38 ideas
| 2930 | The main aim of philosophy must be to determine the order of rank among values [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The future task of the philosophers is the solution of the problem of value, the determination of the order of rank among values. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], I.§17 note) | |
| A reaction: 'Determine' is presumably either a power struggle, or needs criteria by which to do the judging. |
| 20143 | Scientific knowledge is nothing without a prior philosophical 'faith' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Strictly speaking there is no knowledge [science] without presuppositions; a philosophy, a 'faith', must always be there first of all, for knowledge to win from it a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method, a right to exist. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], III.§24) | |
| A reaction: He sees philosophers as the creators of this faith, and laughs at anyone who tries to set philosophy on a scientific basis. |
| 23722 | Objectivity is not disinterestedness (impossible), but the ability to switch perspectives [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: 'Objectivity' should be understood not as 'contemplation without interest' (a non-concept and an absurdity), but as having in our power the ability to engage and disengage our 'pros' and 'cons'; we can use the difference in perspectives for knowledge. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], III.§12) | |
| A reaction: Note that he will use perspectives to achieve knowledge. The idea that Perspectivalism is mere relativism is labelled as 'extreme' in Idea 4486. He is right that objectivity is a mental capacity and achievement of individuals. |
| 4417 | Only that which has no history is definable [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Only that which has no history is definable. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], II.§13) | |
| A reaction: Too subtle to evaluate! It sounds as if it could be right, that some things are definable, but when the accretions of human history are interwoven into an identity, we can forget it. |
| 23715 | Psychologists should be brave and proud, and prefer truth to desires, even when it is ugly [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I hope [psychologists] are actually brave, generous, proud animals, who know how to control their own pleasure and pain and are taught to sacrifice desirability to truth, even a bitter, ugly, unchristian, immoral truth - Because there are such truths. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], I.§01) | |
| A reaction: A nice expression of Nietzsche's values, which makes truth central, contrary to the widespread modern view that he was the high priest of relativism. If you think that, read him more carefully. |
| 12184 | Logical necessity overrules all other necessities [McFetridge] |
| Full Idea: If it is logically necessary that if p then q, then there is no other sense of 'necessary' in which it is not necessary that if p then q. | |
| From: Ian McFetridge (Logical Necessity: Some Issues [1986], §1) | |
| A reaction: The thesis which McFetridge proposes to defend. The obvious rival would be metaphysical necessity, and the rival claim would presumably be that things are only logically necessary if that is entailed by a metaphysical necessity. Metaphysics drives logic. |
| 15083 | The fundamental case of logical necessity is the valid conclusion of an inference [McFetridge, by Hale] |
| Full Idea: McFetridge's conception of logical necessity is one which sees the concept as receiving its fundamental exemplification in the connection between the premiss and conclusion of a deductively valid inference. | |
| From: report of Ian McFetridge (Logical Necessity: Some Issues [1986]) by Bob Hale - Absolute Necessities 2 | |
| A reaction: This would mean that p could be logically necessary but false (if it was a valid argument from false premisses). What if it was a valid inference in a dodgy logical system (including 'tonk', for example)? |
| 15084 | In the McFetridge view, logical necessity means a consequent must be true if the antecedent is [McFetridge, by Hale] |
| Full Idea: McFetridge's view proves that if the conditional corresponding to a valid inference is logically necessary, then there is no sense in which it is possible that its antecedent be true but its consequent false. ..This result generalises to any statement. | |
| From: report of Ian McFetridge (Logical Necessity: Some Issues [1986]) by Bob Hale - Absolute Necessities 2 | |
| A reaction: I am becoming puzzled by Hale's assertion that logical necessity is 'absolute', while resting his case on a conditional. Are we interested in the necessity of the inference, or the necessity of the consequent? |
| 12180 | Logical necessity requires that a valid argument be necessary [McFetridge] |
| Full Idea: There will be a legitimate notion of 'logical' necessity only if there is a notion of necessity which attaches to the claim, concerning a deductively valid argument, that if the premisses are true then so is the conclusion. | |
| From: Ian McFetridge (Logical Necessity: Some Issues [1986], §1) | |
| A reaction: He quotes Aristotle's Idea 11148 in support. Is this resting a stronger idea on a weaker one? Or is it the wrong way round? We endorse validity because we see the necessity; we don't endorse necessity because we see 'validity'. |
| 12181 | Traditionally, logical necessity is the strongest, and entails any other necessities [McFetridge] |
| Full Idea: The traditional crucial assumption is that logical necessity is the strongest notion of necessity. If it is logically necessary that p, then it is necessary that p in any other use of the notion of necessity there may be (physically, practically etc.). | |
| From: Ian McFetridge (Logical Necessity: Some Issues [1986], §1) | |
| A reaction: Sounds right. We might say it is physically necessary simply because it is logically necessary, and even that it is metaphysically necessary because it is logically necessary (required by logic). Logical possibility is hence the weakest kind? |
| 12183 | It is only logical necessity if there is absolutely no sense in which it could be false [McFetridge] |
| Full Idea: Is there any sense in which, despite an ascription of necessity to p, it is held that not-p is possible? If there is, then the original claim then it was necessary is not a claim of 'logical' necessity (which is the strongest necessity). | |
| From: Ian McFetridge (Logical Necessity: Some Issues [1986], §1) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 12181, which leads up to this proposed "test" for logical necessity. McFetridge has already put epistemic ('for all I know') possibility to one side. □p→¬◊¬p is the standard reading of necessity. His word 'sense' bears the burden. |
| 12192 | The mark of logical necessity is deduction from any suppositions whatever [McFetridge] |
| Full Idea: The manifestation of the belief that a mode of inference is logically necessarily truth-preserving is the preparedness to employ that mode of inference in reasoning from any set of suppositions whatsoever. | |
| From: Ian McFetridge (Logical Necessity: Some Issues [1986], §4) | |
| A reaction: He rests this on the idea of 'cotenability' of the two sides of a counterfactual (in Mill, Goodman and Lewis). There seems, at first blush, to be a problem of the relevance of the presuppositions. |
| 12182 | We assert epistemic possibility without commitment to logical possibility [McFetridge] |
| Full Idea: Time- and person-relative epistemic possibility can be asserted even when logical possibility cannot, such as undecided mathematical propositions. 'It may be that p' just comes to 'For all I know, not-p'. | |
| From: Ian McFetridge (Logical Necessity: Some Issues [1986], §1) | |
| A reaction: If it is possible 'for all I know', then it could be actual for all I know, and if we accept that it might be actual, we could hardly deny that it is logically possible. Logical and epistemic possibilities of mathematical p stand or fall together. |
| 12187 | Objectual modal realists believe in possible worlds; non-objectual ones rest it on the actual world [McFetridge] |
| Full Idea: The 'objectual modal realist' holds that what makes modal beliefs true are certain modal objects, typically 'possible worlds'. ..The 'non-objectual modal realist' says modal judgements are made true by how things stand with respect to this world. | |
| From: Ian McFetridge (Logical Necessity: Some Issues [1986], §2) | |
| A reaction: I am an enthusiastic 'non-objectual modal realist'. I accept the argument that real possible worlds have no relevance to the actual world, and explain nothing (see Jubien). The possibilities reside in the 'powers' of this world. See Molnar on powers. |
| 12186 | Modal realists hold that necessities and possibilities are part of the totality of facts [McFetridge] |
| Full Idea: The 'modal realist' holds that part of the totality of what is the case, the totality of facts, are such things as that certain events could have happened, certain propositions are necessarily true, if this happened then that would have been the case. | |
| From: Ian McFetridge (Logical Necessity: Some Issues [1986], §2) | |
| A reaction: I am an enthusiastic modal realist. If the aim of philosophy is 'to understand' (and I take that to be the master idea of the subject) then no understanding is possible which excludes the possibilities and necessities in things. |
| 4421 | Philosophers have never asked why there is a will to truth in the first place [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Both the earliest and most recent philosophers are all oblivious of how much the will to truth itself first requires justification: here there is a gap in every philosophy - how did this come about? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], III.§24) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me a meta-philosophical question which will lead off into (quite interesting) cultural studies and (trite) evolutionary theory. Truth isn't a value, it is the biological function of brains. |
| 23719 | Forgetfulness is a strong positive ability, not mental laziness [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Forgetfulness is not just a vis inertiae, as superficial people believe, but is rather an active ability to suppress, positive in the strongest sense of the word. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], II.§01) | |
| A reaction: It is unimpressive when people remember small slights and grievances for a long time - and even being owed small sums - so the ability to forget such things is admirable. But wilfully forgetting some things is obviously shameful. |
| 4420 | There is only 'perspective' seeing and knowing, and so the best objectivity is multiple points of view [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective "knowing", and the more different eyes we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our "concept" of this thing, our "objectivity", be. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], III.§12) | |
| A reaction: A very perceptive statement of the most plausible and sophisticated version of relativism. It is hard to see how we could distinguish multiple viewpoints from pure objectivity. |
| 4414 | Philosophers invented "free will" so that our virtues would be permanently interesting to the gods [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The philosophers invented "free will" - absolute human spontaneity in good and evil - to furnish a right to the idea that the interest of the gods in man, in human virtue, could never be exhausted. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], II.§07) | |
| A reaction: Wonderfully outrageous suggestion! If we had true metaphysical 'absolute' free will, we would be much more interesting, and have a much higher status in the cosmos. Nietzsche is probably right. |
| 4419 | People who think in words are orators rather than thinkers, and think about facts instead of thinking facts [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Whoever thinks in words thinks as an orator and not as a thinker (it shows that he does not think facts, but only in relation to facts). | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], III.§08) | |
| A reaction: Good. It is certainly not true that we have to think in words, or else animals wouldn't think. Good thinking should focus on reality, and be too fast for words to keep up. |
| 4411 | It is a delusion to separate the man from the deed, like the flash from the lightning [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Just as the popular mind separates the lightning from its flash and takes the latter for a 'action', so they separate strength from expressions of strength, but there is no such substratum; the deed is everything. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], I.§13) | |
| A reaction: Of course, there is no reason why an analysis should not separate the doer and the deed (to explain, for example, a well-meaning fool), but it is a blunder to think of a human action as a merely physical event. |
| 3793 | We must question the very value of moral values [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We need a critique of moral values; the value of these values themselves must just be called in question. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], Pre f§3) | |
| A reaction: But we must start somewhere with values, to avoid an infinite regress. |
| 4408 | The concept of 'good' was created by aristocrats to describe their own actions [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The judgement 'good' did not first originate with those to whom goodness was shown! Rather it was the 'good' themselves, that is to say the noble, powerful, high-stationed and high-minded who established themselves and their action as good. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], I.§02) | |
| A reaction: This may be right, but not very profound. Virtually all concepts are created by the most educated classes. The first recipient of charity may not have had the concept, but they would have been gobsmacked by the novelty. |
| 23716 | A strong rounded person soon forgets enemies, misfortunes, and even misdeeds [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: To be unable to take his enemies, his misfortunes and even his misdeeds seriously for long - that is the sign of strong, rounded natures with a superabundance of power. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], I.§10) | |
| A reaction: An aspect of the 'higher man' that I don't recall being mentioned elsewhere. I basically approve of this, if it means not holding grudges, and living for the future rather than for the past. |
| 20129 | All animals strive for the ideal conditions to express their power, and hate any hindrances [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Every animal instinctively strives for an optimum of favourable conditions under which it can expend all its strength and achieve its maximal feeling of power; every animal abhors ...every hindrance that obstructs this path to the optimum. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], III.§07) | |
| A reaction: This became the lynchpin of Nietzsche's account of the source of values. It is a highly naturalistic view, fitting it into evolutionary theory (thought running deeper than that), so I have a lot of sympathy with the view. |
| 4409 | Only the decline of aristocratic morality led to concerns about "egoism" [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It was only when aristocratic value judgements declined that the whole antithesis of "egoistic" and "unegoistic" obtruded itself more and more on the human conscience. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], I.§02) | |
| A reaction: But Aristotle, who is no aristocrat, has a balanced and sensible view of 'egoism', where it isn't the patronising arrogance that Nietzsche seems to like, but a proper concern with one's own character. |
| 3259 | Nietzsche rejects impersonal morality, and asserts the idea of living well [Nietzsche, by Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche's rejection of impersonal morality is an assertion of the dominance of the ideal of living well. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], I) by Thomas Nagel - The View from Nowhere X.2 |
| 4416 | Basic justice is the negotiation of agreement among equals, and the imposition of agreement [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Justice on the elementary level is good will among parties of approximately equal power to come to terms with one another, and to compel parties of lesser power to reach a settlement among themselves. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], II.§08) | |
| A reaction: This pinpoints a key problem with the social contract as a moral theory - that it requires equals, and recognises only terror of superiors, and indifference to useless inferiors who have nothing to offer (paraplegics and animals). |
| 4418 | A masterful and violent person need have nothing to do with contracts [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: He who can command, he who is "master", he who is violent in act and bearing - what has he to do with contracts! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], II.§17) | |
| A reaction: The persistent problem with social contract theory is that those much stronger or much weaker seem to have no interest in morality at all, and yet they can all have standards of behaviour. |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
| 4407 | Plato, Spinoza and Kant are very different, but united in their low estimation of pity [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Plato, Spinoza, La Rochefoucauld, and Kant are four spirits very different from one another, but united in one thing: their low estimation of pity. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], Pref §5) | |
| A reaction: Plato is no surprise, as virtually no Greeks value pity. Spinoza and Kant are interesting. Presumably Kant's 'contractualism' places respect far above pity, and is theoretical neglect of animals would fit. Remember Nietzsche embraced a horse in Turin. |
| 4415 | Guilt and obligation originated in the relationship of buying and selling, credit and debt [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The feeling of guilt, of personal obligation, had its origin in the oldest and most primitive personal relationship, that between buyer and seller, between creditor and debtor. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], II.§08) | |
| A reaction: In other words, lofty Kantian ideals started life in the grubby world of the Hobbesian social contract, and self-seeking has been disguised by idealism. Too harsh on Kant, who explains why contracts have force, not just convenience. |
| 23718 | If we say birds of prey could become lambs, that makes them responsible for being birds of prey [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Scientists …do not defend any belief more strongly than that the strong are free to be weak, and the birds of prey are free to be lambs: - in this way, they gain the right to make the birds of prey responsible for being birds of prey. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], I.§13) | |
| A reaction: This is a flat rejection of the Sartrean idea that we can what sort of person we want to be. He cares about birds of prey, but also lambs can't become eagles. I would say that adolescents have a reasonable degree of choice about what they will become. |
| 23717 | Modern nihilism is now feeling tired of mankind [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The sight of man now makes us tired - what is nihilism today if it is not that? …We are tired of man… | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], I.§12) | |
| A reaction: That is close to Hume's nihilist, who would destroy the world to protect his own finger from a scratch. The actor George Sanders committed suicide because he was bored. Don't ever think that Nietzsche was a nihilist, just because he mentions it a lot! |
| 23721 | Old tribes always felt an obligation to the earlier generations, and the founders [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Within the original tribal association the living generation always acknowledged a legal obligation towards the earlier generation, and in particular towards the earliest. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], II.§19) | |
| A reaction: This is still a factor in modern politics, though the people remember are either military heroes or the great figures of a particular political movement. We remember the big artists and personalities, but don't feel obligated to them. |
| 20142 | The state begins with brutal conquest of a disorganised people, not with a 'contract' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Some pack of blond beasts of prey, on a war footing, unscrupulously lays its dreadful paws on a populace which is shapeless. In this way the 'state' began on earth. I think I have dispensed with the fantasy which has it begin with a 'contract'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], II.§17) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] It is certainly likely that a tribe which got itself well organised and focused on some end would achieve total dominance over other tribes that just focus on food. |
| 23720 | Punishment makes people harder, more alienated, and hostile [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: On the whole, punishment makes men harder and colder, it concentrates, it sharpens the feeling of alienation; it strengthens the power to resist. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], II.§14) | |
| A reaction: If the school system involves routine harsh punishments, that means that the whole population ends up in that state. I would have thought that this was an obvious truth about punishment, but no one seems to want to face up to it. |
| 4410 | The truly great haters in world history have always been priests [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The truly great haters in world history have always been priests. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], I.§07) | |
| A reaction: Wicked, but it has a lot of truth. Priests have a lot to defend, and a lot of reasons for feeling threatened. |