Sunday, February 28, 2010

The philosopher class

Lately I've been watching this special on Immanuel Kant on NJN2, some Harvard professor named Michael Sandel giving the lecture. Exciting class, kids all look interested, lots of Asian faces. Like my friend and I were talking, you're in Barnes & Noble and there's some hot Asian chicks in the cafe studying who won't even give you the time of day because their parents have used YOU as an example of what not to wind up to be in Life, you're a walking warning in your Dockers and Reeboks stimulating their studies. There's just something about You, you give off the stench of a low-wage job and don't seem confident. You pass a chick in a department store and your eyes wander and then she notices and buttons up that top button, you must be giving off a stalker vibe or something. Interesting stuff as when we are told that Kant thought it always wrong to lie so if a murderer knocks on your front door and asks if your friend is in there you have to tell him the truth, give up your buddy, something to do with you can't make exceptions to the categorical imperative. Philosophy usually takes weird turns every now and then like when I was in Catholic high school our professor talked about solipsism a Greek word which basically means there's no objective reality outside of your own mind which means that nothing else exists, you just imagined it all which if true then why the hell did I get up to go to work these past 25 years? You can't blame it all on the acid, that didn't come until 1938 but you did have your morning glory seeds, the heavenly blues so don't know if some of the Thinkers accidentally ever swallowed some. I was thinking about the nature of dreams the other day, what are they exactly? Now we all know that dreams ain't real but they do exist on some level otherwise you wouldn't have dreamt. Put another way a dream happened somewhere, it took place in your mind, your imagination which has its own existence so if it makes you feel any better maybe Kim Cattrall really did kiss you au naturel in the kitchen. Arthur Schopenhauer, said to lead the philosophical school of thought known as Pessimism. What I wanna know is did the philosphers ever work a day in their lives? hold down your typical 9-5's or did they just think all day? We've all heard "if a tree falls in a forest and there's nobody around does it make a noise?" and along these lines what's the deal with this tinnitus-type state? I mean the noise is real to me, what am I nuts? Maybe I'm gonna give my two weeks at work and spend the next few years pondering the finer points of Life but getting back to dreams if you work in your dreams as I do shouldn't you get paid for it? Maybe we're all dead. BTW Obama ain't real folks, get over it!!

5 comments:

  1. Kant? Kan't understand the guy,
    never kould. Had a couple friends, majored in philosophy; one is a baker, the other a realtor. IMO,
    some of us are drawn to it, others immune. Had a couple college courses, Aristotlean Logic and
    Philosophy of Religions. Being real old and a habitual reader, been exposed in spite of myself.
    So, sort of liked Aristotle, Blaise Pascal, Spinoza, Francis Bacon, John Scotus Eriginus, Desiderus Erasmus and Maimonides.
    OK, science types and religious rebels, those guys. Learned to hate the subject from Satre, Hegel,
    Hobbes, Foucault, Schopenhauer (read Schopie while in basic training..double ick), Marcus
    Aurelius, Camus, Hume, and Kierkegaard. For us simple folk, life is complicated enough, Z-man...as for the tree falling in the woods, science informs that
    the energy of impact will create vibrational effect, some of which is in the form of sound waves. If we aren't there to hear that..must be Satre's fault. :)

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  2. "...Aristotle, Blaise Pascal, Spinoza, Francis Bacon, John Scotus Eriginus, Desiderus Erasmus and Maimonides..."

    Did any of these guys work?

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  3. Work? Sure..kind of;
    Spinoza was a lens grinder (hand polishing) ground glass powder hard on health, died at 44..
    Pascal received a substantial inheritance, was also a mathematician (there is a computer code called TurboPascal) and writer...
    Bacon was an English gentleman,
    Parliament, solicitor-general, Lord Chancellor, etc...
    Ereginus was very early, took over the Theology School established by Charlemagne & Alcuin...
    Maimonides was a physician and rabbi. (I suspect back in the days, they had patrons..now days
    we might call it consultant work?
    And of course, they wrote and published with varying degrees of financial success.

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  4. Dang! forgot Erasmus. He was a Catholic priest, sometime professor..but was happy studying Greek and being dirt poor..he felt that if he 'worked' for a patron he might have to compromise his
    POV.

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  5. I'm the same way, I never want to compromise my blogging POV and the day I do that's the day to hang up the old keyboard.

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