An article by: Roque J. Ferriols, S.J.
We shall not begin with a definition of
philosophy. The purpose of this course
is not to teach you what philosophy is but to try to give you a chance to
philosophize. Like all activities, philosophizing is something which is easier
to do than a define. After you have begun to engage in this activity, you might
want to try to define it yourself.
Even at this
early stage it is probably safe to say that most of you associate philosophy
with thinking. A crucial element in thinking is insight. Insight is a kind of seeing with the
mind. A good example is seeing the point
of a joke. A friend gives a joke. You see the point and you laugh. Somebody also does not see the point and is
bewildered. He might accuse you of
pretending to see point that is not there.
But you know quite definitely that there was a point, that you saw it,
that you did not feel yourself into thinking it was there. You are glad to be alive and able too see the
point. At the same time you realize how
hard it is to convey all this to one who has missed the point.
Two things
should be considered with regard to an insight.
1.
The insight itself.
2.
What I do with the insight.
Item number two
is vague. It will become clear as we go along.
What can I do
with my insight into a joke? I can analyze it. If I am merely enjoying the
joke, analysis can kill my enjoyment.
But if I aim to deliver the joke to others, analysis can deepen and
clarify my original insight and so help towards a more effective delivery.
Take this
example:
Knock. Knock.
Who’s there?
Mary Rose.
Mary Rose who?
Me relos ka ba?
Anong oras? (Do you have a wristwatch? At what time?)
Upon analysis I
discover that the point of the joke is this: “Mary Rose” and “me relos” sound
very different, yet they are made to sound alike. To bring this non-existing alikeness into
existence, I must mispronounce “me relos” and say “me reros”. But this introduces a new difficulty. Will
the listener know that “me reros” stands for “me relos”? To make sure he does,
I follow it up with “Anong oras?” Finally, to make the point of the joke stand
out more sharply, I try to surround the delivery with an atmosphere of
atrocious nonchalance.
Take another
example. Juan is standing beside the
coffin of his grandfather who has just died at the age of ninety-five. As far
as Juan can remember, the old man was always weak and shriveled. For Juan is only eighteen and his grandfather
was already seventy-seven when Juan was born. Juan comes home from the funeral
and his mother hands him his grandfather’s memoirs. There Juan sees his grandfather as he was
during the revolution: young and full of vigor and high spirits. Then he hears from old maiden aunts who heard
from their old maiden aunts that in his youth his grandfather used to be
dashing and quite popular with the ladies.
Juan gradually begins to realize: My grandfather as a young man was
exactly like me! For Juan likes to think of himself as full of high spirits,
dashing, and quite popular with the ladies.
Then Juan begins to think more deeply.
He is full of high spirits now, but high spirits re not
inexhaustible. It may take a long, long
time, but sooner or later his high spirits will be exhausted. It will be his turn to become old and
shriveled and to be contemplated in the coffin by his grandson. Juan thinks to himself: This is the way it is
with the generations of men. They start
life full of vigor and high spirits then wither away and die. But not before they have left behind sons who
also begin full of vigor and high spirits then wither away and die after they
have given life to their own sons. Juan
has an insight into the rhythm of rise and fall in the life of the generations
of men.
What can Juan do
with this insight? He can crystallize it in a metaphor. Homer had the same insight centuries ago and
crystallized it in the image of leaves.
Here are two versions of the passage from the sixth book of the Iliad.
High-hearted son
of Tydeus, why
ask of my generation?
As
in the generations of leaves, so
is that of humanity.
The
wind scatters the leaves
on the ground, but the live timber
Burgeons
with leaves again in
the season of spring returning.
So one
generation of men will
grow while another dies.
As the
generations of leaves, so
the generations of men.
For the wind
pours leaves out
on the ground,
But the wood
blooms and grows and
begets in the season of
spring.
So too the
generations of men:
now they bloom,
Now they pass
away.
The metaphor
sharpens the insight and fixes it in the mind.
Also, one portion of reality casts light on another. By contemplating
the fall and the return of leaves, we are able to understand not only the
nature of trees but also the rising and falling rhythm of the generations of
men.
Take a third
example: the insight into the meaning of the number four. The insight is so clear that it seems nothing
can be done with it. However, just to
push a point, one can say that the meaning of four can be analyzed into two and
two or into one and one and one. And we
can see that these analyses do make somewhat clearer the already clear insight
into the meaning of four. But let us try
another approach: let us ask: how did we gain this insight into the meaning of
the number four? The usual answer is: by counting. You can count four cars, for instance. Say you have here a Toyopet, a Mercedes Benz,
an Impala, a Volkswagen. Note that you
have to look at them in a special way if you want to count until four. You must look on them as cars. If you look on
them from the Toyopet viewpoint, you can only count one. Abstraction is
involved here. We abstract when we
concentrate on one aspect of a thing while prescinding from its other
aspects. We prescind when we neither
affirm nor deny, we merely, disregard.
Thus, if I have two carabaos and two dogs. I can count until four only if I consider
them as animals and prescind from the fact that two are carabaos and two
dogs. But what is the content of the
insight into the number four? It is not
four cars nor four animals but simply four.
Here we come across a second abstraction; we must not only abstract from
certain aspects of the things we count, but in the end we have to abstract from
the things themselves. The simple
insight into the meaning of our is seen to involve a rather complicated
preparation involving at least two abstractions.
Abstraction is
one of the tools often used in the analysis of insights. An abstract thought is called a concept and a
analysis by abstraction is called conceptual analysis.
We can return to
Juan’s insight into the rise and fall of generations and analyze it
conceptually. The moment we begin the
analysis we see that there are many ways of doing it. One-way could be: The generations of men begin in life with a
fund of energy and high spirits, which seems inexhaustible. But sooner or later the fund exhaust
itself. Yet in the very process of
self-exhuastion it begets another generation equipped with the same kind of
seemingly inexhaustible energy and high spirits.
This last
example shows one of the dangers of conceptual analysis it can desiccate an
insight. The throbbing, tumultuous
generations of men become an abstract fund of energy and high spirits. That is why it is necessary after conceptual analysis,
to return to the concrete fullness of the original insight. When this return to the concrete is made,
conceptual analysis can deepen and vitalize insight. When this return is not made, conceptual
analysis fossilizes insight.
From this brief
survey of insight, we have gained some insight into the nature of insight. It is a kind of seeing, not without eyes
(though our eyes often play a very important role in it) but wit our powers of
thinking. When we want to clarify and
deepen an insight or to fix in our minds, we “do something” with it. We have seen two techniques for doing
something with an insight: conceptual analysis and, metaphor. But other techniques can be used. There is for instance the important technique
of weaving a myth to embody our insight.
There is a
second point to note in our survey of insight.
The fact that there are many ways of doing something with an insight
shows that certain insights are so rich that they cannot be exhausted by our
efforts to clarify them. We may explore
them in many ways and along different levels, but some superabundance of the
original insight always remains beyond the reach of our techniques. In fact one of the effects of “doing
something” with this kind o insight is to make us more keenly aware of its
superabundance. Hence this kind puts us
into a state of tension between a sense of knowledge and light and a sense of
ignorance and darkness.
A third
point. Note that insight permeates the
process of doing something with an insight.
We need insight to see that the contemplation of the fall and return of
leaves does lead to deeper understanding of the death and birth of
generations. We need insight to see
whether a given conceptual analysis of a given insight does probe deeply into
it instead of merely classifying its superficial aspects.
Fourth and final
point. Why do certain insights resist
all efforts to explore them completely?
Because these insights bring us into the very heart of reality and
reality is super-abundantly rich. The
richness of these insights then is the richness of reality itself. And the stance of human being facing reality
has always to be a tension between a sense of knowledge and sense of ignorance.
Check my twitter @bernraforpiano for more quotes...
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