Thinking Outside the Box

           

            On Friday morning I went to my second Continental Philosophy tutorial. The room was occupied with another tutorial when I arrived and so I sat on the floor out in the hallway. My TA, Sean arrived, looking as tense as ever. He leaned against a wall while he was waiting and banged out a rhythm with his right hand on his stomach, his left hand on his pants pocket and his right foot on the floor. I assume he actually is a drummer.

            Once we were inside, he asked us all to sit in the exact spots we’d been in the week before. He had actually made a map with our names on them and he actually had some people move to fit his diagram. He explained that this would help him remember everybody’s names.

            He said of Kierkegaard’s “Philosophical Fragments”, “This is so fucking hard!” Apparently it’d been his first time reading it as well.

            I asked if anyone was ready to write a paper on the subject, and like me, everyone seemed at a loss. Sean told us not to worry, because the papers would be expository in nature.

            He told us to keep in mind that Kierkegaard is messing with us.

            Everyone had been expected to bring in one text based question, but Sean said he would call on people at random to voice their query. On this day though, he just went around the circle and had each of us communicate a problem we had with the text.

            Someone wanted to know the difference between the absolute and the ultimate paradoxes. Another was confused about the goal. A guy who’s been in two other courses that I’ve taken: Knowledge and Reality and Science Fiction, wanted to understand the significance of the Cartesian dolls. Other questions covered: Why is god equated with the unknown; why does the moment have decisive significance; why does the offence come when reason interacts with the moment; why is the student throwing away the truth. I said I was thrown off by the idea of the divine teacher and wondered if it could be replaced by Nietzsche’s “Superman”.

            Sean reminded us that Kierkegaard is posing as a non-Christian under the guise of Climacus in order to attack the common sense truthfulness of Protestantism, which Kierkegaard says is too easy. He also attacks the German Philosophical institution of the day in which the professor is the source of understanding, claiming that is also not so easy.

            To solve the problem one has to eliminate the question.

            Sean then related to us the puzzle of the nine dots:

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.   .   .

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            The problem is to run four lines through the dots without lifting the pen or retracing any lines. The many solutions to the problem involve literally thinking outside the box, and in fact, the expression, “thinking outside the box” comes from this puzzle.

            According to Kierkegaard, the Socratic moment is not enough. He says we need to get past the Socratic figure to help transcend our state of error. The teacher then must be god. To move from ignorance to knowledge, only something beyond the human condition is sufficient. To inhabit the Christian perspective is both absurd and the truth. The disciple receives the truth from the teacher and is thereby reborn. Before this rebirth it is as if the student did not exist. Someone asked if this applied to all knowledge and Sean said that we are talking about capital T Truth here.

            Unequal love is worse than unrequited love.

            The paradox is part of the engine of reason. Passion drives the quest for reason, fuelled by the paradox. The more you analyze something the more you encapsulate it in your own conceptual biases. So let go. Then reason negates itself and becomes confused.

            The absolute paradox is that no one can understand the moment.

            Trying to overcome the unknown by making it more like me. The only way to overcome the paradox is if god pulls it back. Complete likeness comes from the descent of god.

            After tutorial I rode up to the Remenyi House of Music to buy a set of guitar strings. I told the guy that my G-string is always fraying at the second fret. He told me that their guitar repairman comes on Friday afternoons and that if the problem is with only one fret he might not need to take it away to repair it. I might bring my guitar with me next Friday but if he can’t fix it in the store, I won’t let him take it, because I need it every day.
            I had time to go home for about an hour before going to PARC to teach my yoga class. Anna was the only one that came and she was pissed off because she had heard from two other women that they would come.

            When I am directing her in a pose, she often expresses disappointment at her not being able to perform it like she used to. I told her that there are some things we’ll never be able to do again. She looked at me and exclaimed, “Don’t say that!” I insisted that it’s just a fact. I used to, for example, be able to put my leg behind my head, but I can’t anymore. It’s not about being able to do the postures perfectly, but rather about doing the postures to try to stay as flexible as one can. There’s nothing to be disappointed about.