1|a philosophy to die for.

KAIR.

Aug,2011

A-Philosophy to Die For.

Lance A. Kair

It has been heard in the echoes of philosophy an idea that has been sorely missed. At one venture it is made into a kind of unattainable or impractical ideal, to be gained from for other ideas more practical and acceptable to tell people, at another, it is a morbid expression that reflects of the inevitability that is the end of life. This idea is that philosophy teaches one how to die. Now, most if not many would most probably laugh and chalk such an statement up to the reason why one need not concern himself with philosophy, that it is so much mental masturbation. Life is life, they might say, and we should live it to the fullest. We should not waste our lives contemplating such useless dribble, besides, havent the philosophers themselves come to the conclusion that philosophy is a useless endeavor? And of those philosophers, those methodologists, the emptiness of recent precedental philosophical endeavor surely beckons such meaning of life to assert itself through our special human faculties. Indeed, I should not be a so presumptuous bloke. As if there might actually be something to philosophy that is more than determining a practical means for determining how one can practically determine how one should behave or proceed into activity, I might see that the uselessness of philosophy goes hand in hand with the philosophy behind brushing ones teeth. Whoever then does without philosophy likewise invokes the profound thoughtfulness throughout their disclaiming it. It would then seem a true miracle that anyone would make it even this far into this essay. I might as well stop here in the sincere reality of practical problem solving and go back to the philosophical school of technology. But I shall not. I cannot in good faith resort to such short placement of philosophy. It is tempting to take some non-philosophical route; it is tempting to suggest that what I am up to is not a philosophical endeavor, yet that would be a misnomer. I could attempt to invent a new term, but that, I fear, grants credence to that faction that has given up on philosophy. Part of the problem of our current philosophical discipline is that it is known (or unknown) for loosening the definitional basis of reality only to assert a new one. I deny that this is what philosophy seeks, that is, philosophy does not attempt to introduce anything new. If there is a philosophy attempting to show anything as novel then it must be the antithesis of what philosophy might be, and thereby only asserts a methodology, a technology. This is the current pseudo-philosophical solution and by this I should stop writing right now. So if anyone is still reading then I have to assume that I have not stopped writing, and that there is more to write. And, I must assume that if I am making a living from philosophy too soon then I am not speaking of philosophy, since, as began this essay, philosophy has nothing to do with making a living. If I am making a living then I have asserted a methodology, not philosophy, but a philosophy, and I am proceeding, profoundly, upon aphilosophy. To be complete, then, I might allow methodology to say that it does have a right of philosophy in itself, and thus come to my aphilosophical situation, in that I cannot suggest a philosophy for anything, let alone how to make a living. But I will stick to my first premise and say that philosophy offers nothing new and so I must be speaking about philosophy, the discipline that very few have any certification for, and those who do speak of their certainty of the matter do so against the ever implicated uncertainty.

2|a philosophy to die for.

KAIR.

Aug,2011

We might then step forward and delineate an initial dialectic. It is well said that life is uncertain and that the only thing that is certain is death (and taxes, but this moves the saying a little too quickly in to the comic and thus risks cynicism; the move to be made must come in its time that the seriousness of the matter is qualified in the same stroke as the humorous, and thus be seen as ironic). The minimalized and indeed silenced take is that life is what is certain. It is this certainty of life that is quickly come upon and skipped over that makes the certainty of life a truism, nearly a tautology, and is overlooked through cynicism. We cannot stand to entertain the notion that death may be uncertain, for if death is uncertain then in that life may be certain we may have an edict for unethical behavior, in that with the uncertainty of death we might then live forever. We could say much about the unethical means by which institutional religion has worked this ambiguous condition. But this is all a reaction to the maxim that life is the uncertain element, to the direct experience of uncertainty, accident, and coincidence, fortune against misfortune. All this, and the philosophy that takes from the uncertainty of life its pride of intellectuality in method, reflects the basic desire to manage the uncertainty, to buffer against the uncertainty so as to add an element of certainty in the life that is seen as fundamentally uncertain. To the extent that deaths certainty is considered to be informing this effort, management is directly against death. So true this situation is, its meaning is tautological with the meaning of human life, and thereby is revealed as an ethical maxim. Death is understood within as unethical arena; death is antihuman, it works against the efforts of what it is to be human: death is evil. The meaning of life is so much invested in making a living that philosophy is asserted as a method for living life. This meaning of philosophy mediates what could otherwise be understood in the phrase philosophy teaches one how to die, as if what is needed to approach, confront or otherwise deal with death is to have lived a life by making a living supported by a philosophy. No matter what that philosophy may be, as long one has thought about how they might make a living for themselves and thereby come upon a method by which to approach this living-making, then one has learned how to die; this is the typical route for meaning. We cannot deny that this is a good method; it is quite common enough. Nevertheless, we are not talking about what works; what works is an ethical system, and an ethical system is necessarily faulty; we cannot rest in mediocrity, self-righteousness or self-righteous mediocrity. Philosophy seeks truth, not merely a stop gap which justifies a present condition or situation, so we first must admit that philosophy reflects the present moment at all times, and not the reverse, which is the result of the above methodological philosophy. A universal ethics and novel ideas go hand and hand; they work together like pistons in an engine. When this is realized we can no longer assert a universal ethics, we can only assert what might work at any moment, but in that moment while we are asserting that we can only negotiate an ethics for any moment, we are, in that instant, relying upon and asserting a universal ethics, a methodology for how to address living life, and such an applied methodology likewise depends upon novel solutions. Hence, we are not speaking of how philosophy might show one how to die by showing them a proper way to live but just the opposite: through philosophy, one learns how to die and through this learning one then finds the proper way to live. It cannot be asserted in method, but only philosophically. Philosophy offers nothing new; since life is certain, that is, it is the only thing that must exist if we are to

3|a philosophy to die for.

KAIR.

Aug,2011

be experiencing and talking about life, philosophy is merely repeating what has been said from the beginning in terms of the present moment. To assert that something philosophical is novel is to assert the certainty of death, which then provokes the individual against it, and to promote a proper way to live. And this is to say that what we have in as essential mandate for reality which promotes an ethically polar universal reality. Where we deny such essential polarization, we have asserted its predominance and ubiquity. Likewise, when we assert a proper way to live or a proper humanity, such as some schema of a spiritual world, proper practices or attitudes, we are asserting an ethics, which always depends upon a polarized element; thus, philosophy cannot teach us how to live without denying another their right to live even with our best intensions. When we have come to terms with philosophy, then we can begin to discuss what may be true.