An action or thought is good if through it what doing or thinking is revealed.
An action or thought is bad if and only if doing or thinking it involves self-deception.
An action or thought is good if through it what doing or thinking is revealed.
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People understand me so little that they do not even understand when I complain of being misunderstood.
Kierkegaard, Journals, Feb. 1836 The philosopher is always suspicious of her own honesty. The philosopher never thinks that the truth may not be beautiful; interesting. She rejoices even at the most trivial. This is why she has to call philosophy “philosophy”; for it is truth that she is seeking--that is not guaranteed.
To be a writer of literature, on the other hand, is to not be in doubt about one’s access to the truth (maybe only in some doubt about one’s ability to convey or articulate it). There are, however, constant doubts about whether the truth is interesting, and beautiful. That’s why the author does not look for the truth. It is already hers. The truth of philosophy is no different from the truth of literature. (There are no different truths!) But the corruptions of the truth are different in philosophy and literature. The temptations are different. In philosophy, one is keenly aware of one’s tendency to be tempted by attractive illusions of the truth, and therefore has to be suspicious about oneself. In literature, the temptation is to trade beauty for the truth. (Of course, I’m not assuming that I already know how to identify philosophy and literature. I’m merely trying to help myself identify them truthfully.) Whitehead said: “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato” (Process and Reality, 1929).
And I say: The safest general characterization of philosophy is that it is but a series of footnotes to life. For example: Footnote to All Prayers – C.S.Lewis He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou, And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art. Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream, And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert; And all men are idolators, crying unheard To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word. Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate. (Thanks, Holly.) When in philosophy you keep coming up against a dead end, such as we have so far, […], it is often because we are looking for the wrong type of answer. And this indeed is what I believe we have been doing in our search. For we were sitting back in a cool hour and attempting to solve this problem as a pure piece of theory. To be the detached, wise, external critic. We did not see ourselves and our own manned of life as intimately involved in the settlement of this question. Now there can indeed be experts and critics in all the arts and sciences, but their writ does not run in the realm of the religious. It is not possible to adopt a detached and purely theoretical attitude in these matters.
- Maurice Drury The philosopher perplexed by having lost his grasp—the grasp of his thought on reality—wants to cry out. He wants to marvel at his confusion, to describe it, to grasp it—if not reality, then at least his inability to grasp reality—to enjoy and suffer it, to linger.
Although it is important to understand that moment of loss (the loss of the grasp of your thought)—although this is important for the purpose of understanding the question, one’s difficulty, and important for method and for understanding the activity of philosophy—this drowning of oneself in confusion can become addictive. It can become a temptation, a vice. One might even say: it is only safe to lose oneself like that when you are trying to think of God. Or perhaps: when one is losing oneself like that, this is one speaking (or trying to) about God. Even the most secular philosopher is thus a philosopher of religion. Philosophy is philosophy of religion. I mean, that philosophy is philosophy of religion is something that takes care of itself. |
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Academia.edu page Previous Notes Excluded Middle Moral Clarification The Will in the Tractatus Morality and Creation Moral Skepticism Understanding language and understanding music - The unity of a sentence, and the unity of a salad In what way secondary and absolute uses are nonsense (2) Another way of using nonsense Ethics as an Aspect of Philosophy - In what sense is there an ethical point to the Tractatus Interpretation as finding a way to say what the writer does - the Tractatus for example In what way secondary and absolute uses are nonsense Art is a matter of use - two claims, and a thought about the relation to ethics Both Aspects at the Same Time - in connection with Wittgenstein's early views on ethics Thinking and Willing Subjects in the Tractatus Two notions of "Family Resemblance" and a relation to Aspect-Perception The experience of thinking The Figurative and the Literal: two kinds of picturing: making reality thinkable What’s the Point of Figurative Language? ‘Juliet is the sun’ again – What kind of metaphor is it? Secondary and Absolute Uses of Terms – the Problem of Irresoluteness Secondary and Absolute Uses of Terms – the Problem of Examples Wrestling with Nonsense—A Protest: Absolute Senses, Secondary Senses, Gulfs between People, Difficulties of Reality, and Philosophy. What’s so bad about pain? Between Romantics and Anatomy: Religion and Pornography in Hanoch Levin The transcendence of ethics – two views Pain as form of behavior and pain as private object Archives
November 2019
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Blogroll Kelly Jolley - Quantum Est In Rebus Inane Duncan Richter - Language Goes on Holiday Matt Pianalto - Problems of Life Ben Pierce - Expensive Coffee Lars Hertzberg - Language is things we do Breaking the Silence - Israeli Soldiers Talk about the Occupied Territories Hans Sluga Blog Mists on the Riverss - Ed Mooney Tags
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