The Human Factor

The facts don't make themselves known,
nor do our acts master themselves.

Between the rational,
and the hysterical,
our reasons and passions
find their composure.

Poets do not tell you what they feel. They show you how they feel. Philosophers don't tell you what they think, but show you how they do it.

No one can tell you what to think or feel. But some can help you do it better. Our poets make us feel better. Philsophers make us think better.

It's not that they give us better thoughts or better feelings. They hone our concepts and emotions, to make our minds and hearts precise.

"Haven't you tried long enough to understand? Isn't it time, perhaps, to obey?"

The poet arranges strophes to present an emotion. The philosopher arranges remarks to present a concept.

The philosopher makes you think, not so that you'll believe anything in particular, but in order to clarify the concept. The poet makes you feel, not so that you'll desire anyone in particular, but in order to intensify the emotion.

Both articulate our experience. They join us more precisely to it.

Poetry is to politics as philosophy is to science. It is not political philosophy that we need, but a poetics of policy.

We cannot understand the ontology of social science, but we must obey the ethnopathy of social policy.

Money is the fact of value. A price is the value of a fact.