I like this. Irony at the center, the laughter of the gods at our solemn assertions.I'm coming broadly to a meta-philosophical view of philosophy as ultimately ironic: a Cyrenaic responds only insofar as he is questioned, and defends himself on the terms of the debate that get set up, which doesn't involve (unironic) belief in those terms — The Great Whatever
Exactly.What the metaphysician typically is not, though, is a meta-philosopher. He doesn't understand why he inquires or what it means to inquire, or to get an answer. Usually, I think it has to do with anxiety and control. Once the desire for these things diminishes, and the practical incoherence of seeking them is seen to be contradictory on its own terms, the desire to be a metaphysician goes with it. — The Great Whatever
I know the people I like most are very funny, with a deep capacity for irony, yet able to drop the irony when shit gets real. In other words, it has nothing to do with their philosophy, really, except insofar as philosophy is secondary for them. — csalisbury
This is great. Yes, dimly understood desires, because understanding them almost requires a transition↪John
I agree with tgw (& hoo over on another thread) that the will-to-philosophize stems ultimately from dimly understood pains, desires, and anxieties. Most Philosophy seems to have the purpose of shaping and sharpening one's conception of the world in order to keep it within the limits of cognition - in other words, in order to keep it at arms length. Most philosophy is really just clunky poetry resulting from the poet's immense self-limitation.The writers I've mentioned are able (1) to see philosophy for what it is (the irony tgw spoke of) but also (2) since they understand what it is, they can also use it as a theme to be interwoven with other themes. Basically their scope is much greater (& they have much better senses of humor) — csalisbury
I'm very glad to see someone else contemplation self-identifications explicitly. That seems to be the skeleton key. Master words, master images, from which the rest of the persona can be largely deduced, at least in its broad strokes.The two smokescreens philosophers tend to use today are clear-headed devotion to truth for truth's sake (analytic) and political engagement (contintental). Both self-identifications obscure what's really going on. — csalisbury
It can be philosophical, but I don't think it can count as philosophy, in its more systematic mode, in any case. — John
Exactly. There's certainly nothing wrong with rigor or systematization, and constructing well-wrought arguments (as well as finding the chinks in the arguments of others) can be deeply rewarding in-and-of-itself. The problem is that most philosophers seem to labor under the pretense that they're developing (or contributing to) a profound understanding of reality or of knowledge or of x. The pretense that their philosophy is (or is a key part of) the understanding. But what typically happens is that they simply excise everything but what they're comfortable with (or what, despite being uncomfortable, is susceptible to a type of manipulation or explication which is comfortable) and then manipulate and explicate until everything is properly arranged. Again there's nothing wrong with that (it yields all sorts of insights in mathematics, physics, linguistics etc.) but the claims philosophers make for their highly-processed presentations are absurdly general. That's really the problem. Philosophers restrict their scope immensely while proclaiming essential truths about things as broad as 'reality' or 'experience' or 'subjectivity' or 'knowledge' or 'being.'But one might in their defense read their narrative, non-systematic vision of the world as a different way to do philosophy-as-worldview or philosophy-as-wisdom. — Hoo
But one might in their defense read their narrative, non-systematic vision of the world as a different way to do philosophy-as-worldview or philosophy-as-wisdom. — Hoo
Right. Systems aren't bad. We want our concepts to work well together. But there's a trans-propsitional irony or "feel" that is perhaps more important than any proposition. There's maybe a place above propositions, even if it's just feeling and Nietzsche's "light feet."Exactly. There's certainly nothing wrong with rigor or systematization, and constructing well-wrought arguments (as well as finding the chinks in the arguments of others) can be deeply rewarding in-and-of-itself. The problem is that most philosophers seem to labor under the pretense that they're developing (or contributing to) a profound understanding of reality or of knowledge or of x. The pretense that their philosophy is (or is a key part of) the understanding. — csalisbury
But what typically happens is that they simply excise everything but what they're comfortable with (or what, despite being uncomfortable, is susceptible to a type of manipulation or explication which is comfortable) and then manipulate and explicate until everything is properly arranged. — csalisbury
Yes. The ladder is thrown away as we sit on the cloud of the ironic transcendence of yet-another-justification. The fire and the rose are one. But the earnest metaphysician wants this to be an empirical statement or the result of word-math or an objective truth. No, it's a joke or password(TGW characterized socratic questioning as being 'sufficiently penetrating.' I'd characterize it as dealing with concepts broad enough (love, truth, justice, knowledge) that the defense of any positive proposition about them can be unraveled after n questions (where n is a function of the defendant's talent for deferral-through-qualification.) The point of socratic irony is aporia. Or, as TGW says, "Once the desire for these things diminishes, and the practical incoherence of seeking them is seen to be contradictory on its own terms, the desire to be a metaphysician goes with it." ) — csalisbury
I don't know Bathelme, but I think of Kafka or the early Henry Miller as darkly humorous wisdom writers. Philosophers are often so solemn, so serious in their scientistic lab coats. Sartre is a twisted case. There's such a mix of insight and earnestness there. He's a poet of radical freedom in one breath and just another righteous political idealist in another. Infinite duty and infinite solemnity is just sad. I don't like to imagine a life with a space where one laughs with the gods beyond good and evil and the obsession with objective truth. It's like The Trial or The Castle, the haunting of the self by an invisible judge or law. "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness."It's clear, reading the guy, that he has the capacity. — csalisbury
But for me taking them seriously more or less is being consumed by them. If you just mean that we have to step up and take care of business sometimes, then I completely agree. And then, yes, a sense of cosmic/comic distance is indeed a nimble assistant.Its also true, as Hoo says below that we (sometimes at least) need to be able to "laugh off the worst and most absurd aspects of life", but even more importantly we need to be able to take them seriously without being consumed by them; and I think therein lies the greatest wisdom, for which comedy is only a refreshing aid or nimble assistant. — John
Do philosophers tend to live best? — csalisbury
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