When analyzing source material for any academic or formal setting, it is crucial to remember that the material was not created with the intention to be cited. Essays, like those found in Thomas Nagel's Mortal Questions, or books, such as David Parfit's Reasons and Persons are written for their own end, not the end of the person who is referencing them. Because of this, source material should be torn apart and studied to understand how to best integrate it as a source and remain true to its original qualities. Within this essay, I intend to do this for the aforementioned pieces and Thomas Nietzsche's The Will to Power, to gain a more thorough understanding of their authorial roots and goals, and how these aspects can be applied elsewhere. Mortal Questions by Thomas Nagel, a philosophy and law professor at New York University, is an
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The works of Nietzsche are not composed of any writing longer than a handful of pages, instead each book is composed of hundreds of short writings, ranging from a sentence to a few pages. These short writings are then only organized loosely by topic, but often times jump from topic to topic as if pursuing a jovial butterfly of thought. Although this style of writing would appear to support easy citations, as a person could select a single passage without having to remove it, surgically, from other passages, the aphorisms are interworked and reliant on other works by other authors. On occasion, an entire aphorism will rely on a reference to a German play of the period, poetry, or another philosopher, all while simultaneously referencing something briefly mentioned in another aphorism from chapters before. Therefore, the temptation to treat the aphorisms as such is a fairly insidious trap, when taking something out of context or misunderstanding a claims relation to other claims can result in massively skewered
The works of Nietzsche are not composed of any writing longer than a handful of pages, instead each book is composed of hundreds of short writings, ranging from a sentence to a few pages. These short writings are then only organized loosely by topic, but often times jump from topic to topic as if pursuing a jovial butterfly of thought. Although this style of writing would appear to support easy citations, as a person could select a single passage without having to remove it, surgically, from other passages, the aphorisms are interworked and reliant on other works by other authors. On occasion, an entire aphorism will rely on a reference to a German play of the period, poetry, or another philosopher, all while simultaneously referencing something briefly mentioned in another aphorism from chapters before. Therefore, the temptation to treat the aphorisms as such is a fairly insidious trap, when taking something out of context or misunderstanding a claims relation to other claims can result in massively skewered