I'm not sure what you're talking about.There seems to be a great deal of the feeling of 'melancholy' in reading any philosophical piece from the greats of philosophy. This seems particularly true in continental philosophy, the existentialists, strangely enough even in the philosophy of both early and later Wittgenstein, and evident particularly in Aristotelian logic. I would dare say that most continental philosophy is imbued with melancholy.
Now, to ask the less esoteric and more direct question.
What is all this melancholy about or over? — Posty McPostface
What is all this melancholy about or over? — Posty McPostface
Because serious, prolonged and consistent reflection inevitably results in a radical disvaluing of the world, after which it is realized that there are absolutely no convincing reasons as to why it should exist. — darthbarracuda
The more I think about the world, the more I love it. The more I feel home in it. I belong here. All of us do. You do. Some philosophies hide that fact. I don't know why. — T Clark
You cannot attain wisdom without knowledge; wisdom is, to a degree, what Aquinas said: love takes up where knowledge leaves off. So, your algorithm here is problematic.Wisdom is not in vain, but knowledge alone is. Depending solely on your own understanding and capacity to achieve wisdom is vain. — Lone Wolf
There are heights of the soul from which tragedy itself no longer appears to operate tragically; and if all the woe in the world were taken together, who would dare to decide whether the sight of it would NECESSARILY seduce and constrain to sympathy, and thus to a doubling of the woe?
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There are books which have an inverse value for the soul and the health according as the inferior soul and the lower vitality, or the higher and more powerful, make use of them. In the former case they are dangerous, disturbing, unsettling books, in the latter case they are herald-calls which summon the bravest to THEIR bravery.
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Happiness and virtue are no arguments. It is willingly forgotten, however, even on the part of thoughtful minds, that to make unhappy and to make bad are just as little counter-arguments. A thing could be TRUE, although it were in the highest degree injurious and dangerous; indeed, the fundamental constitution of existence might be such that one succumbed by a full knowledge of it—so that the strength of a mind might be measured by the amount of "truth" it could endure—or to speak more plainly, by the extent to which it REQUIRED truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, damped, and falsified.
...https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm
The distance, and as it were the space around man, grows with the strength of his intellectual vision and insight: his world becomes profounder; new stars, new enigmas, and notions are ever coming into view. Perhaps everything on which the intellectual eye has exercised its acuteness and profundity has just been an occasion for its exercise, something of a game, something for children and childish minds. Perhaps the most solemn conceptions that have caused the most fighting and suffering, the conceptions "God" and "sin," will one day seem to us of no more importance than a child's plaything or a child's pain seems to an old man;—and perhaps another plaything and another pain will then be necessary once more for "the old man"—always childish enough, an eternal child! — N
What is all this melancholy about or over? — Posty McPostface
You cannot attain wisdom without knowledge; wisdom is, to a degree, what Aquinas said: love takes up where knowledge leaves off. So, your algorithm here is problematic. — TimeLine
Therefore, it is true you cannot have wisdom without some knowledge. The point I made was that knowledge without wisdom (which is entirely possible) is vain.Wisdom is not knowledge, but it is a prudent application of knowledge. — Lone Wolf
2) The truth is elusive and many issues are still unresolved. The truths that we can see - obvious ones - are painful: suffering, disease, poverty, death, torture, etc. etc. — TheMadFool
Wisdom is not knowledge, but it is a prudent application of knowledge. One may be very knowledgeable but will be miserable because omniscience remains beyond humanity. This is vain; ever searching but never finding. Wisdom limits and ends the circle of this meaningless quest. — Lone Wolf
In pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped.
I think it's fair to associate the Tao with wisdom. In my experience, wisdom means giving something up - release, surrender. — T Clark
The more I think about the world, the more I love it. The more I feel home in it. I belong here. All of us do. You do. Some philosophies hide that fact. I don't know why. — T Clark
Being-at-home-in-the-world and enjoying the transmutations of others into the Same is fine and all, but this is separate from the question as to whether or not the world, i.e. the totality that actually exists (and not necessarily a network of meanings in our lives), is justified. Certainly it is inappropriate to suggest a warm, home-made apple pie and a temporarily satisfied biological synthesis are enough to ensure the goodness of existence.
Really, happiness is a delirious escape into the infinite, a transcendence of Being, precisely because Being is not good. — darthbarracuda
Clearly from what I have written, I disagree. I have not been happy much in my life, but I've always known that the world is good and I belong here. Even when I was at my unhappiest I knew and felt that. We were created along with the world, as part of the world, by whatever mechanism you want to propose. This has been going on for billions of years. How could we possibly not belong here? — T Clark
Nature makes "mistakes", things that don't belong. Frankly it's surprising to me we've managed to hold on for as long as we have. Nature puked us out from its bowels, like everything else. — darthbarracuda
Yes, one would have to be very simple-minded to think such. One must learn to recognize what should be held onto, and what should be released.I wasn't saying every act of release or surrender is wise. All A is B, but not all B is A. — T Clark
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