Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Treatise of Human Nature' and 'Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85'

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2 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 1. Faculties
Mind is a mechanism of abstraction and simplification, aimed at control [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: The entire cognitive mechanism is a mechanism of abstraction and simplification - not aimed at knowing, but taking control of things.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 26[061])
     A reaction: It is my view that we can explain our metaphysics in this way, though I am more realist than Nietzsche, because I think the world has created these capacities within us, so they fit the world. To control, you must know.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 2. Imagination
Memory, senses and understanding are all founded on the imagination [Hume]
     Full Idea: The memory, senses, and understanding are all of them founded on the imagination, or the vivacity of our ideas.
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.7.3), quoted by Stephan Schmid - Faculties in Early Modern Philosophy 5
     A reaction: He seems to have in mind his theory of associations, which are not rational.