On Composition and Decomposition of the Body, For JICPR

7/28/2019 On Composition and Decomposition of the Body, For JICPR

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On Composition and Decomposition of the Body:

Rethinking Health and Illness.Abstract

Health in modern times is understood as life of painlessness and absence of

disease. Against this, the paper develops a positive notion of great health as a life ofexcess and joyfulness. The notion of health as absence of disease is an idea propagated by

the modern medical science, whose origin can be traced back to Descartes understanding

of human body as a machine made up of parts such as bones, nerves, muscles, veins,blood and skin. Doctors of the modern medicine followed this mechanical view of life

which was established by biological sciences founded on Cartesian model. Disease is

considered as the malfunctioning of some parts which is repaired with the aid of

chemicals. The mind-body dualism instituted by Descartes under the influence ofChristian Platonic tradition was instrumental to the development of such a view of health.

According to it a human being is fundamentally the soul substance, and the body is

viewed as a mere halting place for the soul in its temporary existence in the world. Man ismade to serve the soul. The prime purpose of life is seen as the liberation of the soul from

the body. Therefore, a moral life that discards the body has been promoted. This gave rise

to the conception of health as mere maintenance of the body without disease.Ancient classical cultures, on the other hand, had a different notion of life. They

recognized robust and flourishing life alone as good and healthy. Drawing on Spinozas

view the bodily affects and Nietzsche view of life enhancement, great health is seen in

this paper as activation of higher goals of life. It is not mere survival but enhancement of

the power of the body to the optimum, is seen as the true goal of life. Overcoming themind-body dualism of the Christian-Platonic tradition, Spinoza and Nietzsche paves the

way for a thought that affirms the great value of earthly life. As a result the humanagency in contemporary thought shifts from the self to the body. Consequently, against

the ascetic denial of the body, the joy produced by the beauty of the world, love of the

sexes, heroic actions, adventures, abundance, intoxication of dance and music and thelike become the ideals of life. When body becomes the model for life and thought, the

value of life will no longer be explained in terms of moral categories of good and evil. It

will be measured rather in terms of health and illness. What is good for the body will beenhanced and flourishing life which is health, and what is evil for it will be weakness and

inactivity, which is illness.

Health therefore lies in the bodys capacity to form new relations with otherbodies, so that its strength can be increased. But all those newly formed relations are nothealthy. Some such newly formed relations lead to the formation of new compositions

and some other lead to the decomposition of the body. Only those relations that lead to

composition are considered healthy.

Dr. Abey Koshy


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On Composition and Decomposition of the Body:

Rethinking Health and Illness.

Dr. Abey KoshyAssociate Professor,Dept. of Philosophy

S S University of Sanskrit,Kalady, Kochi, Kerala.

[email protected]

Modern societies perceive health as absence of disease. Today human being has

ability to ward off almost all diseases with the aid of medicine and this is considered as a

great merit of modernity. Now individuals are able to live a long age on earth. Can we

recognize this as the optimum level of health possible? Is there any greatness to have a

lengthy life if man is making no endeavors to reach higher goals of existence? Critics

would say that unless human being is able to taste the best fruits of existence, there would

be no glory in life. Mere persisting in existence by postponement of death cannot be

treated as the true end of life. Mere survival in the world cannot be called health.

Drawing on Spinozas notion of bodily affects1

(Spinoza, Ethics, 2001, part III), andNietzsches idea of great health (Nietzsche, 2008, p.246) this paper develops a different

understanding of health. Differing from conventional understanding of health, great

health is perceived as living a magnificent life, which requires actions that exceeds the

boundary drawn between good and evil by the conservative society. Criticizing the

conventional notion of health, the paper redefines the meaning of health as flourishing in

life. Finding robust existence is seen as the true destiny of human life. This paper is

therefore a critique of modern medicines notion of health as well the philosophies that

laid foundation to that notion. This critique of modern medicine finally turns out to be a

critique of European modernity itself.

From the methodological perspective of this paper, health cannot be seen as a

thing possessed by individuals as an asset. Instead, it is manifested as an elevated

experience in activities and engagements of higher order. Instead of considering health as


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a static state, it is viewed as a process. This calls for the recognition of the experiential

character of health. It can be manifested in heroic activities like adventures, wars, games,

sacrifices, love of the sexes, ecstatic dance and so on. They are rare moments where apersons life got enhanced to the optimum level. All such activities create moments of

living life in excess and over-fullness2. In such moments the capacities and desires of a

human being is expressed in their fullness. Such activities may exceed the good

mannerism excepted of human beings in contemporary societies. Though goodness

originally was not a moral ideal, it became one in the recent history of mankind under the

influence of Christian-Platonic tradition. But actions of higher magnitude cannot be

measured by the yardsticks of modern morality, by which an individual in a society is

evaluated. Conventional morality asks the human being to be calm and submissive.

Contrary to the ancient times, in modern societies abstention from adventures and bodily

desires are considered as the qualities of a good man3.

The paper sets out to explain how the modern idea of health is grounded on

conservative morality propagated by Christian-Cartesian tradition. To develop a different

notion of health such a critique is necessary. True health, it is viewed, is a process,

something always renewed as there are new tasks and strivings in life. It is experienced

mainly in the moments of immersing in actions of higher order that expands the power of

the human body to optimum levels. Thus body is the site of health and it is argued that

the liberation of the body from the constrains and inscriptions4 of asceticism made on it

by the forces opposed to worldly life is a necessary first step to have any possibility for

flourishing in life. Conventional moral practices mostly decompose5 the body and

therefore enhancement of life requires the body to compose new assemblages6 with other

bodies that agree with its nature.

1. Classical Understanding of HealthThe view of health as maintenance of life without disease is typically a modern

notion. Most of the ancient civilizations, on the other hand, recognized only robust

existence as good and healthy. This could be seen from the classical texts of former

periods. For instance ancient Greeks considered health as a happy state of life where


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human rational, sensual, heroic qualities are fully manifested7. In the classical age, to

mould oneself for a good and flourishing existence was a life project and a matter of

creating health. To choose right goals in life is considered by the antiquity as good life,which was just as much a matter of health as the virtue of the soul (Friedrik Svenaeus,

2000, pp. 61-62). A good account of approach to well-being of the people of the Greek

antiquity is provided in Foucaults researches about that period8. This involves all sorts of

habits such as sexual habits, friendship, exercise habits, dietetics, sleep, study and so on

(Foucault, 1986). Also it is seen in the Epics of Homer andMahabharata that the people

of that time thought it is worthless to remain in the world with the aid of food and other

comforts. This is reflected in the attitude of the warrior classes of all classical

civilizations who thought there is no better glory in life than having a death in the

battlefield.

The classical Greek approach to health finds its theoretical expression in

AristotlesNicomachean Ethics. The idea of well-being proposed in it is a contented state

of being happy and healthy and prosperous flourishing. It is resulted by the development

of all the qualities of a person such as reason, beauty, passions, sensuality, valor

friendliness, compassion and so on. Happiness or Eudemonia is the perfection of human

goodness through leading a virtuous life. Virtue here only means excellence of character

and nothing to do with morality of the modern civilization. The modern notion of virtue

propagated by religion and metaphysics, on the other hand, disallows actions of

sensuality and heroism, thereby limits life to a bare minimum performance of activities.

Virtue in the classical world, however, is not abstention from sensual pleasures and

adventurous living. Rather it only means finding the best out of life through harmonious

blending of ones capacities. This is why Aristotle writes that virtue is something

concerned with pleasures and pains, the person who manages them well will be good,while he who does so badly will be bad (Aristotle, 2000, p.27). Thus goodness is extra-

moral, beyond the differentiation of the categories of good and bad that confines lives to

few allowed territories. Thus a healthy person is the one who flourishes in existence

through the development of multiple capacities, beyond any narrow confinement of life

to certain set paths.


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2. Cartesianism and the Advent of Modern Medicine.

We see in modern times a radical shift in the meaning of health. Now health is nolonger seen as living a life of fulfillment. Instead, health is perceived as a life of

painlessness. In place of positive robustness health is now understood as absence of

disease. The activities that transgress the norms of behavior, i.e. movements that produce

excess life now is looked with suspicion. Great actions and gestures that celebrate life are

now not promoted because of the risk involved in them to produce pain in life. In place of

them activities that lead to the production of easy pleasures are encouraged. Such a

change in the perception of health is directly related to a change taken place in the

conception of the body and its function. Ancient people had not separated the body and

the mind into watertight compartments. All the pleasures of the body were mental as

well. A human being is taken as his body as much as he is his mind. But in modern times

more value has been given to mental and intellectual activities. In modernity there is

distrust of bodily passions and desires.

The Platonic and Christian perspective of human body as an inferior principle

opposed to the higher activities of the soul, was instrumental in the devaluation of the

body. This exerted a major influence on all the subsequent streams of thought in the

Western world. Its direct influence is seen in Cartesian rational thinking. The

juxtaposition of mind and body in diametrically opposite poles has been done by none

other than the father of the modern medical reason, Rene Descartes, who himself was a

doctor by profession.

In Descartes division of realities into mind and body we see a reestablishment of

this old dualism. Mind alone is spiritual and the body, both of the human being and the

natural world, in his opinion is extended matter devoid of any life. Descartes assignsagency to the mind alone. Body has no agency and it function on the basis of mechanical

laws. Descartes viewed the body of the human being as a kind of machine made up of

bones, nerves, muscles, veins, blood and skin so fitted together that, even if there were no

mind within it, it would still have all movements (Descartes, Meditations, 2008, p.60).

Body is treated also as a cause for clouding the intellect, seducing the will, creation of


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perpetual obstacles to the growth of reason. Worldly life is seen as a temporary halting

place of the immortal soul due to its association with the body. This message is clearly

delineated by Descartes when he writes that I am a thinking thing and not an extendedthing.body.is only an extended and not a thinking thing, it is certain that I am really

distinct from my body, and I can exist without it (Ibid, p.55)

The recognition of the soul as a superior force over the body might have lead to

the perception of health as the absence of disease. While human beings devote for the

happiness of the soul the value of earthly existence gets depreciated. This is a specific

characteristic of modernity that has to be challenged. And it has to be replaced with a

renewed understanding of the role of body. This is essential for reaching a better

understanding of health.

Descartes does not recognize the body to be anything more than as a beastly

machine that provides a temporary residence for the soul. According to him the principles

that guide human life come entirely from the soul. Body is a lifeless extended substance

that follows altogether different principles. The Physiological vitality is produced by the

bodys own mechanical processes like the function of a clock or any other automaton.

Descartes supposes the body to be nothing but a statue or machine made of earth

(Descartes, 1985, Treatise of Man, p.99) like clocks, artificial fountains, mills and other

such machines which, though only man made, have the power to move of their own

(ibid)

Like the burning of the fire moves automatons, the heat in the heart moves the

body of the beast. Without the presence of the soul, the body will remain as an

inoperative machine. Descartes conceives living organisms like a machine constituted by

separate parts. This mechanic attitude of the material world laid the foundation of the

modern age lead by science and technology. The doctors of modern medicine since lastthree centuries follow this mechanistic view of life which was established by biological

sciences founded on Cartesian model. The human body, according to it, can be analyzed

as constituted of separate parts of a machine. A disease is seen as the result of

malfunctioning of some of its parts. A doctors role is to intervene in it with the aid of

chemicals to correct it. In the surgical procedure the body is opened up and certain organs


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are replaced like the parts of a machine are removed. The blood tests, scanning and x-ray

are dissections of the body into its constituent parts. Body, according to this approach, is

nothing more than an extended crude matter that has left to the therapist to repair. Thismodel of health is followed even three centuries after Descartes. Here the non-living

takes predominance over the living. Living body here is approached like an animated

corpse. This perspective allows a complete control and domination to medical science

over the body, to act upon it, manipulate it.

This uncompromising dualism thus became the model for the modern medical

science. It placed body and mind in separate water tight compartments. Now a persons

life is taken care by two entirely different professions. Body is taken care by the medical

profession and the mind by philosophy and religion. Different from the archaic age, the

role of the philosopher now is recast as a physician of the human soul who helps to

deliver the soul from the polluting association of the body (Plato.2002, pp.102-104), and

finally leading it to salvation. Religious traditions also taught human being to discard

body as a mortal thrash that corrupts soul. Thus philosophical thinking and religious

traditions together engaged in the practice of decomposing bodies. And the task of taking

care of the body, henceforth, is entirely left to the medical science.

But modern medicines impersonal attitude to the body as a crude matter or inert

object, open for conducting experiments and studies, is to be critically looked at. Such an

enquiry is necessary in the wake of Foucaults observations about the clinical gaze

which gives the health professional the power to examine, interview and prescribe life

styles (Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic, 1975). This is seen as a bio-power employed to

control individual bodies and population. For the exercise of bio-power firstly individual

identity has to be constructed for each human being, based on symptoms, disease or life

style. Control over these processes is at the core of medical care. The question posed byFoucault before us is whether its true objective is promotion of health or formation of a

disciplined society. Foucault claims that rather than providing health, the medical

practices function more as a device for subjugation of the bodies. This prompts us to look

at modern medical practice with suspicion. Besides, it also asks us to rethink the health

benefits of the modern medicine.


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3. Health as Life enhancementDifferent from these present practices of modern medicine the purpose of the

paper is to suggest life enhancement as the proper task of existence. This, it is expected,

will give a new meaning to health. In modern times technological growth has improved

human standard of living to higher levels. And the growth in medical science has

increased life expectancy of mankind. Notwithstanding all these achievements, it is

perceived from many quarters that there is no growth in quality of life in proportion to the

improvement in standard of living. Quality of life as we know, is largely depended on the

amount of happiness derived by individual in life which is in no way be equated to life

standards. Possession of sophisticated equipments may have improved standard of living

by way of making our everyday works easier to perform. That has produced good amount

of leisure, which was not available to mankind in pre-modern periods. But this leisure is

not utilized to achieve higher goals of life. Instead it is spent as pastime, mostly in the

enjoyment of easy pleasures provided by television and consumer goods.

It is claimed that medical technology has increased human health by which

human being can now live extended years in the world. But how can we call a life healthy

if it is lead in passivity by postponement of death, is the question raised by social critics

of today. Such a health will not be anything more than a thing maintained by the

application of medicine. It will never be a hard earned virtue by the human being. The

illness of the contemporary humanity is not entirely produced by any microbes of disease.

In so many other ways also the humanity of today can be seen as sick. Nietzsche observes

that man of the modern civilization is sick (Nietzsche, 1969, p.121). In Nietzsches

opinion clinical ailments are mere external symptoms of a deeper sickness whose causes

are to be deciphered genealogically. According to him, the reasons for physiologicalweariness have to be sought in the domain of morality and culture rather than medically.

Prevention of ailments of the body achieved by medical science is only one kind of

prevention of disease.

This view suggests us that the tendency to characterise health as the absence of

any malfunctioning of the body needs to be critically questioned. This concept of health


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basically comes from two sources. One is the Cartesian perspective of body as a mere

machine maintained with the aid of medical technology. Human life in this perspective is

a set of rational activities performed under the guidance of the soul. The other is theChristian view of the body as a temporary residence for the soul during her existence on

the earth. The real bliss of life according to Christian view lies in the transcendental

realm, and that could be reached only when the soul is dissociated from the polluting

influence of the body and its desires.

But when the value of human life is assessed from a mundane perspective i.e.

from the perspective of body and earth, a different set of values such as love of the sexes,

heroism, intoxicated experiences, desires and passions of the body and so on assumes

significance. These are the values sidelined by the enlightenment modernity under the

influence of Christian-platonic ideology. But when the meaning of life is looked at from

the perspective of the body, we will be able to get a new understanding of health. It will

no more be mere absence of disease, instead health has got something to do with

activation of life to optimum levels. Then health becomes a state of joyful existence

brought about by activities of the body that affirms human life in this material world.

As a result of the observations of Nietzsche and phenomenologists, an effort to

replant human life in the soil of body has gained momentum in contemporary thinking. It

was in opposition to the dualism of Cartesian tradition that gave privilege to the soul over

the body that recognized soul alone as the true human agency.

A human being shall be considered as his body at the core. This teaching is

fundamental to many of the reflections in the post metaphysical phase of philosophy such

as phenomenology and post-structuralism. They all affirm the value of body in our

mundane life. From the late half of nineteenth century philosophy has started discarding

the tendency to treat the soul as the locus of thought and agency. Hegel, Freud, Husserlare few of the contributors to this shift in philosophy. Since then the body has began to

replace the soul in the explanation of consciousness and actions. With Darwin a

materialistic basis for explaining living organisms was fully accepted in biological

sciences.


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But a concerted effort to dethrone the centrality of consciousness by body had

firstly come from Nietzsche who has written that man is entirely body and soul is

merely a word for something in the body (Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1984,p.61). With this, human thought, morality and values have started receiving a

materialistic grounding that replaced the transcendental explanations of the human

activity. In Metaphysical explanation a body cannot exist by its own energy. A

transcendental spirit or a mental substance has to be there to give form to the body and

trigger its activities. But Nietzsche showed that the body does not require any external

principle or a mental substance for instigation of its movements and thoughts. With the

announcement of the Death of God he was actually making the body free of all external

control of a spiritual substance. He replaced it with a force that is an attribute of the body

itself, which is the will to power.

Contemporary reflections enable us to see mind-body dualism as a creation of the

Platonism and Cartesianism. It suggests us that the hour has arrived for the erasure of this

dualism. Thinkers belonging to the phenomenological tradition assert the embodied

nature of the human consciousness9. As a result the human agency now shifts from the

mind to the body. One of the forerunners among the thinkers who grounded thought on a

materialist plain is Benedict Spinoza10 who said that the mind and the body are one and

the same thing( Spinoza, 2001, p. 100).

We shall explore here how a different notion of health can be developed out of

Spinozas bodily explanation of existence. Spinozas philosophy demonstrates that there

is only one substance and all the living and non-living things of the world are various

kinds of modes or modifications of that substance. Each mode with body is composed of

innumerable number of particles that constitutes the individuality of the body. A body is

not defined by its form or organs or function, as usually done in mainstream naturalsciences. On the other hand speed and slowness of the particles that constituting a body

determines the nature of an organism. The speed and slowness of metabolism,

perceptions, actions and reactions join together in the making of the constitution of a

particular individual in the world. This makes a human body different from the body of


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other organisms. For instance in the case of a butterfly perceptions and metabolism

functions in a very lower magnitude.

In Spinozas scheme of thinking all bodies perpetually come into contact withother bodies according to the eternal laws of nature. In this coming together a body

affects on other bodies and in turn is affected by the other bodies (Spinoza, 2001, p.99).

It is the way in which a body is affecting and being affected also defines the nature of a

body. If we define bodies and minds as capacities for affecting and being affected the

existing categorization of organisms change. Then, an animal or a human being cannot be

understood in terms of its consciousness or subjectivity. In the traditional metaphysical

philosophy human being is conceived as a self/subject and consciousness as its core.

Spinoza does not accept the central position of consciousness and for him the body and

the mind are one and the same thing. When the nature of a body is looked at in terms of

its capacity for affections then the agency of the body is no longer dependent upon free

will or reason or instinct. In place of it, the forces or affections impinged on one body

from the outside bodies and also its capacity for affecting on external bodies determines

the nature of that body.

In Spinozas thought the body is always either acted or acted upon, depending on

the affects impinged upon it from the external bodies. The human body can be affected

in many ways by which its power of acting is increased or diminished (Ibid). The

attributes of each body also varies from other bodies. When our body encounters another

body that agrees with our nature, it happens that this new relation sometimes combine to

form a more powerful whole. We experience joy when a body encounters ours and enters

into composition with it. Such encounters enhance our power to act (Deleuze, 1988, p.19-

21). This constitutes the health of the body.

But when we encounter a body that does not agree with our nature, it jeopardizeour cohesion, decompose our body, and then sadness is experienced. In some extreme

cases when our bodys relation with other is totally incompatible with our nature, death

could be expected. Whenever the relations do not enter into composition with ours, the

encounters becomes opposite to our nature. Then it may be said that our power of acting


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is diminished or blocked. The passions formed in us at that moment are those of sadness.

The sad passions always amount to impotence and this constitute illness of the body.

For instance, for an animal such as a cow, plant and rain affect positively and itsstrength then is increased. Plant as food for the cow gives nourishment to it. Rain

provides the conditions for the growth of plants and also supplies water to the cow to

quench its thirst. On the other hand the contact of the cow with spiders and flies affects

contrary to its nature thereby its activity is curtailed. However for a frog, fly and spider

may be good affections. Both of these are foods to the body of the frog. They enhance its

strength. Likewise, when an animal with higher magnitude such as a human being is

affected by an idea of another man that is compatible with his nature, it then enters into a

new composition. Combining of both ideas together produces a new compound and it

then doubles the power of his capacity for action. Consequently joy is resulted. This

constitutes the health of that human being.

When Spinozas discourse on body is employed as a means of analysis of life, we

will be forced to alter our existing understanding of the goal of existence. The highest

goal is human freedom and that can now be seen as the experience of joy resulted by

positive affections happens to a body by the impact of other bodies. Health then is the

expansion of ones conatus11 produced by joyfulness which according to Spinoza is the

higher state of flourishing of the human being. On the other hand disease and decay can

be seen as diminishing of our power of acting resulted by sadness or poisoning of the

body by the impact of other bodies.

We as inhabitants of nature are always vulnerable to bodily encounters

according to the eternal laws of Nature, either in the form of composition or

decomposition, consequently joy or sadness is resulted. No body can stay away from

them. But we only feel the effects of such encounters in the form of sadness and joy.Spinoza says that the real causes of our affections are hidden from us. We do not have

adequate ideas(Spinoza, 2001, p.75) about that. In the absence of such knowledge we

always think that it is our evil actions that lead to our sadness and vice versa good actions

lead to joyfulness. Religions are in the forefront for propagating such believes. We are

then tempted to believe in so many superstitions. A moral interpretation of phenomena is,


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thus, provided. Thus human being posits a God who rewards for good actions and

punishes for prohibited actions.

This was what happens in the case of the religious interpretation of the biblicalstory of Adam. Deleuze while reinterpreting the story writes (1988, p. 22) that Adam was

prevented by God from eating the apple not because the apple was evil in itself, but

because it was poisonous to his body. But Adam misunderstood it as a moral decree of

God that not to eat that fruit. Some things are incompatible to certain bodies because

those things would act as poison and decompose those bodies. By preventing Adam from

eating the apple God was only trying to remind Adam about the poisonous nature of the

fruit. However, human beings always tend to interpret their painful experiences as

punishment by an almighty God for their wrong doings. And thus man conceives certain

things as universally good by nature and certain other things universally evil. He does not

come to see that some of the things he treat as evil may be good for certain other bodies.

They may enhance the power of those bodies to act. In the absence of adequate

knowledge about the working of the world, religion and moral theories are in the

forefront of making such universal evaluations. But such evaluations of religions and

institutions are intended to maintain their hold on the population through promoting

conservative views of them. In Nietzsches opinion they are meant to exploit the sad

passions of human beings. However Good and evil are relative. There is no good-in-itself

or evil-in-itself. Certain poisonous things to some organisms may be nutritious to certain

other organisms. As all bodies are combinations of various types of forces, few things in

nature may be healthy to some bodies whereas the same things may be poisonous for

other bodies. Nothing is always evil by nature. We judge something to be good because

we strive for it, want it and desire it, because we find that it enhances our power to act. It

is our evaluation that makes things evil or good. So everything is connected to health andillness of the bodies, questions of compositions and decompositions and they have

nothing to do with moral goodness and evil.

Health thus from Spinozas perspective can be understood as bodys actual

measurable capacity to form new relations with other bodies, so that its strength can be

increased. But all those newly formed relations are not healthy. Some such newly formed


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relations lead to the formation of new compounds and some other lead to the

decomposition of the body. Only those relations that lead to the formation of new

compounds can be considered healthy. For instance a body-nutrition compound is ahealthy assemblage, where as negative assemblages lead to decomposition (death) of the

body.

That individual shall be called healthy who strives to organize his encounters, to

join with whatever agrees with his nature, to combine his relations with relations that are

compatible with his, and thereby to increases her power. That individual shall be called

sick, or weak who lives haphazardly, who is content to suffer the effects of his encounters

that do not agree with his constitution. Such people accuse earthly life and become

resentful against it. They are the people who spread the germs of their hatred everywhere.

However the problem we encounter in modernity is that it has no means to

promote combinations that produce joyfulness in life. Most of the assemblages in it are

negative ones and that lead to the persistence of degeneration of modern life. The

impossibility of achieving positive assemblages in modern societies could be seen as the

cause of the sickness of modern human beings living in contemporary societies.

4. Nietzsches Affirmation of the BodyNietzsche who has suggested the idea of great health was very much concerned

about the health of humanity which is in peril in modernity. He has always insisted on the

need of man having positive compositions in life. Nietzsches project of aesthetic

affirmation is taken up here as a powerful proposal for constituting life differently in the

modern world which is dominated by ascetic attitude12. Nietzsches aesthetic

affirmation provides an anti-dote to the diseased condition of modern man. His analysis

of nihilism in this regard is seen as a diagnosis of the sickness of contemporary societies.He perceived modern man as a sick animal among other species of the nature (Nietzsche,

1969, p. 121). He claims that his philosophizing is meant to diagnose the degeneration of

modern humanity by identifying the cultural virus that infected life in a very alarming

manner. His work is equated to that of a cultural physician whose task is to cure the ills

of the society (Daniel Ahern, 1995). Nietzsches philosophy is very rich in medical


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metaphors. A spurt of medical terms seen in his writings such as physiology, nerve, cells,

muscles, strength, diagnosis, tonic, symptom, decease and so on enables him to replace

the old metaphysical terms like essence, causality, self, god, consciousness. Hisphilosophical analysis of modern life was done with the aid of such a set of clinical

terms.

Nietzsche finds the illness of the modern life in the practice of nihilism. He

criticizes the tendency of modern civilization to undermine the value of earthly life. He

characterizes this tendency as nihilism. Nihilism promotes only transcendental values and

truths, thereby worldly life is denied as unworthy. This results in a kind of ascetic denial

of bodily desires. In Nietzsches opinion religion, morality and philosophy are the three

forms of nihilism that prevent human being from making positive compositions in life

(Nietzsche, 1968, The Will to Power, p. 419). These figures depreciate the value of

earthly life. This, he thinks has created a very alarming situation for human civilization

which has to be overcome if humanity has to survive on earth. Thus the fundamental

problem humanity has to address today is to find means for overcoming nihilism. If

nihilism is the denial of life rooted in bodily desires, the overcoming of it requires

recalling of all those desires of the body back to life. Intoxicating moments produced by

the beautiful experiences of life alone can act as a counterforce to all will to negation of

life and body. Thus in Nietzsche the aesthetic is suggested as a counter force to defeat

nihilism (Ibid, p.452). The aesthetic, here, is not the activity of creating painting or poetry

or music. It is rather an experiential state produced by a set of actions that lead to the

enhancement of life, resulting in joy. For him the Greek antiquity shall be the source and

inspiration for modern man to retrieve the active side of human existence. The Greek

antiquity expressed it through love, heroism, adventure, sensual pleasures, abundance,

overflowing health, dancing and so on (Nietzsche, 1969, Genealogy of Morals, p.33).These were actions opposed to moral and metaphysical values hitherto treated by the

traditional thinking as the highest goals of life. In activities such as war, games, dancing,

and loving the forces of the body are unleashed and joy is set into play. And in the

experiences of music, fragrances and spring also aesthetic moments are produced. The

joy produced in them has the potential to counter the Cartesian/Christian/ascetic attitude


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of modernity that denied life. But they are seldom available to the man of the modern age

due to nihilistic evaluation of them as negative aspects of life. Indulging in them is

considered as transgression of the legitimate bounds of the good and the true set bythe mainstream society and thus they are not encouraged.

Nietzsche gives a very important role to art in the enhancement of health in the

modern social situations. Art is supposed to preserve those pro-life forces and activities

which have been denied in the real life. Poetry and painting act as an alternative domain

of pro-life forces. In them they could be felt, expressed and lived. Art preserves those

functions when they are left out from concrete life. In Nietzsches opinion the demand

for art and beauty is an indirect demand for sexuality and love communicated to the

brain (Nietzsche, 1968, p.424) and in it we discover the most angelic instinct, love,

we discover it as the greatest stimulus to life (Ibid). The creation of work of art is

prompted by the desire to have those things in actual life. Whoever undergoes the

experience of art is able to recapture those moments of real life. Aesthetic experience

instigates them and prompts a person to act and practice them in actual life. It

reinvigorates the body that has been decomposed and disintegrated by the constant

markings made on it by the forces of nihilism. The medicinal property of work of art is

reminded when Nietzsche says all art-works exercises the power of suggestion over the

muscles and senses.it works tonically, increases strength, inflames desire, excite all the

more subtle recollections of intoxication (Nietzsche, 1968 p.427). Cartesian-Christian

tradition gave higher spiritual status only to the rational self and the transcendental world.

It thereby propagated the denial of the body. However, in opposition to it, the aesthetic is

suggested as an affirmative force of life. Through his elevation of art as essentially

affirmation and deification of existence (Ibid, p. 434), Nietzsche was underlining the

power of art to spiritualize the body and the world.Moral interpretation of life circulated through the Cartesian-Christian tradition, on

the other hand, was an endeavor to negate body and the earthly existence. Mostly it is the

impotence to live higher order of life that creates morality and in Nietzsches words it

comes from the impotence of the herd type who wanted only their self elevation

(Nietzsche, 1969, pp. 123-24). The ascetic world view nurtured by religion, morality and


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philosophy, the three figures of nihilism, looks with suspicion at the physiological well-

being and the outward expression of this well being, beauty and joy, while pleasure is felt

and sought in ill constitutedness, decay, pain, ugliness, voluntary deprivation, selfmortification and self sacrifice (Nietzsche, 1969, p.118). A type of asceticism is the hall

mark of both religion and metaphysics. It is noticeable in recent history of civilization

how religious discourses and metaphysical theories promote a pure will-less, painless,

timeless knowing subject as the higher ideal of mankind. The nihilistic forces succeed in

limiting the actions of the active human beings and give undue protection to the incapable

people who only wanted to sustain in the world from dying. Nietzsche writes:

The ascetic ideal springs from the protective instinct of a degenerating life which tries by

all means to sustain itself and to fight for its existence.life wrestles in it with death and

against death; the ascetic ideal is an artifice for the preservation of life (1969, p.120).

Modern medicine is glorified so much for its power to ward off death. The

Doctors are adorned as persons possessing miraculous powers to conquer death. Death, in

the Christian view is a happening produced by a persons fallen condition due to leading

a sinful life. Both modernity and modern medical science grow parallel and for them

death is the greatest danger to be overcome by its knowledge systems. Foucault writes in

The Birth of the clinic that in modern times suddenly death emerges as a matter ofconcern and as a phenomenon to be feared, which was not so in earlier historical periods.

He observes that knowledge of ones finitude caused by death is a result of the

individuation process (Foucault,1975, p.197) , by which a person come to see himself

as a separate self from the others. The awareness of death is a major factor in the

individuation process of the human being. Man becomes an individual self when his life

is felt as a contingent one, a period lived between birth and death, and finally waiting for

its impending end.

But Nietzsche reminds us that fear of death is a phenomenon of the people who

do not live their life properly. Those who live joyously never lament at death. The man

consummating his life dies his death triumphantly (Nietzsche, 1984, p.97). Death is a

festival for those who celebrate their life at every moment of their existence. In his

opinion only a superfluous person makes a great thing of their dying. What is required by


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us is to learn the art of dying. Lack of fulfillment in life in modernity causes men to scare

death as a phenomenon to be warded off. The person who feels his life unfulfilled finds it

difficult to come out of the prison house of his individuality. Modern men mostly remainwithin their shells of self, so unable to experience multiple dimension of existence. They

are tied to their self consciousness as beings existing between birth and death, with the

constant awareness of their inevitable death.

So the consciousness of death was a major triggering force for the genesis of

researches in modern medicine. Drew Leder who has written about the Cartesian

influence on medical science has observed that the threat of death posed by human body

was a great provocation not only for Descartes metaphysics but also for his researches in

medicine. The development of medicine that would overcome disease and increase the

life span of human being is considered as one of the chief aims of his research. Descartes

writes that I have never taken such pains to protect my health as now, and whereas I

used to think that death might rob me of thirty or forty years at most, it could not now

surprise me unless it threatened by hope of living more than a hundred years (Descartes,

Quoted in Drew Leder, 1992, p. 18)

Like the fear of death, eradication of pain from life has also functioned as a

motive behind the practice of modern medicine. Influence of Christianity on modern

medical practice is evident in this regard. The Christian ideal of serving the sufferer is

very much at the heart of modern medical profession. So it has never been the promotion

of greatness but simply the protection of the masses that has been the driving spirit of

modern medicine since its very beginning. It can be perceived that an instinct to protect

weakness and discourage the grandeur is at work in the Christian teaching of serving the

poor and the diseased. Christianity preaches rendering service to the sufferer as the

supremely good act of life. If we evaluate human actions based on this ideal, a nurse is tobe considered as the ideal type of human being. The Christian ideal of wiping the tears of

the sufferer, like the act of the good Samaritan, was influential for the emergence of the

medical notion of nursing. But the problem with this ideal is that it does not give any

room for the enactment of bodily desires in life. Instead, it only demands us to withdraw

from the pleasures of the earth in order to reap rewards lying in store in the life after


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death. Self mortification, penance and sacrifice thus become the virtues of the modern

age in the place of the older virtues of love, courage and heroism. In short it nurtured a

life of rest and inactivity.This ideal has spilled over to the constitution of the modern welfare states, which

assumes removal of the suffering of the masses as its highest task. Its functions are thus

remained limited to providing medical care, drinking water, shelter, clothing and material

comforts, through which the welfare of the people is taken care. Making grand life

possible for the people has never been a program of it. Nation states employ the

techniques of modern medicine to keep the body of the people free of disease in order to

utilize people as labor force that works for the benefit of the society. The enhancement

of joy in life has never been an agenda of modernity. Health is not seen as the activation

of higher functions of life. The clinical practice of the modern medicine is based on

Christian perspective of the body as a mere shelter of the soul. Here soul is everything

and the body is a mere adjunct for the performance of the soul. Actions other than the

ones that support bare minimum performances for the survival of life are not promoted.

Foucault explains how hospitals functions as agencies for limiting playfulness, sensuality,

and excess performance of the body (Foucault, 1975) Hospitals are thus works as arms of

modernity to convert human bodies into labor forces

But when we liberate the body from the anti-life inscriptions made on it by

Christian, Platonic and Cartesian tradition, we are able to reach to a different

understanding about the destiny of life. The value of human life, then, will no longer be

explained in terms of the moral categories of good and evil. The worth of life then will

be measured rather in terms of health and sickness. Morality would be significant only if

the body has a life to lead beyond the earth, in a transcendental world. If the human being

is entirely body, what is good for it is an enhanced and flourishing life which is health,and what is evil is weakness and inactivity. Morality, in this regard, has to be seen as an

obstacle to great health, because it always interprets the meaning of goodness from the

point of view of supernatural values. Modern societies seldom perceive goodness as

enhancement of the power of the body or beautification of the body. Instead, sacrificing

of ones happiness for the service of the others is considered as the supremely good act


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(Nietzsche, 1969, pp.25-26). A person who mortifies his bodily desires through ascetic

practices of fasting and austerity is considered as good (Ibid, pp.117-18). These Christian

values become the ideals of modern medicine due to the socio historical milieu in whichits principles are developed. Thus, like Christianity, the modern medicine has also

engaged in the practice of decomposing the body.

Therefore replacement of the notions good and evil with health and illness

assumes significance in the context of modernity. This will help us to conduct a

revaluation of the values of the contemporary life and culture. The reflections of Spinoza

and Nietzsche on the nature of body will serve as a solid methodological ground in the

recasting of the function of the body.

Building a healthy culture in the present necessarily requires disinfection of the

germs of reaction that work in the society through the moral trinities of resentment, guilt

and ascetic ideal. To restore human trust in the values of earth, the reactive forces that

take away the power of the body have to be defeated. Then, the body can once again play

its desires, passions and heroic gestures. The life lived in passivity has to be turned into a

life of activity where processes of natural functions predominate over anti-life discourses.

Nietzsche presents this as the aesthetic dimension of his philosophy.

Therefore the meaning health has to be recast. It is not absence of disease but

enhanced life that is healthy. If body is the model for thinking and action the highest goal

cannot be liberation from the world or purification of mind by abstention from desires.

Good and evil for the body has to be recast with health and illness. Good is then

expanded activity of the body filled with joy and bad is whatever leading to inertia and

sadness. Inertia and sadness take away the power of the body to act and this is a symptom

of illness. So good and bad are to be taken out from their moral context. Goodness then is

no longer understood as doing good service to others. Instead whatever enhances thecapacity of the body is good and whatever diminishes the capacity of the body shall be

evil. Combining Nietzsches philosophy of the will to power and Spinoza view of

conatus, we are able to evolve a new understanding of health that can be employed to

revalue the clinical notion of health.


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End Notes.

1Gilles Deleuze further develops this notion in his workSpinoza: Practical Philosophy

2Spinozas view of Conatus and Nietzsches ideal of the Will to Power endorses this position

3For instance sportspersons, dancers, film actors, warriors etc. though perform great actions, such

actions were never treated as good actions and they as good persons. Actions of social service alone were

treated as good.4

Judith Butler in Gender Trouble explains how human nature and behavior are created through

making inscriptions on the body by the prevailing culture in each historical period.5

Gilles Deleuze in his interpretation of Spinoza (Spinoza: Practical Philosophy) explains that all

bodies are compositions of multiple types of particles. The dominant particles in a body determine the

nature of that body (thereby the nature of that particular organism). When a body is exposed before the

particles and forces opposed to its nature it loses its cohesion. The body may be even decomposed when it

is confronted by the forces which are totally in disagreement with its nature.

6Deleuze initially develops the idea of body assemblage based on Spinozas notion of bodily

affections explained in the 3rd

Part ofEthics. Later in his workAnti Oedipus this notion is extended to

explain the passage of desire between bodies in their machine like coupling. According to which any two

bodies can be coupled or joined together to form a new body and then its power to act is increased. A

bicycle attached to a man is such a combination. Body connectivity, by which there is a flow of energy or

desire from one body to the other, is a persisting theme in his later writings.7

This is reflected by Aristotle in hisNicomachean Ethics8

Michel Foucaults bookThe use of pleasure covers the ancient Greek peoples attitude to their

body and pleasure. He contrasts it with the ascetic attitude of the people of the present.9

Merleaue-Pontys notion of the lived body is a very crucial reflection on the embodied nature of

consciousness. He phenomenologically demonstrates how human intentionality, will and perception are

emanated from ones body rather than from the mind.10Understanding of Spinozas philosophy as a treatise on body is a recent trend that comes about

with the publication of the two volumes on Spinoza by Gilles Deleuze. Earlier Spinozas thought has been

looked at primarily as a rationalistic discourse on the mindbody problem where reason playing a pivotal

role in bringing about human freedom. This paper basically follows the Deleuezean interpretation of

Spinoza.11

Conatus, according to Spinoza, is the drive present in all living and non-living things to persist

in existence and grow higher.12

Asceticism in the opinion of Nietzsche is not merely the attitude of the sanyasis and priests who

rejects the pleasures of the body. Asceticism, in his opinion, rather is the hallmark of the entire modern

civilization. In the third essay of On the Genealogy of Morals he demonstrates in detail how modern

science, philosophy and culture are woven with the anti life strands that suspects the worldly happiness,

sensuous pleasures and the body.


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References

Ahern, Daniel R (1995):Nietzsche as Cultural Physician, Pennsylvania State University

Press.

Aristotle (2000): Nicomachean Ethics, Roger Crisp (trans.), Cambridge University

Press.

Descartes, Rene (1985): Treatise of Man in Philosophical Writings of Descartes,

Vol.I, trans. John Cottingham, Cambridge University Press,

Descartes, Rene (2008): Meditation on First Philosophy, Michael Moriarty (trans.),

Oxford Univesity Press

Deleuze, Gilles (1988): Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, Robert Hurley (trans.), City LightBooks, San Francisco.

Deleuze, Gilles (1983):Nietzsche and Philosophy, Hugh Tomlinson (trans.) The Athlone

Press, London

Foucault, Michael (1975), The Birth of the Clinic, Sheridan Smith (trans.), Vintage

Books, New York.

Foucault, Michael (1986): The Use of Pleasure, Robert Hurley (trans.) Vintage Books,

New York

Leder, Drew (1992): The Body in the Medical Thought, (ed.), Kluwer Academic

Publishers, London.

Nietzsche (2008): Gay Science, Josefine Nauckhoff (trans.), Cambridge University Press.Nietzsche (1969): On the Genealogy of Morals andEcce Homo, Walter Kaufman (trans.),

Vintage Books, New York.

Nietzsche (1968): The Will to Power, Walter Kaufman and R.J Hollingdale (trans.)

Vintage Books, New York.

Nietzsche (1984): Thus Spoke Zarathustra, R.J Hollingdale (trans.), Penguin Books,

New York.

Plato (2002): FiveDialogues, (trans.), G.M.A Grube, Hacket Publishing Company,

Indianapolis.

Spinoza, Benedict (2001): Ethics, W.H White (trans.), Wordsworth Classics, London

Svenaeus, Friedrik (2000): The Hermeneutic of Medicine and the Phenomenology of

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