display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
8 ideas
| 24102 | Thoughts are signs (just as words are) [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Thoughts are merely signs, as words are signs for thoughts. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82 [1882], 5[1]272) | |
| A reaction: The obvious question he invites is 'signs of what?'. His point must be that most thinking is both non-verbal and non-conscious, which he took to be true even of intellectual thought. I sympathise with his view. |
| 24078 | Thoughts cannot be fully reproduced in words [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Even one's thoughts one cannot reproduce entirely in words. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §244) | |
| A reaction: I suppose this is the germ of Derrida, who seems to see little connection between thought and speech. I take this idea to be entirely correct. Our simplistic view of language reduces the fluidity and many dimensions of thought to a pile of lego bricks. |
| 4419 | People who think in words are orators rather than thinkers, and think about facts instead of thinking facts [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Whoever thinks in words thinks as an orator and not as a thinker (it shows that he does not think facts, but only in relation to facts). | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], III.§08) | |
| A reaction: Good. It is certainly not true that we have to think in words, or else animals wouldn't think. Good thinking should focus on reality, and be too fast for words to keep up. |
| 23938 | Passions are ranked, as if they are non-rational and animal pleasure seeking [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The whole conception of an order of rank among the passions: as if it were the right and normal thing to be guided by reason - with the passions as abnormal, dangerous, semi-animal …and nothing other than desires for pleasure. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §387) | |
| A reaction: This thought of Nietzsche's seems to be very important, because the Enlightenment relegation of passions was inherited from Christianity, and dominated European culture (and Buddhism too, I think). |
| 23939 | We fail to see that reason is a network of passions, and every passion contains some reason [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The misunderstanding of passion and reason, as if the latter were an independent entity and not rather a system of relations between various passions and desires; and as if every passion did not possess its quantum of reason. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §387) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me a much more accurate account of the relation of reason and passion than almost anything in earlier philosophy (though Aristotle is quite good on it). I am retraining myself to see my mental life in this way. |
| 7171 | Rationality is a scheme we cannot cast away [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Thinking rationally is interpreting according to a scheme we cannot cast away. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 05[22]) | |
| A reaction: We can turn the tables on this one: how could Nietzsche know that this is the case if he cannot criticise his own rationality? The brain is a truth machine, and truth is (mostly) vital for survival. |
| 24081 | Most of our intellectual activity is unconscious [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Only now is the truth dawning on us that the biggest part by far of our intellectual activity takes place unconsciously, and unfelt by us. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §333) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is 'intellectual activity', and just the hidden rumblings of instincts and emotions. I think he is right. Philosophers want to verbalise everything, but I don't think the main insights of philosophical thinking are verbal. |
| 2899 | The fanatical rationality of Greek philosophy shows that they were in a state of emergency [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The fanaticism with which the whole of Greek thought throws itself at rationality betrays itself as a state of emergency: one was in peril, one had only one choice: either to perish or- be absurdly rational. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.10) |