| On Sophie's World: Clarification - book, 5 stars ii) World weary in a word is jaded. [so odd how I never thought of it this way. 'jaded' popularly has all these adolescent connotations which I resist, yet world weariness to me has been a delightful ideal. at very least, it lends diversity to the otherwise boringly pink field of human passion. I mean the general passion worship of certain societies.
I revisted Gaarder on the subject and realised that either I disagree with him, or there's more refinement to be done within me. I don't want to be a flea on the tip of a rabbit's hair! Or do I? Such fleas are the least of fleas, for they are least fucking flea like; or are they the greatest of fleas? That turns on what it means to be a flea doesn't it?
Perhaps where I stand is on the stool that reads, one should ask one's own questions and not seek to answer always those which are asked by others. There are few things more annoying than the sight of a thousand fleas hopping about a host in their seemingly hyper-social state. That of course depends on whose perspective you hold, the man's, the rabbit's, or the fleas'.
So what is the problem, the problem which I have with the professional pursuit of philosophy? Overharshly, one might say exactly what the philosophers are expecting us to say... that they are adolescent, that they lack wisdom. But that is precisely their goal, not to find wisdom, but to relinquish her authority upon them. When she presents answers, they thrust forth with questions. Not always so, for metaphors are mere metaphor. So what is it that philosophers do?
It must be noted that they are not always philosophers either, for they tend to also have 'merely human' lives outside of academia. Thus philosophy is the academic discipline of asking questions, not finding them. Philosophers go home after work each day, and for the most part cease to be philosophers, at least so long as they allow themselves to partake in family, friends, and occasional festivities. Well that is one definition of philosophy.
According to it then, we must always remember that the role of the philosopher is always that of the devil's advocate. When instead a professor turns to appreciate wisdom, rather than to question it, he ceases to be philosophical, and becomes something else. This distinction is not often clearly made. It is in fact at this point where each professional philosopher turns to her/his religious appreciation of life. Neither is that fact often appreciated.] |