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Philosophy's Name

Query: who gave the name philosophy?

It does seem extraordinary, strange that anyone would invent a name for devotion to seeking knowledge of what it is most important for a human being to know. Why then was it invented?

One possibility is that if the seeker had been called a wise man, or 'sophist' ("one who knows") in Greek ("You are a wise man, Pythagoras"), then he might have wished to demur: "I am not wise, although I do seek to be", for 'twas modesty invented the word 'philosopher'. The philosopher knows he doesn't know, whereas the Sophist "doesn't even know that" (Plato, Apology 21d) but presumes that he does know without putting his presumption to the test. Whereas whatever the philosopher thinks he knows he does not fear to "put it to the touch, to win or lose it all" in Socratic dialog with either with his companion or with himself alone. Plato thought the title 'wise' was worthy only of a god, not of man (Phaedrus 278d).

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Socratic Philosophy

Sophistry is professional, the modern Sophist an academic. Sophists were and are "professional philosophers" (Plato, Euthydemus 307a-c). But philosophers proper are amateurs, not members of a "community of ideas", traditions and customs: they introduce fundamentally new ways of looking at things (In 1947 Wittgenstein wrote in his notebook, A philosopher says: "Look at things this way!"); philosophers are rebels, not institutional conformists ("professionals"). Some of the Greek Sophists were philosophical thinkers, e.g. Protagoras; Plato's criticism of them was that they cared more about winning arguments than about the truth, and were therefore willing to make the weaker appear the better reason through persuasion.

Query: Who is a philosopher, what is philosophy? What makes Socrates ignorant?

That is what Socrates tried to teach both Athenians and foreigners: what the philosopher's way of life is (and thus, as well, what philosophy is), namely the method of Socratic ignorance, of distinguishing what you know from what you only think you know (but do not know), using the standard Socrates set for knowing anything in philosophy. Socrates knows that he himself is "ignorant" -- i.e. not wise -- because he has put his claims to know to the cross-questionings of reason and experience and has been refuted by those tests: he does not know what he perhaps once thought himself to know.

Query: ignorant, he alone knew that he was ignorant.

And that was what made Socrates the "wisest" of mankind, according Plato's interpretation of the words of Apollo's oracle at Delphi. Because few men know even this about themselves, which, according to Xenophon's account, makes our condition akin to madness, ourselves men of unsound mind.

Query: philosophy, meaning of wisdom.

Philosophy's meaning of the word 'wisdom' is equivocal, being the contrast between (a) the wisdom sought, and (b) the wisdom found. The philosopher is a "pursuer of wisdom", not the "possessor of wisdom": that is the contrast Pythagoras or Plato, possibly both, made with the words 'philosopher' and 'sophist'. (Philosophy's meaning of wisdom contrasts with e.g. (1) the generally accepted sayings of wise men, and (2) the pronouncements of poets [Rep. 339a], and (3) the insights of religious masters. This is because philosophy only accepts as true what stands rather than is refuted when it is subjected to the critical tests of reason and experience in Socratic cross-questioning.)

He among you is the wisest who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is really worth nothing at all. (Plato, Apology 23b, tr. Church, rev. Cumming)

"The most knowing-of-things-worth-knowing of you is the one who, like Socrates, knows that he knows nothing worth knowing." If 'wise' = 'knowing things worth knowing', then it should be possible to render the words of Plato's Apology 23b, "The wisest of you is ...", that way.

Query: what Socrates said makes man wise?

Not thinking he knows what he does not know; not thinking himself to be wise when he is not; that is the only thing that makes man wise, according to Plato's Apology 21a-23b.

Query: the definition of ignorance, by Socrates.

This has to be asked in contrast to Socrates' definition of wisdom: stupid ignorance -- or, in other words, "conceited ignorance" (Plato, Sophist 229c) -- in contrast to wise ignorance, is thinking you know what you don't know. Although note that even admitted ignorance can sometimes be morally culpable, because there are things that are easily known and that one is obligated to know. Otherwise, ignorance is only wrong-doing philosophically -- "Not knowing oneself, because one assumes one knows what one doesn't know" -- and practically -- "Those who don't know are misled themselves and mislead others" -- if you think you know what you don't know.

The general form of a philosophical answer

Query: model answer for a philosophy question.

A proposition that can be subjected to the tests of reason and (sometimes also of) experience in cross-questioning (Socratic dialectic) is the general model. A proposition about which it can be asked: Is its meaning clear? Is it true or does it refute itself by hidden self-contradiction?

But propositions of this kind are varied indeed, from statements of sense perception (ordinary fact; cf. Wittgenstein's TLP 4.5, "The general form of a proposition is: This is how things stand) to theories in philosophy or in theories in science to statements in ethics (which vary from ways of looking at things to tautologies), and statements, not of, but about religion (as e.g. in biblical scholarship and in theology).

Query: logic isn't philosophy.

Are you asking or telling? It is Socratic to ask, presumptuous to tell. But this is a thesis that can be put to the tests of reason and fact. And I think Aristotle's thesis can be refuted by those; I think I have shown in what way.

Needless homily ("discourse", "to converse with")

For me too that verse from Epictetus (Discourses iii, 10) was very important at a specific point in my life, as was the idea that my brother may not change, but my attitude towards him can. The words of Socrates too, that if I met a man who was in worse health than I am, should I be offended? Ignorance, my own and every one else's is that way, in Plato's words, that we are all ill but that we must try to make ourselves well. And so I have stopped being angry and instead work to live the way Socrates did, always trying myself to do what is right regardless of what my brother does. As I approach the end of my life, I try to remember what the peasants in Tolstoy's stories say, "Life's short, why sin?" and what could be more wrongful than being angry and critical of my brother.

When I was at school I had to study Plotinus and Boethius. I did not understand them then (I still don't understand them), and studying them at school made me very unhappy. But my teacher told me, "Since you have to be here, try to make the best, not the worst of it." As you wrote, some ideas come at the needed point in our lives and change our direction, as that teacher's words changed mine.

Und so weiter

Query: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. Venn diagram.

An interesting project: methods and positions in-common and not-in-common, e.g. Socrates (no theory), Plato (affirmation) versus Aristotle (denial) of the immortality of the soul. (What is the essence of man? Is that a "grammatical" question?)

Thesis, nonsense, or grammar?

Aside. If "essence belongs to grammar" (PI § 371), then is Wittgenstein's remark about the essence of metaphysics (RPP i § 949) grammar? But doesn't Wittgenstein mean his remark to state a theory (thesis) about the true nature of metaphysics, just as Plato means to state what the true nature of man is? Neither Wittgenstein nor Plato means to say "This is what I mean by the word 'metaphysics' or 'man'." Neither is merely stating rules (conventions) for the use of a word ... And yet according to Wittgenstein, "In philosophy all that is not gas [babbling] is grammar" (Lee, "Wittgenstein 1929-1931"), and if that is the case then "The essential thing about metaphysics: that the difference between factual and conceptual investigations is not clear to it", too, is either gas or grammar. Yet Wittgenstein means it to be neither of those. (Or does 'gas' not necessarily mean 'nonsense' = 'undefined words or combinations of words'?)

Wittgenstein says that any thesis put forth in philosophy would be too obvious to even be a thesis ("If one tried to advance theses in philosophy, it would never be possible to debate them, because everyone would agree to them" (PI § 128)). But it is not obvious that all metaphysics is conceptual confusion (Are mankind's eternal questions mere muddles?), no more than it is obvious that (1) since the meaning of a common name is the common nature it names, (2) in order for man to know the meaning of common names his soul must have existed prior to its existence in this world, because those common natures ("Forms") are not found in this world (Parmenides 134b). Both Wittgenstein's and Plato's theses can be put to the tests of Socratic dialectic ("debated", in Anscombe's translation).

Are the concepts 'Form' and 'essence' equivalent?

Apropos of Wittgenstein's "the essence of metaphysics", I wrote "but that cannot be the entire essence of metaphysics ..." This was a dilemma for Plato: the Forms are simple, and yet ... And so he introduces the notion of "blending of the Forms" (Sophist 252e). If man is, as Aristotle says, a rational animal -- but are not 'rational' and 'animal' different/distinct Forms? And so either Plato's Forms are not simples, or essence ≠ Form, because essences are not always simple. Is man not a simple -- but can his "essence be reduced" without his ceasing to be man, and so, is man-ship (man-ness, manhood) a Form? Are all Forms essences, but not all essences Forms? if by 'essence' we mean the sine qua non of a thing?

The blending and unblending of the Forms

Plato might also be regarded as a synthesis of the contradiction between Parmenides (thesis) and Heraclitus (antithesis) in Hegel's scheme, with Forms being the unchanging element, but once Plato recognizes that Forms can combine or "blend" with other Forms (Sophist 251b ff.) his thought is somewhat akin to the atomists. If Forms could not blend, man could not be defined as a rational animal (because 'rational' and 'animal' name distinct Forms). From this is seems clear the Form ≠ essence, because blended Forms can be unblended, whereas an essence cannot be reduced without ceasing to exist.

Wisdom without ...

Query: why is the oracle against Socrates' view that Socrates has no wisdom?

That is what Socrates doesn't know: How can Socrates be wise (indeed, the wisest of men) when it seems to him that he has no wisdom either great or small? But Apollo's oracle at Delphi doesn't offer an explanation (a "why" or an "in what way") only an assertion (that "no man is wiser than Socrates", that "of all men Socrates is most wise").

The oracle sets her hearers riddles, leaving them to try to discover the meaning of the god's words. And that is what Socrates sets out to do in Plato's Apology 21a-d: What is the meaning of the god's cryptic answer to Chaerephon's question? for it seems that answer is false, but Apollo cannot tell lies and so it must in some sense be true.

Socrates' solution to the riddle: that Socrates himself is no more than a representative of all men who recognize man's condition of not knowing anything philosophically worth knowing: "The wisest of you men is he who like Socrates ..." (ibid. 23a=b)

Query: do you think Socrates is only a little wiser than others?

If he is "only a little wiser", then what is this "little"? In Plato's Apology 21d, it is only that Socrates knows that he doesn't know anything of much importance, whereas other men don't even know that about themselves. Socrates' wisdom is this: not thinking he knows what he doesn't know. Nothing is more harmful to philosophy (nor offensive to the gods) than presuming one knows what one doesn't know, to think oneself wise when one is not.

But on the other hand, if Socrates is more than "only a little wiser", then what is this "more"? In Xenophon, Socrates knows some things worth knowing (some things of "much importance"), e.g. (1) his method of inquiry, and (2) that virtue is knowledge: he knows how to inquire into what is the good for man, so that his knowledge of the good can guide how he lives his life, not aiming for what is evil because he mistakes it for the good.

And so in Xenophon, Socrates is wise in a different way ... although Socrates method only shows him with certainty what he doesn't know, not what he does know. The "agreed assumptions" of today's dialectic may be refuted tomorrow. And further Socrates' knowledge of the good (or, ethics) is of a general kind: what to do in the specific case is very often perplexing, and an unwise choice is often made.

As a comparison. The Gospel says "to love God with one's whole heart and to love one's neighbor as oneself" (cf. Republic 332d-335e), but that is a very general rule: it is often difficult to know in the particular case just what one should do to love's one's neighbor as oneself. This is the difficulty Plato faces in Euthyphro 6d-7d when he asks for an absolute standard that will tell Socrates in any and all circumstances what piety (or correct conduct towards the gods) requires be done. To know that standard would be something "worth knowing" (Apology 21d, 23a-b), something "of importance" (Euthydemus 293b) -- it would be to have the wisdom Socrates that knows he doesn't have.

Query: the statement 'Nobody knows the truth. One thing I know is that nobody knows the truth.'

Again, you must, as Socrates did, set a criterion for knowing or not-knowing. Only then can you say that you know that something is unknown. "Nobody knows anything worth knowing -- but that in itself is worth knowing!" That is the Socratic Paradox.

"The most important thing to bear in mind is that all fact is already theory"

As defined earlier by a 'scientific theory' Drury means a 'particular selection of data organized into a system' -- i.e. selected data ("conceived facts") plus imagination (which creates the organizing principle). But in Goethe's context does 'theory' simply mean 'world-picture'?

When Alice falls down the rabbit hole -- what is then real, what illusion? For whom -- for Alice from her perspective, for someone else from their perspective? "Which amounts to saying: Although we do indeed have uses for the words 'real' and 'apparent' -- don't make too much of that." (The Thing in Itself: Reality beyond the individual perspective, which is a quite different discussion than Plato's criticism of Protagoras' doctrine that "man is the measure of all things")

Does Alice experience a change in world-picture ("theory of reality"), like a Gestalt shift (if for Alice there is, as there is in a Gestalt shift (namely the image that can be seen more than one way), a reality that underlies all world-pictures)? Does 'world-picture' = 'perspective' (Can the two expressions be used interchangeably without any loss or addition of meaning)? Not in all contexts. Maybe sometimes a more or less permanent change in perspective is equivalent to a different world-picture. But not in Alice's case, because even in her new perspective she continues to judge events using the world-picture she took down the rabbit hole with her.

Do Goethe's words suggest that by 'All fact is [in the context of a] theory' he means 'All fact is [in the context of a] perspective'? That is one possibility.

Then Goethe's words would suggest that there is no reality, no illusion, no truth or falsity, indeed no fact, independent of a particular theory -- i.e. world-picture, world-view. In other words, outside theories, there can be no facts? There are no facts as such, but only facts within some theory or other?

'A fact is only a fact within a particular world-picture'

A "theory" says what is (and what is not) a fact. A theory is a picture of reality, one picture, not the only one; it is not reality. (Does reality exist? (Thales and Plato's shadows) | Das höchste wäre zu begreifen, daß alles Faktische schon Theorie ist: "All fact is already theory")

What is the meaning of Goethe's statement, if it is possible to say what its meaning is outside its original home context (cf. (a bit) PI § 116), for outside that it might be translated various ways and given countless different meanings?

Does Goethe's contempt for laboratory experiment and his exhortation [to go out into uncontrolled nature & learn from that, does this have some connection with the idea that a hypothesis (wrongly conceived)] already falsifies the truth? (CV p. 10-11 [MS 110 257: 2.7.1931])

And what does Wittgenstein mean by "a wrongly conceived hypothesis"? I don't know. An hypothesis may lead you to not see facts that are there (But who decides what is and what isn't the raw data from which the facts are to be conceived?) -- and to think you see facts where there are none ... when judged by a different hypothesis: There is no "the true net" over reality (cf. TLP 6.35: net over language), but only nets of various meshes (no absolute perspective, only a plethory of relative perspectives).

Or Goethe's meaning, as well as Wittgenstein's, may be very different.

Not to replace the facts of nature with a theory of nature

For on the other hand, maybe Goethe means by "All fact is already theory" that the facts themselves are, as it were, already the best theory -- i.e. that stopping with the facts of nature themselves is superior to replacing them with any theory of nature we might construct (DW p. 100) -- for all theories by their very nature distort reality, because a theory is selected data, which is conceived as "the facts", plus imagination (and imagination is distortion).

The facts and forms of life

Wittgenstein alludes to "very general facts of nature" in the context of explaining concept-formation (i.e. vocabulary).

Our interest certainly includes the correspondence between concepts and very general facts of nature. (Such facts as mostly do not strike us because of their generality.) (PI II, xii, p. 230)

Of course that presumes that there are such facts -- as indeed there are (Events in the natural world are astonishingly regular and therefore predictable) ... except "on a deeper level". And that deeper level is philosophy's interest in reality. There are "very general facts of nature" recognized by a community of ideas -- where 'community of ideas' = 'way of life possible for a particular life form (namely man)'.

What would it mean to say 'The facts speak for themselves'? I've no idea. I always want to respond: "And what do they say?" to which should I add "according to you" (Alice's perspective in wonderland or through the looking-glass)?

'Let the facts themselves speak to you' -- that combination of words, which may or may not be equivalent to Goethe's words, has no normal use in the language, although it may suggest many things (but so might any other undefined combination of words).

Query: all that is factual is already theory.

Can Goethe's "the most important thing to remember" be anything more than a warning -- that if "Facts are not raw percepts" and "Percepts without concepts are blind", then we are never going to be in contact with reality ... because there is no reality, no Nature itself to be in contact with. [And no not "And if there were, we could not know it"; rather these are logic of language remarks: 'Nature itself', like 'absolute reality', is an undefined combination of words.] [Of course these remarks are not quite right.]

That is a different response to the question of whether reality exists, different from the question of whether a single reality, an absolute point of reference to which all things can be referred, exists. [If there were only one reference point in the universe, there would be no reference point in the universe: reference is a relative, i.e. relational, concept (of points to points)].

["Reality is not hidden behind the phenomenon. The phenomenon is reality." (Goethe)]

"The conceived facts"

By 'concept' does Kant mean the implicit assertion -- or presumption? -- that 'such-and-such raw percept corresponds to such-and-such "something" in itself'? And that such a concept-percept is a 'fact' (when it is expressed as a proposition) or 'artifact'. And then are theories constructed from a selection of those facts? ... "The most important thing to bear in mind is all fact is (already) conceived fact", that there is no "raw data"?

Query: facts are more than mere tautologies.

Tautologies are not all mere; Plato's method of tautologies in ethics, which is the method he uses in Republic 331c-335e, is not mere. To respond to the query: according to N.R. Hanson facts are more than mere: they are not like shells lying ready-made on the seashore for the philosopher to gather up, God's artefacts as it were.

For "tough-minded" philosophers, observation is just opening one's eyes and looking. (Patterns of Discovery (1958), p. 31)

But it is not that way: facts are not raw percepts; they are conceptualized percepts. Whether concepts are knowledge ("Seeing a bird in the sky involves seeing that it will not suddenly do vertical snap rolls"), as Hanson says, or I think he says, I don't know.

Patterns are concepts: they turn percepts into facts: the eyes are not a clear-glass window but networks [TLP 6.341] of cut-crystal. Hanson: "People, not their eyes, see" (Patterns of Discovery, p. 6; cf. TLP 6.35: net over language).

Or are there statements of fact that no one denies, such as 'The book is on the table'?

... And is it connected with the way I am now thinking of starting my book -- with a description of nature? (CV p. 10-11; cf. PI § 109)

If there are no universally agreed-to [in words or in deeds agreed to? or in deed (cf. ibid. § 241) if not also in word?] facts in plain view, then Wittgenstein cannot begin his book with statements of fact (description free of hypothesis) of nature.

For "naïve language", that is to say our naïve, normal way of expressing ourselves, does not contain any theory of seeing -- does not show you a theory but only a concept of seeing. (Z § 223)

But in this context haven't Goethe's words 'theory' and 'concept' the same meaning? Unless we wish to distinguish between 'concept' in the sense of 'picture of how things are (reality)' and 'concept' = 'rules for using a word'? (In what way is Wittgenstein using that word?)

Query: who said that every fact is a theory?

Meaning "every fact is a conceived fact"? That is not how we normally use the word 'theory', but it is a striking way of reminding, a reminder that every perception is a human -- not an absolute -- perception, and a human perception, if it is not to be blind (i.e. unintelligible), must be a conceived perception, i.e. fact = (percept + concept), or in other words all fact is conceived fact.

Facts are concept-bound, concept-burdened, concept weighted-down ("laden", N.R. Hanson wrote: "All fact is theory-laden").

The limits of the human mind are also the limits of the facts. But I don't think "relative to man versus absolute" is the distinction Goethe is making. I am not seeing Goethe's meaning; I am striking around it, but not striking it. (The arrow and target metaphor: but restating that metaphor in prose is ... I don't see how to do it.)

[In other language: logical construct = conceived percept = fact.]

Propositions on Approval or Return

When Wittgenstein says something about a concept being like a new desk drawer, he may sometimes mean by 'concept', in this context, a new category, and not being poor in categories but being richer in categories for [i.e. on account of] this new concept/desk drawer.

It is incredible how helpful a new drawer can be, suitably placed in our filing cabinet. (CV p. 39 [MS indicates W. was unsure about the metaphor 'filing cabinet']

Of course concepts may do a lot of harm as well, like grooves in a gramophone our thinking is unable to break out of (Z § 349), and this whether they are old or new.

Criterion for deciding between "vague" and "nonsense". Is the relationship more-or-less or absolute?

Query: virtue is what?

"Virtue is knowledge of the good" -- but Socrates' "definition" is logic -- and yet it does not seem to be a mere definition of the word 'virtue'? (Proposition types. Although it appears tautology-like, as do all rules of grammar -- because their negations would simply be contrary rules -- the proposition 'Virtue is knowledge of the good' does not play an idle role; it is an ethical-proposition with work to do -- but that a grammatical proposition can do such work is unsettling to me: is the truth of ethical-propositions knowable a priori? How can logic render knowledge of reality outside its systems of rules? It seems like asking chess to be a guide to extra-chess reality).

"Virtue is virtuous habits formed in early youth" -- Aristotle's definition is an empirical hypothesis; Aristotle writes about the causes of virtue (or, rather, about what virtuous behavior positively correlates with), but doesn't Socrates as well, because isn't there a logical prerequisite (knowledge of good and evil) for virtue as well as, on Aristotle's account, a training in doing good rather than evil? (Aristotle's hypothesis of good habits assumes knowledge of what is good; trained animals are not virtuous: they are not "as gods, knowing good and evil"; a small child may be trained to do evil, but it may also later come to see that what it was trained to do was evil rather than good.) I distinguished between rational virtue -- i.e. virtue -- and instinct and habit. Aristotle maybe conflates these, concerning himself only with good-doing versus not-good-doing. But although a child raised to bad habits may find it very had to amend his life to avoid impulsive and stubborn wrong-doing, 'virtue' ≠ 'good-doing' and 'viciousness' ≠ 'wrong-doing', not if ethics is rational, which for man, a beast endowed with "discourse of reason", it is (Nature displays values, but man's reasoning nature demands he evaluate those).

And so we are back at questions about the nature of definition again. And it is a very confusing question, as confusing as the distinction between sense and nonsense in philosophy's language, which is what definition is. "Virtue is -- what?" Are you asking how we normally use the word 'virtue' (i.e. 'moral virtue'), as if it were a sound from a foreign language to render into English? "No, I know that we call such things as courage and self-control virtues. What I want to know is how the virtuous man is virtuous (e.g. brave, self-controlled). Because I want to be virtuous too, and because I want to bring my children up to be virtuous." That reply makes the questioner's meaning clear ... as it should, because "What is virtue?" is suggestive nonsense, an undefined combination of words ("vague", "suggestive", "nonsense" -- which when? what is the criterion for deciding?) to which the answer is that there is no answer: an undefined question-sign cannot be answered, because there is no question to answer.

"What is virtue?" We feel that we have to grasp something difficult to grasp, something hidden as in a cloud before our mind's eye, something we "don't quite see" -- when actually we don't see it at all!  When a question strikes us as opaque -- it may actually be because the question is undefined language (But how to decide?)

Drury told Wittgenstein that he didn't think there is a scale of clarity -- either a thing is clear or it is not (Recollections p. 115). And indeed Wittgenstein's "Now I can go on" (PI § 151 ff.) is the statement of one to whom how to proceed is clear, not semi-clear ..... although we also say, "Maybe now I see how to go on now. Is this correct?" And so again it does not seem possible to make general remarks about most concepts, as it seems that in many, or I guess most cases, our use of language is not a game played according to strict rules (ibid. §§ 80-81). And that simply is the logic of our natural language.

"Distinctions are often hard to see." -- Precisely: we must make them; they are not "just there (like our life" (OC § 559)), regardless that some seem natural (PI II, xii, p. 230: "But: if anyone believes that certain concepts are absolutely the correct ones" --)

What is the meaning of abstract art?

"He was back at metaphysics again .... Why had God made the world appear just as it would have done if religion hadn't been true? Why was it His will that philosophers should go on banging their heads against a roofless sky? ... Was the truth made known only to those who desired to love God? .... With so many taking the geometric gases of the galaxies for the Alpha and Omega ..." (A Thread of Scarlet, or, Satan and Cardinal Campbell, (1959), v, 1)

These are the questions the young Scot's priest of the story asks himself. What is this "roofless sky"? That as to the Alpha and Omega of existence: to claim to know that is to claim to know more than we know, and, or so I have thought, more than we shall ever know (Can man understand God's thoughts? Does God even have "thoughts" for man to understand?) Whatever we mean by 'God' it is not something we can comprehend (which is metaphysics' "But in a deeper sense ..."). (No, the meaning of the word 'God' is not incomprehensible, only the phenomenon (if that's what existence itself is) we point (or hope to point) to with that word.) [The Nominalist versus Realist view of language meaning.]

"And the so-called neo-impressionists who paint a sardine sitting at a typewriter and call it a young woman's legs getting into a taxi ..... All this abstraction is nothing more or less than propaganda for nihilism. It's an attempt to make the world seem meaningless." (ibid. v, 3)

So the Abbé of the story says. But I think: or you could say that it's a way of saying man doesn't know what its meaning is, which of course he doesn't, and that is what faith is about (Even Catholic Christianity's faith, its faith that what it calls revealed truth is indeed revealed truth, is just that). Or who will claim that he knows the world and life's meaning (the most he might claim is that it has no meaning; but that would be to claim to know more than he knows).

[And this use of the word 'meaning' is not logic's use of that word. | Related page: Abstract art is art without "meaning", representational meaning, that is: The logic of comparison: modern art and instrumental music.]

Pascal and the Questions without answers

"But there is no answer to the eternal questions." -- And that is the "curious incident" and the paradox that points to something, which is not to say what it points to -- whether conceptual confusion or philosophical insight. (I don't say that this is Pascal's view, although I don't know that and see Pensées iii, 230.)

"The dog did nothing in the night" -- There is enough darkness.
"That was the curious incident" -- And there is enough light.

It is the exact same evidence and lack thereof that is "enough light" and "enough darkness" (Pascal), and so I was quite right to link my homepage at Christmas 2017 [*] that way, to the exact same story.

Two people see differently. I would not compare this to the duck-rabbit, but is it like the way I saw the old-young woman when I could not see the Gestalt shift? So that to an individual it may appear that there is solely "enough darkness" -- because of "aspect blindness" ("concept blindness")?

"The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not extinguished it." -- There is enough light.

"The light shines in the darkness and the darkness knows it not." -- And there is enough darkness.

Those are variant translations [readings] of The Gospel according to John 1.5. And which shall stand, and for whom, and why (and if there is a "why" will it be rational or irrational? which is faith)?

Snow in Gambatesa

* "There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition." (Pensées vii, 430)

"The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not extinguished it." (John 1.5, although this verse is also translated "... and the darkness does not know it.")

Rational + Irrational

"... and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition" (Pascal, Pensées vii, 430). What kind of tool is the word 'disposition' -- does it point to what is rational or to what is irrational? And if it points to a mix of reasons and inclinations (PI § 258), is it not then wholly irrational?

Or I could say: rational + irrational = irrational (like adding even and odd numbers: no matter how many even numbers you add to an odd sum, the result remains odd). There is no half-way house, unless it be inhabited by a scarecrow.

Propositions to be agreed to or refuted

"... before she entered the Order of the Baby of Nazareth and became the fiancée on approval or return of the Lord."  (Marshall, An Account of Capers (1988), x)

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