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by means of the democratic enlightenment which, with the aid of freedom of the press and newspaper-reading, might indeed bring it about that the spirit would no longer experience itself so easily as a “need.”
What in us really wants “truth”?
why do we ask this question? why seek it out?
Suppose we want truth: why not rather untruth? and uncertainty? even ignorance?
it is on account of this “faith” that they trouble themselves about “knowledge,” about something that is finally baptized solemnly as “the truth.” The fundamental faith of the metaphysicians is the faith in opposite values.2 It
built on pprevious kknowledge ; not absolute truth .
opposite values on which the metaphysicians put their seal, are not perhaps merely foreground estimates,
For all the value that the true, the truthful, the selfless may deserve, it would still be possible that a higher and more fundamental value for life might have to be ascribed to deception, selfishness, and lust. It might even be possible that what constitutes the value of these good and revered things is precisely that they are insidiously related, tied to, and involved with these wicked, seemingly opposite things—maybe even one with them in essence.
the lies we tell oursevles may lead to peace. Myths have reasons but what are the reasons
by far the greater part of conscious thinking must still be included among instinctive activities, and that goes even for philosophical thinking.
most of the conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly guided and forced into certain channels by his instincts.
Behind all logic and its seeming sovereignty of movement, too, there stand valuations or, more clearly, physiological demands for the preservation of a certain type of life.
we are fundamentally inclined to claim that the falsest judgments (which include the synthetic judgments a priori)6 are the most indispensable for us;
without measuring reality against the purely invented world of the unconditional and self-identical, without a constant falsification of the world by means of numbers, man could not live—that
To recognize untruth as a condition of life—that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil.
must be a good actor whos religion is science .
They all pose as if they had discovered and reached their real opinions through the self-development of a cold, pure, divinely unconcerned dialectic (as opposed to the mystics of every rank, who are more honest and doltish—and talk of “inspiration”); while at bottom it is an assumption, a hunch, indeed a kind of “inspiration”—most often a desire of the heart that has been filtered and made abstract—that they defend with reasons they have sought after the fact.
the hunch has to be proven fully to be law.
Tartuffery of the old Kant as he lures us on the dialectical bypaths that lead to his “categorical imperative”—really lead astray and seduce—this spectacle makes us smile, as we are fastidious and find it quite amusing to watch closely the subtle tricks of old moralists and preachers of morals. Or consider the hocus-pocus of mathematical form with which Spinoza clad his philosophy—really
good examples
Gradually it has become clear to me what every great philosophy so far has been: namely, the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir; also that the moral (or immoral) intentions in every philosophy constituted the real germ of life from which the whole plant had grown.
The real “interests” of the scholar therefore lie usually somewhere else—say, in his family, or in making money, or in politics.
How malicious philosophers can bet I know of nothing more venomous than the joke Epicurus permitted himself against Plato and the Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. That means literally—and this is the foreground meaning—“flatterers of Dionysius,”
ad hoc attacks from a great mind comes off petty.
Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus.
how i see it, be humble in ones ideas as no one sees the full truth of things.
imagine indifference itself as a power—how could you live according to this indifference?
stoic thought on living according to nature.
what if the assumption is living as the world leans towards justice for a better present day life. its what you bring to the table .
In truth, the matter is altogether different: while you pretend rapturously to read the canon of your law in nature, you want something opposite, you strange actors and self-deceivers! Your pride wants to impose your morality, your ideal, on nature—even on nature—and incorporate them in her;
truth vs mental well being
Stoicism is self-tyranny—nature, too, lets herself be tyrannized: is not the Stoic— a piece of nature?
as soon as any philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise.
a good idea to remember .
who knows if they are not trying at bottom to win back something that was formerly an even securer possession, something of the ancient domain of the faith of former times, perhaps the “immortal soul,” perhaps “the old God,” in short, ideas by which one could live better,
the conservatives of today. JBP
The main thing about them is not that they wish to go “back,” but that they wish to get—away. A little more strength, flight, courage, and artistic power, and they would want to rise—not return!
“How are synthetic judgments a priori possible?” Kant asked himself—and what really is his answer? “By virtue of a faculty”
when Kant further discovered a moral faculty in man—for at that time the Germans were still moral and not yet addicted to Realpolitik.
moraliy in man exist but imperfect
heartfelt cravings of the Germans, whose cravings were at bottom pious.
dreaming, and first and foremost—old Kant. “By virtue of a faculty”—he
very religious argument
synthetic judgments a priori should not “be possible” at all; we have no right to them; in our mouths they are nothing but false judgments.
3 truths can give both sides to the argument. important for well being and scientific progress.
As for materialistic atomism, it is one of the best refuted theories there are, and in Europe perhaps no one in the learned world is now so unscholarly as to attach serious significance to it, except for convenient household use
research if others are not sure
Physiologists should think before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results.
It is perhaps just dawning on five or six minds that physics, too, is only an interpretation and exegesis of the world (to suit us, if I may say so!) and not a world-explanation; but insofar as it is based on belief in the senses,
There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are “immediate certainties”; for example, “I think,” or as the superstition of Schopenhauer put it, “I will”; as though knowledge here got hold of its object purely and nakedly as “the thing in it-self,” without any falsification on the part of either the subject or the object But that “immediate certainty,” as well as “absolute knowledge” and the “thing in itself,” involve a contradictio in adjecto,21 I shall repeat a hundred times; we really ought to free our-selves from the seduction of words!
the idea had its place but the execution wasn't totally done right.
“From where do I get the concept of thinking? Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak of an ego, and even of an ego as cause, and finally of an ego as the cause of thought?”
it is a falsification of the facts of the case to say that the subject “I” is the condition of the predicate “think,” It thinks; but that this “it” is precisely the famous old “ego” is, to put it mildly, only a supposition, an assertion, and assuredly not an “immediate certainty.”
It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts subtler minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of a “free will” owes its persistence to this charm alone; again and again someone comes along who feels he is strong enough to refute it.
compatibist good middle ground.
Schopenhauer only did what philosophers are in the habit of doing—he adopted a popular prejudice and exaggerated it Willing seems to me to be above all something complicated, something that is a unit only as a word—and
the easy path but finding the truth is always popular
just as sensations (and indeed many kinds of sensations) are to be recognized as ingredients of the will, so, secondly, should thinking also: in every act of the will there is a ruling thought—let
A man who wills commands something within himself that renders obedience, or that he believes renders obedience.
he who wills believes with a fair amount of certainty that will and action are somehow one; he ascribes the success, the carrying out of the willing, to the will itself, and thereby enjoys an increase of the sensation of power which accompanies all success.
free wil.
Hence a philosopher should claim the right to include willing as such within the sphere of morals—morals being understood as the doctrine of the relations of supremacy under which the phenomenon of “life” comes to be.
Where there is affinity of languages, it cannot fail, owing to the common philosophy of grammar—I mean, owing to the unconscious domination and guidance by similar grammatical functions—that everything is prepared at the outset for a similar development and sequence of philosophical systems;
concept of “free will” and put it out of his head altogether, I beg of him to carry his “enlightenment” a step further, and also put out of his head the contrary of this monstrous conception of “free will”: I mean “unfree will,” which amounts to a misuse of cause and effect. One
If, however, a person should regard even the affects of hatred, envy, covetousness, and the lust to rule as conditions of life, as factors which, fundamentally and essentially, must be present in the general economy of life
social interaction needs negative emotions.
our thoughts a divine desire for wanton leaps and wrong inferences!
the will to knowledge on the foundation of a far more powerful will: the will to ignorance, to the uncertain, to the untrue!
precisely science at its best seeks most to keep us in this simplified, thoroughly artificial, suitably constructed and suitably falsified world—at
whats the history behind this?
Take care, philosophers and friends, of knowledge, and beware of martyrdom! Of suffering “for the truth’s sake”!
It spoils all the innocence and fine neutrality of your conscience;
you know well enough that it cannot be of any consequence if you of all people are proved right; you know that no philosopher so far has been proved right, and that there might be a more laudable truthfulness in every little question mark that you place after your special words and favorite doctrines (and occasionally after yourselves) than in all the solemn gestures and trumps before accusers and law courts.
