{"id":1977,"date":"2022-06-27T12:42:52","date_gmt":"2022-06-27T12:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2022\/06\/27\/how-should-we-live\/"},"modified":"2022-06-27T12:42:52","modified_gmt":"2022-06-27T12:42:52","slug":"how-should-we-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2022\/06\/27\/how-should-we-live\/","title":{"rendered":"How Should We Live? or The Fly Bottle Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is a possible attitude for examination.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stick to the measurable, the calculable, and the empirically verifiable. Avoid Big Questions and Long Views.<\/a> Live here, now, and to human scale. Speculation is idle. No one knows or will ever know the answers to the Big Questions. To bother one's head over the ultimate distracts from the proximate, and unfits one for the only life that is sure. Accept finitude, for we are not made for anything more.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even this train of thought is dangerous. To ride it is already to forsake short views and to speculate fruitlessly about views and about which is best. That view alone is truly short which is accepted thoughtlessly and thus not as<\/em> a view. The truly short view is no view. If you so much as ask whether the life lived in sensuous immediacy is the truest or best, the worm of inquiry  — call him Skepsis<\/em> — has already entered your head. Or perhaps he was there all along and now you are feeding him.  <\/span><\/p>\n

But it is too late. You are on the path of inquiry and there is no turning back. Forward you shall go to points unknown. Will you proceed resolutely or in the desultory way of wishy-washy worldlings?<\/span><\/p>\n

But is it really too late? Why can't one just stop? The trick is to do so without explanation or justification. The example of Ludwig Wittgenstein suggests that this is impossible. <\/span>Philosophical Investigations<\/em>,  309:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Was ist dein Ziel in der Philosophie? Der Fliege den Ausweg aus dem Fliegenglas zeigen.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

What is your goal in philosophy? To show the fly the way out of the fly glass.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Why does the bug need to be shown<\/em> the way out?  Pop the cork and he's gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why did Wittgenstein feel the need to philosophize his way out of philosophy?  He should have known that metaphilosophy and anti-philosophy are just more philosophy with all the inconclusiveness and endlessness that that entails. He should have just walked away from philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the room is too smoky, there is no necessity that you remain in it.  You are free to go, the door is unlocked.  This figure's from Epictetus and he had the quitting of life in view.  But the same holds for the quitting of philosophy.  Just do it, if that's what you want.  It is not clear that it can be done, but you can try.  I'm not saying it should be done.  On the contrary.<\/span><\/p>\n

What cannot be done, however, is to justify one's exit.  That would be like copulating your way to chastity.  For any justification proffered, perforce and willy-nilly, will be just more philosophy, and you will remain stuck within the bottle.  You cannot have it both ways.  You either walk away or stay.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>Just walk away, Rene<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is a possible attitude for examination. Stick to the measurable, the calculable, and the empirically verifiable. Avoid Big Questions and Long Views. Live here, now, and to human scale. Speculation is idle. No one knows or will ever know the answers to the Big Questions. To bother one's head over the ultimate distracts from … Continue reading “How Should We Live? or The Fly Bottle Blues”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[406,39,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-of-life","category-human-predicament","category-meaning-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}