Solomon Robert C Living

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.If it is given, it is like any other talent; it cannot simply be chosen.If it is not, it may be open to choice.Sometimes, writer’s block seems to be sheer inabilityto put together a true and interesting sentence, or the embarrassing ab-sence of anything to say.But sometimes, it may be the obstinate unwilling-ness to shift one’s work habits, to read and gather information instead ofstupidly staring at a blank piece of paper or a computer screen, to abandonone’s current dysfunctional project or switch projects in favor of somethingthat might better engage one’s abilities.In other words, even if one’s writ-ing talent is given and cannot simply be chosen, there is often an uncriticalpresumption that one’s meta-talents are in some sense one’s own responsi-bility.There is some question whether the invocation of meta-virtues leads toan infinite regress.That is, if we have virtues that govern the exercise anddevelopment of our “first-order” virtues (whether or not these are chosenor simply discovered), does that not imply that we might (must) havehigher-order virtues governing the exercise and development of our meta-virtues, and this in turn implies still higher level virtues for governing ourmeta-meta-virtues, and so on.I confess that this metaphysical conundrumtoo has always left me cold. When philosophers became obsessed with the notion of justification, with such metaphors as “grounding,” “foundations,”and “securing,” the anathema of infinite regress became understandable.But not all philosophy is justification, and in the existentialists in particular the quest for justification is typically turned on its head (“An act isgrounded because I choose it, not because of a principle, which is justifiedby some further principle, etc.”) But in cases such as this one the limit toregression is not logical or conceptual but simply human, all too human.We are capable of only so much recursion or level hopping.There are,indeed, instances of meta-meta-virtues—indeed, self-discipline may wellprovide such an example.We do sometimes resolve not only to develop avirtue but to “work on” our ability to develop our virtues, for instance bysubjecting ourselves to other disciplines.But there is a limit to how far“above” ourselves we can or are willing to go, not least because of theconfusion of “levels” that inevitably arises in any real life (as opposed tomerely formal) attempt to provide such a “theory of types.” For all practicalpurposes, it is enough to insist that in addition to our desires and virtueswe have meta-desires and meta-virtues, desires and virtues concerning howand how well we put our desires and virtues into action.Nevertheless, it should not be thought that getting one’s desires andvirtues in line with one’s meta-desires and meta-virtues is always or evenusually a matter of mere self-discipline.The desperate attempts of an addictor an alcoholic to overcome his or her accursed fate is an extreme illus-tration only in that it obviously involves physiological as well as psycho- LIVING WITH NIETZSCHElogical dependency.Clinical and more low-grade depression presents a similarly painful picture.But whether it is addiction or depression or simple“writer’s block,” there is a singularly insensitive response: “Get over it.” But what is insensitive, as so often in Nietzsche, may also be good, solid advice,“tough love” in the current vernacular.And this underscores Nietzsche’sexistentialism.His sharp critical tone is not just an expression of contempt.It is also, throughout his works, an attempt to jar us into that sort of self-recognition that tells us to “get over it,” whether “it” is the death of God,the pervasiveness of “slave” or “herd” morality, the philosophical trapsof metaphysics, or our propensities to pity.We can “become who we are”only with some help and guidance, and Nietzsche is rightly recognized asamong the very best existential guides we have found.But this is in no wayat odds with his also being one of the most powerful promoters of modernfatalism.Making Good Sense of FatalismThe Moving Finger writes, and having writ, Moves on:nor all your Piety nor Wit, Shall lure it backto cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tearswash out a Word of it.— The Rubaíya´t of Omar Khayya´mHeraclitus’s notion of “fate as character” allows us to make good solid senseof fate and fatalism, one need not bring in any fancy philosophical technol-ogy or fanciful metaphysical machinery (and discussions of fate and fatal-ism are much too often couched in such machine imagery).The notion thatsomeone will very likely “turn out” in such-and-such a way is a perfectlycommonsense notion, denied only by those who have such an exaggeratedsense of “free will” (or are so unscrupulous in their pursuit of self-help best-seller status) that they would argue, most implausibly, that “anyone can doanything, if only they try hard enough.” But it would be daft to deny thatcharacter provides a certain necessity, though it would be equally daft toinsist that “necessity” refers to it the hard determinism of philosophers.When people speak of fate they are not talking in terms of causal necessityand determinism.They are trying to make sense of their lives, trying torationalize why things happen to some people and not to others, and at thelimits of life and philosophy, they are trying to make sense of the seeminglysenseless [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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