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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.
Gist of Idea
We fail to see that reason is a network of passions, and every passion contains some reason
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §387)
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'The Will to Power', ed/tr. Kaufmann,W /Hollingdate,R [Vintage 1968], p.208
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.
| 5963 | Some say emotion is a sort of reason, and others say virtue concerns emotion [Plutarch] |
| 17203 | Minds are subject to passions if they have inadequate ideas [Spinoza] |
| 4864 | An emotion is only bad if it hinders us from thinking [Spinoza] |
| 12935 | Every feeling is the perception of a truth [Leibniz] |
| 23939 | We fail to see that reason is a network of passions, and every passion contains some reason [Nietzsche] |
| 23937 | It is reason which needs the anchorage of passions, rather than vice versa [Solomon] |
| 23947 | Dividing ourselves into confrontational reason and passion destroys our harmonious whole [Solomon] |
| 23958 | The supposed irrationality of our emotions is often tactless or faulty expression of them [Solomon] |
| 5335 | Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan] |
| 23967 | Some emotions are direct responses, and neither rational nor irrational [Goldie] |
| 23971 | Emotional thought is not rational, but it can be intelligible [Goldie] |