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The soul is the organ of reason; reason doubts the existence of the soul. So the soul thinks itself into knots — and for the most part, for most of us, remains that way: a thinking-knot.
I’ve been reading some analytic philosophy lately, for the first time in a long time — I suppose I last really dug into analytic philosophy as an undergraduate — and all I can think now is that the whole field, the whole discipline, is a long footnote to a few technical issues that will be better dealt with by neuroscience and physics. In short, I’ve come to the extraordinary conclusion — extraordinary in the sense that there are dozens of journals and hundreds or thousands of professional positions concerned with contemporary philosophy of mind, language, and metaphysics — that the classics of analytic philosophy, with the exception of Wittgenstein (who is really something else) will be entirely forgotten. The book I’m reading, for the record, is a classic; and it’s absolutely unnecessary reading. On the other hand, I’m also re-reading, because I’m tutoring it, Emerson’s Conduct of Life: an absolutely unprofessional book of philosophy which is absolutely wise.
