There is an emotional renunciation in those things, even in God, to which I continually refer as the loss incurred in the pursuit of independence of the spirit. Not a rebellion against dogma, but an emotional renunciation.
I’ve decided, Vanitas, that either your initial post has no meaning (whatsoever), or that you’re just confused about what it is. I lean to the latter. I say this because you absolutely do not “continually refer” to an “emotional loss” in your initial post. In fact, you never once use that word, or any word synonymous with it, or any word that should be interpreted as such. You do, however, use the aesthetic word “beauty” a lot…but the way you use it suggests that it’s just an empty window-dressing word. Once, you mentioned ‘suffering’—but suffering is all kinds, for instance, I am suffering intellectually to try to tell you what you wrote.
Tell me what I wrote? Yes, I used the word beauty. Maybe if you weren’t such a fucking retard you would understand the emotional appeal.
Maybe if you ever used the term ‘emotional renunciation’, or any words closely synonymous with it, or any metaphor closely related to it—then I would agree your post has anything to do with “emotional renunciation”!!!
You are hilarious.
Ad Homiwhaaaaaaat!??
Do you not understand that losing God or justice means losing things that are quite beautiful? But a philosopher cannot enjoy the right of contemplating beautiful things unless it is under an open sky, unless he is free, unless he has attained to a quiet conscience. So he embarks on the path of knowledge: he does not merely renounce intellectually something like God, but emotionally as well- he loses God not merely as an idea, but as a beauty. At the end of all this there seems to be nothing left upon which to exercise the right of contemplating beauty, there is little beauty left to contemplate under the open sky. That is the comedy of tears. And its resolution can only be found in the understanding that humanity is a virtue to be practiced, not a beauty that offers itself as the luxury of a mere Epicurean garden God, with his open skies, his freedom, his spiritual independence. Instead of staying in that little Garden a philosopher then stakes his heart upon some idea: just as men once did with God. He opens himself up to the possibility of a victory and a defeat, for he understands that only in those two things does the real proof of an independent soul consist. That is what I wrote. I don’t need you to “tell” me what I wrote.
Vanitas,
You seem to be drifting, unawares, short-sighted, whimsical, uncritical, undisciplined, superficial, opinionated without realizing it. First you call me a “retard” …and then you morph and change your initial passage to address my insight that it didn’t say (what I assume) you wanted it to—without thanking me, without acknowledging the value of my criticism, and again, without thanking me. I’ll try to tell you, in light of this new passage, why you are just wrong, and not now why you’ve haven’t said (what I assume) you intended.
Btw, I like how you at least included the word ‘emotion’–if that’s what you want to talk about. But let’s start with the ramblings about ‘beauty’. You baldly declare that ‘god’ and ‘justice’ are beautiful things. If this claim is not utter nonsense, then it’s patently false—at least if it’s intended to apply to me, anyone like me, or even people who agree with you but not in the same way. I’m not even going to ask you why you think ‘god’ and ‘justice’ are beautiful things. (I’m going to spare you another rant, and spare myself from reading it). I’ll just baldly declare the opposite. Here it is: Never has their been an uglier idea than that of ‘god’ and ‘justice’ that I’m so happy we’re overcoming. Absent those hideous ideas, we’re free for the creation of beauty according to criteria of our own making.
With regard to emotions: Change your the metaphor of a “comedy of tears” …that suggests either “tears of joy” (as you would get from a good comedy), or some crazy contradiction. Perhaps you’d like to think about what exactly the emotional renunciation involved is…? (Otherwise, I’m going to have to baldly declare the opposite again).
Wait a minute!! Whats that you say??! You haven’t changed it??!.. Well, apart from the words, the meaning behind them, the emphasis, and the question (which is the title of this thread) at the end some minor things are the same. I see why you didn’t include the original question (“i.e., If the word philosophy is to have any meaning at all, must it not designate precisely this comedy of tears?”). It’s because what YOU mean by “comedy of tears” is something like emotional boohoos and some aesthetic depreciation. And if you put the question THAT way… then clearly, philosophy involves A LOT more than that.
But aside from these points, which might or might not help you, I think the passage uses some nice, very stylish, writing. And I wouldn’t respond just to bludgeon you with my flawless reasoning if I didn’t see some value in it.
In the very first sentence I referred to “suffering inwardly the loss of these things…” That is an emotional appeal. An appeal to the idea that there is a greater kind of renunciation involved in the philosophical ambition toward independence of spirit than simply abandoning an idea. There is something you are not getting. God is a beautiful concept- beautiful in the sense that it is emotionally comforting. Do you understand that giving up God means giving up justice? It means giving up a lot. That is why I said in the first sentence that to suffer inwardly the loss of something like God is a sign of nobility. To be able to do that you have to suffer its loss as something more than the loss of an idea: you have to suffer the loss of the beauty people once took in it, you have to suffer the loss of that aspect of humanity. A philosopher must do this because he cannot contemplate beauty unless it is with a clear conscience, the conscience of a knower- otherwise he can take no enjoyment in it, the philosophical impulse (which is far more than the sting of a viper’s tooth, as Alcibiades said) nags at him while he tries to relish the beauty in things he knows are false. Of course a philosopher, especially a modern one, can no longer find beauty in God: he could never do so with a clear conscience, but he can acknowledge the beauty that was once taken in God.
You do not experience the loss of God as anything more than the loss of an idea. You have no sense of the beauty, human longing, human hope, etc. that were lost along side of it. And this is the comedy of tears: philosophers lose so much beauty in the attempt to gain a clear conscience, and at the end of this, there isn’t much beauty left to enjoy with it, not much hope, not much solace. All there is, is the Epicurean garden: an open sky with nothing underneath it. That is why my question “Must philosophy be always this comedy of tears?” was open ended. Because if you did understand the loss of God as something more than the loss of an idea, you would see that there is great virtue in staking your heart upon something just as fervently as men once did in god, justice, etc. It may even be that the ancients, who held to the idea of God, were more free than you are. They suffered defeat, their world was proven to be a false one, but they posed some conception of the world, they did not simply remain in an Epicurean garden of disinterested, free, liberated contemplation. Philosophy can in fact be more than a comedy of tears given this understanding.
And I am surprised you didn’t look up the motif of comédie larmoyante. It works perfectly here. The tearful comedy doesn’t mean something so funny it brings you to tears. It was a genre that blurred the distinction between tragedy and comedy. It was a form of comedy that involved moral tribulations mainly.
I can’t keep up with everything you say that is wrong. I’ll just make a list:
- Suffering (as I said before) could be of any kind. If you want to refer to emotional suffering, then do so. You didn’t before.
- ‘beautiful’ does not equal ‘emotionally comforting’. I hope you don’t make that equation. It’s terribly wrong. (I give you my ex-girlfriend as proof).
- Giving up ‘god’ does not mean giving up ‘justice’. In fact, you might think only after we’ve given up god is justice possible. Either way, all my comments before apply here: superficial, whimsical, uncritical, shortsighted, opinionated, …etc. One of the things we do in philosophy is provide reasons. It helps people. To understand. You.
- Here is how I suggest you write poetry: Take an idea, thought, feeling, or whatever. Fix your mind on it. Put it in the absolutely simplest, most straightfoward words you possibly can. That way, it’ll be easy for YOU to come back to. Only after you’ve honed it down, simplified, dug out the essence—only then build flowers around it, hide it somewhere, think of analogies, metaphors, masks, disguises, subtleties, etc. You seem to have written the other way around and lost yourself.
- Did you just say that I have no sense of beauty? Excuse me??
- Initially I told you to just go to Church if you wanted to. You rebelled against my supposed misunderstanding. It seems that comment was fairly apt. Then, and now.
All of these points should be very important to you.
You’re welcome.
philosophy is much more than just emotion
philosophy , is more about the ability to reason , which then leads to logic as a consequence of reason