Descartes Vs Nietzsche

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The Examined Life, The Genealogy of Morals, and Meditations on First Philosophy were written by three philosophers of very different times, Cornel West, Friedrich Nietzsche, and René Descartes respectively. The intricate language, once deciphered, holds great meaning. The three texts are quite different from one another, but if one were to look closely and decipher the odd combination of complex wording, one would find that each of the texts has one major similarity. Each text looks at a flaw of humanity. The first text, The Examined Life, views the limitations of man and man’s inability to grasp the truth as the blemish of man. Nietzsche describes what he views as man’s flaw in the following sentence: “Man harbors too much horror; the earth has been a lunatic asylum for too long.” The fault of man as described in the final text, Meditations on First Philosophy, is that the will of man far exceeds the understanding of man. Outside of this similarity in seeking out man’s flaws, there are many differences. The more noticeable differences is the time period these texts were published. West’s text, the easiest to understand, was written in this …show more content…

The Genealogy of Morals appears to view religion as a product of man with the purpose of torturing oneself as can be seen in the following quote: “Then this guilt-ridden man seized upon religion in order to exacerbate his self-torment to the utmost. The thought of being in God’s debt became his new instrument of torture.” Religion, based upon Nietzsche’s words, is essentially just a tool created for man to have another way of harboring horror. Meditations on First Philosophy looks upon God as a positive being. People have a perfect will and perfect power of conceiving because Descartes says these perfections were created by God. To Descartes, God is a perfect being that provided people with the tools for

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