If not always, it would certainly be interesting today for philosophy to return to its beginnings as an antidote to its own misrepresentation. To teach it, it would be better to pretend that nothing was ever written down and expound concepts as if they were being taught for the first time. The teacher would then teach in the open air with the pupils sitting in a circle, and when he said “act”, he would show precisely the meaning of this word, so that, for the rest of their lives, the disciples would have in mind the actual act witnessed, and would not give in to the temptation to apply this word in a sense that was detached from the one the teacher made them witness. And so for all the important words. It is always profitable to secure the knowledge of a patent reality to which one must turn one’s eyes and without which reasoning is a waste.
The Emptying of the Meaning of Words
It is amusing to observe that, in some philosophers, we can witness the emptying of the meaning of words as we read them, or rather, the words, as they turn the pages, cease to mean what the dictionary defines them to fulfill the function of subjective concepts, which are worked on as if they were toys in an imaginary playground. There comes a moment in which we witness constructions that would be impossible if the words were used as they are, and then we realize, first, that the philosopher has distorted them, and second, that his philosophy has nothing to teach us about the real world.
Ecclesiastes Is Eternal
Ecclesiastes is eternal because it has verified that there are no new vices, nor new hopes, that what has been done will be done again, and there will never be anything that has not already been done: in short, circumstances are different, but man is always the same, and always falls into the weaknesses of the past. The impression of change with time is illusory, since it is limited to external aspects of a permanent reality. Man is always man, and we can only expect him to be what he is.
The Revenge of the Common Man
What best characterizes modernity is the revenge of the common man on the man of genius. In all spheres, it is his interests that predominate; wherever one turns one’s eyes, it is his face that stands out. The victory is complete. And precisely from this stems the suffocation of culture and high aspirations, which now find an almost invincible hostility to germinate. The common man does not tolerate them, and knocks on doors as a missionary in order to indoctrinate. Perhaps never has it been so difficult and so necessary an effort to ignore him and not allow oneself to be contaminated.