on my phone, I'll respond when I have access to a comp

As thinkers, or as writers?

Cheers :)

Certainly as writers. What do you mean by thinking?

I'm not sure. But one of the things philosophy gives a person, in my view, is the ability to continue a Socratic conversation up to a certain number of lines or to have themselves survive a certain number of questions.

Even the best writers, in my view, are not really capable of this. They feel deeply and are aware of how to turn depth into form. But it usually doesn't amount to rigor, which can be emotionally satisfying in its own right in a way that no amount of writing will ever get you.

I agree with this; poetry is no substitute for philosophy. But it's also true that philosophy is no substitute for poetry. Poetic philosophy and philosophical poetry: the best of both worlds!

But what is a socratic conversation? Isn't it basically just one person stating one's understanding of something while an ironic interlocutor asks probing questions? I'm quite sure my landlord would 'survive' more questions than me if the topic were landlording. And a baker would probably 'survive' more baking questions. My coworker who deals adderall on the sly would, I assume, 'survive' more dealing-adderall-on-the-sly questions.

Likewise, I think Proust or Beckett would survive certain series of questions better than, idk, Ayers, & Ayers would survive another series of questions better than they.

I don't know what to make of your comment other than that people can better answer questions about the things they know most about, which is borderline tautologous.

(I'm assuming, charitably, that you don't think 'rigor' means simply 'rigorous understanding of analytic philosophy')

A Socratic question is appropriately penetrating, not something about a factum. A writer can objectify and aestheticize a certain theme without being able to articulate a defense of it, or analyze it even into two pieces: all that a writer requires in inspiration, and then craft. Inspiration just happens to you, it requires no thought. Philosophy begins in inspiration too, but it goes nowhere until you start asking yourself uncomfortable questions and systematizing responses to them. Writing doesn't require this – it only requires a talent for molding inspiration into something evocative. A writer is convincing without argument. But there is something to be said for argument as well.

And you could say that people like Ligotti are writers at heart whose weakness shows through when they try to write as if philosophers when they don't have the chops. In other words, if Proust sat down and tried to write something like An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he might look like an idiot where before he looked brilliant. Suddenly in the harsh light of plain prose and open to the demands of questioning, what was profound looks banal.

Eh, Ligotti is a very limited, adolescent writer, so it's no surprise his philosophy sucks. On the other hand, have you read Proust? My sense is he'd kill it.

No, I haven't. I don't really have a strong background in literature so he's a little intimidating to me. It could be, but then people who write both competent philosophy and competent literature are rare. That's something I think that Sartre, for all the criticism he gets, deserves some respect for. It could be that Proust is just a genius who never bothered, but then it'd be nice to see the results.

What would you consider Proust's 'stance'?

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

I like this. Irony at the center, the laughter of the gods at our solemn assertions.

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

Exactly.

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

Well said. Though one might speak of their "deep" philosophy, which is a (joyful, stubborn) commitment to this irony, along with the ability to get their hands dirty when the problem can't be laughed off. I like the idea of peeling away the surface philosophy to see how it serves in the deep structure of life.

↪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

This is great. Yes, dimly understood desires, because understanding them almost requires a transition
from an earnest religion of pure reason or a righteous politics to something more ironic, something that transcends anything fixed (annihilating laughter). You mentioned likability. There's a gleam in the eye of likable people that lives at a higher altitude than anything they might have just said, and maybe a sense that any formulation of this irony or this gleam in the eye is always a little too solemn.

Nietzsche and Stirner have their faults, but they could soar for a little while now and then in that irony and laughter. Dostoevsky's humor breaks the scale.

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

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.

Now there's a difficult question; by all accounts he was a very private man, not wishing to expose his sexuality to public view and all. It appears I spoke too hastily and/or generally since I really had Beckett more in mind than Proust, or the other guy I haven't read.

To explain a bit more what I think I had in mind: I think it can be taken as read that writers of fiction, and particularly novelists, whether or not they manifest a more or less deliberately cultivated persona in their personal lives, are working through in a subjective way, their own peculiar difficulties of orientation; whether to the world or to society. Of course, if Nietzsche is right, philosophers can be understood in exactly the same way, but the difference is in the way the more specifically rational concerns (to whatever degree and in what manner we might think they are psychologically motivated ) of the latter are more rigorously treated in philosophical work, as TGW has already noted.

So, Proust is self-consciously concerned with the forms of human social and inner life and the interplay between the two; which is it seems fair to say is a universal theme in that it is also the preoccupation of most of us. We are all concerned with the "hell" of other people. I don't know, perhaps it can be said that stance of novelists is either psychological phenomenological, or at their best, both. It can be philosophical, but I don't think it can count as philosophy, in its more systematic mode, in any case.

I may have spouted a little bit of shit here in my attempt to wriggle out of the noose I had created for myself by exposing my rash and perhaps inflammatory thoughts. So, to answer your first question: I wasn't outraged, so much as inflamed, it seems.

It can be philosophical, but I don't think it can count as philosophy, in its more systematic mode, in any case. — John

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. Where does Notes from Underground fit in? Or Tropic of Cancer? In narratives we get words in context. It's not just what is said but who and in what situation. I find myself looking into people who write the philosophy I like. I want pictures, lifestyles before, during, and after their writing. For instance, Sartre and de Beauvoir had that unorthodox relationship. He was a small, ugly man with a lazy eye, raised as he was raised. I think of Kant and his clockwork walks, Schopenhauer and the guns by his bed, Stirner wandering around forgotten after a moment of fame, Descartes getting out on those cold mornings that killed him to tutor a hipster princess. Oh, yeah, and very good looking Derrida and his son with a women not his wife. Hegel knocked up a maid. Socrates learning philosophy from fighting with his wife. Good stuff.

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

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.'

(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." )

Intuitively, it feels silly to say, of Proust, 'Yes, profound in his own way, but lets see him write a tract on seismology.' But how is that any different than saying he wouldn't have been a good 17th century empiricist? I suppose the difference is that seismology requires acquaintance with certain facts while writing about understanding in a certain way is something one can spontaneously do. Yet I imagine it would have been quite challenging for Locke to have written what he wrote, without having read what he read.

You can get a vibe from a writer that, if they had so chosen, they could have learnt the literature and contributed to the field. They just didn't. I wouldn't infer any deficiency from Barthelme's not having written a book on consciousness building upon Husserl, any more than I would infer a deficiency from his not having mastered meteorology. It's clear, reading the guy, that he has the capacity.

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

That's fine; I am not wanting to deny that there can be more or less philosophical literature. But it was csalisbury's original statement that Beckett, Proust and Barthelme were "far greater" than all the philosophers apart from Socrates that caught my critical attention. He didn't say they might have been far greater but that they were. Now I doubt anyone will deny that they wrote far greater literature than most philosophers, but I don't think the claim that they wrote far greater philosophy is supportable at all; in fact I think that would just be an absurd claim.

Also, note that you say "non-systematic vision of the world" and in the part of what I wrote that you quoted is " in its more systematic mode, in any case " so I don't think we are actually disagreeing, and if anything looking at the possible implications for the issue under discussion of the difference between "non-systematic" and "more systematic" it might even appear that I am being more lenient than you are about the possibility that literature might qualify as more or less systematic philosophy. ( Probably not though ;) )

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

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."
Yes, philosophers often act as if they've finally, definitively tamed the totality, which includes the future. But their discourse revealing the Real adds to the very Real (itself structured by discourse) it hopes to explain or dominate. Itself it could not save, though the best moves in the game account for their own generation (I loved this in Kojeve, and I find this in pragmatism as a meta-tool by its own light). They increase complexity as they "reduce" it. They put another tool in the tool-box, opening up new vistas and the possibility of still newer tools.

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

It's as if they are offering a fascinating peep at life/reality/God/Truth

(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

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

It's clear, reading the guy, that he has the capacity. — 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."

I think we more or less agree. I'm just pointing at the space outside the space of philosophy's tendency to be solemnly objective. How often do see a "this works for me, so maybe you'll want to try it" attitude? It's so often depersonalized and anti-comic. I find it in politicians, too.

The history of philosophy may be seen as a series of attempts to orient to the world, to the actuality of existence. I think it's natural that the presumption has always (or at least mostly) been that humans share common moral, intellectual and spiritual natures and that philosophy ( as love of wisdom) is the attempt to become clear about those natures and to determine the best way to live in light of the nature of those natures. Of course it is we moderns that emphasize the differences between individuals (mostly or sometimes, at least).

Personally, I don't think comedy is very illuminating; it is essential to the good life, but its proper role is only to give light relief when we are fatigued, not to reveal anything philosophically significant. This is why Shakespeare's tragedies are so much greater than his comedies; and why all the greatest literature is tragic literature. Comedy becomes a kind of facile, mediocratic hubris when it takes itself seriously and begins to wear philosophical pretensions. As a prime example I think of the thinly veiled self-righteous superficiality of a Tim Mincheon. (BTW, not saying he's not creatively clever and even funny sometimes).

But hamlet and king lear are probably his two funniest plays! Symmetrically, good comedy incorporates the tragic - it doesn't deny it.

I had Louis C. K. in mind. The best comedians laugh off the worst and most absurd aspects of life. They're also especially authentic. They convert extra-ordinary self-honest into unpretentious, hard-to-systematize wisdom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efqqCvUAgK4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF1NUposXVQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akiVi1sR2rM

Of course, tragedy is and must be, when we are tired, in a sense the funniest thing; I won't deny that. But the profundity of tragedy does not lie in the fact that it is funny; that is merely its superficial mask; there for our own self-protection, so to speak. And I wouldn't dream of denying that the best comedy consciously embodies, and the worst comedy unconsciously embodies, the tragic; how could it be otherwise given the tragic nature of human life?

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.

Ok, but I'm sure you'd agree that the point is not to approach life in way x, in order that one be serious. Rather, the fact that one approaches life in way x springs from one's seriousness. Where does speaking seriously about the tragedy of life spring from? And is this the sign of seriousness we should look for? It seems a bit like trying to weigh someone's capacity for empathy by seeing how much they give to charity. The most obvious indicators are often the most misleading.

In other words Kant & Husserl were clearly driven by the need to organize and schematize, Kierkegaard & Schopenhauer by the need to be adored for genius, Heidegger and Derrida by the will-to-prophesy, Hegel and a million others by the will-to-tenure etc etc. If philosophy, as you say, is about becoming clear about the nature of things in order to live better, it's unclear to me that philosophy is adequate to its own task. Do philosophers tend to live best?

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

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.

Do philosophers tend to live best? — csalisbury

Yes, yes. If one's goal is a beautiful, joyful life, then everything is lit up by this goal. One can see various fundamental "poses" from the outside. Knowledge is secondary, unless one has committed to this narrowing down of the notion of beauty. I love the objective, if you'll call math objective, but as I writer I want to carve an image of the heroic, beautiful mind --just as I've pursued this image as a reader.

One last little tidbit. The New Yorker did a profile of Martha Nussbaum this summer. Two passages from the piece work perfectly together.

"The lecture was about the nature of mercy. As she often does, she argued that certain moral truths are best expressed in the form of a story. We become merciful, she wrote, when we behave as the “concerned reader of a novel,” understanding each person’s life as a “complex narrative of human effort in a world full of obstacles.”

"For our first meeting, she suggested that I watch her sing: “It’s the actual singing that would give you insight into my personality and my emotional life, though of course I am very imperfect in my ability to express what I want to express.” She wrote that music allowed her to access a part of her personality that is “less defended, more receptive.” Last summer, we drove to the house of her singing teacher, Tambra Black, who lives in a gentrifying neighborhood with a view of the churches of the University of Chicago. It was ninety degrees and sunny, and although we were ten minutes early, Nussbaum pounded on the door until Black, her hair wet from the shower, let us inside."