Cart Before Horse: A response to a message from M1

 

Abstract Expressionism / Manabu Mabe/ Life

Sie sind so jung , so vor allem Anfang , und ich möchte Sie , so gut es ich kann , bitten , lieber Herr , Geduld zu alles Ungelöste in Ihrem Herzen und habeb gegen zu versuchen , die Fragen selbst liebzuhaben wie ver schlossene Stuben und wie Bücher , die in einer sehr fremden Sprache geschrieben sind . Forschen Sie jetzt nicht nach den Antworten , die Ihnen nicht gegeben werden können , weil Sie sie nicht leben könnten . Und es handelt sich darum , alles zu leben . Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen . Vielleicht leben Sie dann allmählich , ohne es zu merken, eines fernen Tages in die Antwort hinein .

-Rainer Maria Rilke , Briefe an einen jungen Dichter 

You are so young, especially at the beginning, and I would like to ask you, as best I can, dear sir, to be patient with everything that is unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves​, like locked rooms, and like books written in a very foreign language. Do not search now for the answers that cannot be given to you because you could not live them. And it is about living everything . Now live the questions. Perhaps then you will gradually , without realizing it​ live into the answer one day in the distant future .

 

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Sir, being argumentative among friends is the mark of a good friendship.

That being said, I have rarely disagreed with anything that you have written thus far.  I think that explaining one's point of view and starting arguments is fair.

I suppose that I am starting in the wayback (pre-socratics) to go through and try and go through and establish what was actually said by the originators.  

“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”

A.N Whitehead

I think that I have tended toward being a disciple of Aristotle rather than a platonist.  Now this might have something to do with my cordial relationships with Jesuits, but that is how I roll.  But if you look at the Western tradition that Whitehead refers to I will accept that Platonism is thoroughly infused through the tradition.  

But the Jesuits mentioned that Plato and Aristotle are two different traditions with a long history of back-stabbing and calumny among proponents.  I think this tradition continues to this day.  But both Plato and Aristotle appeared to have no use for the Pre-Socratics unless (and perhaps especially when) they were lifting some idea prior to the concept of copyright.

So I am going a different way than you.  I agree that philosophy is a dead end intellectually unless you are in the process of coming up with your own version of gnosis.

I am going a different way however.  I can’t say that I want to address “Philosophy” but rather, I want to pursue “Metaphysics”.  The difference is subtle, I can only say that philosophy seems to be all about what someone wants to teach and metaphysics seems to be about wanting to learn.

I think that I have a long way to go, and looking at the maze ahead of me, I can foresee a lot of dead ends and backtracking ahead of me.  I suppose that is why I am going all ad fontes for the next while.  Having the time to find your way to the end of the maze is the reward for fifty-some odd years of work.  But no one ever said that I was going to get there, but it is still worth giving a go.

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices. 

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Speech Dissolving the Order of the Star