I need some help Molly.
The philosopher's concern is with the invisible (don’t we all share the concern with the invisible. Words themselves are invisible. Everyone who speaks concerns themselves with the invisible. Are all speakers philosophers?) which can be perceived by the soul, which itself is something invisible (aeides) and hence goes to Hades, the place of invisibility (A-idis), after death has rid the invisible part of man of his body, the organ of sense perception. (Why the status of vision, sending invisibility to hell?) This is the reason why philosophers always seem 'to pursue death and dying' and why philosophy can also be called 'the study of death.’ ... (493)"<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Is this the ultimate reactionary, conservative stance? The “male gaze” has been well documented.
If the exile, the refugee, the revolutionary seek invisibility are they already, in this view, in Hades?
I have no choice but to reject the notion that invisibility sends one to Hades.
Turning from the political, does certain invisibility to oneself promise Hades? If sight is murky, if one never gets a clear picture of themselves, does that guarantee Hades? But does this make sense? Is the practice of philosophy a ticket to self-ignorance?
Or, as you suggest, descents come in tides with assertions, all obeying some quality of thought. Thought is an accompaniment to life. To stop thinking and to resume living, the question may be how to do it. How do we open our eyes?
How do we incorporate what we have thought into life? This, sadly circular, brings us back to the political.
I need some help Molly.
Ted, I am afraid I cannot help you, at least in the sense you have asked for.
Simply put -- One has to hear what is said (not by me, by the ideas).
One cannot conflate shades of modern ideas with subtle ones from another time and place -- or discipline -- simply because a felicity of translation lets the spheres of their usage overlap. Nor can one speak monolithically, claim contradiction by shifting in and out of contexts, ignoring the very notion of boundary (which the notion of Hades, among many other things, suggests). This is a pleasant enough activity, this conflation, but it leads exactly to what you complain of. Please understand, I don't speak in my own defense, but in defense of the traditions I tried to speak about.
Truth is a precise thing.
I'd be very careful about discussions concerning "boundary". There is every bit of evidence, such as varieties of the uncertainty principle, that boundaries, at best, change. One cannot affix a boundary, even at the finest level, such as laser trapping of atoms. At such granularity quantum processes take over. Hence, if one cannot establish boundaries at a scientific level of precision, one cannot expect one to do the same in a more general area, such as social science, history, or philosophy. Any boundary is subjective and observed differently by different people. Even when observed by the same person, that boundary will change, as its parameters never can be precisely defined. At best, we can have only a probabilistic idea of boundary.
Arthur Mont tagged this post as Insightful.
