Dogmer eller pragmer?

Hvorfor man bør bedrive filosofi, om ikke nødvendigvis i de mest avanserte faglige varianter, kommer som så ofte treffende til uttrykk hos en viss tenker.

Vi siterer fra The Common Man.

The best reason for a revival of philosophy is that unless a man has a philosophy certain horrible things will happen to him. He will be practical; he will be progressive; he will cultivate efficiency; he will trust in evolution; he will do the work that lies nearest; he will devote himself to deeds, not words.

Thus struck down by blow after blow of blind stupidity and random fate, he will stagger on to a miserable death with no comfort but a series of catchwords; such as those which I have catalogued above. Those things are simply substitutes for thoughts. In some cases they are the tags and tail-ends of somebody else's thinking.

That means that a man who refuses to have his own philosophy will not even have the advantages of a brute beast, and be left to his own instincts. He will only have the used-up scraps of somebody else's philosophy; which the beasts do not have to inherit; hence their happiness.

Men have always one of two things: either a complete and conscious philosophy or the unconscious acceptance of the broken bits of some incomplete and shattered and often discredited philosophy. Such broken bits are the phrases I have quoted: efficiency and evolution and the rest.

The idea of being "practical", standing all by itself, is all that remains of a Pragmatism that cannot stand at all. It is impossible to be practical without a Pragma. And what would happen if you went up to the next practical man you met and said to the poor dear old duffer, "Where is your Pragma?"

Doing the work that is nearest is obvious nonsense; yet it has been repeated in many albums. In nine cases out of ten it would mean doing the work that we are least fitted to do, such as cleaning the windows or clouting the policeman over the head. "Deeds, not words" is itself an excellent example of "Words, not thoughts". It is a deed to throw a pebble into a pond and a word that sends a prisoner to the gallows. But there are certainly very futile words; and this sort of journalistic philosophy and popular science almost entirely consists of them.

Hvis noen skulle være i tvil: Å stole på evolusjon, handler ikke om tro at det har skjedd en evolusjon, men å satse på at jeg selv slipper å tenke eller gjøre noe for å bringe verden videre - fordi selveste Evolusjonen vil gjøre det for meg i stedet. I all sin vare og varme visdom.

Utsiktene blir ikke noen nanometre bedre om man samtidig holder seg til en halvfordøyd tanke om at det er en illusjon å tro at man skulle ha noe så absurd som fri vilje til å gjøre noe annet enn det man må, som f.eks. å skrive lange setninger.

Ihvertfall klarer ikke jeg å mene noe annet.