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Peter Kail
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Simply Nietzsche (Great Lives Book 16)
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Berkeley's A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge: An Introduction
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published
2014
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7 editions
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Nietzsche on Mind and Nature
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published
2015
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3 editions
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Impressions of Hume. Mind Association Occasional Series
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published
2005
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2 editions
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* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.
“In other words, is it better to live than not to live? His answer is negative: existence has no value in itself. A “life, by its whole tendency and disposition, is not capable of any true bliss or happiness, but is essentially suffering in many forms and a tragic state in every way.” Living creatures oscillate between painful desire and striving and boredom. It may seem that happiness is achieved when one gains what one desires, but, according to Schopenhauer, what that achieves is merely the cessation of the painful desire. “Happiness” is merely the negative state of the removal of pain. This “happiness” does not remain long, however. We become bored, and our painful wants propel us forward again to some other goal. How can we relieve ourselves of boredom and suffering, apart from simply committing suicide? One temporary respite from the suffering that is “the essence” of life is the aesthetic experience of beauty and the arts. It lifts us away from the striving of the will, releasing us from its painful effects, and leading to something like a tranquil state. Art can help us escape from the “essence of life,” “the suffering of the ever-striving will.”
― Simply Nietzsche
― Simply Nietzsche
“writing that “morality is nothing other (and therefore nothing more!) than obedience to customs, of whatever kind they may be.” Central to “tradition” is the idea of a “higher authority which one obeys, not because it commands what is useful to us, but because it commands.” Such commands are conceived to come from a “higher intellect which here commands … an incomprehensible, indefinite power, of something more than personal.” Nietzsche envisaged with a great deal of plausibility that a tradition is maintained by obedience to a higher authority: one obeys commands of that supposed higher authority—not because one wants to do so, but simply because of the fear of the authority. One complies “despite of the private desires and advantages” that acting otherwise might serve.”
― Simply Nietzsche
― Simply Nietzsche
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