"You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape."
~Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
A Philosophy For Words
Philo is Greek for beloved and sophia is wisdom or knowledge. The philosopher loves not only wisdom and knowledge but the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge by intellectual means and moral self-discipline. Rational investigation of the nature and causes or principles of reality, knowledge, and values is the beloved labor of the philosopher's mind.
"Lack of a historical sense is the original error of all philosophers ..."
~Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All-Too-Human
According to The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary, the brain "is the primary center for the regulation and control of bodily activities, receiving and interpreting sensory impulses, and transmitting information to the muscles and body organs. It is also the seat of consciousness, thought, memory, and emotion."
It would be the most common error to believe that the brain was designed with an infinite capacity for "receiving and interpreting sensory impulses". It would be more correct to understand that the brain expends more energy filtering out information than it does receiving and interpreting information.
Just as most Homo sapiens barely notice the sensory impulses associated with the wearing of clothes, the hum of the refrigerator or jets streaking across the sky, they have an innate capacity to reject information that is emotionally or intellectually inconvenient or uncomfortable. The philosopher must discipline the intellectual self if they are to obtain true wisdom and knowledge.
" ... because man, out of need or boredom, wants to exist socially, herd-fashion, he requires a peace pact and he endeavors to banish at least the very crudest bellum omnium contra omnes (War of all against all) from his world. This peace pact looks something like the first step toward the attainment of this enigmatic urge for "truth"; that is, a regularly valid and obligatory designation of things is invented, and this linguistic legislation also furnishes the first laws of truth: for it is here that the contrast between truth and lie first originates. The liar uses the valid designations, the words, to make the unreal appear real ... He abuses the fixed conventions by arbitrary changes or even reversals of the names. ... "
" ... men do not flee from being deceived as much as from being damaged by deception ... he desires the agreeable life-preserving consequences of truth, but he is indifferent to pure knowledge, which has no consequences; he is even hostile to possibly damaging and destructive truths. ..."
"Only through forgetfulness can man ever achieve the illusion of possessing a "truth" ... If he does not wish to be satisfied with truth in the form of tautology - that is, with empty shells - then he will forever buy illusions for truths. ... what matters with words is never the truth ... One designates only the relations of things to man, and to express them one calls on the boldest metaphors. ... "
"What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms - in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins."
" ... to be truthful means using the customary metaphors - in moral terms: the obligation to lie according to fixed convention, to lie herd-like in a style obligatory to all. ... "
~Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie
The most extreme forms of both conservatism and liberalism are accompanied by the immorality of intellectual dishonesty. Conservatives cling to traditional views and values with a zealous disregard for anything resembling truth and liberals reject traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas with the same thoughtless disregard.
The human quest for knowledge is limited to that knowledge which would reinforce our current paradigm. Tremendous intellectual self-discipline is required to discover knowledge beyond that which reinforces our current paradigm.
My philosophy takes in many subjects including: individualism, collectivism, naturalism, existentialism, economics, law, environmental concerns, health and science information and institutional issues such as money, education, marriage, religion, etc, etc, etc.
Because the true meaning of words is often the first victim of any philosophical disagreement, I have provided a Zictionary™ with the definitions of words in the context which I typically use them. The definitions are generally from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition and I did not make them up, although I have chosen the contextually correct definitions as I typically use the words. In addition to the dictionary definition, I provide etymology, context and variations. Sometimes a word or subject needs more than a definition. I have provided a Zarapedia™ with more information about these words and subjects.
