Up@dawn 2.0

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Peirce, James, Nietzsche, Freud

















Philosophy is that branch of positive science (i.e., an investigating theoretical science which inquires what is the fact, in contradistinction to pure mathematics which merely seeks to know what follows from certain hypotheses) which makes no observations but contents itself with so much of experience as pours in upon every man during every hour of his waking life.  CSP

“Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring not be satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows one corollary which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy: Do not block the way of inquiry."


“Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts.”  
 
 

"The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real."




“Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.”

“The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.”


“My experience is what I agree to attend to.”

“The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.”

“There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.”

“Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation.”

“We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all.”

“The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That - with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word 'success' - is our national disease."

The pragmatic method is primarily a method of settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise might be interminable. Is the world one or many?—fated or free?—material or spiritual?... What difference would it practically make to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true? If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle. Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must follow from one side or the other's being right...Pragmatism, Lecture II



"A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life after all is a chain."

"poor Nietzsche's antipathy..."


The really vital question for us all is, What is this world going to be? What is life eventually to make of itself?
 


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~




“Without music, life would be a mistake.” 
 

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”  

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”  
“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.” 
Nietzsche's "gift"-


“Amor Fati – “Love Your Fate”, which is in fact your life.” 
 
"All great thoughts are conceived while walking."

“The intention that man should be happy is not in the plan of Creation.”  

“Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.”  

“Where id is, there shall ego be.” 

“The ego is not master in its own house.”

“Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.” 

“What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.”  

“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.” 

"People commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.”

“Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions. Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men's actions.”  

"Humans are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at the most can defend themselves if attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. ... It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness.”  

“...observe the difference between your attitude to illusions and mine. You have to defend the religious illusion with all your might. If it becomes discredited - and indeed the threat to it is great enough - then your world collapses. There is nothing left for you but to despair of everything, of civilization and the future of mankind. From that bondage I am, we are, free. Since we are prepared to renounce a good part of our infantile wishes, we can bear it if a few of our expectations turn out to be illusions.”  

"Frude had it all figured out." -Barney Fife



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