Continuing from the last post, how is it that we hold excitement for any given idea, culture, or whatever? I remember starting off in philosophy, thinking about all the grand ideas and the exoticness of it all. I was enthralled. But I gradually started losing that fervor when I saw it in perspective. Maybe we can't actually get metaphysical knowledge, and maybe it isn't really all that important anyhow. And maybe we need to be concerned with the little things and not always with the big questions.
This perspective is good, I think, but I also became pretty apathetic about what I do. I started churning out work because it was what I do, not because I had any love left for it; after all, what in the material actually made it worth that love? Beauty always seems to be something which exceeds that which we call beautiful; there is no explanation for it in the subject matter (or the pretty face) itself.
But I think that view is wrong as well. We can realize that our favorite subjects aren't really as important as we make them out to be. However, why shouldn't we get excited about what we can? There may be absolutely nothing objective about this excitement, but who cares? Let someone get excited about it, so that someone may devote their time and attention to making that portion of our discourse better.
How is it that we can hold to our own ideas, to make our own philosophical arguments? We hold our positions in order to give them their dues. Think of a sports game: two teams are playing, and what really matters is that there is a good game. But there cannot be a good game unless each team is trying their best to win, even though the goodness of the game is not dependent on any specific team winning. We can attach ourselves to our philosophical theories in a like spirit. We could be wrong; what really matters at the end of the day, though, is that the truth is found, and perhaps the "team" for which we are rooting will lose. Nevertheless, if there are no advocates of a given position, or no advocates who sincerely argue for it, it cannot be be given its due, it cannot put up a fair fight. So we hold to what portion of reality we can see and we articulate it as well as possible so that on the whole the truth may be discovered. We attach ourselves to the position for the sake of the whole and not for the sake of the part.
To some extent, I think this is what the mystics mean who say that love/the good/the beautiful is beyond being and reason. Now, they are considering some absolute beauty/goodness, but an absolute that must of necessity shine through in every individual thing. Reason itself, and pragmatism itself, gives no ultimate basis. We must take a step and simply want something for its own sake before we have anything about which to reason or be practical. Without something pulling us forward, there would be no world in which we could work.
One issue that remains: this is all well and good, but it is still the musings of a priveleged white male with the leisure to write a philosophy blog. Maybe some of us can devote our time to pursuits such as metaphysics, but what about those starving on the streets or fighting for basic rights? And this is a terrible situation, one which we must not make light of. If we are caught up in our ecstatic visions and someone needs a cup of water, give them the water. But there is also the respect in which we feed people and secure rights for them not as ends in themselves, but so that we can shore up the deficiencies of our society and procure for all of its inhabitants the most authentic human life possible, one which can be concerned with the matters I'm talking about here and not with worrying about basic needs. So we must take care of those who need care, but without some final goal in sight for why we are doing such, we will dissolve into aimlessness and bickering.
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