Thursday, April 17, 2008

Exactly How Boring is Philosophy?

There was a guy named Gilbert Ryle. And a lot of the philosophy guys I knew in the late 60's when I went to school for that really deplored Ryle. He had this "knowing how vrs knowing that" thing. Damned if I can remember. The innovative part, though, was the knowing how. I think Ryle held that lofty confusions about the nature of Knowledge get more manageable when we see that much of our knowledge is (merely) knowing how to tie our shoes (I think somehow that was a favorite example).
Personally, I was a late shoe-tire. That's right, shoe-tire. Late at a lot of stuff. I am almost universally acknowledged to be incredibly young/immature for my age. You are as old as you feel. Do not be confused though. You are not necessarily as old as what you feel. What you feel is probably only seconds old, yet as old as the hills.
I miss Freud. I miss Jimi Hendrix and Janis. And I even miss Gilbert Ryle. I do not like David Sedaris, though I'm sure he's very good. I don't like Henry James anymore either. And I usually dislike writers like Cormac Mcarthy and TC Boyle who roll around in their virtuosity. Their "knowing how," to tie my shoes up nicely. My bestest hobby used to be reading. Now my hobby is people, and let me tell you, it is exhausting. They are completely unpredictable, except that they pretty much all get pissed if you fall asleep while reading them. Books are so much easier. But they do not move me now. No risk with books.
No glory. No roller coaster. No fallen arches.

You Average American Woman, you, if you had thoughts like mine your head would know how to have those thoughts. And what a luminous waste of time it is most of the time. Still, somebody's got to play hookie from the work of the world and write silly songs and silly blogs and be lazy on all fronts and try to wreak havoc with some success on the lives of the decent and indecent alike.

I am such a disappointment. But it's all good. My work now is to be lazy! Making up for years of over-achievement with daily garbage du jour! Justice would have me utterly alone and lonely any minute now. Any minute now......

It all feels like a rehearsal. Like practice. But there is no big concert. I am learning nothing really -- learning how to do nothing. (I'm sure this is false by the way). But it only sucks if people are hurt. And mostly when people are hurt, they just hurt and I don't owe them an apology.

That's how boring philosophy is. And it's never over. Sometimes there is a cover charge. But you can get on the guest list.
Namaste.

2 comments:

Ez said...

"In themselves Ryle's opinions are beneath consideration, but they do deserve diagnosis as a symptom of a sickness which is corrupting our understanding of old writers and depriving a generation of their liberating influence...Such scholarship should give us pause, for Ryle is held by many to be one of the preeminent professors of philosophy in the Anglo-Saxon world."

Shayna Grace said...

conaitre vs savoir

It's a shame how closely self-worth is tied to accomplishment. Disappointment only comes if there are expectations and nothing can ever live up to expectations, so expectation = disappointment. right? There is no disappointment in anticipation, only in happiness.

Did you just claim that Bag doesn't have thoughts like you have thoughts?

I don't think anyone thinks physical age is necessarily related to mental/emotional/shoe-tying (tire-ing) age. Physical maturity comes without effort, the other kinds take work. Which is why I'm avoiding them.

TC Boyle isn't so great and his latest short story in the NYer freaked me out. ("The Lie")