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Single Idea 7161
[filed under theme 9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
]
Full Idea
The essence of a thing is only an opinion about the 'thing'.
Gist of Idea
The essence of a thing is only an opinion about the 'thing'
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[150])
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Writings from the Late Notebooks', ed/tr. Bittner,Rüdiger [CUP 2003], p.90
A Reaction
Nietzsche seems sympathetic to essentialism about natural laws (based on 'power'), but this is the classic rejection of Aristotelian essences, because they are unknowable or unprovable. Personally I think scientists are revealing essences.
The
77 ideas
from 'Writings from Late Notebooks'
7149
|
Comprehending everything is impossible, because it abolishes perspectives
[Nietzsche]
|
7147
|
Values are innate and inherited
[Nietzsche]
|
7148
|
The 'I' is a conceptual synthesis, not the governor of our being
[Nietzsche]
|
7157
|
We think each thought causes the next, unaware of the hidden struggle beneath
[Nietzsche]
|
7158
|
Morality kills religion, because a Christian-moral God is unbelievable
[Nietzsche]
|
7159
|
The only happiness is happiness with illusion
[Nietzsche]
|
7151
|
Courage, compassion, insight, solitude are the virtues, with courtesy a necessary vice
[Nietzsche]
|
7150
|
By developing herd virtues man fixes what has up to now been the 'unfixed animal'
[Nietzsche]
|
7160
|
Christian belief is kept alive because it is soothing - the proof based on pleasure
[Nietzsche]
|
7161
|
The essence of a thing is only an opinion about the 'thing'
[Nietzsche]
|
7163
|
Morality is merely interpretations, which are extra-moral in origin
[Nietzsche]
|
7164
|
Not feeling harnessed to a system of 'ends' is a wonderful feeling of freedom
[Nietzsche]
|
7152
|
With protoplasm ½+½=2, so the soul is not an indivisible monad
[Nietzsche]
|
7154
|
We can't use our own self to criticise our own capacity for knowledge!
[Nietzsche]
|
7153
|
We can't be realists, because we don't know what being is
[Nietzsche]
|
7156
|
Sense perceptions contain values (useful, so pleasant)
[Nietzsche]
|
7155
|
Consciousness exists to the extent that consciousness is useful
[Nietzsche]
|
7165
|
Virtue is wasteful, as it reduces us all to being one another's nurse
[Nietzsche]
|
7166
|
Man is above all a judging animal
[Nietzsche]
|
7169
|
Is the perspectival part of the essence, or just a relation between beings?
[Nietzsche]
|
7170
|
'Wisdom' attempts to get beyond perspectives, making it hostile to life
[Nietzsche]
|
7171
|
Rationality is a scheme we cannot cast away
[Nietzsche]
|
7167
|
Words such as 'I' and 'do' and 'done to' are placed at the point where our ignorance begins
[Nietzsche]
|
7168
|
Modest people express happiness as 'Not bad'
[Nietzsche]
|
7172
|
Existence without meaning or goal or end, eternally recurring, is a terrible thought
[Nietzsche]
|
7173
|
Rights arise out of contracts, which need a balance of power
[Nietzsche]
|
7174
|
Categories are not metaphysical truths, but inventions in the service of needs
[Nietzsche]
|
7175
|
Philosophers find it particularly hard to shake off belief in necessary categories
[Nietzsche]
|
7176
|
'Purpose' is like the sun, where most heat is wasted, and a tiny part has 'purpose'
[Nietzsche]
|
7178
|
The utility of an organ does not explain its origin, on the contrary!
[Nietzsche]
|
7180
|
Darwin overestimates the influence of 'external circumstances'
[Nietzsche]
|
7179
|
Survival might undermine an individual's value, or prevent its evolution
[Nietzsche]
|
7181
|
Pain shows the value of the damage, not what has been damaged
[Nietzsche]
|
7177
|
Virtues from outside are dangerous, and they should come from within
[Nietzsche]
|
7182
|
'Perspectivism': the world has no meaning, but various interpretations give it countless meanings
[Nietzsche]
|
7183
|
'Subjectivity' is an interpretation, since subjects (and interpreters) are fictions
[Nietzsche]
|
7189
|
Maybe there are only subjects, and 'objects' result from relations between subjects
[Nietzsche]
|
7185
|
Replace the categorical imperative by the natural imperative
[Nietzsche]
|
7186
|
There are no necessary truths, but something must be held to be true
[Nietzsche]
|
7188
|
Logic tries to understand the world according to a man-made scheme
[Nietzsche]
|
7193
|
Virtue for everyone removes its charm of being exceptional and aristocratic
[Nietzsche]
|
7194
|
Experiencing a thing as beautiful is to experience it wrongly
[Nietzsche]
|
7190
|
Our values express an earlier era's conditions for survival and growth
[Nietzsche]
|
7191
|
What does not kill us makes us stronger
[Nietzsche]
|
7192
|
Remove goodness and wisdom from our concept of God. Being the highest power is enough!
[Nietzsche]
|
7199
|
It is dishonest to invent a being containing our greatest values, thus ignoring why they exist and are valuable
[Nietzsche]
|
7200
|
A combination of great power and goodness would mean the disastrous abolition of evil
[Nietzsche]
|
7201
|
Knowledge, wisdom and goodness only have value relative to a goal
[Nietzsche]
|
7203
|
In heaven all the interesting men are missing
[Nietzsche]
|
7204
|
The upholding of the military state is needed to maintain the strong human type
[Nietzsche]
|
7196
|
Pessimism is laughable, because the world cannot be evaluated
[Nietzsche]
|
7195
|
If the world aimed at an end, it would have reached it by now
[Nietzsche]
|
7197
|
Pleasure needs dissatisfaction, boundaries and resistances
[Nietzsche]
|
7198
|
Nihilism results from measuring the world by our categories which are purely invented
[Nietzsche]
|
7209
|
There is no will; weakness of will is splitting of impulses, strong will is coordination under one impulse
[Nietzsche]
|
7205
|
Altruism is praised by the egoism of the weak, who want everyone to be looked after
[Nietzsche]
|
7206
|
Things are strong or weak, and do not behave regularly or according to rules or compulsions
[Nietzsche]
|
7207
|
Counting needs unities, but that doesn't mean they exist; we borrowed it from the concept of 'I'
[Nietzsche]
|
7208
|
Paganism is a form of thanking and affirming life?
[Nietzsche]
|
7132
|
Philosophers should create and fight for their concepts, not just clean and clarify them
[Nietzsche]
|
7133
|
It is tempting to think many eyes means many truths - so not truth
[Nietzsche]
|
7134
|
Something can be irrefutable; that doesn't make it true
[Nietzsche]
|
7135
|
'Freedom of will' is the feeling of having a dominating force
[Nietzsche]
|
7136
|
Morality is a system of values which accompanies a being's life
[Nietzsche]
|
7129
|
Perception is unconscious, and we are only conscious of processed perceptions
[Nietzsche]
|
7130
|
Unity is not in the conscious 'I', but in the organism, which uses the self as a tool
[Nietzsche]
|
7131
|
The intellect and senses are a simplifying apparatus
[Nietzsche]
|
7137
|
Is a 'philosopher' now impossible, because knowledge is too vast for an overview?
[Nietzsche]
|
7138
|
The 'I' is a fiction used to make the world of becoming 'knowable'
[Nietzsche]
|
7139
|
Explanation is just showing the succession of things ever more clearly
[Nietzsche]
|
7140
|
Chemical 'laws' are merely the establishment of power relations between weaker and stronger
[Nietzsche]
|
7141
|
A living being is totally 'egoistic'
[Nietzsche]
|
7142
|
All motions and 'laws' are symptoms of inner events, traceable to the will to power
[Nietzsche]
|
7143
|
Consciousness is a 'tool' - just as the stomach is a tool
[Nietzsche]
|
7145
|
Logic is not driven by truth, but desire for a simple single viewpoint
[Nietzsche]
|
7144
|
Logic must falsely assume that identical cases exist
[Nietzsche]
|
7146
|
Belief in the body is better established than belief in the mind
[Nietzsche]
|