Welcome to Fear and Trebling, Liam. First paragraph is below. I take it as a dare.:
Not only in the world of business, but also in that of ideas, our times are holding ein wirklicher Ausverkauf [a real clearance sale]. Everything can be had for such absurdly low prices that in the end it becomes a question as to whether anyone will want to make a bid. Every speculative scorekeeper who conscientiously calculates the momentous progress of modern philosophy, every lecturer, teaching assistant, university student, every one of philosophy’s outliers and insiders does not remain standing at the point of doubting everything, but goes further. Perhaps it would be ill timed and untimely to ask them where they really are going, but it is surely polite and modest to take it for granted that they have doubted everything, for otherwise it would indeed be odd to say that they have gone further. They have all taken this preliminary step, then, and presumably so easily that they do not find it necessary to say a word about how they did it; for not even someone who, in anxiety and concern, sought a bit of enlightenment, found anything of that sort: i a hint of guidance, a little dietary prescription about how one comports oneself in undertaking this enormous task. “But of course, Descartes has done it, hasn’t he?” Descartes, an honorable, humble, honest thinker, whose writings no one can read without the most profound emotion: he did what he said, and said what he did. Alas! Alas! Alas! this is a great rarity in our times! As Descartes himself so frequently repeats, he did not doubt with respect to faith. (“Memores tamen, ut jam dictum est, huic lumini naturali tamdiu tantum esse credendum, quamdiu nihil contrariam a Deo ipso revelatur. … Præter cætera autem, memoriæ nostræ pro summa regula est infigendum, ea quæ nobis a Deo revelato sunt, ut omnium certissima esse credenda; et quamvis forte lumen rationis, quam maxime clarum et evidens, aliud quid nobis suggerere videretur, soli tamen auctoritati divinæ potius quam proprio nostro judicio fidem esse adhibendam.” ii See Principia philosophiæ , pars prima [ Principles of Philosophy , part 1] §28 and §76). He did not shout “Fire!” and make it everyone’s obligation to doubt, for Descartes was a quiet, solitary thinker, not a bellowing night watchman; he modestly confessed that his method had significance only for himself and was based in part on his earlier, bungled knowledge. ( Ne quis igitur putet, me hic traditurum aliquam methodum, quam unusquisque sequi debeat ad recte regendam rationem; illam enim tantum, quam ipsemet secutus sum, exponere decrevi. … Sed simul ac illud studiorum curriculum absolvi [sc. juventutis], quo decurso mos est in eruditorum numerum cooptari, plane aliud coepi cogitare. Tot enim me dubiis totque erroribus implicatum esse animadverti, ut omnes discendi conatus nihil aliud mihi profuisse judicarem, quam quod ignorantium meam magis magisque dexteissem. iii Cfr. Dissertatio de methodo [See Discourse on Method ], pp. 2 and 3). 3 — What those ancient Greeks (who, after all, did have a bit of understanding of philosophy) assumed to be the task for an entire lifetime because expertise in doubting is not acquired in days or weeks; what was attained by the old, veteran combatant (who had preserved the equilibrium of doubt through every seductive snare, fearlessly denying the certainty of the senses and of thought, uncompromisingly defying the anxiety of self-love and the flattering advances of sympathy)—in our times, this is where everyone begins.
I’ve been crawling through the book with some friends over in a private thread. Too many distractions in my life to just plow through. But plowing this field is not entirely straight-forward anyway.
Liam, what have you read by SK? Impressions? Thoughts?
Anyone else?