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Divining Value
When you realise that water divining is an unreliable method of finding water, you turn away from it, if you want to find water. And so when you realise that the market is an unreliable measure of value, you turn away from it, if you want to have true beliefs about what really matters. The market pronounces philosophy worthless. But this is no more than a water diviner saying ‘there is no water here’. They would not know if there were when there is, or were not when there is not, and so what use is their pronouncement?
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The Quietist’s Prayer
‘Give me silence, but not yet.’
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Pyramid Scheme
The great pyramid scheme of academic philosophy is in danger of collapsing; and if they are not careful the pharaohs responsible for its construction will be buried beneath ruins of their own making. They cannot complain for getting what they choose.
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Pissed Off
I sound angry. I am angry. I’m pissed off, because you people are pissing away something precious and are so pleased with yourselves for pissing so high, caught up in the competition of seeing who can piss the highest. ‘See me, I am a professor of pissing!’
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Sour Grapes
The difference between the fox and me is that I have tasted the grapes and would not taste them again.
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The Product of Philosophy
The function or task or proper work (ergon) of philosophy is only to think well. But in thinking well, you realise that our purpose or goal or aim (telos) as human beings is to live well; by which we mean to live in a way that is ethically excellent, among other things. And so the product of philosophical activity becomes just that: to live well by thinking well.
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A Philosopher’s Verse
Is this the purpose of philosophy / Just to know, and not to be? / Just a show so not to see / Your own lived inconsistency? […]
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Harvest Festival
How philosophers are treated: The people, when their bellies are full, turn to the farmers and say: ‘You have grown us food, and we are grateful, but now we are full and have no need of you.’ They will think differently when the next harvest is needed.
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Outsourcing
You can inform your ethical thinking but you can’t outsource it.
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Nothing is Hidden in Philosophy
Mystics say ‘there is a profound and mysterious truth that I know, but you cannot know because you are not a great master, like me’. But Epicurus says ‘anyone can know this’, and Socrates says not only that anyone can know this, but you already know this and have forgotten!
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Serious Contradictions
We have forgotten to take these things seriously. We lecture about how philosophers should not lecture but ask questions. We demand honours and titles for a discipline that claims to renounce honours and titles. We charge fees for something that we say is priceless. We live in contradiction with ourselves and then call ourselves logicians.
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What is Philosophy?
What is philosophy? ‘The construction of arguments.’ You may as well say that music is the activity of plucking strings. Some musicians do this, of course, and it can be done well or badly, but that is hardly the point.
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Like Playing Music
Philosophy, when done properly, is like playing a musical instrument. The outsider only sees the music written down and thinks that this is all it means to play music. But the player reads the music and plays.
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Out of the Pit
Rousseau says we cannot complain that God does not drag us out of the pit because He has given us everything we need to not fall into it in the first place; but the philosopher has also been given everything they need to drag themselves out!
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Profit and Loss
Some philosophers treat ethics like it were a career in finance; wherein the primary measures are gross profit and what you can expect to earn in return.
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Good Enough
I am convinced that virtue is necessary for happiness. I am not convinced that it’s sufficient. But knowing that it is necessary to be good is good enough for me.
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Be More of What is Good
The goal in life is not to have more of what is good but to be more of what is good.
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Dirty Water
If you think you are swimming in dirty water, you get out. You don’t keep swimming, adding to the filth.
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Junk and Nonsense
A lot of philosophy and philosophers are junk and nonsense. But you can’t dismiss philosophy itself for that. There are a lot of bad musicians and bad music, but that doesn’t make music itself bad.
An experiment with philosophy as a way of life
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