Metaphysical Dualism in Plato and Nietzsche
An Undergrad Essay I Wrote a Few Months Back
Wrote this essay for uni a while back, figured it might be of interest, so I’m putting it here just because. I’ve checked, best I can tell I still have copyright ownership of it, shouldn’t be any issues there.
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Prompt: What is the nature and importance of the distinction between body and soul in Plato’s philosophy? What does Nietzsche think of this metaphysical dualism? Whose position are you more convinced by and why?
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Plato’s metaphysical dualism has inspired many responses, of which the most noteworthy is perhaps Nietzsche’s critique. Plato, through Socrates, sets out a clearly defined and demarcated system of binary oppositions, where all the terms on one side are associated with eternity, immateriality, the beautiful, reason, and the good, and the terms on the other side are linked with impermanence, physical existence, ugliness, irrationality, and the bad. This entire framework is opposed by Nietzsche, who doesn’t simply privilege the latter side of the opposition, but outright denies it. Nietzsche, on the contrary, holds that such a position is emblematic of a will to nothingness and denial of life, and sets up his own metaphysics of immanent multiplicity and perspectivism.
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Plato’s metaphysical dualism is clearly demonstrated through his discussion of the body/soul dichotomy, largely in the ‘Phaedo’. He characterises the soul as having access to and participating in the forms. The realm of the forms is inherently rational, and a soul directly accessing this realm has the ability to reach all truth (Plato, 2003:64a-65c). It’s a realm wherein everything is eternal, beautiful, good, and, importantly, lacking a physical form (or, which amounts to the same thing, as existing partly in innumerable physical forms without being essentially tied to them). The soul, in being so intimately related with this realm, is described as being itself related to these various descriptors (Plato, 2003:78b-80c). The body is on the other side of Plato’s dualism. As something we know to be perishable, it cannot be immortal. As a physical thing, it cannot be purely ideal. He claims that the body is the source of all error, and so cannot be rational (Plato, 2003:79c). The body is also associated with ugliness and badness, since it’s bodily experiences that tempt us to vice (Plato, 2003:47e, 81b). Crucially, it’s not that the body participates in the forms of evil, irrational, etc. Rather, Plato’s claim is that the body only participates in the form of the rational (for example) partially, and that its irrationality is due to failing to participate more fully in such a form. In Plato’s account, then, all the forms are associated with one another and have no formal opposites, whereas the physical world is characterised by a distance of degree from the forms. As such, Plato sets up only one qualitative opposition (the forms vs the world), and all other oppositions are simply different manifestations of this fundamental opposition. Plato’s metaphysical system is therefore dualist. The body/soul dichotomy is an introductory point to this system, both pedagogically (since he begins there) and practically (since the soul, after death, is reintroduced to the forms, having been dissociated from the body). In this mirroring, which at first seems like a coincidence, we actually encounter a broader curiosity in Plato’s system. Not only is the soul reintroduced to the forms after disconnecting from the body, but the course of this reintroduction is through reason (with a guide, an obvious equivalent to Socrates), which we also see Plato himself use when introducing other people to each of the forms. For example, in his discussion of beauty (in the ‘Symposium’), Plato begins with the physical examples of beauty, and proceeds through reason to transcend the physical realm and approach that of the forms, all the while describing this as the path the philosopher really takes through his life. Such a close analogy between his investigative method and the conclusions of this investigation indicates an essential point of Platonic philosophy: he assumes the conclusion in the premises. He begins his investigation of metaphysics by seeking to understand what something is in itself, outside of any examples, presupposing that the empirical manifestations of a phenomenon are variations upon a singular unity. This unity can, by this presupposition, never exist physically, and so can only be approached with the intellect. After a rigorous analysis, he then concludes that these phenomena are unified thing graspable only by the intellect, and of which all empirical phenomena are merely deviations. In assuming an intellectual position, Plato presupposes his own conclusion. Nietzsche will oppose this by both rejecting the Socratic method and emphasising the role of the physical.
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Nietzsche’s critique of Platonism involves a critique of the perspective from which Plato reasons, of the quasi-dialectical method prominent in Plato’s later texts, and (most prominently) of this metaphysical dualism, all of which, for Nietzsche, is life-denying and reactive.
Nietzsche criticises Plato for his assumption of an intellectual perspective. According to Nietzsche, such a supposedly disinterested perspective is merely interest from a different point of view, whereby we take the role of a party not involved in an act and judge whether it benefits us; if it does, it’s taken to be good and/or true, and if it doesn’t we condemn it as false and/or bad (Nietzsche, 2003a:§9). In this respect, the understanding of reason proposed by Plato — reason as something universal and accessible to all souls, regardless of physical makeup, provided only that one removes everything individual (and physical) from the reasoning process — is an attempt to make the actions of those with the ability to act have a positive effect on the others, those who cannot act, which seemingly includes Plato. Plato seeks to make reason and virtue objective and universal in order to profit from the reasoning and actions of others. This requires the individual (and all individuals) to remove their own interests from consideration and act in the service of others. In this sense, then, the Platonic perspective requires the removal or repression of everything unique to the individual. Virtue is universal, therefore everyone must act the same. Reason is universal, therefore everyone must hold the same beliefs. The individual cannot determine their own ways of living, nor their own goals, if the Platonic perspective is assumed. Plato, Nietzsche asserts, lacks the ability to act, and therefore defines reaction as superior to action. It is always the perspective of ‘not me’, and therefore (as we shall see in a moment) ends in nihilism.
The method Plato presents is, under the Nietzschean critique, also an inherently reactive approach. Plato, usually through Socrates, begins his investigations by asking someone else what they think of a topic, and proceeding to deny this claim. In this way, Plato (though not always a dialectician) presents the fundamental move of dialectics, namely, a negation in the premises (Deleuze, 2013:150). Plato does not begin with positive premises alone (he doesn’t create ideas initially) and reach a conclusion, denying those of others merely incidentally. Instead, Plato begins with a negation of ideas already, and his conclusions regarding what is true are of less importance than the critiques he poses of other thinkers. The creation of a conclusion is always in service to the denial of a different conclusion. This, as Nietzsche shows in his Genealogy of Morals (2013:’First Essay’ §10), is the reactive mode of thought, one which denies more than it affirms, and ends up valuing only the process of negation — it ends in nihilism.
Lastly, Nietzsche critiques Plato’s conclusions, in particular their metaphysical dualism. The themes of Platonism Nietzsche has identified so far remain true. Plato concludes that the body is a mere hindrance to the soul, that the physical, individual, and temporary serve no purpose except for preventing the soul from reaching the true, good, and beautiful (a triplet we see recurring as late as Kant, to indicate the extent of its influence; Nietzsche is the first to dissociate these, to suggest that the true might not be good or beautiful, etc.). In these conclusions, Nietzsche identifies the same reaction and nihilism that have permeated Platonism thus far. Plato declares the true as universal, since he cannot construct subjective truths of his own (Nietzsche, 2003b:’How the ‘Real World’ at last Became a Myth’). He declares the good as divine, since he can’t see anything good in the world and its diversity of opinions. He declares the beautiful as immaterial, since he’s incapable of experiencing the beauty in the world. Not only is this reactivity par excellence (“Christianity is Platonism for ‘the people’” (Nietzsche, 2003a:Preface)), it indicates a valorisation of and desire for death, reinforced by Socrates’ last words, which indicate he considered his own life an illness to be eradicated (Nietzsche, 2003b:’The Problem of Socrates’, §1).
In these three points, then, we see Nietzsche’s critique of Platonism: the perspective, methodology, and conclusions of Platonism are all critiqued as forming part of the same reactive attitude; moreover, they all express the same nihilism, concluding that the “the highest values devalue themselves” (Nietzsche, 2017:§2).
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Given that metaphysical dualism expresses such a nihilism, Nietzsche is drawn to construct an ontological immanence of will, which Deleuze reconstructs thoroughly. Immanence, in this context, refers to a set of things that are inherent in the virtual aspect of whatever is actual; these are tendencies, vectors which must be extrapolated outwards from their expressions (Deleuze, 2018:52). Expression is the way these virtualities are actualised in the world. According to this interpretation, the will to power is ontologically immanent, meaning it is immanent to all existence; “being is by itself will to power” (Nietzsche, cited in Deleuze, 2013:46). This does not, however, mean that there is only a single will to power; for Nietzsche, in fact, there is always a multiplicity of wills, which get their character from their genealogy, their differences in unfolding (Deleuze, 2013:36-39). These are distinguished qualitatively, and get their type from this process of differentiation; there is not a single will which divides itself, but always a pre-existent multiplicity. Each of these wills, being of a different type, corresponds with a perspective, which is expressed as a tendency in the appropriate manifestation (physical or psychological). Nietzsche’s perspectivism is therefore an ontological claim deriving from his immanent “philosophy of the will” (Deleuze, 2013:6). The Deleuzean interpretation of Nietzsche may be summarised in Klossowski’s remark (on Nietzche’s madness) that
“The substitution of the divine names for that of "Nietzsche" immediately touches upon the problem of the identity of the person in relation to a single God, who is the truth, and to the existence of many gods, insofar as they are the explication of being, on the one hand, and an expression of the plurality within a single individual, within each and every individual, on the other” (2004:109-110).
Plato’s body/soul distinction is a fundamental one, which gives his philosophy a pervasive metaphysical dualism; though this admits of degree, it requires an unbridgeable gap between the world of forms and the physical world. Nietzsche critiques this, claiming that the perspective, methodology, and conclusions all express a reactive nihilism determined to deny life. Partly in contrast to this, Nietzsche constructs an ontology whereby existence is the expression of qualitatively different, immanent wills; he constructs his perspectivism on the basis of this ontological multiplicity.
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Bibliography
Deleuze G (2013) Nietzsche and Philosophy (Tomlinson H trans), Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., London, UK.
— (2018) Bergsonism (Tomlinson H and Habberjam B trans), Zone Books, New York, USA.
Klossowski P (2004) ‘Nietzsche, Polytheism and Parody’ (Ford R trans), Bulletin de la Société Américaine de Philosophie de Langue Français, 14(2):82-119.
Nietzsche F (2003a) Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (Hollingdale RJ trans), Penguin Group, London, UK.
— (2003b) Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ (Hollingdale RJ trans), Penguin Group, London, UK.
— (2013) On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic (Scarpitti MA trans), Penguin Group, London, UK.
— (2017) The Will to Power: Selections from the Notebooks of the 1880s (Hill RK and Scarpitti MA trans), Penguin Random House, London, UK.
Plato (2003) The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro/Apology/Crito/Phaedo (Tredennick H and Tarrant H trans), Penguin Group, London, UK.