25 June 2013
Discussed Text: Simon Critchley, "What Is A Philosopher?"
After today’s class, my friend told me that he wanted to know how Philosophy kills. The question then began bugging in my mind for an hour. I started looking around imagining how it could possibly kill someone today in this modern age. It was hard finding the answer so I took more time.
I googled the question and I found something interesting, a list of dead Philosophers. I think many Philosophers in the list can help me answer my question. I’m not sure if this has relevance, but most of them ended up either killing themselves or suffering a tragic death, like Aristotle who was forced to kill himself upholding his ideal and Simone Weil who starved herself to death.
Now I am thinking of two possible answers. First is about the story of Theaetetus. Sometimes, reflecting too much makes you unaware of what is in front of you. You forget how to live and act in reality then you become someone that you tried to avoid most, a fool. It can also be that it is not too much Philosophy that kills but rather having a wrong Philosophy if there is such, or a Philosophy which is not in accordance to proper living just like Simone Weil who became too passionate of her beliefs that she starved herself to death believing that self starvation was the best way of self denial.
Second is the Aristotle example which has something to do with society. You become wise as him that your ideals are now too hard to be comprehended and accepted by society. They might think that you have gone crazy or your ideals are too influential that it might endanger their well-being. Or maybe it is a matter of having conflicting Philosophies that makes people kill one another. It comes down to a battle of pride, a clash between points of view or simply disagreements that cost lives.
Or maybe I am wrong with all I have written and wrong for asking immediately the question, “How does Philosophy kill?” and not debated first with the question, “Does Philosophy really kill?”
I also have the same insight about some philosophers taking their own lives. There was also Socrates, right? And DFW, too. And of late, there was also that Philo student. But I think that these examples are cited because we are in the topic of philosophers, and not to say that philosophers have a high batting average. Some bankers and entrepreneurs take their own lives, too, though, I have yet to come across a Filipino politician committing harakiri.
ReplyDeleteTo the question, "does Philosophy really kill?" In some of the readings, I came across what Plato stated in Phaedo... that the true philosopher strives to evade his body because the soul can best reflect when it is free of all distractions such as hearing or sight or pain or pleasure, in its search for reality.
"In death, the true man is freed from his imprisonment to see perfectly the pure light of absolute truth." (Calasanz).
Could this be what brought some of the philosophers to kill themselves?
Eve Avila
Philo 101A
In relation to what has been said, I would like to share this reading that was assigned in my FIL 14 class last year about a legend of a man who lived alone in the forest for five years, because he wanted to reflect about his life. After those five years, he began to doubt whether or not he would return home. He was scared that because of his newly acclaimed knowledge, people would think of him differently and reject him because of this difference. Another fear of his was returning home to a place he thought would be familiar, but would have probably changed because his perception of the world had also changed over time.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I do not have a copy of this reading anymore to share it with all of you and to be able to quote the exact story. It was simply its plot that actually triggered something in me to reflect on my own life.
For most of my life, I have been travelling around the world with my family, living in a different country every five years. Now that we are back home in the Philippines, it has always been my plan to visit one of the countries we lived in; but what's stopping me is the fear and doubt that things won't be the same anymore if I return because of my perceptions that have changed due to the years I have spent "unconciously philosophizing".
I guess, it's all about self-control of what we think and how we choose to think about things. Like the man in the forest and me, it is important and essential to be open-minded about these matters. The more we dwell in this fear, the more we keep ourselves blind to the chances of learning more and understanding better. Philosophy kills in the sense that it kills our old way of thinking and at times it can get overwhelming (possibly too overwhelming for others that they decide to take their own lives), but I believe that it is in this death that we are reborn to a better version of ourselves.
Bits Peñaranda
Philo 101 A
I agree with what Maria said that perhaps Philosophy kills us in the sense that it kills our old way of thinking. What it means to philosophize is to awaken ourselves to a different kind of perception, a perception which shatters our very own certainties and realities of life. As it was said in the reading of David Foster Wallace "This is Water", we have to always question the things that we are most certain of because most of the time these certainties "turn out totally wrong and deluded" as he puts it.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, sometimes as we are awakened to things beyond our own certainties we tend to reject them because they can come out very overwhelming to us like Maria said. I think it really just boils down to our openness to take in and accept that we do not know everything; "To know that we do not know".
Also in relation to what Eve said about how the body is an imprisonment of the soul, I also agree with this that perhaps these old philosophers saw this world or their bodies as merely an imprisonment to a reality that lies beyond them. They tend to suffer and take their own lives because they want to be as close to death as possible so that they can reach that realm of ideas or that realm of thought where the soul truly lives; reach a world of absolute truth and impossibilities. This concept was actually introduced by Plato and he said that everything in this world is merely just an illusion of reality. What we actually see in this earth are just projections or illusions from the soul in that realm of ideas. Ultimately, I guess this is also why these old philosophers aren't afraid of death as they want to be freed from this world because ultimately it is the soul which gives us life and our bodies are merely instruments to it.
Frenchi Baluyot
PH 101 A