Beginnings

..1/14/07.. 7:22 pm

Why are philosophers so easily convinced that where there is A, there must be not A. What force creates the opposite? The mind on its own? By positing black, does one generate white as well? Is there truth in contrast? There is no doubt intelligibility, but this is no guarantor of truth. What is the class of things that are other-generating? Oppression does not entail freedom; the utter lack of oppression does not bring about freedom. Would we know of pleasure without pain? Certainly yes. This is the truth of comparison. Good, better, best: is there not more truth in these concepts than in the bivalence of good and evil? What is good relative to best? Evil. Good relative to poor, non-optimal, distasteful? Good in the absolute sense.

..1/27/2008.. 10:39 am

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The scientist and the spiritualist both participate in faith. The one makes it known and the other tries to conceal it. The infinity of space, the infinity of time, the infinity of causes all are perfectly incomprehensible. The leap from non-life to life is no more so. Yet science assumes this, however quietly. The infinity of knowledge, of goodness, of the spontaneous cause and the action of the timeless and spaceless with the temporal and spatial all are incomprehensible.

Both involve an assumption of infinite power, one of nature and the other of God: their secret agreement. Should we take from this that faith is permissible? That faith is unavoidable? If so, is this something to be contended by or should it be decried?

..2/13/08....10:44 am..

The philosopher says to the scientist: I'd rather live on my fictions than on your truths.

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..2/18/08.. 7:52 pm

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The worst thought: that suicide is not the end. What if there is more on the other side and what if this is worse? Both are inconceivable and this is the ice of the thought, that which arrests with its chill.

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..2/19/08.. 7:42 pm

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The fundamental assessment of all thought: what does one do with it? Thoughts without practical application are worthless. The practical realm is action, be it internal or external. The end of all action, internal or external, should be the good. Thus, if there is no plausible way one may do good as the result of a thought, it is worthless.

..2/23/08.. 6:09 pm

If one surveys the history of philosophy, one notices a general tendency: that of developing a specialized language. What has changed to require such jargon: the world or the philosophers who approach it?

..May 25, 2008.. ..8:28 pm..

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All awareness of the metaphysical is a collaborative act. The individual meets the metaphysical outside of his bodily senses. The mind, its thoughts and emotions, are stimulated by it. Though of a like kind, thoughts and emotions are not a perfect fit for expression of the metaphysical. Metaphysics can only be responded to with metaphysics. Once given the solidity of consciousness, something of the metaphysical is lost in the individual. Such is the contribution of the individual: it is that which limits the metaphysical. The metaphysical endures unchanged, but is better for being known in part that not known at all. To know the metaphysical perfectly is not for the individual. It is like an observer trying to survey a landscape with a telescope: something is always left out. What is left in, however, has the potential of bringing the individual in tune with his own metaphysical self. Such is the contribution of the metaphysical: it aligns the willing individual to its deepest truth.

What of the individual is unwilling? That which is bodily resists that which is incorporeal. The body is, in its purity, hopelessly depraved. As the metaphysical is better for being known in part, so too is the body better for being united to the metaphysical in part. Some will say they cannot conceive of such a union (how does what is unextended 'push' upon what is extended?). The impossibility of conception is exactly the point. A conception, when imbued with the sensorial, cannot capture what is not sensed by the body. Although a Spanish speaker cannot communicate successfully with a French speaker, the former is not at liberty to conclude the latter does not speak intelligibly. In the same way, the physical may not rule out the metaphysical.

If the bodily and the incorporeal can mix, it is necessarily a mystery. Is mystery another name for hopeless? On the contrary, it is the origin of hope. What we know for certain we can have no hope in because it is limited. 'Hope springs eternal,' thus it may not be limited. The thinking that says that mystery is hopeless is the same that says that says the metaphysical does not exist because it cannot be seen or tasted. Yet, the union of body and soul is something at once less than and greater than known. It is felt at all times and yet never fully comprehended. It is the vague notion that floats in the mind, the inkling of a presence that brings one comfort. Yet, when we turn to investigate, we catch only a glimpse like the vain attempts at seeing the back of our head in a mirror by jerking our neck quickly. A swish of hair is all the proof we can go on that it exists (assuming there is only one mirror), but that is proof enough. In a similar way, the faint and yet bold sensation that there is something more which resides in the mind at all times is proof enough that physics and metaphysics can unite.

What are we to do with the union? The answer is not clear cut, for nothing which is clear cut is hopeful. The metaphysical makes a demand on the physical, though it is more subtle than the reverse. Thus, the origin of hope is also the origin of fear. In mystery there is possibility for the higher and lower. One finds oneself progressing down the presumed path of the underlying without being wholly confident that the path is the one of truth, of goodness, of beauty. Such is the nature of faith. To be open to the underlying in the face of uncertainty.

What right does the metaphysical have to demand of the physical? It is unbounded, has greater potential, and thus the possibility for nobility. The physical always has limits: it can be measured, it can be perfectly conceived.

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..May 26, 2008..

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The conscience, or intuition, is the name we often give to the metaphysical faculty of mankind. It is that which gleans the what lies beyond. It does so with vague wafts, bringing traces of Being to awareness.

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The medieval philosophers and theologies of the Western tradition teach us that all things, insofar as they exist, are at once true, good, and beautiful. We see this played out in philosophy. All theories have truth in them. If they were wholly devoid of truth, they would never be thought. At the same time, they have falsity in them in the presence of absence. In classrooms this is manifested in the perpetual critique and criticism of philosophies and philosophers. They fall short here, fail to consider that, or are contradictory there. Behind these observations lies often a confusion that suggests that there is a grand philosophy that can be describe Being in full, the penultimate Truth: the System. Anything physical will forever lack the means to such an end, for the physical is finite. Words and concepts while not physical like stones and branches, are nevertheless imbued with physicality. If they can be pictured, they can be representatives of the physical. There can be no System. At once, we ought not lament this (since ought implies can, and we can not, therefore we ought not). It is a consequences of the capacities humans find themselves equipped with and their mixed constitutions.

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..May 27, 2008..

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The greatest truths in life are partial lies. Such are the limitations of language. Love notes only go so far towards capturing love, some of the sentiment is always left in the corners of our heart which are inaccessible to our rounded concepts.