Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Theory of Good and Evil' and 'Writings from Late Notebooks'

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5 ideas

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
Maybe there are only subjects, and 'objects' result from relations between subjects [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: The subject alone is demonstrable: hypothesis - that there are only subjects - that 'object' is only a kind of effect of subject upon subject...a mode of the subject.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 09[106])
     A reaction: This is an ultimate implication of 'perspectivism'. Elsewhere, though, (Idea 7183) he challenges the ontological status of 'subjects', suggesting that even they are purely fictional. Nietzsche wanted to relativism everything, but kept clutching lifebelts.
Counting needs unities, but that doesn't mean they exist; we borrowed it from the concept of 'I' [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: We need unities in order to be able to count: we should not therefore assume that such unities exist. We have borrowed the concept of unity from our concept of 'I' - our oldest article of faith.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 14[79])
     A reaction: Personally I think that counting derives from patterns, and that all creatures can discern patterns in their environment, which means discriminating the parts of the pattern, which are therefore real and existing entities.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / b. Cat and its tail
Dion and Theon coexist, but Theon lacks a foot. If Dion loses a foot, he ousts Theon? [Chrysippus, by Philo of Alexandria]
     Full Idea: If two individuals occupied one substance …let one individual (Dion) be thought of as whole-limbed, the other (Theon) as minus one foot. Then let one of Dion's feet be amputated. Theon is the stronger candidate to have perished.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Philo (Alex) - On the Eternity of the World 48
     A reaction: [SVF 2.397 - from Chrysippus's lost 'On the Growing Argument'] This is the original of Tibbles the Cat. Dion must persist to change, and then ousts Theon (it seems). Philo protests at Theon ceasing to exist when nothing has happened to him.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
The essence of a thing is only an opinion about the 'thing' [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: The essence of a thing is only an opinion about the 'thing'.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[150])
     A reaction: Nietzsche seems sympathetic to essentialism about natural laws (based on 'power'), but this is the classic rejection of Aristotelian essences, because they are unknowable or unprovable. Personally I think scientists are revealing essences.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 2. Objects that Change
Change of matter doesn't destroy identity - in Dion and Theon change is a condition of identity [Chrysippus, by Long/Sedley]
     Full Idea: The Growing Argument said any change of matter is a change of identity. Chrysippus presents it with a case (Dion and Theon) where material diminution is the necessary condition of enduring identity, since the diminished footless Dion survives.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by AA Long / DN Sedley - Hellenic Philosophers commentary 28:175
     A reaction: [The example, in Idea 16058, is the original of Tibbles the Cat] This is a lovely bold idea which I haven't met in the modern discussions - that identity actually requires change. The concept of identity is meaningless without change?