The peculiar predicament of philosophy, according to Wittgenstein, is that we speak under the illusion that we’re making sense when in fact we’re mouthing empty words. The illusion of saying something profound is beguiling, which is why puncturing it, as he sees it, requires strength of character more than it requires intellect.
Heidegger aspired to be a prophet and Wittgenstein aspired to be a saint. Prophets want to improve the world and saints want to perfect themselves.
Which philosophers that are alive today will people still be reading one hundred years from now? There’s excellent philosophy and then there’s excellent philosophy that lasts. What’s the difference?
The point of climbing a mountain isn’t so much about reaching the summit as in what you bring down from it. Once you’ve caught a view of the limits of what’s possible you can explore the domain of the possible with greater freedom and understanding.
Sometimes I wonder if philosophy is a big waste of time. Or worse than that, an impediment that keeps me from living well.
Thinking well about the things that concern me requires intelligence. Understanding these concerns and what motivates them requires wisdom. Philosophy, to the extent that it is rightly called the love of wisdom, is essentially concerned with self-knowledge.
By situating my own thinking within a broader historical tradition, I can see more clearly how my particular concerns and preoccupations are mine rather than just the objectively and timelessly important ones that all people with philosophical inclinations might turn themselves to.
I want to make a case for Shakespeare’s “great heart.” Then I’ll try to explain why Wittgenstein doesn’t see it.
The position that I have free will seems untenable for anyone less mighty than God. The position that I don’t have free will seems so far from being right that it isn’t even wrong.
I want to get clear on my place in a world that I inhabit with an animal body. That requires resisting attempts to inflate my significance beyond the animal. But it also requires resisting attempts to deflate it.