Since I posted my first entry on this blog last night, I’ve
already received several comments from friends and family. These comments haven’t
been critical or judgemental at all, but they have lead me to the following
conclusion: I am easily sucked into the world of academia and philosophical lingo
without much concern for accessibility or understanding. Most of my favorite
philosophy, in fact, rejects philosophical
shop-talk and jargon, instead encouraging a return to the real, concrete, and
down-to-earth world in which we live, and move, and have our being. I
even have to admit to being overly eager to prove, mostly to myself, that I can
talk the language of philosophy alongside my professors and classmates. But
what is the purpose of philosophy and of thinking if it does not attach itself
to life?
Of course, I will certainly be investing myself over the
next few years in the task of coming to some
understanding of dense, complex, and jargon-filled philosophical texts. And
my goal is not to ignore that jargon completely because, in this particular academic
context, it serves and important role in achieving precision. However, at a
recent philosophy conference I attended here in Toronto, I was struck that the
most highly respected and smartest professors were also by far the most understandable. They used every day language
to communicate complex ideas.
It has been easy for me, in this first month of grad school,
to be caught up in and also intimidated by the whole academic pursuit. There’s
often talk of submitting to conferences or journals. Professors and students
often talk about their intellectual “project”, that is, the thing they are
trying to say or accomplish in their writing. In many ways these are essential
aspects of academia, so I don’t want to sound overly negative and make it sound
as though the academic pursuit is necessarily
pompous and pretentious. It simply suffers from a particular susceptibility
in that direction.
So I think that I need to own up to my envy of those who I
think are smarter than me, and also to my need to prove myself using
philosophical lingo. I want to rephrase the purpose of this blog: it is specifically for my friends and family,
and so I want to make is accessible, not only for the non-philosophical person,
but also for myself, because, in reality, I only understand philosophical
language in a very partial way.
My interest in the intersection of philosophy and spirituality
is still accurately described in my first entry, but that very interest in
spirituality (more so than philosophy) should lead away from shop-talk and instead into the realm of every-day language
where our lives are really lived, and
so where God really lives too. This
of course doesn’t mean any anti-intellectualism, and from time to time a
philosophically specific word may serve an important purpose. But ontology, epistemology,
and ecclesiology are far from being necessary words to do philosophy and
spirituality. What is really needed is the substance of real life, the bodily,
emotionally, and psychologically charged spaces where we live out our lives. And
it is this that I want to explore in
this blog, where I hope my own musings, philosophical and otherwise, can find
life in the minds of friends and family.
I should already admit, again, that even this blog entry has veered dangerously
towards pretentiousness, and to some extent that is the risk I take when
studying philosophy. I am writing to find my own voice, my own style, my own
thoughts, and my own self, and, as a master’s student of philosophy, I admit
that I am trying to achieve a certain eloquence and precision in my writing. It
is my goal, though, for my academic pursuits not to lead to intellectual superiority
or arrogance but instead deeper into the exciting world of thought. In this
season of my life philosophy will be serving an important role on my spiritual
journey. God, I trust, is at the beginning, middle, and end of such a season.
Dude, I love where you are heading with these words! I'm excited for you in your Masters degree, but I know how tough competing against academic competitiveness itself is! One becomes interested in philosophy for the wisdom it can teach and is soon put in greater danger than before of leaving wisdom behind in the hallway of mirrors and shop of curiosities. I'll offer you this bit of encouragement and advice: insofar as you can survive without it in academics, don't get sucked into the trap of the "List of Must-Reads", which grows far faster than a person can mature. Once you start the list, it is hard not to keep adding to it and harder still not to feel a vague anxiety infect your bones as the list grows heavier than your motivation is strong. A while ago I realize I was in this trap, and that the main reason I kept reading was to tick a book off my list and level up on my intellectual competency. In 2012 I discovered I was essentially a Quietist with a hopeless task: "Why do I read so much? So I can follow the nuances, become familiar with the ideas, weigh them against each other, get a sense of their context, grow aware of possibilities and the scope of what has been thought and what has not been thought, develop an ear for parody and sincerity, and, ultimately, to learn how seriously I should take these things and with what absoluteness. I read in order to reduce the stature of who I read. I read in order to take less seriously what I read. I read to learn that these things are not everything – for once you have read them you cannot stave off the thought, "how could they be all there is?" I do not let them (books, ideas, thinkers) remain a mystery so that, once they no longer block the view, I might discover where the true mystery lies." All the best in pursing wisdom via philosophy Ethan!
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