calling it a night

Looks like the blog is headed for a new post-rebirth record for number of visitors.

It’s sometimes hard to predict when that will happen, except that:

(a) weekends always mean a significant drop in traffic, and

(b) more posts means more visitors

No surprises there. On the original blog, though, I did notice a lot of Zizek-related traffic; any post on Zizek would boost numbers sky high.

And the same always holds true, of course, for any advice to Angst-ridden dissertation writers. You are my people, and I will lead you from the wilderness. You are a brilliant and serious cross-section of the populace, given to needless self-torture, and I will cast the spell that is needed to give you competence and energy.

most admirable *people* in philosophy

That’s a question we don’t often think about… Who were the most admirable people in the history of philosophy.

Heidegger is clearly ruled out, not just for Nazism, but because he comes off at times as a pedant and a bully. Descartes and Leibniz are both sometimes referred to as incurable sneaks, etc.

I just received Cameron’s vote for Spinoza, Bergson, and Husserl. Not a bad list: all apparently good people. But Kant would be another frequent vote-getter. And I can’t imagine Aquinas was a bad guy.

The ancient Greeks should probably be ruled ineligible, just because they are so old that a patina of legend has grown up around them all.

But, oh yes… Plotinus was widely respected for his character, considered so scrupulously honest that many orphans were willed to his care by dying parents who knew him.

Or we could try it from another angle and ask about the least admirable human characters among the great philosophers. Heidegger must be near the top of the list. Schopenhauer was another worse-than-prickly sort, such as when he threw his maid down the steps for making too much noise.

Oh yes, Francis Bacon… Said to have performed tortures for the government during interrogations, and also said to have kept a 12-year-old boy toy close by his side much of the time. (Bacon’s mother reportedly “worried” about her son’s dealings with this boy.) I also heard a few other nasty stories about Bacon.

As for Giordano Bruno, he would have been loads of fun at a dinner party, but he must have been difficult. And as far as I know, no other philosopher was ever accused of murder. (Not that I think he did it, but still.)

writing up Giordano

His metaphysics seems to me about as diametrically opposed to the truth as possible (for realists, that is; correlationism is much worse). But he’s always a pleasure to read.

There’s also one example of archaic backsliding in his metaphysics– his assumption that something must be permanent to count as substance. One of the highlights of Aristotle compared with earlier Greek thinkers was his breaking of the link between substantiality and permanence. In fact, this link is perhaps the most regrettable feature of all the pre-Socratics as well as Plato. Aristotle broke it. Bruno’s back with it, as are Descartes, Spinoza, and (unfortunately) Leibniz.

Bruno wasn’t the first to backslide on it, of course. Most of Christian philosophy and neo-Platonism did the same thing. But point your finger at “natural kinds” in Aristotle all you like; at least he lets individual frogs and trees be substances without having to last forever. Bruno blows that sky high, and Leibniz too, but even more comically so (dead animals still live somewhere, invisible, attached to tiny bodies).

Permanence: a bad criterion for substance.

I’m starting to think that “towards a weird Aristotle” is the right rallying cry for the next wave of European ontology. He’s pretty much nobody’s ally and everybody’s hanging effigy in our circles at the moment. Only Husserl is more scorned (and Aquinas, I suppose; it’s very cool to cite Scotus, very uncool to cite Aquinas; I avoid the dilemma by citing Suarez, anyway).

I also tend to agree with the remark of Julian Marías that the greatest periods in first philosophy have all come through some sort of intimate contact with Aristotle’s works. Ignore the initial (and misleading) impulse to feel bored while reading Aristotle, and you’ll start to feel yourself very close to the truth very often when reading him. And he really is a comic genius, believe me.

March

Just tallied it up… 21 good incidents in March and 15 bad ones. That’s an active month, but not an especially good one. Usually the good incidents are much better in a month than the bad ones are bad, but this time they’re about equal. Not one of my favorite months.

But the good news is: that’s about as bad as it gets. I think I only had one month in the 8.5 years I’ve been doing this where the bad literally outweighed the good. And to repeat, I’m not unnaturally optimistic, I just think it’s a natural human phenomenon to dwell too much on the bad. There has been real statistical value in unmasking this as mostly an illusion. It was prompted, you may recall, by Aristotle’s statement in the Rhetoric that went something like this: “old people are all bitter, since most things in life turn out worse than we expect.” Aristotle’s noir period, perhaps? That was such a devastating statement that I thought it over for years, and immediately upon moving to Egypt I decided to test the claim month by month.

And I do think Aristotle is largely wrong here. Granted, some people get dealt a truly rotten hand whether through birth or through horrible chance incidents. I don’t want to downplay human tragedy, I just want to point out that it’s probably not quite as widespread as the naturally somewhat morbid human temperament might lead us to fear.

And admittedly, all it would take is one incredibly horrible month to ruin the whole story– an air conditioner falls onto the sidewalk in Cairo this evening and kills me, or whatever. These things do happen. But if you can avoid the dice of the premature Angel of Death, and avoid being on the receiving end of any truly horrible crimes, then things are generally quite a bit better than the noir Aristotle suggests.

proposed running joke

In fact, that old meme is so annoying that I propose it as a running joke for any book whose stylistic difficulties are criticized. Example:

“Being and Event is not very well written.”

Response: “But those are just Badiou’s lecture notes.”

I’m almost tempted, but I have a hard time keeping a straight face while putting people on. Teasing just isn’t in my nature– which is perhaps why I sometimes allow myself to be so uncontrollably wicked on the very rare occasions when I do it.

Aristotle’s style

I’ve always been annoyed by the “Aristotle’s books are just his lecture notes” meme. Not because the theory is impossible, but because it’s a mere speculation presented as all-knowing fact. Like Ross, I tend not to believe it. I’m happy to hear arguments to the contrary, but the cocksure tone of classical erudition with which this statement is generally made predisposes me against it. (And though I’m also sick of the “cocktail party” metaphor for referring to superficial philosophical discussion, I believe I literally first heard the “lecture notes” claim at a cocktail party, which makes it all the more annoying.)

One supposed “proof” that the books are just lecture notes is what a beautiful writer of dialogues Aristotle supposedly was, compared with the supposedly stilted and disjointed tone of the books. But in the first place, I don’t think the tone of his books is so difficult, and Aristotle’s sense of humor is underrated. And in the second place, I see no contradiction between writing dry and difficult philosophical treatises at one moment and beautiful dialogues at other moments. Look at some of Kant’s gorgeous prose from his younger years, compared with the sometimes painful march of the Critiques. One and the same person is capable of writing beautifully and technically, sometimes even in the same book.

But on to a more important point… The sudden discovery of Aristotle’s lost dialogues would probably be one of the most momentous incidents in the history of philosophy. And perhaps it’s not impossible. Perhaps we will live to see it.

Happy 413th Birthday

Happy Birthday to René Descartes. March 31, 1596.

a few thoughts on critique

Some thoughts on critique, in line with others I’ve posted before…

*Critique is worthless unless you really believe the criticisms you’re making. I’ve seen too many reviews that are filled with swarms of questions that the reviewer doesn’t actually give a damn about. They are just empty exercises in looking like a critical thinker. “I’m a sharp cookie. Not much gets past me.” What a pointless display of intelligence.

*The “devil’s advocate” stance is severely overused, and needs to be curtailed. Don’t play devil’s advocate just to needle people. Any philosophical work, even the greatest of them, can be insincerely needled to death by people of above average intelligence and reading background.

*It is sportsmanlike to leave room for an honest counterpunch. You can be highly critical, as long as you’re honestly exposing yourself to an equally critical rejoinder. This entails that you have to be taking a definite intellectual stand in your critique, rather than sneering haughtily from an artificial crow’s nest of transcendental-critical superiority to everything that anyone else might say. (Not to keep beating on Derrida, but even he does this a lot, and it drives me up the wall. So many of his writings seem designed precisely to avoid showing any possible vulnerabilities in his own position and to negate any counterattacks in advance. Das ist nicht fair play.)

*The word “no” is of the paltriest intellectual value. It can be useful, like a raft to cross a river. But carrying a raft around the shore all day long, though it may make you look like an admirable tough guy to anyone who passes, wastes your energy and prevents you from picking up anything else. In 30 years no one is going to care whom you smoked in a critical debate. Either you had ideas that were worth developing, or you didn’t. And remember: it is people younger than you who will ultimately make that decision. If your work is not appealing to the next generation, then you’re on the wrong track. Beating up on your peers and sneering at your elders won’t get you anywhere in the long run. Younger people can’t help your career worth a damn, but they’re the ones who will be weighing your books on the balance in your old age and after you’re long gone.

People who are jerks toward the currently powerless young are making a big mistake– not because they ought to be flattering their potential future publicists, but because addressing the young means addressing people who have no familiarity with the tedious period-piece disputes on which we and every other generation have been raised. And to address such people requires hard thinking. To write a piece of philosophical work that appeals to the current crop of 23-year-olds is an inherently more philosophical act than to score points on professional rivals A and B, because if few people care about such triumphalistic duels even now, absolutely no one will care in a few decades.

places I want to visit

Though I’ve been pretty lucky with travel from age 30 onward, there are still some holes that I badly want to fill. Let’s start with North America, in no particular order.

*Providence, Rhode Island. While reading Joshi’s Lovecraft biography, I’ve sometimes had Google Maps out, just in order to gain a sense of the landscape. I only passed through Providence once on Amtrak, en route from Baltimore to Boston, back in 1988.

*I’d like to live in New York for a year, and Boston for a year. I’ve spent only a week total in each place, which makes me feel like a sorry excuse for an American intellectual.

*Maine

*Quebec City and Vancouver, both obviously stunning in different ways

*Charleston, South Carolina

*A car trip around Florida. I’ve only been in the Miami Airport to and from Brazil, and have otherwise never set foot in the state.

*Las Vegas, just for the fun of it

*Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks

*South Dakota, the only state bordering Iowa where I’ve never been

*Shiloh battlefield in Tennessee, just for the family history of it (where my great-great grandfather took 2 or 3 bullets at age 19 fighting under Grant against the Confederates)

Portland used to be high on my list, but I finally had the chance to go there two years ago to visit my brother in his new hometown, and I enjoyed it very much.

Outside North America…

*sub-Saharan Africa

*southeast Asia

*Pisa and Salzburg are probably the two main European cities I’ve missed

*Russia

*China, incl. Hong Kong

*Australia/New Zealand

*Uzbekistan

*Darjeeling, India

Most likely I won’t hit every single one of these, but I’m glad not to know in advance which ones I’ll miss.

Lovecraft’s dig at intellectual modernism

I’m really starting to wish he had lived another ten years. He was a quote-machine by the end (from page 575 of Joshi):

“When a given age has no new natural impulse toward change, is it not better to continue building on the established forms than to concoct grotesque and meaningless novelties out of thin academic theory?”

He then refers to

“the laboured, freakish, uninspired search for strange shapes which nobody wants and which mean nothing”