Critically abstract
It amazes me how obvious it is that I don't know very much. And the more I learn, the more I realize how much depth there is to my supposed expertise which I can 't plumb in ten lifetimes. It must be like what was going through the mind of that guy who discovered the red shift in distant galaxies. It meant that everything in the universe was flying away from everything else, and that there would come a point (pehaps it has already come) where we could (theoretically) not know the entirety of the universe. Ever. Cosmolgy is humbling, and scary if one considers all the ways instant death can come to this entire planet. And here we are fighting for fractions of its surface. But I digress.
I'm not very perceptive. That is not saying that there is something wrong with my perception, I just don't make it a career goal. I can be perceptive when I want (friends and family can attest to that), but most of the time I'm either fixated on some ludicrous fragment of an idea or "spaced out". I wonder if there's any correlation between eye problems (the simple ones) and these tendencies.
Third related point: philosophy needs to be taught with a profound sense of humour, simply because looking for The Answer is a frustrating task. Laughter makes it easier, and makes it easier to accept the inevitable disappointment. This is particualrly important in abstract endeavours, like logic, where one little problem can bring everything crashing down. So instead of defending the formal rules, just chuckle and shrug it off, and keep going.
For example: "some would argue not-P, on the grounds that we know Q. But in my view, no-one knows anything whatsoever. Therefore P."
I'm not very perceptive. That is not saying that there is something wrong with my perception, I just don't make it a career goal. I can be perceptive when I want (friends and family can attest to that), but most of the time I'm either fixated on some ludicrous fragment of an idea or "spaced out". I wonder if there's any correlation between eye problems (the simple ones) and these tendencies.
Third related point: philosophy needs to be taught with a profound sense of humour, simply because looking for The Answer is a frustrating task. Laughter makes it easier, and makes it easier to accept the inevitable disappointment. This is particualrly important in abstract endeavours, like logic, where one little problem can bring everything crashing down. So instead of defending the formal rules, just chuckle and shrug it off, and keep going.
For example: "some would argue not-P, on the grounds that we know Q. But in my view, no-one knows anything whatsoever. Therefore P."
posted by A. D. at 2:19 PM
2 Comments:
i want to learn philosophy from you - i want philosophy without the seriousness, without the "listen to me, or the world will end". i want philosophy with humour. other people tried to teach me philosophy, and rather failed. so now, my limited experience of it is limited to sophie's world, and foucalt's pendulum (both interesting, both fiction).
so umm... please?
Well, why not? (Not that I'm such a great expert, but I've put my fingers in a lot of pies.) We can sit down and drink tea and discuss. Like in old days when people talked to each other--because there was nothing else to do...
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