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Full Idea
The most useful concepts have survived: however falsely they may have originated.
Gist of Idea
Whatever their origin, concepts survive by being useful
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1885-86 [1886], 34[063])
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Fragments from 1885-86 (v 16)', ed/tr. Del Caro,Adrian [Stanford 2020], p.15
A Reaction
The germ of both pragmatism, and of meaning-as-use, here. The alternative views must be that the concepts are accurate or true, or that they are simply a matter of whim, maintained by authority.
Related Idea
Idea 18975 We return to experience with concepts, where they show us differences [James]
| 19372 | Concepts are ordered, and show eternal possibilities, deriving from God [Leibniz, by Arthur,R] |
| 16912 | Some concepts can be made a priori, which are general thoughts of objects, like quantity or cause [Kant] |
| 24129 | We start with images, then words, and then concepts, to which emotions attach [Nietzsche] |
| 23187 | Whatever their origin, concepts survive by being useful [Nietzsche] |
| 19633 | We use concepts to master our fears; saying 'death' releases us from confronting it [Cioran] |
| 10645 | We reach concepts by clarification, or by definition, or by habitual experience [Price,HH] |
| 8781 | The mind does not lift concepts from experience; it creates them, and then applies them [Geach] |
| 11859 | The mind conceptualizes objects; yet objects impinge upon the mind [Wiggins] |
| 12658 | Nobody knows how concepts are acquired [Fodor] |
| 17722 | The concept 'red' is tied to what actually individuates red things [Peacocke] |
| 5793 | Concepts and generalisations result from brain 'global mapping' by 'reentry' [Edelman/Tononi, by Searle] |
| 4926 | Concepts arise when the brain maps its own activities [Edelman/Tononi] |