23520
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Truth has had to be fought for, and normal life must be sacrificed to achieve it [Nietzsche]
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Full Idea:
Truth has had to be fought for every step of the way, almost everything else dear to our hearts, on which our love and our trust in life depend, has had to be sacrificed to it.
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From:
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], 50)
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A reaction:
This, in one of his final works, seems to contradict every idea that Nietzsche is the high priest of relativism about truth. He (and Foucault) and interested in the social role of truth, but are not so daft as to reject its possibility.
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16236
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Maybe our persistence conditions concern bodies, rather than persons [Olson, by Hawley]
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Full Idea:
Instead of attributing person-like persistence conditions to bodies, we could attribute body-like persistence conditions to persons, …so human persons are identical with human organisms.
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From:
report of Eric T. Olson (The Human Animal [1997]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.10
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A reaction:
In the case of pre-birth and advanced senility, Olson thinks we could have the body without the person, so person is a 'phase sortal' of bodies. A good theory, which seems to answer a lot of questions. 'Person' may be an abstraction.
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6669
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For 'animalism', I exist before I became a person, and can continue after it, so I am not a person [Olson, by Lowe]
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Full Idea:
According to 'animalism', I existed before I was a person and I may well go one existing for some time after I cease to be a person; hence, I am not essentially a person, but a human organism.
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From:
report of Eric T. Olson (The Human Animal [1997]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.10
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A reaction:
There is a very real sense in which an extremely senile person has 'ceased to exist' (e.g. as the person I used to love). On the whole, though, I think that Olson is right, and yet 'person' is an important concept. Neither concept is all-or-nothing.
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20375
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Virtues must be highly personal; if not, it is merely respect for a concept [Nietzsche]
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Full Idea:
A virtue has to be our invention, our most personal defence and necessity: in any other sense it is merely a danger. What does not condition our life harms it: a virtue merely from a feeling of respect for the concept 'virtue', as Kant desires it, is harm
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From:
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], §11)
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A reaction:
Presumably he sees virtue as the cutting edge of stiffling conventional morality. I'm a bit nervous about embracing highly personal virtues, partly because they might isolate me from my community. I ain't no übermensch.
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7903
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The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna]
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Full Idea:
The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom.
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From:
Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88)
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A reaction:
What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate').
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