70 ideas
18330 | Judging by the positive forces, the Renaissance was the last great age [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Ages are to be assessed by their positive forces - and by this assessment the age of the Renaissance, so prodigal and so fateful, appears as the last great age. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.37) | |
A reaction: I suspect that Nietzsche places art very high among the positive forces. Science and technology showed barely a glimmer during the Renaissance. Mathematics moved very little, Copernicus was ignored, and logic was static. |
2900 | I revere Heraclitus [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: I set apart with high reverence the name of Heraclitus. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.2) |
2913 | Thucydides was the perfect anti-platonist sophist [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: My recreation, my preference, my cure from all Platonism has always been Thucydides. …Sophist culture, by which I mean realist culture, attains in him its perfect expression. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 9.2) |
2909 | Thinking has to be learned in the way dancing has to be learned [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Thinking has to be learned in the way dancing has to be learned. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 7.7) | |
A reaction: Nice. At its deepest level thinking isn't a rational process? |
2892 | Wanting a system in philosophy is a lack of integrity [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. The will to system is a lack of integrity. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], Maxim 26) |
16943 | Philosophy is continuous with science, and has no external vantage point [Quine] |
Full Idea: I see philosophy not as an a priori propaedeutic or groundwork for science, but as continuous with science. I see philosophy and science as in the same boat. …There is no external vantage point, no first philosophy. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.126) | |
A reaction: Philosophy is generalisation. Science holds the upper hand, because it settles the subject-matter to be generalised. |
2896 | I want to understand the Socratic idea that 'reason equals virtue equals happiness' [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: I seek to understand out of what idiosyncrasy that Socratic equation 'reason equals virtue equals happiness' derives. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.04) |
2897 | With dialectics the rabble gets on top [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: With dialectics the rabble gets on top. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.05) |
2898 | Anything which must first be proved is of little value [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: What has first to have itself proved is of little value. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.05) |
9565 | Zermelo made 'set' and 'member' undefined axioms [Zermelo, by Chihara] |
Full Idea: The terms 'set' and 'is a member of' are primitives of Zermelo's 1908 axiomatization of set theory. They are not given model-theoretic analyses or definitions. | |
From: report of Ernst Zermelo (works [1920]) by Charles Chihara - A Structural Account of Mathematics 7.5 | |
A reaction: This looks like good practice if you want to work with sets, but not so hot if you are interested in metaphysics. |
3339 | For Zermelo's set theory the empty set is zero and the successor of each number is its unit set [Zermelo, by Blackburn] |
Full Idea: For Zermelo's set theory the empty set is zero and the successor of each number is its unit set. | |
From: report of Ernst Zermelo (works [1920]) by Simon Blackburn - Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy p.280 |
16949 | Klein summarised geometry as grouped together by transformations [Quine] |
Full Idea: Felix Klein's so-called 'Erlangerprogramm' in geometry involved characterizing the various branches of geometry by what transformations were irrelevant to each. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.137) |
18317 | The 'real being' of things is a nothingness constructed from contradictions in the actual world [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The characteristics which have been assigned to the 'real being' of things are the characteristics of non-being, of nothingness - the 'real world has been constructed out of the contradiction of the actual world. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.6) | |
A reaction: I take this to be a critique of Hegel, in particular. Could we describe the metaphysics of Nietzsche as 'constructivist'? I certainly think he is underrated as a metaphysician, because the ideas are so fragmentary. |
18315 | We get the concept of 'being' from the concept of the 'ego' [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Being is everywhere thought in, foisted on, as cause; it is only from the conception 'ego' that there follows, derivatively, the concept 'being'. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.5) | |
A reaction: 'Being' is such a remote abstraction that I doubt whether we can say anything at all meaningful about where it 'comes from'. |
16939 | Mass terms just concern spread, but other terms involve both spread and individuation [Quine] |
Full Idea: 'Yellow' and 'water' are mass terms, concerned only with spread; 'apple' and 'square' are terms of divided reference, concerned with both spread and individuation. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.124) | |
A reaction: Would you like some apple? Pass me that water. It is helpful to see that it is a requirement of 'individuation' that is missing from terms for stuff. |
18316 | The grounds for an assertion that the world is only apparent actually establish its reality [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The grounds upon which 'this' world has been designated as apparent establish rather its reality - another kind of reality is absolutely undemonstrable. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.6) |
16948 | Once we know the mechanism of a disposition, we can eliminate 'similarity' [Quine] |
Full Idea: Once we can legitimize a disposition term by defining the relevant similarity standard, we are apt to know the mechanism of the disposition, and so by-pass the similarity. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.135) | |
A reaction: I love mechanisms, but can we characterise mechanisms without mentioning powers and dispositions? Quine's dream is to eliminate 'similarity'. |
16945 | We judge things to be soluble if they are the same kind as, or similar to, things that do dissolve [Quine] |
Full Idea: Intuitively, what qualifies a thing as soluble though it never gets into water is that it is of the same kind as the things that actually did or will dissolve; it is similar to them. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.130) | |
A reaction: If you can judge that the similar things 'will' dissolve, you can cut to the chase and judge that this thing will dissolve. |
18314 | In language we treat 'ego' as a substance, and it is thus that we create the concept 'thing' [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: It is the metaphysics of language (that is, of reason) ....which believes in the 'ego', in the ego as being, in the ego as substance, and which projects its belief in the ego-substance on to all things - only thus does it create the concept 'thing'. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.5) |
18309 | The evidence of the senses is falsified by reason [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: 'Reason' is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.1) | |
A reaction: One for McDowell. |
16944 | Science is common sense, with a sophisticated method [Quine] |
Full Idea: Sciences differ from common sense only in the degree of methodological sophistication. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.129) | |
A reaction: Science is normal thinking about the world, but it is teamwork, with the bar set very high. |
16941 | Induction relies on similar effects following from each cause [Quine] |
Full Idea: Induction expresses our hopes that similar causes will have similar effects. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.125) | |
A reaction: Some top philosophers are also top teachers, and Quine was one of them, in his writings. He boils it down for the layman. Once again, he is pointing to the fundamental role of the similarity relation. |
16940 | Induction is just more of the same: animal expectations [Quine] |
Full Idea: Induction is essentially only more of the same: animal expectation or habit formation. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.125) | |
A reaction: My working definition of induction is 'learning from experience', but that doesn't disagree with Quine. Lipton has a richer account of different types of induction. Quine's point is that it rests on resemblance. |
16933 | Grue is a puzzle because the notions of similarity and kind are dubious in science [Quine] |
Full Idea: What makes Goodman's example a puzzle is the dubious scientific standing of a general notion of similarity, or of kind. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.116) | |
A reaction: Illuminating. It might be best expressed as revealing a problem with sortal terms, as employed by Geach, or by Wiggins. Grue is a bit silly, but sortals are subject to convention and culture. 'Natural' properties seem needed. |
18323 | Any explanation will be accepted as true if it gives pleasure and a feeling of power [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying and gives moreover a feeling of power. ...First principle: any explanation is better than none. ...Proof by pleasure ('by potency') as criterion of truth. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 5.5) | |
A reaction: By 'proof by pleasure' he means that we find an explanation so satisfying that we cling to it. I assume it is a criterion of rationality (an epistemic virtue) to reject the principle 'any explanation is better than none'. Negative capability. |
18310 | The 'highest' concepts are the most general and empty concepts [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The 'highest concepts' ...are the most general, the emptiest concepts, the last fumes of evaporating reality. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.4) | |
A reaction: This could be seen as an attack on the aspirations of all of philosophy, which seeks general truths out of the chaos of experience. Should we shut up, then, and just be and do? |
16934 | General terms depend on similarities among things [Quine] |
Full Idea: The usual general term, whether a common noun or a verb or an adjective, owes its generality to some resemblance among the things referred to. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.116) | |
A reaction: Quine has a nice analysis of the basic role of similarity in a huge amount of supposedly strict scientific thought. |
16938 | To learn yellow by observation, must we be told to look at the colour? [Quine] |
Full Idea: According to the 'respects' view, our learning of yellow by ostension would have depended on our first having been told or somehow apprised that it was going to be a question of color. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.122) | |
A reaction: Quine suggests there is just one notion of similarity, and respects can be 'abstracted' afterwards. Even the ontologically ruthless Quine admits psychological abstraction! |
8486 | Standards of similarity are innate, and the spacing of qualities such as colours can be mapped [Quine] |
Full Idea: A standard of similarity is in some sense innate. The spacing of qualities (such as red, pink and blue) can be explored and mapped in the laboratory by experiments. They are needed for all learning. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.123) | |
A reaction: This reasserts Hume's original point in more scientific terms. It is one of the undeniable facts about our perceptions of qualities and properties, no matter how platonist your view of universals may be. |
16947 | Similarity is just interchangeability in the cosmic machine [Quine] |
Full Idea: Things are similar to the extent that they are interchangeable parts of the cosmic machine. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.134) | |
A reaction: This is a major idea for Quine, because it is a means to gradually eliminate the fuzzy ideas of 'resemblance' or 'similarity' or 'natural kind' from science. I love it! Two tigers are same insofar as they are substitutable. |
20368 | There are no 'individual' persons; we are each the sum of humanity up to this moment [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The 'individual' ...is an error: he does not constitute a separate entity, an atom, a 'link in the chain', something merely inherited from the past - he constitutes the entire single line 'man' up to and including himself. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.33) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure I understand this, but you can sort of imagine yourself as a culmination of something, rather than as an isolated entity. I'm not sure how that is supposed to affect my behaviour. |
2899 | The fanatical rationality of Greek philosophy shows that they were in a state of emergency [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The fanaticism with which the whole of Greek thought throws itself at rationality betrays itself as a state of emergency: one was in peril, one had only one choice: either to perish or- be absurdly rational. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.10) |
16932 | Projectible predicates can be universalised about the kind to which they refer [Quine] |
Full Idea: 'Projectible' predicates are predicates F and G whose shared instances all do count, for whatever reason, towards confirmation of 'All F are G'. ….A projectible predicate is one that is true of all and only the things of a kind. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.115-6) | |
A reaction: Both Quine and Goodman are infuriatingly brief about the introduction of this concept. 'Red' is true of all ripe tomatoes, but not 'only' of them. Hardly any predicates are true only of one kind. Is that a scholastic 'proprium'? |
18313 | The big error is to think the will is a faculty producing effects; in fact, it is just a word [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: At the beginning stands the great fateful error that the will is something which produces an effect - that will is a faculty.... Today we know it is merely a word. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.5) | |
A reaction: This is despite Nietzsche's insistence that 'will to power' is the central fact of active existence. The misreading of Nietzsche is to think that this refers to the conscious exercising of a mental faculty. |
20133 | The 'motive' is superficial, and may even hide the antecedents of a deed [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The so-called 'motive' is another error. Merely a surface phenomenon of consciousness - something alongside the deed which is more likely to cover up the antecedents of the deed than to represent them. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 6.3) | |
A reaction: [Leiter gives 'VI.3', but I can't find it] As far as you can get from intellectualism about action, and is more in accord with the picture found in modern neuro-science. No one knows why they are 'interested' in something, and that's the start of it. |
18326 | The beautiful never stands alone; it derives from man's pleasure in man [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Anyone who tried to divorce the beautiful from man's pleasure in man would at once feel the ground give way beneath him. The 'beautiful in itself' is not even a concept, merely a phrase. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.19) | |
A reaction: I love the insult 'not even a concept'! It's like Pauli's 'not even wrong'! |
20101 | Without music life would be a mistake [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Without music life would be a mistake. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], Maxim 33) | |
A reaction: Cf Schopenhauer in Idea 21469. If you, dear reader, don't love music, then I sincerely hope that there is something in your life which can match it. |
2902 | Healthy morality is dominated by an instinct for life [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: All naturalism in morality, that is all healthy morality, is dominated by an instinct for life. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 4.4) | |
A reaction: Sounds right. There is no reasoning against a moral nihilist, because they seem to have no instinct in favour of life. It is the given of morality. |
18311 | Philosophers hate values having an origin, and want values to be self-sufficient [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: For philosophers, the higher must not be allowed to grow out of the lower, must not be allowed to have grown at all ...Moral: everything of the first rank must be causa sui. Origin in something else counts as an objection, as casting a doubt on value. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.4) | |
A reaction: This is so deep and central that I wrote a paper on it, advocating that the theory of values should focus of value-makers. |
18324 | There are no moral facts, and moralists believe in realities which do not exist [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: An insight formulated by me: that there are no moral facts whatever. Moral judgement has this in common with religious judgement that it believes in realities which do not exist. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 6.1) | |
A reaction: Not only a slogan for non-cognitivism, but also a clear statement of the error theory about morality, a century before John Mackie. |
2904 | The doctrine of free will has been invented essentially in order to blame and punish people [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The doctrine of will has been invented essentially for the purpose of punishment, that is of finding guilty. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 5.7) | |
A reaction: Michael Frede says free will was invented to feel wholly in charge of our own actions. I doubt whether punishment was the first motive. The will just gives a simple explanation of actions. |
2895 | The value of life cannot be estimated [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The value of life cannot be estimated. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.02) | |
A reaction: Military leaders apparently judge that the death of one of their own soldiers is worth between 12 and 20 enemy deaths (so history suggests). How about ransom money? |
18322 | When we establish values, that is life itself establishing them, through us [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: When we speak of values we do so under the inspiration and from the perspective of life: life itself evaluates through us when we establish values | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 4.5) | |
A reaction: I love Nietzsche's ideas about the source of values, and his remarks about the value of life. Other thinkers sound so simplistic in comparison. |
2893 | In every age the wisest people have judged life to be worthless [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: In every age the wisest have passed the identical judgement on life: it is worthless. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.01) | |
A reaction: I guess he was having a bad day. Since the whole universe is clearly 'worthless', this judgement must in some sense be correct. But I love my books. |
2894 | Value judgements about life can never be true [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Judgements, value judgements concerning life, for or against it, can in the last resort never be true. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.02) | |
A reaction: I suppose this is in the same spirit as judging whether celery tastes nice. Are you for or against the Moon? |
18321 | To evaluate life one must know it, but also be situated outside of it [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: One would have to be situated outside life ....[and yet know it thoroughly] ....to be permitted to touch on the problem of the value of life at all. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 4.5) | |
A reaction: Can practising artists question the value of their art? The whole point of objectivity is that we can mentally step 'outside' of something, without actually withdrawing from it. |
18308 | A philosopher fails in wisdom if he thinks the value of life is a problem [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life thus even constitutes an objection to him, a question-mark as to his wisdom, a piece of unwisdom. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.02) | |
A reaction: I take his point to be neither that life is unquestionably valuable nor that it is valueless, but that the very question is ridiculous. If we live, we value living. Sounds right. |
18319 | Love is the spiritualisation of sensuality [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The spiritualization of sensuality is called 'love': it is a great triumph over Christianity. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 4.3) | |
A reaction: I'm not quite clear what 'spiritualization' means, particularly when it comes from Nietzsche. |
2903 | A good human will be virtuous because they are happy [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: A well-constituted human being, a 'happy one', must perform certain actions and shrink from other actions. In a formula: his virtue is the consequence of his happiness. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 5.2) | |
A reaction: A nice reversal of basic Aristotle, though Aristotle does say that the truly virtuous person is happy in their actions. Treat unhappy people with caution! |
2891 | Only the English actually strive after happiness [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Man does not strive after happiness; only the Englishman does that. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], Maxim 12) | |
A reaction: The Danes keeping being voted the happiest nation, so presumably that results from some sort of effort on their part. The easiest is happiness is to achieve security, then do nothing. |
18327 | A wholly altruistic morality, with no egoism, is a thoroughly bad thing [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: An 'altruistic' morality, a morality under which egoism languishes - is under all circumstances a bad sign. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.35) |
15606 | Military idea: what does not kill me makes me stronger [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: From the military school of life. - What does not kill me makes me stronger. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], Maxim 08) | |
A reaction: The published version! Perhaps the most famous remark in all of Nietzsche, and no one realises it is ironic! It is a sarcastic remark about the battering ram mentality of the Prussian militarist! He had served in the army. |
18328 | Invalids are parasites [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The invalid is a parasite on society. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.36) | |
A reaction: I'll skip the rest, but you get the idea. The point (with which I sympathise) is that life is primarily about what healthy people do. Something has gone wrong if all we do is worry about the sick and the suffering. |
18331 | Democracy is organisational power in decline [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Democracy has always been the declining form of the power to organise. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.39) | |
A reaction: Even when Nietzsche is wrong (and who knows, here?) he always challenges you to think! |
18332 | The creation of institutions needs a determination which is necessarily anti-liberal [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: For institutions to exist there must exist the kind of will, instinct, imperative which is anti-liberal to the point of malice: the will to tradition, to authority, to centuries-long responsibility, to solidarity between succeeding generations. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.39) | |
A reaction: This sounds like a lovely challenge to Popper, who seems to have been a liberal who pinned his faith on institutions. |
2911 | True justice is equality for equals and inequality for unequals [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: 'Equality for equals, inequality for unequals' - that would be the true voice of justice. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.48) |
18320 | To renounce war is to renounce the grand life [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: One has renounced grand life when one renounces war. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 4.3) | |
A reaction: Nietzsche was a medical orderly in the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, so he had seen it at first hand. I think the machine gun and the heavy bomber would have changed his attitude to warfare. He sounds a bit silly now. Nostalgia for the Iliad. |
2908 | There is a need for educators who are themselves educated [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: There is a need for educators who are themselves educated. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 7.5) |
18329 | Sometimes it is an error to have been born - but we can rectify it [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: We have no power to prevent ourselves being born: but we can rectify this error - for sometimes it is an error. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.36) |
2905 | 'Purpose' is just a human fiction [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: We invented the concept 'purpose': in reality purpose is lacking. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 5.8) |
7375 | Quine probably regrets natural kinds now being treated as essences [Quine, by Dennett] |
Full Idea: The concept of natural kinds was reintroduced by Quine, who may now regret the way it has become a stand-in for the dubious but covertly popular concept of essences. | |
From: report of Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969]) by Daniel C. Dennett - Consciousness Explained 12.2 n2 | |
A reaction: He is right that Quine would regret it, and he is right that we can't assume that there are necessary essences just because there seem to be stable natural kinds, but personally I am an essentialist, so I'm not that bothered. |
16935 | If similarity has no degrees, kinds cannot be contained within one another [Quine] |
Full Idea: If similarity has no degrees there is no containing of kinds within broader kinds. If colored things are a kind, they are similar, but red things are too narrow for a kind. If red things are a kind, colored things are not similar, and it's too broad. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.118) | |
A reaction: [compressed] I'm on Quine's side with this. We glibly talk of 'kinds', but the criteria for sorting things into kinds seems to be a mess. Quine goes on to offer a better account than the (diadic, yes-no) one rejected here. |
16936 | Comparative similarity allows the kind 'colored' to contain the kind 'red' [Quine] |
Full Idea: With the triadic relation of comparative similarity, kinds can contain one another, as well as overlapping. Red and colored things can both count as kinds. Colored things all resemble one another, even though less than red things do. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.119) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Quine claims that comparative similarity is necessary for kinds - that there be some 'foil' in a similarity - that A is more like C than B is. |
16937 | You can't base kinds just on resemblance, because chains of resemblance are a muddle [Quine] |
Full Idea: If kinds are based on similarity, this has the Imperfect Community problem. Red round, red wooden and round wooden things all resemble one another somehow. There may be nothing outside the set resembling them, so it meets the definition of kind. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.120) | |
A reaction: [ref. to Goodman 'Structure' 2nd 163- , which attacks Carnap on this] This suggests an invocation of Wittgenstein's family resemblance, which won't be much help for natural kinds. |
16942 | It is hard to see how regularities could be explained [Quine] |
Full Idea: Why there have been regularities is an obscure question, for it is hard to see what would count as an answer. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.126) | |
A reaction: This is the standard pessimism of the 20th century Humeans, but it strikes me as comparable to the pessimism about science found in Locke and Hume. Regularities are explained all the time by scientists, though the lowest level may be hopeless. |
18312 | The supreme general but empty concepts must be compatible, and hence we get 'God' [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The supreme concepts of philosophers cannot be incommensurate with one another, be incompatible with one another... Thus they acquired their stupendous concept 'God'.... The last, thinnest, emptiest is placed as the first, as cause in itself. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.4) |
2906 | By denying God we deny human accountability, and thus we redeem the world [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: We deny God; in denying God we deny accountability; only by doing that do we redeem the world. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 5.8) |
18325 | Christians believe that only God can know what is good for man [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know what is good for him and what evil: he believes in God, who alone knows. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.05) |
2901 | How could the Church intelligently fight against passion if it preferred poorness of spirit to intelligence? [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The primitive church fought against the 'intelligent' in favour of the 'poor in spirit': how could one expect from it an intelligent war against passion? | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 4.1) |
18318 | People who disparage actual life avenge themselves by imagining a better one [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: If there is a strong instinct for slandering, disparaging and accusing life within us, then we revenge ourselves on life by means of the phantasmagoria of 'another', a 'better' life. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.6) |