Who are your favorite philosophers?

This article is one of the more interesting things I've read in a long while due to it's insistence that American Pragmatism was a precursor to the postmodern schools of thought. One of its main aims is to describe the battle between the harsh logic or analytic philosophy of someone like Godel and the new forms of thinking advocated by Dewey etc...

http://pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/courses_readings/dewey/bernstein_prag_resurgence.pdf

  On 1/9/2013 at 12:49 AM, vamos scorcho said:

This article is one of the more interesting things I've read in a long while due to it's insistence that American Pragmatism was a precursor to the postmodern schools of thought. One of its main aims is to describe the battle between the harsh logic or analytic philosophy of someone like Godel and the new forms of thinking advocated by Dewey etc...

http://pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/courses_readings/dewey/bernstein_prag_resurgence.pdf

wow really cool article, thanks for the link vamos.

I've always felt (hopefully not out of blind nationalistic pride), that a lot of the earliest American "philosophers" were on to something ahead of their time. Thomas Paine is probably the closest I could get to an "idol", he said what he meant, rigorously adhered to the logic laid out in Locke's treatises on Human Understanding, and went even further.

I swear to god Thomas Paine was the first real socialist. (Huge claim I know, but I've read Rights of Man inside and out at this point and I am utterly convinced that he was ideologically ahead of Marx, just didn't meticulously lay out descriptions of means of production)

edit: shit now that I think of it, Hobbes came pretty damn close to a socialist ethos at a couple points in his writings.

  On 1/8/2013 at 10:00 PM, happycase said:

the only account of a Westerner who came to a spontaneous enlightenment with no prior preparation

according to who exactly?

Ludwig Wittgenstein.

if you want a real philosophy, ask, "what is disagreement?"

"what is communication?"

fuck enlightenment g. enlightenment has not proven itself. enlightenment must prove itself like anything else

just because some buckwild broncos in the back of some fuckin' zen kitchen cook up some hogwash theory about "Enlightenment"

well, I guess it's all the same (but, but, but.... come on guys... my philosophy's dick is bigger than urs)

we have to create a world where people can say, "hogwash" if they want to

I know I do. but I just don't see Buddhism or "enlightenment" doing any of these things

not. even. close.

Lol, happycase, I now see that we were talking about two different Godels; I have never heard of Dr. Roger Godel, who is referred to by Jourdain. This saves me from my utter bewilderment at that quotation

  On 1/9/2013 at 3:10 AM, vamos scorcho said:

if you want a real philosophy, ask, "what is disagreement?"

 

"what is communication?"

 

fuck enlightenment g. enlightenment has not proven itself. enlightenment must prove itself like anything else

 

just because some buckwild broncos in the back of some fuckin' zen kitchen cook up some hogwash theory about "Enlightenment"

 

well, I guess it's all the same (but, but, but.... come on guys... my philosophy's dick is bigger than urs)

 

 

 

 

we have to create a world where people can say, "hogwash" if they want to

 

I know I do. but I just don't see Buddhism or "enlightenment" doing any of these things

 

not. even. close.

you would love Adorno or Lukacs or a number of Frankfurt school guys...they write on this very same idea, and beautifully so. (even though its a bit depressing)

Just an afterthought on Godel. Kurt, that is. Apparently, in his later years he was heavily into Husserl as well. ;p

  Quote

Very roughly put, phenomenology holds that the world is constituted, in a special sense, but correctly, in consciousness. (For an introduction to phenomenology see for example the entry on phenomenology in this encyclopedia.) In particular, in the later Husserl's phenomenology as adopted by Gödel, consciousness constitutes both subjectivity and objectivity (and thereby makes the latter accessible to the former). (See van Atten and Kennedy 2003.)

 

Gödel described it as the only philosophy that “really did justice to the core of Kant's thought” ;[25] as one which avoids “both the death-defying leaps of idealism into a new metaphysics as well as the positivistic rejection of all metaphysics” (Gödel 1995, p. 387). A “beginning,” but as he remarked to Wang, “Husserl's thoroughly systematic beginning is better than Kant's sloppy architectonic” (Wang 1996, 9.2.6).

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel/#GodPhiWor

So, all is good. Actual Godel and fake goDel do see eye to eye on their philosophies. :D

  On 1/9/2013 at 3:10 AM, vamos scorcho said:

if you want a real philosophy, ask, "what is disagreement?"

 

"what is communication?"

 

fuck enlightenment g. enlightenment has not proven itself. enlightenment must prove itself like anything else

 

just because some buckwild broncos in the back of some fuckin' zen kitchen cook up some hogwash theory about "Enlightenment"

 

well, I guess it's all the same (but, but, but.... come on guys... my philosophy's dick is bigger than urs)

 

 

 

 

we have to create a world where people can say, "hogwash" if they want to

 

I know I do. but I just don't see Buddhism or "enlightenment" doing any of these things

 

not. even. close.

I gotta say, I don't think a person should ever belong to a philosophy, nor should a philosophy belong to a person or group. I think a good philosophy is capable of trashing itself and its owner at a moment's notice. I also believe that philosophy is not a tool for combat with others - if it were, I would grant it no more than the status of an opinion. I think a philosopher must always destroy his own positions as thoroughly and simultaneously as he destroys another's. Not with the intention of reviving his philosophy at the end for victory, but for the purpose of upholding the integrity of nothingness. No simple "thought" should occupy the throne. Any time someone is sitting on a throne of opinions and calling it a philosophy... it happens every day. It's not good.

It's a strong position to take, but I believe the capacity to dismiss anything that tries to out-serve its functional duration, is what transforms a squeamish boy into a man. A human man. The ability to gut yourself clean of opinionation is the gateway into true philosophy. The sword of objectivity is double-edged and never leaves behind a winner or a loser. You're right that Buddhism does not do this, which is why I don't give a damn about any form of buddhism. The frontier of truth, the edge of human existence, involves discarding, discarding, discarding. You have to trash the concept of wisdom and then trash the position that trashes the concept of wisdom. Then whatever is left after that should be trashed as well. "Hogwashed" as you call it.

A thought serves its function for the duration that it exists. Forging it into a weapon, a throne, a barricade, a comforter, anything at all, is incorrect use of your mind. Finally, whatever I'm saying right now should be totally annihilated, leaving nothing to ponder.

lol, wow, what a badass ....well, explanation of thought.

Im drunk, but I like this. I really like this.

'fuck enlightenment g. enlightenment has not proven itself. enlightenment must prove itself like anything else'

Agreed and actually having read the classic Zen koans, even in Zen they distrust enlightenment with the whole 'kill the buddha' thing so I find it really weird how the word gets thrown around like it means something. i suspect orientalism.

(note I am not a zen buddhist, just read the koans out of interest many years ago while studying old japanese script and characters.)

Every concept has a corrupt counterpart to which the masses can attribute all of their projections. When we speak of enlightenment in this manner, we are refusing to partake in the corruption that comes with the overattribution of value to mere concepts, yes? Now why do we kill the Buddha in the street when we meet him? The pursuit of enlightenment is very real and very serious in a way. What is realized through the "path" is that the original corruption, is the objectification of principles, values, and forms, whereas it is the subject which is the container and substance of all of these things. This is what makes us so great. We are the principle, value, and form we search for in "the world." We are the principle and cause of existence. To see the Buddha in the street - to see anything in the street - to see love, to see wisdom, to see ignorance, to see peace "in the street," means you are seeing it outside. This is ignorance, which leads to dukkha - the seeking of things. So long as there is a road on which objects come and go, dukkha follows like a shadow.

  On 1/9/2013 at 7:58 AM, happycase said:

A thought serves its function for the duration that it exists. Forging it into a weapon, a throne, a barricade, a comforter, anything at all, is incorrect use of your mind. Finally, whatever I'm saying right now should be totally annihilated, leaving nothing to ponder.

A nice analogy comes from Brad Blanton (not a philosopher, but a psychiatrist). He compares the brain to the stomach in a way that a brain is the organ that works with thoughts/ideas/beliefs/emotions just like the stomach works with food. And like food inside a stomach, thoughts/etc change and deteriorate over time. And like you say, he explains that people often mistake their thoughts/etc for absolute things that remain the same.

  On 1/9/2013 at 7:50 AM, happycase said:

  On 1/9/2013 at 3:10 AM, vamos scorcho said:

if you want a real philosophy, ask, "what is disagreement?"

 

"what is communication?"

 

fuck enlightenment g. enlightenment has not proven itself. enlightenment must prove itself like anything else

 

just because some buckwild broncos in the back of some fuckin' zen kitchen cook up some hogwash theory about "Enlightenment"

 

well, I guess it's all the same (but, but, but.... come on guys... my philosophy's dick is bigger than urs)

 

 

 

 

we have to create a world where people can say, "hogwash" if they want to

 

I know I do. but I just don't see Buddhism or "enlightenment" doing any of these things

 

not. even. close.

 

I gotta say, I don't think a person should ever belong to a philosophy, nor should a philosophy belong to a person or group. I think a good philosophy is capable of trashing itself and its owner at a moment's notice. I also believe that philosophy is not a tool for combat with others - if it were, I would grant it no more than the status of an opinion. I think a philosopher must always destroy his own positions as thoroughly and simultaneously as he destroys another's. Not with the intention of reviving his philosophy at the end for victory, but for the purpose of upholding the integrity of nothingness. No simple "thought" should occupy the throne. Any time someone is sitting on a throne of opinions and calling it a philosophy... it happens every day. It's not good.

 

It's a strong position to take, but I believe the capacity to dismiss anything that tries to out-serve its functional duration, is what transforms a squeamish boy into a man. A human man. The ability to gut yourself clean of opinionation is the gateway into true philosophy. The sword of objectivity is double-edged and never leaves behind a winner or a loser. You're right that Buddhism does not do this, which is why I don't give a damn about any form of buddhism. The frontier of truth, the edge of human existence, involves discarding, discarding, discarding. You have to trash the concept of wisdom and then trash the position that trashes the concept of wisdom. Then whatever is left after that should be trashed as well. "Hogwashed" as you call it.

But beyond talisman, what is trashed becomes goaded, and what is goaded becomes idolized. and what is idolized becomes "quivering, like soft milk in the mother's womb."

The problem here is that what is quivering cannot become what is "re-essentialized," and what is "re-essentialized" cannot be mortified, or even given a sense of delinquency. From here, we have to determine mathematical uses, restructuralizatons. All this trashing becomes a sort of hilarious and pathetic ritual of the ape, an embarrassment of the human. If we wish to retrash, retrash, annihilate, this all adds up to just another idiotic, moronic dogma.

"Hogwashed" in and of itself is an entirely different attribution. A specific, not-trashed, not-wisdom attribution of "something or other." In fact, nothingness is not even remotely useful as it always re-attributes to a new something. How dare you bullshit and say "nothingness has objectivity." What dogmatic buffoonery! Why not give up the gigantic egotistical lie and start actually working with the thought that you return to anyway? All your bullshit is just going to re-attribute.

Abandonment of thought is easier than actually figuring it out, working it out, doing something else.

The so called "throne of opinions" is one of the most useless and bigoted ideas I have ever heard. It is the sound of a mouth sputtering degeneracy across the landscape without even beginning to consider the probability/possibility of an alternative to the means of an opinion. You can't even cut across an opinion with this kind of a view. "An opinion is a throne, an opinion is a throne, an opinion is a throne." Whatfor, laddo? Cause when I last looked, it's just words on a page stewed for rocket enhancement. Can this darling enlightenment tell us anything for it? Or once we're done with our curls and hair turns can we actually come back "down to earth" away from our half-dead gaze and parliamentary "love-ins" and begin to "grow a pair?" Buddhism and "enlightenment" is the lazy man's philosophy... enlightenment is the most dogmatic term of all, you think it will shut anything down. It won't. There needn't be a throne where there are words. There needn't be much anything just because enlightenment or the Buddha says it is so.

And here, I inject a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them."

Below are examples of Stoicism.

Seneca

“There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living; there is nothing harder to learn.”

“It is in times of security that the spirit should be preparing itself for difficult times; while fortune is bestowing favors on it is then is the time for it to be strengthened against her rebuffs.”

“‘What progress have I made? I am beginning to be my own friend.’ That is progress indeed. Such a people will never be alone and you may be sure he is a friend to all.”

“Show me a man who isn’t a slave; one who is a slave to sex, another to money, another to ambition; all are slaves to hope or fear. I could show you a man who has been a Consul who is a slave to his ‘little old woman’, a millionaire who is the slave of a little girl in domestic service. And there is no state of slavery more disgraceful than one which is self-imposed.”

“Count your years and you’ll be ashamed to be wanting and working for exactly the same things as you wanted when you were a boy. Of this make sure against your dying day – that your faults die before you do.”

“Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.”

“Cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity and always take full note of fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything that is in her power.”

Marcus Aurelius

“Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both.”

“So other people hurt me? That’s their problem. Their character and actions are not mine. What is done to me is ordained by nature and what I do by my own.”

“Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.”

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own–not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me.”

“Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.”

"Choose not to be harmed and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been.”

Here is the link the quotes are compiled from:

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/13/stoicism-101-a-practical-guide-for-entrepreneurs/

  vamos scorcho said:

if you want a real philosophy, ask, "what is disagreement?"

 

"what is communication?"

 

fuck enlightenment g. enlightenment has not proven itself. enlightenment must prove itself like anything else

 

just because some buckwild broncos in the back of some fuckin' zen kitchen cook up some hogwash theory about "Enlightenment"

 

well, I guess it's all the same (but, but, but.... come on guys... my philosophy's dick is bigger than urs)

 

we have to create a world where people can say, "hogwash" if they want to

 

I know I do. but I just don't see Buddhism or "enlightenment" doing any of these things

 

not. even. close.

It is obvious, from your opinion on what constitutes real philosophy, that you are far too occupied with masturbatory ideas like the one that right philosophy must be as difficult as possible, to even bother with the simple task of thinking before you speak on matters that you have a limited knowledge of.

I'm not saying that you are not allowed to criticize buddhism or enlightenment. But it's painfully obvious that you have not even bothered to try to ascertain what is meant by enlightenment, or the various stances on the justification for such a phenomenon. This makes for a very embarassing post but you have done a good job of explaining your ignorance from the outset.

  happycase said:

It's a strong position to take, but I believe the capacity to dismiss anything that tries to out-serve its functional duration, is what transforms a squeamish boy into a man. A human man. The ability to gut yourself clean of opinionation is the gateway into true philosophy. The sword of objectivity is double-edged and never leaves behind a winner or a loser. You're right that Buddhism does not do this, which is why I don't give a damn about any form of buddhism. The frontier of truth, the edge of human existence, involves discarding, discarding, discarding. You have to trash the concept of wisdom and then trash the position that trashes the concept of wisdom. Then whatever is left after that should be trashed as well. "Hogwashed" as you call it.

So, for what duration does this discarding serve its function? At what point does the trashing lose value? What do you do after the trashing?

I found it very funny that you are dismissing any form of buddhism just as you say, "The ability to gut yourself clean of opinionation is the gateway into true philosophy."

Which is essentially its core teaching.

Chán, S'eng-Tsan: "Do not seek the truth; only cease to cherish opinions."

Theravada, Nagarjuna - "The Victorious Ones have announced that emptiness is the relinquishing of all views. Those who are possessed of the view of emptiness are said to be incorrigible."

The idea of enlightenment, and the religious spooky buddhism, all of those things are essentially tools, or placebos, for people who are incapable of either going in this direction altogether or jumping into it right from the outset. Buddhism is concerned with alleviating suffering first and foremost.

Nagarjuna again;

"No wisdom can we get hold of, no highest perfection,

No Bodhisattva, no thought of enlightenment either.

When told of this, if not bewildered and in no way anxious,

A Bodhisattva courses in the [buddha's] wisdom."

The statement concerns itself with the limit of thought and how one is to relate to it. This does not mean that thought is to be abandoned altogether and you're supposed to turn yourself into some kind of fungi. Thought cannot be abandoned.

"This might shock you, shock many of you. I think Buddhism, the whole Dharma practice, is a placebo. You know placebo? Placebo. Placebo is a pill, it is a fake, it is not a medicine. Sometimes you give it to someone saying that this will work. And they eat and they think it works. Whole Buddhism is that. And Buddha said so. It is not that as if I am making it up actually. Buddha said that [referencing the Diamond Sutra]. The path, it's a deception but its a necessary deception. It is a necessary deception. Let's say you and I are in the desert. You are very thirsty. Everywhere you look you see mirage and you think it is a water. And you say you really want to go to this water. Now I have been to the desert and I know you are hallucinating. Now I can be very unskilled, little bit of compassion but no skillful means, no wisdom. And then I can tell you: "Hey you shut up, this is not a water, this is a mirage." That is not going to help you. So if I am a compassionate, skillful, then I might say: "Yes." Even so knowing that this is not true. Because I know that you will not hear me saying this is not water. I will have to say: "Yeah, let's go." I might even go with you. And as we get closer you yourself will see it is a fake. And this is what we call skillful means of the Buddha. There is a thousands of that. How many? Eighty four thousand placebos."

-Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

  happycase said:

A thought serves its function for the duration that it exists. Forging it into a weapon, a throne, a barricade, a comforter, anything at all, is incorrect use of your mind. Finally, whatever I'm saying right now should be totally annihilated, leaving nothing to ponder.

If you try to deconstruct thought, after a certain point, you cannot argue for deconstruction, and furthermore, you lose the incentive to deconstruct thought altogether in the process.

  vamos scorcho said:

You can't even cut across an opinion with this kind of a view. "An opinion is a throne, an opinion is a throne, an opinion is a throne." Whatfor, laddo? Cause when I last looked, it's just words on a page stewed for rocket enhancement.

I'm finding it very hard to recognize a standpoint in your incoherent rambling in this post, but you are getting to something very important here. "An opinion is a throne" is an opinion. You don't even have to think it through to recognize how self-contradictory it is.

  On 1/9/2013 at 1:08 AM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 1/9/2013 at 12:49 AM, vamos scorcho said:

This article is one of the more interesting things I've read in a long while due to it's insistence that American Pragmatism was a precursor to the postmodern schools of thought. One of its main aims is to describe the battle between the harsh logic or analytic philosophy of someone like Godel and the new forms of thinking advocated by Dewey etc...

http://pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/courses_readings/dewey/bernstein_prag_resurgence.pdf

 

wow really cool article, thanks for the link vamos.

 

 

I've always felt (hopefully not out of blind nationalistic pride), that a lot of the earliest American "philosophers" were on to something ahead of their time. Thomas Paine is probably the closest I could get to an "idol", he said what he meant, rigorously adhered to the logic laid out in Locke's treatises on Human Understanding, and went even further.

 

I swear to god Thomas Paine was the first real socialist. (Huge claim I know, but I've read Rights of Man inside and out at this point and I am utterly convinced that he was ideologically ahead of Marx, just didn't meticulously lay out descriptions of means of production)

He certainly touched upon it - he proposed pensions/guaranteed income. I think only the most sincerely libertarian (i.e. civil libertarians or left-leaning libertarians) admire him because of that. Otherwise these more egalitarian ideas of land ownership and income, as well as his dismissal of organized religion, are why he's more or less snubbed by American conservatives compared to other philosophers and statesman of that era. But hell, American conservatives also try to pretend the labor movement never occurred and downplay slavery and civil war, etc. This is all reminding me too why I admire him so much, hadn't read up on him in awhile.

  On 1/9/2013 at 8:54 PM, chimera slot mom said:

"This might shock you, shock many of you. I think Buddhism, the whole Dharma practice, is a placebo. You know placebo? Placebo. Placebo is a pill, it is a fake, it is not a medicine. Sometimes you give it to someone saying that this will work. And they eat and they think it works. Whole Buddhism is that. And Buddha said so. It is not that as if I am making it up actually. Buddha said that [referencing the Diamond Sutra]. The path, it's a deception but its a necessary deception. It is a necessary deception. Let's say you and I are in the desert. You are very thirsty. Everywhere you look you see mirage and you think it is a water. And you say you really want to go to this water. Now I have been to the desert and I know you are hallucinating. Now I can be very unskilled, little bit of compassion but no skillful means, no wisdom. And then I can tell you: "Hey you shut up, this is not a water, this is a mirage." That is not going to help you. So if I am a compassionate, skillful, then I might say: "Yes." Even so knowing that this is not true. Because I know that you will not hear me saying this is not water. I will have to say: "Yeah, let's go." I might even go with you. And as we get closer you yourself will see it is a fake. And this is what we call skillful means of the Buddha. There is a thousands of that. How many? Eighty four thousand placebos."

-Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

I really like this quote, thanks chim.

  On 1/9/2013 at 9:14 PM, joshuatx said:

  On 1/9/2013 at 1:08 AM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 1/9/2013 at 12:49 AM, vamos scorcho said:

This article is one of the more interesting things I've read in a long while due to it's insistence that American Pragmatism was a precursor to the postmodern schools of thought. One of its main aims is to describe the battle between the harsh logic or analytic philosophy of someone like Godel and the new forms of thinking advocated by Dewey etc...

http://pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/courses_readings/dewey/bernstein_prag_resurgence.pdf

 

wow really cool article, thanks for the link vamos.

 

 

I've always felt (hopefully not out of blind nationalistic pride), that a lot of the earliest American "philosophers" were on to something ahead of their time. Thomas Paine is probably the closest I could get to an "idol", he said what he meant, rigorously adhered to the logic laid out in Locke's treatises on Human Understanding, and went even further.

 

I swear to god Thomas Paine was the first real socialist. (Huge claim I know, but I've read Rights of Man inside and out at this point and I am utterly convinced that he was ideologically ahead of Marx, just didn't meticulously lay out descriptions of means of production)

 

He certainly touched upon it - he proposed pensions/guaranteed income. I think only the most sincerely libertarian (i.e. civil libertarians or left-leaning libertarians) admire him because of that. Otherwise these more egalitarian ideas of land ownership and income, as well as his dismissal of organized religion, are why he's more or less snubbed by American conservatives compared to other philosophers and statesman of that era. But hell, American conservatives also try to pretend the labor movement never occurred and downplay slavery and civil war, etc. This is all reminding me too why I admire him so much, hadn't read up on him in awhile.

he really does deserve more credit in the development of modern Republicanism....most people tend to paint him as a propagandist and nothing more due to Common Sense being his most popular work....at least within the narrow minded American memory.

But Rights of Man and The Age of Reason continue upon "Lockean" premises and even proceed to throw in some new, revolutionary social concepts in their own rights.

I mean, Rights of Man is probably the greatest dressing down of another intellectual (Edmund Burke) Ive ever read, Paine must have been inflamed with passion and dedication to remain sober long enough to meticulously tear apart those outdated monarchist arguments.

I also wouldn't be surprised if Robert Owen had come across/was influenced by Paine at some point in his life; he even first experimented with a communal ownership system in 1830s America!

  On 1/9/2013 at 8:54 PM, chimera slot mom said:

So, for what duration does this discarding serve its function? At what point does the trashing lose value? What do you do after the trashing?

 

I found it very funny that you are dismissing any form of buddhism just as you say, "The ability to gut yourself clean of opinionation is the gateway into true philosophy." Which is essentially its core teaching.

  happycase said:

A thought serves its function for the duration that it exists. Forging it into a weapon, a throne, a barricade, a comforter, anything at all, is incorrect use of your mind. Finally, whatever I'm saying right now should be totally annihilated, leaving nothing to ponder.

It sounds like you have made a comforter out of deconstruction.

 

If you try to deconstruct thought, after a certain point, you cannot argue for deconstruction, and furthermore, you lose the incentive to deconstruct thought altogether in the process.

I want to reiterate that for me, philosophy is not an activity, but an achievement - a state of being, characterized by a sober mind and a serene relationship to dualistic fixations. That said, every human being is entitled, no - required! - to test ideas in efforts to arrive at coherency within himself. It's encouraged! And no man should be put down for testing a philosophy. He has to see for himself what the consequence of his intellectual vision is. And the consequence is always mirrored in his own being, wherein he instinctively grasps his incompletion and moves on.

Now regarding what you said, I am certainly not arguing for a deconstruction-ism of thought, whereby the act of deconstruction compulsively and indiscriminately reiterates itself ad infinitum. I am putting forth what I believe are the conditions for the arrival at Philosophy, the transcendence of forming complexes around trivial thoughts.

Each thought wants to be right, but by their very nature thoughts cannot achieve continuity, and truth must be continuous. This is why my philosophy is wielded against itself. It must not take the stance that it is the continuity it is aiming for. When your opinions and my opinions have both been discarded, what remains is Philosophy. Only then, is a proper discussion or disagreement possible.