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PHILOSOPHY WORKS IN PRACTICE, BUT NOT IN THEORY<\/span> is my basic response to this discussion of \u201cGreat Books\u201d propaganda<\/a>. In theory yes, Great Booksiness is cultural relativism in cultural conservative wool. In practice, if you have a nexus of friendships and a structure for leadership, you can come to understand philosophy as eros, the self-changing love of truth. It\u2019s a practice which requires<\/span> humility and desire and the longing for the glimpsed but (for an atheist) unnamed Beloved.<\/p>\n

I still think this<\/a> is the best way to understand me and how I think and what I care about. This<\/a> and maybe even this<\/a> might also be relevant.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thinking a lot, right now, about the fact that philosophy requires both heightened arrogance and heightened humility. On the one hand you have to be willing to spout off about everything! You have to be willing to talk about subjects in which you have all the expertise of a journalist, i.e. a professional dilettante. If you won\u2019t argue about subjects beyond your knowledge, you can\u2019t lead and you can\u2019t grow. But at the same time you need to be radically aware of your own incapacities, willing to be utterly reshaped by other people and their descriptions of their experiences and the conclusions they draw from that experience. I don\u2019t have any especial formula for resolving this dilemma; I just think it\u2019s important that philosophers understand that their practice has spiritual downsides of pride and vanity as well as the perhaps more obvious spiritual upside of Socratean \u201cI know nothing\u201d humility. <\/p>\n

I very much welcome you all\u2019s comments since I have no idea how to formulate general advice here, and while I accept that maybe there is no general advice to give, I\u2019d still like a sense of how actual humans who aren\u2019t me attempt to negotiate the arrogance\/humility aspect of philosophy.<\/p>\n

Original link via PES.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"