Xianhan Feng

1001511768
July 24, y

Final Essay on Nietzsche(#4)

In the third treatise, Nietzsche carries out the idea that Science is as the antithesis of ascetic
ideal. However in the end of his discussion, he took science as an exclusive value that have no
will for it to oppose the ascetic ideal, and can only be used to serve other underlining values.
Therefore, Science is not a suitable opposite ideal to the prostyle ascetic ideal.
Nietzsches aim in this passage is to examine why people pursuit the ascetic value, and what the
ascetic value means. In order to understand the precise meaning of ascetic value, he argues that
the best way there exists is to examine the matter in multiple concepts, and to form a collection
of thoughts that best describe the ascetic value, as to approach the objectivity. He discussed the
meaning of ascetic value in artists and philosophers, and derives a sense of the maximization of
the power among them. The ascetic value is special in a way that it strengthens the will. There
he concludes with a concept that the asceticism of a priest is to spent its life into the denial of life
itself. The ascetic priest sees the passage between our life and the existence as "a wrong road that
one must finally retrace back to the point where it begins;. He seeks to make false of the
existence of a normal life, and believe in his own way in which his existence can be satisfied.
However, people who has the will of self-denial lack a strong motivation for them to do so.
According to Nietzsche, this motivation is the power, a will to dominate their own lives. The
will of human in the ascetic view provides something that makes their lives meaningful.

Human choose to will the ascetic ideal because it satisfies their need to will. This suggests
the necessity of nothingness, reflects the idea that Nietzsche brought up at the beginning of the
third treatise that human would rather will nothingness than not will (9, section1).
In the world of ascetic priest, people are said to be experiments that constantly explore the
meaning of life and pursuit powers. The function of the ascetic priest is to control and tend the
sick peopleand prevent the spread of their ressentiment. Ressentiment is a French word that
Nietzsche uses to define the morality that mainly exist among the slaves. The relationship
between slaves and their master is the key concept that derives the resentment. It is the state of
mind that forms when they are feeling vulnerable, not capable of rebelling upon the evil of their
master. Ressentiment is the direct effect of suffering. In order to look after the sicken publics, the
doctor, the ascetic priest himself, must also be sick. Hes task is to suppress his own sickness,
while redirecting the ressentiment of the people toward themselves. He makes them believe that
themselves are to blame for their nausea of humanity. According to Nietzsche, the ascetic
priest mainly convoys two methods to to alleviate the people: the first one is to paralyze their
sensations, which eases their pain at the present life, and another method is to cover up the
suffering of life with the hardship of working. The ascetic priest persuades the lower rank worker
to believe the blessing of work(13, section 18), which makes them willingly productive. In
such a way the ressentiment is eased, and people are bound to generate more guilt from
themselves. Nietzsche specifies the guilt as something that would deepen the sickness of the
people because the guilt is opposed to the emotional excess that are consisted of bad
conscience and sin. Again, the ascetic ideal is used by Nietzsche to convey the his idea that
people would will nothingness than not will. (14 ,section 1).

Nietzsches attitude toward the sick mass is clearly shown in the passage asdisgusted.
However the way in which he addresses the ascetic people, the tone that he uses to describe them
convoys that the people are not just sick, but also special. This is partially because the people
under ascetic priests control provides the foundation of the community. But to a greater extend,
they are just a defected branch from the ascetic ideal. As Nietzsche later suggested, in order to
understand the ascetic value, one must approach it from multiple perspectives. Since the ascetic
priest only tends the sick people, rather than curing them, the people need to find the power
within themselves in order to cure the sickness.
After enumerating the influences that ascetic ideal give to people, Nietzsche carries on to the
discussion of what ascetic value means. He strives to find out what might be an antithesis to the
will of ascetic value. He first proposes that science, with the faith in nothing but itself, could be
strong enough to oppose the ascetic will. However, Nietzsche claims that the will of science in
itself does not exist, and science nowadays are driven with passion and other feelings. This
claims makes modern science not an opponent of ascetic value, but an manisfenstication, or an
embodiment of ascetic value, for the scientists are motivated by their feelings, but not science
itself. Although the unbelieving ones (18, section 24) of science demonstrates a form of strong
will because their faith is that they renounce all faith, Nietzsche suggests that this is because
science believe in truth,which refrains the scientists from believing other faith. The idea is
expressed by the sentence no science without presumptions (4, section 24). As long as science
is bound by its presumptions, it is not free from not having faith, and therefore not an
antithesis of ascetic value. The value of truth is also called into question, because Nietzsche
claims that the scientists reverence to science is the same as christians worship to God. Both
the people from two sides make self-justification of their absolute icon( Truth and God), and

therefore are in need of questioning. Science and ascetic value, these two altogether makes it
impossible to question their valuing of the truth. Should any criticism be made, Nietzsche
suggests that the criticism has to be mutually effective against the value of science and ascetic
ideal.
While science has no value in itself, it always serves for the value of other things. The above
statement leads Nietzsche to conclude that the opposite of ascetic value exists in the notknowing(20, section25), when the ascetic value itself is questioned. Obviously this statement is
of no use in understanding the ascetic value because it is too generalized.
Science, as Nietzsche suggested, does not offer a suitable antithesis of the ascetic ideal. He
gives a fair point when he said that science does not have its own will. However, Nietzsches
idea that having faith contradicts the pursuit of truth is questionable. The method he used to
reject science from opposing to ascetic ideal is often used by modern theists. While theists
believe in God and never tries to disprove the existence of God, science believe in the pursuit of
truth, and never question the value of truth. Nietzsche categorizes the similarity as a faith that
shows the lack of a will. From his perspective, if there exist a thing that is strong enough to
have the value of truth called into question, it is worthy of confronting the ascetic ideal. Having
faith in truth suggests that believing the truth without any doubts. Science, on the other hand, is
said to be skeptical to anything including itself. Nietzsche insists that science lacks the crucial
ability to renounce truth. But science does renounce itself, and even truth. As Immanuel Kant
suggests, we perceive reality in a sense that we have experienced. What we considered real is
based on our inductive mind, and we cannot truly understand reality. The same concept can be
used on the pursuit of truth-we see the truth as much as our mind allow us to perceive.
Realizing that there is no absolute truth in which the science to pursuit, the scientific mind is able

to look for the most logical conclusion while accepting that it could be virtually wrong. One
example is the formulation of theory: a theory is said to be an generally accepted hypothesis. It
is proofed by observations and based on logical thinking. A theory could be absolutely logical
but completely wrong, just because something is beyond comprehension. A better word for
truth would be fact, since scientists only observe the facts and process them through logical
thinking. It is fair to say that science itself does not believe in the existence of truth because it is
invented by human, and mankind is not a perfect true being. If B does not exist in the process
of A proves B, then the process itself become meaningless. The process of proofing also
does not exist in a sense of finding the truth. When scientist say that they have proved
something, they refer to the process that is based on human-invented logic in which the answer is
most logical, but not the truth. The presumption of logic makes it possible for the scientists to
prove within the range of human perception, which corresponds to Nietzsches claim there is
no science without presumption. The way in which science is performed and the reason why
scientists perform their actions are fuelled by the human emotion, but the pure science, as to refer
to the pursuit of something that optimizes the meaning of being, shows the strong will in
human which can oppose to the self-denial of ascetic value.
Nietzsches primary intention in the third treatise is to understand the meaning of ascetic value.
He describes ascetic value as a confronting force to the animal instinct of human, a force
against itself. The emergence of ressentiment underlines the improper understanding of ascetic
value. Nietzsche in the previous treatise have suggested that the human instincts are sometimes
cruel and violent. In order to suppress this dangerous feeling, ascetic value serves as a buffer that
neutralizes the animal-side of man. Looking at the Genealogy of Morality as a whole, Nietzsche
expressed his intention to explain how people can life healthily, bearing the natural instinct of

cruelness and unsatisfied will. By applying the self-denial method of ascetic priest, people are
believed to be less sinful. By believing that working is blessed, people are more productive.
There is no authority, or any higher power form the perspective of Nietzsche. Even the existence
of ascetic value is said to be expressed and made by human nature. The state of anarchy, the lack
of superficial power makes it possible human to start think of themselves. The asceticism
therefore is the fruit of inward thinking, and its opposition, can be found by performing
inward questioning.

Bibliography

Nietzsche,OntheGenealogyofMorality.Trans.M.Clark&A.Swenson.Hackett1998.
ISBN9780872202832