Friedrich Nietzsche and Simone de Beauvoir

    Although Nietzsche and Beauvoir can both be classified as having existentialist philosophies their focuses come from very different perspectives. While Nietzsche’s primary focus is on art, energy, individuality, ingenuity, and social reality through the lens of human perception, Beauvoir is mainly concerned with women and their social and literal purposes as the mysterious and enigmatic “Other” in society. Both philosophers however share a common existentialism in that both of their philosophical attitudes stress the individual’s unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for the authenticity of his or her choices.
    Nietzsche’s “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” (1873) focuses on the epistemological foundations of Western philosophy and its commitment to ascertaining the fixed and solid truth that exists independently of human minds. Nietzsche’s argument however is that we can never know anything except through the lens of human perception which is not removable. Humans are influenced by their own understandings of the subjectivity that exists in life and comes with being a human. Nietzsche places an importance on the role of language in human cognition which is specifically interesting from a literary perspective. He argues that humans assign a metaphorical sound to represent stimuli which eventually becomes the basis of language. This language is then considered a metaphor to the perception of a stimulus that can change between person to person and is completely subjective. Nietzsche says that this metaphorical process, along with the need to be social, is what eventually produced languages between humans and furthermore, gave us a sense of truthfulness and lies, which entails humans using the definition of something in the wrong way. Nietzsche argues that looking for the meaning of truth in nature is wrong because neither truth nor lies exist in nature, but are rather ideas created by humans themselves. Furthermore, Nietzsche argues that the fact that humans accept anyone who accurately describes something and shuns those who tell lies is completely subjective and frankly wrong. Nietzsche uses the artist as his prime example of an individual responding joyfully to the challenge of shedding the illusion of truth.
    In the selected chapters from “The Birth of Tragedy” (1872), Nietzsche returns to Greek philosophy and thought before Plato to discover the artistic form and worldview that he prefers to the Platonic and Christian traditions. His mantra in the text is that, “only as an aesthetic phenomenon do existence and the world appear justified.” He also explains that life is worthwhile only if humans experience strong feelings, and in turn that art is the pathway to this because it is the realm of heightened sensation in his opinion. In this way, Nietzsche seems to promote genius and individuality but in turn, shoots down authority, demanding control of the self, and one’s inalienable right to free will. Nietzsche urges humans to have the strength to love life even though suffering is inevitable because he believes that it is in the state suffering and intense feeling that the human is most alive. He explains that the murdered and resurrected god whose myth embodies this worldview is the tragic Dionysus, not the comic Christ.
    Nietzsche begins “The Birth of Tragedy” with the idea that “reproduction depends on there being two sexes which coexist in a state of perpetual conflict interrupted only occasionally by periods of reconciliation.” This thought leads us into Beauvoir’s writing, and more specifically into her multidisciplinary essay, “The Second Sex,” which uses and critiques history, biology, anthropology, literature, psychoanalysis, Marxism, and existentialist philosophy as a means of understanding the lived experiences of women. Beauvoir argues that throughout history women have been reduced to objects for men, and have been labeled the “Other.” The primary influence on “The Second Sex” is Sartrean existentialism, and other influences include phenomenology, Marxism, and psychoanalysis. In her work, Beauvoir discusses how men label women as “mysteries” for the simple reason that they cannot understand women and because of this, the proclaimed “mystery serves to excuse it all.” Beauvoir also discusses the opposites and antonyms associated with descriptions of women. For example she says, “ woman is depicted as the Praying Mantis, the Mandrake, the Demon, then it is most confusing to find in women also the Muse, the Goddess Mother, Beatrice.” More direct opposites also exist such as, “the saintly mother [who] has the correlative the cruel stepmother” … and that “it will be said sometimes that Mother equals Life, [and] sometimes that Mother equals Death …”
    Beauvoir also discusses love and relationships and how men occupy the privileged situation within relationships, in turn helping women with social standing and money. She explains her belief that men give women their time if they find profit in their love for them, while women find profit in the advantages they get from men because they do nothing, and fail to make themselves anything.
    Beauvoir makes the interesting connection between women as mysteries in real life to women as literary characters which demystify them. Literature is the “key” that could take the enigma away from women and allows people to see them more simply. For example, in a novel there is a very simple explanation for women’s actions such as them being a spy or thief.
    Beauvoir also argues that in order to be a “true woman,” a woman must accept herself as the Other. She says men are willing to accept women as a fellow being, an equal; but they still require she remain inessential, which are two destinies that are incompatible and therefore leave women unstable and lacking equilibrium.   
    Overall, the similarly existentialist philosophers Nietzsche and Beauvoir have similar methods in thinking but are concerned with different topics. Beauvoir is focused on women and their place in society, although she centers around a bias point of view of white, middle-class, well-educated, European women. Nietzsche, on the other hand, has the luxury of worrying about art, energy, and human perception as it exists in a more worldly view, for humans in general, although primarily men.