ThinkBlog

http://www.teach12.com/ttc/assets/coursedescriptions/437.asp

I’ve been listening to lectures by reknowned existential scholar Dr. Robert Solomon. This is a remarkably clear teaching, and I love the material. Every time I pop in a lecture my nostrils flare with the sweet adrenaline of new intellectual discovery.

So when I was coming back from Charleston last weekend, I was making notes (very sloppily and taking great care not to glance down too long—I was driving) on all these little points that he made that really struck me. Here are a couple. (More will follow as I read more in conjunction with the lectures I’ve already been through and the ones that follow.)

At one point in the fourth lecture—one dealing with Albert Camus (1913-1960)—he makes the point that Camus believed that “Reflections poison experience,” as evidenced by his character Jean-Baptiste Clamence in The Fall and by Meursault in The Stranger. The converse is also true, as comes across much more axiomatically to our sensibilities: experiences can poison reason. (A coder who has lines of state in his head suddenly gets interrupted by someone calling his name; a reader of philosophy is struck by hunger pangs somewhere between the categorical imperative and the principle of equal consideration of interests; et cetera.)

But I find this to be a very interesting point, since it seems to be true in the sense that, if I am so caught up in my own mind about something, I cannot enjoy it fully; but I cannot fully cut off my intuitions and ever just enjoy an experience: it seems foolish to think that anyone could altogether shunt every bit of attention to sensory inputs. Nevertheless, it’s worth consideration. Perhaps I will remember this the next time I am sipping a fine espresso while reading: “one, then the other.” Have you had experiences clouded by thoughts in this way?

Another thing Solomon mentions later is a comment Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) notes about the absurdity of couples “making love.” In the nineteenth century, Solomon points out, the expression “making love” is what we today would call PDA, “Public Display of Affection” or something just shy of “making out.” I really love this imagery. I wonder what this says about empathic capacities of other people: if you are the type to be disgusted by a couple “making love” with one another because it is absurd, is that because you have difficulty placing yourself in their shoes?

More to the point, is the absurdity of “making love” always there just a little bit because it is necessarily subjective? Even if I can appreciate the cooing and kissing of an amorous couple, it is not I who engages in the acts Right Then, so that perhaps makes it retain its absurdity. Parallel this to the absurdity of death for a moment. Because we all share in death, it is absurd to us all that death should trump life—our lives—just as it is absurd that we should not be the ones “making love.”

http://www.teach12.com/ttc/assets/coursedescriptions/437.asp

I’ve been listening to lectures by reknowned existential scholar Dr. Robert Solomon. This is a remarkably clear teaching, and I love the material. Every time I pop in a lecture my nostrils flare with the sweet adrenaline of new intellectual discovery.

So when I was coming back from Charleston last weekend, I was making notes (very sloppily and taking great care not to glance down too long—I was driving) on all these little points that he made that really struck me. Here are a couple. (More will follow as I read more in conjunction with the lectures I’ve already been through and the ones that follow.)

At one point in the fourth lecture—one dealing with Albert Camus (1913-1960)—he makes the point that Camus believed that “Reflections poison experience,” as evidenced by his character Jean-Baptiste Clamence in The Fall and by Meursault in The Stranger. The converse is also true, as comes across much more axiomatically to our sensibilities: experiences can poison reason. (A coder who has lines of state in his head suddenly gets interrupted by someone calling his name; a reader of philosophy is struck by hunger pangs somewhere between the categorical imperative and the principle of equal consideration of interests; et cetera.)

But I find this to be a very interesting point, since it seems to be true in the sense that, if I am so caught up in my own mind about something, I cannot enjoy it fully; but I cannot fully cut off my intuitions and ever just enjoy an experience: it seems foolish to think that anyone could altogether shunt every bit of attention to sensory inputs. Nevertheless, it’s worth consideration. Perhaps I will remember this the next time I am sipping a fine espresso while reading: “one, then the other.” Have you had experiences clouded by thoughts in this way?

Another thing Solomon mentions later is a comment Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) notes about the absurdity of couples “making love.” In the nineteenth century, Solomon points out, the expression “making love” is what we today would call PDA, “Public Display of Affection” or something just shy of “making out.” I really love this imagery. I wonder what this says about empathic capacities of other people: if you are the type to be disgusted by a couple “making love” with one another because it is absurd, is that because you have difficulty placing yourself in their shoes?

More to the point, is the absurdity of “making love” always there just a little bit because it is necessarily subjective? Even if I can appreciate the cooing and kissing of an amorous couple, it is not I who engages in the acts Right Then, so that perhaps makes it retain its absurdity. Parallel this to the absurdity of death for a moment. Because we all share in death, it is absurd to us all that death should trump life—our lives—just as it is absurd that we should not be the ones “making love.”