The Philosophy of Thuma Ermine, Examined.

Those who look to philosophy solely for refuge abandon it when it fails.

But this is, simply put, a lack of fortitude. Or a false recognition of what has failed.

I could illustrate this in numerous ways:

To give up on a particular love is sometimes necessary; but it is never necessary to give up on love in general or altogether.

This is a lack of fortitude. A mistaking the particular for the universal.

Or:

You think: "I am misunderstood; therefore the world is not for me, I shall not be of it."

This is a lack of fortitude. And a mistaking of cause for effect. You have not done sufficient work.

Or:

You have tried to make intelligible that which prefers privacy, craves silence, is not
ready for light.

(The loudest zealot neophyte is often the first to turn his back or hold his tongue in times of strain.

He has come to nothing of his own knowledge.)

Or:

Even in rejecting the status quo, you still can't think save for in terms of progress.

Progress without aim: the paradigmatic teleological failure.

There are those who say that philosophers are overly intellectual, do not know how to feel.

They do not know what commitment is. 

Last updated 14-Apr-2007