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Ever-Changing sive Everlasting?

Can oneself be ever satisfied? The answer is quite obvious. If we are finite beings, it follows we will never be totally satisfied. Or is that not right? For one could also say that because we are finite, then that is why, on the contrary, we can be completely fulfiled. But it seems common sense saying we are insatiable—by our very nature. The question cannot be either of those mentioned above. Now we must ask ourselves: how can these two accounts be possible? How can one person say we are completely insatiable because of our finitude, when another says we can actually be satisfied because of the same reason, that is, we being finite?

All things are always changing. If we needed permanence in order to fulfil our desires then we would inexorably be unhappy and dissatisfied. Yet, if we cannot afford stoping things from change, at the same time there is something permanent going on here—change being unavoidable, it is also permanent. In this case, perhaps, the person who absolutely needs permanence could have it with eternal variance. And the other who does want change, may be happy with a continuous sort of it.

But why is it so easy thinking that no-one can be really happy in this world? Aristotle said, in the beggining of his Nicomachean Ethics, that men are born to be happy and to seek happiness (or eudaimonia in ancient Greek). If men are born needing to look for happiness, it is not hard to conclude that we are born unhappy and aspiring to something we do not have. Satisfaction of our desires and needs is the first object of human will. There is a hole we feel and have to fill. We are beings of wanting, since we are incomplete.

However, who is capable of assuring we are incomplete? Unfortunately, that is not a good objection. Everything we are in need of, we do not have. And a being that is not self-sufficient is not an indepedent one; and so depends on, at least, other people—if we are to ignore higher needs, which arise inevitably due to our short breath on this Earth. Death is another limit human beings have to face. We ourselves are scarce, we ourselves do not have that many resources. And so expiration is inevitable, as breathing once was.

***

Our question is still posed. And there are two philosophical claims that correspond to each of them. The first one is of an atheist kind; it is the defense of a good life (or beatitude in Spinoza’s terminology) here in this world. The other acknowledges this life as one of misery, although some sort of happiness is to be found through Grace, that is, if God so wishes. In this case, evil is inevitable and the only remedy humans may found is Hope.

All of which is a new question already.

Posted 21 March 2008 † Adriano Correia § Ethics ‡ Comments (5) ° Tagged: ,

Philosophy as a Neverending Course of Action

Let us try to understand the difference between philosophy as a quest for wisdom and knowledge from philosophy as a profession, as an academic subject. Can they co-exist? More than that, what does it mean to have a quest? A reader of ours asked me if one can be led astray in his enterprise, and then go with the wind. And there is no other answer than, Yes!, one can in fact get lost and lose view of what one aimed. As to the attitude, I am forced to think of it not in terms of progress, but as existing or not. Yet the course of action is clearly submitted to progress, and progress just means that there is a beggining and an end. A process is much like progress, although sometimes progress is not said as a course of action but as little achievements in this course, and then we can say that someone is making progress, or advancing, or still getting better (like in the Beatles song).

There are, then, two ways we can say what a quest is. As an attitude or as a course of action. Attitudes are the way in which people pose themselves towards situations or how they face their problems. Living each second as it goes by can be an ideal in a Buddhist’s life. And that can also be said a quest, if we think a person trying to act accordingly must make constant effort to concentrate herself in the here and now. However, there is not much to accomplish in this quest, unless the Buddhist replies to us saying that having self-control is much already. What is perhaps left to object is that his quest is not extrinsic to him. On the contrary, it is intrinsic. Even our quest being born out of ourselves, its object lies outside us. And this is not that interesting to the Buddhist who tries to avoid the content of his senses.

How then can a search for knowledge be better or worse if it is an attitude? In our definition, we can only say that an attitude is or is not. But if we are talking about a course of action, then it surely has degrees and one can undoubtly evaluate if he is making progress towards his goal or not. More than that, if that which the quest aims lies outside itself, then the distance one is from his quest has to be said shorter or longer.

As we talk of philosophy, however, I cannot think of a single case in which the final aim has been achieved completely. And that not even in the case of one of the most complete philosophers, Aristotle. Actually, not even the great Aquinas or the great Kant have achieved the final goal of “knowing it all”, which is in fact very unrealistic.

Posted 23 February 2008 † Adriano Correia § Propaedeutics ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: ,

Philosophy Is (Not) a Weapon

The question ‘Is philosophy better now than it was in 1997?’ is not a good question, for it has a hidden premiss, that is, the state of philosophy can be better or worse. Is that true? It might be. Yet, I propound that we take it as a false postulate: philosophy cannot be better or worse, even if we take into account students qualities or general teachers abilities. People can only start proposing such productivity or creativity measures when philosophy is not taken as love of wisdom anymore, but just as a new profession or occupation. Imagine the reader that an European living in the very beginning of the nineteenth century makes a poll trying to acknowledge who was more productive, creative or just better: Rene Descartes or Immanuel Kant? Does such question even make sense? I can say that it does, if we take philosophers as unstoppable factories or as ingenious artists.

Taking philosophy less as a profession than as an ideal that can guide or misguide a man’s life, then we might be able to understand that creativity or productivity are not the points of proper good action. A better way of facing the question is to understand philosophy as an end in itself — and that would be a truly disinterested action, or just plain love. Conceiving philosophy as a kind of love, a contemplative one, is not what one could call wishful thinking. Philosophy is not said love of wisdom because saying so is cute, or because new-age minded people are keen to repeat it over and over. Love is disinterested not because it does not have an object or a point in view, but because love is both interested and not interested.

When one asserts that, it may seem like what is being said — the proposition P ^ -P — is an obvious paralogism. Actually, this is not the case. The sentence P is not univocal, it is equivocal. Or, in other words, we have the assertion of an ambiguity, but one that does not make the proposition P ^ -P false, because even if there is equivocality, both propositions have their own exact meaning, and each of them can be said and can be said clearly, or unequivocally.

Sentence P being ‘philosophy is an interested subject’ and -P being ‘philosophy is not an interested subject’, in the first case it means philosophy has a proper object and this is wisdom or knowledge; in the second case it means that the search for knowledge does not depend upon someone’s bias, but it relies only on knowledge itself. Thus, Philosophy can be said a reflexive discipline, meaning that it is an endless contemplation, but one that occurs on the base of love, love of knowledge per se.

Posted 23 January 2008 † Adriano Correia § Propaedeutics ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: , ,

What Is Happening Now

Right at this moment, there is no Philosophy Quest on air. We are only trying to set a layout that might bring the idea of old-fashioned typography to the reader’s mind. In fact, this text is only a helper to check if things are aligned properly. Anyway, if you are reading this, I thank you for your patience.

Posted 20 January 2008 † Adriano Correia § Updates ‡ Comments (0) °