Is there an external world? Do I have a body? What can I know about the external world, if it exists? I have answered all three of these questions before. Yes, I know with absolute certainty that I have a physical body that my nonphysical mind animates and that there is actually something material outside of my body that I come into contact with [1]. I will not revisit those proofs here. But I am going to analyze a (surprisingly) excellent explanation by Nietzsche of why the external world cannot be a construct of one's senses.
Note that asking if the external world is a construct or illusion of my mind, a more Cartesian question, is not ultimately the same as asking if the external world is a construct of my senses. Senses are faculties that perceive aspects of the external world, while the mind is the seat of consciousness and thinking, and apart from the senses it has no perceptions of an external world. The two are related here--I cannot experience sensory perceptions without a conscious mind, for instance--but they are not identical. One could have a mind without a sense of touch, but could not experience a sense of touch without a mind; one is required to experience and possess the other, but the inverse is not true. A conscious mind, apart from the senses, has no perceptions of an external world, only the capacity for awareness of logical necessities and itself.
And now, I will show the passage to be dissected from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil:
"To study physiology with a clear conscience, one must insist that the sense organs are not phenomena in the sense of idealistic philosophy; as such they could not be causes! Sensualism, therefore, at least as a regulation hypothesis, if not as a heuristic principle.
What? And others even say that the external world is the work of our organs? But then our body, as a part of this external world, would be the work of our organs! But then our organs themselves would be--the work of our organs!" (22)
Idealism is the belief that things in the "external world" are merely perceptions of a mind. Nothing actually exists without being perceived. Ultimately, no matter actually exists on this worldview. Here Nietzsche targets a form of "idealistic philosophy" which holds that the senses cause things outside of a mind to exist as, at the very least, perceptions of that mind.
If my senses create everything (which at least seems to be) material which I perceive outside of my mind, then the external world is nothing but a construct of my senses, as per various forms of idealism. It would have no objective material existence independent of my observations. But if everything outside of my mind is created by my senses, then my body, too, is a construct of my senses. But if my body, which houses my senses--and senses like my sense of touch, pain (nociception), and temperature (thermoception) all pertain to physical sensations and thus could only exist as a part of my body--is a construct of my senses, then my senses themselves are a construct of my senses, which Nietzsche realizes is a strict impossibility. It follows from my senses creating the external world that my senses create themselves.
It is impossible for a thing, though, to cause itself to come into existence. If I had a beginning, I cannot have created myself, because to do so I would have needed to exist before I existed. This is why the universe, if it had a beginning (and it did, as logic and mathematics prove [2]), must have an external cause, for it cannot have created itself or come about without a cause. The same is true of the senses. Affirming this, Nietzsche admits the absurdity of saying that the senses bring themselves into existence, correctly recognizing such a claim as illogical and untrue.
An idealist might claim that of course the physical senses are not responsible for creating the external world, because the immaterial mind, not the senses, generates it. This too fails for reasons explained in the posts linked in the footnote. In those posts I prove that the existence of physical sensations and the senses that receive and experience such sensations necessitate the existence of a material body outside of the minds of all beings that experience them. I will not explore this proof here any further, as I have articulated it multiple times before on my blog.
Nietzsche was a highly fallacious philosopher, but occasionally--occasionally--he did conclude some rather accurate things. His refutation of the type of idealism addressed in Beyond Good and Evil sits among these demonstrable truths that he acknowledged.
Beyond Good and Evil. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Trans. Kaufmann, Walter. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Print.
[1]. I prove these things throughout these posts.
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-external-world.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/examining-meditations-part-6-mind-body.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/dreams-and-consciousness.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html
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