A Fine Line between Philosophy and Humor

There's a fine line between being philosophical and being funny. Philosophy is the science of estimating values. Humor is the art of revealing them. The superiority of any state or substance over another is determined by philosophy, and yet the author of this blog registers all states and substances as equal in their existence, just not in their time/space/location/position along the rope of destiny. 

By assigning a position of primary importance to what remains when all that is secondary has been removed, philosophy becomes the true index of priority or emphasis in the realm of speculative thought. By walking that rope for yourself, the primary importance shifts to one single, solitary, a priori focus:

Don't fall!

The mission of philosophy a priori is to establish the relation of manifested things to their invisible ultimate cause or nature. The mission of humor is to point out the relationship in relation to something else, i.e., the absurdity of an elephant showing off his extraordinary balance.

If you consult philosophy's giants on the matter, "Philosophy," writes Sir William Hamilton, "has been defined [as]: The science of things divine and human, and the causes in which they are contained [Cicero]; The science of effects by their causes [Hobbes]; The science of sufficient reasons [Leibnitz]; The science of things possible [Wolf]; The science of things evidently deduced from first principles [Descartes]; The science of truths, sensible and abstract [de Condillac]; The application of reason to its legitimate object [Tennemann]; The science of the relations of all knowledge to the necessary ends of human reason [Kant]; The science of the original form of the ego or mental self [Krug]; The science of sciences [Fichte]; The science of the absolute [von Schelling]; The science of the absolute indifference of the ideal and real [von Schelling, again]; The identity of identity and non-identity [Hegel]; Trying is the first step towards failure [Homer Simpson]. 

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A Little Theory of Enchantment

A Little Theory of Enchantment 

(Saturday morning musings)

Pure reason supplies our over-arching concepts for grand and otherwise overwhelming items. When we are dazed and enchanted by a night sky full of stars, this wildness is somewhat tamed when we make use of the rational concept of space and time.

The deepest sense of the sublime is our recognition of this power of reason to grasp something extremely awesome and essentially unpresentable. It is the major artifice of intellectual power to grasp ideas in the first place.

Take a short historical romp with me through a few of the religions of the world to see the theory of enchantment in operation ...

Let us start with the ROMANTIC ... a sublimity in the intuition of oneness between nature, humanity, and the notion of existence. Nietzsche made the sublime encompass the entire domain of cultural symbolism and philosophic speculation - the entire net of culture as the territory of the sublime.

Whether this vast sublime domain is under the control of reason or the will to power, for it to be so it must FIRST be placed under the control of FANTASY, a fantasy which rests on pure existence. Out of everything, and out of nothing is pure existence ... be it manifest or unmanifest.

Human fantasy lays down the wholly fictional constructs that give grand coherence to each person's life. We see these examples expressed daily on social media. Consider the remarkable bond between the Chinese mind and the concept of the mysterious Tao, the absolute which uses Yin and Yang as its agents for creating the world. Those who discount this idea as a non-truth, might instead classify it as a great cultural fantasy which satisfied their civilization for centuries.

All of our major religions, cultural, and ideological beliefs are in this sense made possible by the psychological ability to construct a notion of fantasy and enchantment.

To dramatize this theory, we might consider a hypothetical dispute between a Methodist and a Catholic. For Catholics, Holy Communion has maximum sublime power because of transubstantiation. The Methodist believe that the supposed miraculous conversion of wine to blood is a superstitious Catholic fantasy, and that the Methodists have a better theory of communion, as a memorial service to Jesus as the Christ.

To a Zen Buddhist, the Catholic model and the Methodist model are both improper fantasies. If Augustine says that he feels sublime bonding to an invisible City of God, and if Marx says he feels such a bond to the socialist state, Augustine and Marx show the same symptom of deluded fantasy.

It is a little known Theory of Enchantment (little know for I have just now written it, in this post) ... that enables all theories to yield a powerful joy and simultaneously touch the deepest psychological core of jouissance and desire.

In my world, the Self and the Mysterious Other are best construed as one something seeking another something, because each entity is, in essentialist language, complete and whole in and of itself, an abundance, existence, a positivity that enables manifest reality.

If we are to have a true history of human culture, we need not decide who is right or who is wrong, but that there is room for all theories and realities to simultaneously exist in the cosmic vacuum needed by an expanding universe.

On a more simple level, we each have our tea parties to which we invite friends to achieve the perfect balance of harmony in the operations of the real world.

This is my Saturday morning story. I shall now sit atop Mt. Olympus with histories great Greek intellectuals and partake of a highly attractive breakfast of nectar and honey.

Bonne journée !

The Art of Being Carefree

The art of feeling carefree, free from anxiety or responsibility, is the delight one feels associated with the sublime and is not linked to form, i.e., a preconceived judgment on how "serious" one should respond to the external environment and needs of the body.

Carefreeness (form) seems to be preadapted to our power of judgment, whereas seriousness (limitlessness and totality) is violent toward our imagination, overriding it with every "serious" thought. 

Allowing oneself to feel carefree implies furtherance of life and, thus, it is compatible with charm and playful imagination. The sublime quality associated with carefreeness implies a furtherance of earnestness in the concerns of the imagination. Since the mind is repelled by stress, the mental and emotional strain or tension resulting from our perspective of adverse or demanding circumstances requiring serious examination, the accumulation of vital forces produces not play but a hindrance of peaceful dignity. 

It is noteworthy to highlight that the point here is not necessarily insouciance as opposed to a relaxed calm, but the representation of composure and mental serenity that comes with the mental state of feeling calm and untroubled. 

The "art" associated with maintaining a carefree state while engaging in circumstances that require our attention is indeed a creative activity as maintaining any given state of mind requires skill, something typically acquired through practice. 

Purposely choosing to respond to life's demands in a carefree fashion produces a dignity unfamiliar to the majority who like Kant, see the sublime as a hindrance of the well-known serious attitudes associated with progress. When the state of carefree is chosen and skillfully maintained, the sublime quality of dignity arises, an ideal goal to be earnestly sought for. 

The characteristics of dignity of mind, which arise from the skillful continuance of the state of carefreeness, produces a multitude of responses concerned with the processes and products of human existence and social life (as contrasted with the belief that progress lies in serious critique and judgment prior to understanding). The sense of pride in oneself arising from decorum, propriety, and noble intent progresses our imagination towards ad infinitum. Irregularity and disorder are mere subjective judgments, whereas the dignity that arises from purposeful carefreeness releases the mind from the belief that seriousness is the highest response. Surely being "serious" is a response one can choose, but it is not the only response. Thus other states of mind contribute to the positive outcome of life's many experiences. These states are explorable. 

While irregularity and disorder will still naturally arise in one's life (the perception of irregularity is experienced when one is maintaining a specific state as opposed to every conceivable state, such as is the perspective of being held in a physical mechanism), comprehension that these circumstances can be met from an entirely peaceful state of mind is where the neutral point of human response lies. The mere understanding that there is a "choice" is not only empowering but can lead to our successfully overriding the human tendency to "tense up" when encountering irregularity. 

Successfully maintaining this state of mind perhaps requires a quantum leap in imaginative thought. At a minimum it requires a willingness to explore. It is the explorations we undertake that moves the soul from one state to the next. 

The many explorations of form, perceived as true explorations of form, produces a calm in our sense of symmetry with a main axis that leads the eye to the horizon of what is rather than what can be produced. As with everything in life, the art of maintaining any state is a matter of intent, perspective, and choice. While these perceptions and their resulting actions can be perceived as processes and hence as an excitatory state independent of the sublime dignity felt in carefreeness, they are merely a matter of style. 

Rousseau, Kant and Marx Walk Into An Enlightened Bar

The Weiner Court of Muses

Der Weimarer Musenhof (1860); Schiller liest in Tiefurt

Theobald von Oer

If enlightenment is an aspect of our true biological nature, we can make a reasoned case for seeking out its continuation or presence in all other things. If, however, by means of technological advancement, we ultimately transcend the biological limitations that have long-since defined the experience of being human, i.e., finite existence, then the questions surrounding enlightenment may no longer hold our imagination captive.

Discourse

Utilizing Kant’s Definition of Enlightenment:

Discuss Rousseau, Kant and Marx as Enlightened Figures

Kant’s (1724 – 1804) theory of enlightenment bridges the gap between the rationalist and empiricist traditions of 18^th century Europe; a time characterized by dramatic revolutions in science, philosophy, politics, and the social order. Despite spending his entire life in the town of his birth, Königsberg (the then capital of Prussia; now Kaliningrad in Russia), Kant is regarded as one of the most influential European philosophers since the Ancient Greeks.

            For Kant, enlightenment was “man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity,” which, if cultivated by means of his “natural endowments” (i.e., one’s own reason), could serve to free him from the restrictions that prevent enlightenment. By this reckoning, Kant would consider any scholar, who offered the public a “carefully considered, well-intentioned thought on the mistaken aspects” of any doctrine, an enlightened person, or at the very least, an individual freely acting out “their own reason in all matters of conscience” in order to “liberate mankind from immaturity”.

            “It is a great and beautiful spectacle to see a man somehow emerge from oblivion by his own efforts, dispelling with the light of his reason the shadows in which nature had enveloped him, rising above himself, soaring in his mind right up to the celestial regions, moving, like the sun, with giant strides through the vast extent of the universe, and, what is even greater and more difficult, returning himself in order to study man there and learn of his nature, his obligations, and his end.”

                         

            Rousseau's (1712 – 1778) explanation of human beings as initially existing in a “state of nature is a highly romanticized one. He is thus known as the first philosopher of Romanticism, and for his argument that human beings are innately good, but have had their behavior altered by the corrupting influences of society. Given Rousseau’s influence on Kant’s work, in particular in the area of ethics, we can deduce that Kant considered Rousseau an enlightened figure.

The Happy Accidents of the Swing

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732 - 1806)

           For Kant, moral law is based on rationality, whereas with Rousseau, nature is a constant theme that should not be ignored. Despite these differences, like Rousseau, rather than ask the traditional question about whether our knowledge accurately reflects reality, Kant asked how reality affected our cognition or understanding. He attributed what we know as something that is determined by the nature of our sensory and cognitive apparatus. More simply put, knowledge starts with experience, which then requires ordering by the mind. Thus, it is possible by means of our reason, to discover universal truths about our world.  

            Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) thought that reality was historically constituted, containing internal conflicts that drive change. Like Kant, Marx thought that external (economic) forces affected our cognition and understanding.

            Marx’s work had a profound effect on world history, leading a third of the world’s population to live under regimes claiming allegiance to his philosophy. Like Kant, Marx believed that all concepts (including the processes belonging to history) were open to rational investigation. In other words, the historical situations upon which Marx based his philosophies were situations that contained internal conflicts that could be alleviated.

            Similar to Rousseau’s explanation of how social or external influences affected the natural state of mankind, Marx saw the inexorable logic driving the course of history as material, rather than spiritual, evidence for changes, and ultimately, the oppression of mankind, or more specifically, the worker. While Rousseau perceived social influences as something that affected human action, Marx further explained how those material forces, which affect human action, in turn, served as the engine of social change.

Diego Rivera (1886 - 1957)

Diego Rivera (1886 - 1957)

            For Marx, the dialectical conflict between distinct socioeconomic classes that production and distribution produce determines the course of history, driving social change, which ultimately contributes to the nature of class conflict. Thus, the opium of the people, accordingly, is that which sustains the status quo, the “superstructural” social phenomena (such as political institutions, religions, ideologies, philosophies, and the arts) that only serve the ruling class – the bourgeoisie.

La Bourgeoisie (1894)

Émile Pouget

            Much like how 18^th century philosophers experienced what their generation considered to be inconceivable heights of intelligence, industrial progress, and longevity; we again find ourselves on the brink of great social and philosophical change, the ramifications of which will be profound for enlightenment thinkers. The adjustments technological advancement pose present a glimpse of the coming age that is both a dramatic culmination of centuries of social, philosophical, and technological ingenuity as well as a genuinely inspiring vision of what Kant meant by “enlightenment” (man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity”). At the onset of the twenty-first century, two hundred years after Kant’s death, humanity once again stands on the verge of reconsidering what it means to be enlightened, not only in this discourse, but as a global community living in an era in which technology will challenge the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged.

*Disclaimer:

Rousseau, Kant and Marx are still in the bar discussing their theories of enlightenment.