Sunday, September 29, 2013

Will, Volition, The Future

The English language includes the peculiarity that 'will' both connotes Volition, and functions as verb tense auxiliary.  So, in the former case, i. e. in which one initiates an attempt to effect X,  the 'future' is conceived as the provisional product of one's own efforts, while, in the latter, i. e. in 'It will be the case that X', it is conceived as inevitably befalling one.  Now, this distinction--active/uncertainty vs. passive/certainty--suggests a 'Master' vs. 'Slave' contrast that seems implicit in many of the passages of Beyond Good and Evil.  Thus, embedded in one of the most common linguistic formations is a Moral prejudice.

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