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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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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.
An experiment with philosophy as a way of life
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