continent. 2.2 (2012): 66–75 ~*~ We’re Doomed. Pessimism is the night-side of thought, a melodrama of the futility of the brain, a poetry written in the graveyard of philosophy. Pessimism is a lyrical failure of philosophical thinking, each attempt at clear and coherent thought, sullen and submerged in the hidden joy of its own futility. The closest pessimism comes to philosophical argument is the droll and laconic “We’ll never make it,” or simply: “We’re doomed.” Every effort doomed to failure, every (...) project doomed to incompletion, every life doomed to be unlived, every thought doomed to be unthought. Pessimism is the lowest form of philosophy, frequently disparaged and dismissed, merely the symptom of a bad attitude. No one ever needs pessimism, in the way that one needs optimism to inspire one to great heights and to pick oneself up, in the way one needs constructive criticism, advice and feedback, inspirational books or a pat on the back. No one needs pessimism, though I like to imagine the idea of a pessimist activism. No one needs pessimism, and yet everyone—without exception—has, at some point in their lives, had to confront pessimism, if not as a philosophy then as a grievance—against one’s self or others, against one’s surroundings or one’s life, against the state of things or the world in general. There is little redemption for pessimism, and no consolation prize. Ultimately, pessimism is weary of everything and of itself. Pessimism is the philosophical form of disenchantment—disenchantment as chanting, a chant, a mantra, a solitary, monophonic voice rendered insignificant by the intimate immensity surrounding it. In pessimism, the first axiom is a long, low, funereal sigh. ~*~ We’re Still Doomed. No one has time for pessimism. After all, there are only so many hours in a day. Whatever our temperament, happy or sad, engaged or disengaged, we know pessimism when we hear it. The pessimist is usually understood as the complainer, forever pointing out what is wrong with the world without ever once offering a solution. But more often than not pessimists are the quietest of philosophers, submerging their own sighs within the lethargy of discontent. What little sound it makes is of interest to no one—“I’ve heard it all before,” “tell me something I don’t know,” sound and fury, signifying nothing. In raising problems without solutions, in posing questions without answers, in retreating to the hermetic, cavernous abode of complaint, pessimism is guilty of that most inexcusable of Occidental crimes—the crime of not pretending it’s for real. Pessimism fails to live up to the most basic tenet of philosophy—the “as if.” Think as if it will be helpful, act as if it will make a difference, speak as if there is something to say, live as if you are not, in fact, being lived by some murmuring non-entity both shadowy and muddied. Had it more self-assurance and better social skills, pessimism would turn its disenchantment into a religion, possibly calling itself The Great Refusal. But there is a negation in pessimism that refuses even such a Refusal, an awareness that, from the start, it has already failed, and that the culmination of all that is, is that all is for naught. Pessimism tries very hard to present itself in the low, sustained tones of a Requiem Mass, or the tectonic rumbling of Tibetan chant. But it frequently lets loose dissonant notes at once plaintive and pathetic. Often, its voice cracks, its weighty words abruptly reduced to mere shards of guttural sound. ~*~ Maybe It’s Not So Bad, After All. If we know pessimism when we hear it, this is because we’ve heard it all before—and we didn’t need to hear it in the first place. Life is hard enough. What you need is a change of attitude, a new outlook, a shift in perspective... a cup of coffee. If we have no ears for pessimism, this is because it is always reducible to something as reliably mutable as a voice. If pessimism is so frequently disparaged, it is because it brings everyone down, determined as it is to view each day as a bad day, if only by virtue of the fact that it is not yet a bad day. For pessimism the world is brimming with negative possibility, the collision of a bad mood with an impassive world. In fact, pessimism is the result of a confusion between the world and a statement about the world, a confusion that also prevents it from fully entering the hallowed halls of philosophy. If pessimism is so often dismissed, this is because it is often impossible to separate a “bad mood” from a philosophical proposition (and do not all philosophies stem from a bad mood?) The very term “pessimism” suggests a school of thought, a movement, even a community. But pessimism always has a membership of one—maybe two. Ideally, of course, it would have a membership of none, with only a scribbled, illegible note left behind by someone long forgotten. But this seems unrealistic, though one can always hope. ~*~ Anatomy of Pessimism. Though it may locate itself at the margins of philosophy, pessimism is as much subject to philosophical analysis as any other form of thought. Pessimism’s lyricism of failure gives it the structure of music. What time is to the music of sorrow, reason is to a philosophy of the worst. Pessimism’s two major keys are moral and metaphysical pessimism, its subjective and objective poles, an attitude towards the world and a claim about the world. For moral pessimism, it is better not to have been born at all; for metaphysical pessimism, this is the worst of all possible worlds. For moral pessimism the problem is the solipsism of human beings, the world made in our own image, a world-for-us. For metaphysical pessimism, the problem is the solipsism of the world, objected and projected as a world-in-itself. Both moral and metaphysical pessimism are compromised philosophically; moral pessimism by its failure to locate the human within a larger context, and metaphysical pessimism by its failure to recognize the complicity in the very claim of realism. This is how pessimism makes its music of the worst, a generalized misanthropy without the anthropos . Pessimism crystallizes around this futility—it is its amor fati , rendered as musical form. ~*~ Melancholy of Anatomy. There is a logic of pessimism that is fundamental to its suspicion of philosophical system. Pessimism involves a statement about a condition . In pessimism each statement boils down to an affirmation or a negation, just as any condition boils down to the best or the worst. With Schopenhauer, that arch-pessimist, the thinker for whom the philosopher and the curmudgeon perfectly overlap, we see a no-saying to the worst, a no-saying that secretly covets a yes-saying (through asceticism, mysticism, quietism), even if this hidden yes-saying is a horizon at the limits of comprehension. With Nietzsche comes the pronouncement of a Dionysian pessimism, a pessimism of strength or joy, a yes-saying to the worst, a yes-saying to this world as it is. And with Cioran yet another variation, futile yet lyrical, a no-saying to the worst, and a further no-saying to the possibility of any other world, in here or out there. With Cioran one approaches, but never reaches, an absolute no-saying, a studied abandonment of pessimism itself. The logic of pessimism moves through three refusals: a no-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-for-us, or Schopenhauer’s tears); a yes-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-in-itself, or Nietzsche’s laughter); and a no-saying to the for-us and the in-itself (a double refusal, or Cioran’s sleep). Crying, laughing, sleeping—what other responses are adequate to a life that is so indifferent? ~*~ Cosmic Pessimism. Both moral and metaphysical pessimism point to another kind, a pessimism that is neither subjective nor objective, neither for-us nor in-itself, and instead a pessimism of the world-without-us. We could call this a cosmic pessimism ... but this sounds too majestic, too full of wonder, too much the bitter aftertaste of the Great Beyond. Words falter. And so do ideas. And so we have a cosmic pessimism, a pessimism that is first and last a pessimism about cosmos , about the necessity and possibility of order. The contours of cosmic pessimism are a drastic scaling-up or scaling-down of the human point of view, the unhuman orientation of deep space and deep time, and all of this shadowed by an impasse, a primordial insignificance, the impossibility of ever adequately accounting for one’s relationship to thought—all that remains of pessimism is the desiderata of affects—agonistic, impassive, defiant, reclusive, filled with sorrow and flailing at that architectonic chess match called philosophy, a flailing that pessimism tries to raise to the level of an art form (though what usually results is slapstick). ~*~ Song of Futility. An ethics of futility pervades pessimism. Futility, however, is different from fatality, and different again from simple failure (though failure is never simple). Failure is a breakage within the heart of relations, a fissure between cause and effect, a fissure hastily covered over by trying and trying again. With failure, there is always plenty of blame to go around; it’s not my fault, it’s a technical difficulty, it’s a miscommunication. For the pessimist, failure is a question of “when,” not “if”—failure as a metaphysical principle. Everything withers and passes into an obscurity blacker than night, everything from the melodramatic decline of a person’s life to the banal flickering moments that constitute each day. Everything that is done undone, everything said or known destined for a kind of stellar oblivion. When scaled up in this way, failure becomes fatality. Fatality is the hermeticism of cause and effect. In fatality, everything you do, whatever you do, always leads to a certain end, and ultimately to the end—though that end, or the means to that end, remain shrouded in obscurity. Nothing you do makes a difference because everything you do makes a difference. Hence the effects of your actions are hidden from you, even as you deceive yourself into thinking that, at last, this time you will outwit the order of things. By having a goal, planning ahead, and thinking things through carefully, we attempt, in a daily Prometheanism, to turn fatality to our advantage, to gain a glimpse of an order that seems buried deeper and deeper in the fabric of the universe. But even fatality has its comforts. The chain of cause and effect may be hidden from us, but that’s just because disorder is the order we don’t yet see; it’s just complex, distributed, and requires advanced mathematics. Fatality still clings to the sufficiency of everything that exists... When fatality relinquishes even this idea, it becomes futility. Futility arises out of the grim suspicion that, behind the shroud of causality we drape over the world, there is only the indifference of what exists or doesn’t exist; whatever you do ultimately leads to no end, an irrevocable chasm between thought and world. Futility transforms the act of thinking into a zero-sum game. ~*~ Song of the Worst. At the center of pessimism lies the term pessimus , “the worst,” a term as relative as it is absolute. The worst is about as bad as it gets, “the worst” as “the best” in disguise, shrouded by the passage of time or the twists and turns of fortune. For the pessimist, “the worst” is the propensity for suffering that gradually occludes each living moment, until it eclipses it entirely, overlapping perfectly in death... which, for the pessimist, is no longer “the worst.” Pessimism is marked by an unwillingness to move beyond “the worst,” something only partially attributable to a lack in motivation. In pessimism “the worst” is the ground that gives way beneath every existent—things could be worse, and , things could be better. “The worst” invariably implies a value judgment, one made based on scant evidence and little experience; in this way, pessimism’s greatest nemesis is its moral orientation. Pessimism’s propositions have all the gravitas of a bad joke. Perhaps this is why the true optimists are the most severe pessimists—they are optimists that have run out of options. They are almost ecstatically inundated by the worst. Such an optimism is the only possible outcome of a prolonged period of suffering, physical or metaphysical, intellectual or spiritual. But does this not also describe all the trials and tribulations of each day—in short, of “life?” It seems that sooner or later we are all doomed to become optimists of this sort (the most depressing of thoughts...) ~*~ Song of Doom. Rather than serving as a cause for despair, gloom and doom are the forms of consolation for any pessimist philosophy. Neither quite affects nor quite concepts, gloom and doom transform pessimism into a mortification of philosophy. Doom is not just the sense that all things will turn out badly, but that all things inevitably come to an end, irrespective of whether or not they really do come to an end. What emerges from doom is a sense of the unhuman as an attractor, a horizon towards which the human is fatally drawn. Doom is humanity given over to unhumanity in an act of crystalline self-abnegation. Gloom is not simply the anxiety that precedes doom. Gloom is literally atmospheric, climate as much as impression, and if people are also gloomy, this is simply the by-product of an anodyne atmosphere that only incidentally involves human beings. Gloom is more climatological than psychological, the stuff of dim, hazy, overcast skies, of ruins and overgrown tombs, of a misty, lethargic fog that moves with the same languorousness as our own crouched and sullen listening to a disinterested world. In a sense, gloom is the counterpoint to doom—what futility is to the former, fatality is to the latter. Doom is marked by temporality—all things precariously drawn to their end—whereas gloom is the austerity of stillness, all things sad, static, and suspended, a meandering smoke hovering over cold lichen stones and damp fir trees. If doom is the terror of temporality and death, then gloom is the horror of a hovering stasis that is life. At times I like to imagine that this realization alone is the thread that connects the charnel ground Aghori and the graveyard poets. ~*~ Song of Spite. There is an intolerance in pessimism that knows no bounds. In pessimism spite begins by fixing on a particular object of spite—someone one hardly knows, or someone one knows too well; a spite for this person or a spite for all of humanity; a spectacular or a banal spite; a spite for a noisy neighbor, a yapping dog, a battalion of strollers, the meandering idiot walking in front of you on their smart phone, large loud celebrations, traumatic injustices anywhere in the world regurgitated as media blitz, spite for the self-absorbed and overly performative people talking way too loud at the table next to you, technical difficulties and troubleshooting, the reduction of everything to branding, spite of the refusal to admit one’s own errors, of self-help books, of people who know absolutely everything and make sure to tell you, of all people, all living beings, all things, the world, the spiteful planet, the inanity of existence... Spite is the motor of pessimism because it is so egalitarian, so expansive, it runs amok, stumbling across intuitions that can only half-heartedly be called philosophical. Spite lacks the confidence and the clarity of hatred, but it also lacks the almost cordial judgment of dislike. For the pessimist, the smallest detail can be an indication of a metaphysical futility so vast and funereal that it eclipses pessimism itself—a spite that pessimism carefully places beyond the horizon of intelligibility, like the experience of dusk, or like the phrase, “it is raining jewels and daggers.” ~*~ Song of Sleep. A paraphrase of Schopenhauer: what death is for the organism, sleep is for the individual. Pessimists sleep not because they are depressed, but because for them sleep is a form of ascetic practice. Sleep is the askesis of pessimism. If, while sleeping, we have a bad dream, we abruptly wake up, and suddenly the horrors of the night vanish. There is no reason to think that the same does not happen with the bad dream we call “life.” ~*~ Song of Sorrow. Nietzsche, commenting on pessimism, once castigated Schopenhauer for taking things too lightly. He writes: ...Schopenhauer, though a pessimist, really —played the flute. Every day, after dinner: one should read his biography on that. And incidentally: a pessimist, one who denies God and the world but comes to a stop before morality—who affirms morality and plays the flute... what? Is that really—a pessimist? We know that Schopenhauer did possess a collection of instruments, and we also know that Nietzsche himself composed music. There is no reason to think that either of them would ever banish music from the Republic of philosophy. But Nietzsche’s jibes at Schopenhauer are as much about music as they are about pessimism. For the pessimist who says no to everything and yet finds comfort in music, the no-saying of pessimism can only be a weak way of saying yes—the weightiest statement undercut by the flightiest of replies. The least that Schopenhauer could’ve done is to play the bass. I’m not a big fan of the flute, or, for that matter, wind instruments generally. But what Nietzsche forgets is the role that the flute has historically played in Greek tragedy. In tragedy, the flute ( aulos ) is not an instrument of levity and joy, but of solitude and sorrow. The Greek aulos not only expresses the grief of tragic loss, but it does so in a way that renders weeping and singing inseparable from each other. The classicist Nicole Loraux calls this the mourning voice . Set apart from the more official civic rituals of funerary mourning, the mourning voice of Greek tragedy constantly threatens to dissolve song into wailing, music into moaning, and the voice into a primordial, disarticulate anti-music. The mourning voice delineates all the forms of suffering—tears, weeping, sobbing, wailing, moaning, and the convulsions of thought reduced to an elemental unintelligibility. In the collapsed space between the voice that speaks and the voice that sings, pessimism discovers its mourning voice. Pessimism: the failure of sound and sense, the disarticulation of phone and logos . Have we rescued Schopenhauer from Nietzsche? Probably not. Perhaps Schopenhauer played the flute to remind himself of the real function of the mourning voice—sorrow, sighs, and moaning rendered indistinguishable from music, the crumbling of the human into the unhuman. Failure par excellence of pessimism. ~*~ Song of Nothing. In Buddhist thought, the First Noble Truth of existence is encapsulated in the Pali term dukkha , conventionally translated as “suffering,” “sorrow,” or “misery.” The Buddhist teachings are clear, however, that this is an objective claim, and not simply one point of view among others. Existence is suffering and sorrow—and yet this is not, the teachings tell us, a pessimistic attitude. It is likely that Schopenhauer, reading the Buddhist texts available to him, recognized some filiation with the concept of dukkha . But dukkha is a multi-faceted term. There is, certainly, dukkha in the usual sense of the suffering, strife, and loss associated with living a life. But this is, in turn, dependent on the finitude and temporality of dukkha , existence as determined by impermanence and imperfection. And this ultimately points to the way in which both suffering and finitude are grounded by the paradoxical groundlessness of dukkha as a metaphysical principle—the insubstantiality and the emptiness of all that is. Beyond what is worse to me, beyond a world ordered for the worst, there is the emptiness of dukkha as an impersonal suffering... the tears of the cosmos. In this context, it is easy to see how Schopenhauer’s pessimism attempts to compress all the aspects of dukkha into a nothingness at the core of existence, a Willlessness coursing through the Will. Though one thing for certain is that with Schopenhauer we do not find the “ever-smiling” countenance of Buddhism—or do we? The texts of the Pali Canon also contain lists of the different types of happiness—including the happiness of renunciation and the strange happiness of detachment. But Buddhism considers even the different types of happiness as part of dukkha , in this final sense of nothingness or emptiness. Perhaps Schopenhauer understood Buddhism better than he is usually given credit for. Thus the experiment of Schopenhauer’s philosophy—the point at which a Western pessimus and an Eastern dukkha overlap or exchange glances. Empty sorrow, a lyricism of indifference. The result is a strange, and ultimately untenable, nocturnal form of Buddhism. ~*~ Cioran once called music a “physics of tears.” If this is true, then perhaps metaphysics is its commentary. Or its apology. ~*~ Pessimism would be more mystical were it not for its defeatism. Mysticism is much too proactive for the pessimist, and pessimism too impassive even for the mystic. At the same time, there is something enviable about mysticism—despite its sufferings. There is a sense in which pessimists are really failed mystics. ~*~ You, the Night, and the Music. In a suggestive passage, Schopenhauer once noted that, “music is the melody to which the world is the text." Given Schopenhauer’s view on life—that life is suffering, that human life is absurd, that the nothingness before my birth is equal to the nothingness after my death—given all this, one wonders what kind of music Schopenhauer had in mind when he described music as the melody to which the world is text—was it opera, a Requiem Mass, a madrigal, or perhaps a drinking song? Or something like Eine kleine Nachtmusik , a little night music for the twilight of thought, a sullen nocturne for the night-side of logic, an era of sad wings sung by a solitary banshee. Perhaps the music Schopenhauer had in mind is music eliminated to non-music. A whisper would suffice. Perhaps a sigh of fatigue or resignation, perhaps a moan of despair or sorrow. Perhaps a sound just articulate enough that it could be heard to dissipate. ~*~ Teach me to laugh through tears. ~*~ Pessimism always falls short of being philosophical. My back aches, my knees hurt, I couldn’t sleep last night, I’m stressed-out, and I think I’m finally coming down with something. Pessimism abjures all pretenses towards system—towards the purity of analysis and the dignity of critique. We didn’t really think we could figure it out, did we? It was just passing time, taking a piss, something to do, a bold gesture put forth in all its fragility, according to rules that we have agreed to forget that we made up in the first place. Every thought marked by a shadowy incomprehension that precedes it, and a futility that undermines it. That pessimism speaks, in whatever voice, is the singing testimony to this futility and this incomprehension—take a chance and step outside, lose some sleep and say you tried... ~*~ Is there a music of pessimism? And would such a music be audible? ~*~ The impact of music on a person compels them to put their experience into words. When this fails, the result is a faltering of thought and language that is itself a kind of music. Cioran writes: “Music is everything. God himself is nothing more than an acoustic hallucination.” ~*~ If a thinker like Schopenhauer has any redeeming qualities, it is that he identified the great lie of Western culture—the preference for existence over non-existence. As he notes: “If we knocked on the graves and asked the dead whether they would like to rise again, they would shake their heads.” In Western cultures it is commonly accepted that one celebrates birth and mourns death. But there must be a mistake here. Wouldn’t it make more sense to mourn birth and celebrate death? Strange though, because the mourning of birth would, presumably, last the entirety of that person’s life, so that mourning and living would the be same thing. ~*~ To the musical idea of the harmony of the universe corresponds the philosophical principle of sufficient reason. Like the music of mourning, pessimism gives voice to the inevitable breakdown of word and song. In this way, music is the overtone of thought. ~*~ The Patron Saints of Pessimism. The patron saints of pessimism watch over suffering. Laconic and sullen, the patron saints of pessimism never seem to do a good job at protecting, interceding, or advocating for those who suffer. Perhaps they need us more than we need them. Lest we forget, there do exist patron saints of philosophy, but their stories are not happy ones. There is, for instance, the fourth century Saint Catherine of Alexandria, or Catherine of the Wheel, named after the torture device used on her. A precocious fourteen year old scholar, Catherine was subject to continual persecution. After all forms of torture failed—including the “breaking wheel”—the emperor finally settled for her decapitation, a violent yet appropriate reminder of the protector of philosophers. There are also patron saints of music and musicians, but theirs too are sad stories. In the second century, Saint Cecilia was also subject to persecution and torture. As she knelt to receive the blade that would separate her head from her body, she ardently sang a song to God. It took three attempts before she was fully decapitated, all the while she continued, perhaps miraculously, to sing. Does pessimism not deserve its own patron saints, even if they are unworthy of martyrdom? But in our search, even the most ardent nay-sayers frequently lapse into brief moments of enthusiasm—Pascal’s love of solitude, Leopardi’s love of poetry, Schopenhauer’s love of music, Nietzsche’s love of Schopenhauer, and so on. Should one then focus on individual works of pessimism? We could include Kierkegaard’s trilogy of horror— Sickness Unto Death , The Concept of Dread , and Fear and Trembling —but all these are undermined by their fabricated and unreliable authors. Besides, how can one separate the pessimist from the optimist in works like Unamuno’s The Tragic Sense of Life , Shestov’s Postetas Clavium , or Edgar Saltus’ under-read The Philosophy of Disenchantment ? Even in cases where the entire corpus of an author is pessimistic, the project always seems incomplete—witness Cioran’s trajectory, from his first book, On the Heights of Despair , to the last unpublished notebooks of acrid and taut aphorisms. And this is to say nothing of literary pessimism, from Goethe’s sorrowful Werther, to Dostoevsky’s underground man, to Pessoa’s disquiet scribbler; Baudelaire’s spleen and ennui, the mystical Satanism of Huysmans and Strindberg, the hauntologies of Mário de Sá-Carniero, Izumi Kyoka, H.P. Lovecraft, grumpy old Beckett... even the great pessimist comedians. All that remains are singular, perhaps anomalous statements of pessimism, a litany of quotes and citations crammed into fortune cookies. Patron saints are traditionally named after a locale, either a place of birth or of a mystical experience. Perhaps the better approach is to focus on the places where pessimists were forced to live out their pessimism—Schopenhauer facing an empty Berlin lecture hall, Nietzsche mute and convalescent at the home of his sister, Wittgenstein the relinquished professor and solitary gardener, Cioran grappling with Alzheimer’s in his tiny writing alcove in the Latin Quarter. ~*~ There’s a ghost that grows inside of me, damaged in the making, and there’s a hunt sprung from necessity, elliptical and drowned. Where the moving quiet of our insomnia offers up each thought, there’s a luminous field of grey inertia, and obsidian dreams burnt all the way down. ~*~ If pessimism has any pedagogical value, it is that the failure of pessimism as a philosophy is inextricably tied to the failure of pessimism as voice. I read the following, from Shestov’s The Apotheosis of Groundlessness : When a person is young he writes because it seems to him he has discovered a new almighty truth which he must make haste to impart to forlorn humankind. Later, becoming more modest, he begins to doubt his truths: and then he tries to convince himself. A few more years go by, and he knows he was mistaken all round, so there is no need to convince himself. Nevertheless he continues to write, because he is not fit for any other work, and to be accounted a superfluous person is so horrible. (shrink)

contents -/- ONT vol 1 i. short review: Beyond the Black Rainbow ii. as you die, hold one thought iii. short review: LA JETÉE -/- ONT vol 2 i. maya means ii. short review: SANS SOLEIL iii. vocab iv. eros has an underside v. short review: In the Mood for Love -/- ONT vol 3 i. weed weakens / compels me ii. an Ender's Game after-party iii. playroom is a realm of the dead iv. a precise german History v. short (...) review: STATUES ALSO DIE vi. Kenneth Clark, curator for Fascism vii. a protest poem, in industry lit viii. Lawrence and the English Romance -/- ONT vol 4 i. short review: The Eyes of Tammy Faye ii. vR is efficient R iii. all thru Asia, robes for monks iv. same of God, and of the one God sent v. i thought of the Messiah / muse would be vi. conscience is strong vii. a monk's exalted end -/- ONT vol 5 -/- i. for Shakespeare's Richard the Third ii. the truth is i pass over so many words iii. the boori nazar / nadhar iv. i've awe for jihaad v. short review: Hail, Caesar! vi. a minute of Nothing, gone from YouTube vii. we were rivalrous friends, again viii. my bardo pdf ix. within i'm a weak old mandarin -/- ONT vol 6 i. short review: The Intern ii. the confusion of Chinatown iii. we'll remember water, in Theology iv. Respironics versus ResMed v. i'd bet my life for what vi. the Mad Max deity vii. they'd kill my rat, not heal him -/- ONT vol 7 i. Austen would eroticize all life ii. Merchant/Ivory, a name oddly right iii. Ellie Arroway / Agent Starling iv. abattoir / l’abattoir / laboratoire v. von Neumann's brain an anomaly vi. was terrified of death, delighted in the a-bomb vii. the Greatest Brain is variously named -/- ONT vol 8 i. the day they shot the sacrifice ii. Yay or Nay, on Animal Testing iii. an ought is an is / an is is an ought iv. Behaviorism is for zombies v. a finding from the neuro-lab, on empathy vi. i’ve never had discernible abs vii. a cowardice i'm assenting to perpetually -/- ONT vol 9 i. Day of the Locust / Triffids ii. we're wide on a Paramount soundstage iii. HOLLYWOOD, an ecologic history iv. yet one more site of end-time art v. he's "a bookworm with bulging lobes" vi. apartment is my state of being apart vii. enlightenment means a weight's release -/- ONT lates and xtras i. re Gödel's ontological argument ii. deep in pi's numeric noise iii. from Nothing, something iv. endless in the wrong direction, tragic v. they give you all Eternity to answer vi. what of God's mercy? vii. informed consent and prayer viii. i won't live on. a deed i've done may ix. my selective memory x. Janus means: in close-up foam, two faces xi. a liveable world is a readable world xii. what Supervenes from this? xiii. at each extreme our naming is anachronism xiv. Cat is a collapsing of the wave-function xv. diminishing returns in the history of Experiment xvi. all those undershared Nobels xvii. ice preserves the Cold from heat xviii. a desert spreads xix. Pinker's wit, on jokes xx. Rome surrounds St. Paul / Paul is now the center xxi. each is a gathering Ministry xxii. white boy shot execution-style xxiii. the McDonald's Statement of Claim xxiv. first & last: Don Quixote / Ulysses xxv. The Summer of Rave xxvi. this electro is intrinsically anonymous xxvii. all thru Asia, Drake-Rihanna xxviii. WHO IS BETTER: PLATON OR KANT? (shrink)

El artículo analiza la cuestión sobre la predicción científica desde algunas categorías de la epistemología de la gerencia en contextos disruptivos. La historia de las ciencias sociales muestra que la predicción ha sido siempre su problema central, por lo que en este trabajo presentamos una interpretación de las predicciones científicas en clave filosófica y epistemológica respecto de entornos organizacionales inciertos. Para ello se analiza de forma particular, mediante metodología fenomenológico-hermenéutica (Heidegger, 2002; 2022; Villalobos, 2017),la teoría de la impredictibilidad de Macintyre (...) (1985), desde sus cuatro perspectivas de impredicción, en el marco de la llamada sociedad digital; esta se describe como contexto caótico y complejo, considerando las “redes digitales”, las cuales implican desafíos de futuro, según nuestra interpretación. La realidad estudiada se ejemplifica desde lo que se ha denominado Entornos BANI, en especial como desafío para las organizaciones, caracterizándose como sistemas inestables: son frágiles, impregnados de temores, se manifiestan en ambientes desconocidos y muchas veces incomprensibles; ello se debe a la abundante información que reciben del contexto, trayendo como consecuencia una cierta paralización de la acción en virtud de las amenazas, debido, además, a los impactos que recibe de entornos disruptores producto de las innovaciones tecnológicas. Se concluye que los sistemas de innovación que emergen como respuesta a estos sistemas caóticos que caracteriza a los Entornos BANI, pueden asumir criterios de interpretación derivados de la epistemología de la complejidad, y de la llamada Sistemología Interpretativa, herramientas con las cuales se pueden aliviar las tensiones internas y externas de las organizaciones frente al fenómeno sistémico descrito. (shrink)

C'est à l'époque moderne que l'homme en est arrivé à se dire le créateur de sa propre humanité. Autrefois, il se croyait l'oeuvre de la nature ou l'enfant de Dieu. Désormais, il entend conquérir l'une et s'affranchir de l'autre. Il veut rompre avec le passé, se donner souverainement sa loi, définir ce qui doit être, dominer. Telle est l'ambition vertigineuse que raconte cet ouvrage. Descartes rêvait d'un homme maître et possesseur de la nature ; deux siècles plus tard, Nietzsche allait (...) décréter que l'homme doit être dépassé, n'étant plus à la hauteur des attentes que lui-même avait définies. Rémi Brague interroge les origines de ce projet et retrouve les traits qui vont progressivement dessiner la nouvelle humanité dont nous sommes les héritiers. Pour reconstituer la longue trajectoire de l'homme moderne, ce livre convoque aussi bien la philosophie que la littérature ; il y découvre les espoirs et l'enthousiasme qui portent ses débuts, mais aussi, à l'épreuve de cette expérience impossible, l'angoisse et les désillusions qui en marquent l'échec. Le Règne de l'homme clôt une longue enquête sur la manière dont l'homme, de l'Antiquité à nos jours, a pensé successivement son rapport d'abord au monde, ensuite à Dieu et, pour finir, à soi-même. (shrink)

Il faut être "modérément moderne", et non "résolument" ; comme le préconisait Rimbaud dans un slogan aussi galvaudé que creux. Et prendre ses distances d'avec cette maladie, la "modernite". De ces fameux "Temps Modernes", que peut dire un philosophe qui a décidé de ne pas avancer masqué? Complaisante modernité, qui se clame en "rupture" avec tout! Et d'abord avec le passé pour lequel elle a inventé le nom de "Moyen Age". Alors que la modernité en vit comme un parasite, dans (...) une dialectique autodestructrice. Car au fond, qu'a-t-elle inventé? Ni la révolution technique, ni l'urbanisation, ni la société civile, ni même la personne comme sujet de libertés... Les idées modernes ne sont que des idées prémodernes, maquillées comme une marchandise volée. Avec le recul et la capacité d'analyse que lui permet sa formidable culture, Rémi Brague nous offre une série de réflexions incisives sur les notions de Modernité, de Culture, d'Histoire, de Sécularisation, de Progrès... Chemin faisant, il met en avant des penseurs qui sortent des sentiers battus, des idées qu'on avait oubliées, des rapprochements qui font avancer. Peut-on guérir de la "modernite"? C'est l'ambition de cet essai revigorant, qui n'interdit pas d'être résolument optimiste. (shrink)

History of the Khėl Zokhiolyn Khu̇rėėlėn (Institute of Language and Literature) of the Mongolian Science Academy, by it's senior and recent researchers.

In The Nay Science, Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee undertake a careful and rigorous hermeneutical approach to nearly two centuries of German philological scholarship on the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita.

La bibliographie est divisee en trois parties.

For over a century the definitions of mass and derivations of its relation with energy continue to be elaborated, demonstrating that the concept of mass is still not satisfactorily understood. The aim of this study is to show that, starting from the properties of Minkowski spacetime and from the principle of least action, energy expresses the property of inertia of a body. This implies that inertial mass can only be the object of a definition—the so called mass-energy relation—aimed at measuring (...) energy in different units, more suitable to describe the huge amount of it enclosed in what we call the “rest-energy” of a body. Likewise, the concept of gravitational mass becomes unnecessary, being replaceable by energy, thus making the weak equivalence principle intrinsically verified. In dealing with mass, a new unit of measurement is foretold for it, which relies on the de Broglie frequency of atoms, the value of which can today be measured with an accuracy of a few parts in 109. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage reprend l'essentiel des discours prononces et des communications presentees lors du colloque qui s'est tenu le 16 novembre 2001 a l'Institut Superieur de Philosophie en l'honneur des 80 ans de Jean Ladriere. On y trouve, outre les discours de Marcel Crochet, Gilbert Gerard et Michel Molitor, une contribution importante de Jean Ladriere et des communications de Stanislas Breton, Bernard d'Espagnat, Dominique Lambert, Jean-Francois Malherbe, James Pembrun, Andre Van de Putte et Philippe Van Parijs. Toutes les interventions portent sur (...) la problematique de la rationalite - un theme central et unificateur de l'oeuvre philosophique de Jean Ladriere - dans les domaines de l'histoire de la philosophie, la philosophie sociale et politique, la philosophie du langage, la philosophie des sciences et la theologie. L'ouvrage se termine par une interview de Jean Ladriere par Philippe Van Parijs.". (shrink)

Start your day with these peaceful, empowering words of wisdom. All of these words are interwoven with meditative, inspiring images of celebration. Each page is designed to increase positive thinking and improve your mental health. Life-changing mindful meditations. Strengthen your mindset with these empowering words of wisdom that are referenced as essential advice for how to grow spirituality and mentally strong. Meditation practices are essential to building mindfulness. Go Slowly, Breathe and Smile is a unique convergence of wisdom and art, (...) a beautiful tribute from a dedicated student to her teacher. Absorb Thich Nhat Hanh's words of wisdom and meditate on Rashani Réa's inspirational collages, and allow these pages to illuminate your heart and mind, inspire mindfulness, and reduce stress levels. (shrink)

Chenu, M.-D. Foi, certitude et recherche.--Gilson, É. Réponse à Louis-Marie Régis, On some difficulties of interpretation.--Dubarle, D. Logique et épistémologie du signe chez Aristote et chez les Stoïciens.--Geiger, L.-B. Ce qui est, se dit en plusiers sens.--Owens, J. "Diversificata in diversis."--Cauchy, V. Être et connaître, l'irréductibilité de l'aristotélisme au platonisme.--Joós, E. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, de l'intentio intellectus, à l'intentio rei.--Murin, C. Pour une démystification de la "mort-de-Dieu" nietzschéenne.--Joós, E. Post-scriptum, la nouvelle scolastique de Louis-Marie Régis.--Landry, A.-M. Louis-Marie Régis, O.P., quelques dates (...) et faits marquants de sa vie.--Lettre d'Henri-Irénée Marrou à Louis-Marie Régis. (shrink)

Kaynardağ, Arslan, 1923-; intellectual; criticism and interpretation; Turkey; modern philosophy; 20th century.

Mongolian philosophy in the post-communism period.

A referendum was held on October 1st, 1978 at Andenne, a municipality in the French-speaking part of Belgium, on the settlement of a nuclear plant. A referendum on the settlement of an ecologically noxiousindustry was held at Tessenderlo, a municipality in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, on March 25th, 1979. These referenda are unique in their kind in Belgium. They show a very large similarity bath in theirset-up and their results. The turn-out can be considered satisfying high, especially since compulsory (...) voting could not be imposed. The votes cast were mainly nays. (shrink)

Dissenting Words is a lively and engaging collection of interviews that span the length of Jacques Rancière's trajectory, from the critique of Althusserian Marxism and the work on proletarian thinking in the nineteenth century to the more recent reflections on politics and aesthetics. Across these pages, Rancière discusses the figures, concepts and arguments he has introduced to the theoretical landscape over the past forty years, the themes and concerns that have animated his thinking, the positions he has defended and the (...) wide range of objects and discourses that have attracted his attention and through which his thought has unfolded: history, pedagogy, literature, art, cinema. But more than reflecting on the continuities, turns, ruptures and deviations in his thought, Rancière recasts his work in a different discursive register. And the pleasure we experience in reading these interviews – with their asides, displacements and reconstructions – stems from the way Rancière transforms the voice of the thinker commenting on his texts and elucidating his concepts into another, and equally rich, manifestation of his thought. (shrink)

Francis Bacon’s political thought cannot be understood without a close reading of his discussions about human emotions and the role they play from our private to public spheres of interaction. This paper discusses Bacon’s widespread treatment of envy as a particularly significant source of political strife within states which, when unattended, leads to civil war. Bacon rejects envy as a ‘private’ passion. As a ‘public’ passion, however, it becomes a tool for preventing the very outcome to which ‘private’ envy is (...) inclined. Envy thus serves as a useful political tool that uncovers ambitious men ‘when they grow too great’ and helps political leaders ‘in handling sedition’. Envy, moreover, is also a central concept that elucidates Bacon’s discussions of ‘moral’ and ‘civil’ philosophy as two areas of study that need to be united for proper political rule. The paper opens with an analysis of Bacon’s treatment of envy in his Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral and his writings on historiography; it then connects Bacon’s understanding of envy and civil war with the writings of Thomas Hobbes and Michel de Montaigne; finally, it concludes with a discussion of the role of envy in Bacon’s civil and moral philosophy. (shrink)

"En me donnant un micro pour deux séries d'interventions, l'une sur l'histoire, l'autre sur la religion, France Culture m'a permis de résumer et clarifier les travaux que je mène depuis maintes années sur diverses affaires temporelles et spirituelles. Je ne saurais assez remercier sa directrice Sandrine Treiner de m'avoir ainsi donné l'occasion d'apporter ma petite pierre à l'édifice des Lumières, sous l'égide de la devise : Rendre la Raison populaire. Vaste programme, qui exige d'inquiéter nombre de lieux communs, ce qui (...) n'est jamais plaisant. Pourquoi? Parce que nous nous berçons de mots, toujours les mêmes, et que ces mots nous trompent. L'histoire? Elle est censée nous découvrir la réalité des choses : elle nous dorlote avec de fausses croyances. Les religions? Elles sont censées nous raconter des blagues : bombes et couteaux nous découvrent de rudes vérités. Et si l'opium du peuple n'était pas là où l'on pensait? C'est à renverser de vétustes perspectives qu'invite ce récapitulatif, dérangeant comme un réveille-matin". Régis Debray. (shrink)

Daw-Nay N. R. Evans - Nietzsche and Rée: A Star Friendship - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.4 672-673 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Daw-Nay N. R. Evans, Jr. DePaul University Robin Small. Nietzsche and Rée: A Star Friendship. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005. Pp. xxiv + 247. Cloth, $45.00. Nietzsche attracts a wide range of scholarly enthusiasts. There are those who take Nietzsche seriously as a philosopher and study his (...) works for their own sake, while others seek to mine his works for philosophical gold to determine what he might have to offer their particular area of specialization . On the other hand, there are those who seek to sensationalize Nietzsche by making him.. (shrink)

Le Dictionnaire de la pensée politique présente, sous une forme simple et accessible, les principaux courants d'idées, les grands débats philosophiques et les auteurs majeurs de la pensée politique occidentale. Il couvre toutes les périodes de l'histoire depuis l'Antiquité et aborde une très grande diversité de thèmes : la philosophie des Anciens, les doctrines du Moyen Age, l'humanisme de la Renaissance, les grands projets des lumières, mais aussi les réflexions sur le pouvoir, la justice, l'État, la nation, la démocratie, le (...) socialisme, le libéralisme, le totalitarisme ou le communautarisme. Guidé par un souci de rigueur, de concision et de clarté, il présente les idées politiques dans leur rapport avec les évolutions sociales, politiques et culturelles de l'Europe et du monde. Certaines notices sont consacrées à un auteur et à son œuvre. D'autres traitent un concept ou une idée philosophique centrale ayant nourri la réflexion sur le pouvoir et la société. D'autres enfin, privilégiant un angle historique, analysent l'évolution d'une sensibilité doctrinale ou intellectuelle. Le dictionnaire s'adresse aux étudiants des cursus de philosophie, de droit, d'histoire et de science politique. Il sera particulièrement utile aux étudiants de Sciences-Po et aux élèves des classes préparatoires. Il offre à chacun les moyens d'approfondir ses connaissances sur les grands débats qui ont influencé le cours de l'histoire. (shrink)

Whistleblowing refers to the disclosure by organization members of illegal, immoral, or illegitimate practices to persons or organizations that may be able to effect action. Most studies on the topic have been conducted in North American or European private sector organizations, and less attention has been paid to regions such as Turkey. In this study, we study the whistleblowing intentions and channel choices of Turkish employees in private and public sector organizations. Using data from 327 private sector and 405 public (...) sector employees, we find that public sector employees are more idealistic and less inclined to whistleblow externally and anonymously. Higher idealism among public sector employees does not moderate these effects. We find that private sector employees are more relativistic, and that they are more inclined to whistleblow through external and anonymous channels. More relativistic private sector employees are more likely to prefer external whistleblowing; however sector does not moderate the propensity to whistleblow anonymously. (shrink)