Category: Aphorisms by Others

For the New Year: Looking Away Shall Be My Only Negation

Nietzsche

One of the elements in my personal liturgy is a reading of the following passage every January 1st. I must have begun the practice in the mid-70s. My copy of The Gay Science was purchased in Boston and is dated 15 September 1974. (You mean to tell me that when you buy books, you do not note where you bought them, and when, and in whose presence?)

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book Four, #276, tr. Kaufmann:

For the new year. — I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum. Today everybody permits himself the expression of his wish and his dearest thought: hence I, too, shall say what it is that I wish from myself today, and what was the first thought to run across my heart this year — what thought shall be for me the reason, warranty, and sweetness of my life henceforth. I want to learn to see more and more as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who makes things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all and all and on the whole: someday I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.

(Amor fati: love of fate.)

An Ambiguous Translation from Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837)

Nessun maggior segno d'essere poco filosofo e poco savio, che volere savia e filosofica tutta la vita.

There's no greater sign of being a poor philosopher and wise man than wanting all of life to be wise and philosophical. (Giacomo Leopardi, Pensieri, tr. W. S. Di Piero, Baton Rouge: Lousiana State University Press, 1981, p. 69)

Do you see how the translation imports an ambiguity that is not present in the Italian original? 'Poor philosopher and wise man' could mean either (poor philosopher) and wise man or poor philosopher and poor wise man.  There is no such ambiguity in the original since poco qualifies both filosofo and savio.

I will be told that the aphorism as a whole makes clear the intended meaning.  Indeed, it does, but I have just wasted time on disambiguation.  Why not write it right the first time so that the reader needn't puzzle over the meaning?  It is relevant to point out that a philosopher is not the same as a wise man. A philosopher is a lover, not a possessor, of wisdom. 

"You, sir, are a pedant."  And proud of it.  We could use more scrupulosity in all areas of life.

Karl Kraus on the Two Kinds of Writers

Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Beim Wort Genommen (Muenchen: Koesel Verlag, 1955), p. 111:

Es gibt zwei Arten von Schriftstellern. Solche, die es sind, und solche die es nicht sind. Bei den ersten gehören Inhalt und Form zusammen wie Seele und Leib, bei den zweiten passen Inhalt und Form zusammen wie Leib und Kleid.

There are two kinds of writers, those who are and those who aren't. With the first, content and form belong together like soul and body; with the second, content and form fit together like body and clothing. (tr. BV)

Having It Both Ways

Karl Kraus, Beim Wort Genommen, p. 194:

Wenn einer sich wie ein Vieh benommen hat, sagt er: Man ist doch nur ein Mensch! Wenn er aber wie ein Vieh behandelt wird, sagt er: Man ist doch auch ein Mensch!

A person who has behaved in a beastly manner excuses himself by saying, "I am only human!" But when he is treated in a beastly manner, he protests, "I too am a human being!" (trans. BV)

In Sartrean terms, we invoke either our facticity or our transcendence depending on which serves us better at the moment. Well, our nature is metaphysically dual; we may as well get some use out of that fact.

Amiel on Duty

“Duty has the virtue of making us feel the reality of a positive world while at the same time detaching us from it.” (See here.)

This is a penetrating observation, and a nearly perfect specimen of the aphorist’s art. It is terse, true, but not trite. The tip of an iceberg of thought, it invites exfoliation.

If the world were literally a dream, there would be no need to act in it or take it seriously. One could treat it as one who dreams lucidly can treat a dream: one lies back and enjoys the show in the knowledge that it is only a dream. But to the extent that I feel duty-bound to do this or refrain from that, I take the world to be real, to be more than maya or illusion. Feeling duty-bound, I realize the world.

And to the extent that I feel duty-bound to do something, to make real what merely ought to be, I am referred to this positive world as to the locus of realization.

But just how real is the world of our ordinary waking experience? Is it the ne plus ultra of reality? Its manifest deficiency gives the lie to this supposition, which is why great philosophers from Plato to Bradley have denied ultimate reality to the sense world. Things are not the way they ought to be, and things are the way they ought not be, and everyone with moral sense feels this to be true. The Real falls short of the Ideal, and, falling short demonstrates its lack of plenary reality. So while the perception of duty realizes the world, it also and by the same stroke de-realizes it by measuring it against a standard from elsewhere.

The sense of duty detaches us from the world of what is by referring us to what ought to be. What ought to be, however, in many cases is not; hence we are referred back to the world of what is as the scene wherein alone ideals can be realized.

It is a curious dialectic. The Real falls short of the Ideal and is what is is in virtue of this falling short. The Ideal, however, is not but only ought to be. It lacks reality just as the Real lacks ideality. Each is what it is by not being what it is not. And we moral agents are caught in this interplay. We are citizens of two worlds and must play the ambassador between them.

An Aphorism of Giacomo Leopardi and a Comment

Giacomo Leopardi (1798 – 1837) was just a name to me until Michael Gilleland inspired me to read some of his work. Here is an aphorism from Giacomo Leopardi, Pensieri, Bilingual Edition, trans. W. S. Di Piero (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), p. 105:

Men are shamed by the insults they receive, not by those they inflict. So the only way to shame people who insult us is to pay them back in kind.

The only way? This ignores a second way, namely, by turning the other cheek. In some circumstances, this is the most effective way to shame the aggressor.  But there is a second problem with Leopardi’s aphorism. If you insult me, and I insult you back, you are more likely to feel justified in having insulted me in the first place rather than to feel shamed. In addition, you may feel that a further insult is called for to answer mine. Being perverse, human beings rarely take repayment in kind as settling the matter. If Hamas orchestrates a murderous attack on Israeli noncombatants, and the IDF responds with a counterstrike against Hamas combatants, the latter never consider that the score has been settled. Hamas will not say, "We attacked you, and you responded in kind, so now we are even."