Modern scientific discoveries, and the advancement of the sciences, have had a tremendous impact on philosophy, especially ethics, politics and philosophical anthropology. This book is a study on the turn to the (human) body in two prominent figures in the history of European Modern Philosophy: Spinoza and Nietzsche. It involves comparative research into their emphatic appeal to physiology as the key to solving fundamental philosophical problems.
In a famous letter, Nietzsche writes that he shares with Spinoza a fundamental, or overall tendency: “to make knowledge the most powerful affect”. My thesis is that under “knowledge” they both understand knowledge of one’s own body. The guiding hypothesis is that the two philosophers reach many similar conclusions in response to resembling philosophical problems and pressures. Both problematize what they consider the illusory character of Cartesian self-consciousness, as well as teleological thinking, while redirecting our attention to pre-conscious physiological intelligence as the key to self-knowledge. Both reject withdrawal from the world as the path to self-understanding and emphasize the inter-connectedness of the body with its environment by showing that we are never “a dominion within a dominion” (EIIIpref). However, their motivations are not purely epistemological; they are primarily ethical and political in nature. Against the moral ‘illusions’ of free-will, the moral world-order and altruism or compassion, both philosophers seek to de-moralise and naturalize our understanding of human agency. For both, physiology is the key to an authentic freedom that surpasses the illusion of free-will, and from which they draw significant political consequences.
Without neglecting the numerous differences, this study of their philosophical physiologies reveals, on the one hand, the crucial similarities in the way they think the fundamental ontological category of their philosophies, namely power, and, on the other hand, how they problematize our epistemic access to the body. For both Spinoza and Nietzsche we do not have a body, we are a body. The essence of the body is its power and the question guiding the quest for self-knowledge is: what can a body do? The affirmation of the irreducible specificity of each body as the ground of the self-knowledge necessary for the project of liberation through cultivation of the body’s power stands in direct contrast to the condemnation of the body as the prison of the soul (Plato, Phaedo 82e), a wild beast that hinders thought and fills the soul with pleasures, desires and grief (Plotinus, Enneads I 1 10; IV 8 8), and which must be disciplined and made our slave (I Corinthians 9:27).
The thesis of this book is that the turn to the body in Spinoza and Nietzsche plays a central role in their respective philosophies, and that it is a privileged starting point for understanding them. In spite of significant differences, it shows the way in which the two thinkers share remarkable similarities, as well as the manner in which they stand apart from much of the tradition of Early Modern and Modern European thought. Furthermore, the focus on their philosophical physiologies allows us to paint a picture of Nietzsche’s reaction to Spinoza that takes into account chronological developments yet reveals a degree of consistency that has been unobserved so far in the literature.
This study begins with a systematic analysis of Spinoza’s and Nietzsche’s accounts of physiology that is essential for grasping the philosophical work that the notion of ‘(human) body’ performs in the economy of their overall arguments. This allows us to understand the similar motivations behind their emphatic appeal to the body, i.e., their critique of moral and metaphysical illusions, as well as to see that the turn to the body does not amount to abandoning philosophy for science. Then, taking our cue from Nietzsche’s explicit and implicit commentaries on Spinoza, we reach the central argument of the book, namely that the analysis of their philosophical physiologies reveals the common ground, as well as the contrast between, their fundamental ontological category, namely power. The logic of Spinoza’s power dynamic, in which a conatus (a thing) cannot turn against itself in the expression of its own power leads to a position in which greater empowerment is always better. While Nietzsche agrees that empowerment is primarily an active process of expenditure and growth, he also explores the possibility of having qualitatively good (affirming) or qualitatively bad (negating) expressions of power. He criticizes Spinoza for not having considered sufficiently well the role that inner struggle or tension can play, as well as the possibility of power turning against itself and inhibiting its own expression. Whether or not Nietzsche is successful in giving a convincing account of affirmation, his arguments have the merit of showing that, when we pursue a radically de-deified understanding of reality, we are faced with questions about the nature of power and freedom to which Spinoza’s philosophy is not attuned. The last chapters are dedicated to teasing out the consequences of this argument for the topics of (self-) knowledge, ethics and politics.
First, we need to emphasize the importance both place on self-knowledge that must start with the body and its interactions with the environment. Contra the Cartesian focus on introspection, they advocate a sustained focus on our openness and vulnerability to the world as the key for self-understanding and, eventually, for self-transformation. The difference stems from Nietzsche’s view that Spinoza did not sufficiently consider the role that ‘war’ plays in the constitution of the self.
Second, both develop normative claims within the horizon of immanence in ways that affirm individual difference and ‘evil’ passions, instead of ignoring or trying to exorcize them. They argue that we find ourselves in a position in which we are faced with the task of searching for ways to ground normativity without appealing to a transcendent source of justification. This starting point leads them to formulate an account of freedom compatible with necessity. In spite of disagreements in the ways they understand necessity, they both position their concepts of freedom against the doctrine of free will. This compatibilist view means that they understand freedom as self-determination and that the focus is on what it means to increase or amplify our freedom. Rather than considering human autonomy as a given, they are interested in understanding how autonomy can be gained and what it means to speak of degrees of freedom.
Third, empowerment of the individual cannot be conceived outside the community. For Spinoza, the enjoyment of freedom by other rational agents in society is indispensable to and constitutive of my own liberation. That is why a human is always freer in a well-ordered state than in isolation: the sovereign good belongs to all and consists in the rational pursuit of agreement on the basis of shared affects. Among the various configurations the body politic can have, Spinoza privileges democratic institutions because they offer the best chance to pursue what is fundamentally a communal endeavor. Nietzsche, especially in his later texts, also thinks the free, self-determining individual within the broader context of the community, but argues that relations of proximity must also include distance or tension. He is worried that democracy can lead to uniformity and the levelling of humans through the promotion of agreement.
It is an altogether too common danger, pertaining to all comparative projects, to set up side by side similarities and differences that, while helpful in themselves, and perhaps useful for understanding each thinker on its own, do not promote our understanding of a dialogue between the two. My aim is not only to argue that Spinoza and Nietzsche present astounding similarities hitherto insufficiently study. I want to argue that if we look at Spinoza, from Nietzsche’s standpoint, we can start to see a fresh picture of the Dutch philosopher’s thinking. Throughout this book there will be moments when I try to understated what Spinoza’s response might be when faced with Nietzsche’s critique. This is not a betrayal of the logic of Spinoza’s thinking, but a pressure test. Much that is valuable in Spinoza will, I believe, shine precisely as a response to one of his sharpest critics. Yet, it is only fair that we also do the opposite. Does Spinoza’s turn to the body bring out questions and themes whose importance and value Nietzsche might not have fully appreciated? Does a spinozist perspective bring out characteristics of Nietzsche’s thinking that have not been sufficiently studied? By the time we reach the conclusion of this book, I hope we are better placed to face these queries.
References
- Plato. 1997. Phaedo. In Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett.
- Plotinus. 1968–1988. Enneads, 7 vols. Greek Text with English Trans. A.H. Armstron. Cambridge: Loeb Classical Library.