[lit-ideas] Re: Hylomorphism -- A Dogma?
- From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 10:02:22 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Aug 25, 2004 2:49 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Hylomorphism -- A Dogma?
Thank you, JL. When philosophers start talking about 'form' or 'substance'
or 'accidents', etc. I get squirrelly. I'm never sure just what they're
talking about. And it has seemed to me that every philosopher means
something just a little bit different by the terms. Hence the history of
philosophy. My first instinct is to say, well, they're the philosophers,
they should know, and then hit myself on the head with a hammer hoping for
enlightenment. Philosophy is as complicated as physics, I know, and a hell
of a lot older with more subject matter to be mastered so why should I
expect to know what philosophers are talking about any more than what
physicists are talking about without having devoted years to studying them?
Why? I don't know why. But, in fact, I do expect that philosophy should be
self-evidently accessible to. And I think I do know why. It's because I
think Philosophy is about why we live, something that arises more out of the
experiences of my life than through the experiences of others. I think I'm
as much a philosopher as anyone, and I suspect every taxi driver, ditch
digger, CEO and movie star thinks the same.
A.A. Boy, do you overestimate people. Most people get their philosophy out of
People magazine and reality shows. Even the "educated" ones.
M.G. To most of us, I contend,
philosophy is the sense we make of our own lives.
A.A. Most people sleepwalk their lives, with the occasional orgasm to wake
them up. Once the orgasm is over, they are back to sleepwalking. That is why
the Search for Good Sex. Not because it feels good, but because it feels.
Period.
M.G. But that's certainly not
what the academic study of the canon of thinkers identified as philosophers
is all about. Now if Mike Chase wants to argue that philosophy should not
be confined to the stagnant bays of Marsh's Library, I would tend to agree
with him -- generally. But it seems to me that there is a difference
between, say poetry and philosophy. Take Wallace Steven's stanza from _Le
Monocle De Mon Oncle_.
VII
The mules that angels ride come slowly down
The blazing passes, from beyond the sun.
Descensions of their tinkling bells arrive.
These muleteers are dainty of their way.
Meantime, centurions guffaw and beat
Their shrilling tankards on the table-boards.
This parable, in sense, amounts to this:
The honey of heaven may or may not come,
But that of earth both comes and goes at once.
Suppose these couriers brought amid their train
A damsel heightened by eternal bloom.
Is this poetry or philosophy? Or both?
A.A. A damsel heightened by eternal bloom is the search for eternal youth.
Accompanied by couriers to take care of her/us. The lament of the aging
adolescent.
M.G. It's obviously not history.
Psychology maybe? It may be of interest to psychologists, but it's
certainly not psychology.
A.A. The ever appealing angels mixing with humans. Angels saving humans once
again from themselves.
M.G. Literay Studies has fun with it, and, from my
persepective, Literary Studies is closer to philosophy than poetry. The
passage asks questions about the nature of reality, but only as literature
can, I think -- does Mike Chase say this passage (not to mention the entire
poem) qualifies as philosophy as much as poetry? Richard Rorty seems to
make the claim that fiction is the only real philosophy being done today. I
wonder if he doesn't mean that philosophizing from fiction is the only
philosophy being done today.
A.A. This is a beautiful passage. Essentially, it says life is short, it's a
bitch, it's a fantasy, and then we die (The honey of heaven may or may not
come, But that of earth both comes and goes at once.). Perhaps it is
philosophy, confirming once again that life is but what we make of it in our
imaginations.
Andy Amago
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