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| 20363 | Leaves are unequal, but we form the concept 'leaf' by discarding their individual differences |
| Full Idea: Every concept arises through the setting equal of the unequal. Just as it is certain that one leaf is never wholly equal to another, so it is certain that the concept leaf is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences. | |||
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense [1872]), quoted by John Richardson - Nietzsche's System 2.1.1 n28 | |||
| A reaction: Nietzsche adds an interesting aspect to psychological abstraction, of abstracting away the differences between things, which we might label as the (further) capacity for Equalisation. If two cars differ only in a blemish, we abstract away the blemish. |