7176
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'Purpose' is like the sun, where most heat is wasted, and a tiny part has 'purpose' [Nietzsche]
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Full Idea:
The case of every purposive action is like the supposed purposiveness of the sun's heat - the huge mass of it is wasted, and a part barely worth considering has 'purpose', has 'meaning'.
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From:
Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 07[1])
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A reaction:
A very nice metaphor for human life, where you might discern a purpose in certain large events, but you certainly won't find it in the myriad of small actions that make up nearly all of our existence.
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7206
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Things are strong or weak, and do not behave regularly or according to rules or compulsions [Nietzsche]
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Full Idea:
'Things' do not behave regularly, not according to a rule: things are our fiction, and nor do they behave under the compulsion of necessity. That something is as it is, as strong or as weak, is not the consequence of obeying or rules or compulsion.
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From:
Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 14[79])
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A reaction:
I'm not sure about the denial of 'things', given that they are then said to be strong or weak, but Nietzsche seems to have had the key insight of modern essentialism, that the so-called 'laws' are merely the outcome of the inner natures of things.
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16745
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No one even knows the nature and properties of a fly - why it has that colour, or so many feet [Bacon,R]
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Full Idea:
No one is so wise regarding the natural world as to know with certainty all the truths that concern the nature and properties of a single fly, or to know the proper causes of its color and why it has so many feet, neither more nor less.
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From:
Roger Bacon (Opus Maius (major works) [1254], I.10), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6
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A reaction:
Pasnau quotes this in the context of 'occult' qualities. It is scientific essentialism, because Bacon clearly takes it that the explanation of these things would be found within the essence of the fly, if we could only get at it.
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