Category: Philosophy

reflections about the art of reflecting…

Belief

Typically, a person does not believe that her belief is a belief. If she does come to believe that a belief is a belief, she will recognize it for what it is, a mere belief, and no longer wholeheartedly believe in it. “To believe is to know that one believes, and to know that one believes is no longer to believe… every belief is a belief that falls short, one never wholly believes what one believes.” (Being and Nothingness, p. 69) A person is able to suspend disbelief in a belief because she fails to spell out to herself the fact that a belief is merely a belief. Spelling out the policy of not spelling out undermines the policy. Coming to believe that a belief is merely a belief undermines the belief. If a person comes to believe that a belief is a belief, then she ceases to be convinced by it and loses faith in it, because by its very nature, belief implies doubt. Continue reading Belief

Limits of explanation

Traditionally, the two types of explanation are synthesis and analysis. Leibniz defined synthesis as “the process in which we begin from principles and …[proceed to]…build up theorems and problems,” and analysis as “the process in which we begin with a given conclusion or proposed problem and seek the principles by which we may demonstrate the conclusion or solve the problem.” (Philosophical Papers and Letters, p 286) It seems trivial to suppose that a complete explanation would of course include both types. However, if we do attempt a complete explanation, we will end with paradoxes. Continue reading Limits of explanation

A return to subjectivity

What is subjectivity other than a pattern of life? A pattern that answers the question posed by a dialectic of subjectivity. Among the candidates of this pattern: Locke’s selfhood, Husserl’s transcendental ego, personal identity. In this blog I will show how a different logic reveals this pattern of life: Gilles Deleuze’s “impersonal individuation,” (Difference and Repetition, p. 277) one that is distinct from personal individuation, a singularity instead of something particular.

If life is indefinite, then no pattern can ever completely graph life tout court; it is always just “a” life. The characterization of life as “impersonal, yet singular” distinguishes it from the self and obliges a more unbridled version of empiricism, that of transcendental empiricism. Continue reading A return to subjectivity

The death of fiction and the birth of ASL….

Fiction in literature, as a serious aesthetic experience, took a long time in coming. Many literary scholars have difficulty in determining the date of its emergence. Some of the possible dates are the sixteenth century in Spain, 17th century in France, and the 18th century in England. Continue reading The death of fiction and the birth of ASL….

Nihilism, anyone?

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Nihilism: just plug in

The majority of people are so afraid of the possibility that life has no meaning, that it lacks any intrinsic worth whatsoever. This nihilism, due to the fear of the inevitability of meaningless suffering, is bolstered by the modern scientific view of the human species as just the “moldy film” of a tiny planet orbiting a very ordinary star in a ocean of billion of stars in a very ordinary galaxy in a cosmos of billion galaxies. Continue reading Nihilism, anyone?

On philosophy and rhetoric

My initial thoughts about this distinction is that it centers around the role of rhetoric in language, and its relation to philosophy, or philosophical language. Typically, rhetoric is considered as the speech that acts on the emotions. This is what preachers, politicians are adroit at in order to manipulate emotions, and they develop a technique of persuasion. Continue reading On philosophy and rhetoric

Greatest insight

Imagine something too hot to handle. A hot potato. Now, try imagining something too cold to touch. They freeze the handler by draining away all vitality. Perhaps some insights are far too cold to be adequately handled enough to be understood. Unlike most insights that enlighten, these cold insights carry a sense of danger – even potentially harmful for many who deceive themselves. Continue reading Greatest insight