51 ideas
7834 | Great philosophies are confessions by the author, growing out of moral intentions [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy has hitherto been: a confession on the part of its author, and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir, ...with moral intentions being the real germ of its life. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §006) | |
A reaction: This attitude is what places Nietzsche as the parent of post-modernism, and is the reason why most 'continental' philosophers seem to have given up the attempt to simply reason about life. It is anti-Enlightenment, and it is wicked. |
22701 | Jokes can sometimes be funny because they are offensive [Jacobson,D] |
Full Idea: Sometimes it is exactly what is offensive about a joke that makes it funny. | |
From: Daniel Jacobson (Ethical Criticism and the Vice of Moderation [2006], 'emotional') | |
A reaction: Jacobson offers this in support of his immoralist view, that immoral literature can be aesthetically successful. It is uncomfortable to find yourself laughing at a joke of which you disapprove. |
7080 | Metaphysics divided the old unified Greek world into two [Nietzsche, by Critchley] |
Full Idea: Nietzsche famously defines metaphysics as the division of one world into two; the unity of the mythical pre-philosophical experience of the world is sundered, with Plato, into being and seeming, reality and appearance, supersensible and sensible. | |
From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro | |
A reaction: (Critchley doesn't give a reference; Idea 2860 is close). This is the discredited status that metaphysics gradually acquired after Kant, but I see modern metaphysics as reuniting human thought by digging down to the foundations to reveal roots and links. |
11090 | Why do we want truth, rather than falsehood or ignorance? The value of truth is a problem [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: What really is it in us that wants 'the truth'? ...Granted we want truth: why not rather untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the value of truth stepped before us. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §001) | |
A reaction: I think this is one of the great moments in philosophy, when something that has been taken for granted, as a kind of mantra, is suddenly looked in the face and challenged. Truth at all costs? What sacrifices would you make for truth? |
7079 | Nietzsche resists nihilism through new values, for a world of becoming, without worship [Nietzsche, by Critchley] |
Full Idea: Nietzsche's work is a resistance to nihilism. This is why he insists that new categories and values are required that would permit us to endure this world of becoming without either falling into despair or inventing some new god and bowing before it. | |
From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro | |
A reaction: The trouble is that all Nietzsche offers is the invention of values out of nothing by some wretched Germanic übermensch who is obsessed with militarism and dominance. If values don't grow out of human nature, then 'all is permitted'. |
11984 | Asserting a possible property is to say it would have had the property if that world had been actual [Plantinga] |
Full Idea: To say than x has a property in a possible world is simply to say that x would have had the property if that world had been actual. | |
From: Alvin Plantinga (Transworld Identity or worldbound Individuals? [1973], I) | |
A reaction: Plantinga tries to defuse all the problems with identity across possible worlds, by hanging on to subjunctive verbs and modal modifiers. The point, though, was to explain these, or at least to try to give their logical form. |
11980 | A possible world is a maximal possible state of affairs [Plantinga] |
Full Idea: A possible world is just a maximal possible state of affairs. | |
From: Alvin Plantinga (Transworld Identity or worldbound Individuals? [1973], I) | |
A reaction: The key point here is that Plantinga includes the word 'possible' in his definition. Possibility defines the worlds, and so worlds cannot be used on their own to define possibility. |
11982 | If possible Socrates differs from actual Socrates, the Indiscernibility of Identicals says they are different [Plantinga] |
Full Idea: If the Socrates of the actual world has snubnosedness but Socrates-in-W does not, this is surely inconsistent with the Indiscernibility of Identicals, a principle than which none sounder can be conceived. | |
From: Alvin Plantinga (Transworld Identity or worldbound Individuals? [1973], I) | |
A reaction: However, we allow Socrates to differ over time while remaining the same Socrates, so some similar approach should apply here. In both cases we need some notion of what is essential to Socrates. But what unites aged 3 with aged 70? |
11983 | It doesn't matter that we can't identify the possible Socrates; we can't identify adults from baby photos [Plantinga] |
Full Idea: We may say it makes no sense to say that Socrates exists at a world, if there is in principle no way of identifying him. ...But this is confused. To suppose Agnew was a precocious baby, we needn't be able to pick him from a gallery of babies. | |
From: Alvin Plantinga (Transworld Identity or worldbound Individuals? [1973], I) | |
A reaction: This seems a good point, and yet we have a space-time line joining adult Agnew with baby Agnew, and no such causal link is available between persons in different possible worlds. What would be the criterion in each case? |
11985 | If individuals can only exist in one world, then they can never lack any of their properties [Plantinga] |
Full Idea: The Theory of Worldbound Individuals contends that no object exists in more than one possible world; this implies the outrageous view that - taking properties in the broadest sense - no object could have lacked any property that it in fact has. | |
From: Alvin Plantinga (Transworld Identity or worldbound Individuals? [1973], II) | |
A reaction: Leibniz is the best known exponent of this 'outrageous view', though Plantinga shows that Lewis may be seen in the same light, since only counterparts are found in possible worlds, not the real thing. The Theory does seem wrong. |
11986 | The counterparts of Socrates have self-identity, but only the actual Socrates has identity-with-Socrates [Plantinga] |
Full Idea: While Socrates has no counterparts that lack self-identity, he does have counterparts that lack identity-with-Socrates. He alone has that - the property, that is, of being identical with the object that in fact instantiates Socrateity. | |
From: Alvin Plantinga (Transworld Identity or worldbound Individuals? [1973], II) | |
A reaction: I am never persuaded by arguments which rest on such dubious pseudo-properties. Whether or not a counterpart of Socrates has any sort of identity with Socrates cannot be prejudged, as it would beg the question. |
11987 | Counterpart Theory absurdly says I would be someone else if things went differently [Plantinga] |
Full Idea: It makes no sense to say I could have been someone else, yet Counterpart Theory implies not merely that I could have been distinct from myself, but that I would have been distinct from myself had things gone differently in even the most miniscule detail. | |
From: Alvin Plantinga (Transworld Identity or worldbound Individuals? [1973], II) | |
A reaction: A counterpart doesn't appear to be 'me being distinct from myself'. We have to combine counterparts over possible worlds with perdurance over time. I am a 'worm' of time-slices. Anything not in that worm is not strictly me. |
2878 | We see an approximation of a tree, not the full detail [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: We do not see a tree exactly and entire with regard to its leaves, branches, colour and shape; it is so much easier for us to see an approximation of a tree. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §192) |
20140 | We shouldn't object to a false judgement, if it enhances and preserves life [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The falseness of a judgement is to us not necessarily an objection to a judgement. To what extent is it life-advancing, life-preserving, species-preserving. Our fundamental tendency is to assert that our falsest judgements are the most indispensable. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §004) | |
A reaction: This is the standard objection to pragmatism, that what is false may still be useful, and that clever blighter Nietzsche embraces the idea! |
2877 | Morality becomes a problem when we compare many moralities [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The real problems of morality come into view only if we compare many moralities. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §186) |
20355 | The ranking of a person's innermost drives reveals their true nature [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: To know 'who he is', we must know the order of rank the innermost drives of his nature stand in relative to one another. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §006) | |
A reaction: This is clearly an essentialist view of a person, as having a 'nature', which is 'inner', and which we can try to specify. Ranking drives and values seems a good proposal for getting at it. I'm also intrigued by what people find interesting. |
2291 | A thought comes when 'it' wants, not when 'I' want [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: A thought comes when 'it' wants, not when 'I' want. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §017) | |
A reaction: A wonderful remark (which I have since found in Schopenhauer). I don't see how the most enthusiastic free will libertarian can deny it. |
2871 | Wanting 'freedom of will' is wanting to pull oneself into existence out of the swamp of nothingness by one's own hair [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The desire for 'freedom of will' is nothing less than the desire to pull oneself into existence out of the swamp of nothingness by one's own hair. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §021) |
20381 | It is psychology which reveals the basic problems [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Psychology is now once again the road to the fundamental problems. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §023) | |
A reaction: This may become the epigraph of my great book, which will have as working title 'The Psychology of Metaphysics'. If you trawl through this collection, you will see where I am going! (A tough job, but easier than reading Hegel). |
22703 | We don't often respond to events in art as if they were real events [Jacobson,D] |
Full Idea: We routinely do not respond to art as if we were as if we were real-life spectators of its events. | |
From: Daniel Jacobson (Ethical Criticism and the Vice of Moderation [2006], 'rejection') | |
A reaction: This strikes me as one of the basic facts about aesthetics, and especially of narrative art. People sometimes encounter terrible events on the street, only to find someone is making a film. |
22702 | Audiences can be too moral [Jacobson,D] |
Full Idea: An audience can be overly moralistic. | |
From: Daniel Jacobson (Ethical Criticism and the Vice of Moderation [2006], 'emotional') | |
A reaction: People can be too moral in real life as well. Goody Two Shoes. |
22696 | 'Autonomism' says the morality is irrelevant to the aesthetics [Jacobson,D] |
Full Idea: 'Autonomism' is the theory that the intrinsic moral merits and defects of an artwork are irrelevant to its aesthetic value. | |
From: Daniel Jacobson (Ethical Criticism and the Vice of Moderation [2006], Intro) | |
A reaction: This contrasts with 'moralism', which says the ethics is part of the aesthetics. Autonomism seems to be the modern academic label for art for art's sake. In nineteenth century novels the ethics are central; in modernist novels they seem to be irrelevant. |
22697 | Moral defects of art can be among its aesthetic virtues [Jacobson,D] |
Full Idea: To put my claim most provocatively: the moral defects in a work of art can be among its aesthetic virtues. This claim has been called 'immoralism'. | |
From: Daniel Jacobson (Ethical Criticism and the Vice of Moderation [2006], Intro) | |
A reaction: To describe sympathetic descriptions of vile moral behaviour as 'defects' may be a misunderstanding. If a work sets out to promote wickedness, then its wickedness isn't a defect in the work. It could be a masterpiece of corruption. |
22700 | Immoral art encourages immoral emotions [Jacobson,D] |
Full Idea: Humean moralism includes the view that immoral art prescribes unethical emotional responses. | |
From: Daniel Jacobson (Ethical Criticism and the Vice of Moderation [2006], 'emotional') | |
A reaction: [He cites Hume's 'On the Standard of Taste'] 'Prescribes' is tricky. Is a vivid description of wicked events, given without comment, a prescription? What if the commentary condemns, but the description entices? Trust the work itself, said Lawrence. |
22699 | Moderate moralism says moral qualities can sometimes also be aesthetic qualities [Jacobson,D] |
Full Idea: Noël Carroll's moderate moralism maintains that some moral defects in artworks are aesthetic defects, and some moral virtues are aesthetic merits. | |
From: Daniel Jacobson (Ethical Criticism and the Vice of Moderation [2006], 'How moderate') | |
A reaction: I'm beginning to think that moralist critics are confusing morality and wisdom. We don't admire novels for hammering on about goodness. We admire their insight into characters and actions, of which the most interesting aspects happen to be moral. |
22698 | We can judge art ethically, or rate its ethical influence, or assess its quality via its ethics [Jacobson,D] |
Full Idea: Ethical criticism includes 1) ethical judgements of art works, 2) assessment of an art work's role in moral education, or 3) bringing moral praise or censure to bear on the aesthetic evaluation. | |
From: Daniel Jacobson (Ethical Criticism and the Vice of Moderation [2006], 'What is') | |
A reaction: [a compressed summary of Jacobson. He cites Levinson 1998 and Carroll 2000 as examples of ethical criticism] |
2860 | The most boring and dangerous of all errors is Plato's invention of pure spirit and goodness [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The worst, most wearisomely protracted and most dangerous of all errors hitherto has been a dogmatist's error, namely Plato's invention of pure spirit and the good in itself. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], Pref) | |
A reaction: A landmark observation about the history of philosophy. Imagine if all the Aristotle had survived, but all the Plato had been lost. |
1568 | Nietzsche felt that Plato's views downgraded the human body and its brevity of life [Nietzsche, by Roochnik] |
Full Idea: Nietzsche believed that by elevating the importance of the mind, Plato downplayed the wonders of the body, and by searching for a timeless Truth he degraded the indisputable fact of human temporality. | |
From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], Pref) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason Prol. X | |
A reaction: Both ideas are very important. The second is widely misunderstood. Nietzsche was not a denier of truth. He asked us to scrutinise the role and value we assign to truth. |
2883 | Noble people see themselves as the determiners of values [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The noble type of man feels himself to be the determiner of values. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §260) | |
A reaction: So do criminals |
23440 | Nietzsche's judgement of actions by psychology instead of outcome was poisonous [Foot on Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Nietzsche wants to judge actions not by what is done, but by the nature of the person who does them, and that is poisonous. We have to be horrified by what is done by Hitler and Stalin, without inquiring into their psychology. | |
From: comment on Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886]) by Philippa Foot - Interview with Philippa Foot p.37 | |
A reaction: She says morality should focus on social needs, not on spontaneity, energy and passion. Nietzsche was very much a product of romanticism. Some of Nietzsche's heroes are military conquerors, so I think she is right. |
2875 | That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §153) | |
A reaction: He is referring to the conventional morality of his contemporary society. Nietzsche clearly thought that actions motivated by love are intrinsically good. (Apart from murders by the jealous!). |
2868 | Nature is totally indifferent, so you should try to be different from it, not live by it [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: You Stoics want to "live according to nature"? Oh you noble Stoics, what fraudulent words! Nature is prodigal and indifferent beyond measure - how could you live by such indifference? Living is wanting to be other than nature. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §009) | |
A reaction: I think this is simply indicative of the slide from optimism to pessimism about nature in the intervening centuries. Stoics thought nature rational. See 'King Lear' for the transition. |
2882 | Morality originally judged people, and actions only later on [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Designation of moral values was everywhere first applied to human beings, and only later and derivatively to actions. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §260) | |
A reaction: Nietzsche was a great expert on ethics in the ancient world, so you should trust him on this one. In ordinary life assessment of people is what counts. Actions are for law courts. |
2872 | In the earliest phase of human history only consequences mattered [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Throughout the longest part of history ('prehistoric times') the value or non-value of an action was derived from its consequences. …but now men are unanimous that the value of an action is in the intention behind it. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §032) | |
A reaction: This seems to be Kant's fault. No one thinks that a reckless or malicios action is innocent if no actual harm results. |
2885 | The noble soul has reverence for itself [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The noble soul has reverence for itself. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §287) |
20134 | Moralities extravagantly address themselves to 'all', by falsely generalising [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: All moralities are baroque and unreasonable ...because they address themselves to 'all', because they generalise where one must not generalise. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §198) | |
A reaction: 'Particularism' is a recent label, but one finds passing remarks from many earlier philosophers which support that approach to ethics. No one was ever more opposed to strict moral rules than Nietzsche. |
2881 | Virtue has been greatly harmed by the boringness of its advocates [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: May I be forgiven for the discovery that 'virtue' has been harmed by nothing more than it has been by the boringness of its advocates. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §228) |
20382 | The four virtues are courage, insight, sympathy, solitude [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: To remain master of one's four virtues: courage, insight, sympathy, solitude. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §284) | |
A reaction: Compare this with 'Daybreak (Dawn)' 556. Solitude is the surprising addition, defended as the urge to 'cleanliness', when since humanity is 'unclean'. |
2879 | In ancient Rome pity was considered neither good nor bad [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: An act of pity was during the finest age of Rome considered neither good nor bad. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §201) |
2859 | The idea of the categorical imperative is just that we should all be very obedient [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: What does the claim that there exists in us a categorical imperative say of the man who asserts it? …that 'what is worthy of respect in me is that I know how to obey - and things ought to be no different with you'. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §187) |
2884 | The morality of slaves is the morality of utility [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Slave morality is essentially the morality of utility. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §261) |
2880 | The greatest possibilities in man are still unexhausted [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The greatest possibilities in man are still unexhausted. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §203) |
2876 | The thought of suicide is a great reassurance on bad nights [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The thought of suicide is a powerful solace: by means of it one gets through many a bad night. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §157) |
7078 | The freedom of the subject means the collapse of moral certainty [Nietzsche, by Critchley] |
Full Idea: In the 1880s Nietzsche diagnosed the concept of nihilism for a whole range of continental thinkers: the recognition of the subject's freedom goes hand in hand with the collapse of moral certainty in the world. | |
From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.5 | |
A reaction: Avoiding this dilemma is just one of the many bonuses offered to those who abandon the idea of free will. The fact that one can decide to be wicked doesn't bring an end to morality. Philosophers should think more concretely about human life. |
6869 | Nietzsche thinks the human condition is to overcome and remake itself [Nietzsche, by Ansell Pearson] |
Full Idea: Nietzsche thinks that the human condition is precisely to overcome itself; we continually remake ourselves. | |
From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886]) by Keith Ansell Pearson - Interview with Baggini and Stangroom p.261 | |
A reaction: This is why I think of Nietzsche as a straightforwardly existentialist philosopher. There is a crucial distinction between 'remaking' ourselves and 'realising all our possibilities'. The latter seems right. Which view did Nietzsche take? |
2874 | Man is the animal whose nature has not yet been fixed [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Man is the animal whose nature has not yet been fixed. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §062) |
20137 | The great person engages wholly with life, and is happy to endlessly relive the life they created [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: There is an ideal ...of the most exuberant, most living and most world-affirming man, who has not only learned to get on and treat with all that was and is, but who wants to have it again as it was and is to all eternity. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §056) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the main point of the idea of eternal recurrence. Could we inculcate this vision into the teenagers of our nation - that they should each try to design for themselves a life which they would be happy to endlessly repeat? Hm. |
20139 | Only aristocratic societies can elevate the human species [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Every elevation of the type 'man' has thitherto been the work of an aristocratic society - and so it will always be: a society which believes in a long scale of orders of rank and differences of worth between man and man, and needs slavery in some sense. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §257) | |
A reaction: The aim of 'elevating the type "man"' does not figure in works of political philosophy very much! I doubt whether one could base a political party on the idea, and win a general election. Could the people still be sold the idea of aristocracy? |
20373 | A healthy aristocracy has no qualms about using multitudes of men as instruments [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: A good and healthy aristocracy ...accepts with a good conscience the sacrifice of innumerable men who for its sake have to be suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §258) | |
A reaction: Something similar might be said of a democracy - that a slavelike workforce is needed to create the great universal goods we all want and need. Do the aristocrats want sacrifices for great art, or for wild parties and fox hunting? |
22394 | Democracy diminishes mankind, making them mediocre and lowering their value [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: To us the democratic movement is ...a form of decay, namely the diminution, of man, making him mediocre and lowering his value. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §203), quoted by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche: the Revaluation of Values p.88 | |
A reaction: It is not clear how a society of natural aristocrats followed by sheep would increase the value of mankind. Nor if the talented people are given total freedom, and the rest of us are servants. The value of humanity cannot reside in a few individuals. |
2867 | Christianity is Platonism for the people [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Christianity is Platonism for the people. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], Pref) |