Somebody needs to write a Pilgrim's Progress of the Graduate Student. I am currently struggling to find a pass through the Mountains of Frustration. I've been working on reorganizing the early chapters of my thesis. Part of what I've done is to break off parts of Chapter One (on Universal Reason as essential to Malebranche's system) and Chapter Two (on the historical structure of Malebranche's system - there's a cosmic narrative, and what answer you give to some philosophical questions will depend on what part of the narrative you're thinking about) to form a New Chapter Two (on Malebranche's use of the doctrine of the Trinity to guide his philosophical work, and what benefits he gets from this). But the New Chapter Two Word file has gone insane. It refuses to admit there are more than five pages - all the pages of the chapter are there, but it keeps trying to fit them all into five pages. I can't edit the file because if I click on a page, it puts me on another page, one of the ones it refused to show me before. I'll have to retype the entire chapter. *sigh* And I certainly won't manage to do so before I meet to discuss my progress for this month (Thursday); I feel like the student whose dog really did eat his homework. Meanwhile, other things are building up that need to get done this week. *double sigh*
On the other hand, Chapter One looks great; it proves everyone else wrong in a swift, economical, and (I think) devastating way, which is exactly what you want in an opening chapter of a philosophy thesis. (I'm exaggerating a bit, of course; but I do end up criticizing a great deal of contemporary Malebranche scholarship's pet projects; there's surprising little interest in the scholarship in anything distinctively Catholic, or even Christian, about this 17th century thinker who insisted that he only did philosophy that was distinctively Catholic. It's very heartening that this chapter is turning out so well. One of the difficulties of doing history of philosophy is that you're discouraged from talking about anything out of pure curiosity about the thinker being studied; you always have to justify your project philosophically in the face of whatever arbitrary and goofball and, occasionally, historically ill-informed notions your contemporaries have about the way philosophy should 'really' be done.) I've been intending to put up a section of that chapter here, on Malebranche's argument from infinity for the existence of God, but there's still some tweaking I want to do first. Also good: the other chapters will need less reorganization than these did; they just need a bit of development.
It's still frustrating to have wasted so many hours in trying to make that (fill in expletive here) Word file work properly, only to be defeated by the perverseness of evil software.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
A Bit of Puzzlement
I have been perusing Richard Taylor's Ethics, Faith, and Reason in between doing some thesis revisions. Ugh! I don't recommend it. I wish I were at the stage of my career in which I could get away with writing a book consisting almost entirely of unsubstantiated statements and sweeping historical theses backed up by no actual evidence at all (and hope that if I ever get there I'll have the good sense not to do it). There are no footnotes. Except for those that go with some passages from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, there are no citations. There is no bibliography. The argument rests almost entirely on a historical thesis that is not defended, either in its sweeping outlines or in its particular parts. To be sure, the book is a published set of lectures, where one can allow for a little more moxy and a little less precision. But there really is no excuse for this. The blurb says:
The book is certainly "readily-grasped"; everything else about this summary is false. It is not clearly written. Particular sections are, but trying to figure out the flow of the argument of this book is immensely difficult. I see nothing particularly new about its appreciation of ancient Greek moralists (and it only really considers Aristotle, anyway). He doesn't do any real challenging of anything, unless you call casting vague aspersions challenging. The text does not seem to have anything particularly conducive to discussion; most of it is far too vague, and, except for some shock-value statements (e.g., rejecting egalitarianism), there's not much even to get a buzz out of a hornet's nest. It isn't even clear that his thesis is remotely right; he leaves out the the Scholastics, who surely need to be considered if you're considering how we changed from a Greek view of ethics to the one we have today. His discussion of Stoicism hardly rises above caricature; and he doesn't discuss it nearly enough given that the Stoics appear to throw a wrench in the works of his view that the rise of an ethics of duty is due to the Church (his discussion of the Church is even more vague and caricatured).
I find it rather disturbing. Philosophy is, to be sure, a much more rough-and-tumble, slippery discipline than most other disciplines; we need to be a bit more flexible in our approaches than is, perhaps, entirely sane. But were an equivalent of this book published in another discipline it would, I think, rightly be laughed out of court. I find the book almost childish; and I tend to be a very sympathetic reader, willing to give authors the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps I'm missing something....
Among its features, the book:
* challenges the ethical framework inherited from the Judeo-Christian tradition
* offers a new appreciation of the ancient Greek moralists
* provides clearly-written, readily-grasped text
* develops material in such a way as to stimulate discussion
The book is certainly "readily-grasped"; everything else about this summary is false. It is not clearly written. Particular sections are, but trying to figure out the flow of the argument of this book is immensely difficult. I see nothing particularly new about its appreciation of ancient Greek moralists (and it only really considers Aristotle, anyway). He doesn't do any real challenging of anything, unless you call casting vague aspersions challenging. The text does not seem to have anything particularly conducive to discussion; most of it is far too vague, and, except for some shock-value statements (e.g., rejecting egalitarianism), there's not much even to get a buzz out of a hornet's nest. It isn't even clear that his thesis is remotely right; he leaves out the the Scholastics, who surely need to be considered if you're considering how we changed from a Greek view of ethics to the one we have today. His discussion of Stoicism hardly rises above caricature; and he doesn't discuss it nearly enough given that the Stoics appear to throw a wrench in the works of his view that the rise of an ethics of duty is due to the Church (his discussion of the Church is even more vague and caricatured).
I find it rather disturbing. Philosophy is, to be sure, a much more rough-and-tumble, slippery discipline than most other disciplines; we need to be a bit more flexible in our approaches than is, perhaps, entirely sane. But were an equivalent of this book published in another discipline it would, I think, rightly be laughed out of court. I find the book almost childish; and I tend to be a very sympathetic reader, willing to give authors the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps I'm missing something....
In Other Words, I Need To Be More Humble
Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!
Ah, but I do have the advantage over Owl that I can spell; the only word Owl can spell right is TUESDAY (but as Rabbit says, there are days when spelling Tuesday doesn't count).
Monday, July 26, 2004
Best Known Philosophical Sentences
Jonathan Dresner at Cliopatria has an interesting post on well-known philosophical sentences. He proposes several plausible ones. Here's my list:
1. I think therefore I am. (Descartes)
2. Virtue is its own reward. (Cicero)
3. I proclaim that might is right, and justice, the interest of the stronger. (Plato, but not his own view)
4. God is dead. (Nietzsche)
5. The unexamined life is not worth living for man. (Plato)
6. It [the just state] will be possible when, and only when, kings are philosophers and philosophers are kings. (Plato)
7. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. (Emerson)
8. Man is by nature a political animal. (Aristotle)
9. To us, probability is the very guide to life. (Butler)
10. All men desire to know. (Aristotle)
11. Philosophy begins in wonder. (Plato)
12. Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth. (Aristotle)
13. Reason is, and only ought to be, the slave of the passions. (Hume)
14. Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains. (Rousseau)
15. What is time, then? If nobody asks me, I know; if I have to explain it to someone who has asked me, I do not know. (Augustine)
16. Give me chastity and continence, but not yet. (Augustine, describing the real meaning of his prayers for chastity after his conversion)
17. Love and do what you will. (Augustine)
18. The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. (Pascal)
19. Why is there something rather than nothing? (Liebniz)
20. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. (John Stuart Mill)
21. That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers. (Hutcheson - although it was due to Bentham that it became popular)
22. Everything is what it is, and not another thing. (Butler)
23. Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few. (Berkeley)
24. To be is to be perceived. (Berkeley, of ideas)
25. God and nature do nothing in vain. (Aristotle)
26. There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it. (Cicero)
27. We go to war in order to live in peace. (Aristotle)
28. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. (Marx)
29. Religion is the opiate of the people. (Marx)
30. Justice is rendering each person his due. (Plato, quoting Simonides)
I had originally intended to put them in order from most popular to least; but it became far too difficult. Do you have anything to add?
1. I think therefore I am. (Descartes)
2. Virtue is its own reward. (Cicero)
3. I proclaim that might is right, and justice, the interest of the stronger. (Plato, but not his own view)
4. God is dead. (Nietzsche)
5. The unexamined life is not worth living for man. (Plato)
6. It [the just state] will be possible when, and only when, kings are philosophers and philosophers are kings. (Plato)
7. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. (Emerson)
8. Man is by nature a political animal. (Aristotle)
9. To us, probability is the very guide to life. (Butler)
10. All men desire to know. (Aristotle)
11. Philosophy begins in wonder. (Plato)
12. Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth. (Aristotle)
13. Reason is, and only ought to be, the slave of the passions. (Hume)
14. Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains. (Rousseau)
15. What is time, then? If nobody asks me, I know; if I have to explain it to someone who has asked me, I do not know. (Augustine)
16. Give me chastity and continence, but not yet. (Augustine, describing the real meaning of his prayers for chastity after his conversion)
17. Love and do what you will. (Augustine)
18. The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. (Pascal)
19. Why is there something rather than nothing? (Liebniz)
20. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. (John Stuart Mill)
21. That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers. (Hutcheson - although it was due to Bentham that it became popular)
22. Everything is what it is, and not another thing. (Butler)
23. Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few. (Berkeley)
24. To be is to be perceived. (Berkeley, of ideas)
25. God and nature do nothing in vain. (Aristotle)
26. There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it. (Cicero)
27. We go to war in order to live in peace. (Aristotle)
28. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. (Marx)
29. Religion is the opiate of the people. (Marx)
30. Justice is rendering each person his due. (Plato, quoting Simonides)
I had originally intended to put them in order from most popular to least; but it became far too difficult. Do you have anything to add?
They're Politicians. It's What They Do.
I always find discussions about how to manipulate people a bit chilling. But there is, I think, a real point to it, and it is a valuable occasion for philosophical thought.
Medieval Muslim philosophers did extensive work in looking at rhetoric and poetics as logical disciplines. And one way they were able to do that was to look at various arts having to do with language and divide them according to the sort of assent to which they are geared. There was demonstration (scientific assent), for instance, or dialectic (probable assent). The type of assent they associated with rhetoric was imaginative assent; and this was a pre-intellectual impulse toward or away from something. A good way to think of the difference between imaginative assent and the various sorts of intellectual assent is to think of a glass floor There's one in the CN Tower here in Toronto; you can see a long, long way down. Now, intellectually you may know that the floor will hold you. But imagination, i.e., your 'sensory processing', leads you to feel a dissent or dissonance at the idea of walking on the glass floor.
Another way logical disciplines are divided is by their purpose. Rhetoric's purpose is to persuade; it is necessary as a logical discipline because of our social nature, the complexity of practical life, the need for practical action, and the limited time and resources we have for investigating every single issue. Thus, Avicenna and Averroes in essence regard rhetoric as a shorthand logic, suitable for acquiring the sort of assent that leads to practical action, in cases where the other disciplines can't (again, for practical reasons) be used. As Jean Buridan, who, like many of the Christian medievals, was influenced by them on this score, says, rhetoric and poetics are a moral logic, i.e., a logic for use in the buzz and rush of actual human practice.
While they didn't put it quite this way, the logical structures to which rhetoric appeals are associative (this is one reason, I think, why Hume's emphasis on principles of association became so influential - it spoke to the rhetoric- and practice-related interests of Scotland at the time). This is related to Lakoff's 'framing'.
But this all suggests, I think, that Lakoff is simply wrong when he says that one party understands framing and the other doesn't. Politicians who didn't have at least a rough feel for framing would be politically incompetent and would tend not to get elected; you have to influence people to an imaginative perspective to be an effective politician at all. I think Lakoff may be thrown off by his own example of taxation. The reason people are affected so much by the phrase 'tax relief' is not that it sounds good and is said a lot (although that may contribute) but because it triggers associations that are already there. When people hear it, it doesn't sound suspicious, because Americans, even many progressives, don't feel taxation to be a blessing; at best they feel it to be, as Lakoff calls it, following Oliver Wendell Holmes, to be "the price of civilization." But prices aren't, as we normally think of them, blessings and benefits. Which sounds better: high price or low price? High cost or low cost? And which tax payment would make you more comfortable: $10 or $100? The reason 'tax relief' catches on so easily is that we are all (including progressives) already primed to think of taxes as a burden - even if we think of it as only a light burden, or a burden worth having. And doesn't it sound good to be relieved from a burden? Doesn't it feel like not having to pay as much would be a nice thing, if you can get it? The problem is not that progressives or Democrats haven't framed the raising of taxes properly; it's that they have to deal with frames already in place, with the associations already common. It catches on because, given the associations in place, people are relieved to be paying less tax. You could call taxation "noble sharing," and in the long run in our society all it would do is give nobility and sharing a bad name. It would be treated as an outrageous euphemism. The effect would be exactly the opposite of what was intended: it would turn people off, not on; it would trigger imaginative dissent, not imaginative assent. Taxation is a misleading issue; we can't conclude anything from it about who is better at framing. (And what's up with Lakoff's 'strict father' and 'nurturant parent' models? Does he only study people who like big government?) And, I think, a close look at Democratic party issues will show, as it would show for any political party with large popular support in any nation, a very good feel for framing. It's rhetoric; no party can have influence without it. (It's also why philosophers need to work on the issue of political taste.)
Medieval Muslim philosophers did extensive work in looking at rhetoric and poetics as logical disciplines. And one way they were able to do that was to look at various arts having to do with language and divide them according to the sort of assent to which they are geared. There was demonstration (scientific assent), for instance, or dialectic (probable assent). The type of assent they associated with rhetoric was imaginative assent; and this was a pre-intellectual impulse toward or away from something. A good way to think of the difference between imaginative assent and the various sorts of intellectual assent is to think of a glass floor There's one in the CN Tower here in Toronto; you can see a long, long way down. Now, intellectually you may know that the floor will hold you. But imagination, i.e., your 'sensory processing', leads you to feel a dissent or dissonance at the idea of walking on the glass floor.
Another way logical disciplines are divided is by their purpose. Rhetoric's purpose is to persuade; it is necessary as a logical discipline because of our social nature, the complexity of practical life, the need for practical action, and the limited time and resources we have for investigating every single issue. Thus, Avicenna and Averroes in essence regard rhetoric as a shorthand logic, suitable for acquiring the sort of assent that leads to practical action, in cases where the other disciplines can't (again, for practical reasons) be used. As Jean Buridan, who, like many of the Christian medievals, was influenced by them on this score, says, rhetoric and poetics are a moral logic, i.e., a logic for use in the buzz and rush of actual human practice.
While they didn't put it quite this way, the logical structures to which rhetoric appeals are associative (this is one reason, I think, why Hume's emphasis on principles of association became so influential - it spoke to the rhetoric- and practice-related interests of Scotland at the time). This is related to Lakoff's 'framing'.
But this all suggests, I think, that Lakoff is simply wrong when he says that one party understands framing and the other doesn't. Politicians who didn't have at least a rough feel for framing would be politically incompetent and would tend not to get elected; you have to influence people to an imaginative perspective to be an effective politician at all. I think Lakoff may be thrown off by his own example of taxation. The reason people are affected so much by the phrase 'tax relief' is not that it sounds good and is said a lot (although that may contribute) but because it triggers associations that are already there. When people hear it, it doesn't sound suspicious, because Americans, even many progressives, don't feel taxation to be a blessing; at best they feel it to be, as Lakoff calls it, following Oliver Wendell Holmes, to be "the price of civilization." But prices aren't, as we normally think of them, blessings and benefits. Which sounds better: high price or low price? High cost or low cost? And which tax payment would make you more comfortable: $10 or $100? The reason 'tax relief' catches on so easily is that we are all (including progressives) already primed to think of taxes as a burden - even if we think of it as only a light burden, or a burden worth having. And doesn't it sound good to be relieved from a burden? Doesn't it feel like not having to pay as much would be a nice thing, if you can get it? The problem is not that progressives or Democrats haven't framed the raising of taxes properly; it's that they have to deal with frames already in place, with the associations already common. It catches on because, given the associations in place, people are relieved to be paying less tax. You could call taxation "noble sharing," and in the long run in our society all it would do is give nobility and sharing a bad name. It would be treated as an outrageous euphemism. The effect would be exactly the opposite of what was intended: it would turn people off, not on; it would trigger imaginative dissent, not imaginative assent. Taxation is a misleading issue; we can't conclude anything from it about who is better at framing. (And what's up with Lakoff's 'strict father' and 'nurturant parent' models? Does he only study people who like big government?) And, I think, a close look at Democratic party issues will show, as it would show for any political party with large popular support in any nation, a very good feel for framing. It's rhetoric; no party can have influence without it. (It's also why philosophers need to work on the issue of political taste.)
And I Was Like, It's All About, Like, Language as Approximative Re-enactment; And She Was Like, Wow!
It is insinuating itself all over the place; you can barely go anywhere without it being heard. I confess I use it. Teenage girls use it so extensively these days one wonders if they can say anything else. It is the Pervasive Syllable: "like". It's, like, totally everywhere.
I'm not a linguist, but I actually think this transformation of language, the slow creep of 'like', makes a great deal of sense, because I think it parallels, and, indeed, results from (or is it a contributing cause of, or both?) the spread of a particular style of thinking.
While it gets annoying very quickly, if you think about it, most of the creeping uses of the word make great sense. Consider the following uses, which have steadily become more common:
1. 'like' as a replacement for 'as it were' - it operates on exactly the same principles (it qualifies figures of speech), but gets rid of the subjunctive (this is my least favorite use, in part because I like the subjunctive; would that the subjunctive were more common!).
2. 'like' as an indication of approximative re-enactment: "She was like, wearing this red dress, so I was like, You're so totally not going to wear that today, and she was like, Oh, yes I am, and I was like, Well, OK, loser, and she was like, Well, I don't have anything else, and I was like, thinking, What a loser, the whole time and I, like, said she should wear green instead of red, and she was like, Like you know anything, and I was like, I do too know, and she was like, Whatever, and I was like, so mad that I, like, hit her." I'm not at all quite sure how to describe this story, so I've made up the phrase "approximative re-enactment" - it's approximative because all such uses of 'like' are approximative in that it would often be improper to think of the description as an exact description. It's not impossible that it conveys some information exactly, but the use of 'like' functions to set off some information as a unit that might be exact recall of words or deeds, but which could also just be an expressive representation. For instance, if someone says, "And I was, like, Whatever," this may mean either that he said whatever, or that he didn't, but his emotional response would have been expressed well by saying, "Whatever". The reason I call it re-enactment should, I think, be fairly clear; it is a description of events that proceeds by actually dividing up what happened into 'scenes' and representing those scenes by verbal snippets that either were said or that could have been said.
It's the impressionistic analogue to classical story-telling.
I have a hypothesis for why thinking and speaking in these impressionistic associations is becoming so common. This re-enactment function of language has a long history; but it seems to me to be encouraged by pop media, which are constructed on analogous principles. Thus, I've previously argued that movies are not plot-driven; they have plots, in the sense that they have organizations of scenes according to some idea, but the plots subserve the spectacle of the scenes, which is the primary focus of the medium. Likewise with TV. Likewise, in a different sensory modality, with popular music. Likewise many novels. Stories are presented to us almost entirely by means of representative fragments; so, when people tell stories, the easiest way they can find to tell the story is by an ordered set of representative fragments. 'Like' is a representative-fragment-indicator; it says: This unit is a distinct representative fragment in the story. Using it means you don't have to make clear in some more roundabout way that you are symbolically re-enacting the story in some way; it signals to the other person that they should fill in the story with scenes appropriate to the verbal fragment. You can see how this new use of 'like' would be connected with the way someone would talk if they were giving information for a re-enactment (e.g., a witness at the scene describing what was going on): I was like this, and she was like that. So that's my thought about it.
Of course, I could be completely wrong; but it seems to me significant that the fragmentation of stories is so common - and that 'like' is one of the ways we do this. And it is easy - it simplifies storytelling to an astonishing degree. It also comes with a number of disadvantages; but it does work for its purpose.
I'm not a linguist, but I actually think this transformation of language, the slow creep of 'like', makes a great deal of sense, because I think it parallels, and, indeed, results from (or is it a contributing cause of, or both?) the spread of a particular style of thinking.
While it gets annoying very quickly, if you think about it, most of the creeping uses of the word make great sense. Consider the following uses, which have steadily become more common:
1. 'like' as a replacement for 'as it were' - it operates on exactly the same principles (it qualifies figures of speech), but gets rid of the subjunctive (this is my least favorite use, in part because I like the subjunctive; would that the subjunctive were more common!).
2. 'like' as an indication of approximative re-enactment: "She was like, wearing this red dress, so I was like, You're so totally not going to wear that today, and she was like, Oh, yes I am, and I was like, Well, OK, loser, and she was like, Well, I don't have anything else, and I was like, thinking, What a loser, the whole time and I, like, said she should wear green instead of red, and she was like, Like you know anything, and I was like, I do too know, and she was like, Whatever, and I was like, so mad that I, like, hit her." I'm not at all quite sure how to describe this story, so I've made up the phrase "approximative re-enactment" - it's approximative because all such uses of 'like' are approximative in that it would often be improper to think of the description as an exact description. It's not impossible that it conveys some information exactly, but the use of 'like' functions to set off some information as a unit that might be exact recall of words or deeds, but which could also just be an expressive representation. For instance, if someone says, "And I was, like, Whatever," this may mean either that he said whatever, or that he didn't, but his emotional response would have been expressed well by saying, "Whatever". The reason I call it re-enactment should, I think, be fairly clear; it is a description of events that proceeds by actually dividing up what happened into 'scenes' and representing those scenes by verbal snippets that either were said or that could have been said.
It's the impressionistic analogue to classical story-telling.
I have a hypothesis for why thinking and speaking in these impressionistic associations is becoming so common. This re-enactment function of language has a long history; but it seems to me to be encouraged by pop media, which are constructed on analogous principles. Thus, I've previously argued that movies are not plot-driven; they have plots, in the sense that they have organizations of scenes according to some idea, but the plots subserve the spectacle of the scenes, which is the primary focus of the medium. Likewise with TV. Likewise, in a different sensory modality, with popular music. Likewise many novels. Stories are presented to us almost entirely by means of representative fragments; so, when people tell stories, the easiest way they can find to tell the story is by an ordered set of representative fragments. 'Like' is a representative-fragment-indicator; it says: This unit is a distinct representative fragment in the story. Using it means you don't have to make clear in some more roundabout way that you are symbolically re-enacting the story in some way; it signals to the other person that they should fill in the story with scenes appropriate to the verbal fragment. You can see how this new use of 'like' would be connected with the way someone would talk if they were giving information for a re-enactment (e.g., a witness at the scene describing what was going on): I was like this, and she was like that. So that's my thought about it.
Of course, I could be completely wrong; but it seems to me significant that the fragmentation of stories is so common - and that 'like' is one of the ways we do this. And it is easy - it simplifies storytelling to an astonishing degree. It also comes with a number of disadvantages; but it does work for its purpose.
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Symphilosophie
In part due to blogging, I have recently become interested in the Romantic notion of Symphilosophie, a tricky word whose meaning is difficult to pick up because it has no good equivalent in English. Symphilosophie is mutual or collaborative philosophy; but this gives the idea of collaboration in philosophical work the way we do it, which is not, I think, quite right. I'm completely new at this, but here's my thoughts on what's supposed to be involved. Symphilosophy as understood by the Romantics ideally included a group of friends in close fellowship whose work was (as it were) fused or aggregated into one work through give-and-take, dialogue, commentary, so that any precise individuation begins to be impossible. The philosophical work here is in a sense analogous to the way an excellent author or speaker can, by a sort of cooperation with the reader or listener, make the scene appear vividly in the reader or listener's mind - not quite the action of the author alone, not quite the action of the reader alone, but a melding of the two so that the two acts are actually inseparable. If you have ever had an intense intellectual discussion with a good friend, in which ideas move back and forth, being shaped and refined, blended and interlocked, corrected and extended, until you could not honestly say (and it would not seriously matter, anyway) exactly where your contribution ended and your friend's contribution began - then you know the sort of thing that was meant. The following are some fragments by Friedrich Schlegel that are of relevance, directly or indirectly, to this notion of symphilosophy.
These are all from Friedrich Schlegel, Philosophical Fragments. Firchow, tr. University of Minnesota Press (Minneapolis, 1991).
From Critical Fragments
9. Wit is absolute social feeling, or fragmentary genius.
16. Though genius isn't something that can be produced arbitrarily, it is freely willed -- like wit, love, and faith, which one day will have to become arts and sciences. You should demand genius from everyone, but not expect it. A Kantian would call this the categorical imperative of genius.
51. To use wit as an instrument for revenge is as shameful as using art as a means for titillating the senses.
56. Wit is logical sociability.
70. People who write books and imagine that their readers are teh public and that tehy msut educate it soon arrive at the point not only of despising their so-called public but of hating it. Which leads absolutely nowhere.
104. What's commonly called reason is only a subspecies of it: namely, the thin and watery sort. There's also a thick, fiery kind that actually makes wit witty, and gives an elasticity and electricity to a solid style.
From Pollen (i.e., included in Novalis's Pollen - the Jena Romantics often 'guest-posted')
1. Even philosophy has blossoms. That is, its thoughts; but one can never decide if one should call them witty or beautiful.
2. If in communicating a thought, one fluctuates between absolute comprehension and absolute incomprehension, then this process might already be termed a philosophical friendship. For it's no different with ourselves. Is the life of a thinking hman being anything else than a continuous inner symphilosophy?
From Athenaeum Fragments
52. There is a kind of person for whom an enthusiasm fo rboredom represents the beginning of philosophy.
54. One can only become a philosopher, not be one. As soon as oen thinks one is a philosopher, one stops becoming one.
112. Philosophers who aren't opposed to each other are usually joined only by sympathy, not by symphilosophy.
125. Perhaps there would be a birth of a whole new era of the sciences and arts if symphilosophy and sympoetry became so universal and heartfelt that it would no longer be anything extraordinary for several complementary minds to create communal works of art. One is often struck by the idea that two minds really belong together, like divided halves that can realize their full potential only when joined....
249. The poetizing philosopher, the philosophizing poet, is a prophet. A didactic poem should be and tends to become prophetic.
302. Jumbled ideas should be the rough drafts of philosophy. It's no secret how highly these are valued by connoisseurs of painting. For a man who can't draw philosophical worlds with ac rayon and characterize every thought that has a physiognomy with a few strokes of the pen, philosophy will never be an art and consequently never a science. For in philosophy the way to science lies only through art, just as the poet, on teh other hand, finds his art only through science.
344. Philosophy is a mutual search for omniscience.
These are all from Friedrich Schlegel, Philosophical Fragments. Firchow, tr. University of Minnesota Press (Minneapolis, 1991).
From Critical Fragments
9. Wit is absolute social feeling, or fragmentary genius.
16. Though genius isn't something that can be produced arbitrarily, it is freely willed -- like wit, love, and faith, which one day will have to become arts and sciences. You should demand genius from everyone, but not expect it. A Kantian would call this the categorical imperative of genius.
51. To use wit as an instrument for revenge is as shameful as using art as a means for titillating the senses.
56. Wit is logical sociability.
70. People who write books and imagine that their readers are teh public and that tehy msut educate it soon arrive at the point not only of despising their so-called public but of hating it. Which leads absolutely nowhere.
104. What's commonly called reason is only a subspecies of it: namely, the thin and watery sort. There's also a thick, fiery kind that actually makes wit witty, and gives an elasticity and electricity to a solid style.
From Pollen (i.e., included in Novalis's Pollen - the Jena Romantics often 'guest-posted')
1. Even philosophy has blossoms. That is, its thoughts; but one can never decide if one should call them witty or beautiful.
2. If in communicating a thought, one fluctuates between absolute comprehension and absolute incomprehension, then this process might already be termed a philosophical friendship. For it's no different with ourselves. Is the life of a thinking hman being anything else than a continuous inner symphilosophy?
From Athenaeum Fragments
52. There is a kind of person for whom an enthusiasm fo rboredom represents the beginning of philosophy.
54. One can only become a philosopher, not be one. As soon as oen thinks one is a philosopher, one stops becoming one.
112. Philosophers who aren't opposed to each other are usually joined only by sympathy, not by symphilosophy.
125. Perhaps there would be a birth of a whole new era of the sciences and arts if symphilosophy and sympoetry became so universal and heartfelt that it would no longer be anything extraordinary for several complementary minds to create communal works of art. One is often struck by the idea that two minds really belong together, like divided halves that can realize their full potential only when joined....
249. The poetizing philosopher, the philosophizing poet, is a prophet. A didactic poem should be and tends to become prophetic.
302. Jumbled ideas should be the rough drafts of philosophy. It's no secret how highly these are valued by connoisseurs of painting. For a man who can't draw philosophical worlds with ac rayon and characterize every thought that has a physiognomy with a few strokes of the pen, philosophy will never be an art and consequently never a science. For in philosophy the way to science lies only through art, just as the poet, on teh other hand, finds his art only through science.
344. Philosophy is a mutual search for omniscience.
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