When people are being introduced to western philosophy, it is the common, if not ubiquitous method, to introduce them first to Plato. One reasons that it is best to begin with the beginning. Since tradition states that western philosophy began with Socrates, we must proceed from that ground which he cultivated. We must hearken back to the origin of western civilization if we are to discover how we have become grounded in the past.
What is a classic but something somehow timeless? There is a small group of undisputed classics in the arts: Homer's Odyssey, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Mozart's Don Giovanni. In philosophy too, there are several works that stand out above the rest: Plato's Republic, Augustine's City of God, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. But is timelessness in the arts the same as timelessness in philosophy?
As long as human beings are human, anything that speaks to the truth of humanity will continue to resonate with the present. When we listen to Hamlet's soliloquy on death, we hear not only his voice, but also the silent outcry of our innermost despair. In just this way, literary and musical classics give voice to the intensely complex truth of the human experience. But do we have any analogous experience in reading the so-called classics of philosophy? If Plato's works are classics, in what way do they speak to the truth of humanity?
Considering Plato's exceptional place in western philosophy, we must ask whether or not it is deserved. Is all of western philosophy really just “a series of footnotes to Plato” (Whitehead)? And if so, how is it that Plato managed to get so much, so right – and so quickly? In the posthumously published book of remarks Culture and Value, Wittgenstein ruminated on this very subject. “I read: 'philosophers are no nearer to the meaning of reality than Plato got...'. What a strange situation. How extraordinary that Plato could have got even as far as he did! Or that we could not get any further! Was it because Plato was so extremely clever?” (p. 15e)
There is a long tradition in western philosophy of universal negation. Progress in philosophy has meant more often than not the denial of one's predecessors' beliefs and the negation of their arguments. If we favor the path the past has taken, we could optimistically call this process “dialectical” in the Hegelian sense. But were we not already predisposed to provide validation for the course of western thought, we might wish to discard the whole lot of it after observing how often it contradicts itself. If we are being objective, we must admit that it might just be prejudice which wishes to preserve and vindicate western philosophy. Indeed, if there is anything timeless in the philosophy of Socrates, it would be his rejection of sophistry and the mindless prattle of rhetoricians concerned more about winning an argument than reaching anything that might be called truth. And while western philosophy began with Socrates, how much more of it follows precisely in the footsteps of the sophists!
So, what disposes us to place Plato especially above the rest? What makes his work so timeless, but that it has been preserved and revered thus far? Are we merely “minding the house”, carrying on with the same tasks that our forebears practiced, trusting that someone along the line had good reason to do as they did? Or is there something in Plato that resonates with us, that presents itself as something quite timeless? If philosophy could speak to the truth of the human condition, does Plato's?
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Contra Plato II
The oeuvre of Plato is too massive and his influence too vast to give an adequate assessment of it in these few short pages. And unfortunately, everything that we could have to say in defense of the legacy of Plato would be suspect, since western civilization has been so radically influenced by Plato that there is not even one westerner who can be trusted to speak objectively with his regard. Since Plato's death, entire civilizations have risen and fallen, and along with them, tongues have died, grown, and been reborn. What are we, modern men, but aware of our infinite capacity for self-deception, and implicitly distrustful of the languages that speak our lives?
If a man loses consciousness and his memories, upon awakening does he trust first the woman who claims to be his wife, of whom he has no recollection? Or does he distrust all except himself, and his own capacity for judgment? It is this way with our civilization. We are amnesiacs trying to regain a memory of the past, while still comporting ourselves toward the future. Where do we start? And who can we trust? It is this way with our philosophical heritage – with our capacity to think, and how willing we are to trust our thinking. We are amnesiacs trying to remember how to think. But how are we to relearn thinking except by forgetting what we have always known, that knowledge which has always skewed our thought? Having lost the past, we must willfully forget it. We must forget Plato.
Instead, we will begin as everyone does when they are born or awakened, with the present. The worst thing about Plato is that he is so clear, yet so incomprehensible. I read his dialogues and understand that humankind has always wondered what it means to be just, what it means to love, what it means to be beautiful and good. But do I understand anything else? How often does it seem that the lines of argumentation obfuscate more than they clarify? How often does it seem that Socrates is more interested in making other people look like fools than he is interested in reaching the truth? Indeed, Plato frustrates me because he seems so much more a sophist than the sophists themselves.
Yet everything I have just said is still just appearance. There is a clear meaning in every line of Plato – but to see it, one must spend years studying Greek and Greek civilization. The lie is the clarity concealing the truth. For Plato to be read, he must be rewritten. He must be destroyed and reborn, that something of the truth he loved so much could be made to live again. Instead what we have of him naught but a reanimated corpse haunting our universities and minds. He must be summarily destroyed and re-filtered through a brilliantly modern mind. But even this kind of radical salvaging would still be a forgetting.
What is a man without a country? For us, a hero. When Kurt Vonnegut gave the title to his autobiography, though there was an echo of the rogue and scoundrel, it was not a title of dejected remorse. He did not mourn for the country he lost – he rejoiced that he never had one to lose. These are not the sentiments of a Platonist. What did Socrates die for, except Athens? What did Socrates teach for, except Athens? We are, all of us, such scoundrels, rogues and romantics. How can we come to understand the truth of a man who could not conceive of life without his country?
We have absorbed Plato into our every pore. He has made us all – but we have forgotten how. We read him and can't help but admire and agree. But never did accord and admiration make a civilization great. In order to create anew, we must be rid of Plato. Living in his shadow, we can do nothing but recreate. Only if he dies, may we live once again.
If a man loses consciousness and his memories, upon awakening does he trust first the woman who claims to be his wife, of whom he has no recollection? Or does he distrust all except himself, and his own capacity for judgment? It is this way with our civilization. We are amnesiacs trying to regain a memory of the past, while still comporting ourselves toward the future. Where do we start? And who can we trust? It is this way with our philosophical heritage – with our capacity to think, and how willing we are to trust our thinking. We are amnesiacs trying to remember how to think. But how are we to relearn thinking except by forgetting what we have always known, that knowledge which has always skewed our thought? Having lost the past, we must willfully forget it. We must forget Plato.
Instead, we will begin as everyone does when they are born or awakened, with the present. The worst thing about Plato is that he is so clear, yet so incomprehensible. I read his dialogues and understand that humankind has always wondered what it means to be just, what it means to love, what it means to be beautiful and good. But do I understand anything else? How often does it seem that the lines of argumentation obfuscate more than they clarify? How often does it seem that Socrates is more interested in making other people look like fools than he is interested in reaching the truth? Indeed, Plato frustrates me because he seems so much more a sophist than the sophists themselves.
Yet everything I have just said is still just appearance. There is a clear meaning in every line of Plato – but to see it, one must spend years studying Greek and Greek civilization. The lie is the clarity concealing the truth. For Plato to be read, he must be rewritten. He must be destroyed and reborn, that something of the truth he loved so much could be made to live again. Instead what we have of him naught but a reanimated corpse haunting our universities and minds. He must be summarily destroyed and re-filtered through a brilliantly modern mind. But even this kind of radical salvaging would still be a forgetting.
What is a man without a country? For us, a hero. When Kurt Vonnegut gave the title to his autobiography, though there was an echo of the rogue and scoundrel, it was not a title of dejected remorse. He did not mourn for the country he lost – he rejoiced that he never had one to lose. These are not the sentiments of a Platonist. What did Socrates die for, except Athens? What did Socrates teach for, except Athens? We are, all of us, such scoundrels, rogues and romantics. How can we come to understand the truth of a man who could not conceive of life without his country?
We have absorbed Plato into our every pore. He has made us all – but we have forgotten how. We read him and can't help but admire and agree. But never did accord and admiration make a civilization great. In order to create anew, we must be rid of Plato. Living in his shadow, we can do nothing but recreate. Only if he dies, may we live once again.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Strength and Virtue
Our only consolation is to hope that the will to peace and reconciliation is stronger than the will to divide and dominate. For the will to destroy is essentially negative, and borne from but fear and hate, while the will to create comes from the goodness of spirit that is the heart of all virtue. Nevertheless, this is still just hope and no promise, for experience shows us that strength and virtue do not always coincide. Sometimes the vicious are mightier than the just, and sometimes virtue does naught but weaken.
What then, is strength? True strength is not mere physical ability, but force of will and the capacity to actualize intent. Here, both spirit and psyche are integral, for the power of one's will is a direct reflection of the health of one's spirit. Each of all of us has something of virtue and something of vice, and the portion of each determines our course in life. But the coincidence of virtue and vice in the same soul is divisive, and war is waged daily between these forces. The stake of this contest is nothing less than our very destinies – the destiny of the individual and of humankind itself. For most, this conflict is never settled, and so, much of humanity suffers constantly from despair, confusion, malaise, or some worse spiritual ailment.
That strength of will which is power itself comes as a symptom of spiritual vitality. The power of one's will grows in accord with the consolidation of the spirit. Strength and power are derived from emotional tranquility and peace of mind, when the war becomes settled for better or for worse. Herein lies the power to create or destroy, and the power to direct one's will with intention. Herein lies the possibility to actualize a future.
What then, is strength? True strength is not mere physical ability, but force of will and the capacity to actualize intent. Here, both spirit and psyche are integral, for the power of one's will is a direct reflection of the health of one's spirit. Each of all of us has something of virtue and something of vice, and the portion of each determines our course in life. But the coincidence of virtue and vice in the same soul is divisive, and war is waged daily between these forces. The stake of this contest is nothing less than our very destinies – the destiny of the individual and of humankind itself. For most, this conflict is never settled, and so, much of humanity suffers constantly from despair, confusion, malaise, or some worse spiritual ailment.
That strength of will which is power itself comes as a symptom of spiritual vitality. The power of one's will grows in accord with the consolidation of the spirit. Strength and power are derived from emotional tranquility and peace of mind, when the war becomes settled for better or for worse. Herein lies the power to create or destroy, and the power to direct one's will with intention. Herein lies the possibility to actualize a future.
System Building
All the world lives under one guiding system or another. These systems may be religious or political, cultural or familial. Regardless, they determine the course of our lives and the constitution of our spirits. For many born in our cross-cultural world, these guiding systems seem senseless and arbitrary. It looks as if we could easily be something or someone entirely different from who we are, if we were just born somewhere else, with a different family, culture and community. Learning that our beliefs are determined by our environment, we become disillusioned and search for something higher, more reliable and more concrete – something, namely true. We come to see all guiding systems as systems of control, borne of the will to dominate. We despair that there is not even one system that can be trusted. But though all systems systematize, very few were created to stifle and oppress. Most were guided by a more innocent intent.
True creators do not wish to harm others with their creation, but rather to free them from something else by way of their creation. Such systems are best seen not as an invention and something essentially new, but rather as the re-imagining and newborn manifestation of that good spirit which has grown hungry through long neglect and suppression. And that good spirit had been there all along, though it dwelt quietly unexpressed, obstructed by the inadequacy of a system which had lived past its usefulness. Living within such a dying system, one is presented with the unique opportunity to do good by doing ill. Here, to create one must first tear down. Here, one must destroy to make free.
These good destroyers are liberators. They free captives from the oppression of dying systems, thought they fall short for they offer no alternative. They release the captives from constraint and comfort into a boundless anarchy. They destroy the jail, but whence go the captives?
It is here that the captives, freed, become captors, building safe havens that shall become the prisons of their children. Confronted with true boundlessness, they discover that freedom is less a promise than a challenge, less a consolation than a difficulty. So they set out to build strongholds against the radical violence of liberty, the harsh reality that once was their only hope.
But he who builds well does not safeguard against jailbreaks. Rather he promotes the creation of a prosperous utopia in which the captives may live free, should they come to escape their prisons, should they find the utopia more alluring than the desert of anarchy. The good creator does not constrain but rather frees. He frees the spirit and mind to a world of its own choosing. He opens the space to a chosen world, a world that is both revelation and necessity, a free world both chosen and true.
True creators do not wish to harm others with their creation, but rather to free them from something else by way of their creation. Such systems are best seen not as an invention and something essentially new, but rather as the re-imagining and newborn manifestation of that good spirit which has grown hungry through long neglect and suppression. And that good spirit had been there all along, though it dwelt quietly unexpressed, obstructed by the inadequacy of a system which had lived past its usefulness. Living within such a dying system, one is presented with the unique opportunity to do good by doing ill. Here, to create one must first tear down. Here, one must destroy to make free.
These good destroyers are liberators. They free captives from the oppression of dying systems, thought they fall short for they offer no alternative. They release the captives from constraint and comfort into a boundless anarchy. They destroy the jail, but whence go the captives?
It is here that the captives, freed, become captors, building safe havens that shall become the prisons of their children. Confronted with true boundlessness, they discover that freedom is less a promise than a challenge, less a consolation than a difficulty. So they set out to build strongholds against the radical violence of liberty, the harsh reality that once was their only hope.
But he who builds well does not safeguard against jailbreaks. Rather he promotes the creation of a prosperous utopia in which the captives may live free, should they come to escape their prisons, should they find the utopia more alluring than the desert of anarchy. The good creator does not constrain but rather frees. He frees the spirit and mind to a world of its own choosing. He opens the space to a chosen world, a world that is both revelation and necessity, a free world both chosen and true.
More System Building
A system is created after it is born. It originates as a byway, a path from constraint to freedom. As it frees, the number of the freed grows and becomes a community. Dwelling in its newfound freedom, the people comes to know that openness also means emptiness, that by leaving the oppression of a system they also lost their security. Boundless faith becomes too great a demand, for they are completely unprepared to practice such a radical emptiness. Longing to reclaim a sense of security, they come together and rebuild. So freed, they cannot return - instead they recreate. After all, it was not Christ who founded Christianity but Paul. While Christ preached the kingdom of heaven and eternal salvation, Paul offered a present security by building the church.
The Dialectic of Reconciliation Redux
What is required to achieve unity, peace and reconciliation of the most disparate views? Many things, but one thing – the will to do so. It requires a certain attitude: that of open-mindedness and understanding. One must have the will to hear what one does not think, and just be willing to listen. For if you will not listen, I cannot speak with you but only to or at you, as with an uncompromising wall. And if you are such a wall, that wall is your strength and cannot be breached by anyone. Your wall only falls if it desires to fall, only crumbles if it desires dust instead. That is also to say, the barriers that make us deaf to each other are only broken when we would rather have no belief at all than only own belief, when we would rather be filled with the emptiness of the desert than be fortified within a castle. And unless we are willing to endure that stark and lonely desert expanse, we will never find the oasis of true belief, the paradise which flows boundlessly back into the desert, whose residents dwell transitively between perfection and nothingness.
Monday, May 30, 2011
History
A necessary error is not a mistake. If something is not what you hoped it would be, it still matters – just differently. For many, the past is a resource to be culled and put to service for the sake of the future. Interpret this past in this way as a means toward this future. Although nearly everyone exercises this kind of thinking, it is both an affront to history and an abuse of memory. It reduces the overfull vitality of the past, stemming its full power, such that what remains may be harnessed and put to use. But the past is not ours; it is rather we who belong to it.
The future bears down on the present, and the past lingers still. There is no divorcing the present from either. They bleed together, forming a single inexhaustible continuum. Nevertheless, we relate to our past and our possible future in dramatically different ways. While the future changes with the slightest provocation, the past is not so flighty. It matters. It has a weight and establishes our grounding. Furthermore, the bearing it holds on our present is not wholly chosen. We cannot decide what will have mattered to us, and how past matters shall effect us. The past has its own character, and asserts itself without regard for our desire. For this reason, it is up to us to be receptive to the true character of the past, to peaceably align ourselves with its direction, and not attempt violence upon it. This is the only way we can attain a clear view for the future, and a justified confidence in our capacity to move into it.
"History is written by the victors." I have won, therefore I will present history in such a way as to ensure that I will continue to win. I have lost, therefore I will interpret the past in such a way that I may become victorious in the future. But history is not written on any paper, nor illustrated in any art, nor constructed through any power structure. History is history. It is that past which is written upon the present, whether that be the present world, our present selves, or something besides. History is performative, and we do engage in its performance. But we are not its creator, owner or prophet – rather it is we who are created, possessed, and guided by it. History is not its writing, but something besides. It is more real, more undeniable, and entirely unaccountable. True history is not given to interpretation, for it is immune to every such exercise of power.
"History is written by the victors." But why do we think of the past only with regard to loss and gain? Isn't history more than a series of contests? History is insensitive to the values and motives of man. Everything is preserved as the past daily dies, each event and person given the continued vitality they deserve. There is history, and it is written daily. It is receptive to our present, and how we choose to remember it does matter. For a correct understanding of the past, we must move past thinking in terms of victory and defeat, for history knows nothing of either. People determine what constitutes victory, and history is insensitive to our determinations.
History has its own motives, things which matter to it and come to matter to us regardless of our want. We would benefit from being receptive to our determining past, rather than seeking endlessly to interpret it on our terms, to achieve flight from the natural course of history by hiding in a wholly and only human future – a future that can never come.
The future bears down on the present, and the past lingers still. There is no divorcing the present from either. They bleed together, forming a single inexhaustible continuum. Nevertheless, we relate to our past and our possible future in dramatically different ways. While the future changes with the slightest provocation, the past is not so flighty. It matters. It has a weight and establishes our grounding. Furthermore, the bearing it holds on our present is not wholly chosen. We cannot decide what will have mattered to us, and how past matters shall effect us. The past has its own character, and asserts itself without regard for our desire. For this reason, it is up to us to be receptive to the true character of the past, to peaceably align ourselves with its direction, and not attempt violence upon it. This is the only way we can attain a clear view for the future, and a justified confidence in our capacity to move into it.
"History is written by the victors." I have won, therefore I will present history in such a way as to ensure that I will continue to win. I have lost, therefore I will interpret the past in such a way that I may become victorious in the future. But history is not written on any paper, nor illustrated in any art, nor constructed through any power structure. History is history. It is that past which is written upon the present, whether that be the present world, our present selves, or something besides. History is performative, and we do engage in its performance. But we are not its creator, owner or prophet – rather it is we who are created, possessed, and guided by it. History is not its writing, but something besides. It is more real, more undeniable, and entirely unaccountable. True history is not given to interpretation, for it is immune to every such exercise of power.
"History is written by the victors." But why do we think of the past only with regard to loss and gain? Isn't history more than a series of contests? History is insensitive to the values and motives of man. Everything is preserved as the past daily dies, each event and person given the continued vitality they deserve. There is history, and it is written daily. It is receptive to our present, and how we choose to remember it does matter. For a correct understanding of the past, we must move past thinking in terms of victory and defeat, for history knows nothing of either. People determine what constitutes victory, and history is insensitive to our determinations.
History has its own motives, things which matter to it and come to matter to us regardless of our want. We would benefit from being receptive to our determining past, rather than seeking endlessly to interpret it on our terms, to achieve flight from the natural course of history by hiding in a wholly and only human future – a future that can never come.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Comedy
There is nothing funny about the expected. Comedy is born with the advent of the inexplicable. Just as an infant giggles with delight playing peekaboo, so too is humor borne always from surprise.
A joke is a curtain lifted, a laugh the resolution of a rift torn in the mind. This is why humor is so vitally important for the promotion and preservation of sanity. A laugh is the garbage man taking out the trash. Without that garbage man, the paradoxes of life would pile endlessly higher, blinding us to everything but chaos. For there is no way to repair ourselves of the searing rifts of life except through laughter. When taken seriously, a paradox leads always to madness. Only by taking things lightly can we hope to rid ourselves of the overwhelming weight of life, thereby paving the path to clarity of vision, clarity of thought, and a higher sanity.
A joke is a revelation. The apparently mundane is revealed to be substantially impossible, and the incommensurability of these opposites compels us to... laugh. But the joker is not surprised by his own joke; he already knows the punchline. Knowing the joke's end, his art lies in deception. He must keep concealed the essential moment of the joke until its proper time, at which point he delivers the unexpected truth with expert force. The joker must walk a line and deliver a punch. In this way, the joker is a combatant - and a liar.
If the joker is a liar, might also the liar be a joker? And if the liar does not laugh, doesn't that just make him more honest? A laugh can be had without a joker, and a joke can be told without a teller. Suffering considerable loss, who of us is brave enough to laugh?
All lies are potential jokes - it all depends on how seriously you take them. In comedy, white lies become light chuckles, significant deceptions become sick jokes, and flagrant abuses of trust become black commentaries on the gut-shot absurdity of life. All the world's a stage, and all of us merely players... but are our lives comedy or tragedy? It all depends on how seriously we take them.
A joke is a curtain lifted, a laugh the resolution of a rift torn in the mind. This is why humor is so vitally important for the promotion and preservation of sanity. A laugh is the garbage man taking out the trash. Without that garbage man, the paradoxes of life would pile endlessly higher, blinding us to everything but chaos. For there is no way to repair ourselves of the searing rifts of life except through laughter. When taken seriously, a paradox leads always to madness. Only by taking things lightly can we hope to rid ourselves of the overwhelming weight of life, thereby paving the path to clarity of vision, clarity of thought, and a higher sanity.
A joke is a revelation. The apparently mundane is revealed to be substantially impossible, and the incommensurability of these opposites compels us to... laugh. But the joker is not surprised by his own joke; he already knows the punchline. Knowing the joke's end, his art lies in deception. He must keep concealed the essential moment of the joke until its proper time, at which point he delivers the unexpected truth with expert force. The joker must walk a line and deliver a punch. In this way, the joker is a combatant - and a liar.
If the joker is a liar, might also the liar be a joker? And if the liar does not laugh, doesn't that just make him more honest? A laugh can be had without a joker, and a joke can be told without a teller. Suffering considerable loss, who of us is brave enough to laugh?
All lies are potential jokes - it all depends on how seriously you take them. In comedy, white lies become light chuckles, significant deceptions become sick jokes, and flagrant abuses of trust become black commentaries on the gut-shot absurdity of life. All the world's a stage, and all of us merely players... but are our lives comedy or tragedy? It all depends on how seriously we take them.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Art and Artifice
Every art has something of art and something of artifice. There is no artifice without art, and no art without artifice. Without both, neither would be possible.
What then is the relation between intention and meaning in art? The artist speaks best that message which he does not intend. Intending to speak a message, he rarely ever succeeds in affectively communicating it. But some arts are more receptive to the intentional impression of meaning than others. As a general rule, the more an art is based in artifice, the easier it is to effectively communicate a meaning intended. But just as the accidental is not inessential or subordinate to meaning, so too is artifice not without its art.
The art of artifice is its technique. Since artifice is artificial, it is superordinate to the content inscribed within it. As method, it structures that which is without structure. As technique, it works upon dead matter so as to present it in a way, so as to re-present it as what it is not. A diamond as itself will not sparkle, and gold of itself does not shine. Only when it has been worked upon can it be seen for what it is, that is to say, for what it is not.
At the same time, the spirit of art is something wholly other from technique. It is that spirit which moves in music, soaring with our heart and plummeting into our soul. It is that tear which rolls down our cheek as we are touched by the marvelous sensuality of flowing drapes locked into marble. But none of this should mistake us into thinking that the purpose of art is merely to move us to feeling. Beauty is not grounded in emotion; it is grounded in spirit. The end of art is not to move us to feeling; it is to move us to meaning.
What then is the relation between intention and meaning in art? The artist speaks best that message which he does not intend. Intending to speak a message, he rarely ever succeeds in affectively communicating it. But some arts are more receptive to the intentional impression of meaning than others. As a general rule, the more an art is based in artifice, the easier it is to effectively communicate a meaning intended. But just as the accidental is not inessential or subordinate to meaning, so too is artifice not without its art.
The art of artifice is its technique. Since artifice is artificial, it is superordinate to the content inscribed within it. As method, it structures that which is without structure. As technique, it works upon dead matter so as to present it in a way, so as to re-present it as what it is not. A diamond as itself will not sparkle, and gold of itself does not shine. Only when it has been worked upon can it be seen for what it is, that is to say, for what it is not.
At the same time, the spirit of art is something wholly other from technique. It is that spirit which moves in music, soaring with our heart and plummeting into our soul. It is that tear which rolls down our cheek as we are touched by the marvelous sensuality of flowing drapes locked into marble. But none of this should mistake us into thinking that the purpose of art is merely to move us to feeling. Beauty is not grounded in emotion; it is grounded in spirit. The end of art is not to move us to feeling; it is to move us to meaning.
Intentionality
Every act of communication effects both an intended and an unintended meaning, and there is no reason that the intended should be given priority in the metaphysics of meaning. And why should intention be appointed the godhead of meaning? Why should we think that the unintentional has no role to play in the comprehension of meaning? Should the accidental be less meaningful, simply for want of an intending mind?
There is meaning in the unintended, for only that meaning may be discovered. For the counter-movement of intention is attention, which minds nothing for what the mind imbues into meaning, but rather attends to discover the essentially new. To paint a complete picture of what meaning is, we must admit a place for both attention and intention, for both play a role in the advent of meaning. Not only is intending responsible for the advent of meaning, but so also attending, for only an attendant is responsive from the first to the coming of meaning and therefore capable of its discovery.
There is meaning in the unintended, for only that meaning may be discovered. For the counter-movement of intention is attention, which minds nothing for what the mind imbues into meaning, but rather attends to discover the essentially new. To paint a complete picture of what meaning is, we must admit a place for both attention and intention, for both play a role in the advent of meaning. Not only is intending responsible for the advent of meaning, but so also attending, for only an attendant is responsive from the first to the coming of meaning and therefore capable of its discovery.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Don't You Know?
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 And the Word was Bird, and Bird Bird Bird, Bird is the Word.
3 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 4 He came as a witness to testify of the Word, so that through him all might know that the Bird is the Word. 5 He himself was not the Bird; he came only as a witness to the Bird.
6 And John testified, saying: "Don't you know about the Bird? 7 Everybody knows that the Bird is the Word. 8 Bird Bird Bird! Bird is the Word."
9 Now the Holy Spirit came to John, and he began speaking in tongues and prophesying. 10 And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host of angels praising God and singing with him: 11 "Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow. 12 Hallelujah! Papa-ooma-mow-mow."
3 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 4 He came as a witness to testify of the Word, so that through him all might know that the Bird is the Word. 5 He himself was not the Bird; he came only as a witness to the Bird.
6 And John testified, saying: "Don't you know about the Bird? 7 Everybody knows that the Bird is the Word. 8 Bird Bird Bird! Bird is the Word."
9 Now the Holy Spirit came to John, and he began speaking in tongues and prophesying. 10 And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host of angels praising God and singing with him: 11 "Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow. 12 Hallelujah! Papa-ooma-mow-mow."
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Love and Women
When a man attends to his heart, he discerns only the most callous of emotions. Love, as it is, is known best and only by woman. If we are lucky, they deign to initiate us in its mysteries. If unlucky in love, our bitter ignorance curses it as illusion. And when we are caught up in love and yet find it empty, we men must hold faith in woman, for it is she who keeps and keeps watch over the substance of our hearts.
What is man without woman but a shell, and a dangerous creature? Shall we curse women for bringing out the worst in us, when it is the worst that we truly are? Love is a maddening, I once wrote. It is surrender, and to surrender without faith is to abandon oneself to madness.
There is no hope for love without faith. Perhaps this is what is unknowingly meant when people advise lovers to select their mates carefully, and according to a confluence of values. For man lacks the good-natured generosity to give himself over to a beauty unknown; he can be coaxed into submission only when he beholds himself submitting to a universal value, that is to say, only when he is permitted his illusions.
What is man without woman but a shell, and a dangerous creature? Shall we curse women for bringing out the worst in us, when it is the worst that we truly are? Love is a maddening, I once wrote. It is surrender, and to surrender without faith is to abandon oneself to madness.
There is no hope for love without faith. Perhaps this is what is unknowingly meant when people advise lovers to select their mates carefully, and according to a confluence of values. For man lacks the good-natured generosity to give himself over to a beauty unknown; he can be coaxed into submission only when he beholds himself submitting to a universal value, that is to say, only when he is permitted his illusions.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Courage and Virtue
"Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once."
William Shakespeare - Julius Caesar
The valiant never taste of death but once."
William Shakespeare - Julius Caesar
If through cowardice one evaded an ultimate death, it might be worthwhile. However, there is nothing more certain than that we are all going to die regardless of our virtue. Because of this, we ought to pursue virtue only for its own sake, and not because we think we may profit from it. In short, be virtuous if that is what pleases you, and let us define virtue as the thorough and consistent pursuit of said pleasure.
An Absurd Faith
Communication is a hope – an absurd faith that, yes, what you mean by the words you use is what others mean by the same words. This is obviously a philosophical problem. How do I know that when I say “horse”, another person is thinking of a horse and not a cow instead? How do I know when I point to something and call it “that”, that another person knows exactly what it is I'm pointing to? After all, they often don't. The “that”, and everything else about language, is vague, and that vagueness is simultaneously the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of language. It is a paradox that language is inherently vague, since it is often used as a tool for clarification. But this paradox is not a quagmire. It does not suck us under and into the muck; rather, it uproots us from our linguistic pretensions, such that we may soar.
Cares and the Carefree
You can accumulate houses and mansions and millions of dollars, but the more things you have, the more cares you have. It is no coincidence that the most carefree people are those poorest in material wealth.
However, one of the essential characteristics of the human experience is concern. One cannot live without having a stake in the world. You cannot take a stand without also taking on an interest in the goings-on of the world. To be is to be in a world, and to be in is to be involved, interested and concerned. By this reasoning, we must conclude that it is logically impossible to be "without a care in the world".
So what are we to make of those who really are without a care in the world? Is this line of reasoning to be discarded, since it seems to contradict observed phenomena? Or are the carefree in some way still involved in the goings-on of the world?
Simply because one is not materially invested in the world does not mean that one is absolutely "uninvolved". The ways in which man is bound up with the world are manifold. Some of us are bound up in personal relationships, and are therefore not entirely without care. But what about those who have truly nothing? Let us imagine a perfect ascetic - a man who has given up all possessions and all involvement in human affairs. What becomes of him? Is he free - or has he become a nothingness?
Being torn away from the particular, he surrenders to the universal. He does not care to own a thing; instead he takes pleasure in taking everything in. He does not care to bind himself to people - instead he embraces all humanity. In this way, we may reaffirm that being in the world, for human beings, necessarily entails involvement. In this way, we present the cares of the carefree. And by observing the example of the truly carefree, we may follow suit, likewise freeing ourselves from our worldly concerns and risking nothingness.
You know already that I admire this man that I have mentioned, this carefree globetrotter, this hopeless vagabond. And I know already that you envy him too. He is living the life that we are to live, if we dare. Let us risk nothingness that we may regain ourselves and with it all the world. Let us forget sensibility and remember sweet honeydew hope and naiveté. Let us forget that there is anything to lose.
Let us dare to live.
However, one of the essential characteristics of the human experience is concern. One cannot live without having a stake in the world. You cannot take a stand without also taking on an interest in the goings-on of the world. To be is to be in a world, and to be in is to be involved, interested and concerned. By this reasoning, we must conclude that it is logically impossible to be "without a care in the world".
So what are we to make of those who really are without a care in the world? Is this line of reasoning to be discarded, since it seems to contradict observed phenomena? Or are the carefree in some way still involved in the goings-on of the world?
Simply because one is not materially invested in the world does not mean that one is absolutely "uninvolved". The ways in which man is bound up with the world are manifold. Some of us are bound up in personal relationships, and are therefore not entirely without care. But what about those who have truly nothing? Let us imagine a perfect ascetic - a man who has given up all possessions and all involvement in human affairs. What becomes of him? Is he free - or has he become a nothingness?
Being torn away from the particular, he surrenders to the universal. He does not care to own a thing; instead he takes pleasure in taking everything in. He does not care to bind himself to people - instead he embraces all humanity. In this way, we may reaffirm that being in the world, for human beings, necessarily entails involvement. In this way, we present the cares of the carefree. And by observing the example of the truly carefree, we may follow suit, likewise freeing ourselves from our worldly concerns and risking nothingness.
You know already that I admire this man that I have mentioned, this carefree globetrotter, this hopeless vagabond. And I know already that you envy him too. He is living the life that we are to live, if we dare. Let us risk nothingness that we may regain ourselves and with it all the world. Let us forget sensibility and remember sweet honeydew hope and naiveté. Let us forget that there is anything to lose.
Let us dare to live.
Possibility, Necessity and Contingency
Before language, reality was not conceived or considered. It was only known.
Before language, metaphysics was impossible. Without language, man is no different from anything else. It is language which creates the possibility of difference, language which actuates the disconnection of mankind from reality. But language is no merely negative force, and disconnection is not always alienation.
Language, as disconnection, opens up a space between man and reality. For this reason, man seeks to reconnect with reality by way of language. That is the purpose of metaphysics.
Language disconnects man from reality, and thereby creates the very possibility of possibility.
Before the conception of reality, it was impossible to imagine anything as contingent. It is the mark of primitive man that everything is seen as necessary and inevitable. Similarly, it is the mark the civilized, that is to say, those who have become enamored with civilization, that everything is seen as contingent.
The wiser man understands that the being of possibility is inherent to language, and the being of necessity is inherent to the world. It is only within man that any mediation between contingency and necessity is possible.
Before language, metaphysics was impossible. Without language, man is no different from anything else. It is language which creates the possibility of difference, language which actuates the disconnection of mankind from reality. But language is no merely negative force, and disconnection is not always alienation.
Language, as disconnection, opens up a space between man and reality. For this reason, man seeks to reconnect with reality by way of language. That is the purpose of metaphysics.
* * *
Language disconnects man from reality, and thereby creates the very possibility of possibility.
Before the conception of reality, it was impossible to imagine anything as contingent. It is the mark of primitive man that everything is seen as necessary and inevitable. Similarly, it is the mark the civilized, that is to say, those who have become enamored with civilization, that everything is seen as contingent.
The wiser man understands that the being of possibility is inherent to language, and the being of necessity is inherent to the world. It is only within man that any mediation between contingency and necessity is possible.
* * *
There is no longer any primitive man. To know civilization is to become civil. Even those who are at a remove from civilization are themselves civilized. We are all of us spouses trapped in a loveless marriage. Civilization has seduced us, and we have become enamored with it. We know not life without it; that is to say, we know not even that we are always already within it.
There is no longer any primitive man. To know civilization is to become civil. Even those who are at a remove from civilization are themselves civilized. We are all of us spouses trapped in a loveless marriage. Civilization has seduced us, and we have become enamored with it. We know not life without it; that is to say, we know not even that we are always already within it.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
From Vice to Virtue
It is greed that causes man to act according to his wishes, and cowardice that causes man to act according to his fears.
But, "the highest form of intelligence is the ability to observe without evaluating" (Jiddu Krishnamurti). Until man learns this intelligence, he will never be capable of acting in accord with the true. Until man learns this ability, he will never be capable of exercising sound judgment.
It is imperative to right living that man clears the confusion from his mind. The proper way of living requires that man think and act in a strict progression. The natural state of the mind of man is confusion: we take in the facts while simultaneously thinking of what we would like them to be. This is not the proper way.
The proper way is strictly delineated. We cannot possibly understand the value and importance things hold for us until we see them for what they are. Evaluation must always, and only, proceed from observation.
Why doesn't this come naturally? In a word - attachment. It is because we desire things to be one way, or fear them to be another, that we are incapable of seeing things for what they are. We become personally invested in matters too quickly - indeed, almost immediately.
We must take reality in with detachment, seeing only what there is to be seen, and with a mind unclouded by fear and desire. Only then, armed with the powerful indifference that is the truth, can we act rightly.
But, "the highest form of intelligence is the ability to observe without evaluating" (Jiddu Krishnamurti). Until man learns this intelligence, he will never be capable of acting in accord with the true. Until man learns this ability, he will never be capable of exercising sound judgment.
It is imperative to right living that man clears the confusion from his mind. The proper way of living requires that man think and act in a strict progression. The natural state of the mind of man is confusion: we take in the facts while simultaneously thinking of what we would like them to be. This is not the proper way.
The proper way is strictly delineated. We cannot possibly understand the value and importance things hold for us until we see them for what they are. Evaluation must always, and only, proceed from observation.
Why doesn't this come naturally? In a word - attachment. It is because we desire things to be one way, or fear them to be another, that we are incapable of seeing things for what they are. We become personally invested in matters too quickly - indeed, almost immediately.
We must take reality in with detachment, seeing only what there is to be seen, and with a mind unclouded by fear and desire. Only then, armed with the powerful indifference that is the truth, can we act rightly.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Do Unto Others
Although the rule is called "golden", every time I hear it I hear it differently. It is easy to agree with something that is stated vaguely. You agree with whatever you would like to have heard.
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