I had a few pints the other evening with the Irish Derridean and the crazy pirate, and our drunken ramblings happened - once again - upon the question of philosophy and its relation to life. This has some relation to what I have been thinking about aesthetics. S, the Dubliner, mentioned that a pressing issue for him at the moment is philosophy's relation to the 'irrelevant'. How does philosophy understand that which is, according to S, outside philosophy: irrelevant? I would say that calling something 'irrelevant' implies that it is something that could never really become 'relevant'; but it seems that the only way philosophy deals with the irrelevant is by somehow giving it relevance. In other words, maybe it isn’t a question of what philosophy makes of the irrelevant, but rather whether philosophy allows of an irrelevant at all.
Given the kind of questions that I have been considering lately, I can’t help but conceive this problem as one of innocence. Now the links with politics and aesthetics become clearer: is everything always 'relevant' for thought? Do all activities call upon a thinking person - someone trying to live a thoughtful life - to adopt an ethical or political attitude, a stance? Perhaps someone truly engaged in philosophy does not decide to adopt an attitude at all…
The question of innocence: when is pleasure simply manipulated sensation, and when is it something caused by the apprehension of a work of art, for example? Does art not manipulate too?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment