I was happy to find the following item in the mailbag the other morning:
Hi Bill,
I recall (however, I can't find exactly where) that you mentioned in an old blog post your intention to publish a work on metaphilosophy at some point in the future. I am curious, is this still a goal of yours? If so, is it in progress? I would be delighted to read it, but I understand if you've chosen not to pursue that project.Your grateful reader,Chandler
Thank you for your inquiry, Chandler. Yes, the metaphilosophy book is in progress, and has been for longer than I care to reveal. Why am I taking so long with it?
I gave the following dissertation advice a few posts ago:
. . . finish the bloody thing now while you are young and cocky and energetic. Finish it before your standards become too exacting. Give yourself a year, say, do your absolute best and crank it out. Think of it as a union card. It might not get you a job but then it just might. Don't think of it as a magnum opus or you will never finish.
My current predicament is the opposite. I am now old and my standards have become as exacting as they ever will be. I'm under time pressure but it's of a different sort than the young person's. The young philosopher needs to 'make it' and secure a space within which he can pursue his vocation. He has to solve 'the problem of the belly.' He may also be driven by worldly ambition. I have secured the space, solved the problem of livelihood, and I have renounced all worldly ambition in line with Wittgenstein's 1948 observation, "Ambition is the death of thought." (Ehrgeiz ist der Tod des Denkens, Culture and Value, p. 77)
So now I can afford to set high standards. Trouble is, they slow you down. That's good in one way. I take to heart the advice of Wittgenstein and Brentano. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value (University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 80: Der Gruss der Philosophen unter einander sollte sein: "Lass Dir Zeit!" "This is how philosophers should greet each other: 'Take your time!'"
A similar thought is to be found in Franz Brentano, though I have forgotten where he says this: Wer eilt, bewegt sich nicht auf dem Boden der Wissenschaft. "One who hurries is not proceeding on a scientific basis."
On the other hand, the clock is running, the flag will fall, and the time control is sudden death. There is no secondary or tertiary control; nor can one take an 'incomplete' when the Grim Reaper comes knocking, his scythe glistening in the rays of the setting sun.