20352
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Nietzsche has a metaphysics, as well as perspectives - the ontology is the perspectives [Nietzsche, by Richardson]
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Full Idea:
Nietzsche's thought includes both a metaphysics and a perspectivism, once these are more complexly grasped. But I argue that the metaphysics is basic: it's an ontology of perspectives.
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From:
report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by John Richardson - Nietzsche's System Intro
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A reaction:
Very good. If it was just gormless relativism, which is what many people hope for in Nietzsche, why is it many perspectives? If they are just relative, having lots of them is no help. The point is they sum, and increase verisimilitude.
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20379
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Reason is just another organic drive, developing late, and fighting for equality [Nietzsche]
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Full Idea:
Reason is a support organ that slowly develops itself, ...and emancipates itself slowly to equal rights with the organic drives - so that reason (belief and knowledge) fights with the drives, as itself a new drive, very late come to preponderance.
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From:
Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 9/11[243]), quoted by John Richardson - Nietzsche's System 4.3.2 n55
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A reaction:
A very powerful and fascinating idea. There is a silly post-modern tendency to think that Nietzsche denegrates and trivialises reason because of remarks like this, but he takes ranking the drives to be the supreme activity. I rank reason high.
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14664
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Necessary beings (numbers, properties, sets, propositions, states of affairs, God) exist in all possible worlds [Plantinga]
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Full Idea:
A 'necessary being' is one that exists in every possible world; and only some objects - numbers, properties, pure sets, propositions, states of affairs, God - have this distinction.
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From:
Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976], 2)
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A reaction:
This a very odd list, though it is fairly orthodox among philosophers trained in modern modal logic. At the very least it looks rather parochial to me.
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20105
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Storms are wonderful expressions of free powers! [Nietzsche]
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Full Idea:
How different the lightning, the storm, the hail, free powers, without ethics! How happy, how powerful they are, pure will, untarnished by intellect!
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From:
Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 2.122), quoted by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography 02
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A reaction:
Nietzsche was a perfect embodiment of the Romantic Movement! I take this to be a deep observation, since I think raw powers are the most fundamental aspect of nature. Schopenhauer is behind this idea.
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14666
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Socrates is a contingent being, but his essence is not; without Socrates, his essence is unexemplified [Plantinga]
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Full Idea:
Socrates is a contingent being; his essence, however, is not. Properties, like propositions and possible worlds, are necessary beings. If Socrates had not existed, his essence would have been unexemplified, but not non-existent.
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From:
Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976], 4)
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A reaction:
This is a distinctive Plantinga view, of which I can make little sense. I take it that Socrates used to have an essence. Being dead, the essence no longer exists, but when we talk about Socrates it is largely this essence to which we refer. OK?
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14662
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Possible worlds clarify possibility, propositions, properties, sets, counterfacts, time, determinism etc. [Plantinga]
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Full Idea:
The idea of possible worlds has delivered insights on logical possibility (de dicto and de re), propositions, properties and sets, counterfactuals, time and temporal relations, causal determinism, the ontological argument, and the problem of evil.
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From:
Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976], Intro)
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A reaction:
This date (1976) seems to be the high-water mark for enthusiasm about possible worlds. I suppose if we just stick to 'insights' rather than 'answers' then the big claim might still be acceptable. Which problems are created by possible worlds?
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16472
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Plantinga's actualism is nominal, because he fills actuality with possibilia [Stalnaker on Plantinga]
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Full Idea:
Plantinga's critics worry that the metaphysics is actualist in name only, since it is achieved only by populating the actual world with entities whose nature is explained in terms of merely possible things that would exemplify them if anything did.
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From:
comment on Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 4.4
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A reaction:
Plantinga seems a long way from the usual motivation for actualism, which is probably sceptical empiricism, and building a system on what is smack in front of you. Possibilities have to be true, though. That's why you need dispositions in actuality.
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16469
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Plantinga has domains of sets of essences, variables denoting essences, and predicates as functions [Plantinga, by Stalnaker]
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Full Idea:
The domains in Plantinga's interpretation of Kripke's semantics are sets of essences, and the values of variables are essences. The values of predicates have to be functions from possible worlds to essences.
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From:
report of Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 4.4
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A reaction:
I begin to think this is quite nice, as long as one doesn't take the commitment to the essences too seriously. For 'essence' read 'minimal identity'? But I take essences to be more than minimal, so use identities (which Kripke does?).
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16470
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Plantinga's essences have their own properties - so will have essences, giving a hierarchy [Stalnaker on Plantinga]
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Full Idea:
For Plantinga, essences are entities in their own right and will have properties different from what instantiates them. Hence he will need individual essences of individual essences, distinct from the essences. I see no way to avoid a hierarchy of them.
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From:
comment on Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 4.4
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A reaction:
This sounds devastating for Plantinga, but it is a challenge for traditional Aristotelians. Only a logician suffers from a hierarchy, but a scientist might have to live with an essence, which contains a super-essence.
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14663
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Are propositions and states of affairs two separate things, or only one? I incline to say one [Plantinga]
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Full Idea:
Are there two sorts of thing, propositions and states of affairs, or only one? I am inclined to the former view on the ground that propositions have a property, truth or falsehood, not had by states of affairs.
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From:
Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976], 1)
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A reaction:
Might a proposition be nothing more than an assertion that a state of affairs obtains? It would then pass his test. The idea that a proposition is a complex of facts in the external world ('Russellian' propositions?) quite baffles me.
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22500
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Nietzsche failed to see that moral actions can be voluntary without free will [Foot on Nietzsche]
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Full Idea:
To threaten morality Nietzsche needed to show not only that free will was an illusion, but also that no other distinction between voluntary and involuntary action (Aristotle's, for instance) would do instead. He seems to be wrong about this.
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From:
comment on Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 7) by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness
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A reaction:
Just the idea I have been seeking! There is no free will, so in what way are we responsible? Simple: we are responsible for any act which can be shown to be voluntary. It can't just be any action we fully caused, because of accidents.
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20128
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Each person has a fixed constitution, which makes them a particular type of person [Nietzsche, by Leiter]
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Full Idea:
Nietzsche's view (which we may call the 'Doctrine of Types') is that each person has a fixed psycho-physical constitution, which defines him as a particular type of person.
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From:
report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Brian Leiter - Nietzsche On Morality 1 'What kind'
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A reaction:
An interestesting variant, standing between the Aristotelian picture of one shared human nature, and the existentialist picture of our endlessly malleable nature. So what type am I, and what type are you? How many types are there?
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22475
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Moral generalisation is wrong, because we should evaluate individual acts [Nietzsche, by Foot]
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Full Idea:
Nietzsche believed that moral generalisation was impossible because the proper subject of evaluation was, instead, a person's individual act.
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From:
report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche's Immoralism p.155
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A reaction:
This suggests a different type of particularism, focusing on the particular decision, rather than on the details of the situation. Presumable no two moral decisions are ever sufficiently the same to be compared. But a lie is a lie.
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22476
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Nietzsche thought our psychology means there can't be universal human virtues [Nietzsche, by Foot]
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Full Idea:
Nietzsche believed, in effect, that as the facts of human psychology really were, there could be no such thing as human virtues, dispositions good in any man.
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From:
report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche's Immoralism p.157
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A reaction:
Presumably each individual can only have virtues appropriate to their individual nature, which is something like channelling their personal psychological drives. Can't we each have our individual version of courage or honesty?
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7847
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Initially nihilism was cosmic, but later Nietzsche saw it as a cultural matter [Nietzsche, by Ansell Pearson]
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Full Idea:
Nietzsche's first presentation of nihilism is an existential affair arising from cosmic problems, but he later stressed nihilism as a historical and cultural problem of values, where mankind's highest values reach a point of devaluation.
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From:
report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Keith Ansell Pearson - How to Read Nietzsche Ch.1
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A reaction:
The second version seems to imply a quasi-Marxist determinism about social progress. Then you would have to ask, what is the point of fighting against it? I wonder if Nietzsche's values are anti-nihilist, but his metaethics makes nihilism unavoidable?
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20367
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Individual development is more important than the state, but a community is necessary [Nietzsche]
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Full Idea:
All states and communities are something lower than the individual, but necessary kinds for his higher development.
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From:
Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 10/7[98]), quoted by John Richardson - Nietzsche's System 2.4 n104
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A reaction:
This indicates why Nietzsche should not really be taken as a political thinker, though I would say there is a sort of communitarianism implied in this, just as for Aristotle virtue is supreme, which needs social expression.
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