1 The main task of philosophy is not to know
life, but rather to affirm our earthly life.
That is, to live within a present time, not
to hope for a future time. Philosophy's mandate
is to appropriate thought and life together,
without both of them just becoming sounds
and words.
2 Nothing from Nothing leaves Nothing - but
only for the "They" (everyday awareness).
3 Without Nothing we would not have anything
at all. Nothing must be, for without it -
we would not be open to the destiny of Being.
Truth would remain for God only; and we could
only speak of the chaos we enjoy and experience
everyday - truth as our own self-deception.
4 Love can withstand all (even time), except
for its own ground to be brought into question;
since this splits it apart and results in
a falling into the abyss. Through life dialectic,
love becomes a growing abyss. Insofar as
they are both human we must go through life
affirming them both and growing within their
spaces and limits.
5 You say, "Everything is basically
O. K.". With this statement I see you,
a puffed up decadent, forever caught without
history - a non-political animal. Do you
not see this lost animal? For him, the universal
never moves the particular. The only thing
left is a little atom fellow, he who speaks
from his little niche - speaks only of his
little niche. Never forget how and why our
system stinks. Philosopher as nose!
6 No longer can we say the state is the family,
for the state is actually not something else,
it is only the state. So it is with Being
and the One (Hen), there is Being and the
One; thus Being is not the One and the One
is not Being, both are by themselves. Problem
of a Henologist.
7 God created man to suffer as mortals condemned
to time and their own death. Hence the main
goal of mankind - to overcome his master
and leap to freedom. God lives on and we
suffer, thus the end of God is the end and
completion of suffering. Next step God must
suffer.
8 Judging by history, God's sense of humor
can only be morbid.
9 History can only learn by becoming human
class education. There is no history in general.
All other history is really just personal
history, a history of personalities. The
goal of human history is to become humankind
history, for the peoples to be the rulers
of themselves. Freedom for all peoples! Perhaps
our only idol...
10 The cosmic joke was invented by man to
laugh at himself, for all other beings would
never laugh at this creature. He thinks too
much of himself and has only by luck remained
on earth. A dreamer by nature, he has all
too often faced away from the suffering.
Hoping for a dream world, a world beyond
this one; since he hopes for a dream world,
he only finds a world which is a joke.
11 Our "hopes" and "faiths"
are complex ways of dealing with the intersection
of dreams and reality.
12 Aphorisms are the author's attempt at
being profound. The results, therefore, are
either that one goes into the depths or they
go forgotten as even attempts.
13 A painter's fantasy: To become a jockey
for a six-foot ant. Even Nietzsche would
have a tough time affirming this; for it
reaches beyond thinking and philosophy to
genuine craziness.
14 Philosophers have been interested mainly
in origins and the causes of things - anything
to get away from the "now". Philosophers
can even escape the "now" by writing
about it. Just think! Philosophers are always
condemned to only writing and thinking "about"
the "now" and "life".
And they must do justice to life, but philosophers
are also condemned to language and words
- perhaps it is folly to even think language
can do justice to living phenomena.
15 My own paradox. Only in being Nothing
am I Something. I am a thing that feels and
experiences Nothingness, it reaches me. Nothing
comes from some thing. Not the other way
around.
16 Nietzsche was a beginning and an end.
He speaks to the beginning and its start
but at the same time he is not that beginning.
It is always a joy to hear about the beginning
but we must never forget that Nietzsche is
not his overman. Nevertheless, he ends the
entire Western philosophical epoch (started
by Plato). Nietzsche, even more than Kant,
is a philosopher who we must consider, even
though Kant is a great critical bottleneck
which philosophy almost did not make it through;
Nietzsche is even more so. There is still
a war over whether Nietzsche will be admitted
and this speaks to Nietzsche's power after
he is accepted and taken in as a philosopher
and thinker. Perhaps philosophers will never
make it past Nietzsche.
17 There are two kinds of philosophers -
methodologists and non-methodologists. Hegel
is the greatest methodologist in Western
History and Nietzsche is contra him. As Heidegger,
gained experience, his main realization was
his own lack of depth with regard to method;
that is, with regard to his power of thinking.
This, of course, shows itself as Heidegger's
non-ability to think about the world (e.
g., political and class relationships). But
only Heidegger has taken a step beyond the
mish-mash of Husserlian methodology, he was
never caught by it. He always had too much
philosophical power.
18 It is only by taking the chance that we
might lose our path, will we be taking a
chance that we might find it also. However,
there are no guarantees that we will find
our own path ever. Perhaps only those of
us who have a little sense for their destiny
even have the barest chance to find a right
and proper path for themselves. Not every
one has a destiny to fulfill and even those
that do - not all of them have the power
to go with the heat, to hear the call and
see the signs of the gods. Moria as our life.
19 Truth is part of the cosmic joke. I maintain
truth as an illusion for life, as a small
part of a dream, unknown slipping part of
Reality. How could we ever know truth "in
itself"? A folly for Sunday morning.
20 My own task. To change the mind of god,
so that she will be rational. You say, "God
is a woman." And I say to you, my brothers,
"who else could have a son?" Bible
as a mis-print.
21 Nietzsche is peachy. Perhaps over the
top or just too easy, but you have said it
and now it is with you.
22 According to common sense, philosophers
think too much. And according to modern philosophers,
we should release ourselves from rational
thinking, that is, from thinking too much.
We need to liberate ourselves from Reason
(Ratio). But does that really mean to stop
thinking? Answer: No, but in essence it might
mean the same thing. What are the consequences
of giving up reason? Certainly not just irrationalism.
But what then? Let us not be caught affirming
dreams.
23 Everyone can speak to a mystery, because
it is easy to talk about nothing; but it
is a divine act to touch the depth of life
with language.
24 A women's beauty cannot be understood
without seeing her grow, for even gods unfold
in time. But that kind of beauty does not
come through a mortal's own strength.
25 Fichte and Husserl both generated the
world out of the Ego.
26 Materialism is contra idealism. But nothing
is idealism contra to, mostly because in
idealism every "ism" is taken as
a moment in the history of an Ego's projection
and positing.
27 Mankind's greatest gift and burden is
talking, without it, we are nothing (unhuman)
and with it (you name this) we are something
(indeed, too human).
28 All happiness wants to speak and show
itself as Love, and Love shows itself as
happiness and joy, and world....
29 In spite of all things to the contrary,
women shall one day rule the world. What?
You doubt me? - read between the lines.
30 Does it make a difference whether we believe
in an afterlife or not? Answer: No, for we
all must return to our maker. Unless our
maker had some weird ideas about why we are
here on earth. I am sure; nevertheless, we
will be the last to know. But to common understanding,
believing is one hundred per cent of the
game (i. e., you are already there).
31 Feuerbach shows the power of Hegel. Right
out of Hegel comes Feuerbach's power. Hegel's
first son was this fiery brook. This amazing
Feuerbach corrected Hegel's mistake of not
including the future, he was the first to
move philosophy toward the future. And of
course, Nietzsche is the last one to be a
fragment of the future. Since Nietzsche,
all philosophers have even lost their sense
of destiny within history - they have yet
to really reach history.
However, both Feuerbach and Hegel are part
of the spirit of their time and this speaks
to how they look at the future. Nietzsche
was alive to this problem like no other thinker.
And so we must ask Heidegger about the future.
Karl Marx is, of course, closer to our own
future than either Nietzsche or Heidegger,
since Marxism is the only one we can affirm
for the present era (e. g., the later Sartre).
The dawn is still on its way.
32 We shall one day have to believe that
life is a disease, only then will we realize
its cure. Both are a precondition for humanity
to realize its goal. Many things still unspoken.
33 Faith, is that dream, is this a dream
or vision? All our hopes perhaps best only
riddles. Heretofore, only a few great riddles
have been seen, in next era we will create
a generation of riddle knowers and seekers.
Next step: poetical riddles! But is faith
a riddle, or can it be only our irrational
side coming out? Faith is something that
points past reason and all rationality, -
our other side. Ninety-five per cent of all
people have problems when facing their own
death, but the other five per cent is equally
split between those that are sure there is
no afterlife and those that know there is
one. Certainty negates faith, for it seems
faith is only for those who are not yet sure.
34 Our world needs no interpretation, for
it does even exist. A world without end;
endless interpretations of a world still
without ground. Can you believe it - not
even an interpreter! Does the will have the
power to affirm this? First task: find this
will. No subjectum, is this even a possibility?
Not even a question for an object.
35 A self-becoming identity of subject/object,
that is, not an objective subject/object
(Schelling) or a subjective subject/object
(Fichte), But rather it is a process, a very
special 'self-becoming' which only after
a struggle and labor becomes an identity
of subject/object. It is not only a subject/object
relation, but also a self-awareness of an
absolute identity within the subject and
object. But this process is also a becoming
of a self-realization. The self becomes a
knower of this absolute identity of subject/object,
until there is no relationship other than
one of absolute identity.
36 The last men are condemned to happiness,
that is, to abstract happiness. Only within
the context of being mortals on earth can
we as thinkers speak to an authentic happiness.
We must never forget our own humanness.
37 Philosophers in America today need sonar,
because they follow thinkers that have no
depth. If you are a philosophical laborer,
at least you should work below the surface,
but Ayers, Quine, Carnap and friends are
not even shallow. Real thinkers run deep
and fast.
38 Music is the only analogy we have for
life. Listening can you hear it?
39 Musical time is the same as our own experiencing
of time.
40 What are politicians to us now!
41 Private property needs to be overcome,
or our attachment to it. However, how can
we even think of doing that now, but again,
how can we go on with this system of private
property and even pretend to be near our
humanness. As this system starts cracking,
all we hear is, "Well, if this is the
Titanic, I am going first class." And
so they shall. The Bourgeoisie's last voyage.
42 Space is the limit which only speed can
overcome. Hence, the truth of speed is time.
43 Mysticism is either the answer to the
human condition or not even something worthy
of laughter.
44 If you do not start with the Absolute,
where do you begin? With what or whom could
we start the Absolute systematic science?
Can we start with a sensuous concrete being,
an actual being or something that is more
universal - more abstract? A question between
Feuerbach and Hegel.
45 The cold war as a battle over ideals.
However, where does a thinker stand? If he
critiques all ideals (idols), he stands on
no ground at all, but on what grounds can
he affirm any idols? Our hypothetical thinker
stands nowhere. Since we all know where we
stand, this is not even a question for us.
46 In the future everything will be important
or nothing will.
47 Pain and suffering are the beginning of
consciousness.
48 In overcoming suffering one will overcome
being conscious.
49 The first sign of depth in a thinker is
withdrawal; the second is many disparate
friendships. A natural step of having all
too much wisdom. But this problem stems from
having only cosmic knowledge. Let us find
a thinker who has depth in all things. A
question for Sonar.
50 Mankind seemingly only a silent joke.
51 Inhumanness - for mankind only.
52 "Who is man?" you say. I say
rather, "Who was man?" From: A
Sea Mountain.
53 The land of truth. Only a dream by the
young Schelling. It might have been partly
faith, too.
54 No life without love!
55 Beauty has lost her power when she cannot
overcome all things.
56 The Greeks, contrary to modern man, did
not know much about beauty, but they were
never at a loss to experience it.
57 A revolution in thought can only be grounded
in itself, for it needs no further justification.
But what is a revolution in thought? Is it
only a product of the time, the era? And,
as such, can it only be thought first and
then in praxis? Is it not also true that
we must change the universal (the state-system),
and then the particular (the individual as
consciousness) will change and be transformed?
58 Music is replacing Religion, but this
time everyone knows its big business.
59 The present age is without pain.
60 Music speaks to our everyday existence
more than either religion or philosophy;
therefore, we must start our critique there,
with the unfolding of its truth, - its truth
is: as art, it remains class art.
61 All beings have their own self-same unity;
even though it does not last, while they
exist -beings have a unity unto themselves.
Only God had an eternal unity, an identity
which is a self-same, timeless, and an absolute
certain unity. Beings show themselves fully
in movement, process - while they are disrupting
their unity or in their changes through time.
Aristotle and Hegel knew this...
62 Systems in philosophy are needed to bring
goals within our human context, only a system
can ground and bring unity to both metaphysical
and practical goals. These goals are always
self-positing goals - only the many believe
that they are eternal ideals, but to critique
all our ideals leaves us with nothing, which
is perhaps worse than having somewhat shadow
goals.
63 System means planning and forethought
- also results and goals.
64 Who is the subject of Hegel's system?
Hint: the absolute is in itself already close
to us. However, how close can we get without
being overcome? Can we be struck with too
much truth? Perhaps no questions at all.
65 Where there is no movement - there is
God. Since God cannot be where there is movement,
God is and remains the background for all
motion. Yet where is this God - nowhere!
66 Our new goal - progress. This, too, must
be seen in terms of profits; because what
does it really mean - nothing less than progressive
more and more profits, and those are only
for the few - and us, we should see to it
that Idol has a better go at it than this.
Progress - toward freedom (not bourgeoisie)
for all humanity. Profits for the people!
67 The university shall not fall from the
revolution, but rather from boredom - from
meaninglessness. As for now, they are only
holding tanks for "Yes sayers"
- "No" to life and "yes"
to the system (that is, the Capitalist system).
Some systems are against life, others are
for it; however, there are no reasons for
us to be for life-seeking systems. Therefore,
let us try life for a change. What is the
value of life? Answer: nothing!
68 Let us not ask too often about truth -
it may destroy us!
69 Old age - our natural beginning. An old
philosopher's saying.
70 Philosophy is either the preparation for
death or for life.
71 Being both is and is not, in between all
existence is and is not - hence becoming
and time.
72 There is nothing worse than pity, except
for a cold heart.
73 During certain moments we touch truth,
and those moments are beyond meaning and
meaninglessness, too.
74 Appearances are either everything or nothing
(me on). A question between Plato and Nietzsche,
plus a note of Goethe's.
75 Not all differences are good, which is
contrary to "official sense"; but
where is the highest Good, - no plush - perhaps
it is not even near.
76 Haymarket Square, the best example of
the American dream, - then the Pullman strike
another showing of where we came from. Of
course E. Debs got six months in Woodstock,
but still....
77 Love is more than an emotion, a mood,
but it does show itself through them; for
it, in fact, includes everything.
78 A psychologist is the worst philosopher,
and a philosopher who tries to be a psychologist
is worse than death - only Nietzsche can
be both, and even he has more than a few
problems - as it is, it was that which brought
Nietzsche to his philosophical knees, and
finally will finish Nietzsche off. It was
Nietzsche as a psychologist. That is exactly
why Nietzsche fell into the project of transvaluing
(notice not revaluing) all values, - into
the questionable realm of values. From our
perspective, it was Nietzsche's non- ability
to think through subjectivity (including
the "overman") that leads to his
curve into left field. However, this is still
part of our problem, too. Since this is only
a question for metaphysics, we must at the
same time overcome metaphysics, and then
cease all "overcoming" and leave
it - to itself.
79 Psychology haunts philosophy, and as such,
leaves a bad odor in the nose of a philosopher.
In fact, when people in philosophy psychologize
- it nauseates me. Mostly, it is a question
of motives.
80 A psychologist - worse than a scholar,
but both are decadent.
81 Indeed, how many of the philosophers today
are decadent or are symbolist without even
knowing it? Do we still have the power to
resist? Are we not caught in this web?
82 The great Eckhart said, "The knower
and Known are one. Simple people imagine
that they should see God, as if He stood
there and they here. This is not so. God
and I, we are one in Knowledge." Hegelian
Theology starts there, but the "oneness"
has to be reached through unfolding God,
which is, of course, also unfolding the "I"
or the "we". And this "oneness"
cannot be seen by imagination (Vorstellung),
but rather through knowledge (Begriff).
83 Reason is not our goal - it is rather
only our method. But this is only in vain
against subjectivity. Bring on Kant, please.
84 Only after attaining freedom for all will
we be open for the adventure of truth.
85 Can we say either space in finite or infinite
without ever realizing we will never know?
86 Military intelligence is as we know a
contradiction in terms.
87 To be a part of life, philosophy must
speak to the future; but not as ideology.
Our task is to move the present into the
future with a little bit of change for the
people. Perhaps the people will indeed be
the government and the state.
88 The American way - a science of love,
including classes, of course.
89 We came into life pure and simple without
negativity, and most of us leave in that
condition, too - it is only in between where
we gain consciousness and become mortals.
A hint about who we are.
90 Can any philosopher be sane in an insane
world? Or be human within an inhuman system?
A problem for Marcuse.
91 Goal: to catch life, but then what...?
92 What would existence be without our bodies?
Pure thinking? But what would that mean?
Existence must always include our bodies.
Only God does not have body. In fact, could
it be that God is a manifestation of our
projection to do away with our bodies? As
it is, our bodies are a constant reminder
of our finitude. Nietzsche was one of the
first to realize this; but yet, how far does
this still move within philosophy, for it
certainly goes beyond the limits of metaphysics.
93 Liberation and salvation - once these
were our goals, but now we are back on earth.
94 Music has a special relation to moods,
yet how can we speak of such a complicated
relationship. But what we always forget is
the way moods influence the making of music.
95 Children are not only beautiful - they
are also joyous. A riddle for a cosmologist.
96 TV was the beginning of an era, but why
are we still in the growing pains. Really,
why is TV so bad? A new mode of awareness
- TV consciousness.
97 Let us go back to the 50's - anything
to get away from those scary 60's.
98 Dancing is a tuning into nature; yet,
where do we see dancing in nature? Mostly
in mating....
99 In moonlight all things become holy -
beauty shines on mortals.
100 Ich bin nichts mehr, ich lebe nicht mehr
gerne. F. Hölderlin.
101 Death has always been beyond good and
evil.
102 There is no connection between truth
and the Good - no matter how many philosophers
say so, but please see the joyous in the
beautiful. A hint for a babysitter.
103 Is there meaning to life? You say, only
if we give meaning to it. All this, my child,
you will never know, since the end of the
state is the precondition for a meaningful
life for anyone. Insofar as there is meaning
to life, it only comes from our movement
toward the overcoming of the state.
104 Where did we get the category of existence
from any way? Things could be easier.
105 Let us not dream impossible dreams -
a little reality even in dreams, please.
106 The eternal versus the finite.... Was
that life? Well then, - once more, or eternally
so. Is not Nietzsche in between? Could Nietzsche
ever affirm one without the other? His philosophy
is nothing less than an attempt to do just
that.
107 Is anything really done? Leonardo Da
Vinci (1452-1519)
108 Aphorisms are not only philosophical;
they are also a brave attempt at wisdom.
Philosophy no longer needs to seek wisdom,
rather only clarification. Where are the
language mechanics now?
109 A single word has many meanings - wouldn't
it be nice for philosophers not to be troubled
by it, for in fact some words have opposite
meanings - Hegel's joy.
110 Why has there been two thousand years
without a single new God? I will tell you.
So far we have only needed one, e. g., everyone
has reached heaven - right? - Immortality
has never been questioned, only which place
one would be in, that has always been up
for grabs. But just make sure a priest is
near when the moment is near. Besides, we
have had a God that is really three (Father,
Son and Holy Ghost), plus, of course, God's
counterpart, namely the Devil.
111 Seek divine knowledge, you say. I tell
my children, rather reach for stillness.
- This may surprise you, but it is the only
way to achieve divine and absolute knowledge.
112 Why have we gone out into outer space?
Perhaps we shall meet our maker: but we could
also meet our conqueror. We shall contact
them, and they shall then conquer us.
113 Love is beyond values.
114 You flip the phrase, "Beyond good
and evil," and I say to you, - only
a few moments of our life is "beyond
good and evil"; the rest is, unfortunately,
enwrapped within life and its value systems.
And you must choose...
115 Why does love make us give so much of
ourselves?
116 Do values have an ontological status?
A question between Nietzsche and Heidegger.
But what is the truth? Neither is true, because
it is only a matter of perspective. For that
matter, even metaphysics is only a question
of "perspective."
117 The moment holds all of the future -
plus the past. Thus all is within a single
moment.
118 Philosophy must be both edifying and
not, since it depends on the individual for
its substance and ground. Certainly a question
between Hegel and Søren Kierkegaard, but
Hegel reached through the question - he really
understood certainty, namely - absolute certainty.
119 Every philosophy reflects a certain age
in the growth of the individual and also
a certain mood. But we must not let this
truth knock us out.
120 What can two people share? - Only life!
Because we are condemned to it. But how do
we strangers really dwell on earth?
121 Can we live without "answers"
to "whys"? The life which we live
needs "answers" for it gives us
a stability, a house to dwell in, yet we
must know (as Kant did), that most of the
big "why" questions have no really
ascertainable truth to them. Metaphysics
has traditionally given us those "answers",
but yet we find them without rational bases.
When we ask "whys" we expect "reasons"
in return; our task now is to live without
"reasons" - perhaps the first ones
to do so since Socrates.
122 Aphorisms make one state positions powerfully,
even though one's self does not hold that
position. It is as it were the power of this
style and form that makes one turn a phrase,
to state a contradictory, to move against
others powerfully; all in all, to try to
give the statements as much striking power
as one can. Hence, one gets a lot of contradictions
and different positions in writing aphorisms.
Obviously - even here the method has authority
over content.
123 No one can make judgments on "one-liners."
Perhaps it would be a folly to even try to.
124 It does not matter where you are as long
as you are where you want to be; even a child
knows this - but only a wise man knows why
he really wants to be somewhere. Self
-knowledge is the precondition for wisdom.
125 Tension is the overcoming of the dualism
between mind and body. But like most 'overcoming'
- at some point you can return to the former
position. However, there are some things
where once you have 'overcome' them, that
is it, there is no going back. The trick
is how to discern which ones are which.
126 It does not matter where you are, as
long as you are where you want to be. This
time think for a moment. Again, please.
127 Who are the philalethes? Certainly not
the philosophers.
128 Let us not be both directed, rather self-directed.
The motto of a divorce.
129 I think there is no progress in art,
for either it works and functions or it doesn't.
130 What is Marx's theory of revolution?
- to make it!
131 A philosopher's disease. To make the
average person confused, that is - to make
everything into a mystery. Not all things
are riddles, but a philosopher tries to make
them so, and in so doing becomes an ideologist
for the system. The main features of this
system are clear... and we know what is needed.
132 Philosophers, too, need wisdom in their
lives...
133 Question: Isn't your subjective analysis
simply a psychological explanation? Sartre:
Absolutely not. I don't believe in psychology.
With this a thinker speaks.
134 Where can we begin and end the absolute
system of Wissenschaft (Science in general)?
Hegel has asked himself this question and
out of his depths comes the answer to both
questions -it is namely, the Begriff. Plus
we must not forget the end is the beginning
and the beginning is the end (or results)
we only go deeper and do the unfolding the
Begriff as we go. The Science of Logic has
two main divisions: Begriff as Seyn and Begriff
as Begriff. Hence we start with Begriff and
end with it, too! Perhaps this cannot be
so? i. e., there is no relation between the
Begriff and Seyn. But if there is, perhaps
we have proven the ontological argument for
God. This God would then be the absolute
spirit as the most concrete reality. However,
we today must ask ourselves yet a larger
question: can we have a system in philosophy
without God or a God concept? But not just
a formal system, rather a system for reality.
Needed: a system that accounts for reality
and has necessity to it without God. This
is a problem within German idealism - let
it speak again.
135 Can we have goals without also stating
that it is necessary to reach those goals?
Yet why must humans have goals in the first
place? Perhaps only to find or at worst to
create necessity in their life - hence meaning.
136 Humanity's telos - nothing.
137 Natural consciousness (Hegel's term for
common sense) has its own metaphysic or rather
has no metaphysic for itself, only we see
that it does indeed have a metaphysic. A
question for an introduction to philosophy
professor.
138 If you don't believe it, could you ever
think it exists?
139 Esti gar apaidensia to me gignoskein
tinon dei zetein apodeixin kai tinon ou dei.
(For it is uneducated not to have an eye
for when it is necessary to look for a proof,
and when this is not necessary). Aristotle
speaks to us here.
140 Is one world-government possible? And
if so, what form would it take? In truth
these are really not even questions, for
who would be the rulers. Yet we even have
to decide whether we are "for"
or "against" it. Heretofore, all
these questions could not be answered, not
enough thinking...
141 America is kind of an indoklon for children.
142 Nietzsche was an example of not being
able to get the universal and the particular
together, - he could only affirm the particular
as true and thus the universal was either
only a fiction or sometimes just chaos. For
example he said, "Humanity does not
progress, it does not even exist!" Can
you believe this from a man who has given
mankind our greatest gift, - that is, Thus
Spoke Zarathustra. No wonder Nietzsche could
not fully understand his own "overman".
But at least he knew that the end of the
state was the precondition for the "overman".
With this he was one with Karl Marx and M.
A. Bakunin, yet how different they all were.
143 Does it really matter? Is this a question
from the abyss or is it rather a question
out of the fullness of life?
144 The more differences there are - the
greater the sameness will be.
145 What value judgments do we make when
we accept the view of Sho Ken? The first
question for a Buddhist. Why can the Buddha
remain silent on so many questions?
146 Not only should we think physis krypteshai
philei of Heraclitus, but also aletheia krypteshai
philei. Nietzsche would not only affirm the
latter, he would also say, "Truth is
an error" - my brothers.
147 It seems like most people think of man
as some kind of animal. That is, an animal
with reason (ratio) inside somewhere. The
animal is the sensuous (aistheton) and reason
is in the realm of the suprasensuous (noeton);
thus the body is finite and the mind is infinite
and we see this is all too easy for metaphysics
to understand. But who is man? No longer
animal - no longer just mind and body, rather
an embodied dwelling within the meaning of
the earth.
148 Can we live without passion? Human existence
needs to affirm life with the power life,
but not just an involvement - passion. Since
passion points toward the highest will to
life, it also means a will to more - more
life.
149 One reason why aphorisms are such a delight
is they have more than one meaning. For example,
"to love God means to love no one."
Or, to spell it out - first meaning: if you
love God and he does not exist, that is loving
no one (or nothing); second meaning: if you
love God, then you can love no other or no
other one, that is, if you love God you can
then not love a mortal - only God; and the
third meaning is: of course God is not a
person in any way, therefore He is not a
"one" - if you love Him, you know
that you can not love Him like a person,
but only with a divine love, because He is
beyond mortal love. Hence, we thinkers enjoy
ambiguity. Heretofore, philosophers have
only seen this occasionally in logic. A joke
at the expense of language mechanics (or
analytical types). Why are they in America?
What has allowed them to grow here?
150 The language turn in philosophy must
either go to logic or to poetry. Some people
think that it was only Wittgenstein that
was the language turn in philosophy.
151 Wittgenstein thought about the foundations
of mathematics and Heidegger writes about
Hölderlin, Trakl, Rilke and Char; but yet
- Wittgenstein gave money to Trakl, plus
would quote R. Tagor. Heidegger wrote an
article entitled, "Neuere Forschungen
über Logik", which included a discussion
of Russell and Whitehead. Hence, we see how
great thinkers move in all realms, even though
it may be in opposite directions.
152 Is not play the highest principle of
the universe? Certainly - only a playful
question.
153 What is the fundamental nature (Wesen)
of man? - human nature. Are we basically
evil, etc.? Answer: No, because it is not
what or who we are right now, but rather
it is who we will become - what are our possibilities!
Our truth is in our becoming.
154 What is reality for a physicist? Better
than over a hundred different particles moving
at almost the speed of light. But what really
is that? For example, the case of light -
neither a wave nor a particle but part of
both. At this point all categories become
absurd.
155 Once you teach the body - no more is
needed.
156 A good aphorism should be a joy for a
thinker, and an embarrassment to a logician.
157 There is an entelecheia in the mind and
in nature, thus our problem is when do the
two correspond (veritas est adaequatio rei
et intellectus). However, when both are in
motion how can we stop it long enough for
correspondence? Perhaps only the cause and
the results of this can know their correspondence.
158 Every philosophy has given us a fundamentum
absolutum inconcussam veritatis, that which
they thought was really real - but even the
concept of such a thing is a denial of thinking,
for even Being (Sein) is only the fundamental
from a certain perspective. Denial of ontology.
159 Technology is not only here to stay,
but we must also make it part of us, that
is, to overcome it - we must go through it.
Technology is a product of humanity and as
such we must straighten it out for humanity.
Technology is now the precondition for revolution
within Western cultures - it can right now
set us free. Our task is to bring out its
liberation power.
160 Most people think music is innocent -
it is not, beware lest it slay you!
161 If we stand within the moment there is
no "re" - either a return or a
recurrence, but rather it is only an eternal
occurrence of the Same; for us to think the
"re" means we stand outside the
moment not within it.
162 If we are in the moment: no language,
no subject, not I or I-ness, no Being, no
history, and no self that stays. Nietzsche
and Ksanikatva.
163 Time is the only thing between us and
God. Or, we can say between God and us is
time.
164 What is value in itself? Maybe this is
the same thing as fact-in-itself. Before
a question between Nietzsche and a positivist,
now...
165 Is there any other way except for self-education?
166 Can anybody know where the human race
is going? Well, at least one thing is certain
- it could be over at any moment.
167 Is it possible for a human being to experience
anything that is not within space and time?
Kant and Wittgenstein say, "No."
Hence, no God for sure - not "thing-in-itself",
but what else...? Are we condemned to things
caught within a space-time web? Is this the
limit to thinking? Is this a "truth"?
168 Would Nietzsche agree to all philosophers
and thinkers just writing in aphorisms and
exegesis of aphorisms only? On second thought,
perhaps Nietzsche would demand of philosophers
that we don't write anything at all. Dancing
and play as philosophy?
169 Existentialism was invented by professors
of philosophy for their deans.
170 Needed: a phenomenological study of ending,
that is, a typology and genealogy. How do
we sense endings? The end of a move, a story,
a text or essay, of a relationship, and of
life. Both as a creator of these things and
others, but also as an experimenter of them?
When do we know that it is the end and not
just another beginning? - this is the end,
- I think.
171 Portugal as a case in point - Catholic
versus Communist. The great Archbishop Francisco
Maria da Silva demanding, "respect for
public morality and moral values!" Communism
against Christianity, is that the next battle
we shall have to fight for freedom? On the
question of "God" they are split,
but it would seem they should have the same
basic moral critique of present Western cultures
and their economic systems. Christianity
does have a liberation message, but perhaps
they are still thinking of "God's Kingdom"
somewhere in Heaven or five thousand years
after Christ; as such, they have hindered
the unification of the people on earth who
are moving toward "God's Kingdom".
But who in fact do the Christians represent?
The white bourgeoisie, - as for the rest,
they are the ones who need consoling, because
they are the victims of this system. All
part of the reconciliation of religious and
secular consciousness, but so far all is
in vain - two hundred years too late.
172 Nietzsche as the final critique against
all forms of religion.
173 Nietzsche felt Buddhism was centuries
older than Christianity, but then where is
Nietzsche? Still within our future - I hope!
174 At this point in history, if God does
exist - we certainly have no lack of questions.
175 Every theory of time has its own political
reality.
176 Can human being exist in a social reality
without judging and evaluating people's behavior?
It seems like it's our only way of trying
to fix our place within our social relationships.
Nevertheless, how would we exist if we were
not involved in judging all the time? What
form of life would evolve? What would be
morality, then? A hint about living.
177 The movement against positivism started
with Wilhelm Windelband in 1894. His student
was Heinrich Rickert who taught Martin Heidegger,
who in turn taught Herbert Marcuse. A line
of thinkers who knew the power of both Kant
and Hegel, that is, of Idealism.
178 The infinite! No rather the finite! How
about neither? Let us not think like that
at all, for they are metaphysical categories
that have not been seen in the mountains.
179 Is art the highest point of life or its
starting point?
180 Can philosophy both give you a report
of a philosopher's thinking and also ask
you to think? To engage that which is worthy
of thought?
181 Poetry is the most human of all things.
182 Are you afraid of death? Well, let that
pass too! My child.
183 At the point where mankind is in a most
tragic situation, there we find no tragedy.
The atomic tragedy has not seen Broadway.
184 Consciousness expansion - a concept for
the '60's only. Really came in with LBJ and
went out with Nixon...
185 Theory/praxis dialectics should be a
"fact" of life - at least for philosophers.
Historically, they have had a tendency to
subjectively get lost.
186 Even the word "truth" is a
joke for philosophers now; but who are these
philosophers or, better yet, who do they
think they are? Perhaps nothing but Sophists.
187 A philosopher's taste today is to explain
in a gentle way to non-philosophers that
our life has no meaning - no purpose.
188 Life is not a problem - hence there is
no answer -- no question about it.
189 The human condition is suffering, or
intoxicated joy.
190 The ultimate in methodological consideration
is to analyze the type of language we use
in any investigation, that is, certain types
of language already presuppose basic methodological
presuppositions. Therefore, our language
is part of our methodology. But the type
of language can be anything from poetry to
symbolic logic...
191 Nihilism as a divine way of thinking
- indeed, only the overman could think that
way and the precondition for the overman
- or at least to see the rainbow and the
bridges to the overman - is for the state
to end. With that we could affirm active
Nihilism; that is, not just a weary or passive
Nihilism, but rather Nihilism out of the
power and strength of life, its overabundant
fullness shall speak as active Nihilism.
Heretofore, only incomplete Nihilism.
192 Private property - privacy, both are
Bourgeoisie values, which we must reject.
193 All things want to remain - none have
the power to will becoming and change.
194 If you need and feel that you must still
believe, indeed have faith in a "fact"
or a "thing-in-itself" or for that
matter a "value-in-itself"; let
that be your only desire.
195 It's strange how easily we are seduced
by irrational fears. Or is it...
196 What is the new, true object for Hegel
in the Phenomenology of Spirit? As there
is a becoming of a new object, there is also
a becoming of a new shape (Gestalten) of
consciousness and with this a new kind of
knowledge, too. Yet, for Hegel these objects
are not tables or any things, they are rather
such processes as a concrete thing and force.
But what is the objectiveness of this new
object?
197 Do we suffer life? Are we had by it?
198 Karl Marx once said, "Now it is
the philosopher in whose brain the revolution
begins." At this point we must ask,
"Has the revolution begun?" Or
have we philosophers ceased to think about
the revolution? The revolution has begun
- however only a few are working on its realization
and actualization, and there is much thinking
still needed. But what Marx said points to
a unification of the revolutionary and philosopher,
and this is still on its way. Perhaps as
a case in point, Philip Agee graduated in
philosophy from Notre Dame - but he had worked
his way through the CIA of all things. Was
he an agent or a double agent?
199 Our lives not only are meaningless, but
also have no purpose. Our only question:
is this "fact" our starting or
ending point? Is it our first or last conclusion?
200 Is boredom our only real fear?
201 No more metaphysics! - That is my metaphysics.
And it should be yours as well - go for it.
202 Life is not spirit, or subject, or doer...
203 Our truth is no truth at all. Who can
say that without feeling a false consciousness:
yet, philosophers do.
204 Hegel is both Aristotle and Plato --
from Plato, he took the concept of eidos
(forms) as the Begriff, divine or otherwise;
from Aristotle, he brought the forms down
to earth and imbued them with the process
he called entelcheia (the movement toward
telos); and from Plato and the whole of tradition,
he analyzed the way the entelcheia moved
- and called it dialectics. The Begriff is
not static; rather it has its own entelcheia.
Thus the entelcheia of the Begriff moves
dialectically.
205 What is the relationship between ontology
and ethics? And, furthermore, what should
it be? Heidegger thinks the relationship
between Being and the `ought' or `value'
is one which concludes the end of metaphysics.
However, it started with Plato and the Good
(agathon), then to Kant and Fichte, and with
Nietzsche it reached full power. For Heidegger,
Nietzsche is of course the last metaphysician.
Well, let us for a moment engage in metaphysics
and determine what the relationship between
ethics and ontology is. Everything that comes
into existence and has essence does so through
the Being of beings; hence, all things that
ought to exist have to exist through the
Being
-- have to be thought through the horizon
of Being. The relationship correctly analyzed
is really between Thought and Being, since
all things that ought to exist have to first
be thought of. Those things which ought to
be as soon as they exist no longer are something
which ought to be, rather they have the status
of being; thus the ought must come out of
our ability to think possibilities within
the very heart of Being. So from the phenomenological
phenomena of the `understanding structure'
which projects any possibilities at all,
we have to judge which possibilities ought
to exist and which ones should not. It is
from the understanding of different possibilities
that we can critique what does exist now,
for example, the family system, the state,
human relations, alienation of the working
force, etc. We know what can and should exist.
206 All ontologies have an explicit ethics;
hence all ethical theories are grounded by
ontological presuppositions.
207 Some people wish to be human, but most
cannot.
208 We must walk upon a new day - my brothers.
209 Pain that hurts is always emotional.
210 Perhaps we should give metaphysics one
more try. But which one should we use - Nietzschean,
Hegelian, or Schellingian? Could we create
a new metaphysic - one that would be a complete
metaphysic of reality? Our first step will
be decided on the system-question. At this
point the Hegelian metaphysic is obviously
the most powerful, for example, Laos just
yesterday. Metaphysics has lasted this long,
why not see if we can transform that. The
one-foot beyond life - beyond death, shall
not be called holy.
211 The only difference between experiences
is whether once was enough - or not as the
case maybe.
212 Was Vietnam won or lost? - Both. Losing
in this case may have been a good thing in
the historical record. But that does not
mean it was worth the lives that were lost.
213 Women often forget the universal and
men never will understand their own emotions,
but yet we have men that are women and women
that are men. Physical typologies never make
sense - only for appearance and custom.
214 Is the fundamental question of ontology
- the relationship between Being and Nothing,
or between Being and Time? Some hints about
the relation between Time and Nothing.
215 The ontological task - Man Time Nothing
Being!
216 The science of faith - Theology, or the
art of dreaming.
217 Stress and strain are the effects of
contradictions, hence of negativity and living.
Maybe too much living.
218 Humanity barely an "Ideal",
so far still in vain.
219 Arche - now only thought in terms of
cause and effect. Even the Greeks had scientism.
A joke for Greeks.
220 I cannot help it that since high school
I have not had meaning. It grew until I read
Camus, and when I finally reached his height
I knew there was no way back. Aristotle said,
"For through astonishment men have begun
to philosophize both in our times and at
the beginning." The beginning of philosophy
is astonishment (thaumazein), for the Greeks
at least. But my beginning was with Angst,
out of the need to overcome my dread and
the meaninglessness of my life -yes, my child,
that is now our starting point and perhaps
it will be our end, too. Can we now see the
light?
221 "About life" - is that your
question: there is only one thing I can say
"about life" - we will be the last
to know.
222 When philosophers talk about reason and
rationality, I always wonder at their longing
for God. And yet, they always talk about
the death of God and the proof for God's
existence. Little do they know of the shadow
of God, and their reality is always guaranteed
by God, too.
223 From Johann Gutenberg to Philo T. Farnsworth...
What can be next?
224 Why must we always die - to live for
a moment?
225 To move from the particular to the universal
is the task of thinking, but the absolute
unity of the two only happens in love, and
politics. This is part of the reason why
sex is so often linked with political power.
226 A philosophy of the future - a keynote
for all post-Hegelian philosophy.
227 Perhaps philosophers having nothing to
say... if so please don't call them philosophers.
228 In normal conversation how does one know
that a discussion on a particular subject
is over and finished? A question about meaning
and, strangely, embodiment too.
229 Our bodies - a "fact"; our
condition, mortals starting point, a first
assumption.
230 History speaks less and less to America,
for as a new beginning and a fresh start,
it lacks history; and hence, it really does
not need history. Nevertheless, for we who
have begun the task of developing a philosophy
of the future and, hence, "for it"
too, we have begun to know the problem and
riddle of history, both in philosophy as
such and human history, too; that is, world
class history.
231 A point and note: on tragedy. At the
subjective level or even at the objective
- what tragedy is - is when these two levels
run contrary to each other. But of course
tragedy is more than this...
232 Even Americans are still sun-worshippers.
233 What would our experience be like if
the universal and the particular were fused
for more than a few tremendous moments? A
time of no time... no past, no future...
234 Do we need a new beginning for philosophy?
So far we had an absolute beginning - and
lost it; now it is time for a correct but
not an absolute beginning. - Not language
again, please.
235 A noble goal. Understanding -
236 Once religion was the truth and sun for
mankind; now we will revolve around our own
truth - ourselves.
237 C. G. Jung was my beginning in high school
- my first transformation past science, and
Karl Marx was my second; strangely enough,
the problem of death became my third. You
can guess some of the rest of my history,
but the truth was never the goal.
238 Hegel once said, "I claim that truth
finds the element of its existence only in
the Begriff." Hence, I can say - truth
is the Begriff and the Begriff is the truth.
This reaches deep into Hegel's head.
239 What is the purpose of studying humanity?
Is it to understand it and hence to overcome
it or just to control it? Philosophers versus
politicians.
240 An ethical system can never be used for
human existence is in fact non-systematic,
regardless of how many attempts there are
to make life systematic. A note: system as
ideal. Can any absolute system still show
freedom within its very core?
241 Reason is only a problem and a question
for the irrational.
242 Can a system in philosophy have room
for non-representational thinking? Answer:
Yes, but only for the creator of that system.
What kind of thinking is system thinking
like Hegelian notional thinking?
243 The only things which need explanation
are those which are in the process of changing.
244 Love is affected by economic relationships
more than by truth.
245 Not only is God dead but the devil died
with him, and yet there is no concept of
modern tragedy.
246 Most people will do anything for the
right amount of money. A truth I cannot affirm!
247 God be with you. As if He could know
anything about your life. God is pure absolute
Love - but He has no power. What kind of
theology is that? Do you like theology or
just the feeling of faith.
248 Nagarjuna's philosophy goes beyond Buddha's
like Kant's transformation of Plato. And
yet, who would think of the relationship
between Nagarjuna and Kant. The East still
remains hidden.
249 A goal: to have no goal or goals. That
is, the total affirmation of no purpose -
no direction. I ask you, my child, "Is
that our ideal, our imperative, or is it
life's condition?"
250
11[283] Jesus war ein grosser Egoist. F.
Nietzsche
251 Ousia should not be thought of as substance,
rather as beingness (Seindheit). A question:
What is the meaning of the term Beingness
(Seinheit) within this context?
252 A creator always has the feeling of enjoyment
as long as he or she creates out of one self
-not out of external necessity.
253 Perhaps it is language not thinking which
makes dynamic things - static.
254 The transformation of our subjectivity
into objectivity - that is called self-reflection.
255 The best book is one that leads us beyond
all books, namely - to our life.
256 If human existence had a goal I would
have already reached it. Hence, there is
no goal to existence.
257 If God could see us now, He would say,
"The Devil made me do it!"
258 Our first step. Critique all givens,
all assumptions and presuppositions, before
one applies anything. Along these same lines
- be sure and know the limits of your method
and also its origin.
259 Who really knows why we have wars? Answer:
Marxists, since they have the most complete
theory of history.
260 Who gave you, my brothers, the right
to determine how long a second is? For students.
Is time like money just an idea even though
it feels real to us?
261 Can you love without necessity, without
destiny? What is love if it doesn't matter
who you are in love with, if there is no
necessity to it? This must be a question
for anybody who has been in love before,
since we all know that marriages are made
in "heaven". Strange how doubt
plays a role in marriage and in a relationship
that one feels for one's love, because part
of the doubt is wrapped up in the question
of necessity. But, my child, ask yourself
the question, "Can love be only for
awhile?" And with that, everyone knows
of the power of an old flame. The contra
movement between one's subjective and the
objective structure of the family and social
relationships - that power and movement is
now in full swing. A note about divorce.
Why are they so common now?
262 Even butterflies know life's truth...
263 Nihilism has not been refuted, and that
is a truth which we cannot bare.
264 Truth is a function of courage and strength!
265 "Change". That, my friend,
is a word that one can use for "reality."
But who can affirm that - who knows it? Perhaps
only "God" really knows about "reality."
266 Can we cry over joy lost? At first we
feel like we should, but then reason takes
over and we realize that all joy has suffering
within. A Buddhist joy. Does that bother
you?
267 Humanity is a movement against cosmic
entropy.
268 The difference between myself and most
politicians is a simple one. They want to
be president and I am, like Nietzsche, am
prepared to rule the world.
269 A theological problem. We killed God
but forgot the Devil.
270 God must die before the overman is to
live. A thesis of Zarathustra's - a teaching.
271 First of all the gods she devised Love.
Parmenides.
272 A thinker who knows language knows too
much.
273 Socrates understood that poets "are
interpreters of the gods" (hermenes
eisin to theon), yet with the death of God
and all the gods, what now is their task:
to express our longing only.
274 China is the beginning of a new movement
of the world-spirit (Weltgeist). We must
not forget that only a few philosophers have
had their fingers on the world-spirit. However,
most of them only felt its direction in the
future; hence they never knew their own 'time'.
275 Our thinking should have a vigorous fragrance,
like a wheat field on a summer's night. (1875)
F. Nietzsche
276 Where do we get the sense for a priori-ness
in philosophy?
277 It is hard for most of us, but we are
speechless before death. Talk always becomes
idle talk before death, because it is a phenomenon
which completely overcomes an inauthentic
response. Nothing matches its depth or power.
Death is neither morbid nor joyful; plainly
it transcends all human emotions - all human
responses.
278 Become like children - boy, who thought
that up. Perhaps one who was indeed a child?
279 Man is the moment!
280 I write not only to be heard but also
to be embodied. The body must learn its own
truths through itself.
281 I worry about my indifference to apathy.
No distress is growing distress within.
282 Rules for the Direction of the Mind,
by Descartes, number four: There is need
of a method for finding out the truth. Or
to rephrase it, "no truth without method".
Yet we are of the age that must try to live
without the truth - correctness, yes, but
no truth. Surely we need a method to do philosophy
- but even this is hotly denied in some cases.
However, who today is in search for a method.
Also a French man.
283 The denial of teleology is the first
step to the understanding of the thought
of the eternal return of the Same. Yet, who
can do this in their practical life? Just
try to think of a non-teleological world
- there is movement and progress, but it
has no purpose, no direction, no telos -
that is, dysteleology.
284 The questions of system and method are
the main questions between Hegel and Heidegger.
First instance: a system needs a starting
point and Heidegger has only a starting question.
Hegel, of course, starts with the Begriff.
285 For Hegel, the gods are divine Notions.
286 As humans, our first goal is either to
deny or affirm the second law of thermodynamics.
That is, to go against or with chaos (entropy).
However, there is no doubt about the final
outcome of all such attempts.
287 What is philosophy without universals?
And yet that seems to be the position analytic
philosophy is in. Perhaps universals are
just not given - at least to analytic thinkers.
288 You must always keep in mind that the
mind does not exist - everyone knows that.
289 The subject neither goes out to the object
nor does the object go into the subject.
290 It is not necessary to have necessity.
That is, neither life nor love has necessity
in a late civil society; it looks like reason
has lost all of its authority, too. Indeed,
modern theories of the "life of reason"
and so on and so on, have a real lack of
authority; and by that I mean they are not
irrational, but just misleading us about
rationality.
291 Can we ask for reasons to be rational?
Is that not already believing in rational
standards? Reason must or must not have survival
value for a certain form of life As for this
epoch let us say, "they worry about
being rational in their arguments, - meanwhile
the whole is false and the universal structures
become more and more irrational."
292 Nietzsche is not a prophet but he does
speak from the mountain peaks; nevertheless,
"non legor, non legar". The art
of reading has been lost anyway...
293 Some philosophers start with aphorisms;
and other philosophers start their life with
them. In fact, some never get to them - and
some aphorisms are just banal, which sometimes
is not too surprising. I have started here,
you may want to start else where - let the
thinking begin.
294 For both phenomenologist and analytic
philosophers, the "given" is a-historical,
perhaps an attempt at the eternal or just
"sense" data.
295 Nothing is eternal!
Nothing is eternal!
Of course Nothing's relation to man is not
eternal because man [himself] is not eternal;
hence, we have no eternal truth without proving
that man has already existed and will exist
for eternity (cf. Sein und Zeit section 44c).
Nothing's relation to mortals is as eternal
as human death.
296 There is nothing heavier than Nothing.
297 What are the phenomenological phenomena
of Dasein that are indeed revealing Nothing
(Nichts) rather than Dasein's openness to
Being (Sein)? A question for the author of
Being and Time, that is, for the guru of
Todtnauberg in Baden, Black Forest.
298 Can we give "common sense"
reason for rejecting "common sense"
as a consciousness shape ( think of Hegel)?
Perhaps it is a joy just to be at the level
of "common sense".
299.
A new book: The Joy of Nothing, the substance
is the same as the Wisdom of Spiro T. Agnew,
but this time they did not even bother with
page numbers. Where is the truth now?
300 Thinking most of the time does not know
how close it runs to the surface. Hence,
its goal is to bury itself in the depths.
301 The abyss is a natural extension beyond
nihilism, but our experience of the abyss
is an extension into the Nothingness that
lies at the heart of our Being.
302 Really, power means power over mediation
and eventually over time itself.
303 How does one in practice transcend incomplete
Nihilism? First step: negation of the Ego,
Self, subject history, and goals (finite
or otherwise).
304 Most of the time philosophers have a
hard time reading aphorisms, because they
usually want ideas on only their pet subjects
and a strong aphorism reaches out to grasp
the whole world. The rigid mind also has
a hard time changing subjects quickly, which
is a pre-condition for aphorism readers and
that is a pre-condition that few philosophers
possess.
305 Why would Kant want to know the "Thing-in-itself"?
Since the "Thing-in-itself" already
knows Kant.
306 Is God in search of man or is man in
search of God? Or perhaps neither...
307 Our philosophical longing is for both
a philosophy of the future and a philosophy
for the future; hence Feuerbach and Nietzsche.
That is, a Hegelian system that can go through
the fiery brook of Nietzsche's power.
308 Does it matter whether the will-to-power
is the first or last fact that we come to?
Pick your poison.
309 An art work is nothing to an artist,
in the same way a philosophical work is nothing
to a thinker.
310 Dusk is a natural time to stop and reflect
on the experiences of the day, hence a lot
of philosophy was written at dusk whereas
it should have been written and thought of
at dawn.
311 There is nothing worse than people who
read philosophy, but who never think philosophical
thoughts - who, indeed, never really seek
the truth among all the philosophical works
they read. Rather for them even truth is
met with a little bit of embarrassment.
312 It is of the highest importance that
our thinking has real human life content,
yes - and by that I mean it is in line with
a possible human experience that makes sense
to the present consciousness of the world-
spirit. Somehow it has to be in line with
common sense, or otherwise philosophers will
end up down in Alice's Wonderland. Well,
this content is needed otherwise philosophers
will spin on the form of the content, that
is, the mind's own structure - hence a spinning
which becomes a mere subjective reporting
of an inner whirling of categories.
313 Idein, or the Greek concept for how one
sees the truth, but without eyes...
314 Things never appear to be what they really
are; yet there is nothing behind the appearances.
315 Butterflies know more about beauty than
philosophers!
316 There is neither a "why" nor
a "what" for philosophy now. What
I mean by this is: neither reasons nor reality
(existence); only an interpretation from
which one can see both "whys" and
"whats". Nevertheless, these are
still interpretations of what is going on.
317 Can Heidegger give us an understanding
of social change? That is, ontology for processes
with in cultures. Heidegger certainly has
given us a new understanding of man (Dasein)
but is that from his ontological power or
did it just happen; that is, is there in
fact a connection between his quest for the
meaning (Sinn) of Being and his power with
regard to man?
318 Who today can really forge and explore
a question mark? I think only Heidegger -
and he does it mostly for his students.
319 I think, therefore I am. This certainly
is not certain: I think, - I think, therefore
I am, or I think therefore I am - I think.
320 La bete philosophe or the non-sensuous,
that is a non-sexual one, at least until
Fichte,
321 For me: pereat mundus, fiat philosophia,
fiat philosophus, fiam! Boy, where does that
come from?
322 If existence did not exist, I would have
to create it.
323 The overman lives in the midst of the
eternal return of the Same as a new 'time'.
324 Nietzsche knew the power of Hölderlin!
So did Heidegger, for that matter.
325 Power is the only thing that counts for
politics. Mao knew this better than any one
before.
326 Nietzsche was the first doctor of civilization,
and from this he knew what must be cut out
to save it; namely, which are non-life-seeking
(no will-to-life) and are indeed a will-to
-nothingness. These values are mostly found
in Religion and Philosophy, perhaps because
they usually talk a good line.
327 Cultural evolution is a theory in search
of metaphysics; it wants to give a general
explanation (in terms of reasons) for cultural
variation through time. A system of statements
that would account for cultural variations;
similar to biological evolution but not the
same.
328 Aristotle never found a number in nature,
which is one thing that stopped him from
becoming another Plato.
329 Soviet philosophers seem to think there
could be one way to the truth. I, for one,
think that could be true. But that presupposes
that philosophers are indeed in search of
the truth; some of them do not have the courage
even to hunt and look for the truth and that
is still miles from affirming the truth.
330 The time for new social relations is
now lost. People - and that is, even young
people - are no longer forging new kinds
of social relations. The objective social
goal has again become merely subjective,
whether it hurts or gives pleasure that is
now our only concern. Once, my brothers and
sisters, it was different. Let's hope against
all hope that day will once again be seen.
331 Our last fact, our last block, our last
truth - the body! A phenomenologist speaks.
332 Hume is only your perception, my friend
- self, no existence, and no emotions, in
fact not human...
333 Human beings need two seemingly contradictory
things at the same time - one is to open
themselves up to people and share their inner
experiences, and the other is to be closed;
that is, to keep part of their life complete
to themselves.
334 Is there anything more than just moral
phenomena?
335
Thought is a shadow out of time.
336 The loss of reason appears first in social
relations, but it first exists at the level
of the universal. Are we or aren't we rational?
That question is no longer a rational question;
we are 50 years beyond that.
337 "Stay with appearance, my brothers"
- or how not to think.
338 The 'ought' has no place in politics
today! As for that matter, neither do people.
339 A genius is someone who is a configuration
of opposite forces and who does justice to
them.
340 A beautiful aphorism tries to leap out
of time, knowing, of course it never can!
341 What would Kant contrast "pure"
reason to? - Impurity as a category.
342 Why do people nauseate me so much? Why
in general do people sometimes completely
sicken me?
343 Friends soon forget and lovers even sooner.
344 Descartes is still a 'substance' thinker;
only the subject, instead of just being pure
though, becomes an object or 'substance'.
Hence, the subject and the object or world
are still within a substance theory. There
is thinking; everything wills like the "I"
and "am" parts are just added on
from a substance approach to metaphysics.
For there is indeed neither 'substance' nor
anything like 'essence' either.
345 "Stop it"; that is what philosophers
throw in the face of reality.
346 Who ever knows where the future will
be has a good chance of making sure it gets
there, too.
347 What does it in the end mean to be a
radical? Can you for instance be a Humean
and be consistent with your philosophy, and
at the same time be a radical? From what
happened in the 60's, the answer now shows
forth: Yes, but you can change overnight
into a reactionary, because you are not committed
to a method that will get you there. You
will need a method that can bring your radicalism
out of history; that is, you need a philosophy
of history. This is only apparent to a few
philosophers. And some not at all, hence
let these sleepers drop away.
348 A test question: should we attain bliss
by denying the chaos of life and its suffering,
or rather, by affirming the chaos of life,
realize bliss through human joy? I never
waste my strength on questions that are really
not questions, for in fact we will have to
do both to know truth.
349 Contrary to what Marcuse thinks - there
is no critical spirit without spirit, and
for now there is no spirit.
350 The housewife's maxim: "I must get
into something".
351 A playful touching of seriousness - all
too heavy.
352 Human moods are a tuning into Nature,
and yet Nature, too, sometimes tunes into
us. Indeed, Nature knows us.
353 It doesn't matter whether one has to
overcome a small or a large abyss, just don't
let the abyss stare too long into you, my
brother. Consequence: abyss-out.
354 Why, in general, do philosophers want
to live in another world - one that is outside
or beyond this one? A whole realm of things-in-themselves.
Not this life - please! Good God, no! I want
another place to dwell. Enough of this! Let
us get back to earth and home.
355 We shall one day judge philosophers only
on the grounds of how close they were to
the Greeks. But this will be a non-moral
critique against them, contrary to most critiques.
356 System? Only Nietzsche and Hegel understood
this question mark.
357 There is reason in history; but what
most of us forget is there is also unreason,
or insanity, too.
358 Open up the human abyss and look in,
and see if you, my children, are not pulled
in.
359 The future is the only thing that speaks
to a thinker, for what is the past to us
now - nothing.
360 Hegel's logic is not ontology, for in
fact it is at a higher level than mere Being
(Seyn).
361 Defining concepts does not necessarily
lead to any reality. What after all is our
goal: To be an immaculate speaker?
362 What is the "essence' of man? Is
that your question? Well I shall tell you
- time.
363 Study and the enquiry after truth, hath
very often only this effect, that it maketh
us know experimentally how ignorant we are
by nature.
364 Nietzsche's followers! They have yet
to find him, and perhaps we shall never lose
him either.
365 We need a cosmic solution...
366 Tragedy can no longer speak to the cosmic
nature of the tragedy we have given mankind.
Nietzsche was the first one to realize that
the World was going to go through World Wars,
but he did not know how tragic it was to
be. However, Nietzsche was indeed - born
posthumously.
367 . . . sub specie Spinozae.
368 In the end maybe not much is said - only
a sign of life - a sign which goes unread.
369 Hyperion or The Hermit in Greece as the
pre-condition for reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Orange knack Osteen!
370 Abstract thinking is laborious for many
people - for me, on good days, a celebration
and intoxication.
371 Even with all the days that Nietzsche
was sick, he, in fact, had too many good
days.
372 Loneliness, what does this mean to people
with ears that have been transformed - just
this: not being able to speak to others about
that which is most important to one - to
speak out of one's inner life.
373 No more revaluation of values - transvaluation
is our first signpost.
374 What is the value of values? I am afraid
we shall hear some Nietzschean laughter over
that one.
375 To put it all in a nutshell, why this
eagerness to live in limbs that are destined
to rot?
376 Why life rather than not death?
377 Thought is a song of our earthly dwelling
As a dream which moves reality As the dew
in the grass As an exploding moment As thinking
thinking itself.
378 Thought is the wind before Being As a
reaching into the nearness As a crystal beauty
shining forth As a sail for pure thinking
As a sound of Nothingness nearing.
379 Thought's power grows within the will
willing As a will to move As a will to will
As a will to creation As a will to life.
380 Thought breaks into Being As Being into
time As Nothing into Being As reality into
the future As time into our dwelling.
381 Thought is not ontic Nor dreaming Nor
fantasizing Nor static Nor perception.
382 Like the joy of releasement Like the
living in the spring Like the love of mortals
Like the butterfly's motion Thought is.
383 Like the absolute at work Like joy's
unfolding Like the blissful moments of stillness
Like Being's silence Thought is.
384 There is no difference There is no identity
There is nothing in between There is nothing
- indeed That thought is not.
385 There is a difference There is an absolute
becoming There is Being There is a Sameness
Which thought is
386 It speaks of Silence It grows with gratitude
It is a saying of serenity It is a path of
man Thought.
387 For Hegel what is the relation between
Being and Nothing - and - the Begriff and
Spirit? The former is a textual question;
whereas the latter speaks to the whole system,
in fact, one which Hegel never though about
- he assumed a certain relationship.
388 Can we have a system that can contain
freedom? This question Heidegger asked Schelling,
because I think only Hegel has the answer.
389 How can we ever say anything without
considering everything first?
390 Power also needs money.
391 This is either a joy or a heavy burden
on our shoulders. A note for those who can
never affirm "both. and ..."
392 We must have intuition of reason in the
world or in our minds; but with this, we
see the joke involved - intuition is a low
level of comprehension. We must know the
reasonable with the highest level of comprehension
- reason.
393 Can we ever hope to do a-historical phenomenology
of human experiences? I hope not, maybe it's
silly to even try.
394 The only people who should write are
those who absolutely must - who cannot live
without writing; for, as it is, we have too
many books for those who indeed are too profound.
395 What has forbidden us to tell the truth
- laughing? Horace.
396 Overman? Who can read that question mark
without feeling sadness and laughter?
397 Science should never be confused with
technology. Nevertheless, we must ask what
the value of both science and technology
is, for this animal that seems to have knowledge
of the world. Our lost wisdom shows itself
first through our lack of understanding of
the power of technology, which perhaps only
the scientist can re-interpret for us. Our
God lost: science.
398 Schopenhauer thinks that tragedy leads
to the resignation of life - Nietzsche contra
him: rather, it is the ideal of tragedy as
the affirmation of living spirit, in fact
as Dionysian. This, my anti-Greek dwarf,
is Nietzsche as his height. No dreamer speaks
here.
399 The greatest affront to the individual
as a private, unique member of society -
is school.
400 If everyone looks to us as irrational,
it might be because we, too, are irrational.
401 Who can say anything about the Cosmos
other than the creator of it? And the creator
perhaps is no longer with us. It takes a
lot to start creation.
402 Love changes our eyes to the world...
From: A noonday ship at sea
403 Lovers come and go, but a friend never
leaves.
404 Nietzsche could smell decadence with
his nose.
405 Let us take the case of Socrates for
a moment or the one who will die for the
state's rights over the individual. Can one
in fact deduce from this famous case that
the Greeks did indeed believe in capital
punishment, or is it rather that they never
thought of Socrates as a Greek? Let us even
ask Socrates a question: was the Greek government
de facto or de jure? If it was only de facto,
then how can Socrates believe they had a
legal right to sentence him?
406 A problem between a philosopher and a
thinker, or rather the difference between
the two: a philosopher works and sweats over
creating and producing ideas (the white sheets
stares at him/her or the computer screen),
whereas a thinker just flows. Let is all
happen.
407 Whoever designed the early development
of humans should be taken to court at the
very least.
408 Can philosophers ever know the worldview
of natural consciousness? Or for that matter
can a worker in a factory know his existence?
A rubric for thought.
409 Fact: philosophers who want to be the
embodiment of common sense (e. g., the greatest
case 'G. E. Moore'), they do because they
are the most abstract of men, less than all
too-human; in fact, just a little human or
even hardly human in the end because there
is no blood in their bodies.
410 I am nothing less than a genius and I
make no bones about it - why should I keep
it a secret?
411 Aphorisms either go to the depths or
go nowhere at all.
412 Indeed, not everything we say is the
truth, for sometimes we tell lies just to
see what people will say, both in everyday
life and as philosophers.
413 Is Hegel's Enzyklopädie a System of aphorisms?
Is that even a possibility? What does it
mean to create a System of aphorisms? Is
that another example of a contradictio in
adjecto? Answer: this is a new way of looking
at Hegel's so-called absolute system.
414 Nietzsche's basic problem: decadence!
Not morality, not the overman, not the transvaluation
of values, not the eternal return of the
Same as time, not the nature or the future
of philosophy, not the Greeks, not Schopenhauer,
not resentment, not the death of God, not
revenge; rather these follow from his grappling
with the fundamental question mark of "decadence".
415 Indeed, why is it that you must understand
reality? A question for the one who lives
at the end of his eyeballs - the positivist.
416 My children? In another breath is beyond
even Oneness.
417 Life is far too important a thing ever
to talk seriously about. Oscar Wilde.
418 Who is the whole other? How can we transcend
ourselves to find the other, to go out to
the other? A confused one.
419 For Heidegger, is the history of Nothing
related to expropriation? Is his thinking
great enough to run with the power of that
question, could he answer it? Strangely enough,
I don't think these are really questions,
for appropriation and expropriation are not
the same as Being and Nothing. They are,
rather, the relationship between man and
Being-Nothing-Time. And yet, expropriation
is related to Nothing, but that relationship
has only now become a matter for thought,
hence it must go unnamed.
420 Beauty only passes in perception...
421 Insanity is always a part of our sanity,
but why does it break out in some and not
others, why does it seem so close to us everyday?
Somehow it became part of both Nietzsche's
and Hölderlin's life, they became like Tantalus
of old, all-too-much from the gods - Apollo
had struck them with full force.
422 The decay of Religion is also the decay
of the state (March 1878). With this Nietzsche
speaks to the relationship between him and
Marx. It is of some note that even Camus
places Nietzsche infinitely higher than Marx
as a philosopher; and yet, we must always
think of them together. Was Marx a philosopher
or something more and at the same time different
than a mere philosopher?
423 Those who have used this method before:
Francois de La Rochefoucauld, F. W. J. Schelling,
L. Feuerbach, A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche,
Oscar Wilde, M. Horkheimer...
424 Spinoza was the first one to critique
the mere "Ideal" of teleology.
But that critique was carried through completely
by Nietzsche. In their own way, only Hegel
and Nietzsche understood the power of Spinoza.
425 Hegel is by far the greatest causa sui
in the history of philosophy.
426 What kinds of air do church-goers breath?
427 Most things in education today are neither
true nor false, for they are rather just
plain and simple - nonsense.
428 Melancholy, or the mood of the valley.
429 God is both too gross an answer and too
gross a question mark.
430 Please, forgive my youth! We are all
old and young.
431 Why is it that by the Delphic saying,
"Gnoti seauton" (know yourself),
everyone thinks of psychology and not the
self-education through history of consciousness?
432 Readers of aphorisms must be able to
move from one level of concreteness to another
easily. Otherwise they will get burnt out
trying to get to the end.
433 The length of an aphorism is determined
by the power of its creator; that means,
it could go both ways - either a longer or
a shorter one. For, as you all know, it's
hard to be short and powerful, yet at the
same time you must not be incomplete. A problem
for aphorist flyers.
434 Needed: a typology of aphorisms, moral
maxims, almost-poetry, fictitious situations,
ontological epigrams, dreams, definitions,
questions of ambiguity, either/or questions,
sayings, double-meaning statements with opposite
meanings, mottos...
435 Without the small things in life, there
would be no life at all.
436 The problem of categories and their meanings
is now the problem of language.
437 Needed: a history of the anti-epistemology
movement. It would start with F. W. J. Schelling;
also, the explanation for the rise of epistemology.
438 Karl Marx never fully understood Hegel's
Science of Logic, hence neither the dialectics
too.
439 To understand Marx or Hegel without their
methodology is OK, but for them to have created
their systems of philosophy without a method
would be absurd. If you merely want to re-present
their system or the content of their philosophy
- you do not need to know anything about
"method," but if you apply their
thinking and power, in fact, if you want
a little praxis, then their method is what
is the most important! Social scientists
are always talking about taking Marx without
the mystical Hegelian dialectics and though
it may sound funny, Marx always wants to
use the dialectic of Hegel, but not the mystical
part (Notional dialectics). Being that the
Notion (Begriff) is divine as part of the
mind of God before creation. Yet we still
need to know how dialectics applies to our
late civil society context as that knowledge
may be used for yet an easy transition to
our future world consciousness. A truth for
our Sunday and Monday revolutionaries. Thoughts
for a time past.
440 Beauty is always class beauty.
441 I have always dreamed of a political
consciousness for the people - yet perhaps
Marx and Engel were wrong in making the working
class everything, for, without reason, they
remain a mere manipulated class.
442 The truth is not just true but also painful.
443 Our quest: to remember and experience
timeless moments - 'eternity' our only goal.
A joy for those timeless ones.
444.
It is not sin that counts - but rather only
how much guilt it produces; nevertheless,
do not forget that sin is a necessary condition
for guilt and hence we can go backward from
guilt to sin to desire and our passion for
anxiety and a needful super stimulation of
life. That is, namely - a relative absolute
standard of evil and goodness. Absolute,
insofar as we know what the standard is,
but relative, insofar as we practice it.
445 Strangers lost in a concrete world...
this says it all.
446 What is knowledge or even self-knowledge
used for today? Or knowledge of wisdom and
wise deeds? No one has those answers - perhaps
no one needs those answers in these times.
A question for a few wise people.
447 Lost and forgotten - the beginning. A
story re-created and told anew.
448 Love alone can solve the mystery of immortality
for you. --L. Feuerbach.
449 What is the meaning of "meaning"
or the life of "life" and the value
of "value"? Examples of a very
special kind of question. What is the 'whatness'
of a what-question or how did hows get started
or even why, whys?
450 The transcendental or synthetic unity
of apperception (cf. Kant's Critique of Pure
Reason B 134). OK, but where does the term
"apperception" come from? Answer:
Leibniz's Principles of Nature and of Grace,
Based on Reason.
451 Kant's method is not only transcendental
but also architectonic (i. e., Kant is a
system thinker). What you thought Kant was
trying to "fix" the natural sciences.
452 Feuerbach was the greatest philosopher
right after Hegel - for sure Marx thought
this too, but and yet, no system and no question
of Wissenschaft (science in general) - hence
what kind of Hegelian was Feuerbach? As Hegelians
- Feuerbach, Marx, and Søren Kierkegaard
(compare Lukács) are all great Hegelians
and yet as philosophers the differences speak.
453 We all remain enigmas for ourselves.
A muse by man.
454 Melancholy knows no other truth and is
not worried by history.
455 A Kierkegaardian leap goes from no where
to no where - whereas Nietzsche wants to
leap from man to overman - from a man next
to God to man-God (man as God).
456 A small child can teach a henologist
and a cosmologist a thing or two about joy.
457 A note on nineteenth-century philosophy.
S. K. contra A. S. Where do these thinkers
fit into the essential movement of philosophy
during the nineteenth century? Can we even
mention their two names together Søren Kierkegaard
and Arthur Schopenhauer? They have some very
special philosophical problems and themes,
which in other times would seem not be philosophy
at all.
458 A time where there is no time or space,
in fact, a time lost to time, a beginning
of eternity - our beginning too.
459 Philosophers must be self-conscious of
their ideas!
460 Nature is never just in this world, for
it includes the entire universe. However,
God was not just playing with dice when the
creation of the universe began - to know
nature is to know God. Does this sound strange
to your ears? Remain faithful to the earth
- my brothers! Must we not also think of
the rest of the universe? A change not in
the actual world but in the subject, that
is, our world and universe but not divine
or holy or even for that matter a moral purpose.
461 We are nothing and we should be everything!
The proletariat.
462 From what I smell - we must have used
our nose a lot during prehistory.
463 Is the nature of work, as such, anything
which can be understood by metaphysics? Hence,
two criteria follow: one, against the misunderstanding
of persons and personhood (i. e., the nature
of mortals and their relationship to the
earth) and, second, the misunderstanding
of things and thinghood, plus the emphasis
on epistemology. Let me now say just this:
Aristotle and Hegel are beyond epistemology
insofar as they both speak to the matters
themselves, not just for the preconditions
for speaking or knowing, but rather to things
directly. So don't forget, my friends, as
antimetaphysical searchers we must know and
smell those metaphysical realms - inside
and out.
464 Our question mark: the limits and bounds
of metaphysics. We need more thinkers who
can read that question mark and feel its
depth.
465 Why do we no longer know the movement
of world history? Is it because no one wants
to say such ugly things - that it's too scary
for us? Where is the movement and direction
within world history? Only the Marxist knows?
Or only the Marxist knows!
466 The examined life and the unexamined
perhaps are not worth living, for who is
sure that any life is worth living through;
in fact - the longer one examines life, the
less one thinks that it is worth living.
But what was life for the Greeks? This question
haunted Goethe, Hölderlin, Hegel, Marx, and
Nietzsche - and it still haunts us today.
467 I shall give to my children - the complete
removal of sin from your world, and hence
call myself mortal.
468 We shall always be condemned to kill
the spirit of that which we love the most!
A philosopher's burden.
469 Antipolitical is no longer a possible
concept - today. perhaps it never was.
470 Liberation is nothing less than an attempt
at freedom - reason too.
471 Why did a novel like Goethe's Werther
have such an impact on all of Europe? And
with that strange motto added in later editions,
"Be a man, and do not follow me."
Should we say this again or did you get "it"
finally?
472 The eternal return of the Same or the
turning point in history. Did Nietzsche really
believe that? No more eternity! An eternal
saying for mortals dwelling on this earth
- the first fact and precondition for humanity.
Our turning point...
473 Poetry is the expression of a different
relationship toward the world, different
than we normally in everydayness have had
toward our dwelling on earth. We are attuned
and in a different harmonic to ourselves
and to the kind of earthly dwellers we are;
hence, poetry is a state of being.
474 The final truth was not that science
became dominant; it was, rather, the methodology
of science that won - even over the social
sciences too. Hence, our main point - we
need two different methods for two different
phenomena. Phenomenology had the right beginning,
but we had to re-think what is the nature
and meaning of "phenomena." Plus
we run into the old questions of ontology,
such as universal/particular, essence/existence,
infinite/finite, consciousness/objects of
consciousness, reality/appearance, subjectivity/objectivity,
etc. So, in the meantime, we lost the whole
idea of a science of phenomena.
475 Poetry should reach Reach for eternity
My children - Loosen its deathly grip.
476 Recycle and rephrase in order to balance
the new beginning - OK. Prime ministers and
their decadence.
477 Why the decline of the West - rather
the rise of the East? But how did the West
come to power and dominance? Was it just
technology and science? For its power is
violent and forceful and comes from being
able to change the world.
478 Love is the merging of two people out
of necessity; but it is not external rather
internal necessity and need. It is nothing
but an attempt at absolute identity within
an absolute difference.
479 How can I counsel anyone about reading
aphorisms? Some must be read in order and
others should not be read at all; plus some
have to be understood within the context
of the whole work. And of course some are
just examples well-formulated, but not part
of the truth, that is, an experiment within
the form of the aphorism. Sometimes, it's
best to let those who can think go ahead
and figure out their own way. My truth is
just a mention.
480 What is the reality or existence status
of time? Is it real or not? Or even the old
question about space and time. Not really
questions at all.
481 Our only real hope is the pure affirmation
of all the infinite possibilities as our
own - can our will affirm this? That is,
the affirmation of all and any life processes.
Meta aletheia and agathon!
482 Beware all my children lest language
slay you - become neither a poet nor a philosopher,
in the end only an unreal trap, a nowhere
trip.
483 This aphorism deleted on historical note.
I should mention that everything else will
stand the test of time and cross over into
the nuggets of "eternity".
484 The main stick-in-the-mud so far concerning
any theory for the social sciences is the
problem of an analysis which is able to move
from one level to the next, from one level
of concreteness to the next, from one kind
of social phenomenon to another, from moral
phenomena in children to world-history.
485 It seems as though our only path - is
through beginnings!
486 Life is neither simple nor complex -
it is rather more of the same. Meant for
the living.
487 Death touches each and every one of us,
in our inner Being - where it counts!
488 Some of us think for others and some
for ourselves - I would rather be the latter,
but I am both.
489 Do you want a real solution to the enigma
of life or simple one that will do for the
moment? A question for everyone and no one.
A question for a Nietzschean. A question
that will not last.
490 No afterlife, no soul, no gods, no God,
no teleology, no progress, no eternity, no
Absolute, no Spirit, no eternal universals,
no Being, no ground, no essence, no subject,
no object, no state, no capitalism, no master,
no hope, no answers, no goals, no purpose
- the Great Yes!
491 Life is a missliche Sache: I have determined
to spend it in reflecting on it. --A. Schopenhauer
to C. M. Wieland
492 Let us think about something more pleasant,
said the dwarf to the thoughtful one as they
both had one foot beyond life.
493 What can we say today about the deaths
of Giordano Bruno and Lucilio Vanini? Perhaps
only a banal saying, you came too early -
my brothers! Or like Socrates and Sir Thomas
More - you die for your love of truth. Indeed,
a truth that is beyond us today.
494 Primum vivere, deinde philosophari! A
truth and a motto - a maxim for all philosophers,
but not for thinkers - they know this and
more.
495 Our mooding is our way of Being...
496 At what point does language finally break,
and reveal its truth? Nevertheless, even
to name the essential nature of language,
remains beyond us; hence a mystery at bottom.
497 The alpha and omega of all philosophy
is freedom... --F. W. J. Schelling to Hegel.
Freedom is only a partial answer - because
the real truth to philosophy is the radical
transformation of the very nature of philosophy
itself.
498 Kant seems to have thought that everyone
should have a philosophical system but because
someone else's system would be only subjective
and historical knowledge for us - we can
only learn how to philosophize not really
philosophy as such (system of all philosophical
Knowledge!). But Kant did understand the
importance of the system-question; however,
he was confused about how his own philosophy
was related to a system in general. Nevertheless,
Kant and Spinoza became the guiding light
for Idealism's battle cry - philosophy as
system. A goal within creative forces.
499 Revolution Freedom Lifefulnessing
500 Art Being-truthing Joy
501 Self-sameness Objectiveness Clouds
502 Re-understandable Honesty Memory
503 Lightness Dew Unbelieving
504 An artist is involved neither in truth
nor in falseness; rather in honesty, self-truth,
doing justice to his own experience, sincerity
and affirming all life process, even beyond
good and evil (all mortal values). The precondition
for both the artist and philosopher - the
call of destiny.
505 Why does the thought and idea of "value-neutral"
bring such laughter to thinkers, and yet,
is believed by so many scientists? But don't
worry about this, for all my ideas are "value-free."
A note for those in the twentieth century.
506 Human existence is too questionable for
me - too temporary, too delicate!
507 Integrity Self-knowledge Faithfulness
508 Innocence Ignoramus Iguanas
509 Lizards Specifications Longevity
510 Certainty Sincerity Self-deception
511 Alienation Nihilism Beinglessness
512 The fundamental problem of a system builder.
This problem can be summed up easily enough.
However, to show its complete nature as a
problem will take some time. Indeed, that
is the problem: time. Time as human finitude,
as human and nature's history, as beginning
and end within the system, as sequence, as
ordering, as within the history of philosophical
systems, as its own appearance within the
system, as the appearance of mortal death
within the system, as relativism, in fact
- as freedom. Plus, as value or importance
in terms of the philosophical system builder's
own personal time and energy, that is, his
time for working on a system and his philosophical
maturity too. One cannot start work on a
system at 20 or at 70. Insofar as these problems
show themselves, we must admit that a will
to a system is a will to overcome, in some
ways, time; and yet, the philosophical problems
arising from the relationship we are considering
between time and system may be enough to
show the impossibility of any system whatsoever.
But let us not escape our task!
513 Human existence as pain, as time, as
mortal, as subjectivity, as death, stands
outside the system.
514 Suicide or the right to end life is without
a doubt a right which goes against society's
means and goals, that is, against the ideals
of community; nevertheless, it is a right
which we cannot do without, and yet, what
does it mean to be for suicide? Indeed, is
not life our only gift from the gods? However,
suicide is a cosmic and final solution to
the riddle of life, but it is not for philosophers
or thinkers; they know that death is their
first premise, their first sign of life.
515 What is our methodology for mysticism?
Not the "what" but the "how"
is our question; that is, not the content
but the form. A moment or method?
516 Time is that, by virtue of which, everything
becomes Nothingness in our hands and loses
all real value. --A. Schopenhauer
517 Only if we lose everything, that we thereby
gain God. A note by a Chinese dragon.
518 History has no ultimate value...
519 We need to educate the young in the art
of demetaprogramming simulations in order
for them to survive at all in their adult
life.
520 One cannot escape the responsibility
of one's society, but let that pass - if
nobody says anything, maybe we can all forget
about it. Listen, I wasn't involved - it
was them, not me.
The call of conscience speaks to each of
us.
521 Releasement from self, ego, I as agent,
self-consciousness, history, memory, property,
world, and god - for Buddha and Nietzsche
this is more than a theory, rather it is
Life
-embodiment. A goal for truth.
522 We are in the middle. We are both within
the truth of metaphysics and outside of it,
in the land which does not even have name,
and yet, our Being has spoken to it and its
voice is becoming clearer and our language
has broken with the past (history) in a new
and radical way; Or this is just the outcome
of something which was always within the
Origin and has been a voice throughout metaphysic.
This, my children and overpeople, we will
never know - but we are moving forward by
asking the question. The new beginning has
started, and yet, the end is absolutely out
of thought; hence no telos and therefore
no entelecheia, that is no inner movement
toward the final end of this epoch, perhaps
we are awaiting for an opening in another
realm besides thought.
523 Is there any path out of the class problem,
other than the end of class altogether? The
only other path would be backwards, downward
in history.
524 The emancipation of the proletariat,
if only the first step in the complete and
total emancipation of all of mankind, is
the pre-condition for truth.
525 Reality is a mask, which we put over
the world, to hide a little bit of ourselves
- underneath there are no masks.
526 Kategoria is no longer thought about
as a concept, let alone as the sign of a
system.
527 Silence is more than the heart of language
- it is the background and foreground, for
all the saying and shouting of the world's
beingness comes through language.
528 Albert Einstein often made remarks about
how the Old One or He (God) does not throw
dice in the creation of the Universe (hence,
at bottom, the answer to the universe is
not going to be given in terms of the statistical
quanta mechanics model). And yet, where is
Nietzsche's dancing God? Where is the God
who created our world - our life? Old Newton
and now Einstein are all too much theologians.
529 Do not worry if someone does not tell
you the truth, because you rarely have the
courage to tell yourself the truth, indeed,
truth is most often a pain to the body.
530 Vanity can, at best, be only an embarrassment,
and at the least - merely pity.
531 Is philosophy really after the production
of good books or good men? Perhaps something
between a Roman and a Greek or Nietzsche's
Caesar with the soul of Christ. Hence, study
not books, but men and mankind.
532 What is the relationship between esse,
entia, ens, and essentia? This has been the
question for ontologists for over two thousand
years, and yet, today it is not even a question.
So be it!
533 Would one ever have thought that philosophy
would deny truth to intelligible entities
because they lack the spatial and temporal
material of the sensuous world? --G. W. F.
Hegel
534 If chaos, then no knowledge, no God,
no subject, no substance, no underlying,
no Being as ground, no universals, and no
truth - only the abyss.
535 Decadence or faith in progress out of
the will to a holy Nothingness - a signpost
for a dream.
536 Descartes' first principle (arche): omne
illud verum est, quod clare et distincte
percipitur. This has become the death of
speculative philosophy. Hinc meae lacrimae!
537 No time! - that will be my time.
538 I have smelled you before, my friend,
and I say to you now, "Your only ascent
will be the decline into the gaping abyss."
Yes, and you too, God - Ecce Homo -
539 Needed: a system for inter-subjective
phenomena, such as empathy, resentment, pity,
revenge, embarrassment, envy, irony, sympathy,
dread, innocence, shame, etc.
540 Paolo Soleri, our man for the Ecumenopolis;
however, we are still trying to reach our
own self-internal metaprogrammer, because
of non-static distortion in the concept of
Megalopolis, which at this moment is pulsating
in an interlock between the future of man
and our environment. Perhaps this is self-deception
or just dead reckoning...
541 Nihilism no longer stands at the door
of the house; indeed, the house is gone.
Homelessness, as such, is our first premise
- our first truth.
542 Gaius Valerius Catullus and Marcus Valerius
Martialis belong to the origin of the aphorism
and for more recent times let us also add
Sebastien Roch Nicolas Chamfort, Georg Christoph
Lichterberg, Raoul Anernheimer, Hugo Hofmannsthal,
Arthur Schnitzler, Richard Beer-Hofmann,
Karl Kraus, Hermann Bahr, Rudolf Alexander
Schroder, and Marie Ebner-Eschenbach.
543 Nietzsche has two ontological theses:
A) Critique of the doctrine of Being as eternal,
static, reality, and as a denial of Becoming.
B) Countermovement: Being as life, breathing,
willing, effecting, Becoming, living, and
having a soul (Will to Power, # 581-2). Hence,
as within time.
544 Tragic drama has the great moral disadvantage
of attaching too much importance to life
and death. --S. R. N. Chamfort
545 Watergate was more than just a flood.
It shows in the final analysis the American
system does not work, neither as an ideal
nor in the conscience of its people.
546 Nihilism is the question and the will-to-power
is part of the answer to that question, but
who wills the will-to-power - the overman.
547 If God knows me, She knows too much!
Yes, that I could not stand.
548 Dream or land in distant sun Breaking
upon the crystal day Strange decay A dawn
before the light as Moria I follow this homeless
return - without will.
549 Who really has the answer to where philosophy
must begin? Where must we start our thinking,
if our thinking about the world, the universe,
the Self, etc., must have a start, then with
which one - which subject do we start with?
Does it not seem that every philosopher who
has attempted to have a necessary and absolute
beginning to philosophy, in the end becomes
absurd to the next epoch and generation,
namely, a mere historical contingency? Can
we start with hen, nous, psyche, ousia, agathon,
kallo, theion, hypostasis, monas, hypokeimenon,
eidos, prote, arche, on, logos, actus purus,
esse, or Being? Philosophy needs to be without
presuppositions for it to have a final and
unhistorical science (Wissenschaft), that
is, a philosophy with the right and true
beginning, namely, an absolute beginning.
Nevertheless, the question is still before
us: Where must philosophy begin?
550 Do not question truth, for all too often
it will question you!
551 No aletheia without episteme.
552 Existence Living Real-Reality
553 Goal: to attain the superman for one
moment. For this I suffer everything (Kroner,
xiv: 306). --F. Nietzsche
554 Question: Are you a god? Answer: No.
my friend, I have never been that demented
or depressed.
555 Tolerance out of the weakness of uncertainty
is nothing less than obscene.
556 Aphorisms can never be judged without
taking into consideration their whole context,
because each aphorism says something about
other ones too, that is, each reflects the
other.
557 Problem: a doctrine of man without an
absolute, rather a theory of man as man especially
with regard to our presuppositions.
558 America's consciousness or quantity -
quantity - quantity ad infinitum, which to
many means - ad nauseam.
559 Question: What is the meaning of life?
Answer: One famous Roman - Lucius Annaeus
Seneca - came up with a pretty good final
answer, perhaps that shall be our way too.
560 What is our relationship to death, especially
our own death? As far as I know - when death
calls, my answer is silence. Death is too
strong and hard for this thinker - too powerful.
561 Our loss of history and the unhistorical
nature of all the social sciences are typical
symptoms of decay.
562 Being is no more and nothing less than
will, which as will-to-will is willing-itself
as an absolute will; hence, the Being of
Being for us today is will. Therefore, we
are faced with two questions: (A) How did
this come about? and (B) What are the signs
of its decline?
563 Can we have a metaphysic without "values"?
So far only in vain.
564 "Causa sui ipsius," for most
philosophers a contradiction, for how can
anything be the cause of itself. This is
one more example of the special kind of nature
philosophers have given to God. But really,
who created God? Answer: Man, hence man is
the cause of himself. Logic always gives
us a hint at the truth.
565 The sound of one hand-clapping is the
sound of the universe. From: the big cookie
in the bathtub.
566 God neither exists nor does not exist;
it is rather a question of nonsense.
567 Technology should become something like
our art is today.
568 Do not ask me about monks and yogis,
but rather the bodhisattva.
569 Philosophy needs to turn away from words
to reality, from symbols to life, from theory
to praxis...
570 "... the critique of religion is
the prerequisite of every critique."
Who said this? Was it Nietzsche or Marx or
Hegel?
571 God is dead, now it has become our time
on earth.
572 Fulfillment is the name of the game.
573 Now is the moment of your decision!
574 I still have many unthoughts within me.
575 You Godless ones, now your question is
not an easy one: do you seek and desire Being
or Becoming?
576 One of the last things that Nietzsche
wrote was a short note to the first philosopher
to give public lectures on Nietzsche's philosophy
(Copenhagen, 1888); it says, Postmark Torino,
4 Jan 1889 To my friend Georg! After you
have discovered me, it was no trick to find
me: the difficulty now is to lose me....
The Crucified
Indeed, some of us have now found Nietzsche
and his power is almost too much, for we
come away with the gathered honey and it
is too thick in our veins, his language overcomes
us--we, who have lived too long in the valleys.
Nevertheless, Nietzsche is asking us not
only to climb up to those few mountains with
him, but also to take the greatest weight
and stress upon us--that which is the most
difficult for thinkers today, namely, to
think through the thought of the eternal
return of the Same, and hence, to finally
lose Nietzsche. So, that we can lose the
old metaphysical heaven and world and return
to our homecoming within the meaning of the
earth, as Nietzsche called us-- the godless
anti-metaphysicians. That means: to climb
the mountain and at the top to step off...
577 The eternal return of the Same is a thesis
about the universe in time or about the universal
remaining in time or to be more precise about
the universe having a future.
578 Speculative or metaphysical thinking
is such a special kind of pursue an desire,
that only a few understand it and perhaps
only one in a generation can create it, for
the rest, they remain at the outside-- technicians.
Hence, the paradigm is the technician.
579 Let all things and worlds enter the divine
realm of Becoming.
580 Beyond Nihilism--indeed, what single
human can say that?
581 Ens certum Objectivity Thinghood
Godlessness UnderGodhood ManGoding
Themeless Diaphoretic Scenario
Valuing Meaningfullessness Worthlessness
Star-Maker Anti-Organizer Negentropy
Formlessness Spacing Dimensionlessing
Contradiction Ground Unconditionedness
Spinoza Schelling Hegel
Anti-Pantheism Monotheism MegaPolytheism
Metaphorically Prosaic Unliterally
Problem: three concepts together but their
actual relationship is unnamed, hence, you
leave it up to the thinker to crack the riddle.
Indeed, perhaps all too much of a riddle,
my friends. This age is an age that has no
guessers of riddles; they have not yet appeared
on this earth.
582 The problem of an exobiologist--is the
earth worth saving? That is, is life on earth
anything worthy of consideration by others
in the universe? Maybe as potential, but
right now...
583 With all due respect to history, I hope
that Richard Nixon is the lowest point in
the American political process. Next time,
they might not be a mere used-car salesman.
584 Freedom is a concept that in reality
is completely alien to Americans; however
I am not sure I can say much about this either.
But at least their thinking is moving in
the right direction.
585 Man -- the belanguaged thing.
7/27/2000
If you see Nietzsche on the road, do not
stop and kill him, but walk with him and
laugh.
How can there be no teleology? After 'becoming'
then there is growth and the 'end'. No end
- how is that possible? Perhaps, no theological
end. If there is no 'end', then there is
no 'beginning'. What would beginning ontology
really be called?
If my view is viewlessness, then there is
no view. The Buddha saw the sickness of views
and thought viewlessness would then end suffering.
Perhaps this only works for the Buddhist.
Concept-mummies know there is a real concept.
No new gods, well no new concepts either.
How much does Egypt still determine our future?
Public work projects.
If 'logic' is the answer, why is there not
a proof for this solution? If 'logic' is
not the answer, then why is there 'logic'
at all? What is the place for 'logic' in
a total system of life?
How can one have a deep insight into common
sense? Where are the little philosophers
now? Common sense is not the answer. Common
sense is an ahistorical phenomenon par exeane.
Common sense knows no bonds because it is
the most base. Philosopher of common sense.
Time is more than just the 'now'. Time is
the opening that lets being as being - be.
Does that mean 'time' is? No. Problem for
the chronologist and the ontologist.
Indo-European languages all follow Sanskrit
in its ability to abstract above the partakers
of singularity. Thinghoodness - what a concept.
Spacelessness, truthfulness, whiteness, timelessness,
moments, tables, chairs - all of these are
above the partakers. The Chinese and especially
Japanese with Zen can point to the extreme
radicalization of the singular individual.
Example, a great work of art is a singular
individual. There is only one Michaelangelo's
Moses.
Beauty maybe only skin deep, but it only
last for a few fleeting moments as well.
If Nietzsche wants to give birth to a dancing
star - then why not a metaphysical system?
Perhaps too much metaguilt for such a system.
Only a few of us know the death and end of
the proton.
Why be faithful to the earth? It only just
happens to be our little ball of dirt. This
ball of dirt or that ball of rock - who cares
and why? I do not think a geologist knows
the answer or even the question.
What does it matter if we hear no echo from
being? Have we no nose for being? Where is
the ear for Being? Are hearing and smelling
existence in a way different from seeing?
No.
The gross ideas and ideals are just another
group of abstractions. What is the value
of these abstractions for us, for culture,
or for our history? A want for the value
of nothingness.
Aristotle's good man - how do we define 'good'?
With an axe.
Kant says we need something like a phenomenology
before ontology. Do we need an ontology or
a phenomenology between metaphysics? Yes.
Hegel follows this lead, but without help
from Kant. The idea that phenomenology of
spirit is a ladder which accents the 'whole
system' of science (in large sense). Hegel
sees the particulars in the system but not
as a loosely connected piece. Spirit is working
to become the most real universal in a non-static
sense.
Enjoy the moment; for how can the same moment
come again? The abstraction called the momentness
comes again and again, but not the same moment.
There are no other bounds on the moment.
My way or waylessness - which is the way?
Follow the path in the woods to the way.
watch out for the trees and the poison ivy.
Can we make the verb -? Goallessnessing?
Beinglessnessing? Nothinglessnessing?
In which location is space? Spacelessnessing
- a processing of space. Directionlessness-now
that is the direction.
Reason knows no reason. What is the plan
for reason in the life of the mind and culture?
We are the rational animal, and yet, reason
can not make the final decision.
My hope - hopelessnessing.
Any X is a symbol of the age in which it
appears.
Poetry - is the whole story that speaks to
the whole of thinking.
Is history only a story? What is the plot?
Humans are a special unconcealness with Being.
Culture without balance - This is the problem.
Humans often have a balancing act.
My inference - too few and too many inferences.
If I knew the story about Job, why would
I tell anyone?
Contradictions are the clear points to look
out. These points are way too few.
Utopia - the fewer the people, the better.
Incidentally, Spinoza's optics is still used
today. He saw too much.
Can we see nationalistic feelings fall by
the way side? What will become of nation-states?
A problem for Nietzsche and Hegel.
Aphorisms are the best and the worst to lecture.
The real question is where the aphoristic
methodology stands with philosophy's method
and with thinking. Heidegger blinks. Nietzsche
laughs and Hegel takes a step back - too
much danger. He asks Nietzsche to put his
ink pen down. Hold on - and just put your
weapon down and stand back.
A disciple - a confusion of the highest order.
Stop that - immediately!
Aphorisms have an inexhaustibility that makes
them more honest than other methodologies.
Hegel's system where he claims only the method
is true - same with Kant. The Critique or
Pure Reason is a treatise on method - not
a theory of entire knowledge. Kant's dream
was a different kind of system than the Critique.
Say one thing profound - a challenge from
a thinker to philosopher.
Thinking - a single joy.
The very nature of the question is questionless.
How do we question the question mark? The
first principle of a questionology. Philosophers
blush.
Can we stand the thought of non-Ersatz life?
A life that is radical uniqueness? Do we
even have the terms to talk about this kind
of life?
The present moment is totally against Hegel
who had it right but it never got it completely
right. Aphorism overall. Where does that
lead to and from, or should it be lead from
and to . contra forward.
Why did Kant defend the common beliefs -
ask his sisters who could even write?
Nietzsche and Heidegger both had a problem
in getting underway. They both saw only bridges
to somewhere or sometime later than themselves.
Paths toward something more than the here-and-now.
Both thought of the dawn - but perhaps they
were at the twilight and the end.
For Nietzsche, everything is rare. Nietzsche
knew the herd all-to-well. He saw it everywhere.
Platonism for the people was what he was
enraged against. Nietzsche was a sign of
his times - we are still trying to read that
sign.
Without the nothing doing nothingnessing,
then being would not being or Beingnessing.
Can we say Beinghooding and still make sense?
Well, no.
The whole truth - now that says it all. Part
of the truth only shows the problematic nature
of speaking about the truth. Truth or truthfulness
-- are they not concept-mummies left over
from the Greeks?
Why was the Buddha silent when so many questions
were put to him? The Buddha's path was completely
new. People tried to understand him. Their
own views - he did not fit. There the concept-mummies
were of no use against the Buddha's awakening.
Meaninglessness again and again - is this
the fundamental position and theme? Or, is
it yet another worthless dark path?
How to be superficial in a shallow world?
Decisions - decisions. The no-nonsense world
of the uninvolved has to show itself to us
as the final answer.
If falsification is the key to knowledge,
then the key to knowledge is man's openness
to possibility.
Does Heidegger's call to conscience make
sense? Where does this come from? No ethics
here. Maybe a hint at the problem.
A doer for a deed - behind the cause.
What are our idols and ideals today? Youth
is number one. Progress is number two. Dare
I mention multiculturalism?
Systematizers make order out chaos - in fact,
lots of order and chaos. They have no tolerance
for a little chaos. Are chaos levels on the
increase or decrease? Look to the chaos within.
Humility - what could that really mean to
a philosopher? Nothing.
What is the goal today? Next year? Next century?
What can humans hope to achieve in the next
few hundred years? Does the last few hundred
years give any guidance? No - well then once
more into the water well of the future. Let
the truth be seen and push the goal with
the arrow and the bow.
Degeneration of all high values - of all
values. What are the pseudo-values and the
anti-values of nations now?
What has happened to wisdom? Wisdom has become
the un-wise for all of us. What are the symptoms
of wisdom now? Is this the ultimate decline
of wisdom? Not for philosopher - no wisdom
there. Refutation of thinking. The perfect
caricature of a philosopher.
Heidegger hates dialectics - it is such a
threat to thinkers. A sad joke for philosophers.
Moralism - is this concept-mummy even ethical?
I think not.
8/2/2000
Who was the problem - Socrates or Plato?
The problem of Metaphysics is the problem
of these concept-mummies. How can we escape
metaphysics as long as the concept-mummies
dictate how we think? Metaphysics thinks
Being as Being in the most general way. The
beginning of something new - The ontologist
blinks. Would or could the great schoolman
teach us now?
8/9-10/2000 Over the Pacific Ocean
How much science assumes metaphysical thinking?
At the end of metaphysics, then there is
the end of metaphysical thinking and science.
Science and reason two concepts that have
no end in sight - but Kant showed they have
the same power. Although the general public
may question reason, it seems science has
more value than mere reason. The value issue
still speaks to our 'metaphysical thinking'
- it speaks to our place in the history of
metaphysics.
8/16/2000
What are we looking for? How do we know when
we found it? The quest for something. The
quest - points toward the process of wondering.
Why do we seek out the new experience? Or,
is it enough?
The world behind or inside the world of appearances
- what a strange idea. The shadows on the
cave wall - Plato's idea and ideals in one
thought. The essence and extreme disenchantment
in the beginning.
Schelling said the alpha and omega of philosophy
was freedom. How does Heidegger think of
freedom? Freedom breaks open the concept
of system, which is so dear to the idealist
metaphysic, but what is next? The next is
defined as after metaphysics; however, does
freedom still impact our thinking? I am not
so sure.
Oct 2001
When Kant and Hegel think there is reason
in the world and in us, then how could we
disprove them wrong? Would we use reason?
If I can say in ten sentences what other
people write in a book, then why shouldn't
I say it in ten words? Need I say more? Your
answer please!
The most famous three words are "I love
you!" The most devilish three words
in philosophy are "God is dead".
March 2004
Nietzsche said, "I am stilling waiting
for a philosophical physician in the exceptional
sense of that word - one who has to pursue
the problem of total health of a people,
time, race or of humanity - to muster the
courage to push my suspicion to its limit
and to risk the proposition: what was at
stake in all philosophizing hitherto was
not all "truth" but something else
- let us say, health, future, growth, power,
life." (The Gay Science ("la gaya
scienza"), "Preface to the Second
Edition," #2).
So, what does it mean to be a philosophical
physician? From our point of view this viewlessness
may help us overcome our eternal sickness
of philosophical systems
(East meets West). We are sick! We are suffering
from the distress of no distress in this
age. We have lost our sense of Being as whole.
The West has declined and our age lost our
way. We have no goal. Mankind is lost. We
need a philosophical physician to get us
out of the bottle. We are just the little
"fly" moving around in the bottle
looking for a way out of the bottle. Aphorisms:
Martin Heidegger and the new other beginning
(Anfang)
Introduction
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) is one of the
most written about philosophers in the twentieth
century. In many ways, Heidegger is a philosopher's
philosopher. The center, the very heart of
philosophy has always been metaphysics, not
ethics, not politics, not so-called logic,
not the descriptive history of philosophy,
not aesthetics, not philosophy of history
or philosophy of religion; but at the core,
the foundation of philosophy is metaphysics.
This is where the great philosophers - Plato,
Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche,
and now Heidegger are most at home. In Descartes'
analogy, metaphysics is the trunk of the
tree of everything else; the branches are
the sciences and other disciplines. Heidegger
is not putting forward another worldview
or ethical system by which we can live and
that would answer all of our questions, but
rather he is putting forward the radical
transformation our very foundation by pointing
to the nature of man beyond the reasoning
animal, by pointing toward the question of
the nature of Being. The essential point
here is that Heidegger wants to leave metaphysics
behind and approach all of these questions
from a new beginning in philosophy, in thought.
The purpose here is to philosophize with
Heidegger and come to a deeper understanding
of what a new beginning means.
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