26 ideas
| 2922 | All intelligent Romans were Epicureans [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Every mind of any account in the Roman Empire was an Epicurean. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], 58) |
| 23520 | Truth has had to be fought for, and normal life must be sacrificed to achieve it [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Truth has had to be fought for every step of the way, almost everything else dear to our hearts, on which our love and our trust in life depend, has had to be sacrificed to it. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], 50) | |
| A reaction: This, in one of his final works, seems to contradict every idea that Nietzsche is the high priest of relativism about truth. He (and Foucault) and interested in the social role of truth, but are not so daft as to reject its possibility. |
| 2914 | One must never ask whether truth is useful [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One must never ask whether truth is useful. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], Fore) |
| 22664 | I do not care if my trivial beliefs are false, and I have no interest in many truths [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: I find that I do not mind at all the thought that I have some false beliefs (of US state capitals), and there are many truths I do not care to know at all (total grains of sand on the beach). | |
| From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.67) | |
| A reaction: A useful corrective to anyone who blindly asserts that truth is the supreme human value. I would still be annoyed if someone taught me lies about these two types of truth. |
| 22665 | Maybe James was depicting the value of truth, and not its nature [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: We might see William James's pragmatic view that truth is what works as depicting the value of truth, and not its nature. | |
| From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.68) | |
| A reaction: James didn't think that he was doing this. He firmly says that this IS truth, not just the advantages of truth. Another view is that pragmatists are giving a test for truth. |
| 22663 | Rationality is normally said to concern either giving reasons, or reliability [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: The two themes permeating the philosophical literature are that rationality is a matter of reasons, or that rationality is a matter of reliability. | |
| From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.64) | |
| A reaction: Since a clock can be reliable, I would have thought it concerns reasons. Or an unthinking person could reliably recite truths from memory. There is also the instrumental view of rationality. |
| 22662 | In the instrumental view of rationality it only concerns means, and not ends [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: On the instrumental conception of rationality, it consists in the effective and efficient achievement of goals, ends, and desires. About the goals themselves it has little to say. | |
| From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.64) | |
| A reaction: [He quotes Russell 1954 p.viii as expressing this view] A long way from Greek logos, which obviously concerns the rational selection of right ends (for which, presumably, reasons can be given). In practice our ends may never be rational, of course. |
| 22666 | Is it rational to believe a truth which leads to permanent misery? [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: If a mother is presented with convincing evidence that her son has committed a grave crime, but were she to believe it that would make her life thereafter miserable, is it rational for her to believe her son is guilty? | |
| From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.69) | |
| A reaction: I assume there is a conflict of rationalities, because there are conflicting ends. Presumably most mothers love the truth, but most of us also aim for happy lives. It is perfectly rational to avoid discovering a horrible family truth. |
| 22667 | Rationality needs some self-consciousness, to also evaluate how we acquired our reasons [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: Rationality involves some degree of self-consciousness. Not only reasons are evaluated, but also the processes by which information arrives, is stored, and recalled. | |
| From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.74) | |
| A reaction: I defend the idea that animals have a degree of rationality, because they can make sensible judgements, but I cannot deny this idea. Rationality comes in degrees, and second-level thought is a huge leap forward in degree. |
| 7357 | People who control others with fluent language often end up being hated [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: Of what use is eloquence? He who engages in fluency of words to control men often finds himself hated by them. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], V.5) | |
| A reaction: I don't recall Socrates making this very good point to any of the sophists (such as Gorgias). The idea that if you battle or connive your way to dominance over others then you are successful is false. Life is a much longer game than that. |
| 7358 | All men prefer outward appearance to true excellence [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: I have yet to meet a man as fond of excellence as he is of outward appearances. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], IX.18) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, this cynical view of the love of virtue is put by Plato into the mouths of Glaucon and Adeimantus (in Bk II of 'Republic', e.g. Idea 12), and not into the mouth of Socrates, who goes on to defend the possibility of true virtue. |
| 2921 | Philosophy grasps the limits of human reason, and values are beyond it [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: All the supreme problems of value are beyond human reason. …To grasp the limits of human reason, only this is philosophy. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], 55) | |
| A reaction: The single most powerful idea in the writings of Nietzsche. Reason and truth are values. Why do we value philosophy? There is no escaping Nietzsche's question. |
| 7362 | Humans are similar, but social conventions drive us apart (sages and idiots being the exceptions) [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: In our natures we approximate one another; habits put us further and further apart. The only ones who do not change are sages and idiots. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XVII.2) | |
| A reaction: I find most of Confucius rather uninteresting, but this is a splendid remark about the influence of social conventions on human nature. Sages can achieve universal morality if they rise above social convention, and seek the true virtues of human nature. |
| 20138 | Christianity is at war with the higher type of man, and excommunicates his basic instincts [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Christianity has waged a war to the death against the higher type of man, it has excommunicated all the fundamental instincts of this type. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], 05) | |
| A reaction: It seems rather insulting to say that the finest and most dedicated altruism practised by the most admirable Christians is the expression of a 'lower' instinct. |
| 7360 | Do not do to others what you would not desire yourself [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: Do not do to others what you would not desire yourself. Then you will have no enemies, either in the state or in your home. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XII.2) | |
| A reaction: The Golden Rule, but note the second sentence. Logically, it leads to the absurdity of not giving someone an Elvis record for Christmas because you yourself don't like Elvis. Kant (Idea 3733) and Nietzsche (Idea 4560) offer good criticisms. |
| 20375 | Virtues must be highly personal; if not, it is merely respect for a concept [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A virtue has to be our invention, our most personal defence and necessity: in any other sense it is merely a danger. What does not condition our life harms it: a virtue merely from a feeling of respect for the concept 'virtue', as Kant desires it, is harm | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], §11) | |
| A reaction: Presumably he sees virtue as the cutting edge of stiffling conventional morality. I'm a bit nervous about embracing highly personal virtues, partly because they might isolate me from my community. I ain't no übermensch. |
| 7359 | Excess and deficiency are equally at fault [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: Excess and deficiency are equally at fault. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XI.16) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of wisdom we admire in Aristotle (and in any sensible person), but it may also be the deepest motto of conservatism, and it is a long way from romantic philosophy, and the clarion call of Nietzsche to greater excitement in life. |
| 7363 | The virtues of the best people are humility, maganimity, sincerity, diligence, and graciousness [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: He who in this world can practise five things may indeed be considered Man-at-his-best: humility, maganimity, sincerity, diligence, and graciousness. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XVII.5) | |
| A reaction: A very nice list. Who could resist working with a colleague who had such virtues? Who could go wrong if they married a person who had them? I can't think of anything important that is missing. |
| 2915 | Each person should devise his own virtues and categorical imperative [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Each one of us should devise his own virtue, his own categorical imperative. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], 11) |
| 7361 | Men of the highest calibre avoid political life completely [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: Men of the highest calibre avoid political life completely. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XIV.37) | |
| A reaction: Plato notes that such people tend to avoid political life (and a left sheltering, as if from a wild storm!), but he thinks they should be dragged into the political arena for the common good. Confucius seems to approve of the avoidance. Plato is right. |
| 23393 | Confucianism assumes that all good developments have happened, and there is only one Way [Norden on Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: The two major limitations of Confucianism are that it assumes that all worthwhile cultural, social and ethical innovation has already occurred, and that it does not recognise the plurality of worthwhile ways of life. | |
| From: comment on Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE]) by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 3.III | |
| A reaction: In modern liberal terms that is about as conservative as it is possible to get. We think of it as the state of mind of an old person who can only long for the way things were when they were young. But 'hold fast to that which is good'! |
| 2920 | A God who cures us of a head cold at the right moment is a total absurdity [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A God who cures a headcold for us at the right moment is so absurd a God he would have to be abolished even if he existed. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], 52) |
| 2917 | Christianity is a revolt of things crawling on the ground against elevated things [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Christianity is a revolt of everything which crawls along the ground against everything which is elevated. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], 43) |
| 2918 | The story in Genesis is the story of God's fear of science [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Has the famous story which stands at the beginning of the Bible really been understood - the story of God's mortal terror of science? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], 48) |
| 2919 | 'Faith' means not wanting to know what is true [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: 'Faith' means not wanting to know what is true. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], 52) |
| 2916 | The great lie of immortality destroys rationality and natural instinct [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The great lie of personal immortality destroys all rationality, all naturalness of instinct. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], 43) |