Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Writings from Late Notebooks' and 'Comment on Armstrong and Forrest'

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2 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / a. Rationality
Rationality is a scheme we cannot cast away [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Thinking rationally is interpreting according to a scheme we cannot cast away.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 05[22])
     A reaction: We can turn the tables on this one: how could Nietzsche know that this is the case if he cannot criticise his own rationality? The brain is a truth machine, and truth is (mostly) vital for survival.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / c. Animal rationality
Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji]
     Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial'
     A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived.