nietzsche, is that earlier versions of the ‘will to power’ disguise the fact that all allege truths were arbitrarily created in and are expression or manifestations of individual ‘will’.
In Nietzsche’s view, the separation between mind and mater is more absolute and total than had previously been imagined. Based on the assumptions that there are no real or necessary correspondences between linguistic constructions of reality in human subjectivity and external reality, he declared that we are all locked in ‘a prison house of language’. The prison as he conceived it, however, it was also a ‘space’ where the philosopher can examine the ‘innermost desires of his nature’ and articulate a new massage of individual existence founded on will.
“Those who fail to enact their existence in this space,” says Nietzsche, “are enticed into sacrificing their individuality on the nonexistent altars of religious beliefs and democratic or socialist ideals and become, therefore, members of the anonymous and docile crowd.” Nietzsche also invalidated the knowledge claims of science in the examination of human subjectivity. Science, he said, not only exalted natural phenomena and favours reductionistic examinations of phenomena at the expense of mind. It also seeks to educe mind to a mere material substance, and thereby to displace or subsume the separateness and uniqueness of mind with mechanistic description that disallows any basis for the free exercise of individual will.
Nietzsche’s emotionally charged defence of intellectual freedom and his radical empowerment of mind as the maker and transformer of the collective fictions that shape human reality in a soulful mechanistic inverse proved terribly influential on twentieth-century thought. Nietzsche sought to reinforce his view of the subjective character of scientific knowledge by appealing to an epistemological crisis over the foundations of logic and arithmetic that arose during the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Though a curious course of events, attempts by Edmund Husserl, a philosopher trained in higher math and physics, to resolve this crisis resulted in a view of the character of human consciousness that closely resembled that of Nietzsche. Husserl, of course, was a principal founder of ‘phenomenology’ and from Franz Brentano (1838-1917) inherited the view that the central problem in understanding thought is that of explaining the way in which an intentional direction, or content, can belong to the mental phenomenon that exhibits it. Mental phenomena are founded in sensory data, but whereas for Brentano there is no sharp distinction between ‘intuitions’ and concepts, Husserl reinstates that this way of thinking is that the content is immanent, existing within the mental act, and anything external drops out as secondary or irrelevant to the intrinsic nature of the mental state. The problem is nonetheless of reconciling the subjective or psychological nature of mental life with its objective and logical content preoccupied Husserl from this time onwards. Husserl eventually abandoned his attempt to keep both a subjective and a naturalistic approach to knowledge together, abandoning the naturalism in favour of a kind of ‘transcendentalism’ idealism’.
`Nietzsche, in an effort to subvert the epistemological authority of scientific knowledge, sought to legitimatize a division between mind and world much starker than that originally envisioned by Descartes. What is not as widely known, however, is that Nietzsche and other seminal figures in the history of philosophical postmodernism were very much aware of an epistemological crisis in scientific thought than arose much earlier that, that occasioned by wave-particle dualism in quantum physics. This crisis resulted from attempts during the last three decades of the nineteenth century to develop a logically-consistent definition of number and arithmetic that would serve to reinforce the classical view of correspondence between mathematical theory and physical reality. As it turned out, these efforts resulted in paradoxes of a recursion and -reference that threatened to undermine both the efficacy of this correspondence and the privileged character of scientific knowledge.
Nietzsche appealed to this crisis in an effort to reinforce his assumption that, the absence of ontology, all knowledge (including scientific knowledge) was grounded only in human consciousness. As the crisis continued, a philosopher trained in higher mathematics and physics, Edmund Husserl, attempted to preserve the classical view of correspondence between mathematical theory and physical reality by deriving the foundation of logic and number from consciousness in ways that would preserve -consistency and rigour. Even so, this effort to ground mathematical physics in human consciousness, or in human subjective reality, was no trivial matter. It represented a direct link between these early challenges and the efficacy of classical epistemology and the tradition in philosophical thought that culminated in philosophical postmodernism. Nietzsche’s emotionally charged decence of intellectual freedom and his radical empowerment of mind as the maker and transformer of the collective fictions that shape human reality in a soulless mechanistic universe proved terribly influential on twentieth-century thought.
`Friedrich Nietzsche is openly pessimistic about the possibility of knowledge. ‘We simply lack any organ for knowledge, for ‘truth’: We know (or believe or imagine) just as much as may be useful in the interests of the human herd, the species: and even what is called ‘utility’ is ultimately also a mere belief, something imaginary and perhaps precisely that most calamitous stupidity of which we will not perish some day’ (The Gay Science).
This position is very radical, Nietzsche does not simply deny that knowledge, construed as the adequate representation of the world by the intellect, exists. He also refuses the pragmatist identification of knowledge and truth with usefulness: he writes that we think we know what we think is useful, and that we can be quite wrong about the latter.
Nietzsche’s view, his ‘Perspectivism’, depends on his claim that there is no sensible conception of a world independent of human interpretation and to which interpretations would correspond if hey were to constitute knowledge. He sums up this highly controversial position in The Will to Power: ‘Facts are precisely what there is not. Only interpretation’.
It is often claimed that Perspectivism is -undermining. If the thesis that all views are interpretations is true then, it is argued there is at least one view that is not an interpretation. If, on the other hand, the thesis is it an interpretation, then there is no reason to believe that it is true, and it follows again that nit every view is an interpretation.
Yet this refutation assumes that if a view, like Perspectivism, is an interpretation it is wrong. This is not the case. To call any view, including Perspectivism, an interpretation is to say that it can be wrong, which is true of all views, and that is not a sufficient refutation. To show the Perspectivism is literally false producing another view superior to it on specific epistemological grounds is necessary.
Perspectivism does not deny that particular views can be true. Like some versions of cotemporary anti-realism, its attributional approach for ‘truth in relation to facts’ specified internally those approaches themselves. But it refuses to envisage a single independent set of facts, To be accounted for by all theories. Thus Nietzsche grants the truth of specific scientific theories does, however, deny that a scientific interpretation can possibly be ‘the only justifiable interpretation of the world’ (The Gay Science): Neither the facts that science addresses nor the methods it employs are privileged. Scientific theories serve the purposes for which hey have been devised, but these have no priority over the many other purposes of human life. The existence of many purposes and needs relative to which the value of theories is established-another crucial element of Perspectivism is sometimes thought to imply a reason relative, according to which no standards for evaluating purposes and theories can be devised. This is correct only in that Nietzsche denies the existence of single set of standards for determining epistemic value, but holds that specific views can be compared with and evaluated in relation to one another the ability to use criteria acceptable in particular circumstances does not presuppose the existence of criteria applicable in all. Agreement is therefore not always possible, since individuals may sometimes differ over the most fundamental issues dividing them.
Still, Nietzsche would not be troubled by this fact, which his opponents too also have to confront only he would argue, to suppress it by insisting on the hope that all disagreements are in particular eliminable even if our practice falls woefully short of the ideal. Nietzsche abandons that ideal. He considers irresoluble disagreement and essential part of human life.
Knowledge for Nietzsche finds its point reference by the idea of the ‘given’ basis beyond which its conferring material and of a rational defensible theory of confirmation and inference. That it is based on desire and bodily needs more than social refinement’s Perspectives are to be judged not from their relation to the absolute but on the basis of their effects in a specific era. The possibility of any truth beyond such a local, pragmatic one becomes a problem in Nietzsche, since either a noumenal realm or a historical synthesis exists to provide an absolute criterion of adjudication for competing truth claims: what gets called truths are simply beliefs that have been for so long that we have forgotten their genealogy? In these Nietzsche reverses the Enlightenment dictum that truth is the way to liberation by suggesting that trying classes in as far as they are considered absolute for debate and conceptual progress and cause as opposed to any ambient behaviour toward the ease of which backwardness and unnecessary misery. Nietzsche moves back and forth without revolution between the positing of trans-histories; truth claims, such as his claim about the will to power, and a kind of epistemic nihilism that calls into question not only the possibility of truth but the need and desire of it as well. However, perhaps what is most important, Nietzsche introduces the notion that truth is a kind of human practice, in a game whose rules are contingent rather than necessary it. The evaluation of truth claims should be based of their strategic efforts, not their ability to represent a reality conceived of as separately autonomous than that of human influence, for Nietzsche the view that all truth is truth from or within a particular perspective. The perspective may be a general human pin of view, set by such things as the nature of our sensory apparatus, or it may be thought to be bound by culture, history, language, class or gender. Since there may be many perspectives, there are also different families of truth. The term is frequently applied to Nietzsche’s philosophy.
The best-known disciple of Husserl was Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), and the work of both figures greatly influenced that of the French atheistic existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. The work of Husserl, Heidegger and Sartre became foundational to that of the principal architects of philosophical postmodernism, the deconstructionist’s Jacques Lacan, Roland Bathes, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, this direct linkage among the nineteenth-century crises about epistemological foundations of physics and the origins of philosophical postmodernism served to perpetuate the Cartesian two-world dilemma in an even more oppressive form.
Of Sartre’s main philosophical work, Being and Nothingness, Sartre examines the relationships between Being For-it (consciousness) and Being In-it (the non-conscious world). He rejects central tenets of the rationalalist and empiricist traditions, calling the view that the mind or is a thing or substance. ‘Descartes’s substantialist illusion’, and claiming also that consciousness dos not contain ideas or representations . . . are idolist invented by the psychologists. Sartre also attacks idealism in the forms associated with Berkeley and Kant, and concludes that his account of the relationship between consciousness and the world is neither realist nor idealist.
Sartre also discusses Being For-others, which comprises the aspects of experience about interactions with other minds. His views are subtle: Roughly, he holds that one’s awareness of others is constituted by feelings of shame, pride, and so on.
Sartre’s rejection of ideas, and the denial of idealism, appear to commit him to direct realism in the theory of perception. This is neither inconsistent with his claim as been non-realist nor idealist, since by ‘realist’ he means views that allow for the mutual independence or in-principle separability of mind and world. Against this Sartre emphasizes, after Heidegger, that perceptual experience has an active dimension, in hat it is a way of interacting and dealing with the world, than a way of merely contemplating it (‘activity, as spontaneous, unreflecting consciousness, constitutes a certain existential stratum in the world’). Consequently, he holds that experience is richer, and open to more aspects of the world, than empiricist writers customarily claim:
When In run after a streetcar . . . there is consciousness of-the-streetcar-having-to-be-overtaken, etc., . . . In am then plunged into the world of objects, it is they that constitute the unity of my consciousness, it is they that present themselves with values, with attractive nd repellent qualities . . .
Relatedly, he insists that In experience material things as having certain potentialities -for-me (’nothingness’). In see doors and bottles as operable, bicycles as ridable (these matters are linked ultimately to the doctrine of extreme existentialist freedom). Similarly, if my friend is not where In expect to meet her, then In experience her absence ‘as a real event’.
These Phenomenological claims are striking and compelling, but Sartre pays insufficient attention to such things as illusions and hallucinations, which are normally cited as problems for direct realists. In his discussion of mental imagery, however, he describes the act of imaging as a ‘transformation’ of ‘psychic material’. This connects with his views that even a physical image such as a photograph of a tree does not figure as an object of consciousness when it is experienced as a tree-representation (than as a piece of coloured cards). Nonetheless, the fact remains that the photograph continues to contribute to the character of the experience. Given this, seeing how Sartre avoids positing a mental analogue of a photograph for episodes of mental imaging is hard, and harder still to reconcile this with his rejection of visual representations. If ones image is regarded as debased and the awareness of awakening is formally received as a differential coefficient of perceptual knowledge, but this merely rises once more the issue of perceptual illusion and hallucination, and the problems of reconciling them are dialectally the formalization built upon realism.
Much of Western religion and philosophical thought since the seventeenth century has sought to obviate this prospect with an appeal to ontology or to some conception of God or Being. Yet we continue to struggle, as philosophical postmodernism attests, with the terrible prospect by Nietzsche-we are locked in a prison house of our individual subjective realities in a universe that is as alien to our thought as it is to our desires. This universe may seem comprehensible and knowable in scientific terms, and science does seek in some sense, as Koyré puts it, to ‘find a place for everything.’ Nonetheless, the ghost of Descartes lingers in the widespread conviction that science does not provide a ‘place for man’ or for all that we know as distinctly human in subjective reality.
Nonetheless, after The Gay Science (1882) began the crucial exploration of -mastery. The relations between reason and power, and the revelation of the unconscious striving after power that provide the actual energy for the apparent -denial of the ascetic and the martyred were during this period that Nietzsche’s failed relationship with Lou Salome resulted in the emotional crisis from which Also sprach Zarathustra, 1883-5, translates as, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and signals a recovery. This work is frequently regarded as Nietzsche’s masterpiece. It was followed by Jenseits von Gut and Böse, 1887 translates as, Beyond Good and Evil, and Zur Genealogie der Moral, 1887 and translates to, The Genealogy of Moral.
In Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-85), Friedrich Nietzsche introduced in eloquent poetic prose the concepts of the death of God, the superman, and the will to power. Vigorously attacking Christianity and democracy as moralities for the ‘weak herd’, he argued for the ‘natural aristocracy’ of the superman who, driven by the ‘will to power’, celebrates life on earth rather than sanctifying it for some heavenly reward. Such a heroic man of merit has the courage to ‘live dangerously’ and thus rise above the masses, developing his natural capacity for the creative use of passion.
Also known as radical theology, this movement flourished in the mid 1960s. As a theological movement it never attracted a large following, did not find a unified expression, and passed off the scene as quickly and dramatically as it had arisen. There is even disagreement as to whom its major representatives were. Some identify two, and others three or four. Although small, the movement attracted attention because it was a spectacular symptom of the bankruptcy of modern Theology and because it was a journalistic phenomenon. The very statement "God is dead" was tailor-made for journalistic exploitation. The representatives of the movement effectively used periodical articles, paperback books, and the electronic media. This movement gave expression to an idea that had been incipient in Western philosophy and theology for some time, the suggestion that the reality of a transcendent God at best could not be known and at worst did not exist at all. Philosopher Kant and theologian Ritschl denied that one could have a theoretical knowledge of the being of God. Hume and the empiricist for all practical purposes restricted knowledge and reality to the material world as perceived by the five senses. Since God was not empirically verifiable, the biblical world view was said to be mythological and unacceptable to the modern mind. Such atheistic existentialist philosophers as Nietzsche despaired even of the search of God; it was he who coined the phrase "God is dead" almost a century before the death of God theologians.
Mid-twentieth century theologians not associated with the movement also contributed to the climate of opinion out of which death of God theologies emerged. Rudolf Bultmann regarded all elements of the supernaturalistic, theistic world view as mythological and proposed that Scripture be demythologized so that it could speak its message to the modern person.
Paul Tillich, an avowed anti supernaturalist, said that the only nonsymbiotic statement that could be made about God was that he was being it. He is beyond essence and existence; therefore, to argue that God exists is to deny him. It is more appropriate to say God does not exist. At best Tillich was a pantheist, but his thought borders on atheism. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (whether rightly understood or not) also contributed to the climate of opinion with some fragmentary but tantalizing statements preserved in Letters and Papers from Prison. He wrote of the world and man ‘coming of age’, of ‘religionless Christianity’, of the ‘world without God’, and of getting rid of the ‘God of the gaps’ and getting along just as well as before. It is not always certain what Bonhoeffer meant, but if nothing else, he provided a vocabulary that later radical theologians could exploit.
It is clear, then, that as startling as the idea of the death of God was when proclaimed in the mid 1960s, it did not represent as radically a departure from recent philosophical and theological ideas and vocabulary as might superficially appears.
Just what was death of God Theology? The answers are as varied as those who proclaimed God's demise. Since Nietzsche, theologians had occasionally used "God is dead" to express the fact that for an increasing number of people in the modern age God seems to be unreal. Nonetheless, the idea of God's death began to have special prominence in 1957 when Gabriel Vahanian published a book entitled God is Dead. Vahanian did not offer a systematic expression of death of God theology. Instead, he analysed those historical elements that contributed to the masses of people accepting atheism not so much as a theory but as a way of life. Vahanian him did not believe that God was dead. Still, he urged that there be a form of Christianity that would recognize the contemporary loss of God and exert its influence through what was left. Other proponents of the death of God had the same assessment of God's status in contemporary culture, but were to draw different conclusions.
Thomas J. Altizer believed that God had really died. Nonetheless, Altizer often spoke in exaggerated and dialectic language, occasionally with heavy overtones of Oriental mysticism. Sometimes knowing exactly what Altizer meant when he spoke in dialectical opposites is difficult such as "God is dead, thank God" Apparently the real meaning of Altizer's belief that God had died is to be found in his belief in God's immanence. To say that God has died is to say that he has ceased to exist as a transcendent, supernatural being. Alternately, he has become fully immanent in the world. The result is an essential identity between the human and the divine. God died in Christ in this sense, and the process has continued time and again since then. Altizer claims the church tried to give God life again and put him back in heaven by its doctrines of resurrection and ascension. However, the traditional doctrines about God and Christ must be repudiated because man has discovered after nineteen centuries that God does not exist. Christians must even now will the death of God by which the transcendent become immanent.
For William Hamilton the death of God describes the event many have experienced over the last two hundred years. They no longer accept the reality of God or the meaningfulness of language about him. Non theistic explanations have been substituted for theistic ones. This trend is irreversible, and everyone must come to terms with the historical-cultural -death of God. God's death must be affirmed and the secular world embraced as normative intellectually and good ethically. Doubtless, Hamilton was optimistic about the world, because he was optimistic about what humanity could do and was doing to solve its problems.
Paul van Buren is usually associated with death of God theology, although he him disavowed this connection. Yet, his disavowal seems hollow in the light of his book The Secular Meaning of the Gospel and his article "Christian Education Post Mortem Dei." In the former he accepts empiricism and the position of Bultmann that the world view of the Bible is mythological and untenable to modern people. In the latter he proposes an approach to Christian education that does not assume the existence of God but does assume ‘the death of God’ and that ‘God is gone’. Van Buren was concerned with the linguistic aspects of God's existence and death. He accepted the premise of empirical analytic philosophy that real knowledge and meaning can be conveyed only by language that is empirically verifiable. This is the fundamental principle of modern secularists and is the only viable option in this age. If only empirically verifiable language is meaningful, by that very fact all language that refers to or assumes the reality of God is meaningless, since one cannot verify God's existence by any of the five senses. Theism, belief in God, is not only intellectually untenable, it is meaningless. In, The Secular Meaning of the Gospel van Buren seeks to reinterpret the Christian faith without reference to God. One searches the book in vain for even one clue, that van Buren is anything but a secularist trying to translate Christian ethical values into that language game. There is a decided shift in van Buren's later book Discerning the Way, however.
In retrospect, there was clearly no single death of God Theology, only death of God theologies. Their real significance was that modern theology, by giving up the essential elements of Christian belief in God, had logically led to what was really antitheologies. When the death of God theologies passed off the scene, the commitment to secularism remained and manifested it in other forms of secular theology in the late 1960s and the 1970s.
Nietzsche is unchallenged as the most insightful and powerful critic of the moral climate of the 19th century (and of what of it remains in ours). His exploration of unconscious motivation anticipated Freud. He is notorious for stressing the ‘will to power’ that is the basis of human nature, the ‘resentment’ that comes when it is denied its basis in action, and the corruptions of human nature encouraged by religion, such as Christianity, that feed on such resentment. Yet the powerful human being who escape all this, the Ubermensch, is not the ‘blood beast’ of later fascism: It is a human being who has mastered passion, risen above the senseless flux, and given creative style to his or her character. Nietzsche’s free spirits recognize themselves by their joyful attitude to eternal return. He frequently presents the creative artist rather than the warlord as his best exemplar of the type, but the disquieting fact remains that he seems to leave him no words to condemn any uncaged beast of prey whose best to find their style by exerting repulsive power find their style by exerting repulsive power over others. This problem is no t helped by Nietzsche’s frequently expressed misogyny, although in such matters the interpretation of his many-layered and ironic writings is no always straightforward. Similarly y, such Anti-Semitism as has been found in his work is balanced by an equally vehement denunciation of anti-Semitism, and an equal or greater dislike of the German character of his time.
Nietzsche’s current influence derives not only from his celebration of will, but more deeply from his scepticism about the notions of truth and act. In particular, he anticipated any of the central tenets of postmodernism: an aesthetic attitude toward the world that sees it as a ‘text’; the denial of facts; the denial of essences; the celebration of the plurality of interpretation and of the fragmented, as well as the downgrading of reason and the politicization of discourse. All awaited rediscoveries in the late 20th century. Nietzsche also has the incomparable advantage over his followers of being a wonderful stylist, and his Perspectivism is echoed in the shifting array of literary devices-humour, irony, exaggeration, aphorisms, verse, dialogue, parody-with that he explores human life and history.
Yet, it is nonetheless, that we have seen, the origins of the present division that can be traced to the emergence of classical physics and the stark Cartesian division between mind and the bodily world is two separate substances, the is as it happened associated with a particular body, but is -subsisting, and capable of independent existence, yet Cartesian duality, much as the ‘ego’ that we are tempted to imagine as a simple unique thing that makes up our essential identity, but, seemingly sanctioned by this physics. The tragedy of the Western mind, well represented in the work of a host of writers, artists, and intellectual, is that the Cartesian division was perceived as uncontrovertibly real.
Beginning with Nietzsche, those who wished to free the realm of the mental from the oppressive implications of the mechanistic world-view sought to undermine the alleged privileged character of the knowledge called physicians with an attack on its epistemological authority. After Husserl tried and failed to save the classical view of correspondence by grounding the logic of mathematical systems in human consciousness, this not only resulted in a view of human consciousness that became characteristically postmodern. It also represents a direct link with the epistemological crisis about the foundations of logic and number in the late nineteenth century that foreshadowed the epistemological crisis occasioned by quantum physics beginning in the 1920's. This, as a result in disparate views on the existence of oncology and the character of scientific knowledge that fuelled the conflict between the two.
If there were world enough and time enough, the conflict between each that both could be viewed as an interesting artifact in the richly diverse coordinative systems of higher education. Nevertheless, as the ecological crisis teaches us, the ‘old enough’ capable of sustaining the growing number of our life firms and the ‘time enough’ that remains to reduce and reverse the damage we are inflicting on this world ae rapidly diminishing. Therefore, put an end to the absurd ‘betweeness’ and go on with the business of coordinate human knowledge in the interest of human survival in a new age of enlightenment that could be far more humane and much more enlightened than any has gone before.
It now, which it is, nonetheless, that there are significant advances in our understanding to a purposive mind. Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary approach to cognition that draws primarily on ideas from cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics and logic. Some philosophers may be cognitive scientists, and others concern themselves with the philosophy of cognitive psychology and cognitive science. Since inauguration of cognitive science these disciplines have attracted much attention from certain philosophers of mind. This has changed the character of philosophy of mind, and there are areas where philosophical work on the nature of mind is continuous with scientific work. Yet, the problems that make up this field concern the ways of ‘thinking’ and ‘mental properties’ are those that these problems are standardly and traditionally regarded within philosophy of mind than those that emerge from the recent developments in cognitive science. The cognitive aspect is what has to be understood is to know what would make the sentence true or false. It is frequently identified with the truth cognition of the sentence. Justly as the scientific study of precesses of awareness, thought, and mental organization, often by means of computer modelling or artificial intelligence research. Contradicted by the evidence, it only has to do with is structure and the way it functioned, that is just because a theory does not mean that the scientific community currently accredits it. Generally, there are many theories, though technically scientific, have been rejected because the scientific evidence is strangely against it. The historical enquiry into the evolution of -consciousness, developing from elementary sense experience too fully rational, free, thought processes capable of yielding knowledge the presented term, is associated with the work and school of Husserl. Following Brentano, Husserl realized that intentionality was the distinctive mark of consciousness, and saw in it a concept capable of overcoming traditional mind-body dualism. The stud y of consciousness, therefore, maintains two sides: a conscious experience can be regarded as an element in a stream of consciousness, but also as a representative of one aspect or ‘profile’ of an object. In spite of Husserl’s rejection of dualism, his belief that there is a subject-matter lingering back, behind and yet remaining after each era of time, or bracketing of the content of experience, associates him with the priority accorded to elementary experiences in the parallel doctrine of phenomenalism, and phenomenology has partly suffered from the eclipse of that approach to problems of experience and reality. However, later phenomenologists such as Merleau-Ponty do full justice to the world-involving nature of Phenomenological theories are empirical generalizations of data experience, or manifest in experience. More generally, the phenomenal aspects of things are the aspects that show themselves, than the theoretical aspects that are inferred or posited in order to account for them. They merely described the recurring process of nature and do not refer to their cause or that, in the words of J.S. Mill, ‘objects are the permanent possibilities of sensation’. To inhabit a world of independent, external objects are, on this view, to be the subject of actual and possible orderly experiences. Espoused by Russell, the view issued in a programme of translating talk about physical objects and their locations into talking about possible experience. The attempt is widely supposed to have failed, and the priority the approach gives to experience has been much criticized. It is more common in contemporary philosophy to see experience as it a construct from the actual way of the world, than the other way round.
Phenomenological theories are also called ‘scientific laws’ ‘physical laws’ and ‘natural laws.’ Newton’s third law is one example, saying that, every action ha an equal and opposite reaction. ‘Explanatory theories’ attempt to explain the observations rather than generalized them. Whereas laws are descriptions of empirical regularities, explanatory theories are conceptual constrictions to explain why the data exit, for example, atomic theory explains why we see certain observations, the same could be said with DNA and relativity, Explanatory theories are particularly helpful in such cases where the entities (like atoms, DNA . . . ) cannot be directly observed.
What is knowledge? How does knowledge get to have the content it has? The problem of defining knowledge in terms of true belief plus some favoured relation between the believer and the facts begun with Plato, in that knowledge is true belief plus logos, as it is what enables us to apprehend the principle and firms, i.e., an aspect of our own reasoning.
What makes a belief justified for what measures of belief is knowledge? According to most epistemologists, knowledge entails belief, so that to know that such and such is the case. None less, there are arguments against all versions of the thesis that knowledge requires having a belief-like attitude toward the known. These arguments are given by philosophers who think that knowledge and belief or facsimile, are mutually incompatible (the incompatibility thesis) or by ones who say that knowledge does not entail belief, or vice versa, so that each may exist without the other, but the two may also coexist (the separability thesis). The incompatibility thesis that hinged on the equation of knowledge with certainty. The assumption that we believe in the truth of claim we are not certain about its truth. Given that belief always involves uncertainty, while knowledge never does, believing something rules out the possibility of knowledge knowing it. Again, given to no reason to grant that states of belief are never ones involving confidence. Conscious beliefs clearly involve some level of confidence, to suggest otherwise, that we cease to believe things about which we are completely confident is bizarre.
A.D. Woozley (1953) defends a version of the separability thesis. Woozley’s version that deals with psychological certainty than belief per se, is that knowledge can exist without confidence about the item known, although knowledge might also be accompanied by confidence as well. Woozley says, ‘what In can do, where what In can do may include answering questions.’ On the basis of this remark he suggests that even when people are unsure of the truth of a claim, they might know that the claim is true. We unhesitatingly attribute knowledge to people that correct responses on examinations if those people show no confidence in their answers. Woozley has given to acknowledge that it would be odd for those who lack confidence to claim knowledge. Saying it would be peculiar, ‘In know it is correct.’ But this tension; still ‘In know is correct.’ Woozley explains, using a distinction between condition under which are justified in making a claim (such as a claim to know something) and conditioned under which the claim we make is true. While ‘In know such and such’ might be true even if In answered whether such and such holds, nonetheless claiming that ‘In know that such should be inappropriate for me and such unless In was sure of the truth of my claim.’
Colin Redford (1966) extends Woozley’s defence of the separability thesis. In Redford’s view, not only in knowledge compatible with the lacking of certainty, it is also compatible with a complete lack of belief. He argues by example, in this one example, Jean had forgotten that he learned some English history years prior and yet he is able to give several correct responses to questions such as, ‘When did the Battle of Hastings occur?’ since he forgot that the battle of Hastings took place in 1066 in history, he considers his correct response to be no more than guesses. Thus when he says that the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066 he would deny having the belief that the Battle of Hasting took place in 1066.
Those who agree with Radford’s defence of the separation thesis will probably think of belief as an inner state that can be directed through introspection. That Jean lacks’ beliefs out English history are plausible on this Cartesian picture since Jean does not find him with the belief out of which the English history when with any beliefs about English history when he seeks them out. One might criticize Radford, however, by rejecting the Cartesian view of belief. One could argue that some beliefs are thoroughly unconscious. For example, (1859), according to which having beliefs is a matter of the way people are disposed to behave (and has not Radford already adopted a behaviourist conception of knowledge?) Since Jean gives the correct response when queried, a form of verbal behaviour, a behaviourist would be tempted to credit him with the belief that the battle of Hastings occurred in 1066.
Once, again, but the jargon is attributable to different attitudinal values. AS, D. M. Armstrong (1973) makes a different task against Radford. Jean does know that the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066. Armstrong will grant Radford that points, which in fact, Armstrong suggests that Jean believe that 1066 is not the actual date that did occur of the Battle of Hastings. For Armstrong parallels the belief of such and such is just possible bu t no more than just possible with the belief that such and such is not the case. However, Armstrong insists Jean also believe that the Battle did occur in 1066. After all, had Jean been mistaught that the Battle occurred in 1066, and had he forgotten being ‘taught’ this and subsequently ‘guessed’ that it took place in 10690, we would surely describe the situation as one in which Jean’ false belief about te Battle became a memory trace that was causally responsible or his guess. Thus while Jean consciously believes that the Battle did not occur in 1066, unconsciously he does believe it occurred in 1066. So after all, Radford does not have a counterexample to the claim that knowledge entails belief.
Suppose that Jean’s memory had been sufficiently powerful to produce the relevant belief. As Radford says, Jan has every reason to suppose that his response is mere guesswork, and so he has every reason to consider his belief false. His belief would be an irrational one, and hence one about whose truth Jean would be ignorant.
The attempt to understand the conceptual representation that is involved in religious belief, existence, necessity, fate, creation, sun, justice, Mercy, Redemption, God. Until the 20th century the history of western philosophy is closely intertwined with attempts to make sense of aspect of pagan, Jewish or Christian religion, while in other tradition such as Hinduism, Buddhism or Taoism, there is even less distinction between religious and philosophical enquiry. The classic problem of conceiving an appropriate object of religious belief is that of understanding whether any term can be predicated of it: Does it make to any sense of talking about its creating to things, willing events, or being one thing or many? The via negativa of Theology is to claim that God can only be known by denying ordinary terms of any application (or them); Another influential suggestion is that ordinary term only apply metaphorically, sand that there is in hope of cashing the metaphors. Once a description of a Supreme Being is hit upon, there remains the problem of providing any reason for supposing that anything answering to the description exists. The medieval period was the high-water mark-for purported proof of the existence of God, such as the Five-Ays of Aquinas, or the ontological argument of such proofs have fallen out of general favour since the 18th century, although theories still sway many people and some philosophers.
Generally speaking, even religious philosophers (or perhaps, they especially) have been wary of popular manifestations of religion. Kant, him a friend of religious faith, nevertheless distinguishes various perversions: Theosophy (using transcendental conceptions that confuses reason), demonology (indulging an anthropomorphic, mode of representing the Supreme Being), theurgy (a fanatical delusion that feeling can be communicated from such a being, or that we can exert an influence on it), and idolatry, or a superstition’s delusion the one can make one acceptable to his Supreme Being by order by means than that of having the moral law at heart (Critique of judgement) these warm conversational tendencies have, however, been increasingly important in modern Theology.
Since Feuerbach there has been a growing tendency for philosophy of religion either to concentrate upon the social and anthropological dimension of religious belief, or to treat a manifestation of various explicable psychological urges. Another reaction is retreat into a celebration of purely subjective existential commitments. Still, the ontological arguments continue to attach attention. Modern anti-fundamentalists trends in epistemology are not entirely hostile to cognitive claims based on religious experience.
Still, the problem f reconciling the subjective or psychological nature of mental life with its objective and logical content preoccupied from of which is next of the problem was elephantine Logische untersuchungen (trans. as Logical Investigations, 1070). To keep a subjective and a naturalistic approach to knowledge together. Abandoning the naturalism in favour of a kind of transcendental idealism. The precise nature of his change is disguised by a penchant for new and impenetrable terminology, but the ‘bracketing’ of eternal questions for which are to a great extent acknowledged implications of a solipistic, disembodied Cartesian ego is its starting-point, with it thought of as inessential that the thinking subject is ether embodied or surrounded by others. However by the time of Cartesian Meditations (trans. as, 1960, fist published in French as Méditations Carthusianness, 1931), a shift in priorities has begun, with the embodied individual, surrounded by others, than the disembodied Cartesian ego now returned to a fundamental position. The extent to which the desirable shift undermines the programme of phenomenology that is closely identical with Husserl’s earlier approach remains unclear, until later phenomenologists such as Merleau -Ponty has worked fruitfully from the later standpoint.
Pythagoras established and was the central figure in school of philosophy, religion, and mathematics: He was apparently viewed by his followers as semi-divine. For his followers the regular solids (symmetrical three-dimensional forms in which all sides are the same regular polygon) with ordinary language. The language of mathematical and geometric forms seem closed, precise and pure. Providing one understood the axioms and notations, and the meaning conveyed was invariant from one mind to another. The Pythagoreans following which was the language empowering the mind to leap beyond the confusion of sense experience into the realm of immutable and eternal essences. This mystical insight made Pythagoras the figure from antiquity must revered by the creators of classical physics, and it continues to have great appeal for contemporary physicists as they struggle with the epistemological of the quantum mechanical description of nature.
Pythagoras (570 Bc) was the son of Mn esarchus of Samos ut, emigrated (531 Bc) to Croton in southern Italy. Here he founded a religious society, but were forces into exile and died at Metapomtum. Membership of the society entailed -disciplined, silence and the observance of his taboos, especially against eating flesh and beans. Pythagoras taught the doctrine of metempsychosis or the cycle of reincarnation, and remained as to remember their former existence. The soul, which as its own divinity and may have existed as an animal or plant, can, however gain release by a religious dedication to study, after which it may rejoin the universal world-soul. Pythagoras is usually, but doubtfully, accredited with having discovered the basis of acoustics, the numerical ratios underlying the musical scale, thereby intimating the arithmetical interpretation of nature. This tremendous success inspired the view that the whole of the cosmos should be explicable in terms of harmonia or number. The view represents a magnificent brake from the Milesian attempt to ground physics on a conception shared by all things, and to concentrate instead on form, meaning that physical nature receives an approachable foundation in different geometric breaks. The view is vulgarized in the doctrine usually attributed to Pythagoras, that all things are number. However, the association of abstract qualitites with numbers, but reached remarkable heights, with occult attachments for instance, between justice and the number four, and mystical significance, especially of the number ten, cosmologically Pythagoras explained the origin of the universe in mathematical terms, as the imposition of limits on the limitless by a kind of injection of a unit. Followers of Pythagoras included Philolaus, the earliest cosmosologist known to have understood that the earth is a moving planet. It is also likely that the Pythagoreans discovered the irrationality of the square root of two.
The Pythagoreans considered numbers to be among te building blocks of the universe. In fact, one of the most central of the beliefs of Pythagoras mathematical, his inner circle, was that reality was mathematical in nature. This made numbers valuable tools, and over time even the knowledge of a number’s name came to be associated with power. If you could name something you had a degree of control over it, and to have power over the numbers was to have power over nature.
One, for example, stood for the mind, emphasizing its Oneness. Two was opinion, taking a step away from the singularity of mind. Three was wholeness (whole needs a beginning, a middle and its ending to be more than a one-dimensional point), and four represented the stable squareness of justice. Five was marriage-being the sum of three and two, the first odd (male) and even (female) numbers. (Three was the first odd number because the number one was considered by the Greeks to be so special that it could not form part of an ordinary grouping of numbers).
It should be noted that Murray wrote his book in 1964 when communism was still perceived by many as the world’s greatest threat. Had he written it a few years later he may have decided to call his atheist of communist world Revolution something else. Evidently, what he is truly talking about is any philosophy that suggests human beings can create a utopian world completely on their own. Nowadays we might refer to this as the atheist of the techno-revolution, or the atheist of humanism-which, again, values our expectation that our own inventiveness will save us.
The second kind of atheist, the atheist of the Theatre, refers to the sort of person who simply tries to exist in a godless world. The atheist of the Theatre is a tragic character who wants the best for the world but feels helpless to do much about it and is ultimately reduced to a mere spectator. "His mind is full of darkness," writes Murray, "it is oppressed with a sense of the finitude and fragility of existence; it shivers before the un-predictabilities of history."10 Unlike the atheist of the Revolution who links freedom with freedom from poverty, the atheist of the Theatre wants freedom from the angst of a purposeless and uncertain existence. Such a person can only accomplish this through -invention or -determination. This, however, cannot be accomplished so long as God lives. If God is present, then God is the inventor of the human being who has no choice but to adhere to a predetermined nature and destiny. So, in order for the atheist of the Theatre to gain the freedom to chart one’s own destiny, God must be dismissed.
As different as these two types may appear, Murray suggests they share several characteristics in common. Firstly, they both take the presence of evil as evidence of God’s nonexistence. Secondly, they both accept the death of God, that is, belief in God is irrelevant. Thirdly, atheism is a postulate they feel obliged to express. This is to say that not only do they not believe in God, but they feel such a belief is somehow harmful, primarily because it is detrimental to freedom.
Of course, the deaths of God pundits have not been met without plenty of criticism. Nonetheless, they simply respond by claiming their critics choose to avoid the modern condition by clinging to archaic and meaningless fantasies. As Thomas Ogletree has written concerning The Death of God Controversy, "The refusal of God’s death amounted to a nostalgic desire to avoid the present moment by a flight into a past that is no more. The notion of God’s death has become so prominent and argument that there have been several Deaths of God theologians who have attempted to abstract positive meaning from Christianity while accepting the death of God philosophy. Ogletree’s book introduces us to three such theologians, William Hamilton, Paul Van Buren and Thomas J.J. Altizer.
For Hamilton, the death of God implies that God can no longer be thought of as a "need-fulfiller and problem-solver." He rejects the idea that God is a kind of candy dispenser or "cosmic bellhop," ever ready to attend to humanity’s needs. Unlike those Christians who cling to their idea of God, even in the wake of divine irrelevance, by rejecting contemporary society and holding to tradition, Hamilton seems to have found a way to have his cake and eat it too. For Hamilton, the Christian’s task is to find God by returning to society and becoming active in the alleviation of human suffering. This is not entirely different from the idea expounded by Paul Van Buren who wrote, ". . . . If In understand the nature and development of Christianity, In would want to argue that what Christianity is basically about is a certain form of life-patterns of human existence, norms of human attitudes, and dispositions and moral behaviour."14 For these two theologians there are something in Christianity that presents a viable, even necessary, way of living even in the wake of God’s death.
Thomas Altizer takes the matter as step further by insinuating that God must die in order for Jesus to live. The modern problem of God might best be illustrated in the argument that only God is or only the world is-the sacred or the profane, pantheism vs. materialism. The modern atheist chooses the world, the material, the profane. "If there is one clear portal to the twentieth century," writes Altizer, "it is a passage through the death of God, the collapse of any meaning or reality lying beyond the newly discovered radical immanence of modern man, immanently dissolving even the memory or the shadow of transcendence."15 The loss of transcendence, however, is not understood by Altizer as the loss of the sacred but as the redemption of the profane. God is not killed by modern humanity, but sacrifices God- to humanity by entering into the profane world via the Christ, God made flesh. Although those who cling to Christian tradition will likely consider such a radical notion as heresy, it seems somehow comforting to think that God might somehow dwell among us, in our very suffering and profanity.
So far In have spoken as if the death of God is to be taken for granted, as if it is an undeniable fact of the modern condition. This, however, is a presupposition In am not entirely sure of. Just this week In spent several days in Washington, D.C. and had the opportunity to hear all of Kentucky’s State Representatives and U.S. Senator Jim Bunning address a large group of their constituents. Without fail, each one of them had something to say about God, mostly in reference to George W. Bush and his intention to go to war with Iraq. Congressman Ken Lucas, the only Democrat among Kentucky’s Washington delegation, asked the group to pray for Mr. Bush and concluded by saying "the Almighty is with him." Congressman Ernie Fletcher, who hopes to become the next Kentucky Governor, spoke of a presentation he attended during the Gideon Bible Society as presented by Mr. Bush in which its one-billionth printed Bible. Mr. Bush responded by assuring those present that the "Will of God" is his top priority. Representative Ann Northup referred to him as a "deeply spiritual man," and Harold Rogers publicly thanked God that Mr. Bush was in office at the time of 911. In regard to war with Iraq, Representative Ron Lewis quoted Abraham Lincoln’s reference to the Civil War by saying "the question is not whether or not God is on our side, but whether or not we are on God’s side." Finally, U.S. Senator Jim Bunning boasted about a Senate resolution supporting the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, thanked God for George W. Bush, and concluded by warning the audience that in light of pressing problems "we must keep our faith in God or we won’t survive as a people or as a nation."
Perhaps you will agree, it doesn’t sound like those who represent the people of at least one State in the Nation are atheists. The fact is that the people of the United States remain highly religious, especially compared with the rest of the Western world. According to an article in The Economist entitled The Fight for God, 47% of the people in the United States regularly attend church services, as compared with only 20% in Western Europe and 14% in Eastern Europe. What is more, is that only 2% of the population in the United States actually claims to be atheists?
Yet these statistics do not necessarily mean all of this talk about the death of God has been for not, but they serve as a framework for reinterpreting the meaning of God’s death. In would suggest that even though the idea of God lives on, the experience of God having died. In this sense the death of God may have begun much earlier than with the rise of science and technology. It was during the Patristic age of the early Church Fathers that the problem became purely ontological, that is, asking the question "What is God?" Rather than "Is God with us?" This arose over the controversy concerning Jesus’ divinity. Is he human or God? If he is God, what then is God? Tertullian tried to solve the problem with a biological and an anthropomorphic answer, claiming the Father and the Son are both part of a single organism and share the same mind and will. Origen claimed the Son (Logos) emanates from the Father in a diminished capacity. Arius taught that there was a time "when he was not," which is to say Jesus, although a perfect creature is nonetheless a creation of God. All of this became heresy after the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, after it was determined that the Father and the Son are of the same substance (homoousios), relying heavily upon Athenasius of Alexandria’s credo that the Son is like the Father in every way except for the name Father. The Nicene Creed ushered in the age of Christian scholasticism that gave birth to thinkers like Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine, but it also dramatically altered the nature of the Problem of God.
Before this event the Problem of God had always been about the living God and whether or not such is God who dwells with us, rather than the distant and abstract God of theological debate. The Problem of God, which is a uniquely western theological term, is rooted deep within the Judeo/Christian tradition, beginning with the Biblical story of Moses’ encounter with the burning bush. When Moses asks God’s name, God replies, "ehyeh ser ehyeh" In am who In am. Murray understands this to mean God is present with the people.
Ancient people did not think abstractly about God. Nor did they wonder why evil and suffering were in the world. They took the existence of both for granted. What they wanted to know was whether or not God would be with them in the midst of their struggles. In Exodus, for instance, the Israelites are reported to have asked, "Is the Lord among us or not?" Murray breaks the Old Testament Problem of God into four questions, the Existential question, Is God here with us now? The Functional question, How will this God who is with us save us? The Noetic question, How is this God who is present to be known? The Onomastic question, How is this God who is present among us to be named? After Jesus came on the scene, these questions remained essentially the same, but were answered through the lens of the Christ.
This sort of question implies a desire to have intimate knowledge of the Divine. They are questions about how we ought to conduct our lives rather than about abstract thoughts and concepts. If there is any value to having a belief in God today, perhaps these sort of question ought to be at the heart of such belief, less we remain as those who would contribute to the pain and suffering of others by making war and poverty while paying intellectual lip service to an abstract notion of God. Perhaps, furthermore, the Problem of God is not a problem that is to be solved or ought to be solved. Early theologians celebrated the fact that God cannot be truly known. As Thomas Aquinas said, "One thing that remains completely unknown in this life, namely, what God is."19 Augustine said similarly, "If you have comprehended, what you have comprehended is not God." Or as Cryil of Jerusalem said, "In the things of God the confession of no knowledge is great knowledge." "It is by this ignorance, as long as life lasts, that we are best united with God," wrote Aquinas, "This is the darkness in which God dwells."
So the Problem of God remains today very much the same as it has throughout history. Even in our limited understanding and modern disbelief in the relevance of God, we want to know, in the midst of the turmoil, suffering and evil we face today, is it possible that God is with us? Or are we left alone to deal these problems completely on our own? Are we creatures of purpose and destiny, or must we choose our own way? Do we need God? In their book The Invisible Landscape, Terrence and Dennis McKenna write; Western humans have lost their sense of unity with the cosmos and with the transcendent mystery within themselves. Modern science has given us a picture of human beings as accidental products of random evolutionary processes in a universe that is it without purpose or meaning. This alienation of modern humans from the numinous ground of their beings has engendered the existentialist ethic and the contemporary preoccupation with the immediate historical situation. Humans are regarded as leading a wholly profane existence within a wholly profane time, which is within history; the reality of the sacred is denied or reduced to the level of psychology.
In the end it would seem the Problem of God is ultimately the Problem of Humanity, for it is our suffering that draws us toward the idea of God, and repels us from it.
Friedrich Nietzsche had very different opinions concerning the man known to history as Jesus Christ and his legacy, and the religion called Christianity. As a well-known philosopher of contemporary times, Nietzsche's reputation with Christianity is severely ambiguous, as a result of a "long customary" association with the Nazi Party of Germany, which, as one critic points out, is "like linking St. Francis with the Inquisition in which the order he founded played a major role." Still, despite much misunderstanding and prejudice, Nietzsche's influence on the world remains consistently strong, as "few thinkers of any age equal his influence." Nietzsche's philosophy is rooted in his own interpretation of the life of Jesus of Nazareth and the history of Christianity, as he considered him the first philosopher of the "irrevocable anti-Christian era" from which all Christian and secular systems associated with Christianity would henceforth bow. Nietzsche, however, does not see this new era in the history of the world as essentially negative; he believes that he is the first of 'the new way'; and "things will be different," positively. Furthermore, one must understand Nietzsche's position on Jesus and Christianity, the most crucial part of his philosophical system, as separate issues, to appreciate completely and comprehend the rest.
To this end, Nietzsche is clear that he has different attitudes about Jesus and Christianity. This distinction is "no less than the distinction between life and death, the great 'Yes' and the decadent 'No.'" Furthermore, there is a "severance" between Jesus and the Christian tradition. This is clearly a result, according to Nietzsche, of the greediness and short-sightedness of St. Paul, who lock up Christianity so much that the religion has little in common with the ideas and teachings that its founder represented. As a consequence, Western society has gone backwards, Nietzsche writes, "everything is visibly becoming Judiazed, Christianized, moblike (what does the words matter)."
Nietzsche considers him "the atheist," whose challenges against Christianity all Christians must now face and consider. Although he admits that he is "an opponent of Christianity de riguer," Nietzsche has a distinct respect for the man Jesus. While Nietzsche does not go so far as to embrace all of the ideas and teachings of Jesus, he clearly draws a clear dichotomy between Jesus and Nazareth and "the Christ of the creeds"Cand what Nietzsche is most concerned with is the historical Jesus. The end of Nietzsche's analysis of Jesus and Christianity is a request for the reassessment of Western culture's values, especially religious values, which call for the eventual expulsion of Christianity as he knew it.
In short, Nietzsche respects and admires Jesus of Nazareth, "but denies that he has any meaning for our age" Nietzsche believes the Jewish contention that Jesus is not the Messiah and that the Messiah has not yet appeared in history. Even so, Nietzsche reveres Jesus as no other character in history, particularly because he came to know Jesus as the very opposite of Christianity. Nietzsche writes as a philologist, "The word 'Christianity' is already a misunderstanding reality there has only been one Christian, and he died on the Cross." While leaving such an impact on the world is admirable (and a good characteristic of a Übermensch), Nietzsche "could know Jesus as the greatest and truest revolutionary in history," despite the sour legacy he left.
Despite all of this hostility, Nietzsche looked upon the symbol of the crucified Christ as “the most sublime of all symbols." Nonetheless, Jesus remains the only Christian in whom will ever have lived, yet he was crucified by mortals. The Christians were making their professed faith a weird comedy. The cross, to Nietzsche, is a "ghastly paradox" that revolves around the idea of "God of the cross." This concept is absurd to Nietzsche, who wonders how it is logical that the "mystery of an unimaginable and ultimate cruelty and -crucifixion of God for the salvation of man?" Furthermore, Nietzsche comments:
God him sacrifices him for the guilt of humankind, God him makes payment to him, God as the only being who can redeem man from what has become unredeemable for man him, the creditor sacrifices him for his debtor, out of love (one can credit that?) Out of love for his debtor-Nietzsche sees this entire concept of a crucified god as utterly ridiculous and ironic for a god to do so "out of love." While "Christianity's -sacrificing God make’s infinite its adherents' guilt and debt," Nietzsche observes, "Jesus had done away with the concept of 'guilt.'" Yet, to Nietzsche, Jesus, like him, had come "too early" and died "too young . . . not 'at the right time.'" They were both revolutionaries who were rebelling against the old ways.
Clearly, Nietzsche is interested in a historical assemblage of Jesus, who, nonetheless, left no writings, as Nietzsche had to go to the next best source, the Gospels, which he despised. Nietzsche writes that the Bible is "the greatest audacity and 'sin against the spirit' that literary Europe has on its conscience." As a result, while Jesus preached and taught about freedom, Nietzsche believed that "it was immediately transformed by those who preached it (and especially by Paul) to assert their own power."
Nietzsche is convinced that Jesus him would deny "everything that today is called Christian." Critic William Hubben argues that Jesus was literally an anarchist, who "attacked the Jewish hierarchy, the 'just' and supreme rulers," and died for these sins, absolutely not for the sins of others. Nietzsche recognized that Jesus had supposedly expelled the world from the concepts of guilt and sin, wondering, "[h]ow could he have died for the sins of others?" Furthermore, while some Christians viewed Jesus as a completely divine judge of 'the quick and the dead,' Nietzsche viewed Jesus as anything but a judge: "Jesus opposed those who judged others, and wanted to destroy the morality existing in his age" (emphasis added). Nonetheless, one can be assured that Nietzsche "reveres the life and death of Jesus." However, it is not in the same way that a traditional "Christian" reveres Jesus; as critic Walter Kaufmann writes, “instead of interpreting it [Jesus' life] as a promise of another world and another life, and instead of conceding the divinity of Jesus, Nietzsche insists: Ecce Homo! Man can live and die in a grand style, working out his own salvation instead of relying on the sacrifice of another." Nietzsche, then, does not 'believe in Jesus' in the creedal tradition, but respects him as a worthy opponent.
More specifically, Nietzsche views Jesus as his only true opponent. He closes, in the last line of his autobiographical Ecce Homo, "Have In been understood? -Dionysus verses the Crucified." In interpret this line as Nietzsche recognizing that Jesus is the highest of competitors to Nietzsche's own "Dionysian ideal for man." This statement is also meant as an ironic contrast; That is, a contrast between "the tragic life verses life under the cross": The roller-coaster, "dangerous" life of the Übermensch (as exemplified by Goethe) verses weakness.
In the sum, Nietzsche's interpretation of the life of Jesus, while suspicious, contrasts his feelings surrounding Christianity; Recognizing a major difference between the historical Jesus and the Jesus of the creeds. To this end, the events surrounding Jesus' death, rather than his resurrection becomes pivotal, as Nietzsche writes, "Jesus him could not have desired anything by his death but publicly to offer the sternest test, the proof of his teaching . . . But his disciples were far from forgiving his death." Thus, after Jesus' death, his followers asked, "Who killed him? Who was his natural enemy? This came like a flash of lightning," and their answer was, "Judaism," the ruling class. The offspring of this, Christianity, for Nietzsche became "another in a line of failed attempts to understand the teachings of the great creators and transformers of life"; in other words, the creedal, pre-modern Jesus has no relevance to a contemporary, post-modern society.
Nietzsche has an obvious dislike of Christianity because of its unfaithfulness to the teachings of its supposed founder, Jesus of Nazareth, the flawed morality of Christians, and the warped concept of the Christian God. Nietzsche calls Christianity "the religion of pity," as it represents weakness in every form of which he can think. Furthermore, churches has little influence legitimate justification for influence in the lives of humans today, as Nietzsche asks, "does the church today still have any necessary role to play? Does it still have the right to exist? Or could one do without it? Quaeritur." To this interrogative, Nietzsche answers that the "future of humanity is. Placed in jeopardy" by institutional Christianity, which "destroys the instincts out of which affirmative institutions develop." In other words, Christianity hinders the progress of humanity. What is more, Christian morality is hell-bent on defining the world as "ugly and bad," and has therefore made the world "ugly and bad." To make things worse, "Christianity has created a fictitious world," where nothing is dared to be questioned, and as a result, the world will break down-this way "must vanish" (emphasis added). To Nietzsche, Christianity is little more than an opiate, that is, as mentioned earlier, a weak religion of the herd.
It was stated above that Nietzsche believes that the only Christian died on the cross, and this is 'Christianity' in its purest sense. However, as far as Christians today know, understand, and define Christianity, Nietzsche says that there have never been any Christians: "The 'Christian' that which has been called a Christian for two millennia, is merely a psychological -misunderstanding." Nietzsche blames the 'corruption' of Christianity on the "first Christians," who created the very same institution that Jesus was rebelling against, Judaism, when they founded Christianity and the worst of these "first Christians," was Paul, as Nietzsche writes: "The life, the example, the teaching, the death, the meaning and the right of the entire Gospel nothing was left once this hate-obsessed false-coiner had grasped what alone he could make use of. Not the reality, not the historical truth!" In fact, Nietzsche argues, it was Paul who condemned Christianity to its present stagnant state by making "this indecency of an interpretation," that is, “'If Christ is not resurrected from the dead our faith is vain.'All at once the Evangel became the most contemptible of all unfulfillable promises, the impudent doctrine of personal immortality."
Since the evolution of the Greek polis in the fourth century BC, man has attempted to live in a civilized society. Society was developed due to the common needs of commerce, and safety of the people in a relatively small geographic area. To create order out of an ancient, chaotic, tribal system, the constraints of laws were needed, and a government to enforce them. Common virtues, ethics, and morals emerged with the establishment of the Greek city-state. This made communication between the people easier and devised a valuation of what was "right" and "wrong." These valuations endured for centuries with little question, until the late nineteenth century.
Friedrick Nietzsche challenged all ideas that had not only come before him, but also those which proliferated during his own period. He "deconstructed" society and its "noble lies" in an attempt to show us that man "is something to be overcome." He attempted to debase all of society by proving values, ethics, and the like are errors of humanity. If you destroy the order of society by destroying everything it values, can any society still exist, or better yet, could the destroyer still exist within society? Would Nietzsche be comfortable in any society? To what extent can we use the hammer and still remain a part of society? These are my "question marks." In order to answer these questions, first it is necessary to determine what Nietzsche found so base in herd morality.
Nietzsche writes in The Gay Science, morality ranks "human drives and actions, [and] always express(es) the needs of a community and herd: whatever profits it." Instead of man creating his own valuations of "good" and "evil," the "herd" gives them to him, denying man of his individuality. Therefore, man becomes a "function of the herd." The word "individual" becomes a profanity, and individualism is punished with exile; "freedom of thought counted as discontentment itself."
When individualism became discontentment, guilt and conscience were created. Anytime an action damaged the "herd," it "created pangs of conscience for the individual." This overabundance of guilt destroyed man's pride and condemned him to become a "camel." The camel bears the load of his master throughout his existence, and stores his own guilt in his humps. He takes away his master's load, and anytime he drops a portion of that load, his hump stores more guilt. Herd morality does this to the individual. It forces the individual to take the burden of existence from the creators of the morality and feel guilt when they do not maintain the burden.
"The spirit of revenge: my friends that up to now, has been mankind's chief concern, and where there was suffering there was always supposed to be punishment." Nietzsche uses Socrates as primary proof of revenge, resentment, and ressentiment in morality. The poor, ordinary, construction worker received word from the Delphic oracle that "none is smarter than Socrates." Using dialectic as his method, he proceeded to question the men of Athens; "the dialectician lays on his opponent the burden of proving that he is not an idiot. He infuriates and at the same time paralyses" according to Nietzsche. Socrates used dialectic to enact his revenge on the nobility of declining Athens, and prove himself worthy of nobility. The same nobles he resented, he desired to become. He took his resentment inward and expressed it as revenge-ressentiment-and subsequently applied this universally as a virtue. Thousands of years later people are still using his methods. Why should one person's idiosyncratic virtue be applied to everyone? Zarathustra also speaks of the revenge in morality.
In the first discourse of Zarathustra, he tells the town of the Motley Cow, "fire of love and fire of anger glow in the name of all virtues." This is not love of man, or even humanity, that Nietzsche is speaking of. Rather, it is obedience and rule that are the "fire of love." The "fire of anger" is the resentment of the "good" against what has been done to them in the past. They have suffered therefore, everyone must, since "they knew no other way of loving their God than by nailing men to the cross." This suffering, due to resentment, is passed down the generations as tradition.
All herd morality is based in tradition. The "strength of our knowledge" doesn't lie in truth, but tradition and old mouldy volumes. Nietzsche writes in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, (one of my favourite lines) "even mold ennobles." The older a morality, virtue, or value is, the more revered it becomes. People accept postulates without proof. Why? Because it is tradition, "We have done this for generations. Therefore, it is the Truth. How can so many generations be wrong?" This attitude, based out of laziness, causes sleep.
People want the easiest road in life. So, rather than question preconceived beliefs, they simply believe for the sake of believing-they Sleep. Zarathustra speaks of the herd, "they are modest even in virtue-for they want ease." Either they go through motions and, rather than believe strongly in anything, believe "modest(ly)," or they are the martyrs, who take the burdens from everyone, "[and] go along, heavy and creaking, like carts carrying stones downhill."
Herd morality's most common basis is religion. Nietzsche writes in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, "God is a supposition: but I want your supposing to be grounded by conceivability." He goes on to say, "unfortunately, how weary I am of all the unattainable that is supposed to be reality." When belief in an "unattainable supposition" is the basis of a morality, isn't the morality also then unattainable, and based in supposition? And if this is true, then there is no "true" morality, and the Truth itself is then concealed from the masses.
The concealment of truth is the worst enemy of man. All of morality is based on lies. Nietzsche writes in the autobiographical Ecce Homo, "the lie of the ideal has been the curse of reality, by means of it, man's most basic instincts have become mendacious and false." Values that are "antagonistic" to the nature of man, the Dionysian nature, have been denied and labelled "evil." This "evil" of man is the "Truth." Nietzsche writes, "men have given themselves all their good and evil. Truly, they did not take it, they did not find it, it did not descend to them as a voice from heaven." "Evil" is not evil, rather a variation of good, there is no such thing as evil, it is a category created by man to provide a purpose to his existence-to be "good." Zarathustra states, "man first implanted values into things to maintain himself-he created a meaning of things, a human meaning." We created the values of the world, and in so doing gave it our own interpretation. We created the world in our own image. These lies have been fabricated to seal the truth of existence; existence is chaos.
Nietzsche saw that the noble lies of herd morality were set in stone, along with the error they were based upon. The error of these lies resulted in the destruction of individualism and freedom of man. This in turn, indicated the need for destruction of the stone tablets of herd morality. When men destroy these base values, transvaluations can follow. As Nietzsche says through Zarathustra, "he who has to be creator, always has to destroy." For the transvaluations to take place, Nietzsche needed to define how we should destroy and create and what type of values should be created.
To understand how the destruction should take place, Nietzsche speaks of his "hammer [which] rages fiercely against its prison." The "lion" destroys herd morality with his "hammer." The "hammer" is pure Dionysian-pure nihilism. However, an overflow of Dionysian intoxication will annihilate everything; a balance is required. Nietzsche adds the reason and wisdom of Apollo to create this balance. This reason and wisdom allows man to destroy the right moral enemies and create the right values. In this way, reason and will destroy together. Once we destroy all of man's enemies, there is one more thing to be destroyed. Zarathustra tells his disciples, "you must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame." We must sacrifice ourselves because we are only prophets of the "child," or "Ubermensch," and are still in some ways decadents ourselves.
In Zarathustra's third discourse, Nietzsche gives man guidelines for the type of new values he should create. Zarathustra tells his followers, " 'This is now my way: where is yours?' Thus I answered those who asked me 'the way.' For the way-does not exist!" Nietzsche wants no "parasites" or "disciples." These take the new table of values and make them universal, everyone is able to understand them and they become popular. Nietzsche wants man to create and "place above" himself his own values. In this way the values stay individual, but Nietzsche does provide, what appears to be, a general outline of the type of values we should create
"Do not spare your neighbours! Man is something that must be overcome!" Nietzsche is attacking the common Christian virtue: "love thy neighbour as thyself." This virtue is a show of the weak "will to power." He wants us to overcome this stale virtue and "destroy" even our neighbour. This is not to be taken literally as a killing, or mauling of our neighbour. Rather, he wants us to destroy our neighbour's values and in this sense we destroy him, showing him that man is something to be overcome
Nietzsche wants us to always "consider what [we] can give in return." We cannot desire anything for free, therefore we must fight and work for our morality. When people work hard for anything, they usually keep it close to them, and thus value it more than anything else. He expects us to do the opposite, "everything is in flux . . . [do not] firmly fix" your values and tables. We are still overcoming, and life itself is constantly overcoming, do not write your values in stone.
I will not deceive even myself," this affirmation of the will to truth is at the heart of Nietzsche's new morality. If we deceive ourselves, it is easy to fall back into the role of the "camel" and its herd morality. If we do not deceive ourselves, we shatter the "good" and the "just." They need our belief to survive, without our belief, they can't justify their existence. This is why "they hate the creator most," he destroys all that is "holy" to them.
We need to realize we will never become the"Ubermensch." We can only be prophets of his coming. As with all prophets, we must die to make way for the saviour, or as Nietzsche puts it , the "child." Unlike the "old-idol priests," who preserve their existence, Nietzsche wants us to die at the right time to prepare for the coming of the "child." The prophet can't enter the promised land, he must "go under," that is six feet under, to prepare for the coming of the "Ubermensch."
In order to create new values, the past has to be redeemed. To redeem it, a transformation of every "'It was,' until the will says: 'But I willed it thus! So shall I will it.'" is necessary? We have to "make amends to [our] children for being the children of [our] fathers”; and become yea-sayers, saying yes to all that has happened and will happen. This is Nietzsche's way of redeeming man of his facility. If we can't redeem our facility, everything we create becomes tainted by it, and reeks of the herd. The transformation releives the guilt of what has passed and transforms it into an act of the will; causing man to love life as it is, was, and will be-amor fati. Nietzsche's doctrines of eternal return and amor fati combine to redeem man's past and future, but are also the most apparently contradictory doctrines of his philosophy.
Nietzsche writes in Zarathustra, "all things recur eternally and we ourselves with them, and that we have existed an infinite number of times before and all things with us." It is necessary to keep in mind that this is not reincarnation; "I shall return eternally to this identical and self-same life in the greatest things and the smallest." The "Ubermensch" becomes an impossibility-Nietzsche's own noble life due to his doctrine of eternal return. If we return eternally, our lives are already created and there is no transvaluations. How can we create new values when our lives have already been mapped out? There is no original thought just like there is no original text. As Stanley Rosen says, we are who we are "under the illusion that we have been transformed into something 'beautiful and new.'" We cannot avoid our fate, nor change it, the decision we make at every step has already been made countless times.
These doctrines devaluate the entire world, and all Being within it. Nothing is greater than another because the fate of Being is already decided. Therefore, if Nietzsche wants man to create, man has to assign his own value to the world. Man is free to create out of the chaos. The valuation becomes our own perspective, but at the same time we also create a new noble lie because the world is, in itself, worthless. Therefore, if man creates his own value in the world, why does Nietzsche assign guidelines for the creation of these values? Assigning guidelines only creates a new herd morality. Denying man of his freedom and individuality, the same things Nietzsche fought against (or so it seems) he creates. Nietzsche is attempting to relay two separate messages in one philosophy. This explains the apparent contradiction. He is trying to relay a message to the new noblemen, the strong willed, to create their own system of values, including a new noble lie. At the same time, he is attempting to speed up the decadence of the Enlightenment by preaching deconstruction. Rosen calls these different teachings Nietzsche's esoteric, or higher, and exoteric, or lower public, teachings.
The exoteric truth, the speeding up of decadence, is a "return to the cruel creativity of the Renaissance city-state or to the polis of Homeric Greece." This exoteric truth is a type of horizontal heroism, in other words, not transcendental experience, but experience for the masses. This speeds up the deconstruction of decadence, in turn making the new nobility's mission much easier.
The esoteric, or higher teaching of Nietzsche is "nature is . . . chaos, there is no eternal impediment . . . to the will to power." The will to power is defined in nature as a "natural order of rank." This rank is the expression of power as chaos, which we misperceive in order to make life "livable"- our noble lies. Yes, rank, Nietzsche created a ranking of values to replace the old ranking of the herd. Nietzsche even admits:
Its plosophy aims at an ordering of rank: not an individualistic morality. The ideas of the herd should rule in the herd-but not reach out beyond it: the leaders of the herd require a fundamentally different valuation for their own actions.
It is only the new nobility who can "triumph over the truth precisely because [they] know that Being is chaos." As we can now see, Nietzsche did not want the populous to transvaluate values, he wanted them to accelerate the degeneration of society. He desired a new nobility of "gods, but no God" to perform the transvaluation. These two requirements help to explain the superficial contradictions in Nietzsche's philosophy
An evaluation of Nietzsche's own life will show how he applied these philosophical differences to himself. The first thing we need to remember is, Nietzsche is a Zarathustra, not the Ubermensch, the Ubermensch was his noble lie. In his autobiographical work, Ecce Homo, he writes, "Zarathustra himself as a type, came to me-perhaps I should rather say-invaded me." As I have explained before, the Ubermensch is a becoming, but Zarathustra does not become the Ubermensch, he is the prophet, destroyer, and must die before the coming of the "child."
Nietzsche writes, "social intercourse is no small trial to my patience." He needed and enjoyed his solitude, just as Zarathustra. He had an "incontestable lack of sufficient companionship," and his "loathing of mankind . . . was always [his] greatest danger," but he needed this companionship. He wrote in 1882, following a loss of his relationships with his mother, sister, sometime girlfriend Lou Salome, and friend Paul Roe: attempts "to return 'to people' was resulting in my losing the few I still, in any sense, possessed." In his later years, Nietzsche was the ultimate "loner." He had little contact with anyone, and when he finally went mad in 1888, he was committed to a sanitarium.
Before the madness finally took total control of him, he destroyed the last few relationships he had. His delusions of grandeur had become intense. On a visit to Turin in 1888, he wrote "here in Turin I exercise a perfect fascination." Hayman writes in his biography of Nietzsche: "he thought people were reacting to him preferentially and lovingly." These delusions of grandeur caused Nietzsche to be "peremptory with friends and acquaintances." He identified himself as "the foremost mind of the period." When a fellow scholar wrote a concrete agreement against his position in The Problem of Wagner, he replied, "On questions of decadence, I am the highest court of appeal there is on earth." Finally, in a letter to his sister Elizabeth, he signed himself, "your brother, now quite a great person."
These delusions of grandeur not only destroyed any relationships he may have had, but destroyed any possibility of life within society. Nietzsche believed himself the only person of the new nobility in the age of decadence. This caused his madness.
To answer the questions I have raised regarding Nietzsche's existence in society, I have to first define society. A society is a group of people organized for some common purpose. Wherever people gather for a common purpose, they form a society. This society purports common values and judgements which are not necessarily the judgements of any other society. Society only exists as the herd, therefore there is no individual morality, but only herd morality. Even if new values are created, the powerful, or strong will to power, only create a new herd morality with new noble lies.
Nietzsche destroyed the common values of the society he lived in during the late nineteenth century, but this does not necessarily mean he can't exist in a society. He was unable to live in the society of decadence, but surely Nietzsche could live in a society based upon his noble lie, the Ubermensch. A noble lie bounded by conceivability, and ruled by "gods," his new nobility. Since he could not create his noble lie and new nobility in a period of decadence, he sacrificed himself for the coming of his children, the Ubermenschen. Since Nietzsche conceived a new society, he is not a pure nihilist, nor is he a sociopath, he is only sociopathic to what he considers a decadent society, not one he would create.
There is no creating out of the self, since the world itself has no inherent value, only inherent activity. All values based on our creation of value are illusions-our own noble lies. These are only our perception and interpretation of reality, certainly not reality, because reality is composed of infinite interpretations. We have only one. We create out of chaotic activity within the world and within ourselves. This is the only form of creation and therefore, assignment of value available to man. Therefore, each man has a different ranking of value, and society in the common sense of the word, can't exist. Due to the infinite interpretations of value. The only common thread available is man's freedom to create.
We are still a part of the Enlightenment that Nietzsche was attacking over a hundred years ago. The difference today is we know more, and are more willing to purport it, because of philosophers like Nietzsche. We scream what only others whisper. God is dead, but we have created new gods for ourselves, and these are not ourselves as Nietzsche would have wanted it. Our new gods are consumerism, money, power-all new forms of horizontal heroism. We buy clothes off a rack to look "cool”; the more money you make the better person you are; and everyone wants to control someone else, whether it is at work or in a relationship: "the omnipresence of power
Today's society does however realize the problems Nietzsche was speaking of regarding society and its herd morality. White and Hellerich, two postmodern philosophers, write in their essay "Nietzsche at the Altar: Situating the Devotee”: "This is to be a history of immanent activity not transcendent verities . . . the self-writing of a new generation of Ubermenschen and Ubermadchen." We know that actions are inherent in our being; far more valuable than espousing higher truths, "transcendent verities." Which can not even be truths because there is no universal truth because of the infinite interpretations of Truth. We become our own gods by creating our own truths. We realize the "hammer" must still be used. Deconstruction is still a common philosophy. Generation X (though I hate to use this label) has deconstructed the old herd morality to some extent, though not necessarily in the fashion which Nietzsche would have desired. Portrayed in everything from art and music to the Internet. As we close in on the twenty-first century, we are still in an age of decadence. Nietzsche's Ubermensch was and still is an unattainable possibility for society. We are still decadent
Immortalities, provincializede unending existence of the soul after physical death. The doctrine of immortality is common to many religions; in different cultures, however, it takes various forms, ranging from ultimate extinction of the soul to its final survival and the resurrection of the body. In Hinduism, the ultimate personal goal is considered absorption into the “universal spirit.” Buddhist doctrine promises nirvana, the state of complete bliss achieved through total extinction of the personality. In the religion of ancient Egypt, entrance to immortal life was dependent on the results of divine examination of the merits of an individual's life. Early Greek religion promised a shadowy continuation of life on earth in an underground region known as Hades. In Christianity and Islam, as well as in Judaism, the immortality promised is primarily of the spirit. The former two religions both differ from Judaism in holding that after the resurrection of the body and a general judgment of the entire human race, the body is to be reunited with the spirit to experience either reward or punishment. In Jewish eschatology, the resurrection of the soul will take place at the advent of the Messiah, although the reunion of body and spirit will endure only for the messianic age, when the spirit will return to heaven.
Christianity has become, in turn, exactly what Jesus had rebelled against. In the Gay Science Nietzsche asks "And the Christians? Did they become Jews in this respect? Did they perhaps succeed?" The answer is 'yes,' as Nietzsche observes that "Christianity did aim to 'Judaize' the world."
All that happened has happened, came within the accordance with James Mark's reading of Nietzsche, as a result of Paul and the other "first Christians'" "need for . . . power" over others, forming a priestly caste, like the Jewish priestly caste before them, that has the "authority to pronounce that forgiveness, and thereby control the herd that feels the need of it." Nietzsche even goes so far to hint that Christianity was invented by the "first Christians" in revenge, by "their ignorance of superiority over ressentiment. For Nietzsche, this is the beginning of the downfall of Christianity: All the sick and sickly instinctively strive after a herd organization as a means of shaking off their dull displeasure and feeling of weakness. Moreover, Nietzsche blames the corruption of all churches, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant alike, on their institutionalization, as he observes that Christians are an unphilosophical race, that demands its [Christianity's] discipline to become 'moralized and comparatively humanized’. Further, Nietzsche asks, that if this is true, "How could God have permitted that?" Answering, [F]or this question the deranged reason of the little community [of early Christianity] found a downright terrifyingly absurd answer: God gave his Son for the forgiveness of sins, as a sacrifice. All at once it was over with the Gospel. Nietzsche responds, "what atrocious paganism.”
Next Nietzsche's most structured problem with Christianity is the ethical system that it promotes. Nietzsche's words show no mercy to Christianity, writing "In Christianity neither morality nor religions come into contact with reality at any point.” Even worse, he ranks liquor with Christianity as "the European narcotics." Nietzsche observes that Christians are "the domestic animal, the herd animal, the sick animal." Following this, Nietzsche's psychology was broken into existential categories, like Aquinas and Kierkegaard before him, which ranked the beast of burden as the lowest form of human being, one who 'follows the crowd' and lives life according to the status quo, that is, a waste this is the Christian to Nietzsche. For example, the Christian has become, as a result of this institutionalized Christianity, "a soldier, a judge, and a patriot who knows nothing against non-resistance to evil"; in other words, the life Christians live, "under the cross," is fake, counterfeit, and gilded; that is, the way of life against which Jesus rebelled. Christian morality, then, is a twisting of "Jesus' teachings into a doctrine of morality."
What Nietzsche finds most unsettling about Christian ethics is its concern for denying the pleasures of life. "A Christian's thinking is perverted," Nietzsche critic William Hubben writes, “even when he humbles him, he does so only to be exalted," citing Luke 18:14 . . . “for everyone that exalts on him shall be abased. He that humbles him shall be exalted." Concluding that Christians' "only great delight is the mean and petty pleasure of condemning others." Further, critic John Evans states that Nietzsche was "disturbed" that "out of ressentiment and revenge, the early Christians sought power to perverse concepts of life denial and 'sin.'" Nietzsche's writings support these claims, writing on sexuality, the highest of pleasures: "Christianity gave Eros poison to drink: he did not die of it but degenerated into a vice." Again, "[I]t was only Christianity, with its ressentiment against life in its foundations, which made sexuality something impure: it threw the filth on the beginning, on the prerequisite of life." According to Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche interpreted all Christian morality into the statement, "suffering is supposed to lead to a holy existence," and he could not accept this way of living. Furthermore, Nietzsche observed that only "martyrdom and the ascetic's slow destruction of his body were permitted" by Christianity as acceptable forms of suicide. In the end, Nietzsche gives up all hope of finding any good (qualities of the Übermensch) in Christianity, which has "waged war to the death against this higher type of man" and teaches "men to feel the supreme values of intellectuality as sinful." To Nietzsche, then, the institution of Christianity was "a radical betrayal of the life view that Jesus had espoused." Jesus, as a man, had "attempted to go 'beyond good and evil," however, his ideas were corrupted following his death.
Nietzsche will perhaps be remembered most of all for his philosophy of God, and more specifically, the Christian God. To Nietzsche, the Christian God like Christianity-is the God of the sick and the weak. Still, Nietzsche distinguishes the God of Christianity as the opposite of the God of Jesus, so far as to say that there cannot be any true God found in Christianity. To the Christian God, man is "God's monkey," whom God in his long eternities created for a pastime. As a result, Nietzsche concludes that "the Christian concept of God . . . is one of the most corrupt conceptions of God arrived at on this earth." Nietzsche was obsessed, above all, with this area of philosophy, like "no other in history, and his obsession was entered on the death of God."
The "death of God" motif that was popularized by Jean-Paul Sartre in the twentieth century "harks back to Nietzsche, who first coined the expression." The following is Nietzsche's famous story of the "madman": Have you not heard of that madman that lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the marketplace, and cried incessantly? : "In seek God! In seek God!" -As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter . . . The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Where is God?" he cried; "In will tell you. We have killed him as you and me. All of us are his murderers, but how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? . . . Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead, and we have killed him.
This, according to Nietzsche, is a message for the future, concluding "In have come too early, my time is not yet." Nietzsche puts this message into the voice of a madman, "whose message falls on deaf ears," as what he has to say is too shocking and comical for the crowd ('herd') to take seriously, but the madman has the last laugh, according to Nietzsche, as the madman is correct in what he has to say. Does this mean that God has literally died? Philosophers and theologians answer this question in many different ways, often dodging the answer. Critic John Mark answers, "it is really something that has happened to man; God has died because we no longer accept him." Existentialist Karl Jaspers wrote that "Nietzsche does not say 'There is no God,' or 'In do not believe in God,' but 'God is dead.' Many academic scholars, believe that Nietzsche was an atheist, who says that the idea of the Christian God, like Zeus and other Gods before, has died, in that humanity must find something more stable to rest and reassess its values upon. Episcopalian Bishop John Spong interprets Nietzsche's declaration that ‘God is dead’ as a sign that the Christian religion needs to declare their traditional theistic God dead or ‘unemployed’. Theologian Thomas Altizer answers that in the false Pauline ‘Christianity’ that Nietzsche has exposed, its centre, Jesus "is a dead and empty Christ who is the embodiment of the determining nothingness"; refusing to allow the living Jesus to arise as the nihilist that he was two millennia ago. Another theologian, Don Cupitt, writes that the death of God means that the characteristics of the God that has relevance to some post-modern society that shares characteristics of a human corpse and the dead's affect on human life. What is more, Zen monk and Buddhist theologian Nhat Hanh answers that the death of God is the essential ‘death of every concept we may have of God in order to experience God as a living reality directly’. While these possible interpretations may have been what the ‘death of God’ meant to Nietzsche, theologian Paul Tillich has gone so far as to call Nietzsche "the most candid of the Christian humanists." Their indirect effectuality seems less than are to what is seemingly unambiguously discontinued, as they are a comprehensive answer to be offered from neither theology nor philosophy.
In do not wish to baptize Nietzsche, least of mention, is that, In conclude that while Nietzsche's personal theological convictions are moot and many have debated what Nietzsche's statement "God is dead" means for Christians in the twentieth century, his opinions on Jesus of Nazareth and the Christian religion remain clear. The salient notion is that Nietzsche's treatment of the theistic Christian God is as an absurdity, the enemy of what the philosopher believes to be 'the good life.
In conclusion, Nietzsche clearly has pronounced separate judgements upon the man Jesus of Nazareth and the religion that is believed to be loosely based on Jesus' life, Christianity. To Nietzsche, Jesus was a great man worthy of respect, perhaps evens a Übermensch; Christianity, however, is corrupt insofar as the fathers of the church institutionalized the teachings of Jesus in an act of hostility toward the Jews. Furthermore, Nietzsche believes that Christianity has become the very establishment against which Jesus rebelled in Judaism: an already corrupt, stagnant, static, hierarchical religion. Finally, it cannot be deciphered whether Nietzsche accepted a god or not. If there is a God to Nietzsche, it would be above morality, would not impose ethics upon humans, would not judge on the basis of its own sacrifice, and would not deny human nature into -denial that is, the opposite of the Christian God. Nietzsche simply foresees him as the one who is replacing Jesus in a manner of successive revelation, predicting correctly that he, like Jesus, is a madman who has "come too early," who has and will continue to be misinterpreted and institutionalized incorrectly.
Once, again, have you not heard of that madman that lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, then running to the marketplace, and cried incessantly? "In seek God! In seek God." As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? Asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? Asked another, or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? Emigrated? Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes.
"Where is God?" He cried; "In will tell you. We have killed him -you and In. All of us are his murderers, but how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Where is it moving now? Where are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead, and we have killed him.
How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives, who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us-for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners. They, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "In have come too early," he said then; "My time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder requires time; The light of the stars requires time; Deeds, are though done, but it still requires time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most-distant stars and yet they have done it themselves."
It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem as antiquatedly set. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepultures of God?" (The Gay Science 1882, 1887).
In his book, The Antichrist, Nietzsche sets out to denounce and illegitimize not only Christianity it as a belief and a practice, but also the ethical-moral value system which modern western civilization has inherited from it. This book can be considered a further development of some of his ideas concerning Christianity that can be found in Beyond Good and Evil and in The Genealogy of Morals, particularly the idea that the present morality is an inversion of true, noble morality. An understanding of the main ideas in the latter works is therefore quite helpful in understanding and fully appreciating the ideas set forth in The Antichrist. One of the most important of these ideas is that Christianity has made people nihilistic and weak by regarding pity and related sentiments as the highest virtues. Here, just as in the Genealogy, Nietzsche traces the origin of these values to the ancient Jews who lived under Roman occupation, but here he puts them in terms of a reversal of their conception of God. He argues that the Jewish God was once one that embodied the noble virtues of a proud, powerful person, but when they became subjugated by the Romans, their God began to embody the "virtues" (more like sentiments) of an oppressed, resentful people, until it became something entirely alien to what it formerly had been.
Further in the book, after Nietzsche devotes a few passages to contrasting Buddhism with Christianity, he paints a picture of the Jesus of history as actually having lived a type of "Buddhistic" existence, and lambastes Paul particularly for turning this historically correct Jesus, for, Jesus, the "Nazarene," into Jesus the "Christ." Also, Nietzsche argues that the Christian moral and metaphysical principles he considers so decadent has infiltrated our philosophy, so much that philosophers unwittingly work to defend these principles even when God is removed from the hypothesis. The purpose of this paper is to expound and assess some of these important reproaches that Nietzsche raises against Christianity, in order to glean from them those elements that can be considered to have lasting significance. It should also be noted that The Antichrist is predominantly aphoristic work, so this paper will not attempt to tie these ideas of Nietzsche's together into a coherent system. To do so, in my opinion, would not do Nietzsche justice. Instead these ideas will be presented and examined as they appear in the work -ne by one and loosely associated.
Nietzsche begins by criticizing Christianity for denouncing and regarding as evil those basic instincts of human beings that are life-preserving and strength-promoting. In their place, Christianity maintains and advocates value which Nietzsche sees as life-negating or nihilistic, of which the most important is pity. Nietzsche writes: Christianity is called the religion of pity. Pity stands opposed to the tonic emotions that heighten our vitality: it has a depressing effect. We are deprived of strength when we feel pity. That loss of strength which suffering as such inflicts on life is still further increased and multiplied by pity. Pity makes suffering contagious.
Pity, according to Nietzsche, is nothing less than the multiplication of suffering, in that it allows us to suffer along with those for whom we feel pity. It depresses us, sapping us of our strength and will to power. It is interesting to note that the German word for pity it, Mitleid, literally means "suffering with" (leid = pain, suffering + mit = with). So to feel pity for someone is simply to suffer along with them, as Nietzsche sees it. It also promotes the preservation of those whom nature has selected for destruction, or in other words, those who Nietzsche calls "failures." This preservation of failures, he argues, makes the overall picture of life look decadent, in that it becomes filled with weak and retrograde individuals. Pity, then, has a twofold effect for Nietzsche, since it both multiplies suffering and leads to the preservation of those who would cause us this suffering as the objects of our pity. Ultimately, pity is nihilism put into practice, according to Nietzsche, since it makes life simply seem more miserable and decadent and therefore more worthy of negation it. Nietzsche does not really develop this conception of pity any farther. As it stands, it seems to be explicitly problematic. Does his conception of pity mean to include compassion and sympathy as well? Can these words be used interchangeably? The German word for compassion is Mitleid as well, so it is possible that Nietzsche is using them interchangeably. The German word for sympathy, however, is Mitgefhl, which means "feeling with." Perhaps Nietzsche is confusing pity with compassion and sympathy. Pity would seem to have a more negative connotation, in that it is a suffering-with that does not achieve anything; a waste of emotional energy toward those who are beyond help, in other words. Sympathy and compassion, as In understand the terms, seem to lean more toward having an understanding (a "feeling-with") of what someone is suffering through and being in a position to help that person. In take Nietzsche to be using (maybe misusing) these terms interchangeably, however, since he uses the word sympathy (Mitgefühl) in other works in very similar contexts.
To Nietzsche, the Christian conception of God is one of the most decadent and contradictory of any type that has ever been conceived, he writes: The Christian conception of God-God as god of the sick, God as a spider, Godas spirit-is one of the most corrupt conceptions of the divine ever acquired on earth. It may even represent the low-water mark in the descending development of divine types. God degenerated into the contradiction of life, instead of being its transfiguration and eternal Yes! God as the declaration of war against life, against nature, against the will to live! God-the formula for every slander against "this world," for every lie about the "beyond" God-the deification of nothingness, the will to nothingness means more than nothingness it and therefore is pronounced metaphysically. Nietzsche is interested in showing how the God of Israel, that is, the God of the Old Testament, was at the time a God of a very proud and powerful Jewish people. This is a sustaining conception of God, than the Christian one, according to Nietzsche, in that it was the Jew's own God-for them only. This God was conceived of as a being to whom some proud people could give thanks for their power and. Assuredness, and it was a manifestation of the Jews' own -proclaimed virtues. The ancient Jews ascribed both the good and the bad to their God, and in that respect it was consistent with nature, both helping and harming. When the Jews found themselves oppressed by Rome during the occupation of Palestine, however, with their freedom, power, and pride stripped from them, their God required a change that was reflective of their predicament. Instead of having a God that embodied the noble virtues of some proud and powerful people, as it once did, the God of the Jews developed into one that embodied the sentiments of an oppressed, resentful, and ineffective group.
It became a God of people who were trying to preserve themselves at any cost, even if that cost were the inversion of their own noble values. They transformed their God into a God of the weak, the poor, and the oppressed, making a virtue out of the necessity of their own condition. Want of revenge on their enemies, by any and the only means possible for them psychologically prompted the Jews to elevate their type of God to the point at which it became a God for everyone. That is to say, that their God became the one, true God, to whom everyone was held accountably. It also became a God that was all good, incapable of doing anything harmful, while the God of their enemies and oppressors became evil-in effect, the Devil. This is a very unhealthy type of God, according to Nietzsche, in that it "degenerates step by step into a mere symbol, a staff for the weary, a sheet-anchor for the drowning; when he becomes the God of the poor, the sinners, and the sick better than anyone else, and the attribute ‘Saviour’ or ‘Redeemer’ remains in the end as the one essential attribute of divinity . . . .”
A God such as this can thus have an appeal to any group of people who are in a state of subjugation. Yet unlike the pagan Gods of strong, proud people, this type of God, as Nietzsche points out, remains in the state in which it was conceived (a God of the sick and weak), despite how strong a following it receives. It receives such a strong following because those who are from the ghettos, slums, and hospitals of the world, are the masses (There was no middle class in ancient Palestine; there were only the more elite subjugator and the subjugated masses). The God for ‘everyone’, is overwhelming among those who live in conditions of powerlessness and misery, in that it allows them to deny their present existence in favour of a better one that is to come, in an appeal to "redemption" in a world beyond. Therefore, this God-type becomes a life-denying one, in that it represents a denial of "this" life, as opposed to the healthy yes-saying, life-affirming, consistent-with-nature God of the ancient Jews. This particular type of God is therefore one that is ultimately nihilistic, involving the denial and rejection of the world and everything in it as sinful and decadent. Nature, flesh, and instinct thus become ever more devalued until they reach a point at which nature is seen as a cesspool, the flesh is mortified, and instincts are put in terms of evil "temptations." The concept of God continues to "deteriorate," as Nietzsche terms it, until what ultimately remains are a conception of God as "pure spirit," or in other words, as something to be aware among the integrally immaterial and non-corporeal, just as this is held up as an ideal form of existence. Nietzsche simply thinks of this idea of pure spirit as pure "nothingness," in that it is merely an absurd, contradictory-to-nature postulation. To him, it ultimately represents nihilism and nothing less.
These claims of Nietzsche's are difficult to argue against, because Nietzsche does not really use much in the way of an argument here to arrive at these claims. One is to concur of what has already confronted the reading scribes of his Genealogy of Morals in order to understand better what is going on in these passages. The Genealogy actually does have a sustained argument for claims that are intimately related to the ones above that are found in The Antichrist. This argument deals with how the slave class (Jews), out of hatred and resentment, got their revenge on the noble class (Romans) by shaming them into accepting the slave class' morality. This is one of Nietzsche's most important claims, and it is essential to an understanding of The Antichrist. Nietzsche argues for this claim in the Genealogy by giving an account of the origins of the words ‘good' and ‘bad' and ‘good' and ‘evil'. In their etymological senses, the terms "moral" and "ethical" mean literally "common" and "ordinary." The etymological origin of the word "good," according to Nietzsche, reveals that it once meant "privileged," "aristocratic," "with a soul of high order," etc., and that "bad" originally meant "common," "low," and "plebeian." Even the German word schlecht, which means "badly," is akin to schlicht, which means "plain" or "simple." Furthermore, the word’s schlechthin und schlechtweg literally means "simply" or "downright." This was the language of the aristocratic upper classes in classical times, whom Nietzsche calls the noble, or master class. The word "bad" was used by the master class, without any moral or ethical connotations, simply to refer and to differentiate them from common people, whom Nietzsche refers to as the slave class. The master class calls them "good," due to their apparently superior social standing, or in other words, "good" was simply a term for those things that they were, fierce, proud, brave, and noble. The lower class, or the slave class, on the other hand, developed their own moral language, which is that of the language of "good" and "evil." The anger and hatred that the slave class had for the master class had no outlet, or in other words their anger was impotent, due to their physical and political powerlessness. Nietzsche calls this the anger of ressentiment. The only way the slave class could get their revenge on the master class was to accept nothing less than a complete revaluation of the master class' values. The Jews, who epitomized the "priestly" way of life, according to Nietzsche, were the ones who began what he calls the "slave revolt in morality," which inverted the "aristocratic value equation (good=powerful=beautiful =happy=beloved of God)," to make a good out of their own station in life, and an evil out of the station of their enemies -he objects of their impotent anger and revenge. The slave class accomplished this effect by turning "good" and "bad" into terms which not only made reference to one's political station in life, but also pointed to one's soul and depth as a person.
Thus, the language of "good" and "bad," which was originally used for the purpose of amorally denoting one's station in life, was reevaluated into the language of "good" and "evil," in which what is "good" is common, ordinary, poor, and familiar, and what is "evil" is damnable, unfamiliar, cruel, godless, accursed, and unblessed. In effect, the master class, over the last two thousand years, has been "poisoned" and shamed by the slave class and its language of "good" and "evil" into accepting the inversion of their own noble values, and thus the morality of the slave class, namely that which is "common," "ordinary," and "familiar," is the one that prevails today. From the above argument, understanding how Nietzsche claims that the subjugated Jews transformed their once yes-saying God into the nay-saying God of ressentiment and hatred is easier. This argument seems to ring true in many ways, but it is nevertheless based on the psychological presupposition that human beings are always seeking power and mastery over others, or in other words, that they are always exerting their "will to power," as Nietzsche calls it. In this way, Nietzsche sees the Jews as cunningly having found a way to regain power over their oppressors psychologically by shaming them with the use of the language of good and evil. This assessment goes for what is to follow below as well.
As he demonstrates, Nietzsche is careful not to confuse Buddhism with Christianity in his criticisms. Though he believes that both religions are nihilistic and decadent, he regards Buddhism as a far healthier and more realistic approach. In contrast to the Christian, who is always trying to avoid sin, the Buddhist's main goal is to reduce suffering it. The latter does not fall into the same trap as Christianity does, according to Nietzsche, do not carry any moral presuppositions. It has long abandoned them, seeing them as mere deceptions. The Buddhist is therefore not engaged in the practice of moralizing and making judgments about others. A Buddhist achieves this reduction of suffering by living a passive, non-combatanting lifestyle. He does not become angry or resentful, no matter what transgressions someone has assertively enacted against him. Neither does he worry about him nor others. He takes measures that will help him to avoid exciting his senses, while the Christian, on the other hand, does just the opposite through living an ascetic lifestyle and maintaining an emotionally charged relationship with his God through prayer. The Buddhist, in his avoidance of suffering, simply aims to maintain its steady state of peace, calm, and mildness in his lifestyle and temperament. It is a very important point that in pursuing this aim, the Buddhist actually succeeds, whereas the Christian does not succeed in removing sin, and is thus always in a state of wanting "redemption" and "forgiveness," never attaining the "grace" of God that he so desires. The Buddhist is therefore able to achieve a sort of peace and tranquillity on earth.
This idea is vital, in that it relates directly with Nietzsche's conception of the historical Jesus. Nietzsche paints a picture of the Jesus of history for being a true evangel, which means that he did not subscribe to the concepts of guilt, punishment, and reward. He did not engage in faith, but only in actions, and these actions prescribed a way of life that Nietzsche sees as Buddhistic. The evangel does not get angry, does not pass judgment, and does neither he feel any hatred nor resentment for his enemies. He rejected the whole idea of sin and repentance, and believed that this evangelical way of life was divine in it, closing the gap between man and God so much that it is God, according to Nietzsche. Therefore, he saw prayer, faith, and redemption as farcical, instead believing that the "kingdom of heaven" is a state of mind that can be experienced on earth by living this type of peaceful, judgment-suspending existence, free from worry, guilt, and anger. Nietzsche argues that this was the life of Jesus and nothing more, and this way of life was the "glad tidings" which he brought. Nietzsche writes: The "bringer of glad tidings" died as he had lived, as he had taught-not to "redeem men" but to show how one must live. This practice is his legacy to humanity: his behaviour before the judges, before the catch poles, before the accusers and all kinds of slander and scorn-his behaviour on the cross. He does not resist, he does not defend his right, he takes no step that might ward off the worst; on the contrary, he provokes it. He begs, he suffers, he loves with those, in those, who do him evil. Not to resist, not to be angry, not to hold responsible-but to resist not even the evil one-to love him.
This conception of Jesus is entirely alien to the one that the church has given us. For the creation and dissemination of this misconception, Nietzsche blames Paul. He also blames Jesus' immediate followers as well. Once Jesus had been executed, according to Nietzsche, his followers could not come to grips with the shock of his sudden loss. Filled with a want of revenge, they wanted to know who killed him and why. They determined that the rulers of the existing Jewish order had killed him because his doctrine went against that order. Not wanting his death to have been in vain, they saw him as a rebel against the Jewish status quo in the same way that they saw themselves as such. In this way, argues Nietzsche, his followers completely misunderstood him. The truly "evangelic" thing to do, he says, would have been to forgive his death instead, or to die in the like manner without judgment or need of vindication. However, Jesus' followers, resentful about his loss, wanted vengeance upon those of the existing Jewish order. The way that they accomplished this vengeance is the same as the way in which the Jews exacted their revenge on their Roman oppressors. They considered Jesus to be the Messiah of whom they were foretold by Jewish scripture, and in this way they elevated him to divine status--as the Son of God (since he referred to him metaphorically as a "child of God"). Faced with the question of how God could allow Jesus' death to occur, they came up with the idea that God had sent down his own Son as a sacrifice for their sins, as a sacrifice of the guiltless for the sins of the guilty, even though Jesus him refused to engage in feeling guilt. They then used the figure of Jesus and their misunderstanding of his doctrine of the "kingdom of God" for making judgments against their enemies in the existing Jewish order, just as the Jews had turned their God into something universal for the purpose of passing judgment on the Romans: On the other hand, the frenzied veneration of these totally unhinged souls no longer endured the evangelic conception of everybody's equal right to be a child of God, as Jesus had taught: it was their revenge to elevate Jesus extravagantly, to sever him from themselves-precisely as the Jews had formerly, out of revenge against their enemies, severed their God from themselves and elevated him. The one God and the one Son of God-both products of resentment.
The figure of Paul, according to Nietzsche, exacerbated this misunderstanding of Jesus' teachings even further. In fact, that is an understatement. In this immortalized figure of crucified Jesus, Paul, with his "priestly" instincts, saw a way to gain power by forming "herds," as Nietzsche puts it. He completely rewrote the history of Jesus' life and Christianity for his own purposes, adding the doctrines of the resurrection, the immaculate conception, and the idea of personal as a reward. Nietzsche attributes Paul's efforts to the hatred and ressentiment of the priestly class, and refers to Paul as the "dysangelist," or in other words, the "bringer of ill tidings." After Paul, the life of Jesus had been turned into something completely alien and antithetical to what it actually was. Again, this theory of Nietzsche's rests on the assumption that humans are in essence motivated by a will to power. Historical evidence concerning the historical Jesus is quite lacking in Nietzsche's account; in that, it relies on a psychological profile of those who participated in this historical scene. However, this psychological analysis seems to present a scenario that is at least conceivable--especially more so than the idea of an immaculate conception and resurrection. In think Nietzsche takes the Buddhistic element of Jesus too far, however. He provides too specifically an account of Jesus' lifestyle and philosophical persuasions without any evidence. It is still quite possible that Jesus could have simply been a more noteworthy rebel against the Romans and the Jewish status quo. More historical evidence would seem to be in order, but Nietzsche's account remains very compelling without it. Its profound significance lies in the fact that in it, Nietzsche has the courage and honesty to show us what, in his and every non-Christian's eyes, is far more likely to have been the case.
Nietzsche is also concerned with how deeply these decadent Christian values have ingrained themselves in our social practices and presuppositions. He especially laments how it has infiltrated the study of philosophy, particularly German philosophy. As Nietzsche argues, he sees modern philosophy as having "theologians' blood in its veins," saying whom we consider our antithesis is necessary: it is the theologians and whatever has theologians' blood in its veins-and that includes our whole philosophy.
Nietzsche argues that Christianity has poisoned philosophy with this nihilistic rejection of the body in favour of pure spirit. He compares the idealist philosopher with the priest, in that the former reduces everything in the world to idea, so that the physical world does not really exist. Figures such as Georg Hegel have done exactly this sort of thing, and Nietzsche is especially critical of German philosophy, both for its idealists’ tendencies and its conception of morality-both of which can be traced to this theologian's instinct. Nietzsche blames Germany's heavy Protestant tradition for the corruption of philosophy, and he criticizes Kant especially for being the latest, "greatest" philosopher to continue this corruption. Kant denies that the physical world can be apprehended directly (the world of noemenon) by the senses, and in this respect he is not a strict idealist, save a phenomenalist. What is meant by this is that all we can perceive are phenomenon, which appear to us as ideas, and the physical (noemenal) world is something that we can never directly observe. Kant's system does not deny that the physical world exists, but it denies that it exists as we know it, and that is enough for Nietzsche to criticize him. One can understand, however, how Nietzsche sees the theologian's blood running through Kant's veins, in that Kant sees the physical world as mere phenomenon -phantom reality. Nietzsche also criticizes Kant for finding a way to maintain a theoretical justification for morality-the Christian morality-while removing God from the picture, namely the Categorical Imperative. Nietzsche rejects this system as one that turns people into automatons. He claims that a virtue must be one of the people's own inventions, not an abstract "duty" in-it, which must be followed universally for its own sake. If the people do not follow its own virtues and do its own duty, he argues, it will perish. What Nietzsche seems to be getting at is that people simply do what they need to do to thrive and preserve themselves, and as explained earlier, different people find themselves having to adapt to different circumstances, such as the Jews did under Roman occupation. Their virtues and duties had to change according to their situation. This is what Kant means when he says that "Kant's categorical imperative endangered life it!"8 Nietzsche then goes on to denounce Kant's deontologicalism it: An action demanded by the instinct of life is proved to be right by the pleasure that accompanies it; yet this nihilist with his Christian dogmatic entrails considered pleasure an objection. What could destroy us more quickly than working, thinking, and feeling without any inner necessity, without any deeply personal choice, without pleasure-as an automaton of "duty?” This is the very recipe for decadence, even for idiocy. Kant became an idiot, and this man was contemporary of Goethe! This catastrophic spider was considered the German philosopher-he still is.
Kant, in this way, also goes against nature with his system of morality, according to Nietzsche. It is simply a Christian God's "Thou shalt" disguised by a secular, theoretical philosophy, or as Nietzsche would see it, it is borne of the theologian's instinct. Any philosophy student can see where Nietzsche gets these ideas from, and in most respects, he seems to be right about this. However, not all of the nihilistic elements of philosophy have their roots in Christianity. Western philosophy has a fundamental inheritance from Plato, who also, as Nietzsche is surely aware, rejects the physical world. He does this not because he thinks of it as sinful, but because he thinks it is ultimately only shadows of reality. Instead, Plato favours the world of the Forms, in which the Forms are paradigms of all objects and concepts that can be found in the physical, sensory world in which we presently live. Plato favours this other world because the physical world is in a constant state of flux, he argues. Since we cannot have knowledge of something that is always changing, as he claims, there can be no real knowledge of anything in the physical world. Knowledge then, for Plato, can only be possible in this other world through contemplation of the Forms, since these Forms are unchanging. Therefore, western post-Socratic philosophy began with a rejection of the physical world, and this rejection also constitutes a large, if not major source of the nihilism in western philosophy about which Nietzsche so often complains.
To refute of which is the claim that Plato and Nietzsche are at opposite poles regarding the treatment of the non-rational elements of the soul, and argue that, instead, they share a complex and psychologically rich view of the role of reason toward the appetites and the emotions. My argument makes use of the Freudian distinction between sublimation, i.e., the re-channelling of certain undesirable appetitive and emotional forces toward more beneficial ends, and repression. In show that both Plato and Nietzsche argue in favour of sublimation and against repression of the non-rational elements of the soul.
Nietzsche’s moral philosophy is often seen as the antitheses of Plato’s for at least the following reason: Plato’s concept of psychic harmony, i.e., the state that it is best for the soul to be in, is said to involve repression of the non-rational elements of the soul (the thumos and the appetitive part) by reason. This repression, in Nietzschean terms, can be classified as a form of asceticism, and Nietzsche is seen as rejecting all forms of asceticism. In will argue in the following sections that this interpretation relies on a misunderstanding of both Plato and Nietzsche, in that it is neither true that Plato believes repression to be reason’s main way of controlling the non-rational parts of the soul, nor that Nietzsche rejects all forms of rational control over one’s character. In this section, however, In want to highlight these passages in which Plato and Nietzsche say things that could be misinterpreted in the way In have outlined, i.e., what lesser truths would make one believe that the interpretation as a whole is correct.
It would be false to claim that Plato cannot, and has not been interpreted as claiming that reason should repress the appetites. Annas, in her Companion to Plato’s Republic writes the following: [. . . .] Reason as Plato conceives it will decide for the whole soul in a way that does not take the ends of the other parts as given but may involve suppressing or restraining them
The end of the rational part, according to Plato, is to decide on behalf of the whole soul what is good for it, and make sure that it pursues only those ends. In the metaphor of the soul in which the rational part is a little man, the thumos a lion, and the appetitive part a many-headed beast, Plato tells us that "all our actions and words should tend to give the man within us complete domination over the entire man, and make him take charge of the many-headed beast." We may read this as meaning that the rational part should repress the appetitive part, and curb the thumos so that it only acts as reason would have it act. However, as In will argue, in this mis-reading, all we should in fact read in Plato’s proposal, is that reason should control the appetites and the thumos, but control them by means other than repression.
Nietzsche supposed the rejection of asceticism, and all forms of control over the elements of one’s character, can be deduced from many passages. At this point as we occupy of a particular surface in space and time, whose manifesting inclinations of force fields and atomizations are combining quality standards whose presence is awaiting to the future, however, what seems more important and, perhaps, relevantly significant are the contributions that follow: At which time In abhor all those moralities that say ‘do not do this! Renounce! Overcome your: Those who command man first of all and above all to gain control of him thus afflict him with a particular disease; Namely, a constant irritability in the face of natural stirring and inclinations-as it were, a kind of itching. People like St. Paul have an evil eye for the passions: all they know of the passions is what is dirty, disfiguring, and heartbreaking; hence their idealistic tendencies aim at the annihilation of the passions, and they find perfect purity in the divine.
These passages contrive to give us the following impression of Nietzsche’s moral philosophy, i.e., that Nietzsche stands up for the passions, and other natural stirrings and inclinations against moralists who want to annihilate them, overcome, renounce, or control them. If we add this up to the above interpretation of Plato, then concluding that Plato is just the kind of philosopher Nietzsche is naturals’ outcry denounces -and in fact there are many passages in which Nietzsche does denounce Plato, sometimes just for this reason.
That this interpretation of Nietzsche as rejecting control of the non-rational parts of the soul is misleading, in that although it is true that Nietzsche rejects repression as a means of controlling those parts, he does not reject all forms of control, quite the contrary. Together with my argument in that Plato does not believe the appetitive part should be repressed, this will refute the claim that Nietzsche and Plato’s treatment of the non-rational parts of the soul are opposed, or significantly different. A need to introduce certain concepts that are useful in ascertaining the proper meaning of Plato and Nietzsche’s claims regarding the control of the soul by reason.
The preceding section highlighted the sources of the interpretations of Nietzsche and Plato’s positions on the treatment of the irrational parts of the soul as opposite. Plato, it has been said, believes that we should repress these elements or else enlist some of them on the side of reason to repress the others. Nietzsche on the other hand is said to have believed that all parts of our character are of equal value, and hence that we should get rid of nothing, but on the contrary, let all our ‘instincts’ rule us. This is an oversimplified view, but it expresses best the common belief among philosophers that Plato and Nietzsche held radically different views regarding the role of reason and of the non-rational elements of the soul. In believe this view is mistaken: Not just in its exaggerated form, but in any form that contains the claim that Plato and Nietzsche disagreed significantly as to whether and how we should gain rational control over the non-rational elements of our souls.
The concept we need most here is that of sublimation (sublimieren in German-a concept that, incidentally, was introduced by Goethe before its meaning was developed more fully by Freud). It means the redirection of forces impinged upon impulses under which are highly objective, that is, if one were taken anthelmintically, than inexpediently, in that to another spells of one, and to society. In order to understand sublimation, however, we need to spell out two more Freudian concepts, of ‘impulse’ and ‘repression’. An impulse (Trieb: Usually erroneously translated as ‘instinct’) is a force, or pressure the goal of which is (sexual) satisfaction of some kind or other (e.g., oral) which it attains by discharging it on some object. The force is the driving aspect of the impulse, ‘the amount of force or the measure of the demand for work that it represents’.
Freud was interested in two types of impulsive behaviours, repression, and sublimation. Both exist as a means of dealing with problematic impulses, i.e., impulses that we cannot live within society, that we are ashamed of, that would be disapproved of by others, that threatens our relationships with others. Repression presupposes two of the simplest: to repress an impulse is to prevent it from achieving its aim, i.e., satisfaction. The impulse is driven back, shut out, rejected, in no particular direction. As Freud argued, this -denial is far from being the most effective manner of dealing with violent unwanted impulse. In that, if we do not look atop to whatever one is to push them, then one will not know from where they are likely to come back. They will come back, just as the heads on the multi-headed monster of the Republic keep growing back with different shapes, as pathological symptoms.
The second mechanism for dealing with troublesome impulses is sublimation. When an impulse is sublimated, it is not prevented from reaching its satisfaction, but it is made to reach via a different route from that which it would naturally follow, i.e., by settling for its satisfaction on a different object. In Freud’s words: [Sublimation] enables excessively strong excitations arising from particular sources of sexuality to find an outlet and use in other fields, so that a considerable increase in psychological efficiency results from a disposition that is it perilous. Here we have one of the origins of artistic creativity-and, according to the completeness or incompleteness of the sublimation, a characterological analysis of a highly gifted individual. Freud saw sublimation as society’s means of achieving impulsive renunciation without appealing to repression. Still, more important, he saw it as the individual’s means of achieving rational control over the dark forces of her unconscious mind. Sublimation is the work of the ego, the rational , and what it achieves is ‘a defusion of the instincts, and a liberation of the aggressive instincts in the superego’. Freud thought sublimation was preferable to repression because it brings about greater rational control.
Much more could be said about Freud’s work on the human soul, and in particular, on his concept of sublimation. However, In shall now leave Freud to return to Plato and Nietzsche, and show how his concepts of sublimation and repression can be used to understand these two philosophers’ moral psychologies not as opposed, but on the contrary, both arguing along similar and very plausible lines.
Let us turn again to the metaphor of the tripartite soul as the joining of a multi-headed beast, a lion, and a little man. In suggested in that reading Plato’s claim that we should aim to achieve was wrong ‘complete dominion’ of reason over the soul as a claim that reason should repress the other parts. Reading the passage in its entirety can vindicate this suggestion in part simply. At 589ab Plato writes, And on the other hand, he who says that justice is the more profitable affirms that all our actions and words should tend to give the man within us complete dominion over the entire man and make him take charge of the many-headed beast -like a farmer who cherishes and adapts in the cultivated plants but checks the growth of the wild-and he will make an ally of the lion’s nature, and caring for all the beasts alike will at first make friends, in and of one another and to him, and so foster their growth.
This passage is ambiguous, but what should stand out, as well as the claim that reason must dominate the soul, is to mention that one should care for one’s appetitive part, and foster its growth. This is surely not consistent with the claim that one should repress it. However, Plato’s meaning is unclear, and in order to make sense of the metaphor of the farmer, we need to look at Plato’s other recommendations as to how reason should manifest its dominion. The clearest, In believe, is to be found in Plato’s portrait of the reasonable man at. Nevertheless, when, In suppose, a man’s condition is healthy and sober, and he goes to sleep after arousing his rational part and entertaining it with fair words and thoughts, and attaining to clear -consciousness, while he has neither starved nor indulged to repletion his appetitive part, so that it may be lulled to sleep and not disturb the better part by its pleasure or pain . . .
The reasonable man -, i.e., the man whose soul is governed by the rational part, in other words, the just man-as he is portrayed in Book Nine of the Republic, does not indulge nor starve his appetitive part. This is why his sleep, unlike the tyrant’s, is undisturbed by violent dreams. If reason is not in control and if the appetites are not lulled to sleep, then the ‘terrible, fierce and lawless broods of desires’ which exists ‘in every one of us, even in some reputed most respectable’ will reveal themselves in our sleep as ‘lawless’ dreams.
This very Freudian analysis tells us the following, appetites, which are not controlled by reason, are likely to come back and disturb us in our sleep as violent dreams. Still, the control that reasons must exert is not repression: we have to make sure that the lawless appetites are neither indulged nor starved, and what is repression but the starving of impulses, i.e., preventing them from ever being satisfied? Repression, or starvation of the appetites, Plato tells us, is as much the cause of tyrannical behaviour patterns as indulging appetites. The ‘lawless pleasures and appetites’ should not be repressed, but ‘controlled by the laws and the better desires in alliance with reason.
That the rational control Plato proposes is not a repressive kind is one thing, but what else is it, and do we have grounds for supposing that it is a kind of sublimation? In following, it would not be far fetched to propose that he does believe we should sublimate the appetites that need to be controlled.
Does Plato use the vocabulary of sublimation when he defines psychic harmony? Surely he does in the case of the thumos. The emotions that are so unruly in children ('for they are from their enactable birth cradles -full of rage and high spirits', are brought to 'marshal themselves on the side of reason, and this through 'the blending of music and gymnastics that will render them concordant, intensifying and fostering the one [reason] with fair words and teachings, and relaxing and sobering and making gently the other by harmony and rhythm' The idea that the appetites should be sublimated is present elsewhere in the Republic "But, again, we surely are aware that when in a man the desires incline strongly to any-one thing, they are weakened for other things. It is as if the stream had been diverted into another channel. So when a man's desires have been taught to flow in the channel of learning and all that sort of thing, they will be concerned, In presume, with the pleasures of the soul in it, and will be indifferent to those of which the body is the instrument if the man is true and not a sham philosopher."
Plato seems to accept the following: the lawless appetites should be controlled and prevented from ruling the soul, but at the same time, they should not be repressed, i.e., extinguished. Their motivational force should be redirected so that it assists the whole soul in its pursuit of the Good. More precisely, it seems that Plato is arguing that bodily impulses can be sublimated through philosophy, i.e., that sexual desires, for instance, will be replaced, to a degree at least, by desires to acquire philosophical knowledge.
We can conclude this section by answering the initial challenge as follows. It is not the case that Psychic harmony involves the repression of a whole genus of desires: Plato makes it clear that the appetites of the reasonable man must neither be starved nor over-indulged. He believes control is necessary, but preferably, a creative type of control, i.e., not one that seeks to extinguish appetitive or emotional drives, but one that sublimates them, transforms them into drives of a similar but more beneficial nature.
Having argued that Plato does not believe that unruly impulses should be repressed, but instead advocate a kind of control that we can properly refer to as sublimation in the Freudian sense of that term, but we must now turn to the claim that Nietzsche rejects all kinds of control of the non-rational elements of the soul as forms of asceticism, and therefore repression. In shall argue that Nietzsche, like Plato, believes that a kind of control like sublimation is both necessary and beneficial
There is no question that Nietzsche rejects repression as unhealthy-as verily does Plato-nor that he claims that philosophers in general, and Plato and Socrates in particular favour a certain kind of asceticism. However, it does not follow that Nietzsche does not believe some control of the desires is necessary. Although sublimation is incompatible with repression-an impulse cannot be redirected in other channels if it is repressed (a criminal cannot be rehabilitated if he is executed)-it can be seen as some kind of control, and is thus quite compatible with the pursuit of psychic harmony as described by Plato. In particular, one passage from Daybreak shows how close the two philosophers really are regarding the treatment of appetites, which threaten psychic health: one already stands before the irrefutable insight that there exists no essential difference between criminals and the insane [ . . . ] One should place before him quite clearly the possibility and the means of becoming cured (the extinction, transformation, sublimations of this [tyrannical] drive)
That Nietzsche mentions extinction along with sublimation or transformation, does not mean that he sees repression as a good general policy any more than Plato does. Here he is talking about the tyrannical drive of the criminal. Had that drive not been allowed to become tyrannical, (and that this kind of prevention need not appeal to repression but may be achieved through sublimation) it would not need to be extinguished.
Nietzsche also believes that sublimation is the explanation for the existence of asceticism. Cruel impulses are sublimated through ressentiment and bad conscience and give birth to ascetic impulses. Desires to murder, arson, rape and torture are replaced by desires for -castigation. Civilization seeks to prevent the gratification of the cruel instincts (for obvious reasons), and by introducing the ideas of responsibility for one's actions and guilt, helps to turn these instincts against themselves, i.e., transform desires to hurt others into desires to hurt one.
There be of three containing comments on the Genealogy as pertaining to Nietzsche’s concerns with the origins of morality and culturally sublimated expressions of drives as well as Federn’s comment that Nietzsche ‘was the first to discover the significance of abreaction, of repression, of flight into illness, of the instincts-and some comments speculating on Nietzsche’s personality a relevant psychodynamic.
Of the Genealogy, ‘guilt, bad conscience and the like, explores, among other things, how at a critical juncture in the development of civilization an morality, drives that had been more freely expressed were constrained and turned inward. This led to the development of the ‘base conscience’ an the ‘entire inner word’ [which] originally thin as if it were stretched between two membranes, expanded and extended it, acquire depth, breadth, and height. In, What is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideas’ were to explore of how bad conscience or quilt is appropriated by the ascetic priest, in the service of comforting, and thus ensuring the obedience of the vulnerable ‘herd’. The ascetic priest exercising his own will to power (such as by imposing his interpretations on the minds of others) provides meaning and justification in for what would otherwise be meaningless suffering. He provides comfort of sorts with a realm of existence that is divine , holy, pure, and true. Nonetheless, the will to power may have had certain cosmological and mythic dimensions for Nietzsche, but the concept is also rooted in psychology.
In addition to Nietzsche writing specifically of the sublimation of the secular drive, the will to power and its vicissitude drives, particularly in the form of appropriation and incorporation. As Staten points out, this notion of the primitive will to power is similar to Freud’s idea in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego according to which ‘identification [is] the earliest expression of an emotional tie with another person . . . It behaves like a derivation of the first oral phase for a prize is assimilated by eating. It would appear that Nietzsche goes a step further than Freud in one of his notes when he writes: ‘Nourishment-is only derivative, the original phenomenon is, to desire to incorporate everything.’ Nietzschean will to power never take place without a pleasurable excitation that there is no reason not to call erotic.
Nietzsche condemns those moralities that condemn life,’the morality that would un man’. And we can note that his highest affirmation includes ‘a yes-saying. . . . even to quilt, whereby there is a mutually reinforcing relationship between the growing capacity to say, ‘Yes, thus shall In will it’ it would do above all else, to create beyond it. The will In a creator, and all it was is a fragment, a riddle, a dreadful accident-until the creative will says to it: ‘But thus In shall will it, the creative says to it, ‘But thus In will, thus shall In will it.
In saying ‘yes’ to eternal recurrence as related to Nietzsche’s idea of becoming who one is. It is a saying ‘yes’ to what one is and has stilled: It is to identify one with all of one’s actions, to see hat everting one does (what one become) is what one is. In the ideal case it is also to fit all this into a coherent whole and to want to be everything that one is: It is to give style to one’s character, to be, in becoming, least of mention, one cannot accomplish the Nietzschean redemption without knowing and choosing who one is: To decide that some past event was a benefit presupposes and commits me to certain views as to who In am, what my dominant desires and goals are now. Still to point out, that affirming eternal decree involves an affirmation of life, of the intrinsic whole of life in opposition to the ascetic ideal, in that ‘Nietzsche’s ideals to love the whole process enough that one is willing to relive eternally been those parts of it that one does not and cannot live. That the ‘reason for wishing most fervently the repetition of each’, is that one.
While Nietzsche is quite willing, as in his psychological explorations, to draw distinction between ‘deeper’ realities in relation to ‘surface’ appearances, he also argue that on a fundamental level one cannot draw a distinction between a merely apparent world and a perspective-free true factual world. The ‘deeper’ realities he discovered cannot be regarded as facts-in-themselves or anything else of the kind that would be free of embeddedness in human schemes, practices, theories, and interpretations. Of perspectival seeing and knowing.
Although Nietzsche calls into question the absolute value of truth, vales the illusion (the truthful illusions) of art that a stimulant to life, values. Masks, veils and even the creative lie, he also answers the call of truth. Truth calls to us tempts us to unveil her. If we have integrity we will say ‘Yes’ to the hardest service, surrounding much that we held dear, inclining our wishes ‘not to see . . . [what]. one does’. When the unveiling takes place we come upon not truth (or woman) in-it but an appearance which is reality by way of a particular perspective. One might regard this situation as, among other possibilities, and opportunity for creative play of the interpretive capacities, for the creating and destroying of play, for a creative sublimation of the will to power. But none of this regarded as truth. What it does involve, in the words of Linda Alcoff, is that for Nietzsche ‘neither a noumenal realm nor a historical synthesis exists to provide an absolute criterion of adjudication for competing truth claims and perhaps what is most important, Nietzsche introduces the notion that truth is a kind of human practice, Alcoff also suggests that ‘perspectives are to be judged not on their relation to the absolute but on the basis of their effects in specific area. For Alcoff, this entails ‘local pragmatic’ truths even though Nietzsche does posit trans-historical truth claims such as his claim regarding the will to power. Nietzsche is concerned with what corresponds to or fits the facts, but such fact are not established without as human contribution, without interpretation. Of course for those for whom the term ‘fact’ should entail before the ‘factum brutum’ there may be an objection to their use of such terms as ‘fact’, ‘reality’, etc., in such a context.
Justifiably for Nietzsche’s bad conscience offers relief n from as deeper, truer guilt or fear of abandonment but from the hopelessness, helplessness, depression, etc., that would exist in the face of the inability to direct one’s instincts, one ‘s will to power, one’s freedom, outward into an upon the world. But also recall the passage in which Nietzsche suggests that ‘this man of the bad conscience . . . apprehend in ‘God’ the ultimate antithesis o of hoi own ineluctable animal instincts, and he reinterprets these instincts themselves as a form of guilt before God (his hostility, rebellion, insurrection against the Lord, the father, the primal ancestor and origin of the world.) For Nietzsche this bad conscience is not rooted or ground in a primal rebellious and hostile deed, rather, it is grounded in splitting off from the ineluctable animal instinct as guilt before or sin against the father upon who is projected the antithesis of such instincts. This can occur when more spontaneous instinctual expression is blocked in the is substituted for the object of instinctual gratification, particularly aggression. As the aggression turned against the as the object upon which to discharge this drive, this bad can be potentially freed and made good by participating in the power of, the being of, God who is the idealized antithesis of such instincts.
(When God acts aggressively, it is with the believer’s good conscience.) And Freud follows Nietzsche when he states that, ‘the believer has a share in he greatest of his god’. He also follows Nietzsche and others who emphasize the spiritual or physiological sickness that accompanies the achievements of civilization with its foundations in repression and guilt. For both thinkers, guilt, however painful, can provide relief from something more painful, whether a greater quilt or depression.
The relevant concept in Nietzsche’s reflections on control of the non-rational elements of the soul has to ‘- overcoming’ or ‘giving style’ to one’s character. This is discussed at length in Gay Science of which this is an extract: One thing is needful: . . . .to ‘give style’ to one’s character, a great and rare art! It is practised-by these who survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye. The weak characters without power over them hate the constraint of style [and] are always out to form or interpret themselves and their environment as free nature-wild, arbitrary, fantastic, disorderly, astonishing. [. . . .] For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with him, whether it is by means of this or that poetry and art; only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with him is continually ready for revenge, and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight. For the sight of what is ugly makes one bad and gloomy.
One way of interpreting this passage is to understand it to mean that one must come to accept all of one’s defects and not attempt to eliminate or control them. Something like this can be suggested by the following comment by Staten: His stance toward him is the antithesis of, says, St. Augustine’s; Instead of judging, condemning, and paring away at his impulses, Nietzsche says he has simply tried to arrange them so that they might all coexist. ‘Contrary capacities’ dwell in him, he says, and he has tried to ‘mix nothing’, to ‘reconcile nothing’.
However, Staten's analysis is vague. Granted, Nietzsche does not think, so-called weaknesses should be repressed. We discussed his arguments against repression of instincts earlier in this section, and argued that they were not in fact incompatible with Plato’s views on rational control of the soul. Both Nietzsche and Plato, we saw, advocate some form of control of the impulses that does not involve 'paring away' at them, but insofar as possible, involves their redirection toward an object more suited to the well-being of the soul or character as a whole, i.e., some form of sublimation of the instincts. Does what Nietzsche say at contradicting these arguments in any way? What he suggests we actually do with the undesirable instincts is this: Here the ugly that could not be removed is concealed; there it has been reinterpreted and made sublime. Much that is vague and resisted shaping has been saved and exploited for distant views; it is meant to beckon toward the far and immeasurable. Unfortunately thee will not of any attempt to explain what each of the transformations described in this passage actually amounts to-unfortunately, but the passage is vague and metaphorical beyond interpretation. What matters here, is that Nietzsche proposes several ways of dealing with undesirable instincts, and that whatever these ways are, they do not amount to leaving them untouched. Maybe Nietzsche does not pair away at his instincts (although the phrase 'the ugly that could not be removed' may suggest that he in fact does.) Yet he does judge them, i.e., he has to decide whether they must be concealed, or transformed, or saved up. There is no suggestion that any instinct is as good as another and that all will hold a place of honour in the character to which style has been given. To 'style' is to constrain and control, and one cannot give style to one's character and thereby render it tolerable to behold, if one is not able to control one's instincts. As Nietzsche writes later on in that passage, 'the weak characters without power over them hate the constraint of style'. Weakness is equated with lack of-control, and not, as the quotation from Staten may suggest, with control of one's instincts.
Nietzsche does not reject moral theories that demand that we control our desires. What he does reject is repression as an extinction. On the contrary, he seems to believe that an ideal life would involve sublimation-a form of control-of the appetites for the benefit of the pursuit of one's ideal. It follows from these conclusions that there is in fact no significant difference between Nietzsche and Plato's moral psychology regarding the control of the appetites: Neither is in favour of repression, both advocate a certain creative control involving sublimation.
As far as defending opposite theories about how we should control the non-rational elements of the soul, Plato and Nietzsche in fact hold very similar views. Their views can be explained by referring to certain Freudian concepts, sublimation and repression. According to Freud, impulses lend themselves too more than one kind of control. They can either be repressed, i.e., prevented from attaining satisfaction, or sublimated, i.e., their force can be redirected toward a more beneficial object. The first kind of control is rejected by both Plato and Nietzsche (at least as a general policy) as ineffective and unhealthy. Plato sees repression as one of the paths to tyrannical behaviour patterns (those impulses, which are repressed come back at night as violent dreams). Nietzsche views it as one of the worst manifestations of asceticism, one that prevents the ‘one thing needful’, giving style, i.e., the integration of all of one’s character traits, and makes us ‘continually ready for revenge, bad and gloomy’.
The second means of controlling impulses, sublimation, is one that we found to hold an important place in both Plato and Nietzsche’s moral psychologies. Both believe that potentially harmful instincts can be redirected Nietzsche higher goals, and contribute to the perfection of the character. We saw that Plato used the vocabulary of sublimation in the Republic, where he talks of the appetitive impulses being redirected toward a love of learning. Nietzsche had written of sublimation, an he specifically wrote of the sublimation of sexual dives in the Genealogy. Freud’s use the term as here duffers somewhat from his later and more Nietzschean usage such as in Three Essays o the Theory of Sexuality. But a Kaufmann notes ‘the word is older than Freud or Nietzsche. . . . it was Nietzsche who first gave it the specific connotation it has today.’‘. Kaufmann regards the concept of sublimation as one of the most important concept in Nietzsche’s entire philosophy. Nietzsche, we saw, actually uses the term sublimation when he describes the kind of control one must impose on one’s character in order to give style to it.
When two philosophers who are among the more concerned with the question how we should live turn out to hold very similar moral psychologies, then the concepts they use are probably concepts that should hold an important place in any moral psychology. That these concepts are affirming Freudian non-objections. Freud him was deeply concerned with the problem of how best we could live our lives, and how we could deal with the dark forces of our unconscious. These forces are recognised by Plato (even the most respectable of us, he says are subject to them) also through Nietzsche. Should not a central concern of moral philosophy be how best to deal with them, how best to control them rationally? If so, then it seems that we need a moral psychology that explains what role these dark impulses play in the human soul, and how reason might control them. This, In have argued, is exactly what Plato and Nietzsche attempt to do.
One hundred years ago Thus Speak Zarathustra appeared. The most celebrated work of Nietzsche, it has been read and cited by even moderately educated people. The German philosopher has a stormy reputation due to his tirades against Christianity and his aristocratic rejection of conventional moral views. Nietzsche provokes all kinds of reactions. Each reader may have his own Nietzsche, drawing from him a cherished opinion to be worn as a coloured badge with the hope of shocking ordinary folk. In fact in the last one hundred years, everything and anything has been said about Nietzsche.
This absence of professionalism and this facile subjectivism have produced occasionally disastrous consequences. From the beginning Nietzsche's thought has defied systematic construction. Even now the most memorable characteristics of his pioneering work are his ferocious fulminations, his deconstruction, and the acrid stench left by those who have raided his texts. One cannot hope to say finally what Nietzsche really meant. Still, finding a unifying thread may be possible. This requires ignoring abusively and merely subjectivist interpretations while highlighting those of true value. The renewed interest in Nietzsche's works has produced a vast and expanding body of relevant literature, as much as it is pivotal.
In June 1981 Rudolf Augstein, editor of Der Spiegel, stated without qualification that Hitler was the man of action who put Nietzsche's thought into practice. The journalist took for proof the falsifications of some of Nietzsche's manuscripts by his sister Elisabeth Nietzsche-Forster, who had shaken Hitler's hand in the twilight of her life. This argument is perhaps a bit thin in view of the many other writings that his sister did not doctor.
Augstein is concerned not just about Nietzsche's revival by a young generation of German philosophers but also by the progressive abandonment among German intellectuals of the neo-Marxist Frankfurt School for Social Research. For Germans educated in the wake of "de-Nazification," the Frankfurt School's attack on bourgeois values, though often couched in arcane phrases, represented an effort to come to terms with the German past. Nonetheless, Frankfurt's total rejection of all thought that affirms a given fact has led to an impasse. Negativity cannot be an end in it; no one can progress intellectually or artistically through a permanent process of negation.
For Jurgen Habermas, the last important representative of the Frankfurt School, the Real is bad in that it does not include from the start all the Good existing in ideal form. Confronted by the imperfect Real, one feels compelled to maximize the Good, to moralize ad extremum in order to minimize the force of evilly encrusted in a real world marked by incompleteness. Imperfect reality must call forth a redeeming revolution. However, this revolution runs the risk of affirming and shaping another categorical class of settings that are imperfectly real things. Habermas rejects great global revolutions that initiate new eras. Instead he prefers sporadic micro-revolutions that inaugurate ages of permanent corrections, small injections of the Good into the sociopolitical tissue inevitably tainted by the Bad. Nonetheless, the world of political philosophy cannot rest content with this constant tinkering, but this dogged adherence to reform without limitation, as this social engineering without substance. The suspicions of Nazism weighing heavily on Nietzscheism and the impossibility of keeping philosophy at the level of permanent negation make it necessary to reject the obsession with the proto-Nazi Nietzsche and the Frankfurt School's negative attitude toward any given.
Nietzsche has had his share of Nazi interpreters. Philosophers who fellow-travelled with the Nazis often made kind references to his thought. Yet recent scholarship shows that Nietzsche found not only Nazi admirers but also socialist and leftist ones. In Nietzsche in German Politics and Society 1890-1918 (1983), the British Professor R. Hinton Thomas demonstrates the close relationship between Nietzsche and German socialism. Thomas deals with Nietzsche's impact in Imperial Germany on social democratic circles, on anarchists and feminists, and on the youth’s movement. This produced, on balance more resolute enemies of the Third Reich than Nazi cadres. Thomas shows that Nietzsche helped shape a libertarian ideology during the rise of the German social democratic movement. At the urging of August Bebel, the famed German socialist, the infant Social Democratic Party in 1875 adopted the Gotha Program, which sought to achieve redistributionist aims through legal means. In 1878 the government enacted anti-socialist laws, which curbed the party's activities. In 1890, with the Erfurt Program, the party took on a harder revolutionary cast in conformity with Marxist doctrine. Social democracy subsequently oscillated between strict legalism, also known as "revisionism" or "reformism" because it accepted a liberal capitalist society, and a rhetorical commitment to revolution accompanied by demands for far-reaching changes.
According to Thomas, this second tendency remained a minority position but incorporated Nietzschean elements. A faction of the party, led by Bruno Wille, ridiculed the powerlessness of reformist social democrats. This group, which called it Die Jungen (The Youths), appealed to grass-roots democracy, spoke of the need for more communication within the party, and ended up rejecting its rigid parent. Wille and his friends mocked the conformism of party functionaries, great and small, and the "cage" constituting organized social democracy. The party's stifling constraints subdued the will and thwarted individual self-actualization. Die Jungen exalted "voluntarism," or the exercise of will, which they associated with true socialism. This emphasis on will left little place for the deterministic materialism of Marxism, which the group described as an "enslaving" system.
Kurt Eisner, the leader of the revolutionary socialist Bavarian Republic, devoted his first book in 1919 to the philosophy of Nietzsche. Though he criticized the "megalomania" that he found in Thus Spake Zarathustra, he also praised its aristocratic ideals. The aristocratic values found in Nietzsche, he said, had to be put at the service of the people, not treated as ends in themselves. Gustav Landauer (1870-1919), another founder of the Bavarian "Red Republic," emphasized Nietzschean voluntarism in his training of political revolutionaries. Landauer's original anarchistic individualism became more communitarian and populist during the course of his political career, approaching the folkish, nationalist thinking of his enemies. Landauer died in the streets of Munich fighting the soldiers of the Freikorp, a group of paramilitary adventurers who were classified as "rightist" but who shared very much of Landauer's outlook.
Contrary to a later persistent misconception, Nietzsche aroused suspicion on the nationalist Right at the end of the nineteenth century. According to Thomas, this was because Nietzsche mocked many things German, (which offended the pan-Germanists), was generally contemptuous of politics, had no enthusiasm for nationalism, and fell out with the composer Richard Wagner, a fervent and anti-Semitic German nationalist.
Nietzsche's vitalist concepts and naturalist vocabulary may account for his early support on the European Left and for his later popularity on the non-Christian Right. Nietzsche's emphases on will and his affirmation of an ethic of creativity have had diverse appeal. In his concise work, Helmut Pfotenhauer assesses Nietzsche's legacy from the point of view of physiology, a term with a naturalistic connotation. This word appears frequently in Nietzsche's work in the phrase Kunst als Physiologie, art as physiology.
The great French writer Balzac, who coined the phrase "physiology of marriage," said about this neologism: "Physiology was formerly the science dealing with the mechanism of the coccyx, the progress of the fetus, or the life of the tapeworm. Today physiology is the art of speaking and writing incorrectly about anything." In the nineteenth century the term physiology was associated with a type of popular literature such as the garrulous serials in daily newspapers. Physiology was intended to classify the main features of daily life. Thus there was a physiology of the stroller or of the English tourist pacing up and down Paris boulevards. In that sense physiology has some limited relationship to the zoological classifications of Buffon or Linnaeas. In his Comedie humaine, Balzac draws a parallel between the animal world and human society. "Political zoology" is used by various nineteenth-century writers, including Gustave Flaubert and Edgar Allen Poe. Nietzsche was aware of the literary and scientific usage of physiology. He noted that the physiological style was invading universities and that the vocabulary of his time was embellished with terms drawn from biology. One wonders why Nietzsche resorted to the term physiology when he believed that it was often used carelessly.
In Pfotenhauer's view, Nietzsche had no intention of giving respectability to the pseudoscientific or pseudo-aesthetic excesses of the "physiologists" of his day. His intention, as interpreted by Pfotenhauer, was to challenge an established form of aesthetics. He constructed the expression "physiology of the art," insofar as the arts were conventionally approached as mere objects of contemplation. From Nietzsche's perspective, artistic productivity is an expression of our nature and ultimately of Nature itself. Through art, Nature becomes more active within us.
By using the term physiology Nietzsche was making a didactic point. He celebrated the exuberance of vital forces, while frowning on any attempt to neutralize the vital processes by giving a value to the average. In other words, Nietzsche rejected those sciences that limited their investigations to the averages, excluding the singular and exceptional. Nietzsche though that Charles Darwin, by limiting himself to broad classes in his biology, favoured the generic without focussing on the exceptional individual. Nietzsche saw physiology as a tool to do for the individual confronting existential questions what Darwin had accomplished as a classifier of entire phyla and species. He attempted to analyse clinically the struggle of superior individuals for self-fulfilment in a world without inherent metaphysical meaning.
"God is dead" is an aphorism identified with Nietzsche. Nietzsche believed that, together with God, all important ontological and metaphysical systems had died. Only the innocence of human destiny remained, and he did not want it to be frozen in some "superior unity of being." Recognizing the reign of destiny, he thought, involved certain risks. In the river of changing life, creative geniuses run the risk of drowning, of being only fragmentary and contingent moments. How can anyone gladly say "yes" to life without an assurance that his achievements will be preserved, not simply yielded to the natural rhythms of destiny? Perhaps the query of Silene to King Midas is well-established. "Is this fleeting life worth being lived? Would it not have been better had we not been born?" Would it not be ideal to die as quickly as possible?
These questions pick up the theme of Arthur Schopenhauer, the famous philosopher of pessimism. The hatred of life that flowed from Schopenhauer's pessimism was unsatisfactory to Nietzsche. He believed that in an age of spiritual confusion the first necessity was to affirm life itself. This is the meaning of "the transvaluations of all values" as understood by Pfotenhauer. Nietzsche's teachings about the will were intended to accomplish the task of reconstructing values. The creative exercise of will was both an object of knowledge and an attitude of the knowing subject. The vital processes were to be perceived from the point of view of constant creativity.
Though the abundance of creative energy, man can assume divine characteristics. The one who embraces his own destiny without any resentment or hesitation turns himself into an embodiment of that destiny. Life should express itself in all its mobility and fluctuation, immobilizing or freezing it into a system was an assault on creativity. The destiny that Nietzsche urged his readers to embrace was to be a source of creative growth. The philosopher was a "full-scale artist" who organized the world in the face of chaos and spiritual decline. Nietzsche's use of physiology was an attempt to endow vital processes with an appropriate language. Physiology expressed the intended balance between Nature and mere rationality.
Myth, for Nietzsche, had no ethnological point of reference. It was, says Pfotenhauer, the "science of the concrete" and the expression of the tragedy resulting from the confrontation between man's physical fragility (Hinfalligkeit) and his heroic possibilities. Resorting to myth was not a lapse into folk superstition, as the rationalists believed it to be. It was moderately an attempt to see man's place within Nature.
Pfotenhauer systematically explored the content of Nietzsche's library, finding "vitalist" arguments drawn from popular treatments of science. The themes that riveted Nietzsche's attention were: Adaptation, the increase of potential within the same living species, references to vital forces, corrective eugenics, and spontaneous generation. Nietzsche's ideas were drawn from the scientific or parascientific speculations of his time and from literary, cultural, and artistic tracts. He criticized the imitative classicism of some French authors and praised the profuse style of the Baroque. In the philosopher's eyes, the creativity of genius and rich personalities had more value than mere elegant conversation. Uncertainty, associated with the ceaseless production of life, meant more to him than the search for certainty, which always implied a static perfection. On the basis of this passion for spiritual adventure he founded a "new hierarchization of values." The man who internalized the search for spiritual adventure anticipated the "superman," about whom so much has been said. Pfotenhauer's Nietzsche is made to represent the position that the creative man allies himself with the power of vital impulse against stagnant ideas, accepting destiny's countless differences and despising limitations. Nietzschean man does not react with anguish in the face of fated change.
Nietzsche had no desire to inaugurate a worry-free era. Instead, he responded to the symptoms of a declining Christian culture by criticizing society from the standpoint of creative and heroic fatalism. This criticism, which refuses to accept the world as it is, claims to be formative and affirmative: it represents a will to create new forms of existence. Nietzsche substituted an innovative criticism affirming destiny for an older classical view based on fixed concepts. Nietzsche's criticism does not include an irrational return to a historic and unformed existence. Nietzsche, as presented by Pfotenhauer, constructs his own physiology of man's nature as a creative being.
To begin with, there are some obvious general parallels between Nietzsche and Sartre that few commentators would wish to dispute. Both are vehement atheists who resolutely face up to the fact that the cosmos has no inherent meaning or purpose. Unlike several other thinkers, they do not even try to replace the dead God of Christian theology with talk of Absolute Spirit or Being. In one of only two brief references to Nietzsche in Being and Nothingness, Sartre upholds his rejection of "the illusion of worlds-behind-the-scene”; That is, the notion that there is a Platonic true world of noumenal being which stand behind becoming and reduces phenomena to the status of mere illusion or appearance. Both thinkers also insist that it be human beings who create moral values and attempt to give meaning to life. Sartre speaks ironically of the "serious" men who think that values have an absolute objective existence, while Nietzsche regards people who passively accept the values they have been taught as sheep-like members of the herd.
When we attempt a deeper explanation of the ultimate source of values, the relationship between Sartre and Nietzsche becomes more problematic. Nietzsche says that out of a nation (or people’s) tablet of good and evil speaks "the voice of their will to power.” For Sartre, the values that we adopt or posits are part of our fundamental project, which is to achieve justified being and become in-itself-for-itself. It appears, therefore, that both thinkers regard man as an essentially Faustian striver, and that grouping Sartre with Nietzsche as a proponent of would not be unfair "will to power.” Clearly, Sartre would object to such a Nietzschean characterization of his existential psychoanalysis. In Being and Nothingness he rejects all theories that attempt to explain individual behaviour in terms of general substantive drives, and he is particularly critical of such notions as the libido and the will to power. Sartre insists that these are not psycho-biological entities, but original projects like any other that the individual can negate through his or her freedom. He denies that striving for power is a general characteristic of human beings, denies the existence of any opaque and permanent will-entity within consciousness, and even denies that human beings have any fixed nature or essence.
However, Sartre's criticisms of the will to power are only applicable to popular misunderstandings of Nietzsche's thought. Like the for-itself, Nietzsche's "will" should not be regarded as a substantive entity. Although it is derived from the metaphysical theories of Schopenhauer and is sometimes spoken of in ways that invite ontologizing, Nietzsche's conception of the will is predominantly adjectival and phenomenological. Its status is similar to that of Sartre's for-itself, which should not be considered a metaphysical entity even though it is a remote descendent of the "thinking substance" of Descartes. Thus, in Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche criticizes the unjustified metaphysical assumptions that are bound up with the Cartesian "In think" and the Schopenhauerian "In will" he says that "willing seems to me to be above all something complicated, something that is a unity only as a word.” Although there are passages in the writings of both Sartre and Nietzsche that can be interpreted metaphysically if taken out of context, regarding is better "nothingness" and "will" as alternate adjectival descriptions of our being.
Although Nietzsche's use of the word "power" invites misunderstanding, he clearly uses the term in a broad sense and has a sophisticated conception of power. Nietzsche is not claiming that everyone really wants political power or dominion over other people. Nietzsche describes philosophy as "the most spiritual will to power," and regards the artist as a higher embodiment of the will to power than either the politician or the conqueror. Through his theory Nietzsche can account for a wide variety of human behaviour without being reductionist. Thus, a follower may subordinate himself to a leader or group to feel empowered, and even the perverse or negative behaviour of the ascetic priest or embittered moralist can be accounted for in terms of the will to power.
Nietzsche speaks of "power" in reaction to the 19th century moral theorists who insisted that men strive for utility or pleasure. The connotations of "power" are broader and richer, suggesting that a human being is more than a calculative "economic man" whose desires could be satisfied with the utopian comforts of a Brave New World. Nietzsche's meaning could also be brought out by speaking of a will toward a self-realization, (one of his favourite mottoes was "Become what you are!") or, by thinking of "power" as a psychic energy or potentiality whose possession "empowers" us to aspire, strive, and create.
In Being and Nothingness, Sartre presents himself as the discoverer of the full scope of human freedom, contrasting his seemingly open and indeterminate conception of human possibilities with a psychological and philosophical tradition that limits human nature by positing "opaque" drives and goals and insisting on their universality. Such an image of Sartre is widely held, although his insistence that consciousness strives to become in-itself-for-it gives his view of man of the greater determinatives, than a cursory glance at some of his philosophical rhetoric and literary works would suggest. For this reason, Sartre can profitably be related to other theorists who argue that man is motivated by a unitary force or strives for a single goal.
When evaluating such theories, the really essential distinction is between those that are open, inclusive and empirically indeterminate, and those that are narrow and reductionist. This could be illustrated by comparing the narrow utilitarianism of Bentham to Mill's broader development of the theory, or by contrasting Freud and Jung's conception of the libido. While Freud was resolutely reductionist and insisted that "the name of libido be properly reserved for the instinctual forces of sexual life," Jung broadened the term to refer to all manifestations of instinctual psychic energy. Thus, Sartre appears revolutionary when he contrasts him with Freud although he cannot legitimately claim that his view of man is more open or less reductionist than that of Nietzsche. Most likely, Sartre and many of his commentators would take issue with the above conclusion, and from a certain perspective their criticisms are justified. Unlike Nietzsche, Sartre is intent on upholding man's absolute freedom, rejecting the influence of instinct, denying the existence of unconscious psychic forces, and portraying consciousness as a nothingness that has no essence. In comparison even with other non-reductionist views of man, then, it would seem that the radical nature of Sartre's thought is unmatched.
However, in a more fundamental respect Sartre's ontology limits human possibilities by: (1) declaring that consciousness is a lack that is doomed to strive for fulfilment and justification vainly, and by (2) accepting important parts of the Platonic view of becoming as ontologically given rather than merely as aspects of his own original project. It is in this way that Sartre's philosophy becomes shipwrecked on reefs that Nietzsche manages to avoid.
For Sartre, "the for-it is defined ontologically as a lack of being," and "freedom is really synonymous with lack.” 6 Along with Plato he equates desire with a lack of being, but in contrast with Hegel he arrives at the pessimistic conclusion that "human reality therefore is by nature an unhappy consciousness with no possibility of surpassing its unhappy state.” In other words, the human condition is basically Sisyphean, for man is condemned to strive to fill his inner emptiness but is incapable of achieving justified being. This desire to become in-self-for-it, which Sartre also refers to as the project of being God, is said to define man and come "close to being the same as a human `nature' or an `essence'".8 Sartre tries to reconcile this universal project with freedom by claiming that our wish to be in-it-for-itself determines only the meaning of human desire but does not constitute it empirically. However such freedom is tainted, for no matter what we do empirically we can . . . neither avoid futile striving nor achieve an authentic sense of satisfaction, plenitude, joy, or fulfilment.
In Part Four of Being and Nothingness, Sartre describes how consciousness endeavours to create for its lack of being by striving to acquire and acknowledge the world. With the apparent reductionistic vehemence, he explains a variety of human behaviour in terms of the insatiable desire to consume, acquire, dominate, violate, and destroy. Sartre says that knowledge and discovery are appropriative enjoyments, and he characterizes the scientist as a sort of intellectual peeping Tom who wants to strip away the veils of nature and deflower her with his Look. Similarly, He says that the artist wants to produce substantive being that exists through him, and that the skier seeks to possess the field of snow and conquer the slope. Thus art, science, and play are all activities of appropriation, which either wholly or in part seek to possess the absolute being of the in-itself. Destruction is also an appropriative function. Sartre says that "a gift is a primitive form of destruction," describes giving as "a keen, brief enjoyment, almost sexual," and declares that "to give is to enslave.” He even interprets smoking as "the symbolic equivalent of destructively appropriating the entire world.”
Aside from the sweeping and one-sided nature of Sartre's claims, the most striking aspect of this section is the negativity of its account of human beings. Not only are we condemned to dissatisfaction, but some of our noblest endeavours are unmasked as pointless appropriation and destruction. One is reminded not of Nietzsche's will to power, but of Heidegger's scathing criticism of the "will to power" (interpreted popularly) as the underlying metaphysics of our era that embodies all that is most despicable about modernity. For Heidegger, it is such an insatiable will that occurs of an embodied quest to subjugate nature, mechanize the world, and enjoy ever-increasing material progress.
However, while Sartre speaks of consciousness as nothingness or a lack-a sort of black hole in being which can never be filled-Nietzsche associates’ man's being with positivity and plenitude. His preferred metaphor for the human essence be the will -an active image that allows striving and creativity to be reconciled with plenitude. It enables him to see activity and desire as a positive aspect of our nature, rather than a comparatively desperate attempt to fill the hole at the heart of our being. For Nietzsche, all that proceeds from weakness, sickness, inferiority, or lack is considered reactive and resentful, while that which proceeds from health, strength, or plenitude is characterized in positive terms. For instance, at the beginning of Thus Spoke Zarathustra he likens Zarathustra to a full cup wanting to overflow and to the sun that gives its light out of plenitude and superabundance. Later, he contrasts the generosity of the gift-giving virtue with the all-too-poor and hungry selfishness of the sick, which greedily "sizes up those who have much to eat" and always "sneaks around the table of those who give.”
An even sharper contrast can be drawn between Nietzsche and Sartre's attitudes toward Platonism. While both reject the transcendent realm of perfect forms, Sartre fails to realize that a denial of the truth-value of Platonic metaphysics without a corresponding rejection of Platonic aspirations and attitudes can only lead to pessimism and resentment against being. The inadequacy and incompleteness of Sartre's break with Platonism can be brought out by examining it in terms of William James conception of the common nucleus of religion. James says that the religious attitude fundamentally involves (1) "an uneasiness" or, the "sense that there is something wrong about us as we naturally stand," and (2) "its solution.” Sartre vehemently rejects all religious and metaphysical "solutions," but he accepts the notion that there is ‘an essential wrongness’ or, lack in being. Not only does he regard consciousness as a lack, but in Nausea, Sartre condemns the wrongness of nature and other people in terms that are both Platonic and resentful
Just as Plato admired the mathematical orderliness of music and looked down upon nature as a fluctuating and imperfect copy of the forms, the central contrast of Nausea is between the sharp, precise, inflexible order of a jazz song, and the lack of order and purpose of a chestnut tree. Roquentin enjoys virtually his only moments of joy in the novel while listening to the jazz, but experiences his deepest nausea while sitting beneath the tree. He regards its root as a "black, knotty mass, entirely beastly," speaks of the abundance of nature as "dismal, ailing, embarrassed at itself," and asks "what good are so many duplications of trees?".Nothing could be a more striking blasphemy against nature. Trees are one of the most venerable and life-giving of all organic beings, providing us with oxygen and shade. Many ancient peoples regarded trees as sacred, and enlightenment (from the insight of the Buddha to Newton's discovery of gravitation) is often pictured as coming while sitting under a tree. Roquentin too, experiences a sort of negative epiphany while he is beneath the chestnut tree. He concludes that "every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance".18 In contrast to the pointlessness of the tree and other existing organic beings, Sartre says that a perfect circle is not absurd because "it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment around one of its extremities.” In such a Platonic spirit, he reflects:
If you existed, you had to exist all the way, as far as mouldiness, bloatedness, obscenities were concerned. In another world, circles, bars of music keep their pure and rigid lines.
In Nausea, Sartre reveals a contempt for human beings that surpasses his contempt for nature and even rivals the misanthropy of Schopenhauer. He particularly despises the organic, biological aspect of our nature. He speaks of living creatures as "flabby masses which move spontaneously," and seems to have a particular aversion for fleshy, overweight people. He mocks at "the fat, pale crowd," describes a bourgeois worthy in the Bouville gallery as "defenceless, bloated, slobbering, vaguely obscene," and recalls a "terrible heat wave that turned men into pools of melting fat.” Sartre also feels that people are somehow diminished while eating. Roquentin is glad when the Self-Taught Man is served his dinner for "his soul leaves his eyes, and he docilely begins to eat.” Hugo thinks that Olga offers him food because "it keeps the other person at a distance," and "when a man is eating, he seems harmless.” Sartre also takes a negative view of sensuality. Roquentin says of young lovers in a café that they make him a little sick, and his account of sex with the patronne includes the fact that "she disgusts me a little" and that his arm went to sleep while playing "distractedly with her sex under the cover.” Perhaps his attitude toward sensuality is most uncharitably manifested when he thinks of a woman that he once show had been dining, remembering her as, a "fat, hot, sensual, absurd, with red ears," and imagines her now somewhere-in the midst of smells?-this soft throat rubbing up luxuriously against smooth stuffs, nestling in lace, and the woman picturing her bosom under her blouse, thinking "My titties, my lovely fruits."
Throughout Nausea the narrator's attitude toward people is uncharitable, judgemental, and resentful. Like the tolerably hostile Other of Being and Nothingness, Roquentin transcends and objectifies other people with his Look. He sits in cafes observing and passing judgement on people, and seems particularly to enjoy dehumanizing others by focussing on their unattractive physical features. He sees one fellow as a moustache beneath "enormous nostrils that could pump air for a whole family and that eat up half his face," while another person is described as "a young man with a face like a dog.” He treats the Self-Taught Man (whom Sartre uses to caricature humanism) coldly and condescendingly and does not even deem him worthy of a proper name. His attitude toward the eminent bourgeois portrayed in the Bouville gallery is an almost classic example of ressentiment. While looking at their portraits, he felt that their "judgement went through (him) like a sword and questioned (his) very right to exist" Like Hugo in Dirty Hands, he senses the emptiness of his own existence and feels inadequate and abnormal before the Look of purposeful and self-confident others who unreflectively feel that they have a right to exist. However, he manages to transcend their looks by concentrating on their bodily weaknesses and all-too-human faults. Thus, he overcomes one dead worthy by focussing on his "thin mouth of a dead snake" and pale, round, flabby checks, and he puts a reactionary politician in his place by recalling that the man was only five feet tall, had a squeaking voice, was accused of putting rubber lifts in his shoes, and had a wife who looked like a horse. Roquentin hates the bourgeois, but for him virtually all the people of Bouville are bourgeois:
Idiots. Thinking that In am going to see they are thick is repugnant to me, self-satisfied faces. They make laws, they write popular novels, they get married, they are fools enough to have children. Although Sartre is more insightful than the unreflective and self-satisfied "normal" people whom he judges so uncharitably, he seems unaware that his own thought fails to escape the ancient reefs of Platonism and metaphysical pessimism. Even the upbeat ending of Nausea is comparatively tentative and half-hearted, and does not question or overturn any of the ontological views expressed earlier in the book.
On the other hand, although Nietzsche shares many of the same philosophical premises as Sartre, his view of life and nature is much less bleak because he thoroughly rejects the Platonic world-view and all metaphysical forms of pessimism. First, throughout his writings Nietzsche vehemently opposes the Platonic prejudice that puts being above becoming, idealizes rationality and purpose, and despises the disorderly flux of nature and the organic and animalistic aspects of the body. He admires Heraclitus rather than Parmenides, denies that there is any "eternal spider or spider web of reason," and declares "over all things stand the heaven Accident, the heaven Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness.” Unlike Sartre, he had a high regard for the vital, superabundant, and non-rational aspect of nature, and loved music for its ability to express emotional depths and Dionysian ecstasy rather than as an embodiment of reason, order, or precision.
In response to Schopenhauer and several religious traditions, Nietzsche refutes metaphysical pessimism. He denies that life or nature is essentially lacking or evil, or that any negative evaluation of being as a whole could possess truth-value. This is in keeping with his sceptical position, which denies that the thing-in-itself is knowable and insists that all philosophical systems reflect the subjectivity of their author and are "a kind of involuntary and incognizant memoir.” If Nietzsche were to speak in the language of Being and Nothingness, he would insist that the desire to achieve the complete and justified being of the in-itself-for-itself be simply Sartre's original project, not an ontological given that condemns every person to unhappy consciousness.
One of the central themes of Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the overcoming of pessimism and despair through the will. Zarathustra says that "my will always comes to me as my liberator and joy-bringer. Willing discharges, that which is the true teaching of will and liberty.” At the end of `The Tomb Song,' he turns to his will to overcome despair, referring it as something invulnerable and unburiable that can redeem his youth and shatter tombs. Although the will to power is often associated with striving for the overman (not to mention those who wrongly link it with domination and conquest), it is also essential to such Nietzschean themes as amor fati, eternal recurrence, and the affirmation of life. In order to affirm his existence, Zarathustra says that he must redeem the past by transforming "the will's ill will against time, as it was" into a creative "But thus In will it; Thus shall In will it" It is out of such reflections that the project of embracing eternal recurrence emerges.
In keeping with his desire to affirm life, Nietzsche's attitude toward other people is more charitable and less negative than that of Roquentin and many of Sartre's other literary heroes. Admittedly, Nietzsche makes many nasty remarks about historical figures, but these are often balanced by corresponding positive observations, and most of his polemical fury is directed against ideas, dogmas, and institutions rather than individuals. For instance, Zarathustra says of priests that "though they are my enemies, pass by them silently with sleeping swords. Among them too there are heroes.” While some of his comments on the rabble are comparable to Sartre's comments on the bourgeois, Zarathustra also criticizes his "ape" who sits outside a great city and vengefully denounces its inhabitants, for "where one can no longer love, there must be, at least of One by which should pass.”
God is dead. The terror with which this event-and he did call it an event-filled Nietzsche is hardly understood any more. Yet to that latecomer in a long line of theologians and believers it meant the disapperance of meaning from the sentiment of life. This, as Nietzsche feared, pointed the way to nihilism. “A nihilist,” he wrote, “is a person who says of the world as it is, that it better were not, and, with regard to the world as it should be, that it does not and cannot exist.” And it does not exist because God is no more. Therefore, there cannot be any belief in a beyond, an ineffable life beyond the grave, not even in the possibility of that “godless” peace of Buddha and Schopenhauer that is indistinguishable from the peace of God and attainable only through the overcoming of all worldly desires and aspirations.
Nihilism, Nietzsche believes, is the fate of all religious traditions if along the road their fundamental assumptions are lost. This, according to him, is so with Judaism because of its all-persuasive “Thou shalt not” that, in the long run, can be accepted and obeyed only within a rigorously disciplined community of the faithful; and it is so with Christianity, not only because it was, to a large extent, heir to the Jewish moralism but, at the same time, tended to judge the whole domain of the natural to be a conspiracy against the divine spirit. For the Christian, the Here and Now with its deceptive promises of happiness-all of which promise, when it comes to it, an inevitable loss, and with its illusions of achievement, all of which conceal for a while the imminence of failure-is nothing but the testing ground for the soul to prove that it deserves the bliss of the Beyond. Nietzsche, like many before him, is philosophically outraged by this doctrine that conceives of Eternity as, at some point, taking over from Time, projecting it into endlessness, and of Time for being an outsider to the Eternity and, after the death of God, forever an exile from it. Everything, therefore, exists only for a while in its individual articulation and then never more. From this void, the black hole, there arises Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence. It is to cure time of its mortal disease, its terminal destructiveness.
Of those modern thinkers who resolutely face the fact that God is dead and the universe contains no inherent meaning or purpose, and Sartre and Nietzsche follow among the most important. However, although they begin from nearly similar premises, Sartre is both less radical and less life-affirming of a thinker than Nietzsche. It is particularly ironic that he puts so much emphasis on freedom, and yet refuses to grant consciousness the power to overcome its insatiable yearning to be in-itself-for-itself, and fails to question his own Platonic prejudices against nature and becoming. Since scientists, during the nineteenth century were engrossed with uncovering the workings of external reality and seemingly knew of themselves that these virtually overflowing burdens of nothing, in that were about the physical substrates of human consciousness, the business of examining the distributive contribution in dynamic functionality and structural foundation of mind became the province of social scientists and humanists. Adolphe Quételet proposed a ‘social physics’ that could serve as the basis for a new discipline called sociology, and his contemporary Auguste Comte concluded that a true scientific understanding of the social reality was quite inevitable. Mind, in the view of these figures, was a separate and distinct mechanism subject to the lawful workings of a mechanical social reality.
More formal European philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, sought to reconcile representations of external reality in mind with the motions of matter-based on the dictates of pure reason. This impulse was also apparent in the utilitarian ethics of Jerry Bentham and John Stuart Mill, in the historical materialism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and in the pragmatism of Charles Smith, William James and John Dewey. These thinkers were painfully aware, however, of the inability of reason to posit a self-consistent basis for bridging the gap between mind and matter, and each remains obliged to conclude that the realm of the mental exists only in.
Psychological research involving human subjects raises ethical concerns about the subject's right to privacy, the possible harm or discomfort caused by experimental procedures, and the use of deception. Over the years, psychologists have established various ethical guidelines. The American Psychological Association recommends that researchers (1) tell prospective subjects what they will experience so they can give informed consent to participate; (2) instruct subjects that they may withdraw from the study at any time; (3) minimize all harm and discomfort; (4) keep the subjects’ responses and behaviours confidential; and (5) debrief subjects who were deceived in some way by fully explaining the research after they have participated. Some psychologists argue that such rules should never be broken. Others say that some degree of flexibility is needed in order to study certain important issues, such as the effects of stress on test performance.
Laboratory experiments that use rats, mice, rabbits, pigeons, monkeys, and other animals are an important part of psychology, just as in medicine. Animal research serves three purposes in psychology: to learn more about certain types of animals, to discover general principles of behaviour that pertain to all species, and to study variables that cannot ethically be tested with human beings. But is it ethical to experiment on animals?
Some animal rights activists believe that it is wrong to use animals in experiments, particularly in those that involve surgery, drugs, social isolation, food deprivation, electric shock, and other potentially harmful procedures. These activists see animal experimentation as unnecessary and question whether results from such research can be applied to humans. Many activists also argue that like humans, animals have the capacity to suffer and feel pain. In response to these criticisms, many researchers point out that animal experimentation has helped to improve the quality of human life. They note that animal studies have contributed to the treatment of anxiety, depression, and other mental disorders. Animal studies have also contributed to our understanding of conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, obesity, alcoholism, and the effects of stress on the immune system. Most researchers follow strict ethical guidelines that require them to minimize pain and discomfort to animals and to use the least invasive procedures possible. In addition, federal animal-protection laws in the United States require researchers to provide humane care and housing of animals and to tend to the psychological well-being of primates used in research.
One of the youngest sciences, psychology did not emerge as a formal discipline until the late 19th century. But its roots extend to the ancient past. For centuries, philosophers and religious scholars have wondered about the nature of the mind and the soul. Thus, the history of psychological thought begins in philosophy.
From about 600 to 300 Bc, Greek philosophers inquired about a wide range of psychological topics. They were especially interested in the nature of knowledge and how human beings come to know the world, a field of philosophy known as epistemology. The Greek philosopher Socrates and his followers, Plato and Aristotle, wrote about pleasure and pain, knowledge, beauty, desire, free will, motivation, common sense, rationality, memory, and the subjective nature of perception. They also theorized about whether human traits are innate or the product of experience. In the field of ethics, philosophers of the ancient world probed a variety of psychological questions: Are people inherently good? How can people attain happiness? What motives or drives do people have? Are human beings naturally social?
Second-century physician Galen was one of the most influential figures in ancient medicine, second in importance only to Hippocrates. Using animal dissection and other means, Galen proposed numerous theories about the function of different parts of the human body, most notably the brain, heart, and liver. He also derived an impressive understanding of the differences between veins and arteries. In the selection below, Galen discusses his idea that the optimal state, or “constitution,” of the body should be a perfect balance of various internal and external components.
Early thinkers also considered the causes of mental illness. Many ancient societies thought that mental illness resulted from supernatural causes, such as the anger of gods or possession by evil spirits. Both Socrates and Plato focussed on psychological forces as the cause of mental disturbance. For example, Plato thought madness results when a person’s irrational, animal-like psyche (mind or soul) overwhelms the intellectual, rational psyche. The Greek physician Hippocrates viewed mental disorders as stemming from natural causes, and he developed the first classification system for mental disorders. Galen, a Greek physician who lived in the 2nd century ad, echoed this belief in a physiological basis for mental disorders. He thought they resulted from an imbalance of the four bodily humours: black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm. For example, Galen thought that melancholia (depression) resulted from a person having too much black bile.
More recently, many other men and women contributed to the birth of modern psychology. In the 1600s French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes theorized that the body and mind are separate entities. He regarded the body as a physical entity and the mind as a spiritual entity, and believed the two interacted only through the pineal gland, a tiny structure at the base of the brain. This position became known as dualism. According to dualism, the behaviour of the body is determined by mechanistic laws and can be measured in a scientific manner. But the mind, which transcends the material world, cannot be similarly studied.
English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke disagreed. They argued that all human experiences-including sensations, images, thoughts, and feelings-are physical processes occurring within the brain and nervous system. Therefore, these experiences are valid subjects of study. In this view, which later became known as monism, the mind and body are one and the same. Today, in light of years of research indicating that the physical and mental aspects of the human experience are intertwined, most psychologists reject a rigid dualist position. See Philosophy of Mind; Dualism; Monism.
Many philosophers of the past also debated the question of whether human knowledge is inborn or the product of experience. Nativists believed that certain elementary truths are innate to the human mind and need not be gained through experience. In contrast, empiricists believed that at birth, a person’s mind is like a tabula rasa, or blank slate, and that all human knowledge ultimately comes from sensory experience. Today, all psychologists agree that both types of factors are important in the acquisition of knowledge.
Modern psychology can also be traced to the study of physiology (a branch of biology that studies living organisms and their parts) and medicine. In the 19th century, physiologists began studying the human brain and nervous system, paying particular attention to the topic of sensation. For example, in the 1850s and 1860s German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz studied sensory receptors in the eye and ear, investigating topics such as the speed of neural impulses, colour vision, hearing, and space perception. Another important German scientist, Gustav Fechner, founded psychophysics, the study of the relationship between physical stimuli and our subjective sensations of those stimuli. Building on the work of his compatriot Ernst Weber, Fechner developed a technique for measuring people’s subjective sensations of various physical stimuli. He sought to determine the minimum intensity level of a stimulus that is needed to produce a sensation.
English naturalist Charles Darwin was particularly influential in the development of psychology. In 1859 Darwin published On the Origin of Species, in which he proposed that all living forms were a product of the evolutionary process of natural selection. Darwin had based his theory on plants and nonhuman animals, but he later asserted that people had evolved through similar processes, and that human anatomy and behaviour could be analyzed in the same way. Darwin’s theory of evolution invited comparisons between humans and other animals, and scientists soon began using animals in psychological research.
French neurologist Jean Martin Charcot shows colleagues a female patient with hysteria at La Salpêtrière, a Paris hospital. Charcot gained renown throughout Europe for his method of treating hysteria and other “nervous disorders” through hypnosis. Charcot’s belief that hysteria had psychological rather than physical origins influenced Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, who studied under Charcot.
In medicine, physicians were discovering new links between the brain and language. For example, French surgeon Paul Broca discovered that people who suffer damage to a specific part of the brain’s left hemisphere lose the ability to produce fluent speech. This area of the brain became known as Broca’s area. A German neurologist, Carl Wernicke, reported in 1874 that people with damage to a different area of the left hemisphere lose their ability to comprehend speech. This region became known as Wernicke’s area.
Other physicians focussed on the study of mental disorders. In the late 19th century, French neurologist Jean Charcot discovered that some of the patients he was treating for so-called nervous disorders could be cured through hypnosis, a psychological-not medical-form of intervention. Charcot’s work had a profound impact on Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist whose theories would later revolutionize psychology.
Austrian physician Franz Fredrich Anton Mesmer pioneered the induction of trance-like states to cure medical ailments. Mesmer’s work sparked interest among some of his scientific colleagues but was later dismissed as charlatanism. Today, however, Mesmer is considered a pioneer in hypnosis, which is widely believed to be helpful in managing certain medical conditions.
Psychology was predated and somewhat influenced by various pseudoscientific schools of thought-that is, theories that had no scientific foundation. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Viennese physician Franz Joseph Gall developed phrenology, the theory that psychological traits and abilities reside in certain parts of the brain and can be measured by the bumps and indentations in the skull. Although phrenology found popular acceptance among the lay public in western Europe and the United States, most scientists ridiculed Gall’s ideas. However, research later confirmed the more general point that certain mental activities can be traced to specific parts of the brain.
Physicians in the 18th and 19th centuries used crude devices to treat mental illness, none of which offered any real relief. The circulating swing, top left, was used to spin depressed patients at high speed. American physician Benjamin Rush devised the tranquilizing chair, top right, to calm people with mania. The crib, bottom, was widely used to restrain violent patients.
Another Viennese physician of the 18th century, Franz Anton Mesmer, believed that illness was caused by an imbalance of magnetic fluids in the body. He believed he could restore the balance by passing his hands across the patient’s body and waving a magnetic wand over the infected area. Mesmer claimed that his patients would fall into a trance and awaken from it feeling better. The medical community, however, soundly rejected the claim. Today, Mesmer’s technique, known as mesmerism, is regarded as an early forerunner of modern hypnosis.
Modern psychology is deeply rooted in the older disciplines of philosophy and physiology. But the official birth of psychology is often traced to 1879, at the University of Leipzig, in Leipzig, Germany. There, physiologist Wilhelm Wundt established the first laboratory dedicated to the scientific study of the mind. Wundt’s laboratory soon attracted leading scientists and students from Europe and the United States. Among these were James McKeen Cattell, one of the first psychologists to study individual differences through the administration of 'mental tests', Emil Kraepelin, a German psychiatrist who postulated a physical cause for mental illnesses and in 1883 published the first classification system for mental disorders; and Hugo Münsterberg, the first to apply psychology to industry and the law. Wundt was extraordinarily productive over the course of his career. He supervised a total of 186 doctoral dissertations, taught thousands of students, founded the first scholarly psychological journal, and published innumerable scientific studies. His goal, which he stated in the preface of a book he wrote, was 'to mark out a new domain of science'.
Compared to the philosophers who preceded him, Wundt’s approach to the study of mind was based on systematic and rigorous observation. His primary method of research was introspection. This technique involved training people to concentrate and report on their conscious experiences as they reacted to visual displays and other stimuli. In his laboratory, Wundt systematically studied topics such as attention span, reaction time, vision, emotion, and time perception. By recruiting people to serve as subjects, varying the conditions of their experience, and then rigorously repeating all observations, Wundt laid the foundation for the modern psychology experiment.
In the United States, Harvard University professor William James observed the emergence of psychology with great interest. Although trained in physiology and medicine, James was fascinated by psychology and philosophy. In 1875 he offered his first course in psychology. In 1890 James published a two-volume book entitled Principles of Psychology. It immediately became the leading psychology text in the United States, and it brought James a worldwide reputation as a man of great ideas and inspiration. In 28 chapters, James wrote about the stream of consciousness, the formation of habits, individuality, the link between mind and body, emotions, the self, and other topics that inspired generations of psychologists. Today, historians consider James the founder of American psychology.
James’s students also made lasting contributions to the field. In 1883 G. Stanley Hall (who also studied with Wundt) established the first true American psychology laboratory in the United States at Johns Hopkins University, and in 1892 he founded and became the first president of the American Psychological Association. Mary Whiton Calkins created an important technique for studying memory and conducted one of the first studies of dreams. In 1905 she was elected the first female president of the American Psychological Association. Edward Lee Thorndike conducted some of the first experiments on animal learning and wrote a pioneering textbook on educational psychology.
During the first decades of psychology, two main schools of thought dominated the field: structuralism and functionalism. Structuralism was a system of psychology developed by Edward Bradford Titchener, an American psychologist who studied under Wilhelm Wundt. Structuralists believed that the task of psychology is to identify the basic elements of consciousness in much the same way that physicists break down the basic particles of matter. For example, Titchener identified four elements in the sensation of taste: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. The main method of investigation in structuralism was introspection. The influence of structuralism in psychology faded after Titchener’s death in 1927.
In contradiction to the structuralist movement, William James promoted a school of thought known as functionalism, the belief that the real task of psychology is to investigate the function, or purpose, of consciousness rather than its structure. James was highly influenced by Darwin’s evolutionary theory that all characteristics of a species must serve some adaptive purpose. Functionalism enjoyed widespread appeal in the United States. Its three main leaders were James Rowland Angell, a student of James; John Dewey, who was also one of the foremost American philosophers and educators; and Harvey A. Carr, a psychologist at the University of Chicago.
In their efforts to understand human behavioural processes, the functional psychologists developed the technique of longitudinal research, which consists of interviewing, testing, and observing one person over a long period of time. Such a system permits the psychologist to observe and record the person’s development and how he or she reacts to different circumstances.
In the late 19th century Viennese neurologist Sigmund Freud developed a theory of personality and a system of psychotherapy known as psychoanalysis. According to this theory, people are strongly influenced by unconscious forces, including innate sexual and aggressive drives. In this 1938 British Broadcasting Corporation interview, Freud recounts the early resistance to his ideas and later acceptance of his work. Freud’s speech is slurred because he was suffering from cancer of the jaw. He died the following year.
Alongside Wundt and James, a third prominent leader of the new psychology was Sigmund Freud, a Viennese neurologist of the late 19th and early 20th century. Through his clinical practice, Freud developed a very different approach to psychology. After graduating from medical school, Freud treated patients who appeared to suffer from certain ailments but had nothing physically wrong with them. These patients were not consciously faking their symptoms, and often the symptoms would disappear through hypnosis, or even just by talking. On the basis of these observations, Freud formulated a theory of personality and a form of psychotherapy known as psychoanalysis. It became one of the most influential schools of Western thought of the 20th century.
Freud introduced his new theory in The Interpretation of Dreams (1889), the first of 24 books he would write. The theory is summarized in Freud’s last book, An Outline of Psychoanalysis, published in 1940, after his death. In contrast to Wundt and James, for whom psychology was the study of conscious experience, Freud believed that people are motivated largely by unconscious forces, including strong sexual and aggressive drives. He likened the human mind to an iceberg: The small tip that floats on the water is the conscious part, and the vast region beneath the surface comprises the unconscious. Freud believed that although unconscious motives can be temporarily suppressed, they must find a suitable outlet in order for a person to maintain a healthy personality.
To probe the unconscious mind, Freud developed the psychotherapy technique of free association. In free association, the patient reclines and talks about thoughts, wishes, memories, and whatever else comes to mind. The analyst tries to interpret these verbalizations to determine their psychological significance. In particular, Freud encouraged patients to free associate about their dreams, which he believed were the “royal road to the unconscious.” According to Freud, dreams are disguised expressions of deep, hidden impulses. Thus, as patients recount the conscious manifest content of dreams, the psychoanalyst tries to unmask the underlying latent content-what the dreams really mean.
From the start of psychoanalysis, Freud attracted followers, many of whom later proposed competing theories. As a group, these neo-Freudians shared the assumption that the unconscious plays an important role in a person’s thoughts and behaviours. Most parted company with Freud, however, over his emphasis on sex as a driving force. For example, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung theorized that all humans inherit a collective unconscious that contains universal symbols and memories from their ancestral past. Austrian physician Alfred Adler theorized that people are primarily motivated to overcome inherent feelings of inferiority. He wrote about the effects of birth order in the family and coined the term sibling rivalry. Karen Horney, a German-born American psychiatrist, argued that humans have a basic need for love and security, and become anxious when they feel isolated and alone.
Motivated by a desire to uncover unconscious aspects of the psyche, psychoanalytic researchers devised what are known as projective tests. A projective test asks people to respond to an ambiguous stimulus such as a word, an incomplete sentence, an inkblot, or an ambiguous picture. These tests are based on the assumption that if a stimulus is vague enough to accommodate different interpretations, then people will use it to project their unconscious needs, wishes, fears, and conflicts. The most popular of these tests are the Rorschach Inkblot Test, which consists of ten inkblots, and the Thematic Apperception Test, which consists of drawings of people in ambiguous situations.
Psychoanalysis has been criticized on various grounds and is not as popular as in the past. However, Freud’s overall influence on the field has been deep and lasting, particularly his ideas about the unconscious. Today, most psychologists agree that people can be profoundly influenced by unconscious forces, and that people often have a limited awareness of why they think, feel, and behave as they do. See Psychoanalysis; Psychotherapy: Psychodynamic Therapies.
In 1885 German philosopher Hermann Ebbinghaus conducted one of the first studies on memory, using himself as a subject. He memorized lists of nonsense syllables and then tested his memory of the syllables at intervals ranging from 20 minutes to 31 days. As shown in this curve, he found that he remembered less than 40 percent of the items after nine hours, but that the rate of forgetting levelled off over time.
In addition to Wundt, James, and Freud, many others scholars helped to define the science of psychology. In 1885 German philosopher Hermann Ebbinghaus conducted a series of classic experiments on memory, using nonsense syllables to establish principles of retention and forgetting. In 1896 American psychologist Lightner Witmer opened the first psychological clinic, which initially treated children with learning disorders. He later founded the first journal and training program in a new helping profession that he named clinical psychology. In 1905 French psychologist Alfred Binet devised the first major intelligence test in order to assess the academic potential of schoolchildren in Paris. The test was later translated and revised by Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman and is now known as the Stanford-Binet intelligence test. In 1908 American psychologist Margaret Floy Washburn (who later became the second female president of the American Psychological Association) wrote an influential book called The Animal Mind, in which she synthesized animal research to that time.
In 1912 German psychologist Max Wertheimer discovered that when two stationary lights flash in succession, people see the display as a single light moving back and forth. This illusion inspired the Gestalt psychology movement, which was based on the notion that people tend to perceive a well-organized whole or pattern that is different from the sum of isolated sensations. Other leaders of Gestalt psychology included Wertheimer’s close associates Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka. Later, German American psychologist Kurt Lewin extended Gestalt psychology to studies of motivation, personality, social psychology, and conflict resolution. German American psychologist Fritz Heider then extended this approach to the study of how people perceive themselves and others.
In the late 19th century, American psychologist Edward L. Thorndike conducted some of the first experiments on animal learning. Thorndike formulated the law of effect, which states that behaviours that are followed by pleasant consequences will be more likely to be repeated in the future.
William James had defined psychology as 'the science of mental life'. But in the early 1900s, growing numbers of psychologists voiced criticism of the approach used by scholars to explore conscious and unconscious mental processes. These critics doubted the reliability and usefulness of the method of introspection, in which subjects are asked to describe their own mental processes during various tasks. They were also critical of Freud’s emphasis on unconscious motives. In search of more-scientific methods, psychologists gradually turned away from research on invisible mental processes and began to study only behaviour that could be observed directly. This approach, known as Behaviourism, ultimately revolutionized psychology and remained the dominant school of thought for nearly 50 years.
Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov discovered a major type of learning, classical conditioning, by accident while conducting experiments on digestion in the early 1900s. He devoted the rest of his life to discovering the underlying principles of classical conditioning.
Among the first to lay the foundation for the new Behaviourism was American psychologist Edward Lee Thorndike. In 1898 Thorndike conducted a series of experiments on animal learning. In one study, he put cats into a cage, put food just outside the cage, and timed how long it took the cats to learn how to open an escape door that led to the food. Placing the animals in the same cage again and again, Thorndike found that the cats would repeat behaviours that worked and would escape more and more quickly with successive trials. Thorndike thereafter proposed the law of effect, which states that behaviours that are followed by a positive outcome are repeated, while those followed by a negative outcome or none at all are extinguished.
In 1906 Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov-who had won a Nobel Prize two years earlier for his studies of digestion-stumbled onto one of the most important principles of learning and behaviour. Pavlov was investigating the digestive process in dogs by putting food in their mouths and measuring the flow of saliva. He found that after repeated testing, the dogs would salivate in anticipation of the food, even before he put it in their mouth. He soon discovered that if he rang a bell just before the food was presented each time, the dogs would eventually salivate at the mere sound of the bell. Pavlov had discovered a basic form of learning called classical conditioning (also referred to as Pavlovian conditioning) in which an organism comes to associate one stimulus with another. Later research showed that this basic process can account for how people form certain preferences and fears. See Learning: Classical Conditioning.
American psychologist John B. Watson believed psychologists should study observable behaviour instead of speculating about a person’s inner thoughts and feelings. Watson’s approach, which he termed Behaviourism, dominated psychology for the first half of the 20th century.
Although Thorndike and Pavlov set the stage for Behaviourism, it was not until 1913 that a psychologist set forward a clear vision for behaviorist psychology. In that year John Watson, a well-known animal psychologist at Johns Hopkins University, published a landmark paper entitled 'Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It'. Watson’s goal was nothing less than a complete redefinition of psychology. 'Psychology as the behaviorist views it'. Watson wrote, 'is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behaviour'. Watson narrowly defined psychology as the scientific study of behaviour. He urged his colleagues to abandon both introspection and speculative theories about the unconscious. Instead he stressed the importance of observing and quantifying behaviour. In light of Darwin’s theory of evolution, he also advocated the use of animals in psychological research, convinced that the principles of behaviour would generalize across all species.
American psychologist B. F. Skinner became famous for his pioneering research on learning and behaviour. During his 60-year career, Skinner discovered important principles of operant conditioning, a type of learning that involves reinforcement and punishment. A strict behaviorist, Skinner believed that operant conditioning could explain even the most complex of human behaviours.
Many American psychologists were quick to adopt Behaviourism, and animal laboratories were set up all over the country. Aiming to predict and control behaviour, the behaviorists’ strategy was to vary a stimulus in the environment and observe an organism's response. They saw no need to speculate about mental processes inside the head. For example, Watson argued that thinking was simply talking to oneself silently. He believed that thinking could be studied by recording the movement of certain muscles in the throat.
American psychologist B. F. Skinner designed an apparatus, now called a Skinner box, that allowed him to formulate important principles of animal learning. An animal placed inside the box is rewarded with a small bit of food each time it makes the desired response, such as pressing a lever or pecking a key. A device outside the box records the animal’s responses.
The most forceful leader of Behaviourism was B. F. Skinner, an American psychologist who began studying animal learning in the 1930s. Skinner coined the term reinforcement and invented a new research apparatus called the Skinner box for use in testing animals. Based on his experiments with rats and pigeons, Skinner identified a number of basic principles of learning. He claimed that these principles explained not only the behaviour of laboratory animals, but also accounted for how human beings learn new behaviours or change existing behaviours. He concluded that nearly all behaviour is shaped by complex patterns of reinforcement in a person’s environment, a process that he called operant conditioning (also referred to as instrumental conditioning). Skinner’s views on the causes of human behaviour made him one of the most famous and controversial psychologists of the 20th century.
Operant conditioning, pioneered by American psychologist B. F. Skinner, is the process of shaping behaviour by means of reinforcement and punishment. This illustration shows how a mouse can learn to manoeuver through a maze. The mouse is rewarded with food when it reaches the first turn in the maze (A). Once the first behaviour becomes ingrained, the mouse is not rewarded until it makes the second turn (B). After many times through the maze, the mouse must reach the end of the maze to receive its reward ©.
Skinner and others applied his findings to modify behaviour in the workplace, the classroom, the clinic, and other settings. In World War II (1939-1945), for example, he worked for the U.S. government on a top-secret project in which he trained pigeons to guide an armed glider plane toward enemy ships. He also invented the first teaching machine, which allowed students to learn at their own pace by solving a series of problems and receiving immediate feedback. In his popular book Walden Two (1948), Skinner presented his vision of a behaviorist utopia, in which socially adaptive behaviours are maintained by rewards, or positive reinforcements. Throughout his career, Skinner held firm to his belief that psychologists should focus on the prediction and control of behaviour.
Faced with a choice between psychoanalysis and Behaviourism, many psychologists in the 1950s and 1960s sensed a void in psychology’s conception of human nature. Freud had drawn attention to the darker forces of the unconscious, and Skinner was interested only in the effects of reinforcement on observable behaviour. Humanistic psychology was born out of a desire to understand the conscious mind, free will, human dignity, and the capacity for self-reflection and growth. An alternative to psychoanalysis and Behaviourism, humanistic psychology became known as 'the third force'.
The humanistic movement was led by American psychologists Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. According to Rogers, all humans are born with a drive to achieve their full capacity and to behave in ways that are consistent with their true selves. Rogers, a psychotherapist, developed person-entered therapy, a nonjudgmental, nondirective approach that helped clients clarify their sense of who they are in an effort to facilitate their own healing process. At about the same time, Maslow theorized that all people are motivated to fulfill a hierarchy of needs. At the bottom of the hierarchy are basic physiological needs, such as hunger, thirst, and sleep. Further up the hierarchy are needs for safety and security, needs for belonging and love, and esteem-related needs for status and achievement. Once these needs are met, Maslow believed, people strive for self-actualization, the ultimate state of personal fulfilment. As Maslow put it, 'A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is ultimately to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be'.
Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget based his early theories of intellectual development on his questioning and observation of his own children. From these and later studies, Piaget concluded that all children pass through a predictable series of cognitive stages.
From the 1920s through the 1960s, Behaviourism dominated psychology in the United States. Eventually, however, psychologists began to move away from strict Behaviourism. Many became increasingly interested in cognition, a term used to describe all the mental processes involved in acquiring, storing, and using knowledge. Such processes include perception, memory, thinking, problem solving, imagining, and language. This shift in emphasis toward cognition had such a profound influence on psychology that it has often been called the cognitive revolution. The psychological study of cognition became known as cognitive psychology.
One reason for psychologists’ renewed interest in mental processes was the invention of the computer, which provided an intriguing metaphor for the human mind. The hardware of the computer was likened to the brain, and computer programs provided a step-by-step model of how information from the environment is input, stored, and retrieved to produce a response. Based on the computer metaphor, psychologists began to formulate information-processing models of human thought and behaviour.
In the 1950s American linguist Noam Chomsky proposed that the human brain is especially constructed to detect and reproduce language and that the ability to form and understand language is innate to all human beings. According to Chomsky, young children learn and apply grammatical rules and vocabulary as they are exposed to them and do not require initial formal teaching.
The pioneering work of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget also inspired psychologists to study cognition. During the 1920s, while administering intelligence tests in schools, Piaget became interested in how children think. He designed various tasks and interview questions to reveal how children of different ages reason about time, nature, numbers, causality, morality, and other concepts. Based on his many studies, Piaget theorized that from infancy to adolescence, children advance through a predictable series of cognitive stages.
The cognitive revolution also gained momentum from developments in the study of language. Behaviorist B. F. Skinner had claimed that language is acquired according to the laws of operant conditioning, in much the same way that rats learn to press a bar for food pellets. In 1959, however, American linguist Noam Chomsky charged that Skinner's account of language development was wrong. Chomsky noted that children all over the world start to speak at roughly the same age and proceed through roughly the same stages without being explicitly taught or rewarded for the effort. According to Chomsky, the human capacity for learning language is innate. He theorized that the human brain is “hardwired” for language as a product of evolution. By pointing to the primary importance of biological dispositions in the development of language, Chomsky’s theory dealt a serious blow to the behaviorist assumption that all human behaviours are formed and maintained by reinforcement.
Before psychology became established in science, it was popularly associated with extrasensory perception (ESP) and other paranormal phenomena (phenomena beyond the laws of science). Today, these topics lie outside the traditional scope of scientific psychology and fall within the domain of parapsychology. Psychologists note that thousands of studies have failed to demonstrate the existence of paranormal phenomena. See Psychical Research.
Grounded in the conviction that mind and behaviour must be studied using statistical and scientific methods, psychology has become a highly respected and socially useful discipline. Psychologists now study important and sensitive topics such as the similarities and differences between men and women, racial and ethnic diversity, sexual orientation, marriage and divorce, abortion, adoption, intelligence testing, sleep and sleep disorders, obesity and dieting, and the effects of psychoactive drugs such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) and fluoxetine (Prozac).
In the last few decades, researchers have made significant breakthroughs in understanding the brain, mental processes, and behaviour. This section of the article provides examples of contemporary research in psychology: the plasticity of the brain and nervous system, the nature of consciousness, memory distortions, competence and rationality, genetic influences on behaviour, infancy, the nature of intelligence, human motivation, prejudice and discrimination, the benefits of psychotherapy, and the psychological influences on the immune system.
Psychologists once believed that the neural circuits of the adult brain and nervous system were fully developed and no longer subject to change. Then in the 1980s and 1990s a series of provocative experiments showed that the adult brain has flexibility, or plasticity-a capacity to change as a result of usage and experience.
These experiments showed that adult rats flooded with visual stimulation formed new neural connections in the brain’s visual cortex, where visual signals are interpreted. Likewise, those trained to run an obstacle course formed new connections in the cerebellum, where balance and motor skills are coordinated. Similar results with birds, mice, and monkeys have confirmed the point: Experience can stimulate the growth of new connections and mold the brain’s neural architecture.
Once the brain reaches maturity, the number of neurons does not increase, and any neurons that are damaged are permanently disabled. But the plasticity of the brain can greatly benefit people with damage to the brain and nervous system. Organisms can compensate for loss by strengthening old neural connections and sprouting new ones. That is why people who suffer strokes are often able to recover their lost speech and motor abilities.
In 1860 German physicist Gustav Fechner theorized that if the human brain were divided into right and left halves, each side would have its own stream of consciousness. Modern medicine has actually allowed scientists to investigate this hypothesis. People who suffer from life-threatening epileptic seizures sometimes undergo a radical surgery that severs the corpus callosum, a bridge of nerve tissue that connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain. After the surgery, the two hemispheres can no longer communicate with each other.
Scientists have long considered the nature of consciousness without producing a fully satisfactory definition. In the early 20th century American philosopher and psychologist William James suggested that consciousness is a mental process involving both attention to external stimuli and short-term memory. Later scientific explorations of consciousness mostly expanded upon James’s work. In this article from a 1997 special issue of Scientific American, Nobel laureate Francis Crick, who helped determine the structure of DNA, and fellow biophysicist Christof Koch explain how experiments on vision might deepen our understanding of consciousness.
Beginning in the 1960s American neurologist Roger Sperry and others tested such split-brain patients in carefully designed experiments. The researchers found that the hemispheres of these patients seemed to function independently, almost as if the subjects had two brains. In addition, they discovered that the left hemisphere was capable of speech and language, but not the right hemisphere. For example, when split-brain patients saw the image of an object flashed in their left visual field (thus sending the visual information to the right hemisphere), they were incapable of naming or describing the object. Yet they could easily point to the correct object with their left hand (which is controlled by the right hemisphere). As Sperry’s colleague Michael Gazzaniga stated, 'Each half brain seemed to work and function outside of the conscious realm of the other'.
Other psychologists interested in consciousness have examined how people are influenced without their awareness. For example, research has demonstrated that under certain conditions in the laboratory, people can be fleetingly affected by subliminal stimuli, sensory information presented so rapidly or faintly that it falls below the threshold of awareness. (Note, however, that scientists have discredited claims that people can be importantly influenced by subliminal messages in advertising, rock music, or other media.) Other evidence for influence without awareness comes from studies of people with a type of amnesia that prevents them from forming new memories. In experiments, these subjects are unable to recognize words they previously viewed in a list, but they are more likely to use those words later in an unrelated task. In fact, memory without awareness is normal, as when people come up with an idea they think is original, only later to realize that they had inadvertently borrowed it from another source.
Cognitive psychologists have often likened human memory to a computer that encodes, stores, and retrieves information. It is now clear, however, that remembering is an active process and that people construct and alter memories according to their beliefs, wishes, needs, and information received from outside sources.
Without realizing it, people sometimes create memories that are false. In one study, for example, subjects watched a slide show depicting a car accident. They saw either a 'STOP' sign or a 'YIELD' sign in the slides, but afterward they were asked a question about the accident that implied the presence of the other sign. Influenced by this suggestion, many subjects recalled the wrong traffic sign. In another study, people who heard a list of sleep-related words (bed, yawn) or music-related words (jazz, instrument) were often convinced moments later that they had also heard the words sleep or music-words that fit the category but were not on the list. In a third study, researchers asked college students to recall their high-school grades. Then the researchers checked those memories against the students’ actual transcripts. The students recalled most grades correctly, but most of the errors inflated their grades, particularly when the actual grades were low. See Memory.
When scientists distinguish between human beings and other animals, they point to our larger cerebral cortex (the outer part of the brain) and to our superior intellect-as seen in the abilities to acquire and store large amounts of information, solve problems, and communicate through the use of language.
In recent years, however, those studying human cognition have found that people are often less than rational and accurate in their performance. Some researchers have found that people are prone to forgetting, and worse, that memories of past events are often highly distorted. Others have observed that people often violate the rules of logic and probability when reasoning about real events, as when gamblers overestimate the odds of winning in games of chance. One reason for these mistakes is that we commonly rely on cognitive heuristics, mental shortcuts that allow us to make judgments that are quick but often in error. To understand how heuristics can lead to mistaken assumptions, imagine offering people a lottery ticket containing six numbers out of a pool of the numbers 1 through 40. If given a choice between the tickets 6-39-2-10-24-30 or 1-2-3-4-5-6, most people select the first ticket, because it has the appearance of randomness. Yet out of the 3,838,380 possible winning combinations, both sequences are equally likely.
One of the oldest debates in psychology, and in philosophy, concerns whether individual human traits and abilities are predetermined from birth or due to one’s upbringing and experiences. This debate is often termed the nature-nurture debate. A strict genetic (nature) position states that people are predisposed to become sociable, smart, cheerful, or depressed according to their genetic blueprint. In contrast, a strict environmental (nurture) position says that people are shaped by parents, peers, cultural institutions, and life experiences.
Research shows that the more genetically related a person is to someone with schizophrenia, the greater the risk that person has of developing the illness. For example, children of one parent with schizophrenia have a 13 percent chance of developing the illness, whereas children of two parents with schizophrenia have a 46 percent chance of developing the disorder.
Researchers can estimate the role of genetic factors in two ways: (1) twin studies and (2) adoption studies. Twin studies compare identical twins with fraternal twins of the same sex. If identical twins (who share all the same genes) are more similar to each other on a given trait than are same-sex fraternal twins (who share only about half of the same genes), then genetic factors are assumed to influence the trait. Other studies compare identical twins who are raised together with identical twins who are separated at birth and raised in different families. If the twins raised together are more similar to each other than the twins raised apart, childhood experiences are presumed to influence the trait. Sometimes researchers conduct adoption studies, in which they compare adopted children to their biological and adoptive parents. If these children display traits that resemble those of their biological relatives more than their adoptive relatives, genetic factors are assumed to play a role in the trait.
In recent years, several twin and adoption studies have shown that genetic factors play a role in the development of intellectual abilities, temperament and personality, vocational interests, and various psychological disorders. Interestingly, however, this same research indicates that at least 50 percent of the variation in these characteristics within the population is attributable to factors in the environment. Today, most researchers agree that psychological characteristics spring from a combination of the forces of nature and nurture.
Helpless to survive on their own, newborn babies nevertheless possess a remarkable range of skills that aid in their survival. Newborns can see, hear, taste, smell, and feel pain; vision is the least developed sense at birth but improves rapidly in the first months. Crying communicates their need for food, comfort, or stimulation. Newborns also have reflexes for sucking, swallowing, grasping, and turning their head in search of their mother’s nipple.
In 1890 William James described the newborn’s experience as 'one great blooming, buzzing confusion'. However, with the aid of sophisticated research methods, psychologists have discovered that infants are smarter than was previously known.
A period of dramatic growth, infancy lasts from birth to around 18 months of age. Researchers have found that infants are born with certain abilities designed to aid their survival. For example, newborns show a distinct preference for human faces over other visual stimuli.
To learn about the perceptual world of infants, researchers measure infants’ head movements, eye movements, facial expressions, brain waves, heart rate, and respiration. Using these indicators, psychologists have found that shortly after birth, infants show a distinct preference for the human face over other visual stimuli. Also suggesting that newborns are tuned in to the face as a social object is the fact that within 72 hours of birth, they can mimic adults who purse the lips or stick out the tongue-a rudimentary form of imitation. Newborns can distinguish between their mother’s voice and that of another woman. And at two weeks old, nursing infants are more attracted to the body odour of their mother and other breast-feeding females than to that of other women. Taken together, these findings show that infants are equipped at birth with certain senses and reflexes designed to aid their survival.
In 1905 French psychologist Alfred Binet and colleague Théodore Simon devised one of the first tests of general intelligence. The test sought to identify French children likely to have difficulty in school so that they could receive special education. An American version of Binet’s test, the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, is still used today.
In 1905 French psychologist Alfred Binet devised the first major intelligence test for the purpose of identifying slow learners in school. In doing so, Binet assumed that intelligence could be measured as a general intellectual capacity and summarized in a numerical score, or intelligence quotient (IQ). Consistently, testing has revealed that although each of us is more skilled in some areas than in others, a general intelligence underlies our more specific abilities.
Intelligence tests often play a decisive role in determining whether a person is admitted to college, graduate school, or professional school. Thousands of people take intelligence tests every year, but many psychologists and education experts question whether these tests are an accurate way of measuring who will succeed or fail in school and later in life. In this 1998 Scientific American article, psychology and education professor Robert J. Sternberg of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, presents evidence against conventional intelligence tests and proposes several ways to improve testing.
Today, many psychologists believe that there is more than one type of intelligence. American psychologist Howard Gardner proposed the existence of multiple intelligences, each linked to a separate system within the brain. He theorized that there are seven types of intelligence: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. American psychologist Robert Sternberg suggested a different model of intelligence, consisting of three components: analytic ('school smarts', as measured in academic tests), creative (a capacity for insight), and practical ('street smarts', or the ability to size up and adapt to situations). See Intelligence.
Psychologists from all branches of the discipline study the topic of motivation, an inner state that moves an organism toward the fulfilment of some goal. Over the years, different theories of motivation have been proposed. Some theories state that people are motivated by the need to satisfy physiological needs, whereas others state that people seek to maintain an optimum level of bodily arousal (not too little and not too much). Still other theories focus on the ways in which people respond to external incentives such as money, grades in school, and recognition. Motivation researchers study a wide range of topics, including hunger and obesity, sexual desire, the effects of reward and punishment, and the needs for power, achievement, social acceptance, love, and self-esteem.
In 1954 American psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed that all people are motivated to fulfill a hierarchical pyramid of needs. At the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid are needs essential to survival, such as the needs for food, water, and sleep. The need for safety follows these physiological needs. According to Maslow, higher-level needs become important to us only after our more basic needs are satisfied. These higher needs include the need for love and belongingness, the need for esteem, and the need for self-actualization (in Maslow’s theory, a state in which people realize their greatest potential).
The view that the role of sentences in inference gives a more important key to their meaning than their ‘external’ relations to things in the world. The meaning of a sentence becomes its place in a network of inferences that it legitimates. Also known as its functional role semantics, procedural semantic or conceptual role semantics. As these view bear some relation to the coherence theory of truth, and suffers from the same suspicion that divorces meaning from any clear association with things in the world.
Paradoxes rest upon the assumption that analysis is a relation with concept, then are involving entities of other sorts, such as linguistic expressions, and that in true analysis, analysand and analysandum are one and the same concept. However, these assumptions are explicit in the British philosopher George Edward Moore, but some of Moore’s remarks hint at a solution that a statement of an analysis is a statement partially taken about the concept involved and partly about the verbal expression used to express it. Moore is to suggest that he thinks of a solution of this sort is bound to be right, however, facts to suggest one because he cannot reveal of any way in which the analysis can be as part of the expressors.
Elsewhere, the possibility clearly does set of apparent incontrovertible premises giving unacceptable or contradictory conclusions. To solve a paradox will involve either showing that these is a hidden flaw in the premises, or what the reasoning is erroneous, or that the apparently unacceptable conclusion can, in fact, be tolerable. Paradoxes are therefore important in philosophy, for until one is solved it shows that there is something about our reasoning and our concepts that we do not understand. Famous families of paradoxes include the semantic paradoxes and Zeno’s paradoxes. At the beginning of the 20th century, Russell’s paradox and other set-theoretic paradoxes of set theory, while the Sorites paradox has led to the investigation of the semantics of vagueness, and fuzzy logic. Paradoxes are under their other titles. Much as there is as much as a puzzle arising when someone says ‘p but I do not believe that p’. What is said is not contradictory, since (for many instances of p) both parts of it could br true. But the person nevertheless violates one presupposition of normal practice, namely that you assert something only if you believe it: By adding that you do not believe what you just said you undo the natural significance of the original act saying it.
Furthermore, the moral philosopher and epistemologist Bernard Bolzano (1781-1848), whose logical work was based on a strong sense of there being an ontological underpinning of science and epistemology, lying in a theory of the objective entailments masking up the structure of scientific theories. His ability to challenge wisdom and come up with startling new ideas, as a Christian philosopher whether than from any position of mathematical authority, that for considerations of infinity, Bolzano’s significant work was Paradoxin des Unenndlichen, written in retirement an translated into the English as Paradoxes of the Infinite. Here, Bolzano considered directly the points that had concerned Galileo-the conflicting result that seem to emerge when infinity is studied. Certainly most of the paradoxical statements encountered in the mathematical domain . . . are propositions which either immediately contain the idea of the infinite, or at least in some way or other depends upon that idea for their attempted proof.
Continuing, Bolzano looks at two possible approaches to infinity. One is simply the case of setting up a sequence of numbers, such as the whole numbers, and saying that ass it can not conceivably be said to have a last term, it is inherently infinite-not finite. It is easy enough to show that the whole numbers do not have a point at which they stop, giving a name to that last number whatever it might be an call it ‘ultimate’. Then what’s wrong with ultimate + 1? Why is that not a whole number?
The second approach to infinity, which Bolzano ascribes in Paradoses of the Infinite to ‘some philosophers . . . Taking this approach describe his first conception of infinity as the ‘bad infinity’. Although the German philosopher Friedrich George Hegal (1770-1831) applies the conceptual form of infinity and points that it is, rather, the basis for a substandard infinity that merely reaches towards the absolute, but never reaches it. In Paradoses of the Infinite, he calls this form of potential infinity as a variable quantity knowing no limit to its growth (a definition adopted, even by many mathematicians) . . . always growing int th infinite and never reaching it. As far as Hegel and his colleagues were concerned , using this uprush, there was no need for a real infinity beyond some unreachable absolute. Instead we deal with a variable quality that is as big as we need it to be, or often in calculus as small as we need it to be, without ever reaching the absolute, ultimate, truly infinite.
Bolzano argues, though, that there is something else, an infinity that doe not have this ‘whatever you need it to be’ elasticity. In fact a truly infinite quantity (for example, the length of a straight line unbounded in either direction, meaning: The magnitude of the spatial entity containing all the points determined solely by their abstractly conceivable relation to two fixed points) does not by any means need to be variable, and in adduced example it is in fact not variable. Conversely, it is quite possible for a quantity merely capable of being taken greater than we have already taken it, and of becoming larger than any pre-assigned (finite) quantity, nevertheless to mean at all times merely finite, which holds in particular of every numerical quantity 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
In other words, for Bolzano there could be a true infinity that was not a variable ‘something’ that was only bigger than anything you might specify. Such a true infinity was the result of joining two pints together and extending that line in both directions without stopping. And what is more, he could separate off the demands of calculus, using a finite quality without ever bothering with the slippery potential infinity. Here was both a deeper understanding of the nature of infinity and the basis on which are built in his ‘safe’ infinity free calculus.
This use of the inexhaustible follows on directly from most Bolzano’s criticism of the way that ∞we used as a variable something that would be bigger than anything you could specify, but never quite reached the true, absolute infinity. In Paradoxes of the Infinity Bolzano points out that is possible for a quantity merely capable of becoming larger than any one pre-assigned (finite) quantity, nevertheless to remain at all times merely finite.
Bolzano intended tis as a criticism of the way infinity was treated, but Professor Jacquette sees it instead of a way of masking use of practical applications like calculus without the need for weasel words about infinity.
By replacing ∞with ¤ we do away with one of the most common requirements for infinity, but is there anything left that map out to the real world? Can we confine infinity to that pure mathematical other world, where anything, however unreal, can be constructed, and forget about it elsewhere? Surprisingly, this seems to have been the view, at least at one point in time, even of the German mathematician and founder of set-theory Georg Cantor (1845-1918), himself, whose comments in 1883, that only the finite numbers are real.
Keeping within the lines of reason, both the Cambridge mathematician and philosopher Frank Plumpton Ramsey (1903-30) and the Italian mathematician G. Peano (1858-1932) have been to distinguish logical paradoxes and that depend upon the notion of reference or truth (semantic notions), such are the postulates justifying mathematical induction. It ensures that a numerical series is closed, in the sense that nothing but zero and its successors can be numbers. In that any series satisfying a set of axioms can be conceived as the sequence of natural numbers. Candidates from set theory include the Zermelo numbers, where the empty set is zero, and the successor of each number is its unit set, and the von Neuman numbers, where each number is the set of all smaller numbers. A similar and equally fundamental complementarity exists in the relation between zero and infinity. Although the fullness of infinity is logically antithetical to the emptiness of zero, infinity can be obtained from zero with a simple mathematical operation. The division of many numbers by zero is infinity, while the multiplication of any number by zero is zero.
With the set theory developed by the German mathematician and logician Georg Cantor. From 1878 to 1807, Cantor created a theory of abstract sets of entities that eventually became a mathematical discipline. A set, as he defined it, is a collection of definite and distinguished objects in thought or perception conceived as a whole.
Cantor attempted to prove that the process of counting and the definition of integers could be placed on a solid mathematical foundation. His method was to repeatedly place the elements in one set into ‘one-to-one’ correspondence with those in another. In the case of integers, Cantor showed that each integer (1, 2, 3, . . . n) could be paired with an even integer (2, 4, 6, . . . n), and, therefore, that the set of all integers was equal to the set of all even numbers.
Amazingly, Cantor discovered that some infinite sets were large than others and that infinite sets formed a hierarchy of greater infinities. After this failed attempt to save the classical view of logical foundations and internal consistency of mathematical systems, it soon became obvious that a major crack had appeared in the seemingly sold foundations of number and mathematics. Meanwhile, an impressive number of mathematicians began to see that everything from functional analysis to the theory of real numbers depended on the problematic character of number itself.
While, in the theory of probability Ramsey was the first to show how a personalised theory could be developed, based on precise behavioural notions of preference and expectation. In the philosophy of language, Ramsey was one of the first thinkers to accept a ‘redundancy theory of truth’, which hr combined with radical views of the function of man y kinds of propositions. Neither generalizations nor causal propositions, nor those treating probability or ethics, describe facts, but each has a different specific function in our intellectual economy.
Ramsey advocates that of a sentence generated by taking all the sentence affirmed in a scientific theory that use some term, e.g., ‘quark’. Replacing the term by a variable, and existentially quantifying into the result. Instead of saying quarks have such-and-such properties, Ramsey postdated that the sentence as saying that there is something that has those properties. If the process is repeated, the sentence gives the ‘topic-neutral’ structure of the theory, but removes any implications that we know what the term so treated denote. I t leaves open the possibility of identifying the theoretical item with whatever it is that best fits the description provided. Nonetheless, it was pointed out by the Cambridge mathematician Newman that if the process is carried out for all except the logical bones of the theory, then by the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem, the result will be interpretable in any domain of sufficient cardinality, and the content of the theory may reasonably be felt to have been lost.
It seems, that the most taken of paradoxes in the foundations of ‘set theory’ as discovered by Russell in 1901. Some classes have themselves as members: The class of all abstract objects, for example, is an abstract object, whereby, others do not: The class of donkeys is not itself a donkey. Now consider the class of all classes that are not members of themselves, is this class a member of itself, that, if it is, then it is not, and if it is not, then it is.
The paradox is structurally similar to easier examples, such as the paradox of the barber. Such one like a village having a barber in it, who shaves all and only the people who do not have in themselves. Who shaves the barber? If he shaves himself, then he does not, but if he does not shave himself, then he does not. The paradox is actually just a proof that there is no such barber or in other words, that the condition is inconsistent. All the same, it is no to easy to say why there is no such class as the one Russell defines. It seems that there must be some restriction on the kind of definition that are allowed to define classes and the difficulty that of finding a well-motivated principle behind any such restriction.
The French mathematician and philosopher Henri Jules Poincaré (1854-1912) believed that paradoses like those of Russell nd the ‘barber’ were due to such as the impredicative definitions, and therefore proposed banning them. But, it tuns out that classical mathematics required such definitions at too many points for the ban to be easily absolved. Having, in turn, as forwarded by Poincaré and Russell, was that in order to solve the logical and semantic paradoxes it would have to ban any collection (set) containing members that can only be defined by means of the collection taken as a whole. It is, effectively by all occurring principles into which have an adopting vicious regress, as to mark the definition for which involves no such failure. There is frequently room for dispute about whether regresses are benign or vicious, since the issue will hinge on whether it is necessary to reapply the procedure. The cosmological argument is an attempt to find a stopping point for what is otherwise seen as being an infinite regress, and, to ban of the predicative definitions.
The investigation of questions that arise from reflection upon sciences and scientific inquiry, are such as called of a philosophy of science. Such questions include, what distinctions in the methods of science? s there a clear demarcation between scenes and other disciplines, and how do we place such enquires as history, economics or sociology? And scientific theories probable or more in the nature of provisional conjecture? Can the be verified or falsified? What distinguished good from bad explanations? Might there be one unified since, embracing all th special science? For much of the 20th century there questions were pursued in a highly abstract and logical framework it being supposed that as general logic of scientific discovery that a general logic of scientific discovery a justification might be found. However, many now take interests in a more historical, contextual and sometimes sociological approach, in which the methods and successes of a science at a particular time are regarded less in terms of universal logical principles and procedure, and more in terms of their availability to methods and paradigms as well as the social context.
In addition, to general questions of methodology, there are specific problems within particular sciences, giving subjects as biology, mathematics and physics.
The intuitive certainty that sparks aflame the dialectic awarenesses for its immediate concerns are either of the truth or by some other in an object of apprehensions, such as a concept. Awareness as such, has to its amounting quality value the place where philosophical understanding of the source of our knowledge are, however, in covering the sensible apprehension of things and pure intuition it is that which stricture sensation into the experience of things accent of its direction that orchestrates the celestial overture into measures in space and time.
The notion that determines how something is seen or evaluated of the status of law and morality especially associated with St Thomas Aquinas and the subsequent scholastic tradition. More widely, any attempt to cement the moral and legal order together with the nature of the cosmos or how the nature of human beings, for which sense it is also found in some Protestant writers, and arguably derivative from a Platonic view of ethics, and is implicit in ancient Stoicism. Law stands above and apart from the activities of human lawmaker, it constitutes an objective set of principles that can be seen true by ‘natural light’ or reason, and (in religion versions of the theory) that express God’s will for creation. Non-religious versions of the theory substitute objective conditions for human flourishing as the source of constraints upon permissible actions and social arrangements. Within the natural law tradition, different views have been held about the relationship between the rule of law about God’ s will, for instance the Dutch philosopher Hugo Grothius (1583-1645), similarly takes upon the view that the content of natural law is independent of any will, including that of God, while the German theorist and historian Samuel von Pufendorf (1632-94) takes the opposite view, thereby facing the problem of one horn of the Euthyphro dilemma, that simply states, that its dilemma arises from whatever the source of authority is supposed to be, for in which do we care about the general good because it is good, or do we just call good things that we care about. Wherefore, by facing the problem that may be to assume of a strong form, in which it is claimed that various facts entail values, or a weaker form, from which it confines itself to holding that reason by itself is capable of discerning moral requirements that are supped of binding to all human bings regardless of their desires
Although the morality of people send the ethical amount from which the same thing, is that there is a usage that restricts morality to systems such as that of the German philosopher and founder of ethical philosophy Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), based on notions such as duty, obligation, and principles of conduct, reserving ethics for more than the Aristotelian approach to practical reasoning based on the notion of a virtue, and generally avoiding the separation of ‘moral’ considerations from other practical considerations. The scholarly issues are complex, with some writers seeing Kant as more Aristotelian and Aristotle as, ore involved in a separate sphere of responsibility and duty, than the simple contrast suggests. Some theorists see the subject in terms of a number of laws (as in the Ten Commandments). The status of these laws may be test they are the edicts of a divine lawmaker, or that they are truths of reason, knowable deductively. Other approaches to ethics (e.g., eudaimonism, situation ethics, virtue ethics) eschew general principles as much as possible, frequently disguising the great complexity of practical reasoning. For Kantian notion of the moral law is a binding requirement of the categorical imperative, and to understand whether they are equivalent at some deep level. Kant’s own applications of the notion are not always convincing, as for one cause of confusion in relating Kant’s ethics to theories such additional expressivism is that it is easy, but mistaken, to suppose that the categorical nature of the imperative means that it cannot be the expression of sentiment, but must derive from something ‘unconditional’ or ‘necessary’ such as the voice of reason.
For which ever reason, the mortal being makes of its presence to the future of weighing of that which one must do, or that which can be required of one. The term carries implications of that which is owed (due) to other people, or perhaps in onself. Universal duties would be owed to persons (or sentient beings) as such, whereas special duty in virtue of specific relations, such as being the child of someone, or having made someone a promise. Duty or obligation is the primary concept of ‘deontological’ approaches to ethics, but is constructed in other systems out of other notions. In the system of Kant, a perfect duty is one that must be performed whatever the circumstances: Imperfect duties may have to give way to the more stringent ones. In another way, perfect duties are those that are correlative with the right to others, imperfect duties are not. Problems with the concept include the ways in which due needs to be specified (a frequent criticism of Kant is that his notion of duty is too abstract). The concept may also suggest of a regimented view of ethical life in which we are all forced conscripts in a kind of moral army, and may encourage an individualistic and antagonistic view of social relations.
The most generally accepted account of externalism and/or internalism, that this distinction is that a theory of justification is internalist if only if it requiem that all of the factors needed for a belief to be epistemologically justified for a given person be cognitively accessible to that person, internal to his cognitive percreptive, and externalist, if it allows that at least some of the justifying factors need not be thus accessible, so that thy can be external to the believer’s cognitive perceptive, beyond any such given relations. However, epistemologists often use the distinction between internalist and externalist theories of epistemic justification without offering any very explicit explication.
The externalist/internalist distinction has been mainly applied to theories of epistemic justification: It has also been applied in a closely related way to accounts of knowledge and in a rather different way to accounts of belief and thought contents.
The internalist requirement of cognitive accessibility can be interpreted in at least two ways: A strong version of internalism would require that the believer actually be aware of the justifying factor in order to be justified: While a weaker version would require only that he be capable of becoming aware of them by focussing his attentions appropriately, but without the need for any change of position, new information, etc. Though the phrase ‘cognitively accessible’ suggests the weak interpretion, the main intuitive motivation for internalism, viz the idea that epistemic justification requires that the believer actually have in his cognitive possession a reason for thinking that the belief is true, and would require the strong interpretation.
Perhaps, the clearest example of an internalist position would be a Foundationalist view according to which foundational beliefs pertain to immediately experienced states of mind and other beliefs are justified by standing in cognitively accessible logical or inferential relations to such foundational beliefs. Such a view could count as either a strong or a weak version of internalism, depending on whether actual awareness of the justifying elements or only the capacity to become aware of them is required. Similarly, a coherent view could also be internalist, if both the beliefs or other states with which a justification belief is required to cohere and the coherence relations themselves are reflectively accessible.
It should be carefully noticed that when internalism is construed in this way, it is neither necessary nor sufficient by itself for internalism that the justifying factors literally be internal mental states of the person in question. Not necessary, necessary, because on at least some views, e.g., a direct realist view of perception, something other than a mental state of the believer can be cognitively accessible: Not sufficient, because there are views according to which at least some mental states need not be actual (strong version) or even possible (weak version) objects of cognitive awareness. Also, on this way of drawing the distinction, a hybrid view, according to which some of the factors required for justification must be cognitively accessible while others need not and in general will not be, would count as an externalist view. Obviously too, a view that was externalist in relation to a strong version of internalism (by not requiring that the believer actually be aware of all justifying factors) could still be internalist in relation to a weak version (by requiring that he at least be capable of becoming aware of them).
The most prominent recent externalist views have been versions of reliabilism, whose requirements for justification is roughly that the belief be produced in a way or via a process that makes of objectively likely that the belief is true. What makes such a view externalist is the absence of any requirement that the person for whom the belief is justified have any sort of cognitive access to the relations of reliability in question. Lacking such access, such a person will in general have no reason for thinking that the belief is true or likely to be true , but will, on such an account, nonetheless be epistemically justified in according it. Thus such a view arguably marks a major break from the modern epistemological tradition, stemming from Descartes, which identifies epistemic justification with having a reason, perhaps even a conclusive reason for thinking that the belief is true. An epistemologist working within this tradition is likely to feel that the externalist, than offering a competing account of the same concept of epistemic justification with which the traditional epistemologist is concerned, has simply changed the subject.
The main objection to externalism rests on the intuitive certainty that the basic requirement for epistemic justification is that the acceptance of the belief in question be rational or responsible in relation to the cognitive goal of truth, which seems to require in turn that the believer actually be dialectally aware of a reason for thinking that the belief is true (or, at the very least, that such a reason be available to him). Since the satisfaction of an externalist condition is neither necessary nor sufficient for the existence of such a cognitively accessible reason, it is argued, externalism is mistaken as an account of epistemic justification. This general point has been elaborated by appeal to two sorts of putative intuitive counter-examples to externalism. The first of these challenges the necessity of belief which seem intuitively to be justified, but for which the externalist conditions are not satisfied. The standard examples in this sort are cases where beliefs are produced in some very nonstandard way, e.g., by a Cartesian demon, but nonetheless, in such a way that the subjective experience of the believer is indistinguishable from that of someone whose beliefs are produced more normally. The intuitive claim is that the believer in such a case is nonetheless epistemically justified, as much so as one whose belief is produced in a more normal way, and hence that externalist account of justification must be mistaken.
Perhaps the most striking reply to this sort of counter-example, on behalf of a cognitive process is to be assessed in ‘normal’ possible worlds, i.e., in possible worlds that are actually the way our world is common-seismically believed to be, than in the world which contains the belief being judged. Since the cognitive processes employed in the Cartesian demon cases are, for which we may assume, reliable when assessed in this way, the reliabilist can agree that such beliefs are justified. The obvious, to a considerable degree of bringing out the issue of whether it is or not an adequate rationale for this construal of reliabilism, so that the reply is not merely a notional presupposition guised as having representation.
The correlative way of elaborating on the general objection to justificatory externalism challenges the sufficiency of the various externalist conditions by citing cases where those conditions are satisfied, but where the believers in question seem intuitively not to be justified. In this context, the most widely discussed examples have to do with possible occult cognitive capacities, like clairvoyance. Considering the point in application once, again, to reliabilism, the claim is that to think that he has such a cognitive power, and, perhaps, even good reasons to the contrary, is not rational or responsible and therefore not epistemically justified in accepting the belief that result from his clairvoyance, dispite the fact that the reliablist condition is satisfied.
One sort of response to this latter sorts of objection is to ‘bite the bullet’ and insist that such believers are in fact justified, dismissing the seeming intuitions to the contrary as latent internalist prejudice. A more widely adopted response attempts to impose additional conditions, usually of a roughly internalist sort, which will rule out the offending example, while stopping far of a full internalism. But, while there is little doubt that such modified versions of externalism can handle particular cases, as well enough to avoid clear intuitive implausibility, the usually problematic cases that they cannot handle, and also whether there is and clear motivation for the additional requirements other than the general internalist view of justification that externalist are committed to reject.
A view in this same general vein, one that might be described as a hybrid of internalism and externalism holds that epistemic justification requires that there is a justicatory factor that is cognitively accessible to the believer in question (though it need not be actually grasped), thus ruling out, e.g., a pure reliabilism. At the same time, however, though it must be objectively true that beliefs for which such a factor is available are likely to be true, in addition, the fact need not be in any way grasped or cognitively accessible to the believer. In effect, of the premises needed to argue that a particular belief is likely to be true, one must be accessible in a way that would satisfy at least weak internalism, the internalist will respond that this hybrid view is of no help at all in meeting the objection and has no belief nor is it held in the rational, responsible way that justification intuitively seems to require, for the believer in question, lacking one crucial premise, still has no reason at all for thinking that his belief is likely to be true.
An alternative to giving an externalist account of epistemic justification, one which may be more defensible while still accommodating many of the same motivating concerns, is to give an externalist account of knowledge directly, without relying on an intermediate account of justification. Such a view will obviously have to reject the justified true belief account of knowledge, holding instead that knowledge is true belief which satisfies the chosen externalist condition, e.g., a result of a reliable process (and perhaps, further conditions as well). This makes it possible for such a view to retain internalist account of epistemic justification, though the centrality of that concept to epistemology would obviously be seriously diminished.
Such an externalist account of knowledge can accommodate the commonsense conviction that animals, young children, and unsophisticated adults posses knowledge, though not the weaker conviction (if such a conviction does exists) that such individuals are epistemically justified in their beliefs. It is also at least less vulnerable to internalist counter-examples of the sort discussed, since the intuitions involved there pertain more clearly to justification than to knowledge. What is uncertain is what ultimate philosophical significance the resulting conception of knowledge is supposed to have. In particular, does it have any serious bearing on traditional epistemological problems and on the deepest and most troubling versions of scepticism, which seems in fact to be primarily concerned with justification, th an knowledge?`
A rather different use of the terms ‘internalism’ and ‘externalism’ has to do with the issue of how the content of beliefs and thoughts is determined: According to an internalist view of content, the content of such intention states depends only on the non-relational, internal properties of the individual’s mind or grain, and not at all on his physical and social environment: While according to an externalist view, content is significantly affected by such external factors and suggests a view that appears of both internal and external elements is standardly classified as an external view.
As with justification and knowledge, the traditional view of content has been strongly internalist in character. The main argument for externalism derives from the philosophy y of language, more specifically from the various phenomena pertaining to natural kind terms, indexicals, etc. that motivate the views that have come to be known as ‘direct reference’ theories. Such phenomena seem at least to show that the belief or thought content that can be properly attributed to a person is dependant on facts about his environment-e.g., whether he is on Earth or Twin Earth, what is fact pointing at, the classificatory criteria employed by expects in his social group, etc.-not just on what is going on internally in his mind or brain.
An objection to externalist account of content is that they seem unable to do justice to our ability to know the content of our beliefs or thought ‘from the inside’, simply by reflection. If content is depend on external factors pertaining to the environment, then knowledge of content should depend on knowledge of these factors-which will not in general be available to the person whose belief or thought is in question.
The adoption of an externalist account of mental content would seem to support an externalist account of justification, by way that if part or all of the content of a belief inaccessible to the believer, then both the justifying status of other beliefs in relation to that content and the status of that content ss justifying further beliefs will be similarly inaccessible, thus contravening the internalist requirement for justification. An internalist must insist that there are no justification relations of these sorts, that our internally associable content can either be justified or justly anything else: But such a response appears lame unless it is coupled with an attempt to show that the externalist account of content is mistaken.
In addition, to what to the Foundationalist, but the view in epistemology that knowledge must be regarded as a structure raised upon secure, certain foundations. These are found in some combination of experience and reason, with different schools (empirical, rationalism) emphasizing the role of one over that of the other. Foundationalism was associated with the ancient Stoics, and in the modern era with Descartes, who discovered his foundations in the ‘clear and distinct’ ideas of reason. Its main opponent is coherentism or the view that a body of propositions my be known without as foundation is certain, but by their interlocking strength. Rather as a crossword puzzle may be known to have been solved correctly even if each answer, taken individually, admits of uncertainty.
Truth, alone with coherence is the study of concept, in such a study in philosophy is that it treats both the meaning of the word true and the criteria by which we judge the truth or falsity in spoken and written statements. Philosophers have attempted to answer the question “What is truth?” for thousands of years. The four main theories they have proposed to answer this question are the correspondence, pragmatic, coherence, and deflationary theories of truth.
There are various ways of distinguishing types of foundatinalist epistemology by the use of the variations that have been enumerating. Planntinga has put forward an influence conception of ‘classical foundationalism’, specified in terms of limitations on the foundations. He construes this as a disjunction of ‘ancient and medieval foundationalism;, which takes foundations to comprise that with ‘self-evident’ and ‘evident to the senses’, and ‘modern foundationalism’ that replace ‘evident foundationalism’ that replaces ’evident to the senses’ with the replaces of ‘evident to the senses’ with ‘incorrigibly’, which in practice was taken to apply only to beliefs bout one’s present state of consciousness. Plantinga himself developed this notion in the context of arguing that items outside this territory, in particular certain beliefs about God, could also be immediately justified. A popular recent distinction is between what is variously ‘strong’ or ‘extremely’ foundationlism and ‘moderate’, ‘modest’ or minimalism’ and ‘moderate ‘Modest’ or ‘minimal’ foundationalisn with the distinction depending on whether epistemic immunities are reassured of foundations. While depending on whether it require of a foundation only that it be required of as foundation, that only it be immediately justified, or whether it be immediately justified. In that it make just the comforted preferability, only to suggest that the plausibility of the string requiring stems from both a ‘level confusion’ between beliefs on different levels.
Emerging sceptic tendencies come forth in the 14th-century writings of Nicholas of Autrecourt. His criticisms of any certainty beyond the immediate deliverance of the senses and basic logic, and in particular of any knowledge of either intellectual or material substances, anticipate the later scepticism of Balye and Hume. The; latter distinguishes between Pyrrhonistic and excessive scepticism, which he regarded as unlivable, and the more mitigated scepticism that accepts every day or commonsense beliefs (not as the delivery of reason, but as due more to custom and habit), but is duly wary of the power of reason to give us much more. Mitigated scepticism is thus closer to the attitude fostered by ancient scepticism from Pyrrho through to Sexus Empiricus. Although the phrase ‘Cartesian scepticism’ is sometimes used, Descartes himself was not a sceptic, but in the method of doubt, uses a sceptical scenario in order to begin the process of finding a secure mark of knowledge. Descartes himself trusts a category of ‘clear and distinct’ ideas, not far removed from the phantasia kataleptiké of the Stoics.
Scepticism should not be confused with relativism, which is a doctrine about the nature of truth, and may be motivated by trying to avoid scepticism. Nor is it identical with eliminativism, which counsels abandoning an area of thought together, not because we cannot know the truth, but because there are no truths capable of being framed in the terms we use.
Descartes’s theory of knowledge starts with the quest for certainty, for an indubitable starting-point or foundation on the basis alone of which progress is possible. This is eventually found in the celebrated ‘Cogito ergo sum’: I think therefore I am. By locating the point of certainty in my own awareness of my own self, Descartes gives a first-person twist to the theory of knowledge that dominated them following centuries in spite of various counter-attacks on behalf of social and public starting-points. The metaphysics associated with this priority is the famous Cartesian dualism, or separation of mind and matter into two different but interacting substances, Descartes rigorously and rightly sees that it takes divine dispensation to certify any relationship between the two realms thus divided, and to prove the reliability of the senses invokes a ‘clear and distinct perception’ of highly dubious proofs of the existence of a benevolent deity. This has not met general acceptance: as Hume drily puts it, ‘to have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit’.
In his own time Descartes’s conception of the entirely separate substance of the mind was recognized to give rise to insoluble problems of the nature of the causal connection between the two. It also gives rise to the problem, insoluble in its own terms, of other minds. Descartes’s notorious denial that non-human animals are conscious is a stark illustration of the problem. In his conception of matter Descartes also gives preference to rational cogitation over anything derived from the senses. Since we can conceive of the matter of a ball of wax surviving changes to its sensible qualities, matter is not an empirical concept, but eventually an entirely geometrical one, with extension and motion as its only physical nature. Descartes’s thought, as reflected in Leibniz, that the qualities of sense experience have no resemblance to qualities of things, so that knowledge of the external world is essentially knowledge of structure rather than of filling. On this basis Descartes erects a remarkable physics. Since matter is in effect the same as extension there can be no empty space or ‘void’, since there is no empty space motion is not a question of occupying previously empty space, but is to be thought of in terms of vortices (like the motion of a liquid).
Although the structure of Descartes’s epistemology, theory of mind, and theory of matter have ben rejected many times, their relentless exposure of the hardest issues, their exemplary clarity, and even their initial plausibility, all contrive to make him the central point of reference for modern philosophy.
The self conceived as Descartes presents it in the first two Meditations: aware only of its own thoughts, and capable of disembodied existence, neither situated in a space nor surrounded by others. This is the pure self of ‘I-ness’ that we are tempted to imagine as a simple unique thing that make up our essential identity. Descartes’s view that he could keep hold of this nugget while doubting everything else is criticized by Lichtenberg and Kant, and most subsequent philosophers of mind.
Descartes holds that we do not have any knowledge of any empirical proposition about anything beyond the contents of our own minds. The reason, roughly put, is that there is a legitimate doubt about all such propositions because there is no way to deny justifiably that our senses are being stimulated by some cause (an evil spirit, for example) which is radically different from the objects that we normally think affect our senses.
He also points out, that the senses (sight, hearing, touch, etc., are often unreliable, and ‘it is prudent never to trust entirely those who have deceived us even once’, he cited such instances as the straight stick that looks ben t in water, and the square tower that looks round from a distance. This argument of illusion, has not, on the whole, impressed commentators, and some of Descartes’ contemporaries pointing out that since such errors become known as a result of further sensory information, it cannot be right to cast wholesale doubt on the evidence of the senses. But Descartes regarded the argument from illusion as only the first stage in a softening up process which would ‘lead the mind away from the senses’. He admits that there are some cases of sense-base belief about which doubt would be insane, e.g., the belief that I am sitting here by the fire, wearing a winter dressing gown’.
Descartes was to realize that there was nothing in this view of nature that could explain or provide a foundation for the mental, or from direct experience as distinctly human. In a mechanistic universe, he said, there is no privileged place or function for mind, and the separation between mind and matter is absolute. Descartes was also convinced, that the immaterial essences that gave form and structure to this universe were coded in geometrical and mathematical ideas, and this insight led him to invent algebraic geometry.
A scientific understanding of these ideas could be derived, said Descartes, with the aid of precise deduction, and he also claimed that the contours of physical reality could be laid out in three-dimensional coordinates. Following the publication of Newton’s Principia Mathematica in 1687, reductionism and mathematical modelling became the most powerful tools of modern science. And the dream that the entire physical world could be known and mastered through the extension and refinement of mathematical theory became the central feature and guiding principle of scientific knowledge.
Having to its recourse of knowledge, its cental questions include the origin of knowledge, the place of experience in generating knowledge, and the place of reason in doing so, the relationship between knowledge and certainty, and between knowledge and the impossibility of error, the possibility of universal scepticism, and the changing forms of knowledge that arise from new conceptualizations of the world. All of these issues link with other central concerns of philosophy, such as the nature of truth and the natures of experience and meaning.
Foundationalism was associated with the ancient Stoics, and in the modern era with Descartes (1596-1650). Who discovered his foundations in the ‘clear and distinct’ ideas of reason? Its main opponent is Coherentism, or the view that a body of propositions mas be known without a foundation in certainty, but by their interlocking strength, than as a crossword puzzle may be known to have been solved correctly even if each answer, taken individually, admits of uncertainty. Difficulties at this point led the logical passivists to abandon the notion of an epistemological foundation altogether, and to flirt with the coherence theory of truth. It is widely accepted that trying to make the connection between thought and experience through basic sentences depends on an untenable ‘myth of the given’.
Still in spite of these concerns, the problem was, of course, in defining knowledge in terms of true beliefs plus some favoured relations between the believer and the facts that began with Plato’s view in the “Theaetetus,” that knowledge is true belief, and some logos. Due of its nonsynthetic epistemology, the enterprising of studying the actual formation of knowledge by human beings, without aspiring to certify those processes as rational, or its proof against ‘scepticism’ or even apt to yield the truth. Natural epistemology would therefore blend into the psychology of learning and the study of episodes in the history of science. The scope for ‘external’ or philosophical reflection of the kind that might result in scepticism or its refutation is markedly diminished. Despite the fact that the terms of modernity are so distinguished as exponents of the approach include Aristotle, Hume, and J. S. Mills.
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