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.{{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}} 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.{{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}}
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.{{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}} 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.
Nietzsche used immaculate perception in his interrogation of the myths of purity. According to the philosopher, perception is value-laden and ruled by interest;{{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}} in particular, it denies the important role that the will and desires of the perceiver have on every perception.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]
Nietzsche also used immaculate perception in his discussions of the Christian view on sexuality. He attacked the so-called detachment of the "pure perceivers" or Rein-Erkennenden (e.g. Kantian view that pure judgments of what is beautiful must be detached), calling it voyeurism.{{Cite book|last=Higgins|first=Kathleen Marie|title=Nietzsche's Zarathustra|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2010|isbn=9780739120866|location=Lanham, MD|pages=80–81}} 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.
Applications
An example of the immaculate perception principle is Sigmund Freud's theory of mental representation, or what some{{Who|date=June 2021}} also refer to "copy theory of perception".{{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}} He proposed that perception, which he often used interchangeably with "external reality",{{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}} is sensory-given and immediately known to the subject; therefore, it essentially involves the passive and temporary registration of an object. Nietzsche criticized this idea of "pure perception" by arguing that human perceptions are not mere copies of the images on the retinas.{{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}} He maintained that perception is not clean or untainted by the object of perception.{{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}} People "actively" construct perceived information as sensory modalities select and tend to simplify phenomena so that they merely serve one's interest and need.{{According to whom|date=June 2021}}