Aesthetic value of freedom

Why is freedom attractive? Because creativity is attractive and freedom means the space to be creative.

Why is creativity attractive? Because experience is attractive and creativity is the positive use of the imagination to create experiences which our emotions grasp for.

Compare Paris to New York. When we first think of it, Paris is the more attractive city – with its cafes, landscapes and romantic overtone. But with further reflection we recognise the beauty of New York may be greater. This on account of the aesthetic value we see in its mythos of freedom: New York is a beacon of individual freedom, a place where you can create a life – make something of yourself. That is beautiful.

The Gods we ought to kill

John Capper, reflecting of Nietzsche’s ‘Death of God’ says…

The worst of religion is where it is used as a construct to build a society of uncritical people who are not empowered to actually explore and engage life for themselves. And it seems to me that if that’s what God does and that’s what religion is than that’s the kind of God I would like to see die, quite frankly.

Amen.

Ad hominem is a logical fallacy

1. I attack arguments by pointing out the fallacy of the perspective from which the arguments derive their content.

2. Person B holds his perspective in great esteem and refuses to see the world differently, even for the sake of thought experiment.

3. Therefore, according to Person B, my arguments are a logical fallacy; they become magically so. He thinks I should see the brilliance of his arguments, ignoring the unsupportable foundational beliefs upon which his arguments, reason and logic stands.

Yes, logicians truly are idiots.

Epistemology: insecurity seeking assurance

A speculative, futile and tediously stupid engagement for those with little faith in and courage for this world. The epistemologist imagines an other-world in which something called truth or knowledge is to be found. This is his delusion and he wastes his life away with it. He is to be pitied more than all men.

What is art?

Art is a perception of the world that desires your emotions. It need not be beautiful, it need not be something you would deliberately seek out; it could be something ugly and repulsive. It is something that captivates with deep emotion and its existence overwhelms.

Philosophy is…

The systematic abuse of technical terms invented specifically for that purpose.

Bertrand Russell

Why non-existential philosophy is not philosophy

This ought to require no explanation. Only those deluded enough to think that abstract conceptual speculation – an utterly futile activity – amounts to philosophy would maintain the contrary. Philosophy is being a friend of wisdom. It is a wisdom of life, of existence. The pure thinker forgets his existence in abstract, speculative philosophy.

Although Kierkegaard is proclaimed as the ‘father of existentialism’, the first existentialist was Socrates with ‘know thyself’. Philosophy is instrically bound up with the self and its relation to the world. Abstract conceptual analysis is the lowest form of philosophy, and indeed does not deserve to be called philosophy, which is the love of wisdom.

As Montaigne wrote:

If man were wise, he would guage the true worth of anything by its usefulness and appropriateness to his life.

And Epicurus:

Just as medicine confers no benefit if it does not drive away physical illness, so philosophy is useless if it does not drive away the suffering of the mind.

William James on Philosophy

With his obscure and uncertain speculations as to the intimate nature and causes of things, the philosopher is likened to a ‘blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that is not there.’

Some Problems of Philosophy : A Beginning of an Introduction to Philosophy (1911) Ch. 1 : Philosophy and its Critics

Non-Platonic Christianity: is there hope for it yet?

I think so. Theologians preaching a less other-worldly Christianity are becoming quite popular these days.

e.g. P.A.N.T Wright: Christians Wrong About Heaven, Says Bishop

This was also encouraging to see: Weekly Digest — The God of the living

and Heaven; who needs it?

Nietzsche and Marx would be a little less disturbed considering these developments.

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P.A: Pretentiously abbreviated