metonymy4u

When Beethoven wrote revolutionary pieces like the Op. 13 sonata, he certainly was misunderstood by his contemporaries. Was he trying to be misunderstood? He clearly refused the pieties of his generation, and corrupted the youth of his community. Was that, his intent?

It seems to me that the question of whether we can step in the same river twice goes to the question of how we relate to our own “reason.” The capacity in question is what contemporary psychology calls executive function – the ability to plan, prioritize, categorize, critique, abstract, reflect, remember, shape emotion, etc, etc. It seems clear that these capacities helped certain of our ancestors pass on more copies of their genes to subsequent generations, which is “why” we think this way. However, the question “do these capacities correspond to some objective reality?” is a question that is impossible to answer. So: take your pick. Or: tailor your answer to your goals.

Plato it seems to me wanted to found a community of philosopher mathematicians just as Nietzsche wanted a community of philosopher poets. And whether we embrace the rationalism of art, religion or science, the positivist urge remains the same. On the other hand I believe Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein saw the problemitization of living as part of the question of community itself. Rather than striving to step outside it once again, they tried to speak through their own suffering with a more personal honesty, of demonstration.

The possibility that there is no ultimate reality within reach of human apperception need not condemn us to a life of apathy. Just because we cannot know the truth does not mean we should stop looking. For it seems to me that the hell of nihilism is no more necessary than the heaven of certainty. I think we create only ourselves.

Watching the movie “The Hunger Games” for the first time, I found myself wondering if Descartes was on to something when he insisted on the primacy of human intuition. Could this have been his own personally ironic answer to the technologies of modernity, the attenuation of meaning, the sacrifice of life to our cultural thirst, for the entertainment of cruelty? If I think what I am then indeed, I believe one smart brave young woman, all on her own, can save the world.

The brain seems to think in categories. We could hypothesize about how this increased the number of copies of genes that got into the next generation for individuals who thought more in categories than not, in the past. Many many categories: subject/predicate, self/other, blue/green, high/low, good/bad, etc. Categories also come with bias. We tend to ignore information that is inconsistent with the category. This can be both helpful and harmful. Another category: helpful/harmful.