First Impressions

You will find it difficult to undo the damage of a bad first impression. One must realize that too many people base lasting judgments on them. This is folly of course, but it may be even worse folly to attempt to disembarrass  them of their folly. The world runs on appearances, a fact made worse by the pseudo-authority of first appearances. One eventually learns that this world of seeming not only really is a world of seeming but is necessarily one. One learns to deal with it and abandons the attempt to find plenary reality where it can exist only fitfully and in fragments.

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Can Philosophy be Taught?

In one sense a philosophy is a set of conclusions, systematically set forth, on ultimate matters. To appreciate the conclusions, however, one must appreciate the arguments and counterarguments the sifting of which first led the philosopher to the conclusions. But to understand the arguments and counterarguments one must understand the issues and problems that they revolve around. Appreciation of the issues and problems, in turn, is rooted in wonder  the presupposition of which is a contemplative detachment from the taken-for-granted.

And so we must distinguish: doctrines, arguments, problems, wonder.  Philosophy as the study of the doctrines of the philosophers is philosophy in its most superficial sense.  Studying that, one is not studying philosophy, but philosophies, and them in their most external form.  Philosophy as the grappling with the arguments whose conclusions  are the doctrines is closer to the real thing.  Philosophy as the exfoliation and penetration of the problems themselves, under suspension of the need to solve them at all costs, is closer still to philosophy's throbbing heart.   This is philosophy as aporetics.  But without wonder there can be no appreciation of problems, let alone solutions.  Thus we have it on the excellent authority of both Plato and Aristotle that philosophy begins in wonder.

Upshot? Teaching philosophy is well-nigh impossible. One can of course teach the lore of the philosophers, but that is not what philosophy is in its vital essence.  And although argumentative and logical skills are impartable to the moderately intelligent, the aporetic sense, the feel for a philosophical problem, is not readily imparted regardless of the intelligence of the student. A fortiori, the wonder at the source of the aporetic sense is a gift of the gods, and nothing a mere mortal teacher can dispense.

So I propose to go Kant one better. Somewhere deep in the bowels of   The Critique of Pure Reason,  he remarks that "Philosophy cannot be taught, we can at most learn to philosophize." I say that neither philosophy as doctrinal system nor the art of philosophizing can be taught. For there is no one extant doctrinal system called philosophy, and neither the aporetic sense nor the wonder at its root can be taught.   As I used to say in my teaching days, "Philosophy cannot be a mass consumption item." Logic perhaps, philosophy no.

Or to paraphrase a remark I once heard Hans-Georg Gadamer make, "Just as there are the musical and the unmusical, there are the philosophical and the unphilosophical."  One cannot teach music to the unmusical or philosophy to the unphilosophical.  The muse of philosophy must have visited you; otherwise you are out of luck.

Too Old to Learn?

This just over the transom from a reader in Virginia: 

I stumbled across your blog a year or two ago, and since then I've periodically dropped in to see what's going on.  I enjoy what I understand of your material but, to be honest, I find much of it quite difficult to follow.  I think the main problem is that, having never studied philosophy formally, I simply haven't developed sufficient fluency in the vocabulary and methods of thinking required by the discipline.  (At the risk of sounding arrogant, I'm certain I possess the native intelligence to grasp at least the basics.)  With less than a year to go until my fortieth birthday it may be a little late to start learning, but, for reasons that I won't get into unless you really want to know, I'd like to try.  With that said, could you (and would you) suggest one or two books by way of introductory reading?
You are not even forty and you consider yourself too old for study?  Nonsense.  Nietzsche says somewhere that at thirty a man is yet a child when it comes to matters of high culture.  Well, to employ a trendy manner of speaking, forty is the new thirty.  Actually, fifty is the new thirty.  It is a good bet that you have another forty years ahead of you.  It is never too late to be learning new things.  The mind declines much more slowly than the body and its decline is much more easy to offset by preventative measures.  See Studiousness as Prophylaxis Against the Debilities of Old Age.  It is also worth noting that the waning of one's libido is conducive to the sort of peace of mind that makes study a pure delight.
 
As for your native intelligence, I too am certain that you possess enough of it to grasp the basics.  This is obvious from your letter which is flawlessly written and a model of clarity. Never start with the assumption that any subject matter is beyond your understanding.  Always start with the opposite assumption and let experience teach you your limits.  She will not fail to do so!
 
You say that you find much of what I write on this weblog hard to follow.  That is only to be expected when the post is of a technical nature as many of my posts are, or when I simply presuppose even in non-technical posts that the reader has read Aristotle, Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre, Quine . . . . 
 
You would like me to recommend one or two introductory books.  I cannot think of anything I could wholeheartedly recommend in good conscience, but the following are worth a look:  Bryan Magee, Confessions of a Philosopher, and Jay F. Rosenberg, The Practice of Philosophy.  Mr. Google will be glad to assist you in locating copies.  These books will give you some idea of what philosophy is about, even though I cannot endorse their particular slants or emphases.
 
But you really cannot learn philosophy by reading about it or attending lectures.  You have to do it.  It is an activity first and foremost, not a body of doctrine there to be learned.   You have to have one or more burning questions that torment you, and then you have to try to work out (in writing!) your own answers to those questions as best you can, all the while consulting what others have said about them.
 

The Past as Burden

The past is a burden one is free to put down — if others will let us. In this regard as in others, the less fame the better. Others like to keep us in the past, safely categorized, pinned to our deeds. To their ossifying gaze, we are what we were, a fixed essence rather than a project. If I rightly recall, Hegel summed up the Aristotelian to ti en einai and the scholastic quod quid erat esse in the phrase, Wesen ist was gewesen ist: essence is what was. But Dasein, said Heidegger, is essentially futural. And that despite all Geworfenheit, thrownness.  Sound is the existentialist insight that man  is a project.

Each day is new, but we make it old with our thoughts and habits. We drag the past along with us like a penal chain. But every day is a beginning. Some say: "of the rest of your life." But that formulation is too retrospective: it evaluates the present and the future by the standard of the past, as time that remains. Better to say: "Each day begins a new life." Of course, it cannot be all that new, but no matter. Let the continuities take care of themselves, seek the novelty in the moment.

There are possibilities yet unexplored in this present which is not merely a boundary between past and future, but a source of the new. 

The Demise of the Dollar

An important article by Robert Fisk in the The Independent.  (HT: Seldom Seen Slim)

Frugal bastards like me, who live according to the old virtues, play by the rules, are totally debt-free, save and invest, exercise 'due diligence' across the board — we are now going to get the shaft through no fault of our own.  What's a poor philosopher to do as his stash of cash threatens to transmogrify into a pile of trash?  Three simple suggestions:

1. Buy gold and other precious metals.  But gold is at an all-time high of $1038.65 a troy ounce, and you know what they say about buying high.  Gold is extremely volatile and has no intrinsic value.  Nor does it have any growth potential like stocks.  Because the world's gold supply increases very slowly, its exchange value is mainly driven by demand.  But the demand is perception-driven, so be careful.  Still, gold is and always has been the money of last resort, money for when the crap hits the fan, and thereafter.

2. Stockpile nonperishable goods, including those you don't use yourself.  What you don't need or want can be used later on for barter.  While prices are low and the dollar still has purchasing power, lay in a supply of clothes and footwear, tools, mountain bikes and musical instruments, wine and liquor, canned food and dry staples such as rice and beans, guns and ammunition, and so on.

3. Make repairs and improvements on your domicile.

Yet More Evidence of a Lack of Common Sense Among Democrats

It is hard to believe, but then again, given how preternaturally stupid and politically correct Dems are, maybe it is not so hard to believe:  a significant number of these jokers oppose photo ID when it comes to applying for Medicare and Medicaid benefits!  Here is John Fund, Making the World Safe for Medicaid Fraud:

Americans expect to show a photo ID when they board a plane, enter many office buildings, cash a check or even rent a video — but rarely in voting or applying for government benefits such as Medicaid. Many Democrats seem to view asking citizens for proof of identity as an invasion of privacy — though what's really being protected is the right to commit identity fraud.

Exhibit A is Tuesday's 13 to 10 party-line vote in the Senate Finance Committee rejecting a proposal to require that immigrants prove their identity when signing up for federal health care programs. [. . .]

This shows that the Dems are not serious about health care reform.  If they were serious they would begin by solving pressing and solvable problems such as the fraud and waste in existing programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.  But they refuse to take the simplest steps toward this end.

Misplaced Moral Enthusiasm and Mel Gibson

The L. A. Times reports that Mel Gibson's 2006 drunk driving conviction has been expunged.  Here is what I wrote about the case at the time (1 August 2006): 

What's worse: Driving while legally drunk at 87 miles per hour in a 45 mph zone, or making stupid anti-Semitic remarks? The former, obviously. And yet a big stink is being made about Gibson's drunken rant. I call this misplaced moral enthusiasm. Calling a Jew a bad name won't kill him, but running him over in your speeding 2006 Lexus LS 430 will.

On the one hand, offensive words that no reasonable person could take seriously; on the other hand, a deed that could get people killed. Here is what Gibson said: "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," and, addressing the arresting officer, "Are you a Jew?"

Now compare Gibson with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who repeatedly has called for the destruction of the State of Israel. Ahmadinejad's is speech that incites unspeakable violence, unlike Gibson's drunken rant which is no threat to anyone. So let's forget about Gibson, and concentrate on real threats.

Epictetus Advises Imelda Marcos

Epictetus, Enchiridion, tr. E. Carter, XXXIX:

The body is to everyone the measure of the possessions proper for it, as the foot is of the shoe. If, therefore, you stop at this, you will keep the measure; but if you move beyond it, you must necessarily be carried forward, as down a precipice; as in the case of a shoe, if you go beyond its fitness to the foot, it comes first to be gilded, then purple, and then studded with jewels. For to that which once exceeds a due measure, there is no bound.

Indeed, as one may observe here.

How Sartre Saw the USA

Jean-Paul Sartre's "Americans and Their Myths" appeared in The Nation in the issue of 18 October, 1947. The article concludes:

The anguish of the American confronted with Americanism is an ambivalent anguish; as if he were asking, "Am I American enough?" and at the same time, "How can I escape from Americanism?" In America a man's simultaneous answers to these two questions make him what he is, and each man must find his own answers.

It sounds like projection to me. Anguish? Ambivalence? Had I been able to drag Jean-Paul's sorrily citified Parisian ass away from his cafes, Gauloises, and Stalinist comrades and through the Superstition Mountains in June — well, perhaps the univocity of rock and sun and the reality of a world that is not man-made but also not a featureless surd-like en soi would have cured his anguished ambiguity.

Serious Conversation

It is best avoided with ordinary folk. Serious conversation about matters beyond the mundane demands effort and people resent being made to work. Besides, ordinary folk do not 'believe in conversation' the way some philosophers do. They don't believe that truth can be attained by dialectical means. They might not believe in truth at all, or in its value. Or they may have the notion that 'truth is relative.' Thoughtlessly, many dismiss all thought with 'It's all relative.' So if you try to engage them on a serious topic, they may interpret your overture as an initial move in an ego game whereby you are trying to dominate them, even if that is the farthest thing from your mind. Not believing in truth, they believe in power, and interpret everything as a power ploy and a power play. And this goes double if, like me, you are intense of mien. For your seriousness will appear either threatening or comical to those for whom nothing matters except life's surfaces.

A good maxim, then:  Among regular guys be a regular guy.