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From: Big Red Jeff Rubard on 18 Feb 2010 15:58
The Purpose of Philosophy

Now on to the actual, classical purpose of philosophy. As its Greek
name “love of wisdom” indicates, philosophy is a *propaedeutic* to /
rhetoric/: the purpose of “Socratic” or any other kind of
philosophical method is to teach you how to discourse, not opine or
ordinate. Philosophers are often very talented writers, but actual
philosophy always fails to satisfy the reading eye: there is never
enough to it, one wishes it was better, more understandable, more
“practical” — and then out of the reading-room, and on to the street.
This is, shall we say, intentional: as a result of attempting to gain
“absolute knowledge”, the experienced philosopher learns to have a
taste for /quotidian/ life (though the parameters of this may vary
with political affiliation).

In fact, if we must have a 'logical theory of philosophy', we might
begin by categorically rejecting Nietzsche’s dictum “We shall never
get rid of God as long as we believe in grammar”. Philosophy is both
practised and practicing atheism, and a great work of philosophy is a
model of a new grammar for ordinary speech: right down to orthography,
the lessons taught by a standing work of philosophy (!) inform the
discourse of the succeeding period to a great degree. Unfortunately,
one cannot always be an enthusiast for the lessons taught: I myself
have rather less respect for Schopenhauer and Nietzsche than Simmel,
and rather more respect for Simmel’s “Kantian Marxism” than his
respect for them has allowed for some time, but worse cases do exist.

I would say that, from a “grammatological” perspective, the worst
philosopher of all time was the German Counter-Enlightenment *Denker*
Johann Georg Hamann, the “Magus of the North”. Part of Hamann’s magic
was getting you not to notice that his written German was atrocious:
the scansion of his pages is painful, indicating modesty forbids he
reveal the hidden wellsprings of his wisdom — however, when you begin
to consider his disgusting anti-humanist values, you forget all about
the fact his philosophical “targets” had something other than logical
proofs to treat as love letters [Although Schopenhauer himself
perfected the art of the “philosophical takedown”, his extensive
sentences contain something of an “implicit parody” of Hamann’s pro
lix - Ed].

Second worst “philosophical grammar”? That of Pascal, whose
'Franzh' [! - Ed] fails to be, as per modern standards, “ironized for
your protection” and which can simply break off in midthought because
the true reality and aim of the Church is just such a pressing concern
for all. Since Pascal was such an important social and scientific
figure, We [!! - See our burg - Eds] all would like to consider his
theological philosophy of theology of philosophy something more than a
“self-swallowing snake of reason”: however, really the truth of the
matter is that Pascal’s philosophical inadequacy reveals that bad
philosophers teach us about the need for new science: if all is so
occluded that new concepts of probability (i.e. modern statistics)
have to be invented, the lessons learnable from “J-C.” and the crew
will perhaps not be the only ones necessary for life: and maybe Hamann
“jump-started” the modern science of linguistics, even as a puzzled
attempt to find out just what he was saying.

The third worst philosophical writer of modern times is the German
mystic Jakob Boehme [!!] (the name was once written this way in
America, since republican Germans tended to use the umlaut and
*scharfes-ess* as little as possible). Boehme is absolutely
unphilosophical: Christianity, the experience of God in all its stages
and phases, is absolutely going to be enough for the Boehmian and any
consideration of classical legacies like “nature or creature” is not
necessary. A “popular favorite” among the piet here in the U.S. of A:
however, perhaps its “failure to thrive” worldwide led to something
quite wonderful — the establishment of the modern science of medicine,
a realization that saying “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to
debauchery. Instead, be drunk with the Spirit” and other, lesser
homilies do not cure every ill -- and a promise of something more for
some [!! - Ed].

----

The Capitol: FREE GAME - Ed
Paulinism: CIA -- choke on that -- World
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