Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Metaphysics', 'Why Propositions cannot be concrete' and 'The Will to Power (notebooks)'

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4 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 1. Relativism
The extreme view is there are only perspectives, no true beliefs, because there is no true world [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: The most extreme form of nihilism would be the view that every belief, every considering-something-true, is necessarily false because there is simply no true world. Thus: a perspectival appearance, whose origin lies in us.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §015)
     A reaction: The idea that 'there is no true world' is incomprehensible to me. But note that here Nietzsche labels this an 'extreme' view, which he may not be asserting. He likes to flirt with danger.
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 3. Subjectivism
If truth is relative it is relational, and concerns appearances relative to a situation [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The claim that all appearances are true makes all things relational. Hence the claim is shifted to all appearances being true relative to a subject, time, sense and context.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1011a20)
     A reaction: applies to Epicurus
If relativism is individual, how can something look sweet and not taste it, or look different to our two eyes? [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: If things are true relative to an individual, how can something seem honey to the sight but not to the taste, or, given that we have two eyes, things may not seem the same to the sight of both of them.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1011a24)
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
If the majority had diseased taste, and only a few were healthy, relativists would have to prefer the former [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: When two men taste the same thing one will often find it sweet and the other bitter. Suppose all men were sick, except one or two who were healthy. It would then be the latter two who would be considered sick, and the others not!
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1009b05)