Nietzsche’s Response to Enlightenment Idealism

An essay I wrote a few years ago but never posted. My first encounter with Nietzsche--feel the excitement:


Perhaps the greatest source of Nietzsche’s authority is best stated by himself:

Posthumous human beings—like me, for example—are understood worse than timely ones, but they are listened to better. More accurately: we are never understood—and that’s the source of our authority… (Nietzsche 7)

This epigram seems to demonstrate that Nietzsche had at least some inkling of the power he held over his readers. Today, Nietzsche is one of the most divisive, well known, and incontrovertibly misunderstood contributors to the modern philosophical tradition. The most central obstacle in attempting to come to certain conclusions about Nietzsche is that Nietzsche asks more questions than he provides answers. It is extremely tempting to label Nietzsche: misogynist, nihilist, rational, irrational, atheist, hedonist etc. One could probably make a case for any of these labels. To label Nietzsche, is to misread Nietzsche. To confine him to a label is to assume a logical consistency. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”, as Emerson (one of Nietzsche’s more admired authors) would have it. This confinement underestimates the complexity of Nietzsche, as a reading is more like a study in contradictions. Considering Nietzsche rejected rational thought in general, logical conclusions are antithetical to the whole of his philosophy. This is not to say his ideas are in chaos, only that Nietzsche is anti-systematic. (Lecture 4/14) It is clear that Nietzsche is large and does contain multitudes. While Nietzsche rejects many ideals of the 17^th century Enlightenment, much of his philosophy stems from an Enlightenment tradition. He is an anti-Enlightenment thinker, and in many ways, an Enlightenment thinker.

Descartes, the father of Enlightenment thinking, is an especial target of criticism for Nietzsche. Descartes sees sensory perception as a deception. In his Discourse on Method, Descartes plainly states, “…our senses sometimes deceive us, I wanted to suppose that nothing was exactly as they led us to imagine.” (Descartes 18) So here Descartes tells us to doubt all external perceptions because he strongly believes in internal rational analysis. In other words, think before you act. Nietzsche turns this entire philosophy on its head in Twilight of the Idols. Nietzsche explicitly writes, “’Reason’ is what causes us to falsify the testimony of the senses…they do not lie”. (Nietzsche 19) Here lies the fundamental difference between Nietzsche and Descartes. To Nietzsche, living is feeling; specifically, acting off of the urges and instincts which may be retrained or denied by reason. Descartes’ very definition of the self heavily conflicts with Nietzsche.

Descartes describes the idea of an intrinsic separation between mind and body, known as Cartesian Dualism. The idea itself, places identity within the mind, with much less value associated with the body. Descartes explains,

Thus this “I”, that is to say, the soul through which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from the body and is even easier to know than the body, and even if there were no body at all, it would not cease to be all that it is. (Descartes 19)

As we can see, Descartes regards the body as theoretically superfluous to one’s existence, or at least to the experience of existence. The rejection of rational identity is central to Nietzsche’s philosophy. Nietzsche equates such rationality to an Apollonian state. The Greek figure of Apollo represents truth, order, reason, perfection, system etc. Essentially, Apollo is a representation of all that is weak and effeminate in the eyes of Nietzsche. Moreover, Nietzsche certainly held Dionysian qualities in the highest regard. Near the end of Twilight, Nietzsche posits:

Saying yes to life even in its most strange and intractable problems, the will to life, celebrating its own inexhaustibility by sacrificing its highest types—that is what I call Dionysian, (Nietzsche 91)

Here we find one of Nietzsche’s most prominent passions, the will of life. To truly live, Nietzsche finds, we cannot be bogged down by heavy systematic reasoning. He wishes to live by instinct and writes, “Everything good is instinct—and consequently is easy”. (Nietzsche 31)

The Enlightenment was a period when science and revelation could finally begin to separate. Reason and not scripture would now pave the way to truth. Any casual reader of Nietzsche can conclude that he rejects religion as a whole. One would then think that Nietzsche might embrace much of this Enlightenment thinking. Indeed, in many ways he does. While the Enlightenment did take the first step in transferring academia into a more secular form of learning, the reality is that the 17^th century was not yet ready to completely cast off religion. Instead, religion was accommodated and reconciled with science. And this accommodation is the receiver of Nietzsche’s wrath. Deism, in particular, sought to secularize the moral tradition of Christianity. Because of their identity with Christian morality, Nietzsche finds the Enlightenment thinkers just as reprehensible as the Christians he so prominently despises:

They’ve gotten rid of the Christian God, and now they think they have to hold onto Christian morality all the more: that’s English logic…if you give up Christian faith, you pull the right to Christian morality out from under your feet. (Nietzsche 53)

This “English logic” likely refers to John Stuart Mill, an English contemporary of Nietzsche, who was a proponent of 19^th century Rationalism. Nietzsche views Mill as a backwards thinker who lives in 17^th century ideology. Mill, while dismissing Christianity in general, states his belief in the validity of a Christian moral code:

I believe that other ethics than any which can be evolved from exclusively Christian sources must exist side by side with Christian ethics to produce the moral regeneration of mankind…it is not necessary that in ceasing to ignore the moral truths not contained in Christianity men should ignore any of those which it does contain. (Mill 49)

This is a sort of cafeteria style philosophy which Nietzsche criticizes Mill for. It’s odd because Nietzsche seems to think you either can take Christianity and therefore you are a mindless sheep, or you take none of it and are thus better off for that decision. This is a rather black and white view, one which is not consistent with the whole of Nietzsche’s philosophy. In fact, Mill’s utilization of Christian morality along with his dismissal of the Christian faith echoes exactly what Nietzsche does with Enlightenment rationalism. While Nietzsche rejects the Enlightenment in general, he utilizes its more rational reasoning in his rejection of mysticism and theocracy. Thus perhaps, here Nietzsche cannot justify himself in his criticism of Mill’s methods. Of course, as stated above, Nietzsche should never be taken as a rationally consistent critic.

If there is one label Nietzsche has never been confined to, it is that he has never been accused of being unoriginal. Whether he is criticizing the Enlightenment, or utilizing it (or both) one can be sure that what he is saying has never quite been stated the same way before. He is provocative and one is forced to confront every belief one has even taken for granted while reading him. Our offenses are our “Idols”; idols which Nietzsche believes should be reevaluated. Above all, to rely on our instincts, and reject conformity (especially as displayed in organized religion) perhaps then one can truly live. “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”¹

Works Cited

Descartes, René. Discourse on the method for conducting one's reason well and for seeking truth in the sciences. Hackett Pub Co Inc, 1998.

Mill, John Stuart. On liberty. Hackett Publishing, 1978.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the idols, or, How to philosophize with the hammer. Hackett Publishing, 1997.

1 Emerson, Self-Reliance