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23938 | Passions are ranked, as if they are non-rational and animal pleasure seeking [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The whole conception of an order of rank among the passions: as if it were the right and normal thing to be guided by reason - with the passions as abnormal, dangerous, semi-animal …and nothing other than desires for pleasure. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §387) | |
A reaction: This thought of Nietzsche's seems to be very important, because the Enlightenment relegation of passions was inherited from Christianity, and dominated European culture (and Buddhism too, I think). |
23939 | We fail to see that reason is a network of passions, and every passion contains some reason [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The misunderstanding of passion and reason, as if the latter were an independent entity and not rather a system of relations between various passions and desires; and as if every passion did not possess its quantum of reason. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §387) | |
A reaction: This seems to me a much more accurate account of the relation of reason and passion than almost anything in earlier philosophy (though Aristotle is quite good on it). I am retraining myself to see my mental life in this way. |
23300 | 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. |