Comparing Nietzsche And Descartes Meditations On First Philosophy

Nietzsche was more empiricist than rationalist, since he found the concept of innate knowledge to be absurd, but he did not believe it possible to attain an absolute truth using science the way that Descartes did. The Cartesian scientific method claimed to represent an objective truth. Nietzsche did not consider science to be an objective truth. For Nietzsche, instead of contributing to true knowledge, Descartes’ method of universal doubt impedes knowledge. Both Nietzsche and Descartes valued the scientific method, but where Descartes placed a faith in it to produce an absolute knowledge, Nietzsche was quite the opposite—such knowledge was still subjective and could not be absolute. Nietzsche believed that objective science was not possible, and to think otherwise would be an impediment to science. So, it can be said that Descartes and Nietzsche both valued science but only when it is applied in different ways. One principle of Descartes that Nietzsche criticizes is the distinction and significance of the mind over the body. In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes explains his theory by claiming that consciousness is the essential and single component of a person’s essence. It is Nietzsche’s belief that the body, and our unconsciousness, are the key

For Socrates and Plato, the fork existed as a Form before it ever manifested physically, and the physical form is a mere facsimile of what is real. According to that reason, the fork could be said to have an intrinsic purpose. But the World of Forms only exists so long as humans exist, and for me Forms are simply a metaphor for thought, whereas Socrates and Plato might have thought Forms to be a literal realm of existence beyond what we experience physically, which is the shadow. For me, they are one in the same, as the World of Forms could not exist without the World of