10 ideas
| 4424 | A warlike philosopher challenges problems to single combat [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A warlike philosopher challenges problems to single combat. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], Wise §7) | |
| A reaction: And what do pacifist philosophers do? It is a moot point whether philosophy is even possible without a streak of aggression. Otherwise you circle the problem, but don't confront it. |
| 2886 | The distinction between egoistic and non-egoistic acts is absurd [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: There are neither egoistic nor unegoistic actions: both concepts are psychologically nonsense. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: Not quite true, but I like this observation. The idea that you could divide everyone's actions into these two groups is certainly nonsense. But some people are more altruistic than others! |
| 4426 | A bad result distorts one's judgement about the virtue of what one has done [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I should prefer to exclude the bad result, the consequences, from the question of value as a matter of principle. Faced with a bad result, one loses all too easily the right perspective for what one has done. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], Clever §1) | |
| A reaction: If the perspective is easily lost, we should make more effort, not ignore consequences. The question is whether you could have foreseen or controlled the consequences. |
| 3031 | The greatest good is not the achievement of desire, but to desire what is proper [Menedemus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Hearing someone assert that the greatest good was to succeed in everything that one desires, he said,"It is a much greater good to desire what is proper". | |
| From: report of Menedemus (fragments/reports [c.310 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.16.12 |
| 4425 | The overcoming of pity I count among the noble virtues [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The overcoming of pity I count among the noble virtues. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], Wise §4) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I can just about see that there might be more important things than compassion for suffering, but I can't see any human activity that makes it worthwhile to trample on pity. |
| 20132 | To become what you are you must have no self-awareness [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: To become what one is, one must not have the faintest notion of what one is. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], II.9), quoted by Brian Leiter - Nietzsche On Morality 3 'fatalism' | |
| A reaction: [Don't understand 'II.9'] Enigmatic but striking. As I understand it, Nietzsche thought that knowing what you are is virtually impossible, though he spent a lifetime studying himself. Would you recognise someone who had become what they are? |
| 20144 | Eternal recurrence is the highest attainable affirmation [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Eternal recurrence is the highest formula of affirmation that is at all attainable. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], III.Z-1?), quoted by Brian Leiter - Nietzsche On Morality | |
| A reaction: Did Nietzsche have in mind an even higher formulation that was unattainable? The aim of eternal recurrence is to offer the highest possible ideal that remains rooted in the nature of ordinary life. It is a cut-down version of the Form of the Good. |
| 2889 | One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], Fore) |
| 5994 | Is the cosmos open or closed, mechanical or teleological, alive or inanimate, and created or eternal? [Robinson,TM, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The four major disputes in classical cosmology were whether the cosmos is 'open' or 'closed', whether it is explained mechanistically or teleologically, whether it is alive or mere matter, and whether or not it has a beginning. | |
| From: report of T.M. Robinson (Classical Cosmology (frags) [1997]) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: A nice summary. The standard modern view is closed, mechanistic, inanimate and non-eternal. But philosophers can ask deeper questions than physicists, and I say we are entitled to speculate when the evidence runs out. |
| 2887 | I am not an atheist because of reasoning or evidence, but because of instinct [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I have absolutely no knowledge of atheism as an outcome of reasoning, still less an event: with me it is obvious by instinct. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], 3.1) |