Why and How We Study Philosophy
Summer 1952
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Hegel too believed in reason and then he made an equation between the human spirit and God to get even more authority into his statement. But a philosopher cannot claim authority because by claiming authority he claims that he is an initiated one (told by God, so to speak), that he knows better, and therefore is entitled to raise that claim. Neither can a scientist claim to know better. The theologian can and does because he is supposed to have a higher knowledge to which we cannot claim, but if a scientist claims to know better, it is already a theological claim, and a claim to which only a theologian is entitled for it is only within religion that such a claim can be made. The scientist is a faker if he raises such a claim; he denies that he is aware that science is a human performance. If we raise absolute claims on that, we are betrayers, almost criminals. Philosophers up to now (and that includes all of them in a way) have also raised the claim of knowing better: either in the old way of being initiated to the cosmos (the whole) and of knowing what being was and from this followed what you had to do; or in the new way of the rationalists--of the men who believed in human reason and said to us, "We know about it and can tell you about it and about what you have to do."
This is why we cannot study philosophy; we can only work philosophically and study philosophers. Philosophers thought they had human reason; now we find it is very changeable too and we cannot make that claim. Pure philosophy is a kind of metaphysical thinking in which man makes up his mind about a certain situation in the world, tells his fellow men he has made up his mind about this situation, and leaves it up to them to see whether their experiences also show if the situation is really there; then he puts forward a proposition: "Let’s take a position of our will and our doing which seems to me, as I have made up my mind, to be the most pertinent one and the one which I think I can prove to you will help you to get at a higher and deeper meaning of life. If you agree, then let's proceed along these lines. This philosophy of mine pretends only to help you to make up your own mind." Philosophy is helping man to make up his mind and in that sense philosophy teaches life; not with authority but only by proposing new possibilities and other ways of life. If people feel that these propositions are the most valuable ones for them, then they will go this way and be in the same stream of creativity that this philosopher started.
So a philosopher can never be a leader--one who claims authority. Philosophy is the only creative human activity that has to reject any authority whatsoever. If we take politics as a creative activity (which may seem a strange idea at first), we will see, of course, that in politics we have to grant a certain authority to statesmen in a case of emergency. We have to control it and have to ask later for an accounting, but still we have to grant that authority. In science, certainly, authority to a degree is unavoidable and also has to be granted. To be a scientist may mean to have a certain career where the community has a responsibility to decide what that science is to be used for, but it also means to have a career--take an atom physicist for example--where the community (through sheer lack of knowledge--if nothing else) cannot claim to be able to control what the scientist does--though he certainly does not have the authority some of them claim. So in science it is impossible to avoid a certain authority, but it has to be controlled as much as possible. In art an absolute authority is granted. If it is a great work of art, it does not ask you whether it is or not; the artist, as to form, is an absolute monarch.
But in pure philosophy--after self-criticism would be complete and accepted--I think we would find out that pure metaphysical, speculative thinking is the freest kind of human activity and the most decisive because it can influence all others, and therefore it has to be the only one not entitled to raise any claim of authority--it has to be entirely a matter of proposition. This seems to bring in the question of arrogance and modesty and we have to look into this for a moment. All philosophers in the past have been very arrogant because of this claim of authority behind them--the claim to know the truth, the claim of being initiated ones, the claim of knowing better--but since a philosopher is not the chosen one, as they thought, but the cursed one, it would seem perhaps that modesty of claims would be the indicated approach. One notable exception to the group of arrogant philosophers might give us a clue to this: Karl Jaspers--who has such modesty as never before seen in a philosopher. He has the extreme modesty not to claim that he has a special way to the truth (in fact he hates philosophers who claim absolute truth), but unfortunately, he also makes truth so relative that it would seem that modesty cannot be the right approach either,
So if a philosopher is no longer entitled to be arrogant because of the claim of higher authority behind him and if modesty does not seem to be the answer, what can be the position of the pure philosopher who has to see that he never claims to be backed by a higher power, whatever it might be--which means that his task is much harder--so that he might help man to make up his mind by making up his own. Putting it in a popular form, a philosopher is not the leader of the Mormons into the new land, he is not even a pioneer--he is the scout always in new country to discover new paths, who comes back to the settlers to tell them about the country ahead and to propose to them paths and a way through the new country. He might even go along a way with them to show them, but not as a leader and he should reject all authority people try to give him (even titles or certain assignments, which of course sometimes the philosopher may have to accept because he too has to eat). That is not his business--though he could seduce them into believing that he is an initiated one. Pure philosophy, as well as politics, has to be done by everyone, and everyone has to be told in such a way so that he can understand. Everyone is entitled to butt in and to ask, "What do you mean?", because it also means, "What do you want me to do because you are about to propose something."
Bruno,when faced with the decision of denying his proposition or being burned at the stake, was not aware of all these things, but he felt that if he would deny what he had said, he would be denying philosophy--whether it was in the way Jaspers thinks he might have felt, or whether it was in the way I think he might have meant it: I have made this proposition to go this way of life; now I may die for it; but if I thought it so important then that I proposed to others to go this way, surely it is no less important now that I may have to go this way to death.
Socrates too was faced with a decision when he was asked to stop--to stop, as his accusers put it, "seducing the youngsters of Athens." But he did not want to stop because he thought he had a way of philosophy--a way, as I see it, of a pure philosopher who did not raise a claim but showed that he knew as little as the others. Socrates claimed to be a midwife (here we find the irony of Socrates and also--because it was Greek thought--an erotical element) and said that he helped bring forth the child (the thought). What he really meant (and did not say) was that he engendered the thought. He felt that it took two people to bring forth a thought, that without communication thought was not possible, and that in making up his mind he could help make up the minds of others. He was not a midwife when you see that he had this impression. This was the first attempt at pure philosophy without the claim of a higher power (which Plato tried very hard to hide). Socrates knew that all the established values of justice did not hold water; he knew that we had to look for justice every day and that we could only know more and more justice--never all of it. He knew that at least in ethical philosophy it was a living procedure—so he too had to die.
Now is Jaspers also right when he tells us that Galileo also made the right decision? Galileo had put forth a mere scientific discovery. He could be sure that it would be rediscovered (In fact, he did not even make the discovery; he only rediscovered it. It was first discovered by an old Greek when the Greeks did not want such a fact, and later again by Leonardo da Vinci.) because the fact existed, and so Jaspers thinks—since Galileo could be sure it would not be lost--that he was right. If it could have been only a scientific statement, Galileo would have been right; but since the statement was made by not just a scientist but also a man and since a whole man is a metaphysical being with all that implies, could it be just a scientific statement? Galileo made the statement at a certain time when it was clear that science was trying to get out from under the tutelage of the church and to come into its own: that means that involved in this was the position of a scientist fighting for the independence of science against the church--which would mean that he was also faced with a metaphysical, political decision. If Galileo had not denied his proposition, he could have been sure that a whole generation of scientists would have followed in his footsteps in order to vindicate him. But he did deny his proposition and while scientifically he may have been right, I doubt very much if he did not do wrong for science as a creative human capability. On the other hand there is the possibility that Galileo may have thought in another way: I will save my life so that I can go on with the other discoveries I am about to make--and I can fight again for the position of science. And Galileo's further life did show that in spite of his denial he never ceased to fight for the position of science, and he did make further discoveries.
Now I have passed judgment on a procedure of philosophy that has always been used--namely, the raising of that claim of authority, whatever it might be--and it may seem that I too am one of those philosophers who claims all the other philosophers are wrong; but what I want to say (and the distinction I want to make) is quite another thing. We have advanced far enough to doubt all those philosophers and pseudo-scientists of the 19th Century and their claims--the claim of evolution, for example, or the claim that history has in itself certain laws according to which it proceeds and that we can only move according to those laws--and we have become very sceptical of any proposition based on those claims. We have become most sceptical about any historical proposition since we have seen the claim of history fail and we have become equally sceptical about any hypothesis of evolution since we have seen that it turned out to be a ghastly hypothesis. Real scientists do not talk about evolution any more or about development--it was all very useful for research but now it has to be rejected. Nevertheless, I think we can still talk about development--though not in the sense of progress--when speaking of one phenomenon: namely, that phenomenon which produces metaphysical thinking and realizes it--which we will call preliminarily the human mind. This is not a natural or a physical phenomenon; this is not a brain that grows, but a human mind that develops. And it is a phenomenon that can only develop because it has the magical ability to be self-developing--an ability not caused by any physical or outside interference, but brought about by its own activity in the physical as well as in the metaphysical realm.
So in this sense I think there becomes possible a certain history--but not a history of philosophy as Hegel made of it where he tried to show that all Western thinking was one continuous becoming (with matters proceeding on their own laws) until it got to Hegel as its goal. Man now finally had the truth; he had only to apply it--which meant that those thinkers to come afterwards could not be original thinkers any more. Philosophers were now what most Germans have always loved so much (and the only thing they have in common with the Jews): schoolmasters. The truth had now only to be taught (and here the comparison with the Jewish love of schoolmasters must stop for their love was theological which was quite different). So the pure schoolmaster was Hegel--and it was the greatest schoolmaster idea developed since Aristotle (who also had a schoolmaster mind)--who had finished everything for man. Everything was all done now and topped by Hegel's system. And man had only to learn that system and how to behave according to it. So this history I speak of is not a history of philosophy, but rather of the countless attempts of the human mind to cope with the different situations in which man has found himself in the world and the capabilities of the mind shown in such attempts (In the development of the human mind we find the real battles of life.). A kind of historical, metaphysical approach becomes possible to show why it was so hard and took so long to become aware of the fact that in the procedure of thinking, acting, and realizing going on in the human mind many capabilities have been involved, and it also becomes possible to show why those capabilities were always mixed up and mistaken each for the other, developing together originally in a conglomerate, as in myth.
As Kant once said, "I am in a discipline in metaphysics where we have to say only a few steps have been made--and they are only half-steps in millenniums. We do not even know in metaphysics what we know by metaphysics." He was aware how slow those steps are. If you will take from me a mere figure (not meant to prove enyting) and think of the whole world of the human mind as a great organ fugue, then you will hear those very slow steps which are only a few but which will decide the whole fugue: the organ bass. And the reason why those steps are so slow is because they are going on at the profoundest level the human mind can reach at that time. Anyone who has made an earnest training attempt to really study theology or ontology will know how difficult it is to put one thing of metaphysical concern into clear terms and into clear conceptions--it causes our brain its greatest pain--but that does not mean (as it was believed up to 1800, and in a way now also because we think scientifically) that if a metaphysical statement contains a contradiction, it is wrong. It can only be maintained that the statement has not been adequately stated, that it has a verbal fault but is not necessarily wrong. In philosophy there are no errors--only more or less truth--and every previous step is necessary before the next step can be made. That is the reason why it is only possible now for philosophy to go in for self-criticism to the full in order to find out what it really is in its pure content.
Socrates knew--and he was the first to discover this--that we have to take philosophy into everyday life (which is another reason why philosophy cannot claim authority). He knew when he asked the shoemaker his point of view on life, taking him as a man and not merely as a shoemaker, that everyone has a point of view and it may be valuable philosophically. Only a lie has to be rejected. If a statement is made sincerely and shows genuine life experience, it may contain a deeper insight and starting point than most philosophical systems. And if a man becomes a philosophical man (as I maintain that everyone has to become) it means that he has to take everyone else just that seriously as soon as a sincere statement is made relating to a genuine life experience--as a philosopher has to do also. Now if we only can put forward a proposition like this--asking of everyone that he become a philosophical man (or woman). I say this because I think that I can prove we are obliged to philosophize or we will fall prey to all the cheap and ever-cheapening beliefs put forward to us by science or any ideology that happens to come along. Our situation is a question of life and death for everyone, and so also for philosophy. A philosopher has to get into direct communication with everyone he can reach, with everyone who philosophizes--not as a priest but as a worker who can show a model on how to work.
I want to show methodologically how all those creative capabilities that once were one in the myth have developed into the crisis of the nihilistic situation--into a death crisis where the human mind can break apart and where the whole of all the creative activities of man by flying apart can break up each single individual into all its parts. We have never been farther away from a whole--either as human beings or as to our situation in the world. We are being driven into a state of more and more confusion where we answer with more and more cynicism, letting ourselves be driven on because the mind is tired and confused. In this crisis we are now in there is the possibility that the whole human mind will go to pieces--torn asunder not only by the breaking up of that whole of the mind's creative activities but also by the very creations of that mind. The machines we have created have become our very masters--and this is a symptom for the whole situation. There is so much confusion resulting from such an infinite multitude materially of creations and realizations of the human mind and such confusion in our social organization that the way is opening into more and more possibilities for tyranny again. So we cannot be too serious about this situation if we really want to take the responsibility for the human race--and if we do not want to take that responsibility then we are really already on the declining side. We have to be concerned with the wholeness of human life and of the human race.
We are in a special situation because these capabilities are driving more and more apart, and we want to try to find out how they might be brought back together again. Even politically we are growing apart; the faster we can fly to Paris, the greater seems to be the misunderstanding between the French and the American people. We do not have a center of understanding any more because we have rejected philosophy--because we have rejected philosophy for practicality. "The devaluation of values" (as Nietzsche said) was not enough; we had to turn lower values into higher values and higher ones into the lower values--and now we are standing on our heads. So because of that crisis, a course in how and why do we study philosophy becomes a basic course in philosophy and it becomes, as I have said, a question of: Why must modern man philosophize and learn to philosophize? and why must modern man become a philosophical man? Philosophy in the system of human capabilities is the center, the orientation point and if that is lost or not established, then any orientation is lost. Philosophy is not a leader but an orientation point. But since it is only lately, so to speak, through free philosophy that we have been able to try to establish this central position of philosophy, we must first ask: What was it that centered those creative human activities up to the time they began to blow apart into this situation we now find ourselves in? and how was it possible for man to live so long before he found himself in this situation?
Formerly a center had been developed instinctively because men felt their unity by thinking that they were centered about an unmoving center: religion. And up to 1800 religion was still the center. There was also, of course, science and philosophy, but instinctively ciirection was always given by religion and even the so-called freest thinkers always kept in touch with that. This center was blown out with Kant when he destroyed the cosmological and theological approach. So what happened? Let's imagine what would happen to a planetary system if the center blew out into outer space--which is just what happened to all those creative human activities that for so long had been united into a conglomerate. Already when the first moment of mythical thought came about that conglomerate was there with all powers acting together indiscriminately. That means that for all that time man had a safeguard against the nihilistic situation first in the conglomerate that was already there in myth, and after myth, then in either God or the cosmos--until Kant showed us that we can never assume the existence of an ordered cosmos with meaning or the existence of God because just there human reason finds its limit.
We find in myth a creation into which went about everything at once and all together; a creation that knew no distinctions--between Zeus and the sun, between Zeus and the soul and a tree. Everything went all together into one conception--in a metaphor, which is an artistic conception, that can be interpreted indefinitely. That is why we can interpret a myth by so many approaches--psychologically, philosophically, symbolically—and can always find elements to serve us. That is why we can always use myths in philosophy as examples, in art for symbols, and why they always bring in a new aspect of meaning--so dense has been their original meaning.
This makes one look with quite another opinion at the so-called primitive mind--which was as much of a miracle as the so-called developed mind. The quality and intensity of thought were always the same. There may be no distinctions in a figure of myth, where everything was put to work at once to make it, but all distinctions can be found if we break it up because all the distinctions are there. Plato was the first to have a feeling of this. He tried to destroy myth, but still he used it. Instinctively he knew that if you change a mythical proposition around you will have an example of metaphysical thought. We can see this also in Jewish theology where distinctions have been made to the point of even taking letters apart (to where in cabalism it becomes almost mechanical). If you even change one letter in the so-called mythical words (words put into a mythical context), the most amazing thing happens: a new aspect of meaning of the thing can be gained even in the seemingly mechanical aspects of it.
In art along comes Kafka who writes certain parablas (which I have edited)--parables about topics of Greek, Jewish, and Chinese myths—and always out of the mythical content he gets the most modern meaning possible. It is possible to open up the most modern aspects of the human soul out of the very oldest myths. The content is so penetrating, as to the essential elements of human life, that myths lend themselves to countless interpretations. And this is not arbitrary--it is like a work of art. If you have a hundred people, you have a hundred interpretations of it, and if you analyze them you find that not a single one was able to get away from the essence found in the work of art; all relate to it—even the most shallow ones cannot get away from a real relation to the essential content of a work of art. (Even a study of "Moby Dick" that was made from a psycho-analytical approach and interpreted entirely from the point of view of Melville's relationship to his father--even such foolishness as this could not help but relate to the essential content of the book.) And so it is with myth. You cannot get away from the essence; you can only get around it. It is always possible to open up new aspects of the center of creation that myth really is. Myths--the most concentrated form of thought possible--are concepts of the people put into one context, which will always live and always give life.
Lecture V
Now let's go back for a moment to our old distinction between chains of occurrences and lines of events. We have found that we can butt in on certain chains of occurrences and by that transform them into events; we can bring them into certain contact with a metaphysical subjugation, putting them to the use of a metaphysical purpose and proposition. Let's take a modern phenomenon for an example: the atom.
Pseudo-scientifically, the atom is described as certain particles that move within a certain framework of two concepts--matter and energy--but we have to tell the scientist now that he no longer is entitled to use the terms "matter" and "energy". Since they were designed out of an old metaphysical distinction between matter and spirit by philosophy that we do not follow any more, we have to tell the scientist he cannot be allowed to use the terms "matter" and “energy” because he cannot prove that this is matter or that is energy. According to new metaphysical thinking, in order to be metaphysically exact we would have to consider or describe the atom as a complex of occurrences (and by saying that we put a meaning into it). In order to be scientifically exact (in the pure form of science), the scientist would have to consider or describe the atom in a series of mathematical formulas made up of symbols. (Every letter, sign, and figure is a symbol, which means nothing in itself but stands for something else. Symbols are inventions of the mind to cope with finding certain relationships between occurrences.)
But for our purpose here, in order to make things easier, let's call the atom a "thing" in the old sense: that means that while this thing, an atom (which is approached in the sciences as a thing in itself) may be something, as Kant discovered, that we can never find out, it can be found out that it is a thing for us. We can, by gaining knowledge about it, turn it into a thing for us that we can handle and use. All that we can do by means of symbols--finally gathering together the whole of science to its center of symbolic logic. So this whole inquiry makes the atom a thing for us--leaving out for the moment what it might be in itself.
Now in art the modern artist approaches the atom too. Modern artists are very fascinated by all the new discoveries of science for the mere formal possibilities of new formal movements, curves, etc., and the relating of forms that now seem to be possible here. But this is not, as many say, scientific art--even though one of our modern architects will say in speaking about his work: "Well, I am making this according to the laws of nuclear physics." Actually, he knows nothing about it--though he is quite convinced that he does--but one thing is sure: he is fascinated by the possibilities it offers for new visual relations. The artist is able to paint possible new form relations similar to and related to the atom. Artists do here to the atom what is always done in art: art changes a thing into a thing of us; art changes a thing into a being--this is the secret of art. Whatever art it is, it shows us a world in which meaning and being are identical and undistinguishable. The forms in a work of art are form itself--and being form it means that meaning and being are absolutely identical. What it really means is the complete identification of essence and existence, of being and meaning. This can only occur in a dream world, the dream world of art--a dream world of transcendental dreams (not day dreams or nightmares) which contain (and this is the essence of beauty) in them the absolute fulfillment of man's deepest metaphysical longing: the longing that all contradictions between appearance and essence and being and meaning might be resolved; that the essence and appearance might be identical. Our dream of beauty is exactly that and art does that. Metaphysically speaking, art changes the things of the world into things of us, into a part of our innermost life; things--if they are representational (and all art is representational; even in so-called non-representational art, things are represented)--have been changed by art into things of us with the very essence and substance of our life.
But let's go back to our example of the atom to see what the position of philosophy is as to things--and what the distinction between philosophy and science is as to what is meant by handling things in the right way or the wrong way. When the physicist handles an atom, he makes it a thing for us--which can also become a thing against us if we handle it in the wrong way. But the great distinction between philosophy and science in this particular matter is this: according to science and scientific distinctions, we would have to consider that the atom has been handled in the right way if it is successfully used in an atomic bomb—because that means that it works correctly and therefore the atom has been used rightly. But from a philosophical point of view it suddenly turns out that what was a thing for us becomes a thing against us. Now if we want to ask: What do we want to handle the atom for? and if we want to make a decision as to what to handle it for--which is a philosophical concern--we have to realize that it is a decision and as such involves metaphysical thinking. If we are afraid that we might blow up the world, we have to consider: Is this the way we really want things to be? And with this immediately another consideration enters in. If we decide not to handle the atom for destruction, it is a free decision--but not so free as it seems because we are at the same moment presented with the problem of putting our decision through--and to put our decision through would involve at once politics. (To use a most immediate example: if war becomes necessary, it is almost sure that if we can control atomic warfare, we will use it. The only reason chemical warfare has not been really used up to now is because it has not been practical.)
Now it is within our power of decision not to fall into the mere physical, but it certainly is necessary in order not to do so--and to be masters rather than exponents--that we make a metaphysical decision of what to use the physical for. But then we have to draw the conclusion that in order to realize our decision we have to change the present social organization of humanity--because now with this metaphysical decision we come back into a chain of occurrences that originally were metaphysical decisions but in the meantime have become patterns that we are not able to master. We are coping with things that are semi-physical, with many elements of the physical already implied. It becomes very apparent that we would have a hard time to carry this decision through--and to be able to do so at all, we would have to proceed on metaphysically political lines, inquiring of politics: What is political life? is politics metaphysical creativity too? The nihilistic philosophers (with their so-called laws of development along historical lines) said there was no such thing. But if free philosophy could find a point to prove that there is a possibility to go about political events metaphysically, to design political actions and aims according to principles (and metaphysical principles--not ideas or what Plato called eternal ideas), we could redesign whole patterns of political behavior that might already have become historical (physical) by redesigning them according to these metaphysical procedures. If this were possible then we would have the possibility to really decide the question of what to handle the atom for--but not before.
So this decision is bound up with a whole field where the physical has its hand in it and we are in for a long procedure of creative efforts in order to make a decision about the atom--not only according to our will, but also to be able to realize it. But if we do not even know the way, if we never know how and when to interconnect certain procedures in the sciences with philosophical procedures and political procedures and artistic procedures, then the way is not only long, but it runs in circles and we can never get in a straight line or get results. Even with the best will, if we move in circles and do not know about the interrelations, the circle will always reproduce the power of the physical. It will always produce patterns and it will enhance rather than diminish the process we are in instead of deciding the question of what to handle the physical for.
This now brings us to another point: What is the responsibility of the single human being--the atom physicist or the conscientious objector, for example--in a situation involving everyone else? The objections of the conscientious objector against killing even in war might be a very fine thing, but it is terribly hard to find out if that is what it really is--it could also be cowardice, foolishness or almost anything. How do we find out? Suppose they are all sincere--even then they might still have a hard time to convince us. Let's assume next that they are Christians. Now if you are a Christian, you can only do one thing: you can refuse to do it, but you cannot refuse to take it. If you refuse to do it and you want to be a Christian, you still must turn the other cheek. First, to convince us you have to show us that you really want to follow up your decision--and there has been an example of those who followed it to the very end. There was a group of English conscientious objectors in World War II who parachuted into battle to care for the wounded--Germans and English alike. They proved their point and they followed their decision through to the bitter end, showing by their actions that they were entitled to take so much consideration of their inner feelings. The same implications are involved for an atom physicist who decides he no longer wants to be involved in what he believes is only to be a means of destruction. He too has to prove that he is entitled to take so much consideration of his feelings.
A truth is never achieved; one can only go deeper into truth. One little piece of truth exacts the next and the next. Truth is never established once and for all. I can only act good (I am not good), and as soon as I cease to act the truth I am out of it. Truth is really an eternal procedure--a wheel that should not stop going; it is not an infinite process in infinity that is just an infinite going on. Also, to be true to myself is really not possible; being true to myself is a psychological mistake. It means an infinite reflection --I am after myself and I will never find myself trying to find myself. If I can never know myself, how can I be true to myself? It is rather a matter of establishing more and more truth in each and every situation, a matter of being able to keep promises. It is really that I am being true to what I thought to be true and what I promised to be true.
This being, the human being (which is really a tautology because no other beings are beings since they are not free), has a strange habit: it questions. Now preliminarily let me invent for the sake of the matter an ironical myth. (Myth, being a conglomerate containing all the human creative capabilities in one block, can be used again and again: we can approach it from a scientific point of view, finding natural forces; we can approach it from an artistic point of view, finding fundamental aesthetical and artistic values; and we can approach it from a philosophical point of view, finding original metaphysical thought that still holds true and is still applicable--even to modern situations. Socrates, in trying to get man's thinking rid of myth, used as one of his means the opportunity of mythical procedure to prove points he wished to make and to prove the metaphysical implications that are always contained in myth.) When man was made by Zeus--to make it a Greek myth--Zeus made a little joke with him and asked, "What do you want to be?", and man answered, "Who are you?" Then Zeus replied: "Oh! you want to be a questioning being." When this man was dismissed, Apollon came in and said to Zeus; "What have you done! You have given him the power to question everything--even the Gods." And then Zeus told him: "You don't understand. If he wants to be a questioning being, and if he isn't a God, he will find out that he will always be the only absolutely questioning being on earth--and he will then find out that he got that ability only because he is more and more questionable himself. If he wants to be a questioning being, he will also have to run the risk of being more and more questionable." The basis of the human condition, to put it in popular American form, is that one cannot have his cake and eat it too. Everything we have and gain has to be accounted and paid for by a certain lack of another ability.
When I asked you to read Pascal, I haci in mind not only to show you the first example of a man whose abilities were so mired up (in the modern sense) and in such a way so it could become clear, but also because of his discussion of the contradiction of man--who is in a position of both grandeur and misery. Pascal started the first inquiry into this line about this being who has grandeur and misery. His analysis of grandeur is faulty and of misery shallow, but his value consists in the fact of having put this dialectical relation of grandeur and misery forward. By this ironic myth I have tried to show that grandeur and misery condition each other. If one of them (misery) were not there or if the other (grandeur) were not there, we would not be beings. We would be a physical phenomenon instead of a metaphysical being. The essence of being metaphysical means that our grandeur is paid for by our misery and our misery is repaid by our grandeur. If we have the right interchange, we can become--not be--for we are beings of becoming. This is a contradiction in itself seemingly. How can something that is become? How are we related to being, becoming, and not being? This we will go into later, but now we take man only as a questioning being, paying for it by being the most questionable being in existence.
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