If you have forgotten how I defined Absurdity you can always recap to when I talked about Melville.
Well as always William James' work is a joy to read. However sometimes he says some things that irk me the wrong way. He starts the particular piece I was reading by basically telling Walt Whitman, Enough! Not everyone is a pathological optimist! Anyone who has read a great deal of Whitman, knows he doesn't have eternal optimism, though at does persist more often than not. James' focuses on Logotherapy or meaning centered therapy based on the premise of despair surrounded by the struggle of life and asking the question, Is Life Worth Living? Unless my history is off the answer to that question is yes because I do not believe that James' committed suicide. Instead he created steps to make the world work a touch better.
Steps
1) Understand the Essence of courage. What he means by this is do you believe in something enough to stake your life on it? Is it worth living for? If the answer is no, then he saw suicide in your future.
2) Understand the Essence of faith. Meaning to believe that the possibility exists.
3) Make the connection between courage and faith.
So what this breaks down into is the premise that you have faith in possibility that something exists and courage to bet your life on it.
Of course it's all a lot more complicated than all this. James was a psychologist as well as a philosopher making for a potent combination of, at times, despair. As always I challenge you to question my work. If you know better, tell me so! Philosophy is at its best when discussed among people with differing minds!
For someone who is a little less bleak, tune in tomorrow to hear a bit about Schopenhauer.
Corset signing off.
No comments:
Post a Comment