Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Phenomenalism', 'Dawn (Daybreak)' and 'Letter to Herodotus'

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2 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 2. Psuche
The soul is fine parts distributed through the body, resembling hot breath [Epicurus]
     Full Idea: The soul is a body made up of fine parts distributed throught the entire aggregate, most closely resembling breath with a certain admixture of heat, in one way resembling breath and in another resembling heat
     From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 63)
     A reaction: Remember that 'psuché' refers as much to the life within a creature as it does to the consciousness. The stoics seem to have held a similar view.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 10. Conatus/Striving
We can cultivate our drives, of anger, pity, curiosity, vanity, like a gardener, with good or bad taste [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: One can dispose of one's drives like a gardener and, though few know it, cultivate the shoots of anger, pity, curiosity, vanity as productively and profitably as a beautiful fruit tree on a trellis; one can do it with the good or bad taste of a gardener.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Dawn (Daybreak) [1881], 560)
     A reaction: This sort of existentialism I find very appealing. You take what you are given, the cards you are dealt, and try to make something nice out of it. This is quite different from the crazy freedom of later existentialists.