Mindful
Diamond Member
- Banned
- #1
...the chief reason for studying philosophy is not a desire to know more about the world, but a profound sense of dissatisfaction with the state in which one finds oneself. One day you suddenly, painfully, realize that something important is missing in your life, and that there is too large a gap between what you are and the sense of what you should be. And before you know it, this emptiness starts eating at you.
You may not know yet what exactly it is that you want, but you know quite well what you do not want: remaining the person you currently are. You may be so ashamed that you don’t even dare to call that 'existence': you don’t exist yet properly. It must have been in this sense that Socrates used the term 'midwifery' for what he was doing. By subjecting those around him to the rigours of philosophy, he was bringing them into proper existence. So closely related to self-detestation, it may well be that philosophy begins not in wonder, but in shame.
— Costica Bradatan, Dying for Ideas
You may not know yet what exactly it is that you want, but you know quite well what you do not want: remaining the person you currently are. You may be so ashamed that you don’t even dare to call that 'existence': you don’t exist yet properly. It must have been in this sense that Socrates used the term 'midwifery' for what he was doing. By subjecting those around him to the rigours of philosophy, he was bringing them into proper existence. So closely related to self-detestation, it may well be that philosophy begins not in wonder, but in shame.
— Costica Bradatan, Dying for Ideas
