The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Pain and evil

It isn't pain that's bad but the suffering of it, the experience of pain.

And each of us suffers,  experiences only his own pain, and does so alone.

No one feels your pain but you, and the famous Democratic president who said otherwise was and is a notorious liar.

To this radical individuality of the most common and indisputable of evils corresponds the equal individuality of such goods as pleasure,  health,  intelligence,  talent, happiness,  well-being, and many others.

The experience of others is wholly inaccessible to us, however much we may as a matter of course believe in it.

That belief, after all, is rather an act of faith.

It is only our own inner life that we live.

Our desires and aversions, our frustrations and satisfactions, our passions or indifferences.

Ours is the only life we actually know.

Thus is the inveterate egoism of the human race founded in nature.

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