Philosophyspeaking topic
“The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
hint ✧ You can discuss the idea of an author silencing his own voice so the work can speak for itself.
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- A person who never exists suffers nothing and loses nothing. So is bringing someone into the world exposing them to every possible pain without their consent? Is being born really a gift, or a choice made for someone who could never be asked?
- Let him who would move the world first move himself.
- There is only one inborn error, and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy.
- There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
- Wittgenstein's beetle: everyone has a box containing something they call a 'beetle', but nobody can look inside anyone else's box. When we use the same word for inner feelings like pain, are we really talking about the same thing?