Now, nothing is left...
What has been once true,
has turned to something
that cannot be construed...
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Imaginary Love
Now, nothing is left...
What has been once true,
has turned to something
that cannot be construed...
Imaginary Love
Now, nothing is left...What has been once true,
has turned to something
that cannot be construed...
has turned to something
that cannot be construed...
Friday, January 23, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
The Apathetic World
I belong to a world who cares for everyone but not me...
I belong to a state who loves everyone but not me...
I belong to a collection of 8 billion people, none of them seems to care much about me...
In defense of metaphysics
To be fair and square, let it be clarified that foremost, the title and the content may be seen to embody certain contradictions. First, this is not really to defend metaphysics. (At least, knowing that things don’t match up would make some sense on the one reading this.) And secondly, I might be talking non-sense after all so I deem it not necessary to find a more appropriate title.
It might have been true that the things that we can only speak about are those saying something about the sensible world. It will be much acceptable, since I will be speaking about the thoughts of Wittgenstein in the Tractatus, not to betray his most profound assertions in the text. It then follows that everything written here may also be non-sensical and should also be considered as a ladder, maybe not for the clarification of language and understanding the world but a ladder to express what I have learned from Wittgenstein.
People especially us who are claiming fondness of philosophy tend to say that Wittgenstein, in claiming that he has solved all the problems of philosophy has projected an enormous philosophical arrogance. I stand half on the contrary. It may be true on one hand but false on another.
It has been the common pitfall of people before Wittgenstein to speak about the unutterable: same pitfall which he has employed in order to present to us what really matters in philosophizing, the clarification of language. His arrogance may have headed to a basic utterance of humility on behalf of the entire history of philosophy. The difference is the fact that he is aware that he, through the things he has written, is indeed talking non-sense. Others are proud enough not to claim that. It may be liken to a slap on the face but it is the best of several initiatives to aground philosophy on the threshold of reality, something that most of us have forgotten because of our desire to talk about something that will keep the heads of others spinning out of our mumbling of alienated words until their noses are bleeding to hell.
It is wrong to assume that Wittgenstein’s philosophy is demarcating the mystical. It is just that he just wants to justify the inevitable role of language in mirroring reality, something that most of us forgets not just in the philosophical arena but in our ordinary lives as well. It is just that we cannot actually talk about something transcendental. It is not to forfeit the fact that there are things that are transcendental. (And I think, they are not really things. I mean, you cannot see them hanging around.)
On the first place, it will betray its being transcendental. Secondly, every proposition made about it will ardently be lacking. And in just giving this couple of contradictions, I have violated it’s being transcendental.
It has not always been the case that when one is talking about superficial things, he may be said to be the holder of knowledge. (I just wonder if I can say to some priests that most of the time they are talking non-sense.) Anyway, language itself together with logic is transcendental. Hence, according to Wittgenstein, Language is not capable of explaining why it can picture reality.
At first glance, it may seem that the awkward nature of Wittgenstein’s assertion is the unparalleled recognition of the microcosm in an attempt to ascertain a universal understanding of particular terms. But these, should also be seen in relation to language. “The limit of my language is the limit of my world”(5.6).
The Wittgenstein project seems to target the universality of meaning through propositions mirroring actual state-of-affairs but what is good about it is it doesn’t neglect the importance of the individual. “I am my world” (5.631) AS Wittgenstein will put it. Our visual field determines the limit of what we can actually know.
We may look at Wittgenstein likening him to a flat iron used to set straight the crumpled cloth of philosophy. It was my honest mistake to look at him before like an antagonist killing the thrill of philosophizing. Maybe, I failed to understand him on my first reading. It may be because I myself have that philosophical arrogance that I have looked at him before as someone who crumples down the sacred nature of philosophy. Lately have I realized that, in a way, he is actually building it from the crumbs.
At the end of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein wrote “What we cannot speak of, we must pass over in silence.” My arrogance before taught me to look at as if he just ran out of words to say. It is only this past few days that I realized that it may have been possible that Wittgenstein wants to say a lot of things about the unspeakable but silence is the best way to make everything complete.
It might have been true that the things that we can only speak about are those saying something about the sensible world. It will be much acceptable, since I will be speaking about the thoughts of Wittgenstein in the Tractatus, not to betray his most profound assertions in the text. It then follows that everything written here may also be non-sensical and should also be considered as a ladder, maybe not for the clarification of language and understanding the world but a ladder to express what I have learned from Wittgenstein.
People especially us who are claiming fondness of philosophy tend to say that Wittgenstein, in claiming that he has solved all the problems of philosophy has projected an enormous philosophical arrogance. I stand half on the contrary. It may be true on one hand but false on another.
It has been the common pitfall of people before Wittgenstein to speak about the unutterable: same pitfall which he has employed in order to present to us what really matters in philosophizing, the clarification of language. His arrogance may have headed to a basic utterance of humility on behalf of the entire history of philosophy. The difference is the fact that he is aware that he, through the things he has written, is indeed talking non-sense. Others are proud enough not to claim that. It may be liken to a slap on the face but it is the best of several initiatives to aground philosophy on the threshold of reality, something that most of us have forgotten because of our desire to talk about something that will keep the heads of others spinning out of our mumbling of alienated words until their noses are bleeding to hell.
It is wrong to assume that Wittgenstein’s philosophy is demarcating the mystical. It is just that he just wants to justify the inevitable role of language in mirroring reality, something that most of us forgets not just in the philosophical arena but in our ordinary lives as well. It is just that we cannot actually talk about something transcendental. It is not to forfeit the fact that there are things that are transcendental. (And I think, they are not really things. I mean, you cannot see them hanging around.)
On the first place, it will betray its being transcendental. Secondly, every proposition made about it will ardently be lacking. And in just giving this couple of contradictions, I have violated it’s being transcendental.
It has not always been the case that when one is talking about superficial things, he may be said to be the holder of knowledge. (I just wonder if I can say to some priests that most of the time they are talking non-sense.) Anyway, language itself together with logic is transcendental. Hence, according to Wittgenstein, Language is not capable of explaining why it can picture reality.
At first glance, it may seem that the awkward nature of Wittgenstein’s assertion is the unparalleled recognition of the microcosm in an attempt to ascertain a universal understanding of particular terms. But these, should also be seen in relation to language. “The limit of my language is the limit of my world”(5.6).
The Wittgenstein project seems to target the universality of meaning through propositions mirroring actual state-of-affairs but what is good about it is it doesn’t neglect the importance of the individual. “I am my world” (5.631) AS Wittgenstein will put it. Our visual field determines the limit of what we can actually know.
We may look at Wittgenstein likening him to a flat iron used to set straight the crumpled cloth of philosophy. It was my honest mistake to look at him before like an antagonist killing the thrill of philosophizing. Maybe, I failed to understand him on my first reading. It may be because I myself have that philosophical arrogance that I have looked at him before as someone who crumples down the sacred nature of philosophy. Lately have I realized that, in a way, he is actually building it from the crumbs.
At the end of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein wrote “What we cannot speak of, we must pass over in silence.” My arrogance before taught me to look at as if he just ran out of words to say. It is only this past few days that I realized that it may have been possible that Wittgenstein wants to say a lot of things about the unspeakable but silence is the best way to make everything complete.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Apathetic World
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
IRRELIGIOUS BOREDOM
The mass has aged to be a tried and tested formula wherein at every beginning, man should reconcile himself to God: admitting his failures and recounting to himself and to other persons that he is weak. And they say, it is the reenactment of the history of salvation (Have we really been saved? From what?) It goes on with an enormous collection of liturgical prayers compiled in a so-called Sacramentary (indeed, with no variations at all) and ends with such prayers as well after the people received their share of a piece of thinly baked starch (something that is being taken for most of us, Catholics not anymore out of spiritual necessity but a Sunday habitual practice and a pretty cheap exchange for our generosity during the offertory). If people know the real meaning of what they are doing, I doubt.
I have just observed that people inside the Church has been transformed into religious puppets. They stand, sit and kneel when they are asked to and because everybody does exactly the same thing except for the priest who gets much of the exposure (He does most of the talking which are most of the time, because everything he says have no novelty, will let you find yourself in a trance, a blank stare when after which you find that you have not even realized, that the Mass is now about to end). Hence, it is not anymore a blunt thing to say if the religious celebration inside the Church has now become a center of boredom. It is because you already know what will happen. And the priests are now complaining that most of the people are attending Church services only in times of special occasions. It may be because sparks of novelty only arises in such times.
Such boredom is obvious in the way people behave inside the Church, devising acts that shows an unconscious protest: sleeping during the sermon, flirting with their girlfriends, texting while inside the Church, chatting with friends, donating a few bucks and of course, criticizing the priest in each and every way possible.
I am affected by the way I see people going to the church like a sheep seeking the help of a good shepherd and takes home nothing even a piece of what they are looking for. I don’t see the point now why the Church persistently claims that the apparent loss of meaning and identity of the people is brought about by modernity because it is not just the exact case. A Church who cannot even inspire people to be a better individual and seek for their life’s meaning also brought it about. It is the Church who laid the foundations of meaninglessness.
I may say that I’m an almost faithful Catholic. I seldom miss Sunday masses. But I said almost because people like me should see in such liturgical gatherings the importance of our life’s meaning and the importance of other people around us. I suppose, in the long span of time that I have been attending masses not to mention that when I was in the seminary, I am compelled to attend daily masses, it contributed to me a very little grasp of what is really necessary. It is because what matters most is not the host one receives during the communion but the way the individual would see himself after. It should be the heart of every celebration and I’m afraid we are attending a liturgical gathering comparable to a body ran by the mechanistic nature of the roman missal.
I have just observed that people inside the Church has been transformed into religious puppets. They stand, sit and kneel when they are asked to and because everybody does exactly the same thing except for the priest who gets much of the exposure (He does most of the talking which are most of the time, because everything he says have no novelty, will let you find yourself in a trance, a blank stare when after which you find that you have not even realized, that the Mass is now about to end). Hence, it is not anymore a blunt thing to say if the religious celebration inside the Church has now become a center of boredom. It is because you already know what will happen. And the priests are now complaining that most of the people are attending Church services only in times of special occasions. It may be because sparks of novelty only arises in such times.
Such boredom is obvious in the way people behave inside the Church, devising acts that shows an unconscious protest: sleeping during the sermon, flirting with their girlfriends, texting while inside the Church, chatting with friends, donating a few bucks and of course, criticizing the priest in each and every way possible.
I am affected by the way I see people going to the church like a sheep seeking the help of a good shepherd and takes home nothing even a piece of what they are looking for. I don’t see the point now why the Church persistently claims that the apparent loss of meaning and identity of the people is brought about by modernity because it is not just the exact case. A Church who cannot even inspire people to be a better individual and seek for their life’s meaning also brought it about. It is the Church who laid the foundations of meaninglessness.
I may say that I’m an almost faithful Catholic. I seldom miss Sunday masses. But I said almost because people like me should see in such liturgical gatherings the importance of our life’s meaning and the importance of other people around us. I suppose, in the long span of time that I have been attending masses not to mention that when I was in the seminary, I am compelled to attend daily masses, it contributed to me a very little grasp of what is really necessary. It is because what matters most is not the host one receives during the communion but the way the individual would see himself after. It should be the heart of every celebration and I’m afraid we are attending a liturgical gathering comparable to a body ran by the mechanistic nature of the roman missal.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Wasted
I cannot deny I feel wasted...
I cannot even see myself as a trump now but a trash.
I need to gather myself again until finally I'll be alright again...
But for whom?
Maybe, it's for the next person strong enough to crash down again my weak system.
I'm tired.
I want to rest.
I cannot even see myself as a trump now but a trash.
I need to gather myself again until finally I'll be alright again...
But for whom?
Maybe, it's for the next person strong enough to crash down again my weak system.
I'm tired.
I want to rest.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
R C
The world has ever evolved in a pace so fast that it left men blaming men to be the culprit to the ever-growing meaninglessness. Few would have ever reckoned that it is still a human trait to assume that meaning in life should not be confined in a lifetime but even beyond. Hence, the birth of a belief of the afterlife and the one who holds it came about, a meaning in life projected into a life after death. It was not until the European enlightenment period that a formal claim of a critique of religion has come into light.
Now more than ever, the quest has headed us into asking whether the religion of today has retained its primordial role to initialize meaning in the life of communities and of individuals. Many philosophers of religion have tried insofar as they have perceived to look at the role of religion in a different light. Some of them were Martineau, Tiele, Otto, Tillich and Schelleirmacher. Most of them have dwelt upon the idea of a phenomenological encounter between the believer and the one that they believe in.
In this encounter, man seems to have the responsibility of discovery, a seeming invitation to transcend his nature and reach for the divine. And insofar as it teaches man to go beyond his own self, it verifies his personality to more than what has been before. The problem, however, is sometimes it falls like a coin in the pit hole of superficial religious rhetoric that is most of the time, not rooted in the ordinary and basic human concerns for existence.
We see then that Martineau would focus upon faith as a particular human concern. Central to this is free will and the primacy of motives, an expression of the self that manifests his relation to the world. The interpretation of the Divine is apparently reliant on the ethical demand, an invitation to act for a higher end. Such ethical demand is seen by Martineau as the continuing divine revelation. In this sense, Martineau focuses on the individual’s duty to follow the continuous divine revelation that must succeed over self-centered motives. Whether his act is good or bad is not a greatness solely vested upon the individual but also with the divine revealing himself in the person throughout the course of history.
Stepping forward to Schleiermacher, we see man in as if ‘paralyzed’ state being absolutely dependent on the divine. This paralysis is attributed by his supposedly finite existence sharing in the infinity of the divine. This presupposes an inward quest, similar to pantheism, seeing one’s finite existence partaking in an infinite whole. In this picture, man sees himself as small dot in the reality of things.
Moving on to Otto, we see the phenomenological lift of considering the feeling of awe and fear as religious experiences. It encompasses the idea of mysterious reality that is the “wholly other,” the idea of the holy. It places the individual in the sense of conflicting struggle amidst fear and fascination with the divine. Man sees himself as a mere onlooker of something great in front of him.
Tiele would look at religion centering on the disposition of the person involved. This involves one’s behavior that must be pure and reverential. In other terms, central to Tiele’s notion about religion is the idea of piety.
Though there are differences in the way these four philosophers look at religion, there is an apparent similarity which is an inevitable ideal role projected in a bigger reality apart or shared by oneself. The struggle is left upon the individual to attain it. What’s puzzling is the inevitable fact that person only sees his existence meaningful if see a bigger role to play and not just a bit part. If we’ll look at them more closely they are not answering the ultimate concern of this era where the struggle of man is laid in the conflict amidst the basic needs for existence and the quest for identity. Not all of us will experience the “mysterium” referred to by Otto nor see our will as a divine revelation or even look at ourselves as partakers of something more. Indeed we are awed by something great, we fear power but they can never be enough to answer the concerns of today. What this generation need then is a tangible and uncompromising religion, something that is not alien to his own existence. Such definition asks more from the believers more than they give tangible answers.
Moving on to Tillich, he emphasized on the individuality of the human being and the human experience starting on the process of becoming. Central to which is dealing with the Ultimate Concern. Tillich is rightful in asserting that we should not limit ourselves with symbols because we should always look beyond towards what they symbolize. Hence, religion must also be seen as a process of becoming. But then again, transcending to a new horizon is the responsibility of the believer.
Nice assertions as they may seem, they look at religion in a different perspective but the substance is lacking. Tillich may be right in asserting the indiduality of persons when it comes to religious concerns and that we should always look beyond. However, he failed to explain why more and more people are losing their faith in religion. Would this be because, they are not anymore grasping its relevance in their lives? Why such concern in the authenticity of religion keeps on bombarding several generations? If there is one main thing lacking of all the five, it is the fact that they may have failed to look on the political and empirical dimension of religion. No wonder then that we are finding it hard to look at their viability in answering today’s basic human concerns.
Now more than ever, the quest has headed us into asking whether the religion of today has retained its primordial role to initialize meaning in the life of communities and of individuals. Many philosophers of religion have tried insofar as they have perceived to look at the role of religion in a different light. Some of them were Martineau, Tiele, Otto, Tillich and Schelleirmacher. Most of them have dwelt upon the idea of a phenomenological encounter between the believer and the one that they believe in.
In this encounter, man seems to have the responsibility of discovery, a seeming invitation to transcend his nature and reach for the divine. And insofar as it teaches man to go beyond his own self, it verifies his personality to more than what has been before. The problem, however, is sometimes it falls like a coin in the pit hole of superficial religious rhetoric that is most of the time, not rooted in the ordinary and basic human concerns for existence.
We see then that Martineau would focus upon faith as a particular human concern. Central to this is free will and the primacy of motives, an expression of the self that manifests his relation to the world. The interpretation of the Divine is apparently reliant on the ethical demand, an invitation to act for a higher end. Such ethical demand is seen by Martineau as the continuing divine revelation. In this sense, Martineau focuses on the individual’s duty to follow the continuous divine revelation that must succeed over self-centered motives. Whether his act is good or bad is not a greatness solely vested upon the individual but also with the divine revealing himself in the person throughout the course of history.
Stepping forward to Schleiermacher, we see man in as if ‘paralyzed’ state being absolutely dependent on the divine. This paralysis is attributed by his supposedly finite existence sharing in the infinity of the divine. This presupposes an inward quest, similar to pantheism, seeing one’s finite existence partaking in an infinite whole. In this picture, man sees himself as small dot in the reality of things.
Moving on to Otto, we see the phenomenological lift of considering the feeling of awe and fear as religious experiences. It encompasses the idea of mysterious reality that is the “wholly other,” the idea of the holy. It places the individual in the sense of conflicting struggle amidst fear and fascination with the divine. Man sees himself as a mere onlooker of something great in front of him.
Tiele would look at religion centering on the disposition of the person involved. This involves one’s behavior that must be pure and reverential. In other terms, central to Tiele’s notion about religion is the idea of piety.
Though there are differences in the way these four philosophers look at religion, there is an apparent similarity which is an inevitable ideal role projected in a bigger reality apart or shared by oneself. The struggle is left upon the individual to attain it. What’s puzzling is the inevitable fact that person only sees his existence meaningful if see a bigger role to play and not just a bit part. If we’ll look at them more closely they are not answering the ultimate concern of this era where the struggle of man is laid in the conflict amidst the basic needs for existence and the quest for identity. Not all of us will experience the “mysterium” referred to by Otto nor see our will as a divine revelation or even look at ourselves as partakers of something more. Indeed we are awed by something great, we fear power but they can never be enough to answer the concerns of today. What this generation need then is a tangible and uncompromising religion, something that is not alien to his own existence. Such definition asks more from the believers more than they give tangible answers.
Moving on to Tillich, he emphasized on the individuality of the human being and the human experience starting on the process of becoming. Central to which is dealing with the Ultimate Concern. Tillich is rightful in asserting that we should not limit ourselves with symbols because we should always look beyond towards what they symbolize. Hence, religion must also be seen as a process of becoming. But then again, transcending to a new horizon is the responsibility of the believer.
Nice assertions as they may seem, they look at religion in a different perspective but the substance is lacking. Tillich may be right in asserting the indiduality of persons when it comes to religious concerns and that we should always look beyond. However, he failed to explain why more and more people are losing their faith in religion. Would this be because, they are not anymore grasping its relevance in their lives? Why such concern in the authenticity of religion keeps on bombarding several generations? If there is one main thing lacking of all the five, it is the fact that they may have failed to look on the political and empirical dimension of religion. No wonder then that we are finding it hard to look at their viability in answering today’s basic human concerns.
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