For as long as there have been people, there have been herds of people as well (racial groups, communities, tribes, folk, states, churches), and a very large number of people who obey compared to relatively few who command. So, considering the fact that humanity has been the best and most long-standing breeding ground for…
No mother doubts at the bottom of her heart that, in the child, she has given birth to a piece of property; no father questions his right to subject the child to his own ideas and valuations. In fact, there was a time (among the ancient Germans, for instance) when it seemed fair that…
…the oldest and most secret processes ofall “knowledge and cognition”:there as here,rash hypotheses, fictions,the dumb good will to “believe,”and a lack of mistrust and patience develop first– our senses learn late and never fully learnto be refined, trusty, careful organs of knowledge. Given some stimulus,our eyesfind it more convenientto reproduce an imagethat they have…
The question of whether, with respect to the value of things, the instincts deserve more authority than reason (reason wants some ground or “what for?”, some purpose or utility behind our values and actions) – this is the same old moral problem that first emerged in the person of Socrates and divided opinions long…
The old theological problem of “faith” and “knowledge” – or, to be more precise, of instinct and reason – and so, the question of whether, with respect to the value of things, the instincts deserve more authority than reason (reason wants some ground or “what for?”, some purpose or utility behind our values and…
But the strange fact is that everything there is, or was, of freedom, subtlety, boldness, dance, or masterly assurance on earth, whether in thinking itself, or in ruling, or in speaking and persuading, in artistic just as in ethical practices, has only developed by virtue of the “tyranny of such arbitrary laws.” And, in…
The difficulty involved in grounding the claim just citedmight be great indeed – Schopenhauer himself came up famously shortin this regard. And anyone who has ever truly felt how inanely false andsentimental this claim is in a world whose essence is will to power –,they might recall that Schopenhauer, pessimism notwithstanding, actually – played…
Whoever fights with monstersshould see to itthat he does notbecome onehimself. And when you starefor a long time into an abyss,the abyssstares backinto you. Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. Judith Butler, aphorism 146 For many certainly this is the “morning after”. Like the hangover after the all night binge. I…
Today is such summer’s that only a poet could describe by shading language into light. Today promises to be full. I have chores which I find agreeable. This day is my wife’s birthday. She and I have made common cause since we met in our early 20s. Many years are to be celebrated as…
To write something, anything at all is only one reason for starting the day at Starbucks. Perhaps a good conversation will be possible? Wednesday is a day of good fortune since I have benefited from a good chat with Doug, as well as prospect of reflecting upon some aphorisms from Beyond Good and Evil. …
