135 ideas
| 14857 | The highest wisdom has the guise of simplicity [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Truth tends to reveal its highest wisdom in the guise of simplicity. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 609) |
| 14854 | Deep thinkers know that they are always wrong [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Whoever thinks more deeply knows that he is always wrong, whatever his acts and judgments. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 518) |
| 14833 | Comedy is a transition from fear to exuberance [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The transition from momentary fear to short-lived exuberance is called the 'comic'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 169) |
| 224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Doubtful questions should not be discussed in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to ideas conceived by the intellect. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135e) |
| 23917 | Contrary statements can both be reasonable, if they are meant in two different ways [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Contrary things can be reasonably held …because the contrary positions will stand if what is said is true in one way, but not true in another. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1235b17) | |
| A reaction: My strategy here is to clarify the unambiguous underlying propositions which are being expressed. There will then be either agreement, or flat contradiction. |
| 232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Opposites are as unlike as possible. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159a) |
| 8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Georg W.F.Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit Pref 71 | |
| A reaction: It is a long way from the analytic tradition of philosophy to be singling out a classic text for its 'artistic' achievement. Eventually we may even look back on, say, Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity' and see it in that light. |
| 14853 | Truth finds fewest champions not when it is dangerous, but when it is boring [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The champions of truth are hardest to find, not when it is dangerous to tell it, but rather when it is boring. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 506) |
| 24075 | Convictions, more than lies, are the great enemy of truth [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 483) | |
| A reaction: Love this one. Especially in western democracies in the 2020s. If we value truth, we must be fallibilists. |
| 13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
| Full Idea: Plato (in 'Parmenides') shows that the theory that 'Eide' are substances, and Kant that space and time are substances, and Bradley that relations are substances, all lead to aninomies. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Gilbert Ryle - Are there propositions? 'Objections' |
| 14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Bertrand Russell - The Principles of Mathematics §337 |
| 16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If one is, there must also necessarily be number - Necessarily - But if there is number, there would be many, and an unlimited multitude of beings. ..So if all partakes of being, each part of number would also partake of it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 144a) | |
| A reaction: This seems to commit to numbers having being, then to too many numbers, and hence to too much being - but without backing down and wondering whether numbers had being after all. Aristotle disagreed. |
| 229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 155d) |
| 21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
| A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God. |
| 221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c) |
| 227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
| Full Idea: You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 147d) |
| 223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If a person denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135c) |
| 210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Are there abstract ideas for such things as hair, mud and dirt, which are particularly vile and worthless? That would be quite absurd. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Mastership in the abstract is mastership of slavery in the abstract. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133e) |
| 211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is troubling that if admirable things have abstract ideas, then perhaps everything else must have ideas as well. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
| Full Idea: None of the absolute ideas exists in us, because then it would no longer be absolute. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133c) |
| 228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: These two ideas, greatness and smallness, exist, do they not? For if they did not exist, they could not be opposites of one another, and could not come into being in things. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 149e) |
| 16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: It seems to me that Plato in the later dialogues, beginning with the second half of 'Parmenides', wants to substitute a theory of genera and theory of principles that constitute these genera for the earlier theory of forms. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
| A reaction: My theory is that the later Plato came under the influence of the brilliant young Aristotle, and this idea is a symptom of it. The theory of 'principles' sounds like hylomorphism to me. |
| 212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole idea of each form (of beauty, justice etc) must be found in each thing which participates in it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131a) |
| 218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Participation is not by means of likeness, so we must seek some other method of participation. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Just as day is in many places at once, but not separated from itself, so each idea might be in all its participants at once. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131b) |
| 216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
| Full Idea: That by participation in which like things are made like, will be the absolute idea, will it not? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132e) |
| 215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If all things partake of ideas, must either everything be made of thoughts and everything thinks, or everything is thought, and so can't think? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132c) |
| 217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for anything to be like an absolute idea, because a third idea will appear to make them alike, and if that is like anything, it will lead to another idea, and so on. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If you regard the absolute great and the many great things in the same way, will not another appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132a) |
| 5869 | The thesis of the Form of the Good (or of anything else) is verbal and vacuous [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The thesis that there is a Form either of good or indeed of anything else is verbal and vacuous. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1217b20) | |
| A reaction: This is clear evidence for suggesting that Aristotle is a nominalist. Elsewhere his essentialism suggests otherwise, but clearly on grumpy days he thought that universals were mere verbal conventions. |
| 15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['ideas'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157d) | |
| A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism. |
| 15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: At the heart of the 'Parmenides' puzzles about composition is the thesis that composition is identity. Considered thus, a whole adds nothing to an ontology that already includes its parts | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 2.5 | |
| A reaction: There has to be more to a unified identity that mere proximity of the parts. When do parts come together, and when do they actually 'compose' something? |
| 15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: In 'Parmenides' it is argued that a part cannot be part of a many, but must be part of something one. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 3.2 | |
| A reaction: This looks like the right way to go with the term 'part'. We presuppose a unity before we even talk of its parts, so we can't get into contradictions and paradoxes about their relationships. |
| 15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole of which the parts are parts must be one thing composed of many; for each of the parts must be part, not of a many, but of a whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: This is a key move of metaphysics, and we should hang on to it. The other way madness lies. |
| 13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The One must be composed of parts, both being a whole and having parts. So on both grounds the One would thus be many and not one. But it must be not many, but one. So if the One will be one, it will neither be a whole, nor have parts. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137c09), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the starting point for Plato's metaphysical discussion of objects. It seems to begin a line of thought which is completed by Aristotle, surmising that only an essential structure can bestow identity on a bunch of parts. |
| 15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 146b) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically. |
| 22505 | The two right angles of a triangle necessitate that a quadrilateral has four [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If it is necessary that, if a triangle contains two right angles, that a quadrilateral has four, it is clear that the cause of this is that a triangle has two. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1222b31) | |
| A reaction: We would not normally use the word 'cause' for this, but 'necessitates' seems to fit, and I like the word 'determines' (because it can be both physical and abstract). An example of what I think of as an Aristotelian necessity maker. |
| 22513 | Knowing is having knowledge; understanding is using knowledge [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Knowing and understanding is of two kinds, one having and the other using knowledge. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1225b11) | |
| A reaction: This corresponds to potential and actual. We wouldn't say that understanding must be used, but we have some sort of distinction between knowledge as pure and theoretical, and understanding enabling good application. |
| 14858 | Being certain presumes that there are absolute truths, and means of arriving at them [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Conviction is the belief that in some point of knowledge one possesses absolute truth. Such a belief presumes, then, that absolute truths exists; likewise, that the perfect methods for arriving at them have been found. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 630) |
| 14830 | Intuition only recognises what is possible, not what exists or is certain [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: 'To intuit' does not mean to recognise the existence of a thing to any extent, but rather to hold it to be possible, in that one wishes or fears it. 'Intuition' takes us not one step farther into the land of certainty. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 131) | |
| A reaction: I like this remark. I am sympathetic to the view that the actual world has modal properties (in opposition to Sider, for example). To apprehend dispositions is precisely to apprehend possibilities. Intuition is a thousand interwoven inductions. |
| 23906 | Courage from spirit is natural and unconquerable, as seen in the young [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The courage of spirit is the most natural kind; for spirit is unconquerable, which is why the young are the best fighters. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1229a27) | |
| A reaction: [thumos, presumably, as in Plato] I suppose Aristotle knows better than me, but I suspect the young are just the quickest and strongest. I'd rather be led by someone with experience than by someone who is young. |
| 20204 | Whether the mind has parts is irrelevant, since it obviously has distinct capacities [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It makes no difference if the soul is divided into parts or lacks parts, as it certainly has distinct capacities. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1219b32), quoted by Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski - Virtues of the Mind II 3.1 | |
| A reaction: I take this to endorse my view that the mind-body problem is of limited interest to philosophers. The focus should be on what the mind does, not how it is constructed. But then I presume the latter issue is revealed by neuroscience. |
| 20378 | Just as skin hides the horrors of the body, vanity conceals the passions of the soul [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Just as the bones, flesh, intestines, and blood vessels are enclosed with skin, which makes the sight of a man bearable, so the stirrings and passions of the soul are covered up by vanity: it is the skin of the soul. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 082) | |
| A reaction: What a glorious analogy! None of us should underestimate our vanity. The least vain people you ever meet can reveal their vanity if you challenge them close to home. Try accusing them of vanity! Attack their essential character! (No, don't do that). |
| 22506 | A man is the cause of what is within his power, and what he causes is in his power [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: All those things that are in man's power either to do or not to do he himself is the cause of, and all those things that he is the cause of are in his own power. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1223a08) | |
| A reaction: This is the step which allows us to abandon free will, and replace it with the question of whether a person is the 'cause' of an action. Aristotle carefully delineates the criteria for when an action is within a person's power. Includes failures to act? |
| 22504 | Only a human being can be a starting point for an action [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A human being is a starting point of some actions, and he alone of animals; for of nothing else should we say that it acted. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1222b19) | |
| A reaction: It is a standard dogma that the idea of free will does not occur in Plato or Aristotle, but this looks awfully like it. I don't agree about animals. You watch them judging whether they can make a leap, and then doing it. |
| 22510 | Some emotional states are too strong for human nature [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Many classify even love as involuntary, and certain cases of anger and certain natural states as being too strong for human nature; and we regard them as being pardonable, as being of such a nature as to be constrained by nature. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1225b20) | |
| A reaction: Blind terror would presumably count as another such state. An interesting aspect of Aristotle's picture - that human nature contains ingredients that are not part of a natural harmonious whole. |
| 23913 | Nearly all the good and bad states of character are concerned with feelings [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Pretty much all of the praiseworthy or blameworthy states concerned with character are either excesses, deficiencies, or medial conditions in feelings. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1233b16) | |
| A reaction: Suggests that the ideal state of character is the result of long and careful tuning of the feelings - insofar as we can control them. Presumably we can train feelings of hatred or compassion, by appropriate exposures. These states are NOT virtues. |
| 23918 | Akrasia is the clash of two feelings - goodness and pleasure [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The discord between the good and the pleasant in one's feelings is lack of self-control. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1237a08) | |
| A reaction: A nice clear statement of his view, which opposes the view of Socrates that akrasia is a failure of reason or judgement. Goodness seems to be treated here as a feeling, which is unusual. |
| 22515 | Choice results when deliberation brings together an opinion with an inclination [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Choice is neither simply wish nor opinion, but opinion together with inclination, whenever as a result of deliberation they are brought to a conclusion. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1227a04) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the earliest appearance of the belief-plus-desire theory of action, which is often associated with Hume. A choice does not necessarily result from having the inclination and the appropriate opinion. Laziness! |
| 22508 | Unlike in inanimate things, in animate things actions have more than one starting point [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In inanimate things the starting-point is single, in animate things there is more than one; for inclination and reason are not always in harmony. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1224a24) | |
| A reaction: It is important that this seems to include non-human animals. We see animals avoid something which they desire, presumably because they detect a danger. They may be conflicting desires, but it is rational to prioritise dangers. |
| 22514 | The deliberative part of the soul discerns explanatory causes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: That part of the soul is deliberative which is capable of discerning a cause: the reason for the sake of which - which is one of the causes - 'cause' being something because-of-which. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1226b26) | |
| A reaction: I take because-of-which to be the correct explanation. Since my model of practical reasoning is partly forensic detection, this seems right. Sherlock Holmes spots causes. |
| 14820 | People always do what they think is right, according to the degree of their intellect [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Socrates and Plato are right: whatever man does, he always acts for the good; that is, in a way that seems to him good (useful) according to the degree of his intellect, the prevailing measure of his rationality. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 102) | |
| A reaction: I associate this doctrine much more with Socrates than with Plato - but Nietzsche was a great classical scholar. |
| 14856 | Our judgment seems to cause our nature, but actually judgment arises from our nature [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It seems that our thinking and judging are to be made the cause of our nature after the fact, but actually our nature causes us to think and judge one way or the other. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 608) |
| 22507 | An action is voluntary when it is accompanied by thought of some kind [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The voluntary consists in action accompanied by thought of some kind. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1224a06) | |
| A reaction: This is thought as opposed to inclination or choice. The controlled person [enkrateia] voluntarily acts against inclinations. The appropriate thought receives carefull analysis in NE 1109b30-1111b4. |
| 23319 | We are responsible if our actions reflect our motivation [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, for us to be responsible for what we do, our action has to somehow reflect our motivation. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1224a07) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 2 | |
| A reaction: This sounds like 'mens rea' in law - meaning to do the thing you did. But we can obviously be responsible for things through neglect, for example. |
| 14842 | Why are the strong tastes of other people so contagious? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Why are likes and dislikes so contagious that one can scarcely live in proximity to a person of strong sensibilities without being filled like a vessel with pros and cons? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 371) | |
| A reaction: I was on the receiving end of this when young, and I think it influenced me to propound stronger views about things than I could ever justify, since my natural disposition is to be cautious about all views. Nice question. Why? |
| 14835 | Artists are not especially passionate, but they pretend to be [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Artists are by no means people of great passion, but they often pretend to be. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 211) | |
| A reaction: Presumably people can gradually become what they consistently pretend to be. |
| 22473 | Nietzsche said the will doesn't exist, so it can't ground moral responsibility [Nietzsche, by Foot] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche challenged belief in free will, on the ground that will itself …is non-existent. The will is in truth nothing but a complex of sensations, as of power and resistance, and it is illusion to think of it as a basis for 'moral responsibility'. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 107) by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche's Immoralism p.153 | |
| A reaction: Modern neuroscience seems to support Nietzsche on this, though I will continue to use the concept of 'will' in philosophy, to mean the main brain events which normally combine in decision-making. That makes the will a process, not a entity. |
| 22512 | Acts are voluntary if done knowingly, by the agent, and in his power to avoid it [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Whatever a man does - not in ignorance, and through his own agency - when it is in his power not to do it, must be voluntary, and that is what voluntary is. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1225b08) | |
| A reaction: This is the conclusion of the Eudemian discussion of responsibility. This is a definition by necessary and sufficient conditions. How can you be sure that something is in your power not to do? |
| 14807 | The history of morality rests on an error called 'responsibility', which rests on an error called 'free will' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The history of moral feelings is the history of an error, an error called 'responsibility', which in turn rests on an error called 'freedom of the will'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 039) | |
| A reaction: I totally agree with this, though I think the term 'responsible' is useful in ethics, though only in the sense that the lightning was responsible for the thunder. Nietzsche appears to have anticipated Mackie's error theory about morality. |
| 14823 | Ceasing to believe in human responsibility is bitter, if you had based the nobility of humanity on it [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Man's complete lack of responsibility, for his behaviour and for his nature, is the bitterest drop which the man of knowledge must swallow, if he had been in the habit of seeing responsibility and duty as humanity's claim to nobility. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 107) | |
| A reaction: If you were seeing humanity as little transient angels, living a moral life that was an echo of God's, then you needed cutting down to size. But if you ask if there is anything 'noble' in the universe, it will still be the fine deeds of humanity. |
| 14824 | It is absurd to blame nature and necessity; we should no more praise actions than we praise plants or artworks [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Man may no longer praise, no longer blame, for it is nonsensical to praise and blame nature and necessity. Just as he loves a work of art (or a plant) but does not praise it, because it can do nothing about itself, so he must regard human actions. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 107) | |
| A reaction: But humans can 'do something about themselves'. They can read the works of Nietzsche. He overestimates the importance of the loss of free will, when we grasp that there is no such thing. |
| 14812 | Intellect is tied to morality, because it requires good memory and powerful imagination [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one has given. One must have strong powers of imagination to be able to have pity. So closely is morality bound to the quality of the intellect. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 059) | |
| A reaction: Nice to see him say that strong powers of imagination are an 'intellectual' quality, which I think is not properly understood by the more geeky sort of intellectual. |
| 22509 | What is natural for us is either there at birth, or appears by normal processes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: By these marks we distinguish what comes naturally: everything that is there straightaway as soon as something comes to be, and all that occurs to us if growth is allowed to proceed normally - such as greying hair, ageing, and the like. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1224b32) | |
| A reaction: The word 'normal' has to do a lot of work here. Presumably jaundice in a neonate is not included. Or later hereditary diseases. |
| 14810 | Originally it was the rulers who requited good for good and evil for evil who were called 'good' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In the soul of the original ruling clans and castes, the man who has the power to requite goodness with goodness, evil with evil, and really does practice requital by being grateful and vengeful, is called 'good'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 045) | |
| A reaction: The idea that evil should indeed repay evil was very much a feature of goodness until the philosophers came in on the act. In those days no one else had any power, so they had no scope for goodness. |
| 18230 | No one would choose life just for activities not done for their own sake [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If we put together all the things that are ....not done or undergone for their own sake ...no one would choose, in order to have them, to be alive rather than not. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1215), quoted by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Finality' | |
| A reaction: Debatable. Roughly his question is whether you would rather be dead than be a slave, since slaves work for means, but have no ends. Aristotle would rather die, but those who surrendered in ancient battles preferred slavery. |
| 23909 | Wearing a shoe is its intrinsic use, and selling it (as a shoe) is its coincidental use [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There is intrinsic use of a possession, such as of a shoe or a cloak, and its coincidental use - not of course when using a shoe as a weight, but as, for example, selling it or hiring it out (for then a shoe is used as a shoe). | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1231b37) | |
| A reaction: This seems to need a third label, for using the shoe as a weight. 'Inessential use' perhaps, since the intrinsic use points towards the essential nature or function of the shoe. |
| 5870 | Everything seeks, not a single good, but its own separate good [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not true that everything that there is seeks some single good: each thing has an inclination for its own good, the eye for sight, the body for health, and so on. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1218a30) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle's pluralism. Elsewhere this pluralism arises from his function argument - that the good of each thing is the successful fulfilment of its function, which is different for each thing. This is basic to virtue theory, and has my approval. |
| 14831 | No one has ever done anything that was entirely for other people [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Never has a man done anything that was only for others and without any personal motivation. …How could the ego act without ego? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 133) | |
| A reaction: This is only a denial of the purest of 'pure' altruism. It is hard to imagine anyone performing an altruistic action which permanently shamed the reputationof its performer - though it might be possible in a nicely contrived fiction. |
| 14855 | Simultaneous love and respect are impossible; love has no separation or rank, but respect admits power [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to be loved and respected by the same person. For the man who respects another acknowledges his power; his condition is one of awe. But love acknowledges no power, nothing that separates, differentiates, ranks higher or subordinates. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 603) | |
| A reaction: Depends what you mean by 'respect', but this looks like nonsense. Do we 'respect' someone because they point a gun at us? I would say love and respect are inseparable. |
| 14815 | We get enormous pleasure from tales of noble actions [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: How much pleasure we get from morality! Just think what a river of agreeable tears has flowed at tales of noble, generous actions. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 091) | |
| A reaction: How can anyone not adore Nietzsche? The pleasure of a noble deed is the most piercing and the deepest pleasure known to us. It isn't 'just' a pleasure. |
| 5877 | We judge people from their deeds because we cannot see their choices (which matter more) [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is because it is not easy to discern what sort of choice it is that we are forced to judge from the deeds what sort of person someone is; the activity is more worth having, but the choice is commended more. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1228a15) | |
| A reaction: This shows why Aristotle is the most important opponent of consequentialism. It is hard to see how one could praise a self-interested deed simply because it benefited others. Greed is never good. |
| 5868 | Horses, birds and fish are not happy, lacking a divine aspect to their natures [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: No horse or bird or fish is happy, nor any other thing that there is which does not have a share by its nature in the divine. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1217a26) | |
| A reaction: Pet owners will all feel their beloved companions have been insulted, but I agree with this. 'Happy' does not here mean 'in a state of pleasure'. A fully successful bird does little more than the four f's (feed, fornicate, flee, fight). |
| 14849 | We can only achieve happy moments, not happy eras [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The destiny of men is designed for happy moments (every life has those), but not for happy eras. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 471) | |
| A reaction: The vicissitudes of life (my favourite word!) are such that even the most serene and well-adjusted person is going to be perturbed on several days of the week, even if only by the unhappiness of the people around them. |
| 5865 | Happiness involves three things, of which the greatest is either wisdom, virtue, or pleasure [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: To be happy, and to live the fine and divinely-happy life, would seem to reside in three things above all, ..for some say that wisdom is the greatest good, others virtue, others pleasure. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1214a30) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle is well-known for his pluralist answer to this question: virtue is crucial, wisdom is perhaps the greatest of the virtues, and pleasure improves everything in life. |
| 5876 | Virtue is different from continence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Virtue is different from continence. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1227b17) | |
| A reaction: Basic to Aristotle - in that continence leads to right action, but that is not enough for virtue, which requires inner harmony, reason, and pleasure in doing what is right. Hence Aristotle is quite distinct from deontological or consequentialist views. |
| 5872 | Excellence is the best state of anything (like a cloak) which has an employment or function [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Excellence is the best disposition, state or capacity of anything that has some employment or function; this is evident from induction. For example, a cloak has an excellence - and a certain function and employment also; its best state is its excellence. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1219a02) | |
| A reaction: 'Employment' will be an assigned function, and 'function' will be a natural or intrinsic function, I presume. This is a nice clear illustration of the fact that for Aristotle virtue runs continuously from people to cloaks. See Idea 1663, though. |
| 14818 | First morality is force, then custom, then acceptance, then instinct, then a pleasure - and finally 'virtue' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Force precedes morality; for a time morality itself is force, to which others acquiesce. Later it becomes custom, and then free obedience, and finally almost instinct; then it is coupled to pleasure, like all habitual things, and is now called 'virtue'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 099) | |
| A reaction: How few philosophers delve into the history of the concepts they work with, and yet how revealing it can be. Richard Taylor was wonderful on 'duty'. You will never grasp the 'problem of free will' if you don't examine its history. |
| 20103 | You are mastered by your own virtues, but you must master them, and turn them into tools [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: You had to become your own master, and also the master of your own virtues. Previously, your virtues were your master; but they must be nothing more than your tools. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 006) | |
| A reaction: What on earth would Aristotle make of that? Nietzsche offers a sort of metatheory for virtues. I take this to be a form of particularism - that you live by your virtues, but occasionally you can discard a virtue if it seems right. Lie, steal... |
| 14817 | The 'good' man does the moral thing as if by nature, easily and gladly, after a long inheritance [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We call 'good' the man who does the moral thing as if by nature, after a long history of inheritance - that is, easily, and gladly, whatever it is. …He is called 'good' because he is good 'for' something. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 096) | |
| A reaction: I am amazed at the brief and rather disrespectful remarks that Nietzsche makes about Aristotle's ethics, given how close this idea is to the ideal of Aristotle (though the latter who not emphasise 'inheritance'!). |
| 5874 | Character virtues (such as courage) are of the non-rational part, which follows the rational part [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The virtues of character belong to the part that is non-rational, but whose nature is to follow the rational part; we do not say what a man's character is like when we say that he is wise or clever, but when we say that he is gentle or daring. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1220a11) | |
| A reaction: In the Nichomachean Ethics it appears that good character is the 'harmony' between the two parts; here it sounds more like obedience. It seems to me that our rational part is a failure if it is not sensitive to the needs of the irrational part. |
| 22516 | Character is shown by what is or is not enjoyed, and virtue chooses the mean among them [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Virtue is that state of character which chooses the mean, relative to us, in things pleasant and unpleasant, all those in respect of which a man is said to have a certain sort of character according as he enjoys or suffers pain from them. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1227b08) | |
| A reaction: The 'mean' should be understood as what is appropriate, rather than the mere average. Strong anger, for example, is sometimes appropriate. Does Aristotle rule out wild laughter, or frenetic dancing? Is a state of ecstasy wicked? |
| 22517 | We judge character not by their actions, but by their reasons for actions [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is from his choosing that we judge what sort of person someone is; that is, what that for whose sake he does something is, not what he does. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1228a03) | |
| A reaction: Not entirely true. It can be sufficient to reveal their character that a person does some particular thing, as novelists know. When Hud parks his car in her flowerbed, we don't need to enquire about his reason. But see 1228a16! |
| 5875 | Character (éthos) is developed from habit (ethos) [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Character (éthos), as the word itself indicates, is developed from habit (ethos). | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1220a36) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle goes in for dubious etymologies, but this one sounds quite significant, and supports his view that habit is central to virtue. We would lose nothing in English if we said 'what are her habits?' instead of 'what is her character?'. |
| 23914 | People sometimes exhibit both extremes together, but the mean is contrary to both of them [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The mean is more contrary to the extremes than the extremes are to each other, because it does not occur with either of them, whereas the extremes often occur with each other. People can be rash cowards, or wasteful in some things and generous in others. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1234a33) | |
| A reaction: This rather undermines the neat visual metaphor of a sliding scale, but gives a more accurate account of the mean. The diagram needs three dimensions, instead of two. |
| 23911 | Possessors of a virtue tend to despise what reason shows to be its opposite [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Each virtue makes its possessor tend to despise great things that are contrary to reason - for example, courage does this of dangers, …a temperate person of many pleasures, and a generous one of many sorts of wealth. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1232a37) | |
| A reaction: I like the observation that the generous tend to despise wealth, implying that those who love wealth tend to lack generosity. Christianity has encouraged us to reject the idea of despising anything - but that seems to iron out common sense values. |
| 23910 | Greatness of soul produces all the virtues - and vice versa [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: All the virtues will follow along with greatness of soul, or it will follow along with all of them | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1232a36) | |
| A reaction: This is obviously similar in some respects to Nietzsche's 'higher' man, though that suggests greater independence, rather than being an ideal citizen. |
| 14809 | All societies of good men give a priority to gratitude [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Every society of good men (that is, originally, of powerful men) places gratitude among its first duties. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 044) | |
| A reaction: His reason here is that gratitude is a way of displaying the power of the powerful! |
| 23908 | If someone just looks at or listens to beautiful things, they would not be thought intemperate [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If someone looks at a beautiful statue, or horse, or human being, or listens to someone singing …just to look at or listen to beautiful things, he would not be thought to be intemperate, any more than those beguiled by the Sirens would. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1230b31) | |
| A reaction: He says that intemperance mainly concerns taste and touch, rather than mere looking or listening. I think obsessive collectors of beautiful objects might drift into intemperance. |
| 14816 | Justice (fairness) originates among roughly equal powers (as the Melian dialogues show) [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Justice (fairness) originates among approximately equal powers, as Thucydides (in the horrifying conversation between the Athenian and Melian envoys) rightly understood. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 092) | |
| A reaction: The moral position of the powerless is a notorious problem for social contract theories of morality. They have nothing to offer in a mere contract. |
| 23905 | Courage follows reason, which tells us to choose what is noble [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Courage is a following of reason, and reason orders us to choose what is noble. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1229a01) | |
| A reaction: This sounds right to me. Courage, in all sorts of contexts, seems to arise in people who sustain their focus on what is the right thing to do. |
| 23912 | Honour depends on what it is for, and whether it is bestowed by worthy people [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It makes a difference whether the honour comes from many random people or from those worthy of note, and again so does by whom and for what the honor is conferred. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1232b18) | |
| A reaction: He tends to play down honour because of its relativism, but this quotation implies that if an honour was bestowed by the worthy, for something of agreed high value, then it would be at quite a different level from mere popular esteem. Celebrity v peerage? |
| 20112 | Pity consoles those who suffer, because they see that they still have the power to hurt [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The pity that the spectators express consoles the weak and suffering, inasmuch as they see that , despite all their weakness, they still have at least one power: the power to hurt. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 050) | |
| A reaction: This pinpoints how the will to power led to the inversion of values. |
| 14821 | Apart from philosophers, most people rightly have a low estimate of pity [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Aside from a few philosophers, men have always placed pity rather low in the hierarchy of moral feelings - and rightly so. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 103) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this includes Jesus among the 'philosophers'. |
| 5871 | Goods in the soul are more worthy than those outside it, as everybody wants them [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: All goods are either in the soul or outside it, and it is those in the soul that are more worthy of choice; for wisdom, virtue and pleasure are in the soul, and some or all of these seem to be an end for everyone. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1218b34) | |
| A reaction: An interesting reason for this assertion - that it is true because everybody agrees on it. See Idea 95. I would think that he might claim that our soul is our essence, whereas external goods pander to the non-essential in us. |
| 23920 | Decent people can be friends with base people [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is possible for a decent person to be friends with a base one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1238b01) | |
| A reaction: This is on the basis of being useful, or of having something in common. Presumably friendship can come in degrees, as well as being of different kinds. Even the finest people can differ a lot, and only have a limited friendship. |
| 23919 | Friendship cannot be immediate; it takes time, and needs testing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Just as if people wish to be healthy they do not become healthy, so if they wish to be friends they are not immediately in fact friends. …[1237b40] For a friend is not to be had without a test or in a single day, but needs time. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1237b21) | |
| A reaction: The voice of experience, I think. Obviously trust is basic, and it would be unwise to trust a possible friend on the first day. Since politics aims at friendship, I presume the support of the rule of law helps to achieve trust. |
| 14841 | Many people are better at having good friends than being a good friend [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In many people the gift of having good friends is much greater than the gift of being a good friend. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 368) |
| 14843 | Women can be friends with men, but only some physical antipathy will maintain it [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Women can very well enter into a friendship with a man, but to maintain it - a little physical antipathy must help out. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 390) |
| 14811 | In Homer it is the contemptible person, not the harmful person, who is bad [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In Homer, both the Trojan and the Greek are good. Not the man who inflicts harm on us, but the man who is contemptible, is bad. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 045) |
| 20111 | We could live more naturally, relishing the spectacle, and not thinking we are special [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I can imagine a life much more simple...than the present one. ...One would live among men and with oneself as in nature, without praise, reproach, overzealousness, delighting in things as in a spectacle. One would no longer feel one was more than nature. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 034) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Safranski says this passage is a big turning point for Nietzsche, replacing his earlier idea that art could be salvation. Eternal Recurrence puts a seal on this new view. Nietzsche adds that this life needs to be 'cheerful'. |
| 14844 | People do not experience boredom if they have never learned to work properly [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Many people, especially women, do not experience boredom, because they have never learned to work properly. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 391) | |
| A reaction: It certainly seems right that boredom is a response to expectations and past habits. Life in a medieval village looks like boredom verging on torture for your busy modern urban sophisticate, but I daresay it was quite absorbing. |
| 14808 | Over huge periods of time human character would change endlessly [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If a man eighty thousand years old were conceivable, his character would in fact be absolutely variable. …The brevity of human life misleads us… | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 041) | |
| A reaction: This would be one of my many exhibits for claiming Nietzsche as an existentialist. I think he is largely right, and we do detect slow shifts in our characters over long periods of time. They may be as much a response to culture as a personal matter. |
| 14822 | If self-defence is moral, then so are most expressions of 'immoral' egoism [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If we accept self-defense as moral, then we must also accept nearly all expressions of so-called immoral egoism. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 104) | |
| A reaction: I find this idea rather disconcerting, because I have always thought that the clearest possible 'natural right' was that of self-defence - but this implication (if it be so) had never struck me. Hm. |
| 23915 | The main function of politics is to produce friendship [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It seems to be most of all the function of politics to produce friendship. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1245b22) | |
| A reaction: Lovely! Most people would probably cite wealth and security as the main aims. This function seems to require quite a high degree of equality, though Aristotle doesn't think it essential. |
| 14838 | The state aims to protect individuals from one another [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The state is a clever institution for protecting individuals from one another. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 235) | |
| A reaction: This is Nietzsche allying with Hobbes, and presumably aiming this remark at Hegel. |
| 14852 | Culture cannot do without passions and vices [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Culture absolutely cannot do without passions, vices and acts of malice. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 477) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure how you test the truth of that aphorism, given that humanity is perpetually doomed to live with such things. If those qualities disappeared, I suppose we would drift apart. We are 'dependent' beings, as MacIntyre says. |
| 14846 | If we want the good life for the greatest number, we must let them decide on the good life [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If the business of politics is to make life tolerable for the greatest number, this greatest number may also determine what they understand by a tolerable life. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 438) |
| 14819 | Slavery cannot be judged by our standards, because the sense of justice was then less developed [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The injustice of slavery, the cruelty in subjugating persons and peoples, cannot be measured by our standards. For the instinct for justice was not so widely developed then. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 101) | |
| A reaction: Why do we value the instinct for justic which we have subsequently developed? Why do we think it is important, and battle to preserve it? This is the sort of creepy relativism that Nietzsche drifted into, and for the worse. |
| 23916 | The best cure for mutual injustice is friendship [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If one wishes to make it so that people do not commit injustices to each other, it is enough to make them friends; for true friends do not commit injustice. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1245b28) | |
| A reaction: This, along with Idea 23915, offers a beautiful vision of what a society should try to achieve. There can be duplicitous apparent friends, but on the whole the best way to cure unjust relations is friendship. Imagine Jews and Arabs being friends (2023). |
| 14847 | Laws that are well thought out, or laws that are easy to understand? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Lawyers argue whether that law which is most thoroughly thought out, or that which is easiest to understand, should prevail in a people. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 459) | |
| A reaction: Our system of speed limits is radically simplified, to save money on road signs, and facilitate enforcement. But then its inflexibility brings it into disrepute. |
| 14814 | Execution is worse than murder, because we are using the victim, and really we are the guilty [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Why does execution offend us more than murder? It is the coldness of the judges, the painful preparation, the use of a man to deter others. For guilt is not being punished, which lies in the educators, parents, environment, in us, not in the murderer. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 070) | |
| A reaction: Someone was stabbed to death in Oxford Street yesterday (26 Dec 11), and we all feel horribly that London is responsible for producing this event, even if we try and load all the blame onto one youth with a knife. Oscar Wilde endorsed this idea. |
| 14836 | People will enthusiastically pursue an unwanted war, once sacrifices have been made [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: All things for which we have made sacrifices are in the right. This explains why, just as soon as sacrifices are made, people continue with enthusiasm a war that was begun against their wishes. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 229) |
| 14845 | Don't crush girls with dull Gymnasium education, the way we have crushed boys! [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: For heaven's sake, do not pass our Gymnasium education on to girls too! For it often turns witty, inquisitive, fiery youths - into copies of their teachers! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 409) |
| 14839 | Interest in education gains strength when we lose interest in God [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Interest in education will gain great strength only at the moment when belief in a God and his loving care is given up. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 242) | |
| A reaction: This remark may well sum up the motivation of my entire life. What effect would it have had if I had read it when I was twenty? |
| 14848 | Education in large states is mediocre, like cooking in large kitchens [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The educational system in large states will always be mediocre at best, for the same reason that the cooking in large kitchens is at best mediocre. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 467) | |
| A reaction: I wish he had said what that 'same reason' is. Something to do with too many cooks, I suppose. Nothing seems harder than reaching a wide concensus on how the young should be educated. Like interior design by a committee. |
| 14834 | Teachers only gather knowledge for their pupils, and can't be serious about themselves [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A teacher is incapable of doing anything of his own for his own good. He always thinks of the good of his pupils, and all new knowledge gladdens him only to the extent that he can teach it. He is a thoroughfare for learning, and has lost seriousness. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 200) | |
| A reaction: Oh dear. I look in the mirror. Do I only delight in finding all these quotations so that I can stick them in the database and pass them on to someone else? Are they actually impingeing on my life? Could I meet an idea that made me abandon this project? |
| 222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, and an even more wonderful man can teach this. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135a) |
| 5866 | It is folly not to order one's life around some end [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Not to have ordered one's life in relation to some end is a mark of extreme folly. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1214b10) | |
| A reaction: A most interesting claim, not found in the Nichomachean Ethics. There the teleology is descriptive, but here it is prescriptive. It is tempting to rebel against Aristotle's injuncture. He was a driven workaholic. Why not float through life like gossamer? |
| 5878 | Eyes could be used for a natural purpose, or for unnatural seeing, or for a non-seeing activity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: One might wonder if it is possible to use each thing both for its natural purpose and otherwise - and that as itself or incidentally. E.g. twisting an eye so that one thing appears two, but also using an eye as something to sell or eat. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1246a26) | |
| A reaction: The important idea here is the core notion that there is a 'natural' purpose. Sceptics might say that all purposes derive from how a mind wishes to use something; otherwise there would be processes, but no 'functions' or 'purposes'. |
| 5873 | Each thing's function is its end [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Each thing's function is its end. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1219a08) | |
| A reaction: Function and end are not the same, but this confirms how closely related they are for Aristotle. Can an inanimate object have an end, without having any apparent function? Could I construct a set of cogwheels which each had a function, but no end? |
| 225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137e) |
| 233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159d) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 231 |
| 2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 138b) |
| 231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 233. |
| 14825 | In religious thought nature is a complex of arbitrary acts by conscious beings [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In the mind of religious men, all nature is the sum of actions of conscious and intentioned beings, an enormous complex of arbitrary acts. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 111) | |
| A reaction: This is the beginning of the process, I think, which then sees the gods as dictating through laws, and then the laws themselves doing the dictating, then seeing the laws as inhering in nature - and finally realising there aren't any laws! |
| 14826 | Modern man wants laws of nature in order to submit to them [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In present times, man wishes to understand the lawfulness of nature in order to submit to it. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 111) | |
| A reaction: They don't make philosophers like Nietzsche any more (or at least, in the analytic tradition I am following!). No one who is trying to give an analysis of the laws of nature has any interest in why we are so keen to find them. Stoics 'live by nature'. |
| 234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There must be knowledge of the one, or else not even the meaning of the words 'if the one does not exist' would be known. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 160d) |
| 14827 | The Greeks saw the gods not as their masters, but as idealised versions of themselves [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The Greeks did not see the Homeric gods above them as masters and themselves below them as servants, as did the Jews. They saw, as it were, only the reflection of the most successful specimens of their own caste - an ideal, not a contrast. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 114) |
| 14813 | Science rejecting the teaching of Christianity in favour of Epicurus shows the superiority of the latter [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We can determine whether Christianity or Greek philosophy has the greater truth by noting that the awakening sciences have carried on point for point with the philosophy of Epicurus, but have rejected Christianity point for point. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 068) |
| 14832 | The Sermon on the Mount is vanity - praying to one part of oneself, and demonising the rest [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: This shattering of oneself, this scorn of one's own nature, is actually a high degree of vanity. The whole morality of the Sermon on the Mount belongs here; in ascetic morality man prays to one part of himself as a god, and has to diabolify the rest. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 137) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the core of Nietzsche's objection to Christian teaching - that it doesn't provide a direction of life for the whole human being. The modern rejection of religions agrees with Nietzsche, especially in disputes over the place of sex. |
| 14850 | Christ was the noblest human being [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Christ was the noblest human being. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 475) | |
| A reaction: That one will come as a surprise to those who only know of Nietzsche's religion that 'God is dead'! |
| 14837 | Christ seems warm hearted, and suppressed intellect in favour of the intellectually weak [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Christ, whom we like to imagine as having the warmest of hearts, furthered men's stupidity, took the side of the intellectually weak, and kept the greatest intellect from being produced: and this was consistent. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 235) | |
| A reaction: Thomas Aquinas was a stupendous intellect. The surest way to be swept forward on a wave of popularity is to find some reason why the uneducated are superior to the educated. |
| 14828 | Religion is tempting if your life is boring, but you can't therefore impose it on the busy people [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: People who think their daily lives too empty and monotonous easily become religious: this is understandable and forgivable; however, they have no right to demand religiosity from those whose daily life does not pass in emptiness and monotony. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 115) | |
| A reaction: Well wicked, that Nietzsche. Richard Dawkins and the hated new atheists are a right bunch of wimps in comparison. |