Whoever heard me assert that the grey cat playing just now in the yard is the same one that did jumps and tricks there five hundred years ago will think whatever he likes of me, but it is a stranger form of madness to imagine that the present-day cat is fundamentally an entirely different one.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- A cat today is not the same entity as a cat five hundred years ago, yet imagining it as completely different is a kind of madness.
- In plain terms
- The same cat over centuries is not literally the same animal.
- What can you take from it?
- Identity persists through change, but not absolutely.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What makes something the same over time?
- How do we define personal identity?
Another view
The analogy may be stretched for rhetorical effect.
More from Arthur Schopenhauer
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