I fear that philosophy- taken to its proper conclusions- is a necessarily tragic ethic that rightly belongs with the rest of Greek culture. It starts with the individual self who doubts and questions; and ends, at best, with knowledge and facts. If a man confronts the world as something-to-be-known, he is making it into something of an entirely different order than himself: The subjective will of man over and against the objective and lifeless order of the world.
As R’ Soloveitchik says:
Even the most abandoned voluptuary becomes disillusioned like the king of Ecclesiastes and finds himself encountering something wholly other than his own self, an outside that defies and challenges him… He discovers an awesome and mysterious domain of things and events which is independent of and disobedient to him
Why should we be disillusioned? Surely, man can end up as much with victory, as defeat. He can end up conquering the world with his superior intellect and knowing everything there is to be known. Quite so, but as Wittgenstein states, “We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered [and thus know all true facts about the world], the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there are no questions left…”
What the person really wants to find is precisely what he can’t; there are no more questions to ask and reality has no more to yield. In fact, it is precisely this cognition that brings into sharp relief our inability to find meaning in the world: “The facts all contribute to setting the problem, not to its solution” (Wittgenstein). The absurdity of existence lies in us witnessing fact after random fact without being able to give answer to the question of “Why?” Facts are clearly stated but it is the lack of a language- our lack of grip- on questions of meaning that lead us to the philosophical conundrum that Albert Camus once pondered.
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy
This then is philosophy; by standing external to all events and things as the impartial judge, you will only ever become acquainted with things (like scientific facts) that can be known externally and impartially. You will never be able to reach out to that which is beyond your intellectual grasp. You will never become acquainted with the interiority of the other. The intimate- knowing- relationship with the world, other people and G-d that fill life with meaning will be missing.
This can be seen most forcefully with Maimonides whose highest goal was to know G-d and yet where this was the one thing (necessarily, according to his philosophy) that completely evaded him. To know something was for it to be demonstratively true; where impartial logic would demand it be so. Here, Aristotle was King knowing every true statement under the sun. What Aristotle missed, however, was that you can know all this and it not bear on the most important problem of life. To declare anything in the world as G-d would be to cheapen the concept and yet, that is all we can know in a demonstrative fashion. Moses, according to Maimonides, achieved his perfection by knowing the whole world and knowing that it was not G-d. Thus, the highest level of man consists of being aware that there is nothing he can know of G-d, nothing he can say about Him and continually being reminded of the distance between them.
This realisation could lead to breakdown:
Man may despair, succumb to the overpowering pressure of the objective outside and end in mute resignation, failing to discharge his duty as an intellectual being, and thus dissolving an intelligent existence into an absurd nightmare. (Soloveitchik)
Yet, the alternative route of carrying out your intellectual duty is, as we have seen, no less tragic. One is left, as Wittgenstein points out, at a place where solipsism, idealism and realism meet. Solipsism, because “The world is my world” where yours is the only subjective self that you meet. Idealism, because only what is possible to be ‘thought’ can be the case, and G-d and ethics are outside that. Realism, because “The world is all that is the case” independent of my will. Here the philosopher left with a lonely, detached individual facing a cold, hard, objective world.
Maimonides, Soloveitchik and Wittgenstein all bide us to fulfil our duty as intellectual beings and advance in the scientific world. Yet, solving these problems “shows how little is achieved when these problems are solved”. How can a philosophical ethic be achieved on this basis? How can we go on without knowing the interiority of the other? Why not just commit suicide?
No comments:
Post a Comment