Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Valuation ...

... On Hitchens and Death. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

If materialism is true, then I think Nietzsche is right: truth is not a value; life-enhancing illusions are to be preferred. If truth is out of all relation to human flourishing, why should we value it?

I think that somewhere Aquinas defines truth as the conformity of the mind to reality. Knowing how things are would seem to be better than not, even if that knowledge be grim. I also suspect that immortality of any sort is something we ought not to bother ourselves with.

1 comment:

  1. What a wonderful philosophy! And I agree that I would rather face a grim truth than a life-enhancing lie. MP writes: "The ego, having gone supernova, collapses into a black hole. What we fear when we fear death is not so much the destruction of the body, but the dissolution of the ego. That is the true horror and evil of death. And without religion you are going to have to take it straight." Even with religion you are going to have to take it straight. It won't be what we "think." And I am not at all sure that that's the "evil" of death.

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