Thursday, June 05, 2008

Transcendental Moonshine

A lovely, if elliptical, post by Charles Mudede via Wittgenstein on what might eternity might be. SJ has come to think that Wittgenstein's true value is how he makes the ordinary strange. But we wonder why Mudede feels anxiety about (the apparent) irruption of the transcendent here. Worrying if one is being mystical is the sure sign of spending too much time in the philosophy department, where the tendency is to hand over everything to science or Deep Thought. There are so many processes that are mysterious to SJ, starting with how these letters appear on this screen. Haggling about one of the ultimate puzzles, especially if tenure doesn't depend on it, is a waste of time. As is worries about reinventing Aristotelian scholasticism. SJ still pines for the day when philosophers thought that if it could be thought, it must exist.