the question of philosophy and of science and history is this,
what is the question/questions to be solved?
Theology doesn’t have questions, theology has answers and that is
the failure of theology…….
The ancient Greeks thought the question was the search for wisdom…
in which they thought that truth/wisdom was beauty… the truthful was
the beautiful… which is why Socrates was such a revaluation, he was
truth but he wasn’t beautiful…that was part of the mystery of Socrates…
for the Greeks, the ultimate prize or final purpose of philosophy was
to sit in contemplation of god…(the greeks took for granted the existence of god/gods)
and the proper role of man was to sit in contemplation of said god/gods in heaven…
and the Christians took over this idea…….
so for the next thousand years, the goal was to get to heaven so one could
sit in contemplation of god…
Then came the rebirth, the Renaissance where the question of this contemplation
wasn’t question and then came the science and the philosophers, Galileo as science
and Descartes as philosopher…but the goal of the contemplation of god remained…
then came Kant who shifted the question for the first time in over 2000 years…
for Kant the question was about self determination…Sepere Aude… dare to know…
dare to think for yourself………
This new question, this new statement… how are we to become
self determining creatures…how do we become free from the authorities
that have determined for us, the bible, god, Aristotle, the church, the state…
are all authorities… how do we begin this search for self determination…
that was the new mission statement of philosophers… how are we to become
self determined? Then shortly after Kant came Hegel and Hegel great
contribution was to discover history and its influence on philosophy
and philosophical concepts…the concept of freedom is not rooted
as an ahistorical concept… the concept of freedom has a history
and Hegel’s book the “Phenomenology” is a history of freedom…
today we wouldn’t think of a concept without some understanding
of that concepts history and that was because of Hegel…
but it is time for another mission statement for philosophy
and philosophers…and Marx should us the way…
He said, “it is not enough to understand the world, we must
change the world” but here we use the lessons of history…
we must contemplate concepts and their history, yes…
but then we must use that understanding to create
a goal for us as individuals, as a society, as a culture,
as a people to reach for and eventually as a species…
we must no longer isolate ourselves as individuals or in small groups
or even as a state or some accidental trait like being white or being
an American… we must think of ourselves writ large…which means
we are part of an ever larger group of people… we can no longer think
of ourselves as just part of a family or of being an Californian or being
an American or being white or handicap or whatever accidental trait
we have……
we exist as and are part of the whole… I am Kropotkin… I am not just
white or male or handicap or an American, I am part of something
bigger… I am part of the human species and I am part of life…
and then we must create a meaningful goal that incorporates
who we are as human beings and as part of life…
I am part of life as part of life I must engage in life as a partner,
not as someone who waste resources just to keep my fat ass in comfort…
I must recognize that being human is not the end of the story but the beginning
and we must act as if we are part of the earth, not in charge of the earth…
to fight to save nature is the fight to save ourselves… if we preserve the
forest and trees and the sea, we are preserving us for we are part of the
forest and trees and the sea……
we must have an reevaluation of what is our place on earth and within
that reevaluation, we must come to an understanding of the proper
place of human beings within the context of the earth and all its
diversity…we are part of that diversity and we are part of earth
and we exist as part of, not in charge of, but part of life…….
we must expand our understanding of what it means to be human to
include our place on earth and within life…….and as we begin to
understand, we can begin to change how we think about resources
and their use and in our case, their misuse…human beings tend to
think that the universe is about them and we must learn that the universe
isn’t about us or us being human…
it is about life and we are just a part of life and not even the most important
part of life…………reevaluate your values and include becoming part of life…
lose your ego and learn to join a greater cause then human beings, the cause
of life……
and then we can become the catalyst of change that places human beings into
their proper context, as part of life and only a part of life…
Kropotkin