Monday, September 23, 2013

Dispassionately Irrational

I think this is the epithet of the ideal philosopher-poet. One seeks truth through the dispassionate contemplation of the thing. One seeks justice through the irrational enjoyment of people. Or something like that. The trick is not just to be irrational. Not just to be dispassionate. But to temper your irrationality with dispassion, or, which amounts to the same thing (though in a better sense than commonly assumed), to situate your passion within reason.

2 comments:

Presskorn said...

I think there is a place in which Kierkegaard says that religious belief is "the passionate abscence of knowlegde"... BTW, what is the pangrammatical status of religion?

Thomas said...

"Pangrammaticism is ... a deconstruction of religious experience into the discrete moments that, in the absence of a properly functioning religious authority, must be composed at any given time, in any given place, in lived experience."