42 ideas
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. |
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. |
10397 | Abelard's mereology involves privileged and natural divisions, and principal parts [Abelard, by King,P] |
Full Idea: Abelard's theory of substantial integral wholes is not a pure mereology in the modern sense, since he holds that there are privileged divisions; ..the division of a whole must be into its principal parts. Some wholes have a natural division. | |
From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Peter King - Peter Abelard 2 | |
A reaction: This is a mereology that cuts nature at the joints, rather than Lewis's 'unrestricted composition', so I find Abelard rather appealing. |
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. |
10396 | If 'animal' is wholly present in Socrates and an ass, then 'animal' is rational and irrational [Abelard, by King,P] |
Full Idea: Abelard argued that if the universal 'animal' were completely present in both Socrates and an ass, making each wholly an animal, then the same thing, animal, will be simultaneously rational and irrational, with contraries present in the whole thing. | |
From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Peter King - Peter Abelard 2 | |
A reaction: If we have universals for rationality and irrationality, they can distinguish the two. But we must also say that rationality is not an aspect of animal, which seems to mean that mind isn't either. What is the essence of an animal? Not reason? |
10395 | Abelard was an irrealist about virtually everything apart from concrete individuals [Abelard, by King,P] |
Full Idea: Abelard was an irrealist about universals, but also about propositions, events, times other than the present, natural kinds, relations, wholes, absolute space, hylomorphic composites, and the like. The concrete individual is enough to populate the world. | |
From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Peter King - Peter Abelard 2 | |
A reaction: If a Nominalist claims that 'only particulars exist', this makes him an extreme nominalist, and remarkably materialistic for his time (though he accepted the soul, as well as God). |
15384 | Only words can be 'predicated of many'; the universality is just in its mode of signifying [Abelard, by Panaccio] |
Full Idea: Abelard concluded that only words can be 'predicated of many'. A universal is nothing but a general linguistic predicate, and its universality depends not on its mode of being, but on its mode of signifying. | |
From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'Peter' | |
A reaction: Abelard seems to be the originator of what is now called Predicate Nominalism, with Nelson Goodman as his modern representative. If it is just words, is there no fact of two things having the 'same' property? |
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. |
8481 | The de dicto-de re modality distinction dates back to Abelard [Abelard, by Orenstein] |
Full Idea: The de dicto-de re modality distinction dates back to Abelard. | |
From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.7 | |
A reaction: Most modern philosophers couldn't (apparently) care less where a concept originated, but one of the principles of this database is that such things do matter. I'm not sure why, but if we want the whole picture, we need the historical picture. |
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 incorporated, 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. |
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 |
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. |
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. |
15385 | Abelard's problem is the purely singular aspects of things won't account for abstraction [Panaccio on Abelard] |
Full Idea: Abelard's problem is that it is not clear how singular forms could do the job they are supposed to do - to account for abstraction, namely - if they were purely singular aspects. | |
From: comment on Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'Peter' | |
A reaction: A very nice question! If we say that abstracta are just acquired by ignoring all but that feature in some objects, how do we identify 'that' feature in order to select it? The instances must share something in common to be abstracted. |
15383 | Nothing external can truly be predicated of an object [Abelard, by Panaccio] |
Full Idea: Abelard argued from the commonly accepted definition of a universal as 'what can be predicated of man', that no external thing can ever be predicated of anything. | |
From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'Peter' | |
A reaction: It sounds to me as if Abelard is confusing predicates with properties! Maybe no external can be a property of anything, but I take predicates to just be part of what you can say about anything, and that had better included external facts. |
468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
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. |
10398 | Natural kinds are not special; they are just well-defined resemblance collections [Abelard, by King,P] |
Full Idea: In Abelard's view a natural kind is a well-defined collection of things that have the same features, so that natural kinds have no special status, being no more than discrete integral wholes whose principle of membership is similarity. | |
From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Peter King - Peter Abelard 2 | |
A reaction: I take a natural kind to be a completely stable and invariant class of things. Presumably this invariance has an underlying explanation, but Abelard seems to take the Humean line that we cannot penetrate beyond the experienced surface. |
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) |