Why Philosophy?
Hi All,
I like to think that I have about the normal number of friends and acquaintances. Theres about 30 people Im in regular contact with, and almost all are people like me, directly connected to the arts in some way. Teachers, composers, poets, painters, writers and such. Yet not one of these people, or any of my relatives ever talks about, or ever mentions or reads anything about philosophy or philosophers.
I often wonder, what makes a person interested in philosophy? What is it about them that draws them to read, study and discuss philosophy? My theory goes like this.
Usually they are people who prefer to be alone than constantly around others. They are people who care about politics and the arts. They are writers. They are introspective and educated. Usually highly educated. They want the world changed in one way or many ways.
Do you think you are like this, or is my theory just generalisation?
Rob
I like to think that I have about the normal number of friends and acquaintances. Theres about 30 people Im in regular contact with, and almost all are people like me, directly connected to the arts in some way. Teachers, composers, poets, painters, writers and such. Yet not one of these people, or any of my relatives ever talks about, or ever mentions or reads anything about philosophy or philosophers.
I often wonder, what makes a person interested in philosophy? What is it about them that draws them to read, study and discuss philosophy? My theory goes like this.
Usually they are people who prefer to be alone than constantly around others. They are people who care about politics and the arts. They are writers. They are introspective and educated. Usually highly educated. They want the world changed in one way or many ways.
Do you think you are like this, or is my theory just generalisation?
Rob
Comments (65)
Like psychology, believe it's the basis/bias/ explanation of all human decisions, see it that way.
Personally, CURIOSITY! Everything about anything that falls across the path of living and the path of living as well, of course. That's philosophy.
Definitely not a social klutz, comfortable about verbal expression, as a single child can take or leave company but like frequent own time and space. Slow thinker with opinions that are never rust on....possibly squeezes into some profiles of a philosopher, who knows.
naked smile
Most people I know are not just disinterested in philosophy; many are mildly hostile about it, seeing it as pointless wankery which never arrives anywhere. Which, I must say, it often seems to be.
I think it probably takes a life event or a remarkable encounter with someone to awaken an interest - when we suddenly find that our worldview has been shaken by new perspectives. We can either shut this down or wonder some more about other things we may have missed in making sense of life. But equally a lot of philosophy seems to involve people making post hoc rationalisations for what they already believe - theism, idealism, materialism - often with a view to convincing and coercing others with their arguments
I think there are numerous ways philosophy might be of interest. Many people just pursue it as though it were a passionless game of logic, with no real connection to life. Others see it as mostly as a history of ideas. Others want to write manifestos. There are many different types: from the genuinely learned to the strident monomaniac.
I generally like to think that it is philosophy that makes me interested in it, but there is no necessity that all philosophers have the same motivation. And there are grades of horseshit n'all. But if I had to speculate and generalise, I would invite philosophers to look for some circumstance that caused them to question their own identity; identity is the origin of world view, and it is when one cannot quite make sense of one's world view that one falls unwilling into philosophy. And because identity is entirely fabricated, there is no escape.
Quoting Blake
A reasonable analysis, but bear in mind not everyone who has become accustomed to solitude (or "loneliness" as you put it) or who finds peace in such "prefers to be alone", per se (ie. an only child growing up in a rural or unsafe neighborhood or who otherwise wasn't generally allowed to "roam about" like most, etc).
For me, it probably has a bit more to do with "being right" and outsmarting those around me than I'd like to admit. Personally, I was always fascinated with science, discovery, not so much reading but definitely facts, creativity, and mastery (or at least knowledge) of the world around me. I liked watching "smart kid" shows like "Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius" and writing down all the interesting "discoveries", facts, and "inventions" thinking I could one day do them myself. Reading "Ripley's Believe it or Not" was a fun time as well. I like to think it was because it "challenged the world as I knew it" but, it's just as likely it was, as my former English professor would say, I'm "easily impressed (entertained)". Just me and my Itty Bitty book light and I was transported into a world all my own for hours at a time completely immersed in an always new and ever-changing world of possibility, particularly on long car rides.
It was fun at a young age to make those around you, particularly persons of authority (teachers, pastors, and of course my own dear parents) think or second-guess themselves or otherwise just pay greater attention to you, which was its own reward in its own right, even if it did get on their nerves at times. Grew up as an only child with what I'd have to say was an unusually large amount of solitude and time to myself. You definitely come up with ways to entertain yourself mentally. I didn't get into actual philosophy until my late teens, however. Not really sure why. Probably an older cousin of mine. Always reading Nietzsche and that one Russian guy. Super fun to be around, always had something interesting to say. Perhaps I just wanted to be a bit more like him and a bit less like myself at that time in life. Could be partly due to the media and social expectation (the "wise respected elder" in movies, getting rewarded with praise and stuff for good grades in school along with the opposite for the inverse, etc.); always wanted to be a well-to-do, scholarly sophisticate when I grew up. Just seemed like that's the way people were supposed to be.
I also didn't really like secrets or the idea of not knowing things those older or in authority knew and not only kept but would regularly joke about to themselves (but not I) while in my presence as if I wasn't there. Especially the way they would almost gleefully flaunt such knowledge in the form of verbal sentiment such as "It's a grown up thing" or "That's not for children" or "You'll understand when you're older", etc. I just wanted to know what was so funny or so terrible about something that seemed to not be any sort of big deal or make any sense to me at the time. Why I would get in trouble, why saying this word or doing this thing is bad but not the other all while not really giving me a satisfactory answer in my fledgling mind. I guess I also didn't like being wrong or outsmarted in front of people. Oh, the overbearing shame! Even at such a tender age. Ah, to be the lad who always knew just what to say, to be consistently looked up to as wise, funny, or what have you. Never a truer feeling of bliss felt; social acceptance.
That's what I would say were some contributing factors to my personal interest in philosophy and "intellectual pursuit" in general, without giving it more than a few minutes of thought, at least. I'm weird though so I wouldn't read too far into it. Each person is different, as are their specific desires and motivations behind such. Somewhat, at least. :smile:
You may not talk explicitly about philosophy or philosophers, but that doesn't mean that you dont ever think philosophically. Every time you take a step back from your art and think about how you are approaching it , and question how you might gain a different perspective on it, you are thinking philosophically. Artistic movements are comprised of innovators who asked themselves how they could express themselves through their art in a way that departed from the accepted approaches surrounding them. Only a minority of these artists ( William Blake, Terrance Malick, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Shelley, DuChamp, Wagner, Sartre, etc) will feel comfortable, however, in articulating their philosophical insights as full realized, concrete verbal concepts. It is this latter skill you appear to have in mind as what you call philosophy. Is there some specific personality type we could link to this? I doubt it. I certainty wouldnt say that philosophers are inherently more introverted or isolated than painters, poets or novelists. Any form of creativity that is non-collaborative will require long periods of solitude.
I would turn the OPs question on its head. What does it say about someone who calls themself an artist and yet who has no interest in philosophy? My suspicion is that if none of your artistically-inclined acquaintances have any interest in philosophy, then they are also less likely to be interested in modes of creativity outside of their narrow domain, or be interested in significantly innovating within their domain. Great art movements have always been filled with eclectic, curious souls whose art borrows widely from poetry , philosophy, politics, science, literature and spirituality, and everything in between. Perhaps what appears to you as a peculiarity of philosophy is more a symptom of a lack of innovative spirit among your social circle.
The main reason I became interested in philosophy was because of my interest in art.
How is it possible to create art without knowing what art is?
What art is is a philosophical problem.
Philosophy is looking at words we use in our daily lives and trying to figure out their definitions. Words like 'knowledge' for example. What is it really? How do we know? What is 'good'? Its not that we couldn't create definitions that then could be scientifically tested, its the creation and refinement of the definitions to be logical and detailed.
The type of person who questions why they do what they do is most likely to be attracted to philosophy. The type of person who cannot simply exist as part of a cultural process in both language and behavior is most likely to be attracted to philosophy. They do not have to be weird or lonely individuals, only those who suddenly look at what they're doing and ask, "Why?"
I would challenge this: maybe I am off here, but I don't think most people have thirty people they regular are with that share in their deep interests. Don't get me wrong: that's impressive, Rob! Good for you!
I think most people engage in philosophy when something catastrophic in their life forces them to (in order to cope). Maybe I am too cynical, but I don't think most people look to poetry, art, truth, and wisdom too keenly with an extreme invested interest unless they are going through some serious internal battles.
On the other hand, if you are wondering not why the average person might get interested in it (and why they tend not to be interested at all) but, rather, why the people prominent in philosophy (as a hobby or profession) tend to be interested in it; then I think you are right to point out that they tend to be introverted, analytic, intelligent, socially-awkward and have a yearning for wisdom.
I can tell you right now I got sucked in naturally because I am kind of autistic, socially awkward, extremely introverted, analytic, brutally honest (with myself), and I yearn for absolute truth. I cannot live without doing philosophy, just as much as I cannot live without eating....in all seriousness.
I wouldn't say that any of this is false. What I would say, however, is that there is a lot more to it than that. Speaking for myself, and only for myself (though I'm sure there are others who feel more or less the same about the following), the main thing that draws me to philosophy is the desire and the will to understand the Universe, which, as far as I'm concerned, is identical to Reality itself. What is this "thing" that we call Reality? What sort of thing is it? Why is it this way (i.e., it has gravity in the physical sense) instead of that way (i.e., a world in which there is anti-gravity instead of gravity)? Why is there a reality to begin with? Why is there something, rather than nothing? Could there have been nothing? Must there be something? If so, must there be this something instead of that something? What is the difference between "this" and "that" when you take these words out of context? Is there a difference? What sort of difference is it? Etc.
Even small decisions are weighed by most people inho. There has to be some rationale behind every thought and action.
You say, "I think it probably takes a life event or a remarkable encounter with someone to awaken an interest", and I was trying to recall what it was that triggered my interest in philosophy, and I'd have to put it down to me being a poet when younger.
One of the other things that pushed me into philosophy was the characters who wrote it. I've yet to find a boring philosopher who did not shake up thinking or the status quo in some way.
I've been trying to read everything I can about Simone de Beauvoir; what a full and expansive life she had. And then you add her philosophy and literature on top and that and it makes for about 10 people's lives.
Some of our remarkable encounters with people are via their books. I have not had that experince with philosophy but I have via essayists and novel writers (Salman Rushdie, Saul Bellow, Gore Vidal).
Quoting Rob J Kennedy
What triggered that interest? Poetry does seem to appeal to many people who are philosophically inclined.
You say, "Each person is different, as are their specific desires and motivations behind such." You hit on the exact point I was trying to raise without saying it directly. See, I think the opposite. I suggest that there is something unique, something so similar in people who are drawn to philosophy that it could be pinpointed if we were to graph it. Be it a specific emotion denied, a lack of friends, or a spark, instilled by someone. I believe there is one common cause/reason for people who have an interest and love of philosophy. I just can't prove it.
I get that all the time from people I know, yet, if I was to mention Plato to them, they would say they know the name but nothing of his philosophy. Hence the reson for this post.
You say, "My suspicion is that if none of your artistically-inclined acquaintances have any interest in philosophy, then they are also less likely to be interested in modes of creativity outside of their narrow domain", well, that is and is not true of my friends. Some have broad artistic interests, and others very narrow.
I have this saying that's a bit cumbersome, but hopefully, gets the point across, it goes like this. The trouble with people is we invent things that need explaining instead of being able to explain the things we invent.
This search for meaning in words and ideas we invent is either a waste of so much time or is ultimately very useful, is a quandary for me. The words/ideas of just soul and God have taken up so much of our time and effort and have amounted to little more than division, is for me, I wish they weren't invented because we still have no explanation for either. Hence, words creating philosophy and philosophy creating words, and what is the outcome?
And yes, philosophy has become a type or food for me too.
Science and Philosophy do not necessarily exclude each other. They have the same origin, in fact. The pre-Socratics were scientists as well as philosophers. Think of Thales of Miletus, or Pythagoras, for example.
A hard question. When I was 12 ish, I was reading Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Hesse, and considering what I should do with my life. I put it in a juvenile poem as a choice between love and non-attachment. But I had no idea at the time that any of this had any relation to 'philosophy'; rather, it was an exploration forced on me by the awareness of the complete falseness and hypocrisy of the moral and social system of the all male boarding school I found myself condemned to.
So at least for me, I began to ask deep questions because of the inadequate answers that society was providing. But I didn't call that philosophical until I had been at university studying philosophy and psychology for a couple of years more or less by accident. :grin:
I'm from Australia, and for the vast majority of people here in the 1960s, when I grew up, education was a horrible joke. I left school at 15. The school I went to did not even have music as a subject. The whole school did not own one musical instrument. And as for university, it was not even a word in my society.
You may have had a stifling boarding school education, but judging by your writing, at least you had an education. I did not. I never knew even how to think deeply until I was mid-20s.
Philosophy has taught me more about life than anything I have studied, or experienced.
That's an amazing thing to hear, and I say that as a professional philosopher. I can't believe that someone actually gets something that useful out of philosophy. It's honestly the most flattering thing that I have ever heard about my profession.
What are a couple of examples of what philosophy has taught you about life?
Two, Sartre, etc., once I was thrown into this world, I am responsible. This is my world and I make it.
I live by both these maxims.
Smart maxims to live by.
I'm just surprised to see someone express a continuity between Epicurus and Sartre. I mean I see that continuity but I'm not used to others expressing it, so I find it pleasing because it feels like independent confirmation.
This happened to me with Hegel, before reading Deleuze's book Nietzsche and Philosophy. Before reading Deleuze's book, I had wondered if someone could philosophically argue for the concept of the "affirmation of the affirmation" (since Hegel's philosophy is usually said to contain 1) affirmation, 2) negation, 3) negation of the negation). I never developed that thought, it was just some random thing that I used to wonder from time to time, so it was a bit of an interesting surprise to find out that in Nietzsche's writings (according to Deleuze) there is something like an "affirmation of an affirmation".
I don't put much stock in such concepts myself, if I even put any stock in them to begin with, but it was just one of those odd things that happen from time to time.
Do people still read Sartre and take him seriously? I recall Camus and Sartre being fashionable in Australia just after the war; mixed into a kind of beatnik, socialist sensibility. By the 1980's, people were still reading Camus (perhaps because he is easier to follow) but existentialism became a bit of an embarrassment for a while - if you were an enthusiast, you were seen as a throwback to your parent's generation. Any thoughts from your side of the globe?
That tracks with my experiences, though cuz I did theatre stuff I ran into Sartre and Camus much earlier than becoming interested -- and much much before beginning to understand -- their philosophy.
When I was 20-ish I got to play the part of Joseph Garcin, which was my introduction to Sartre -- I had already known about Camus from other friends and, funnily enough and without any reason, hated him at the time :D
I imagine the embarrassment over existentialism has to do with the feeling that the world's problems had finally been solved and all that was left was grouching -- but that idea is born from ignorance.
EDIT: I didn't answer your original question. I don't think people still read Sartre and take him seriously in the general sense, but his shorter works are commonly referenced in my experience.
You don't need to read Being and Nothingness to be taken seriously, at least.
IMX I've heard people reference things like No Exit and Existentialism is a Humanism, as well as general notions of what he's going on about in B&N -- so I've read selections before but only recently become re-interested in pursuing a full understanding of B&N
I have come across a fair amount of people who began philosophy courses, often not completing them, because they just found that they could not relate to it. Some seem to love and some seem to hate it. I have always been drawn to it, discovering the philosophy section in the library when I was about 12 or 13. There may be some underlying disposition to examining assumptions and ideas, although, of course, within the 'minority' who like it people come from such different angles.
Do you think this might be about how the subject is taught and how institutions work, rather than philosophy itself?
Quoting Rob J Kennedy
My 'philosophical interest' was/is rooted in everyday encounters with stupidity (i.e. maladaptive, incorrigible behavior) in all of its insidious forms as both an enabler of and constraint on practice (or agency). Though I've always had strong affinities with Zapffean-Camusian absurdism, more than anything else I'm a fallibilistic Epicurean-Spinozist (i.e. committed to a critical form of anti-supernaturalism).
In practice, IME philosophy is an infinite game (i.e. fractal-like maze, not 'solvable' labyrinth) one falls into and cannot / doesn't want to escape from (unless you're a fly named "Ludwig" trapped in his own flybottle). :smirk:
Yes. Solitaire ...
... et Solidaire. Yes.
Yes ... sentences cage me.
Yes ... very bookish.
Yes ... and themselves.
Yeah, not normal I know. I was brought up with 4 older sisters and was reading fluently by 3. No telly in the house, but plenty of books, and I devoured them by the dozens (without understanding everything obviously). The kids around me at school were struggling with Enid Blyton. :groan: So I was a bit of a loner...
Quoting Arcane Sandwich
That surprised me too; but I'd guess you were learning all the time, even if you weren't being well educated, about people and life, so that you could recognise those principles as valuable.
I definitely think that the way philosophy is taught is a factor in why people are put off by it. That is because it can be made so obscure and remote from life to be made uninteresting.
I wouldn't call it Heidegger-lite, no. It reads more clearly than Heidegger to me (at least in translation to English), but it's just as hard in the sense that he's using words in an original way while making original arguments about metaphysics.
I've heard it said that you can just skip to Sartre without reading Heidegger before, though I see a huge influence from Heidegger there -- I've also heard it said that Sartre misread Heidegger so you can dismiss B&N and go straight to B&T as the real deal.
So far I think what it amounts to is one camp didn't want to have to read two huge books that use similar concepts but with different vocabularies -- they already knew Heideggerese and didn't want to learn Sartre-ese :D Totally understandable, but ultimately I think they're both valuable and difficult, only different.
I don't know why people pursue philosophy, just like I don't know why anyone pursues any career. The preference of being alone I might be able to give you an amusing example of. I'm an OG, so back in the day our vehicles had carburetors. I was trying for the first time in my life to clean one, which involved taking it completely apart. To reassemble it, the parts had to go back in a specific order. On this glorius day, after I'd prettey much got it all apart and was ready to move on, several of my friends dropped by and I got pulled away from the task at hand. When I eventually came back I had no clue to the proper order of reassembly and wound up having to buy another carburetor.
If you've been on a thought for awhile; if it's out there and you're following along (which can take some time) solitude is a blessing.
However, the ANU full philosophy degree is about 80 completely academic philosophy after the fundamentals. I sat in as an audit student on one unit, I chose it on purpose to see what I would have to be learning, it was called Normative Ethical Theory and it was almost incomprehensible.
For most of the degree, it is like I need a degree in how to figure out the degree.
Not necessarily that. I studied philosophy at University in the 1980's. The head of the philosophy department once said to me, "You are not here to learn, you are here to parrot our ideas and accept our assessments of the important matters." The lectures and tutorials were interesting, but they were leading us to specific conclusions, which I experienced as coercion and took as antithetical to philosophical practice. I'm suspicious of a process whereby students end up as variations of their professors.
Wow. I had a much different experience. The emphasis upon thinking for oneself was difficult to endure as it involved lots of criticism of what one said.
Sounds like a typical PhD program in mathematics. Occasionally a student flies off in an interesting exploration of their own. Usually knowledge advances incrementally.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/959747
A post from a 2020 thread What has philosophy taught you? ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/331143
Also: the what for my why ...
Quoting 180 Proof
Hey Rob - love it.
Quoting Arcane Sandwich
Quoting Philosophim
Quoting T Clark
Quoting unenlightened (Love that.)
Quoting Joshs
I like to think I'm an artist - I wrote songs, played them for years in bars, really wanted to be an artist. Had a bunch of friends. Hung around college grads and non-college grads alike.
I wouldn't say I preferred being alone as T Clark said but I get that he said that, because I never minded being alone (I'm never "lonely"). I'd say I was introverted, but I've always been in public positions (like singing my songs and at work..), so I'm really more a center-leaning introverted type with plenty of extroverted behavior.
The introversion is important though, because, to me, it is equally a source of art and philosophy - it provides the well for doing the work of the artist and the philosopher. But I digress...
It was early, in high school, that I discovered philosophy. We read Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" (just that section of The Republic); I had no clue what I was reading, and in one class, my teacher made it clear to me that nothing is as it has always seemed. All that was plain before my eyes, instantly evaporated. "Seeing" delivered only shadows, and the truth of anything and everything was on the table, all in disarray. And the whole class was arguing whether anyone could prove what "brown" really was. I got it. I got the bug immediately, reading Aristotle for Morons books (Mortimer Adler), and on to major in philosophy in college. I ate it all up. Had the band the whole time.
But on that day in high school when I got it that none of us really get anything, things were not the least bit bad. It was exhilarating, like playing a great song with friends. Eerything in the world was just as beautiful as it was before, but, because of what Plato said, somehow everything was new. Like when some people first realized the sun didn't circle around the earth, but the opposite was occurring as the earth spun on it's axis. The same world was somehow more beautiful, because I saw something new just as well.
Everything is much richer and deeper, if we want to go there. And I did want to go there.
That was what got me into philosophy.
That was what led me to ask:
Quoting Arcane Sandwich
Quoting Philosophim
Quoting T Clark
Quoting unenlightened
What they said.
On a practical level, to sort of echo (and digress from) what Joshs said about thinking philosophically, I am of the opinion that all of us do philosophy; it is part of being a person; it is using language and making generalizations and forming descriptions, to make arguments, and test conclusions, and tear away illusion, and challenge the words of others. Learning philosophy is learning how to clarify thoughts and language. It is like the art of logical relations.
Philosophy proper is as unique a science as biology is unique from quantum physics; we are not all biologists or physicists. And we are not all philosophers; but we can tell the difference between a physicist, and me, who is not a physicist, and to do that, we have to do philosophy. We all create a big picture view (universalize), place ourselves in it (particularize), and organize everything else around and between these (relate these) - we are human, constructing the meta in the physics, fixed in motion. (Already my description of what all humans do is pissing off various other philosophers, but then, who in thousands of years has summed up philosophy in a few sentences?)
And the artists, who can completely empty their mind, not thinking at all, but instead performing their art, leaving all intention to melt into the motion of the body, "following the muse" that is always, already there, the motion itself that always guides as it drives us - these artists, though they are not philosophizing, often generate the most philosophically interesting creations. So, philosophy is inevitable with the human, and I would say united with our arts. Good art will always inspire a philosopher, just as a clear bit of wisdom or just the visceral, hard truth, (like the clarity of a distinct and new perspective) informs and inspires the artist.
Last thing I want to say here, is that, although the real work of the philosopher is lonely work, dialogue is a big motivation - we read and think, and then write, for hours alone, but we write to throw something out at the rest of the world, and we want to see what bounces back. And some of us mostly dialogue - which makes TPF in a sense what philosophizing really is. We have to be interested in challenges to what we think, so we have to be interested in capturing what we think in words. And we are just as interested in confirming agreement, as we are disagreement (especially when these lead to further honest analysis), and we don't begrudge our own or others' error, nor covet the discovery a better, maybe opposite view. We live for what we think, meaning: what I think is worth my own time, and may even be what there is to think for any thinking being. Peer review completes a certain justification in what I think, keeps philosophy tied to science (though it often falls into poetry, or mysticism, or theology). Even though most people (including me) are easily wrong about what they think, philosophers care about what people can really think, and say with any lasting gravity.
It's both as much a salvation as it is a burden, this philosophy thing - hopefully more salvation. Philosophizing is one of those purely human things we do, so I agree, I can't live without it. The unexamined life is impossible to live, because being a person, means examining life. We look IN, not just around, with our eyes - and with our eyes in the light, sometimes we see wisdom and foolishness as hiding between the red and green things and everything else...
You said "yearn" for truth, and I would say it that way too. At the same time I would say, I would never fear or shrink away from any truth, meaning, all of the truth is the same to me, having itself torn everything else down (marking error and the false as illusion) and built everything that is in its image, as what alone remains all the time is always and only, the absolute.
I prefer to be alone and always have. I care about politics and the arts. I write. I have a doctorate. I suspect most people want the world to change.
With the exception of my years as an undergraduate, the always changing primary group of people in which I circulated never contained anyone even remotely as interested in philosophy as myself.
I have been interested in philosophy at least since the age of 3 when I had a non-traumatic yet fundamental understanding of the always already existing world in which I found myself.
Glad to know there are others. I just wish I personally knew some.
All the best,
Rob
A variety of things can make a person interested in philosophy, but in general I think the subject satisfies curiosity and will to think clearly. Unlike a scientific question, a philosophical question has no decisive answer. Therefore, philosophy attracts varieties of thought, including anti-intellectual, religious, political, or sophistry masquerading as "philosophy". All of them showing you aspects of human nature.
Philosophy is process.
Process[(,that,) is only limited when expressed incorporating (a) subject.
[ The bracketed (,that,) and (a) are optional for the above sentence's intended preferred meanings.]
No expression, no subject, no limit.
And
Perhaps, any form of teaching of process directs and thereby limits process?
Limiting process may cause resentment or enjoyment of process.
Perhaps this is one answer/simple explanation as to why some of us enjoy, and others have less positive thoughts about, philosophy?
smile