Strange Land

I am in a strange place, on the cusp of paralysis. I want to write, so very much. But I don’t feel competent enough. How can I write, philosophy no less, without having read the entire canon of human thought?

 

At first, I dismissed this question as absurd! Even with complete devotion to reading for the rest of my days, I will not have enough time to digest all the texts in existence today.  Even if I limit myself to the last few centuries, the goal is still not SMART at all!  Yet, I feel obliged to give it due consideration.  How can I stand on the shoulders of giants if I don’t know what my predecessors stood for?

 

I’ll premise this essay by saying that I am reading a lot – more than ever!   But I am not like Peter, who reads at break-neck speed.  I am a slow reader – I actually hear the sound of the words.  In just a couple of months, I’ll delve deeper in the study of Philosophy – starting another BA this summer.  It will take me at least 5 years to complete this endeavor. So good student that I am, I am reading ahead!  I find most of the texts I read fascinating – even those that I don’t quite understand. Still, I perceive within myself a tension.  When I don’t write, I feel the nagging impression that I am hiding in the voice of others.  I wonder: am I looking in books for the answers that I can only find within?

 

Previously, I’ve studied economics.  It was post-crisis and I wanted to know what had brought our society to the edge of the precipice.  My university wasn’t a particularly good one – we only derived equations!  We assumed cetis paribusand perfect information – which obviously made our discipline approximate at best, but most likely unrealistic.  We held firmly to the scientific method – thus we put more efforts on understanding the mathematics than in the evaluation of the assumptions and limitations of our theories.  But I’m still grateful for the drudgery, ‘cause it got me over the edge into the rest of my life!

 

Now, I’m aware that within philosophy, there is also an analytical tradition.  Its aims is to apply rigorous and argumentative methods to the study of the ‘objects of philosophy’ (ie: reality, knowledge, reason, morality, and experience or consciousness, even language).  However, the extent of analytical rigor actually created dead-ends. As it turns out, there is a very limited range of logical conclusions that can be reached without starting from arbitrary premises.  Therefore, analytical philosophers have now turned to arguing – amongst themselves – over the meaning embedded in the primary texts written by their predecessors.

 

Indeed, philosophical writing nowadays falls into two categories: original thoughts and derivative – though maybe highly insightful – analysis.  Most of the philosophical literature is of the second type – and might be very interesting – but the first category includes the works that I read as I initially explore this strange land of philosophy.

 

So I’ve been reading Nietzsche.  And I’ve wondered: What makes him a philosopher? Is it because Bertrand Russell included him in his book History of Philosophy?  As such, he has been accepted as an ‘initiate’ by other community-members. But to belong in a discipline, one must first write about the ‘objects of philosophy’.  In philosophy, do methods matter as much as in the sciences? Again, reading Nietzsche, one must clearly answer ‘No!’, he writes cryptically, allegorically, mostly without clear argumentation.  Most of his writing wouldn’t be accepted as an undergraduate final paper – and yet he has something to say !!!  Thus is philosophy more defined by the value of its insights?  Some say that philosophers impact the world by introducing new ‘Ways of Seeing’ it.

 

Indeed, in some deep way, philosophy studies ideas – in and of themselves – as well as their impact on man.  Ideas are not these ‘abstract’ things floating in the ether – like Plato suggested.  They live in us!  In fact, philosophy addresses how mankind regards the very concepts which he cannot separate from himself.

 

Philosophy starts by asking: What are we?  What is reality?  Where do we belong in the world?  As an answer, one might draw this:

 

But we’ll observe that philosophy is nowhere in that diagram.  Thus, is philosophy the mere asking of questions for which we know too well that the reason we propose answers is actually to see ‘_whatever is_’ differently than before? If so, than all we have to do is follow Socrates…

 

I believe that ideas deeply affect man’s understanding of himself, his duties, his purpose – both individually and collectively.  How we think of ourselves and our place in the world actually affects our behavior – even delimiting what we can perceive (through confirmation bias for example) and what we consider possible.  It would be too crude to say that ‘thoughts shape reality’ – for thinking does not ‘cause’ existence in the way that we usually understand causality.  But on some level, (my) philosophy aims to explain all the ways in which ‘ideas’ ripple into the fabric of our lives.  Is this the goal of all philosophers?  Maybe not.  Still, the practice of philosophy allows me to postulate this as my research orientation.

 

I can do that because philosophy is a conceptual study – using thought-experiments instead of a physical apparatus to ‘prove’ or falsify hypotheses.  As such, someone new like me – though deep in my own way – might offer a meaningful contribution.  Or, a rereading of philosophers like Plato or Aristotle can be as relevant today than 2’500 years ago.  There are gems hidden in both Epicureanism, Stoicism, Cynicism and Skepticism.  We can’t literally transpose these insights into our 21st century society, because man’s conception of himself has changed over time.  And voila! Why should one read the key texts of philosophy written over millennia?  Because it is not only history that changed.  It is not only our way of living into our environment that evolved over centuries.  Crucially, the way we think of ourselves – which is actually distinct from, but interwoven with, what we think about – has changed with intellectual discoveries. By that I mean, the ideas we host within ourselves to abstractly represent ‘how the world is’ AREactually changing over time.  Ideas are not these fixed ‘abstract things’ waiting to emerge in consciousness.

 

Somewhere else, I’ll argue that a sensitivity to the evolution of man’s understanding of himself is actually crucial to the ‘doing’ of philosophy.  ‘Crucial’ is maybe not ‘essential’ but particularly useful in order to gain a vantage point from which to observe this strange land of thoughts and ideas.  I have Peter who gifted me Charles Taylor’s The Secular Ageto thank for that particular insight.

 

So here I am, feeling like I am moving into this strange place – where reading and writing meets in a swirl of tension and unconscious thinking.

 

On the reading front, my ever-expanding reading list is daunting!  And I’m kinda looking for a way to cut corners… but that’s counter-productive!  I cannot deny that men’s discourses react to one another – and as such, primary texts are embedded in a rich web of socio-historical context.  Yes, I believe that ideas grow in the particular ‘climate’ of their time and place. As intellectuals, philosophers reflect on the historical challenges of their days.  Their texts embody thoughts and ideas that – in themselves – can be ‘grasped’ or understood by people of other eras.  Written language, while that too evolves, is still permanent enoughto carry one’s ideas forward into time and space.

 

I’ll compare Western philosophy to a tree, taking roots in Ancient Greece and ever since growing limbs.  Its branches are different schools of thoughts, ‘growing out of and becoming distinct from’ the trunk – and yet still made from that same love of wisdom.   Every new branch – every thought – may keep changing: grow, be added on, or become brittle and wither.  But until it is forgotten, it will always be part of that illustrious tree.  But one’s philosophical contribution can also be a seedling, whose seed has spawned independent of tradition – though it is still made from that same love of wisdom.

 

When I read, I honor the tree – the traditions. When I write, I grow into my own shape – which may graft itself onto the tree or be a distinct entity altogether. All I know is that I am less interested in writing about the tree than in ‘being’ a tree.

 

I have a calling to write – of that I am sure. But what?  That question can truly stymies me.  Until I am sitting before my blank page, I do not know what will emerge. However, I know that form matters. Randomly, I discovered that John T. Lysaker, in Philosophy, Writing and the Character of Thought, makes the simple claim that the way we choose to write – in aphorisms, in personal essays, in scholarly articles, in systematic treatises – not only shapes ‘how a thought is expressed’ (and eventually perceived by a reader) but also ‘what emerges as thought’ in the first place.

 

Thus, choosing a genre and a tone for a particular project becomes fundamental.  And challenging because I have no way to know how my literary choices will affect the thoughts that emerge.  Only practice will enlighten.  Only the actual act of philosophizing – argumentatively or not, in fiction or non-fiction, etc… – will allow V’s ‘way to see’ to emerge with time.

 

Everyday that I sit at my screen, I rely on the flow of writing.  First because letters, words and sentences need to line up, one after another.  But mostly because of that mystical thing called ‘the state of flow’ – the energized focus which allow creation to occur.   As writer, we are constrained by language – like Ursula LeGuin said: “Words are my Matter” – yet the flow is indispensable, because it is the unconscious and non-verbal that I shape into becoming a shareable thing.

 

It is with humility that I accept how much I cannot control the writing process.  I know that reading feeds my soul – that integrating ideas within my understanding may contribute, in unforeseeable ways, to my own growth as an intellectual. I’ve also made peace with the fact that philosophy dwells in the territory of unknown unknowns.  It includes – but is not delimited by – the bringing to consciousness and methodical evaluation of all that we take for granted.  A tall order already, and it is merely the first few steps toward unknown discoveries.

 

For this pursuit – to which I am committing – I know that I must ‘Be Brave. Show Up. And Speak Honestly’.  Only with ‘Praxis’ will I fight my paralysis.  I advance with my fears in check, for I know that I have things to say.  Still, I can’t silence that nagging voice that says: “Who are you?  You are not yet initiated!”

 

Thus dared to write Viktoria.