tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1651908162607091292.post489661521047142449..comments2024-01-05T01:21:21.702-08:00Comments on <center>SPECULUM CRITICUM TRADITIONIS</center>: Poetry and the Impossibleskholiasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410057905377189336noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1651908162607091292.post-64208096438515805392010-03-12T15:47:01.707-08:002010-03-12T15:47:01.707-08:00Yet again, my comment was too long to be accepted ...Yet again, my comment was too long to be accepted in one note.<br /><br />[First, a digression might be in order here to make my point clear about superstitious texts. Now, Spinoza gives us his method of reading for superstitious texts only. Wait a second! Am I maintaining that the texts of genuine philosophers (like scriptures) are superstitious!?! No, of course not. A text is 'superstitious' if it is written by a superstitious person or if it is written by a cautious person in superstitious times. In both cases the text will be 'superstitious'. Now, the $64 question is: 'are there any non-superstitious times?' It was once thought that modernity was, or could be, a non-superstitios time. But post-modernity has quite nicely put an end to all that... Digression ended.]<br /><br />So? Well, 'ever-larger Universalisms' lead to a world in which destinies can be compared (as Merleau-Ponty once said). That is, we will be able understand the reasons (not merely causes or whims) for human interactions where otherwise we would only see a list of differences. So, how exactly is that Nietzschean? Zarathustra was written for everyone (but philosophers). That people see in it 'spirituality', sex revolution, a call to 'great politics', or the road to authenticity is no accident. "Books are mirrors", Nietzsche said. - And 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' is your proof! It is (according to Nietzsche) from the vantage of philosophical psychology (and only from there) that 'destinies will be compared'. "Psychology is once again the Queen of the Sciences", Nietzsche said. She will reign for at least as long as the new worlds (still to come) based on Becoming-Creating are around.<br /><br />Ok. But what of Nihilism? Nihilism is the greatest danger of speculation! (Yes, I know. You -and not only you- will think I am slipping into hysteria here...) Post-modernity itself rose because it was seen that no theory (no grand-narrative) could be proven by words. As Nietzsche indicated, the only thing a convincing theory 'proves' is that it is convincing. So what is the answer to nihilism? The body. The body is the abiding clue. (I know, you are wondering if there might be some point to this...) The regularities and repetitions of the body, of nature, are the greatest and most effective argument against nihilism. Nihilism is a problem for thought; not nature. There are no nihilistic animals.<br /><br />If it turns out to be (as the religious have always threatened) that we are immortal Spirits then it will be in the 'next world' that nihilism will rage in its fullest power. Without the good common sense of the body (God bless it!) we 'spirits' (I mean, of course, the ones that aren't philosophers) would all imagine that we are unique gods and Reality Itself would become (indeed, it would in fact be!) but a succession of whims...<br /><br />Both Plato and Nietzsche fought (and philosophy itself fights) to prevent that. Now, you perhaps understand my reticence regarding speculation... Anything can be said, anything at all. If we were gods then saying and doing would be exactly the same and reality would be nothing but those innumerable whims... The limitlessness of Speculation is (in non-philosophers) the Déjà vu of an endless nihilism.Joe Pomonomohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15799366948466532024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1651908162607091292.post-802042086423122262010-03-12T15:37:49.898-08:002010-03-12T15:37:49.898-08:00What a wonderful piece on poetry! Thank you for th...What a wonderful piece on poetry! Thank you for this. Someone once spoke to me of Rider but I never followed the suggestion up. Now I will. What do you recommend? - From her early and late periods I mean?<br /><br />In an earlier post you had engaged me and I wanted to answer you. I just wasn't sure how. This post of yours provides another opportunity. Of course, you will have guessed from our correspondence that my unimportant and uninteresting silence does not stem merely from a suspicion about Words and Truth; besides that there is the problem of the Self. Without the self-control of the genuine philosophers one does not even know why one has said what one has just said!<br /><br />So, Truth is a problem, and the self that we non-philosophers can only barely control is another problem. A third problem is the City. (You of course know I mean Civilization.) One must speak in a manner that doesn't do further damage to the possibility of civilizational survival. Why am I so adamant about this? Without civilization there is no philosophy, - not ever. You know how greatly that troubles me...<br /><br />Even though I am an advocate (as I believe you are) of the new post-platonic world that will rise after the fall of both modernity and the axial age religions, I am still very uncomfortable with the notion of creating... (God, for a [self-professed] 'Nietzschean', this really is like confessing a murder!) But 'Becoming-Creating' will be the foundation of the World to come! (Just as 'Being-Knowing' was the foundation of these Platonisms now passing away...) <br /><br />How is it possible that a Nietzschean can be uncomfortable with Creativity? When Nietzsche finally became interesting to me was when I understood that he was speaking of History, and not merely speaking 'truth to power'. Nietzsche as critic, philosophy as criticism, is pointless. Plato and Nietzsche did not do pointless things. It is here that Marx and Nietzsche are as one. The Modern World must change; and it must change for philosophical reasons!<br /><br />Reasons, not causes; we are not merely billiard balls responding to various forces. Reasons, not whims; we are not merely doing this as an exercise in human creativity! Philosophy is neither physics nor literary theory. Yes, but it incorporates aspects of both. As a reader of medieval philosophy you will know that it was the 'Greek necessitarianism' (as Gilson once referred to it) of the Islamic Falasifa and Latin Aristotelians that made them an abomination to the theologians around them. Against Philosophy, Occasionalism was the weapon of choice in Islam, while Nominalism was what (nearly) destroyed Aristotelianism in the Christian Latin World.<br /><br />Why rehash this here and now? Because this 'necessitarianism' is of the very essence of philosophy. When one reads the history of philosophy in the manner that Spinoza read the Bible (admitting what the 'authorities' agree on, excluding the rest) one is left with two points: the struggle towards an ever-larger Universalism and the war against nihilism.Joe Pomonomohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15799366948466532024noreply@blogger.com