But the thing that a man does practically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations with this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest.
---Carlyle
Jupi wrote:The contrast between wisdom and mundane thought is in how deeply and thoroughly someone is willing to think about mundane things.
This statement is useful insofar as it, as an assertion ('the thing a man practically lays to heart'), reveals an essential (anti-)metaphysical orientation. It seems to me to be a diagram of a discursive trap though. It
is a metaphysical statement, yet it does not seem to wish to assume full responsibility as such, or perhaps I should say to realize the full scope of the statement as one of metaphysical assertion?
It seems to me though that in order to have defined 'the mundane' one must be speaking from a position -- in some sense -- outside of it. One must be making *wisdom statements* and speaking as wisdom's spokesman, must one not?
It seems to me that in order to define a wisdom-position within 'profound' thought about the 'mundane' that one has, just there, taken advantage of a sort of height or distance from the mundane. Too, for there to be 'wisdom' achieved as a result of deep thought about mundane things, requires
a priori some wisdom-notions; or do these simply appear, like bonbons from Heaven? But where have they come from? Surely not from within the mundane.
It is precisely the introduction of transmundane elements that is reductive, because they are the unresolved delusions we cannot help but view as the essence of whatever actual wisdom we do possess.
That is an odd statement. Not sure if I capture it well.
What had formally seemed a sort of 'diagram of a discursive trap', and which asserts against the 'transmundane', actually here avails itself of the same 'transmundane', and thus reveals that this mode of thought is, itself, a transmundane reduction. According to its own definitions the insertion of the transmundane is evidence of 'unresolved delusions'.
It is true, it seems to me, that any *interpretation* is, according to this analysis, a reduction -- how could it be otherwise? But must we see a given interpretation as necessarily an 'unresolved delusion'? This posits that an
unresolved delusion could resolve itself into
resolved perception. But in order for that phrase to speak from the claimed wisdom-perspective it ('resolved perception') must be qualified to 'resolved
true perception'.
And thus we come full circle to
a priori senses of, and prior definitions of, wisdom.
Ach! I need a
nosher. Dig in guys. Always willing to share . . .