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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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