37 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. |
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. |
7621 | Special relativity, unlike general relativity, was operationalist in spirit [Putnam on Einstein] |
Full Idea: Einstein's interpretation of special relativity was operationalist in spirit (in marked contrast to the interpretation he gave to general relativity). | |
From: comment on Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Hilary Putnam - Reason, Truth and History Ch.5 | |
A reaction: The late twentieth century was polluted with daft relativism, and I hold Einstein partly responsible, suspecting that he was a bad philosopher. The later development of Einstein's view noted here is interesting. |
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. |
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. |
13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
22955 | Einstein took causation to be the bedrock of physics [Einstein, by Coveney/Highfield] |
Full Idea: It is difficult to overplay Einstein's commitment to the concept of causality as the bedrock of physics. | |
From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by P Coveney / R Highfield - The Arrow of Time 3 'problem' | |
A reaction: I normally avoid arguments from authority, but this carries a bit of weight (e.g. when Russell tries to oppose it). What happens to Einstein's theories if you remove causation from them? |
20638 | General relativity assumes laws of nature are the same in all frames of reference [Einstein, by Close] |
Full Idea: Einstein came to general relativity from the principles that the laws of nature are the same in all frames of reference. | |
From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Frank Close - Theories of Everything 5 'Cosmological' | |
A reaction: I wish physicists would tell us a bit more about the ontological status of the 'laws of nature'. Presumably they are not supernatural, so there is an aspect of nature which is constant in all frames of reference. Explanation please. |
20636 | Newton is a special case of Einstein's general theory, with an infinite speed of light [Einstein, by Close] |
Full Idea: Einstein's general relativity included Newton's theory as a special case: Newton's theory corresponds to the speed of light being infinite relative to the speed of the interacting bodies. | |
From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Frank Close - Theories of Everything 5 'Gravity' | |
A reaction: So Newton's theory was NOT wrong, but he made the false assumption that the speed of light was infinite. |
21230 | The theory is 'special' because it sticks to observers moving straight, at constant speeds [Einstein, by Farmelo] |
Full Idea: Einstein's first theory is 'special' because it only deals with observers who move in a straight line at constant speeds with respect to one another. | |
From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Graham Farmelo - The Strangest Man 03 | |
A reaction: Most theories of this period seem to have focused on the simplest cases, for obvious reasons. |
21231 | Assume the speed of light is constant for all observers, and the laws of physics are the same [Einstein, by Farmelo] |
Full Idea: Einstein assumed that when each observer measures the speed of light in a vacuum, they find the same value, regardless of their speed; and that measurements will lead to agreement on the laws of physics. | |
From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Graham Farmelo - The Strangest Man 03 | |
A reaction: So are the laws of physics constant for all observers, irrespective of their speed? |
20634 | General Relativity says there is no absolute force or acceleration [Einstein, by Close] |
Full Idea: Einstein's General Theory arose from the idea that there is no absolute measure of force and acceleration. | |
From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Frank Close - Theories of Everything 5 'Gravity' | |
A reaction: If absolutely everything is only true relative to something else you wonder what the point of measuring anything is. How big can a 'frame of reference' or 'inertial frame' be. Is the multiverse a frame of reference? |
20648 | Mass is a measure of energy content [Einstein] |
Full Idea: The mass of a body is the measure of its energy content. | |
From: Albert Einstein (works [1915]), quoted by Peter Watson - Convergence 04 'Intro' | |
A reaction: If I knew what energy was, this would be very illuminating. This idea is e=mc^2 in words. We now have the Higgs field to consider when trying to understand mass. |
21232 | Space-time arises from the connection between measurements of space and of time [Einstein, by Farmelo] |
Full Idea: Einstein noted that the measurements of space and time are not independent but inextricably linked, leading to the idea of unified space-time (introduced by his former teacher Minkowski). | |
From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Graham Farmelo - The Strangest Man 03 | |
A reaction: Notice the instrumentalist assumptions behind this. |
20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |
7626 | I do not believe in a personal God [Einstein] |
Full Idea: I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. | |
From: Albert Einstein (works [1915]), quoted by Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion Ch.1.15 | |
A reaction: This is an important corrective to those who claim Einstein as religious, on the basis of remarks about God not playing dice etc. See the whole of Dawkins's chapter on Einstein for full discussion. |