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Tyler Paul Jacobs


Teresa Welch
Philosophy 1000

Skeptical Perceptions of the Will to Power: A Comparison of David Hume and Friedrich
Nietzsche
There in all of us to some point lives a skeptic. Some people are more skeptical than
others while some flat out deny there can be any real truth to anything. David Hume is an
empiricist skeptic that criticizes the real truth and validity of anything out there. While Friedrich
Nietzsche is the man who is only concerned with the will to power, your it, the world is it, and
its the only thing that drives any of us anywhere. Two men who could be considered similar in
their purpose but vastly different in their beliefs about their purposes. Both of them started from
similar backgrounds and went about the same way in their university careers never really being
satisfied with what was being taught, what could be learned, and even both teaching or tutoring
for a bit. The main difference between the two is how each one experienced their own lives. Mr.
Hume went about life living and loving while Mr. Nietzsche went about it suffering and finding
purpose in it. These two men similar in purpose, vastly different in comparison.
David Hume was born in Edinburgh, Scotland to mother and father of Presbyterian faith.
Shortly after his birth, his father had left this life and passed on to the next leaving his earnings to
his one-year-old son. Hume would grow up going to three-hour morning service for his faith, to
only return later for one hour more. With his family relying on the saving his father had left him
Hume was consistently pushed into his studies, having dropped out of university at least once, he
was asked by his family to pursue something more than literature and philosophy in his studies.

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The issue to him was that everything but those just seemed to disgust him, the law in particular.
Hume having been fed up with this left to explore the world on his own. He left and tried to
enjoy life the best he could, he was considered to be a celebrity of sorts to a cult following and
even left his supposed baby mother alone to face the stocks for three days.
His face was broad and fat, his mouth wide, and without any other expression than that
of imbecility. The corpulence of his whole person was far better fitted to communicate
the idea of a turtle-eating alderman than that of a refined philosopher. (Archetypes of
Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy, Page 294)
With this description of Hume, its not hard to imagine why he wasnt taken to serious by
the Jesuit in his area.
Frederic Nietzsche started life off very similar to Hume in the fact that when he was born
his father shortly died after his birth. Nietzsche, unlike Hume, grew up in a Lutheran family, but
religious beginnings none the less as his father had been a minister and Nietzsche at one point
before his skepticism and cynicism grew wanted to be one too, like his father. Nietzsche grew up
in a household dominated by women and was thus cuddled and pampered his early life. Wanting
to move away from this Nietzsche went to University too, but fed up with the one he was
attending transferred to Leipzig where he learned more about the philosophies and the literature
of others. During his years in school, the man contracted syphilis and became very sick and ill
and remained that way till the day he died in an insane asylum, claiming he was Jesus and
Napoleon, among other figures at one point. But during his struggle and tries, Nietzsche did his
best to stay above the water. As he would put it Life is no argument. The conditions of life
might include error. (Archetypes of Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy, Page 457). Things
do happen and as fated as they may seem it is up to us to push through them and fight.

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This constant fight through Nietzsches life would come to shape his views on the world. Some
postmodern philosophers claim that all philosophy is a form of autobiography. By that, they
mean that all philosophyand indeed all thinking and perceivingexpresses and reflects
uniquely personal qualities of the philosopher. (Archetypes of Wisdom: An Introduction to
Philosophy, Page 461). Nowhere is this truer than within Nietzsches view on the world. To him,
well all born in this world with one thing and one thing only, and that one thing is the only thing
that shapes us and the world, the will to power. Each creature is here to force its will upon the
world, it may seem good to your and bad to another, but that will to power is everything you do,
even altruism force themselves on this world, they may be selfless in their acts, but they are still
asserting themselves upon this world, acting, breathing and living. Those forcing themselves on
this world can be overshadowed by the Overman and become jealous, all because they are stuck
in the tiny place as the underman.
Having suffered through his life to find any real purpose Nietzsche found purpose in the
one thing that other tried to avoid, pain. This man was in constant pain, suffering, yet above it all,
he tried his best and encouraged other to work through their suffering and the hate of other to
become overmen. The one being he believes we all would eventually work out to be, hopefully.
He wanted us not to be brought down by the undermen, the people who forced us to obey the
slave of morality, their views on the world, forced upon us. He believed those who had mastered
their place above all suffering were being brought down by the undermen because of jealous, so
they imposed morality as a way to shackle the overman down. To Nietzsche there was no real
morality of truths in this world, there was what you only accepted and took, colors for a painting,
taking a little optimism because it helps me be above my pessimistic times, the following faith

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because it helps me find a place in this universe. Nietzsche would disagree with this, anything
that prevent you from working through your pain like faith or even alcohol he would have told
you to be done within, move on and overcome your troubles, there is nihilism in this world, you
make the point, and you could disagree with him fully, and he would be okay with that.
Nietzsche recognized that he was okay with that. The contention that every view is only one
among many possible interpretations, including, especially, Nietzschean perspectivism, which
itself is just one interpretation among many interpretations. (Archetypes of Wisdom: An
Introduction to Philosophy, Page 462). Nietzsche understood that he would be part of the things
that you would pick and choose to overcome your trials to become over man.
Hume was very similar into the way Nietzsche viewed life. Having been around the same
time as Locke and Descartes, Hume was at a constant fight with the view of the world, mostly
the fight of what is real, and what is experience. He did not believe there were any absolute
truths to this world, and though he really didnt coin the term Nihilism, you could say he was
nihilistic like Nietzsche. Hume concluded that with all the rationalism out there it was subject
always to ones experience. If rationalism, logic, is subjected to ones experience, then what is
real? Certainly we all experience things differently, we all see colors differently, a few months
ago there was a fight about whether or not a dress was blue verse white on the internet. If things
as simple as this can change from one person to another, why cant your logic or reason?
"The refutation of skepticism is the whole business of philosophy." (Archetypes of
Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy, Page 293). This is what Hume excelled at, finding the
truth and tearing it down. Hume lived for the idea of destroying ideas. Much like Nietzsche he
believed there was no real morality, that we as people were perceptions bundled up into one little
package. If ones experiences were different, then their logic was different, if their logic was

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different because of their experiences how can anything be set at all? Not even the science of the
cosmos could be set in stone. Newton may have experienced gravity here on Earth because an
apple dropped on his, but he did not experience it on Mars, Mercury, in the deep recesses of
space. We can only rely on what we experience and we cannot experience everything
everywhere, to assume that is asinine. So with religion, with science, and your very way of life
lived it according to how you experience things.
Hume didnt want any of us getting mixed up with things like the spiritual matters of
metaphysics, because what was the point, you could experience anything that could only be
talked about, and not seen or felt for real, the same being with religion, books are books, and
words, your touch, and feel is your own. He sought a balance of logic and experience but urged
us to be careful how much we really on logic.
Hume didnt have much on the way to live ones life he was more about not be shackled
down by others use of logic, he wanted us to experience things. If you could really anything off
how to live ones life Hume appeared to be a hedonist if you could declare him anything, surely
he would be skeptical about that, but the grand times in Paris, eating and drinking and
playing whist, and pulling bluestocking ladies down to sit on [his] fat lap (Archetypes of
Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy, Page 294). Hume was all about playing around.
I think history is a little too hard on those who have lived a hard life and didnt succeed
after living in a rut. Nietzsche experienced day in and day out pain, a lot longer that Hume had
from his own health issues. Nietzsche was lonely, Hume was messing around. Nietzsche tried to
overcome his hardship, Hume was busy destroy others hardships, by saying how can you know.
Hume pretty much gives you the freedom to do what you want by saying nothing can be true,
you are what your perceptions make you, go on with yourself, Nietzsche was aware of this. Most

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philosophy may just seem like an autobiography of ones life, but that shouldnt take away from
its meaning. Hume was happy-go-lucky if thats the life youre looking for that go for it. Though
Nietzsche was sadder throughout and his sickness caused him to lose his mind, he provided
hope, however, crazy it sounded, with his overman and the underman taking him down, he told
us to look past those pulling you down, to become the better man, the superior man. We may
have killed God, but it was for us to rise up and become stronger and not really on a power that is
not our self. Nietzsche tried to emulate his work, while Hume was more full of himself, ripping
down things, with not putting much in its place. Nietzsche didnt take the easy way out and tried
his best to be his best. He gave a way for us to live by holding to ourselves to rise above what
raizes others.
I have no problem following a man that says you shouldn't trust anything, but to not to
replace it with something and to leave you high in dry is not enough. Nietzsche wants us to be
the overman, the superior man though he could not see what the worlds will to power would
shape the overman to be, he encouraged to work through that pain, as crazy as he was, even
crazy men can be wise. He told us that though life was pretty much what we make of it like
Hume but he told us to let the morals of other hold us back, not even the morals of his own.
Hume fed off the people of his day more as a playboy than a man who provided any real
substance beyond his skeptical attitude. It is important to be skeptical, to be questioning daily
what you should do, but just being a skeptic is not enough, we need be over what is under us.

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Soccio, Douglas J. Archetypes of Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy: Wadsworth


Publishing, 2012. Kindle Edition

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