View source for Immaculate perception

{{Short description|Nietzschean philosophical concept}}
The expression '''immaculate perception''', used by the German philosopher [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] in his text ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra]];'' the term pertains to the idea of "pure knowledge." Nietzsche argues that "immaculate perception" is fictional because it ignores the intimate connection between the perceiver and the external world.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|last=Del Caro|first=Adrian|title=Grounding the Nietzsche Rhetoric of Earth|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|year=2004|isbn=3-11-018038-3|location=Berlin|pages=94}}</ref> He argues that humans are fallible and are capable of using data to ratify or refute perceptions. He also clarifies that perception is value-laden and can be ruled by our interests.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Magnus|first1=Bernd|title=Nietzsche's Case: Philosophy as/and Literature|last2=Stewart|first2=Stanley|last3=Mileur|first3=Jean-Pierre|publisher=Routledge|year=2014|isbn=978-1-317-96098-0|location=Oxon|language=en}}</ref>

== Concept ==
The term was the title of one of Zarathustra's speeches, ''Von der unbefleckten Erkenntnis'', which literally means "On Immaculate Knowledge" or "On Immaculate Cognition.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Burnham|first=Douglas|title=Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0-7486-4243-4|location=Edinburgh|pages=104}}</ref> [[Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)|Walter Kaufmann]] who translated it as "On Immaculate Perception"; other scholars{{Who|date=June 2021}} also prefer this translation because the main metaphor in the passage is visual perception.<ref name=":0" /> 

Nietzsche used immaculate perception in his interrogation of the myths of purity.<ref name=":4" /> According to the philosopher, perception is value-laden and ruled by interest;<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Stack|first=George J.|title=Nietzsche's Anthropic Circle: Man, Science, and Myth|publisher=University Rochester Press|year=2005|isbn=1-58046-191-3|location=Rochester, NY|pages=103}}</ref> in particular, it denies the important role that the will and desires of the perceiver have on every perception.<ref>Metcalfe, Michael. ''A Dancer’s Virtue: Human Life in Light of Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence''. Concept XXVIII, 2005. [http://www.publications.villanova.edu/Concept/2005/Dancer's%20Virtue.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100718205131/http://www.publications.villanova.edu/Concept/2005/Dancer%27s%20Virtue.pdf |date=2010-07-18 }}</ref>  

Nietzsche also used immaculate perception in his discussions of the [[Christianity|Christian]] view on [[Human sexuality|sexuality]]. He attacked the so-called detachment of the "pure perceivers" or ''Rein-Erkennenden'' (e.g. [[Immanuel Kant|Kantian]] view that pure judgments of what is beautiful must be detached), calling it [[voyeurism]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Higgins|first=Kathleen Marie|title=Nietzsche's Zarathustra|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2010|isbn=9780739120866|location=Lanham, MD|pages=80–81}}</ref> According to him, loving the Earth from afar for these pure-knowers is hypocritical because they too are earthly but there is shame and bad conscience in this love.<ref name=":4" />  

== Applications ==
An example of the immaculate perception principle is [[Sigmund Freud]]'s [[Mental representation|theory of mental representation]], or what some{{Who|date=June 2021}} also refer to "copy theory of perception".<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last1=Dorpat|first1=Theo L.|title=Clinical Interaction and the Analysis of Meaning: A New Psychoanalytic Theory|last2=Miller|first2=Michael L.|publisher=Routledge|year=2013|isbn=978-0881631463|location=Oxon|pages=6}}</ref> He proposed that perception, which he often used interchangeably with "external reality",<ref>{{Cite book|last=Schimek|first=Jean-Georges|title=Memory, Myth, and Seduction: Unconscious Fantasy and the Interpretive Process|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2011|isbn=978-1-135-19189-4|pages=142}}</ref> is sensory-given and immediately known to the subject;<ref name=":2" /> therefore, it essentially involves the passive and temporary registration of an object.<ref name=":2" /> Nietzsche criticized this idea of "pure perception" by arguing that human perceptions are not mere copies of the images on the retinas.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last1=Nesselroade|first1=K. Paul Jr.|title=Statistical Applications for the Behavioral and Social Sciences|last2=Grimm|first2=Laurence G.|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|year=2018|isbn=978-1-119-35539-7|location=Hoboken, NJ|pages=247|language=en}}</ref> He maintained that perception is not clean or untainted by the object of perception.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Germain|first=Gil|title=Thinking about Technology: How the Technological Mind Misreads Reality|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2017|isbn=978-1-4985-4953-0|location=Lanham, MD|pages=59}}</ref> People "actively" construct perceived information<ref name=":3" /> as sensory modalities select and tend to simplify phenomena so that they merely serve one's interest and need.<ref name=":1" />{{According to whom|date=June 2021}}

==References==
<references/>

{{Thus Spoke Zarathustra}}

[[Category:Perception]]
[[Category:Existentialist concepts]]
[[Category:Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche]]
[[Category:Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]