53 ideas
| 7846 | Nietzsche thinks philosophy makes us more profound, but not better [Nietzsche, by Ansell Pearson] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche does not think philosopher exists to make us better human beings - but it can make us more profound ones. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Keith Ansell Pearson - How to Read Nietzsche Intro | |
| A reaction: What is the point of being more 'profound' if that isn't 'better'? Are we sure that Kant is more 'profound' than a Yanomamo Indian? Personally I think philosophy tends to produce moral improvement, but I have seen a few striking counterexamples. |
| 20107 | How many mediocre thinkers are occupied with influential problems! [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It is a terrible thought to contemplate that an immense number of mediocre thinkers are occupied with really influential matters. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]), quoted by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography 03 | |
| A reaction: [in a journal of 1867] What would he say now, with the plethora of academics and students aspiring to the highest levels of human thought? If I face up to the fact that I am 'mediocre', should I stop? And become mediocre at something else? |
| 20352 | Nietzsche has a metaphysics, as well as perspectives - the ontology is the perspectives [Nietzsche, by Richardson] |
| 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. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by John Richardson - Nietzsche's System Intro | |
| 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. |
| 20379 | Reason is just another organic drive, developing late, and fighting for equality [Nietzsche] |
| 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. | |
| 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 | |
| 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. |
| 21226 | Husserl sees the ego as a monad, unifying presence, sense and intentional acts [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol] |
| Full Idea: Husserl's notion of monad expresses a complete inegration of every intentional presence into its sense, and every sense into the intentional acts, ....and finally every intentional act is integrated into the ego. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Cartesian Meditations [1931]) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 4.6.2 | |
| A reaction: No, I don't understand that either, but it makes good sense to employ the concept of a 'monad' into the concept of the ego, if you think it embodies perfect unity. That was a main motivation for Leibniz to employ the word. |
| 20123 | First see nature as non-human, then fit ourselves into this view of nature [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: My task is the dehumanisation of nature, and then the naturalisation of humanity once it has attained the pure concept of 'nature'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 9.525), quoted by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography 10 | |
| A reaction: Safranski sees this as summarising Nietzsche's project, and it could be a mission statement for naturalism. This idea pinpoints why I take Nietzsche to be important - as a pioneer of the naturalistic view of people. |
| 20105 | Storms are wonderful expressions of free powers! [Nietzsche] |
| 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! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 2.122), quoted by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography 02 | |
| 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. |
| 20376 | We begin with concepts of kinds, from individuals; but that is not the essence of individuals [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The overlooking of individuals gives us the concept and with this our knowledge begins: in categorising, in the setting up of kinds. But the essence of things does not correspond to this. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], p.51) | |
| A reaction: [dated c1873] Aha! So Nietzsche agrees with me in my defence of individual essences, against kind essences (which seem to me to obviously derive from the nature of individuals). Deep in my heart I knew I would find this quotation one day. |
| 17979 | Research shows perceptual discrimination is sharper at category boundaries [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: Goldstone's research has shown how learning concepts can change perceptual units. For example, perceptual discrimination is heightened along category boundaries. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: [Goldstone 1994, 2000] This is just the sort of research which throws a spanner into the simplistic a priori thinking of many philosophers. |
| 18690 | Induction is said to just compare properties of categories, but the type of property also matters [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: Most theories of induction claim that it should depend primarily on the similarity of the categories involved, but then the type of property should not matter, yet research shows that it does. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be good empirical support for Gilbert Harman's view that induction is really inference to the best explanation. The thought (which strikes me as obviously correct) is that we bring nested domains of knowledge to bear in induction. |
| 21228 | Husserl's monads (egos) communicate, through acts of empathy. [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol] |
| Full Idea: For Husserl monads have windows because they communicate with each other. The windows of the monads are the acts of empathy. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Cartesian Meditations [1931]) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 4.7.5 | |
| A reaction: Leibniz said his monads (which include minds) have 'no windows'. The mere existence of empathy (or mirror neurons, as we would say) is hardly sufficient to defeat solipsism. |
| 21225 | The psychological ego is worldly, and the pure ego follows transcendental reduction [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol] |
| Full Idea: Husserl distinguishes two sorts of egos or subjects of experience, the psychological ego and the pure ego. The psychological ego is a reality of the world, and the pure ego is a result of transcendental reduction. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Cartesian Meditations [1931]) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 4.6.1 | |
| A reaction: The sounds like embracing both the Cartesian and the Kantian egos. This is obviously the source of Sartre's interesting early book on the self. 'Transcendental reduction' is his bracketing or epoché. |
| 17980 | The main theories of concepts are exemplar, prototype and knowledge [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The three main theories of concepts under consideration are the exemplar, the prototype and the knowledge approaches. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) |
| 17973 | The theoretical and practical definitions for the classical view are very hard to find [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: It has been extremely difficult to find definitions for most natural categories, and even harder to find definitions that are plausible psychological representations that people of all ages would be likely to use. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 2) |
| 17969 | The classical definitional approach cannot distinguish typical and atypical category members [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The early psychological approaches to concepts took a definitional approach. ...but this view does not have any way of distinguishing typical and atypical category members (...as when a trout is a typical fish and an eel an atypical one). | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: [pp. 12 and 22] Eleanor Rosch in the 1970s is said to have largely killed off the classical view. |
| 17970 | Classical concepts follow classical logic, but concepts in real life don't work that way [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The classical view of concepts has been tied to traditional logic. 'Fido is a dog and a pet' is true if it has the necessary and sufficient conditions for both, ...but there is empirical evidence that people do not follow that rule. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: Examples given are classifying chess as a sport and/or game, and classifying a tree house (which is agreed to be both a building and not a building!). |
| 17971 | Classical concepts are transitive hierarchies, but actual categories may be intransitive [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The classical view of concepts explains hierarchical order, where categories form nested sets. But research shows that categories are often not transitive. Research shows that a seat is furniture, and a car seat is a seat, but it is not furniture. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Murphy adds that the nesting of definitions is classically used to match the nesting of hierarchies. This is a nice example of the neatness of the analytic philosopher breaking down when it meets the mess of the world. |
| 17972 | The classical core is meant to be the real concept, but actually seems unimportant [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: A problem with the revised classical view is that the concept core does not seem to be an important part of the concept, despite its name and theoretical intention as representing the 'real' concept. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: Apparently most researchers feel they can explain their results without reference to any core. Not so fast, I would say (being an essentialist). Maybe people acknowledge an implicit core without knowing what it is. See Susan Gelman. |
| 17975 | There is no 'ideal' bird or dog, and prototypes give no information about variability [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: Is there really an 'ideal bird' that could represent all birds? ...Furthermore a single prototype would give no information about the variability of a category. ...Compare the incredible variety of dogs to the much smaller diversity of cats. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: The point about variability is particularly noteworthy. You only grasp the concept of 'furniture' when you understand its range, as well as its typical examples. What structure is needed in a concept to achieve this? |
| 17976 | Prototypes are unified representations of the entire category (rather than of members) [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: In the prototype view the entire category is represented by a unified representation rather than separate representations for each member, or for different classes of members. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: This is the improved prototype view, as opposed to the implausible idea that there is one ideal exemplar. The new theory still have the problem of how to represent diversity within the category, while somehow remaining 'unified'. |
| 18691 | The prototype theory uses observed features, but can't include their construction [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: Nothing in the prototype model says the shape of an animal is more important than its location in identifying its kind. The theory does not provide a way the features can be constructed, rather than just observed. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: This makes some kind of mental modelling central to thought, and not just a bonus once you have empirically acquired the concepts. We bring our full range of experience to bear on even the most instantaneous observations. |
| 17983 | The prototype theory handles hierarchical categories and combinations of concepts well [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The prototype view has no trouble with either hierarchical structure or explaining categories. ...Meaning and conceptual combination provide strong evidence for prototypes. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: Prototypes are not vague, making clearer classification possible. A 'mountain lion' is clear, because its components are clear. |
| 17985 | Prototypes theory of concepts is best, as a full description with weighted typical features [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: Our theory of concepts must be primarily prototype-based. That is, it must be a description of an entire concept, with its typical features (presumably weighted by their importance). | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: This is to be distinguished from the discredited 'classical' view of concepts, that the concept consists of its definition. I take Aristotle's account of definition to be closer to a prototype description than to a dictionary definition. |
| 17986 | Learning concepts is forming prototypes with a knowledge structure [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: My proposal is that people attempt to form prototypes as part of a larger knowledge structure when they learn concepts. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: This combines theory theory (knowledge) with the prototype view, and sounds rather persuasive. The formation of prototypes fits with the explanatory account of essentialism I am defending. He later calls prototype formation 'abstraction' (494). |
| 17974 | The most popular theories of concepts are based on prototypes or exemplars [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The most popular theories of concepts are based on prototype or exemplar theories that are strongly unclassical. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 2) |
| 17977 | The exemplar view of concepts says 'dogs' is the set of dogs I remember [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: In the exemplar view of concepts, the idea that people have a representation that somehow encompasses an entire concept is rejected. ...Instead a person's concept of dogs is the set of dogs that the person remembers. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: [The theory was introduced by Medin and Schaffer 1978] I think I have finally met a plausible theory of concepts. When I think 'dog' I conjure up a fuzz of dogs that exhibit the range I have encountered (e.g. tiny to very big). Individuals come first! |
| 17982 | Exemplar theory struggles with hierarchical classification and with induction [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The exemplar view has trouble with hierarchical classification and with induction in adults. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: To me these both strongly support essentialism - that you form the concept 'dog' from seeing some dogs, but you then extrapolate to large categories and general truths about dogs, on the assumption of the natures of the dogs you have seen. |
| 17981 | Children using knowing and essentialist categories doesn't fit the exemplar view [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The findings showing that children use knowledge and may be essentialist about category membership do not comport well with the exemplar view. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: Tricky, because Gelman persuaded me of the essentialism, but the exemplar view of concepts looks the most promising. Clearly they must be forced to coexist.... |
| 17984 | Conceptual combination must be compositional, and can't be built up from exemplars [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The exemplar accounts of conceptual combination are demonstrably wrong, because the meaning of a phrase has to be composed from the meaning of its parts (plus broader knowledge), and it cannot be composed as a function of exemplars. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: This sounds quite persuasive, and I begin to see that my favoured essentialism fits the prototype view of concepts best, though this mustn't be interpreted too crudely. We change our prototypes with experience. 'Bird' is a tricky case. |
| 17987 | The concept of birds from exemplars must also be used in inductions about birds [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: We don't have one concept of birds formed by learning from exemplars, and another concept of birds that is used in induction. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: In other words exemplar concepts break down when we generalise using the concept. The exemplars must be unified, to be usable in thought and language. |
| 17978 | We do not learn concepts in isolation, but as an integrated part of broader knowledge [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The knowledge approach argues that concepts are part of our general knowledge about the world. We do not learn concepts in isolation, ...but as part of our overall understanding of the world. Animal concepts are integrated with biology, behaviour etc. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: This is one of the leading theories of concepts among psychologists. It seems to be an aspect of the true theory, but it needs underpinning with some account of isolated individual concepts. This is also known as the 'theory theory'. |
| 18687 | Concepts with familiar contents are easier to learn [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: A concept's content influences how easy it is to learn. If the concept is grossly incompatible with what people know prior to the experiment, it will be difficult to acquire. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: This is a preliminary fact which leads towards the 'knowledge' theory of concepts (aka 'theory theory'). The point being that the knowledge involved is integral to the concept. Fits my preferred mental files approach. |
| 18688 | Some knowledge is involved in instant use of categories, other knowledge in explanations [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: Some kinds of knowledge are probably directly incorporated into the category representation and used in normal, fast decisions about objects. Other kinds of knowledge, however, may come into play only when it has been solicited. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: This is a summary of empirical research, but seems to fit our normal experience. If you see a hawk, you have some instant understanding, but if you ask what the hawk is doing here, you draw more widely. |
| 18689 | People categorise things consistent with their knowledge, even rejecting some good evidence [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: People tend to positively categorise items that are consistent with their knowledge and to exclude items that are inconsistent, sometimes even overruling purely empirical sources of information. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: The main rival to 'theory theory' is the purely empirical account of how concepts are acquired. This idea reports empirical research in favour of the theory theory (or 'knowledge') approach. |
| 22501 | Nietzsche classified actions by the nature of the agent, not the nature of the act [Nietzsche, by Foot] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche thought profoundly mistaken a taxonomy that classified actions as the doing of this or that, insisting that the true nature of an action depended rather on the nature of the individual who did it. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 7) by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness 7 | |
| A reaction: This is more in the spirit of Aristotle than in the modern legalistic style. It seems to totally ignore consequences, which would puzzle victims or beneficiaries of the action. |
| 22500 | Nietzsche failed to see that moral actions can be voluntary without free will [Foot on Nietzsche] |
| 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. | |
| From: comment on Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 7) by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness | |
| 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. |
| 20128 | Each person has a fixed constitution, which makes them a particular type of person [Nietzsche, by Leiter] |
| 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. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Brian Leiter - Nietzsche On Morality 1 'What kind' | |
| 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? |
| 22503 | Nietzsche could only revalue human values for a different species [Nietzsche, by Foot] |
| Full Idea: It is only for a different species that Nietzsche's most radical revaluation of values could be valid. It is not valid for us as we are, or are ever likely to be. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness 7 | |
| A reaction: This is the Aristotelian view, that our values and virtues arise out of our human nature, with which I largely agree, though we should resist its rather conservative tendencies. |
| 8041 | The superman is a monstrous oddity, not a serious idea [MacIntyre on Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The Übermensch belongs in the pages of a philosophical bestiary rather than in serious discussion. | |
| From: comment on Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: It may just be an empirical and historical fact that the value-systems of a culture arise from the characters of a few strong-willed and charismatic individuals, rather than from collective need - let along collective philosophising. |
| 20135 | Nietzsche's higher type of man is much more important than the idealised 'superman' [Nietzsche, by Leiter] |
| Full Idea: The 'superman' has received far more attention from commentators than it warrants: the higher type of human being (a Goethe or a Nietzsche) is much more important than the hyperbolic, and often obscure, Zarathustrian rhetoric about the über-mensch. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Brian Leiter - Nietzsche On Morality 4 'Higher' n2 | |
| A reaction: Leiter says the über-mensch idea almost entirely drops out of Nietzsche's mature work. |
| 20353 | The 'will to power' is basically applied to drives and forces, not to people [Nietzsche, by Richardson] |
| Full Idea: 'Will to power' is most basically applied not to people but to 'drives' or 'forces', simpler units which Nietzsche sometimes calls 'points' and 'power quanta'. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 1) by John Richardson - Nietzsche's System 1 | |
| A reaction: This strikes as a correct account of Nietzsche, and a hugely important interpretative point. He wasn't saying that all human beings would conquer the world if they could. The point is there are many conflicting and combining wills to power. |
| 20113 | Friendly chats undermine my philosophy; wanting to be right at the expense of love is folly [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: My entire philosophy wavers after just an hour of friendly conversation with complete strangers. It strikes me as so foolish to insist on being right at the expense of love. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 6.37), quoted by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography 09 | |
| A reaction: [Letter to Gast, 1880] Strangers who met Nietzsche on walks reported how kind and friendly he was. Most people want to be right most of the time, but a few people have this vice in rather excessive form. Especially philosophers! |
| 22475 | Moral generalisation is wrong, because we should evaluate individual acts [Nietzsche, by Foot] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche believed that moral generalisation was impossible because the proper subject of evaluation was, instead, a person's individual act. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche's Immoralism p.155 | |
| 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. |
| 22476 | Nietzsche thought our psychology means there can't be universal human virtues [Nietzsche, by Foot] |
| 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. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche's Immoralism p.157 | |
| 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? |
| 20104 | Nietzsche tried to lead a thought-provoking life [Safranski on Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: All of us ponder our existences, but Nietzsche strove to lead the kind of life that would yield food for thought. | |
| From: comment on Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 01) by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography 01 | |
| A reaction: Could Nietzsche possibly be a role model for us in this respect? If I were starting afresh, guided by this thought, I'm not sure how I would go about it. It is Nietzsche's astonishing independence of thought that hits you. |
| 7847 | Initially nihilism was cosmic, but later Nietzsche saw it as a cultural matter [Nietzsche, by Ansell Pearson] |
| 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. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Keith Ansell Pearson - How to Read Nietzsche Ch.1 | |
| 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? |
| 9782 | Nietzsche urges that nihilism be active, and will nothing itself [Nietzsche, by Zizek] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche opposes active to passive nihilism - it is better to actively will nothing itself than not to will anything. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Slavoj Zizek - Conversations, with Glyn Daly §3 | |
| A reaction: To 'actively will nothing' sounds to me indistinguishable from suicide, which I don't believe was ever on Nietzsche's agenda. It is hard, though, to disentangle Nietzsche's attitude to nihilism. |
| 20102 | Flight from boredom leads to art [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Flight from boredom is the mother of all art. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 8.432), quoted by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography Intro | |
| A reaction: I might even say that all human achievement comes from boredom. |
| 20106 | Nietzsche was fascinated by a will that can turn against itself [Nietzsche, by Safranski] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche was fascinated by the idea of a will that turns against itself, against its usual impulses. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography 03 | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as very existentialist - a case of existence before essence. |
| 20124 | Reliving life countless times - this gives the value back to life which religion took away [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: "Is this something I want to do countless times?" ....Let us etch the image of eternity onto our own lives! This thought embodies more than all religions, which taught us to disdain life as something ephemeral and to look toward an unspecified other life. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 9.496,503), quoted by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography 10 | |
| A reaction: You can't get away from eternal recurrence being an imaginative trick, to focus value onto our choices. For a while Nietzsche tried to persuade himself that the recurrence actually occurred, but we all know it doesn't. |
| 20367 | Individual development is more important than the state, but a community is necessary [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: All states and communities are something lower than the individual, but necessary kinds for his higher development. | |
| 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 | |
| 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. |
| 20371 | Nietzsche thinks we should join a society, in order to criticise, heal and renew it [Nietzsche, by Richardson] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche thinks the best way of both joining and opposing a society is to find where it's sick, to be its merciless critic and exposer, and to help heal and renew it. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by John Richardson - Nietzsche's System 3.3 | |
| A reaction: This sounds like the great Victorian sages, such as Ruskin and Arnold. Christopher Hitchens was a nice recent example. Maybe these have been the finest British citizens? |
| 20108 | Every culture loses its identity and power if it lacks a major myth [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Without myth every culture loses its natural healthy creating power: only a horizon encircled with myths can mark off a cultural movement as a discrete unit. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 1.145) | |
| A reaction: In the early part of his career this was a big idea for Nietzsche, especially associated with Wagner's Ring, but he moved away from the idea later. |