display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
7 ideas
24139 | A 'person' is just one possible abstraction from a bundle of qualities [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Individuals contain many more persons than they think. 'Person' is merely a point of emphasis, synopsis of characteristics and qualities | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[363]) | |
A reaction: He makes similar remarks abour character. For Locke 'person'' is a forensic and legal concept, and so must be enduring and unique. |
20368 | There are no 'individual' persons; we are each the sum of humanity up to this moment [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The 'individual' ...is an error: he does not constitute a separate entity, an atom, a 'link in the chain', something merely inherited from the past - he constitutes the entire single line 'man' up to and including himself. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.33) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure I understand this, but you can sort of imagine yourself as a culmination of something, rather than as an isolated entity. I'm not sure how that is supposed to affect my behaviour. |
24099 | We contain many minds, which fight for the 'I' of the mind [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Many minds are housed within humans like creatures of the sea - they battle one another for the mind 'I'. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82 [1882], 4[207]) | |
A reaction: I am happy to use the word 'I' for the sense of central control of focus and choice, but there doesn's seem to be an actual organ of the Self, so it is a fiction, but one which reflects the general picture of what happens. I can pick a drive to foster. |
7148 | The 'I' is a conceptual synthesis, not the governor of our being [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The 'I' (which is not the same thing as the unitary government of our being!) is, after all, only a conceptual synthesis - thus there is no acting from 'egoism'. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 01[87]) | |
A reaction: Compare Sartre in Idea 7116. Since I am inclined to define the self as the controller of the brain, I am intrigued by the remark in brackets. Presumably he considers the self to be a fiction, and that animals don't have one. I think, probably, animals do. |
7138 | The 'I' is a fiction used to make the world of becoming 'knowable' [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: I take the 'I' itself to be a construction of thinking, of the same rank as matter, thing, substance, individual, purpose, number: that is, only a regulative fiction used to insert a kind of 'knowability' into a world of becoming. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 35[35]) | |
A reaction: Personally I consider the 'I' to be a very real brain structure, which controls the multitude of brain operations, and focuses them on the survival and success of the organism. |
4527 | Perhaps we are not single subjects, but a multiplicity of 'cells', interacting to create thought [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The assumption of one single subject is perhaps unnecessary; perhaps we are a multiplicity of subjects, whose interaction and struggle is the basis of our thought and consciousness, an aristocracy of 'cells' in which dominion resides equally. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §490) | |
A reaction: A nice combination of Humean scepticism, and an anticipation of the modularity of mind. Was Nietzsche thinking about evolution? It goes with his doubts about reason (if we are run by a committee). |
5518 | It doesn't matter whether I exist with half my components replaced (any more than an audio system) [Parfit] |
Full Idea: It is quite uninteresting whether, with half its components replaced, I have the same audio system, and also whether I exist if half of my body were simultaneously replaced. | |
From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.302) | |
A reaction: It is impossible to deny this, if the part replaced is not the brain. My doubt about Parfit's thesis is that while I may not care whether some modified thing is still me, my lawyers and the police might be very concerned. |