A Digression Into Philosophy

When it comes to the underpinnings of philosophy, I guess I’m on board with Descartes. Most commonly his primephilosophical premise is translated as, “I think therefore I am”. From my perspective this really doesn’t convey the essence of what he is saying. I have seen several other iterations of this phrase. One that has stuck is something along the line, “Because this thought process is in some manner occurring, therefore something must exist”. I get that. I accept that as a starting point.

Because there is even a question floating around in the ether somewhere, the mere existence of that question means there must be some form of sentient being that exists. All human existence may in fact be the dream of a giant sleeping on a hill in a world or universe which we could never comprehend, but something, some life, must be there to generate activity. 

So, accepting as a starting point that there is existence, I adopt the pragmatist stance as to the rest of the questions of reality. What I see and who am I seeing are real and not simply the constructs of the Giant’s mind or my own mind. For me I don’t have to dig into the whole, “Are you and everyone else just a figment of my mind”, ala Leibnitz.  The whole monad thing doesn’t work for me.  The table is a table.  The chair is a chair.  Sex is sex.

What I find more interesting, and more challenging is the issue of duality.  Do we have a soul?  Is there a life essence that is attached to our skin suits invisible to our eyes and undetectable to our instruments of discovery, that continues forever? Perhaps something like unseen radiation that has always been there but not measured or identified until the last century and a half of human history.  Those 17th and 18th century folks really worked doggedly to either prove or disprove the soul. Don’t think either side really prevailed. And when you talk about the soul you move from metaphysics into moral philosophy.  If there is duality you must address the problem of the existence of evil.

Accepting existence, I can move on to think on other more important questions in this world I inhabit. Me personally I think the questions that must be addressed right now on our Trump/Johnson world are primarily questions on moral philosophy and ethical philosophy. We humans must drill down and answer to ourselves what is good and right at the same time identifying what is not good and what is not ethical. Every single moment of every single day, because of these men, we are faced with choices that require decisions about propriety and goodness and what our efforts should be to ameliorate the evil these men are spreading. The thing is an answer to these questions is never, and I mean, never easy or clear.