49 ideas
| 6947 | Metaphysics does not rest on facts, but on what we are inclined to believe [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical systems have not usually rested upon any observed facts, or not in any great degree. They are chiefly adopted because their fundamental propositions seem 'agreeable to reason', which means that which we find ourselves inclined to believe. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.15) | |
| A reaction: This leads to Peirce's key claim - that we should allow our beliefs to be formed by something outside of ourselves. I don't share Peirce's contempt for metaphysics, which I take to be about the most abstract presuppositions of our ordinary beliefs. |
| 20121 | Grammar only reveals popular metaphysics [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The snares of grammar are the metaphysics of the people. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: If you have this elitist view of metaphysics, then linguistic analysis is just a branch of anthropology. |
| 6937 | Reason aims to discover the unknown by thinking about the known [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The object of reasoning is to find out, from the consideration of what we already know, something else which we do not know. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 7) | |
| A reaction: I defy anyone to come up with a better definition of reasoning than that. The emphasis is on knowledge rather than truth, which you would expect from a pragmatist. …Actually the definition doesn't cover conditional reasoning terribly well. |
| 24082 | Is the will to truth the desire to avoid deception? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: This unconditional will to truth: what is it? Is it the will not to let oneself be deceived? Is it the will not to deceive? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §344) | |
| A reaction: He is hunting for the evolutionary origin of the love of truth, in the needs of a community. In that sense, I would have thought it was just the pressure to get the facts right, because error is dangerous. Nice thought, though. |
| 20360 | We Germans value becoming and development more highly than mere being of what 'is' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We Germans are Hegelians insofar as we instinctively attribute a deeper sense and richer value to becoming and development than to what 'is'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §357) | |
| A reaction: I always doubt Nietzsche's claims about 'we Germans' or 'we philosophers'. They say that, intellectually, everyone is either French or German, and my immediate response was to embrace being German. So becoming is where it's at. |
| 21492 | Realism is basic to the scientific method [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The fundamental hypothesis of the method of science is this: There are real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinion of them. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877]), quoted by Albert Atkin - Peirce 3 'method' | |
| A reaction: He admits later that this is only a commitment and not a fact. It seems to me that when you combine this idea with the huge success of science, the denial of realism is crazy. Philosophy has a lot to answer for. |
| 6949 | If someone doubted reality, they would not actually feel dissatisfaction [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Nobody can really doubt that there are Reals, for, if he did, doubt would not be a source of dissatisfaction. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.19) | |
| A reaction: This rests on Peirce's view that all that really matters is a sense of genuine dissatisfaction, rather than a theoretical idea. So even at the end of Meditation One, Descartes isn't actually worried about whether his furniture exists. |
| 24077 | Necessity is thought to require an event, but is only an after-effect of the event [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Necessity is supposed to be the cause of something coming to be: in truth it is often only an effect of what has come to be. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §205) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like an account of the traditional idea of destiny - which sees inevitability in some major event, which was previously unpredictable. |
| 20126 | The strength of knowledge is not its truth, but its entrenchment in our culture [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The strength of knowledge does not depend on its degree of truth but on its age, on the degree to which it has been incoporated, in its character as a condition of life. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §110) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the rather modern idea (in Foucault, perhaps) of knowledge as a central component of culture, rather than as an eternal revelation of facts. Note that he is talking about its 'strength', not its veracity or degree of support. |
| 6940 | The feeling of belief shows a habit which will determine our actions [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The feeling of believing is a more or less sure indication of there being established in our nature some habit which will determine our actions. Doubt never has such an effect. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.10) | |
| A reaction: It is one thing to assert this fairly accurate observation, and another to assert that this is the essence or definition of a belief. Perhaps it is the purpose of belief, without being the phenomenological essence of it. We act in states of uncertainty. |
| 6941 | We are entirely satisfied with a firm belief, even if it is false [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: As soon as a firm belief is reached we are entirely satisfied, whether the belief be true or false. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.10) | |
| A reaction: This does not deny that the truth or falsehood of a belief is independent of whether we are satisfied with it. It is making a fair point, though, about why we believe things, and it can't be because of truth, because we don't know how to ensure that. |
| 6942 | We want true beliefs, but obviously we think our beliefs are true [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: We seek for a belief that we shall think to be true; but we think each one of our beliefs to be true, and, indeed, it is mere tautology to say so. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
| A reaction: If, as I do, you like to define belief as 'commitment to truth', Peirce makes a rather startling observation. You are rendered unable to ask whether your beliefs are true, because you have defined them as true. Nice point… |
| 6943 | A mere question does not stimulate a struggle for belief; there must be a real doubt [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The mere putting of a proposition into the interrogative form does not stimulate the mind to any struggle after belief; there must be a real and living doubt. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
| A reaction: This the attractive aspect of Peirce's pragmatism, that he is always focusing on real life rather than abstract theory or pure logic. |
| 20119 | We became increasingly conscious of our sense impressions in order to communicate them [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The emergence of our sense impressions into our consciousness, the ability to fix them and, as it were, exhibit them externally, increased proportionally with the need to communicate them to others by means of signs. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: He says in the same section that such ideas (plus his thoughts on consciousness) are the essence of his 'Perspectivism'. In effect, knowledge is not an individual activity, but a team game |
| 6598 | We need our beliefs to be determined by some external inhuman permanency [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs be determined by nothing human, but by some external permanency - by something upon which our thinking has no effect. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: This very sensible and interesting remark hovers somewhere between empiricism and pragmatism. Fogelin very persuasively builds his account of knowledge on it. The key point is that we hardly ever choose what to believe. See Idea 2454. |
| 20122 | We have no organ for knowledge or truth; we only 'know' what is useful to the human herd [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We simply lack any organ for knowledge, for 'truth'; we 'know' [das Erkennen] (or believe or imagine) just as much as may be useful in the interests of the human herd, the species; and this 'utility' is ultimately also a mere belief. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: [Section §354 is fascinating!] An odd idea, that we can only have truth is we have an 'organ' for it. It seems plausible that the whole brain is a truth machine. This seems like pure pragmatism, with all its faults. Falsehoods can be useful. |
| 6944 | Demonstration does not rest on first principles of reason or sensation, but on freedom from actual doubt [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: It is a common idea that demonstration must rest on indubitable propositions, either first principles of a general nature, or first sensations; but actual demonstration is completely satisfactory if it starts from propositions free from all actual doubt. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
| A reaction: Another nice example of Peirce focusing on the practical business of thinking, rather than abstract theory. I agree with this approach, that explanation and proof do not aim at perfection and indubitability, but at what satisfies a critical mind. |
| 6948 | Doubts should be satisfied by some external permanency upon which thinking has no effect [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: To satisfy our doubts it is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be determined by nothing human, but by some external permanency - by something upon which our thinking has no effect. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.18) | |
| A reaction: This may be the single most important idea in pragmatism and in the philosophy of science. See Fodor on experiments (Idea 2455). Put the question to nature. The essential aim is to be passive in our beliefs - just let reality form them. |
| 6945 | Once doubt ceases, there is no point in continuing to argue [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Some people seem to love to argue a point after all the world is fully convinced of it. But no further advance can be made. When doubt ceases, mental action on the subject comes to an end; and, if it did go on, it would be without purpose. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
| A reaction: This is the way Peirce's pragmatism, which deals with how real thinking actually works (rather than abstract logic), deals with scepticism. However, there is a borderline where almost everyone is satisfied, but the very wise person remains sceptical. |
| 4423 | We assume causes, geometry, motion, bodies etc to live, but they haven't been proved [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We have fixed up a world for ourselves in which we can live, with bodies, lines, planes, causes, motion and form; without these articles of faith nobody would endure life. But that does not mean they have been proved. Life is no argument. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §121) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to disagree. A lot of recent thought suggests that they are Hume's 'natural beliefs', like truth and induction, which simply can't be proved. 'Unprovable' does not mean 'incorrect', however. |
| 6579 | Nietzsche's perspectivism says our worldview depends on our personality [Nietzsche, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche recommends an extreme version of perspectivism in holding that a person's view of the world is a function of that person's life-affirming (Heraclitean) or life-denying (Parmenidean) personality. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: Fogelin recommends Nehamas on this topic. I am not convinced Nietzsche takes such an individual view as is implied here. See Idea 4420, for example. This view is in tune with Charles Taylor's view that our values shape our understanding of our selves. |
| 24083 | It would be absurd to say we are only permitted our own single perspective [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I think today we are at least far removed from the ridiculous immodesty of decreeing from our corner that one is permitted to have perspectives only from this corner. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §374) | |
| A reaction: He goes on to speculate about the possibility of infinite perspectives, most of them unknowable to us. But Nietzsche was not a simple relativism. The obvious concept needed to accompany a many-perspectives view is consensus. |
| 20115 | All of our normal mental life could be conducted without consciousness [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We could think, feel, will and remember, and we could also 'act', and yet none of this would have to enter our consciousness. The whole of life would be possible without, as it were, seeing itself in a mirror. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: He credits Leibniz with this line of thought. Nowadays the unconscious aspects of thought are a commonplace, not just from Freud, but from neuroscience. We have no idea how conscious other animals are. Nietzsche attributes consciousness to communication. |
| 20117 | Only the need for communication has led to consciousness developing [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I surmise that consciousness has developed only under the pressure of the need for communication; ...consciousness is really only a net of communication between human beings. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: An interesting speculation, well ahead of its time. Given that thought does not require consciousness, as he claims, it is not quite clear why communication needs it. Presumably two robots can communicate. But Idea 20118 is good. |
| 20118 | Only our conscious thought is verbal, and this shows the origin of consciousness [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Only conscious thinking takes the form of words, which is to say signs of communication, and this fact uncovers the origin of consciousness. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: Chicken-and-egg question here. Persinally I take consciousnes to be associated with meta-thought, which bestows huge power, and I take language to arise from meta-thought. |
| 20116 | Most of our lives, even the important parts, take place outside of consciousness [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: By far the greatest proportion of our life takes place without this mirroring effect [of consciousness]; and this is true even of our thinking, feeling and willing life, however offensive this may sound to older philosophers. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche didn't just hint at the possibility of a (Freudian) sub-conscious - he was whole-heartedly committed to it, and Freud gave him credit for it. I think philosophers are only just beginning to digest this crucial idea. |
| 20120 | Whatever moves into consciousness becomes thereby much more superficial [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Whatever becomes conscious becomes by the same token shallow, thin, relatively stupid, general, sign, herd signal; all becoming conscious involves a great and thorough corruption, falsification, reduction to superficialities, and generalisation. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche would have made a great speech writer for someone. This vision is increasingly how I see people. It is a view reinforced by modern neuroscience, which suggests that we greatly overestimate the conscious part of ourselves. |
| 2932 | 'Know thyself' is impossible and ridiculous [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: "Everybody is farthest away - from himself"; and the maxim "know thyself" addressed to human beings by a god, is almost malicious. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §335) | |
| A reaction: Expressed with characteristcally Nietzschean brio, but I couldn't agree more, and it is a very important truth. You can only require full self-knowledge if the whole mind is available to be known, and that isn't even remotely the case. |
| 24078 | Thoughts cannot be fully reproduced in words [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Even one's thoughts one cannot reproduce entirely in words. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §244) | |
| A reaction: I suppose this is the germ of Derrida, who seems to see little connection between thought and speech. I take this idea to be entirely correct. Our simplistic view of language reduces the fluidity and many dimensions of thought to a pile of lego bricks. |
| 24081 | Most of our intellectual activity is unconscious [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Only now is the truth dawning on us that the biggest part by far of our intellectual activity takes place unconsciously, and unfelt by us. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §333) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is 'intellectual activity', and just the hidden rumblings of instincts and emotions. I think he is right. Philosophers want to verbalise everything, but I don't think the main insights of philosophical thinking are verbal. |
| 22306 | To explain false belief we should take belief as relating to a proposition's parts, not to the whole thing [Russell] |
| Full Idea: To explain belief in what is false we shall have to regard what is called belief in a proposition as not a thought related to the proposition, but rather as a thought related to the constituents of the proposition. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Papers of 1906 [1906], V.321), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 40 '1906' | |
| A reaction: Russell proposed a new theory of judgement, in order to explain erroneous judgements, given that true propositions are identical with facts. Of course there might be errors about the constituents, as well as about their structure. Othello is his example. |
| 2933 | Why do you listen to the voice of your conscience? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Why do you listen to the voice of your conscience? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §335) | |
| A reaction: Nice question. It is perfectly plausible to say that I seem to feel guilty about doing something, but can't see any reason why I should. |
| 20141 | Higher human beings see and hear far more than others, and do it more thoughtfully [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: What distinguishes the higher human being from the lower is that the former see and hear immeasurably more, and see and hear thoughtfully - and precisely this distinguishes human beings from animals, and the higher animals from the lower. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §301) | |
| A reaction: Since most people are well equipped with eyes and ears, I take it that this phenomenon, if true, arises from the 'higher' type of person having more interest in what they experience. |
| 24076 | A morality ranks human drives and actions, for the sake of the herd, and subordinating individuals [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Whenever we encounter a morality we find an estimation and order of rank of human drives and actions. These are always the expression of the needs of a community and herd. The individual is valued only as a function of the herd. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §116) | |
| A reaction: A particularly clear summary of Nietzsche's understanding of modern morality (which he rejects). I tend to see values as what is important, but Nietzsche sees them as a ranking. Could be both. I see the individualism here as existentialist. |
| 22471 | Nietzsche thought it 'childish' to say morality isn't binding because it varies between cultures [Nietzsche, by Foot] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche was not simply a run-of-the-mill moral relativist. He branded as 'childish' the idea that no morality can be binding because moral valuations are necessarily different among different nations. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §345) by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche's Immoralism p.146 | |
| A reaction: Relativists about knowledge and morality are inclined to take quotations from Nietzsche out of context. The existence of this database probably exacerbates such intellectual wickedness. Get a feeling for the whole thinker! |
| 2935 | No two actions are the same [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: There neither are nor can be actions which are the same. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §335) |
| 20198 | Many virtues are harmful traps, but that is why other people praise them [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Virtues like industriousness, obedience, chastity, filial piety and justice are usually harmful to those who possess them. When you have a real, whole virtue you are its victim. But your neighbour praises your virtue precisely on that account. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §021) | |
| A reaction: This is the conspiracy theory of virtue. We want people to do menial or undesirable jobs, so we dress them up as wonderful virtues, and make people feel good for possessing them. There must be some truth in this. |
| 4275 | You cannot advocate joyful wisdom while rejecting pity, because the two are complementary [Scruton on Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Pity and good cheer are complementary, ..so there is something contradictory in a philosophy that advocates joyful wisdom, while slandering pity as the enemy of the higher life. | |
| From: comment on Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882]) by Roger Scruton - Animal Rights and Wrongs p.35 | |
| A reaction: A good objection to Nietzsche. He has a rather solipsistic view of joyful exuberance etc., and fails to realise how social such things must be. In that, Nietzsche was caught in the romantic tradition of Wordsworth and co. |
| 2934 | To see one's own judgement as a universal law is selfish [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It is selfish to experience one's own judgement as a universal law. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §335) |
| 24080 | We should give style to our character - by applying an artistic plan to its strengths and weaknesses [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One thing is essential - 'giving style' to one's character. It is practised by the one who surveys everything that his nature offers in strengths and weaknesses, and subjects it to an artistic plan until each thing appears as art and reason. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §290) | |
| A reaction: Clearly existentialist, in its proposal to change one's own character. I invite the reader to consider applying this to themselves - and I submit that it is an impossible project. Nice thought, though. |
| 20125 | The ethical teacher exists to give purpose to what happens necessarily and without purpose [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: That what happens necessarily, spontaneously and without any purpose, may henceforth appear to be done for some purpose, and strike man as rational and an ultimate commandment, the ethical teacher comes on stage, as teacher of the purpose of existence. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §001) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't look like much of a solution to the problem of nihilism, unless the teacher plants an idea in us which endures and grows. Nietzsche's 'eternal recurrence' was supposed to be just such an idea. |
| 9306 | To ward off boredom at any cost is vulgar [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: To ward off boredom at any cost is vulgar. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §042) | |
| A reaction: Ignoring 'vulgar', this is a nice thought. Do affluent retired people now travel so much because they are terrified of boredom? What would they end up doing if they stayed at home and lived through the boredom to something else? |
| 24079 | The best life is the dangerous life [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The secret of harvesting the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from existence is: live dangerously! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §283) | |
| A reaction: I treasured this quotation when I was 17, but failed to live up to it. |
| 2936 | Imagine if before each of your actions you had to accept repeating the action over and over again [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Suppose a demon were to say to you, "This life as you have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more". …Then the question in each thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie across your actions. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §341) | |
| A reaction: If you were stuck in nihilistic indifference, this thought might not be enough to rouse you from your torpor. If all possibilities in life are boring, repetition cannot pep it up, or make it any worse. But I still love this idea! |
| 6842 | Nietzsche says facing up to the eternal return of meaninglessness is the response to nihilism [Nietzsche, by Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche is overwhelmingly concerned with how to respond to nihilism, and he offers the concept of eternal return; the Overman is one who can affirm over and over that one is equal to meaninglessness, without turning to despair or idols. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §342) by Simon Critchley - Interview with Baggini and Stangroom p.192 | |
| A reaction: I agree with Critchley that this is not much of a recipe for ordinary people's lives, and I don't even find it very congenial for a tough-minded philosopher. We should make the best of the cards we are dealt, however feeble they may appear. |
| 6939 | What is true of one piece of copper is true of another (unlike brass) [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The guiding principle is that what is true of one piece of copper is true of another; such a guiding principle with regard to copper would be much safer than with regard to many other substances - brass, for example. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 8) | |
| A reaction: Peirce is so beautifully simple and sensible. This gives the essential notion of a natural kind, and is a key notion in our whole understanding of physical reality. |
| 6938 | Natural selection might well fill an animal's mind with pleasing thoughts rather than true ones [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: It is probably of more advantage to an animal to have his mind filled with pleasing and encouraging visions, independently of their truth; and thus, upon unpractical subjects, natural selection might occasion a fallacious tendency of thought. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 8) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is a pragmatist saying that a set of beliefs might work fine but be untrue. So Peirce does not have the highly relativistic notion of truth of some later pragmatists. Good for him. Note the early date to be thinking about Darwin. |
| 6946 | If death is annihilation, belief in heaven is a cheap pleasure with no disappointment [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: If death is annihilation, then the man who believes that he will certainly go straight to heaven when he dies, provided he have fulfilled certain simple observances in this life, has a cheap pleasure which will not be followed by the least disappointment. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.12) | |
| A reaction: This is a nicely wicked summary of one side of Pascal's options. All the problems of the argument are built into Peirce's word "cheap". Peirce goes on to talk about ostriches burying their heads. |
| 2931 | God is dead, and we have killed him [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §125) |