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.
Tag: philosophy
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 Philosopher Who Cannot Teach…
The philosopher who cannot teach something valuable in a simple way to an ordinary man should retire. Perhaps in no other field is clarity a more necessary quality, and a more evident manifestation of mastery over the subject matter. There are many forgivable sins, and many defects that even scratch the thought of a philosopher; but from the moment that discourse, through him, makes the subject more confusing, the best he would do is to return quietly to his studies, if not abandon them forever and seek a new occupation.