“Essentially, the intellectual vision aspires to discover, behind living
beings, the eternal and immutable principles which govern the universe”
Shestov
but I understand that there is no “eternal and immutable principles
which govern the universe”…Nietzsche tried to make as the
“eternal and immutable principle” being the “will to power”
and Christians try to make god as the “eternal and immutable”
principle and others, such as scientist try to
make the laws of science, the laws of thermodynamics, for example
as the “eternal and immutable” principles…
philosophers such as the ancient Greeks pre-Socratic philosophers
try to make elements such as water or fire or earth, as the basic
“eternal and immutable” principles…
their questions were questions like: from where does everything come from?
from what is everything created? How do we explain the plurality of things
found in nature? How might we describe nature mathematically?
it is the greatness of Socrates that he brought philosophy down from these
“eternal and immutable” principles down to being about human beings…
his questions were not about what the universe was made of, but what was
virtue and how did the value of virtue influence us as human beings?
that question has nothing to do with prior questions of philosophers which
was about the make up of the universe…then philosophers tried to find
the human answers to the “eternal and immutable” principles…
beginning with questions like, “what are we to do” “what should we believe in”
“what should we hope for” and asking these question in terms of the “eternal
and immutable” principles…“what are we to do” is answered in terms
of some “eternal and immutable” principle such as the eternal worship of god,
or the search for pleasure or the avoidance of pain, or the pursuit of happiness,
or as I said, Nietzsche “will to power”… or Spinoza’s idea that everything was
substance and that substance was god……
the search for “eternal and immutable” principles has dominated
philosophy since the beginning of philosophy……
and it has dominated general thinking… the search for a particular
“eternal and immutable” principle has lead some to nationalism
and patriotism and religions like Catholicism and Buddhism and other
ism’s and ideologies… the indoctrination of childhood is one attempt
to create “eternal and immutable” principles in children which is suppose to last
a lifetime…“America is the greatest country on earth”
is one attempt to create an “eternal and immutable” principle…………
but what if reason cannot get us to some “eternal and immutable”
principle that philosophers and society has been reaching for since forever?
the idea then becomes then reason is folly and worthless if it cannot
reach some “eternal and immutable” principles by which we can
live out our lives………
and if reason fails in this attempt, as it must, then we must, MUST turn
to revelation or religions or god to find an answer to the “eternal and immutable”
principles… as reason is worthless the only other possibility must be
religion……….
but this is based on a false idea that if reason cannot find the “Eternal
and immutable” principles, then reason has no point… but that is simple not
true…the point becomes that we don’t have to have reason find us some
'Eternal and immutable" principles… reason can be used to find us some much
more narrow purpose besides “eternal and immutable” principles…
the fact that there isn’t an “eternal and immutable” principles doesn’t negate
reason… and it doesn’t promote revelation either… it just means that
there isn’t an “eternal and immutable” principles… and that isn’t such
a terrible thing… it frees us to find out what our purpose is without
any grand “eternal and immutable” principles…the bar is just set lower…
so what if there isn’t any “eternal and immutable” principles…
we can still use reason to seek out some other principles by which
we can base our lives upon……
we can still use reason to create guides upon which we can navigate
the terrain of being human……
as I have said, I believe the point of our existence, of human existence,
is to travel from being animal to animal/human to then becoming fully
human… we are at the animal/human stage… and it might take another
million years for us to reach the fully human stage, as it took a million years
for us to go from animal to animal/human……
it is simply a question of growth…of becoming who we are…
of a reevaluation of values where we examine the values we were
indoctrinated with and replace those indoctrinated values with
our own values…the path to becoming human and authentic lies
with our coming to an understanding of who we are and what is
possible for us as humans…
it is seeking out our possibilities that make us human…
reason tells us that…that there is no big, grand, dramatic “eternal
and immutable” principles doesn’t really matter if we seek out what is
possible for us as human beings…
“what are we to do” isn’t some big grand “eternal and immutable” principle, it
is simply a small question of what does it mean to be human and everyone can
answer that question differently because everyone possibilities are different…
“what are we to do”… “what am I to do” is just a relative question, one ask
what can we do together and one asks, what can I personally do?
I would answer the question “what am I to do” differently then you would
because I am limited by certain factors that limit my possibilities…
as we age, our possibilities become limited and then soon turn to only
one possibility which is death…
when we are young, we have greater possibilities then we are old…
that is when you must strike, when you are young and able to achieve
your possibilities, but our modern world is full of attempts to
make you wait to achieve your possibilities…for example, you are
admonish to be patient, to wait your turn… but by the time your turn
comes around, you may not be able to achieve that possibility any more…
reaching heaven is about waiting until the next life, pushing your
possibilities off until the next life… but why what?
capitalism is about achieving your goal, but do your being able
to buy more cars or another house or a new TV really worth the
effort to achieve given the time, effort, money needed to achieve that goal…
reason says no… the basic premise of capitalism isn’t worth the
effort one has to put into it to achieve its goals…
you can better spend your time and effort on other projects that
will far better allow you to achieve your possibilities…
that is why ism’s and ideologies are failures… because to reach
any particular goal of any given ism or ideology requires far more effort
and time then the goal is worth…the point is not to try to achieve easier
goals but to achieve goals worth achieving…using reason to understand
what goals are truly achievable and, and worth that effort and time…
for time is a precious resource for once your time has been wasted,
there is no getting back that time… time might be the most
precious resource on planet earth… it is the rarest resource
we have as human beings… and we only have so much time to
achieve our possibilities… why waste that time with such nonsense
as capitalism and Catholicism which says wait until you can be rewarded…
we don’t have time to wait… we have a limited amount of time in our lives…
don’t wait… use reason to understand and achieve your possibilities…
but don’t expect any such grand notions as “eternal and immutable”
principles…… they don’t exists…
Kropotkin