22 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) |
| 9271 | Human knowledge may not produce well-being; the examined life may not be worth living [Gray] |
| Full Idea: Human knowledge is one thing, human well-being another. There is no predetermined harmony between the two. The examined life may not be worth living. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 1.9) | |
| A reaction: John Gray has set himself up as the Eeyore of modern times, but this point may obviously be correct. Presumably Socrates meant that the examined life was better even if the result was less 'well-being'. Even Gray doesn't want a lobotomy. |
| 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) |
| 19400 | Possibles demand existence, so as many of them as possible must actually exist [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: From the conflict of all the possibles demanding existence, this at once follows, that there exists that series of things by which as many of them as possible exist. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Exigency to Exist in Essences [1690], p.91) | |
| A reaction: I'm in tune with a lot of Leibniz, but my head swims with this one. He seems to be a Lewisian about possible worlds - that they are concrete existing entities (with appetites!). Could Lewis include Leibniz's idea in his system? |
| 19401 | God's sufficient reason for choosing reality is in the fitness or perfection of possibilities [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The sufficient reason for God's choice can be found only in the fitness (convenance) or in the degree of perfection that the several worlds possess. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Exigency to Exist in Essences [1690], p.92) | |
| A reaction: The 'fitness' of a world and its 'perfection' seem very different things. A piece of a jigsaw can have wonderful fitness, without perfection. Occasionally you get that sinking feeling with metaphysicians that they just make it up. |
| 19402 | The actual universe is the richest composite of what is possible [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The actual universe is the collection of the possibles which forms the richest composite. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Exigency to Exist in Essences [1690], p.92) | |
| A reaction: 'Richest' for Leibniz means a maximum combination of existence, order and variety. It's rather like picking the best starting team from a squad of footballers. |
| 9275 | Knowledge does not need minds or nervous systems; it is found in all living things [Gray] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge does not need minds, or even nervous systems. It is found in all living things. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 2.10) | |
| A reaction: I consider it a misnomer to call such things 'knowledge', for which I have much higher standards. Gray is talking about 'information'. Knowledge needs reasons, and possibility of error, not just anticipatory behaviour. |
| 9276 | The will hardly ever does anything; most of our life just happens to us [Gray] |
| Full Idea: We think our actions express our decisions, but in nearly all of our life, willing decides nothing. We cannot wake up or fall asleep, remember or forget our dreams, summon or banish our thoughts, by deciding to do so. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 2.12) | |
| A reaction: Gray's point does not rule out occasional total control over mental life, but his point is important. The traditional picture is of a life controlled, so the will is seen as at the centre of a person, but it just isn't the case. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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) |
| 9278 | Nowadays we identify the free life with the good life [Gray] |
| Full Idea: We do not value freedom more than people did in earlier times, but we have identified the good life with the chosen life. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 3.13) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. This is Enlightenment liberalism gradually filtering down into common consciousness, especially via the hegemony of American culture. I sympathise the Gray; don't get me wrong, but I think freedom is overrated. |
| 9280 | Over forty percent of the Earth's living tissue is human [Gray] |
| Full Idea: Humans co-opt over forty per cent of the Earth's living tissue. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 4.15) | |
| A reaction: If you add our domestic animals, I understand that the figure goes up to 95 per cent! I take this to be virtually the only significant ecological fact - population, population, population. Why are there so many cars? So many carbon footprints? |
| 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) |
| 9272 | Without Christianity we lose the idea that human history has a meaning [Gray] |
| Full Idea: For Christians, it is because they occur in history that the lives of humans have a meaning that the lives of other animals do not. ..If we truly leave Christianity behind, we must give up the idea that human history has a meaning. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. Compare the dispute between 'whig' and 'tory' historians, the former of whom believe that history is going somewhere. |
| 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) |
| 9279 | What was our original sin, and how could Christ's suffering redeem it? [Gray] |
| Full Idea: No one can say what was humankind's original sin, and no one understands how the suffering of Christ can redeem it. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: This nicely articulates a problem that has half bothered me, but I have never put into words. I always assumed Eve committed the sin, and Adam cops the blame for not controlling his woman. Dying for our sins has always puzzled me. |
| 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) |