Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 12:07:14 +0200
From: artefact-AT-t-online.de (Michael Eldred)
Subject: Re: perish in the attempt then


Cologne 26-Jul-2001

allen scult schrieb Wed, 25 Jul 2001 09:35:39 -0500:

> At 11:45 PM +0200 7/24/01, Michael Eldred wrote:
> >Cologne 24-Jul-2001
> >
> >Kenneth Johnson schrieb  Tue, 24 Jul 2001 10:54:24 -0700:

> Von: Kenneth Johnson <poochiegraig-AT-home.com>
> >
> >>  Wozu "der Mensch" da ist, soll uns gar nicht kuemmern: aber wozu Du da bist,
> >>
> >>  das frage dich: und wenn Du es nicht erfahren kannst, nun so stecke Dir
> >>  selber Ziele,  _hohe_ und _edle Ziele_ und gehe an ihnen zu Grunde! Ich
> >>  weiss keinen besseren Lebenszweck als am Grossen und Unmoeglichen zu Grunde
> >>  zu gehen...
> >>
> >>  For what purpose humanity is there should not even concern us: why you are
> >>  there, that you should ask yourself: and if you have no ready answer, then
> >>  set for yourself goals, _high_ and _noble_ goals, and perish in pursuit of
> >>  them! I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the
> >>  great and the impossible...
> >>
> >>  Nietzsche
> >>
> >>   (note from 1873)
> >>
> >
> >Kenneth,
> >
> >"Denn nicht dass einer von der urteilslosen, sooft betoerten Menge fuer einen
> >grossen Mann gehalten werde, sondern dass er es sei, macht ihn beneidenswert;
> >auch nicht, dass die Nachwelt von ihm erfahre, sondern dass in ihm sich
> >Gedanken erzeugen, welche verdienen, Jahrhunderte hindurch aufbewahrt und
> >nachgedacht zu werden, ist ein hohes Glueck." (A. Schopenhauer _Aphorismen zur
> >Lebensweisheit_ 'Von dem, was einer vorstellt' Kroener Verlag, Stuttgart 1956
> >S.124)
> >
> >"For not that someone is regarded as a great man by the so frequently beguiled
> >crowd, lacking in judgement, makes him enviable, but that he is one; nor that
> >posterity learns something of him, but that thoughts are engendered in him
> >which deserve to be preserved and pondered on for centuries to come is great
> >happiness." ('Of that which one represents')
>
> Michael and Kenneth
>
> Schopenhauer knows a good mood when he thinks one.  The idea is to
> fathom its "how" so as to be able to return to it again and again.
> To be the one through/in whom thoughts worthy of being thought are
> "engendered."  For the sheer pleasure of the thinking,  Nothing else.

 Allen and Kenneth,

There is a strange tension between the happiness of thinking a worthy thought and
perishing in such an impossibly self-sufficient existence.

Koheleth may have had it easier: "there is nothing better for man than to be
happy and to enjoy himself,..."

Michael
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-  artefact text and translation _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-
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>
>
> Schopenhauer in such a mood is not so much philosopher as Wisdom
> writer, in the tradition of Koheleth (the "writer" of so called
> Ecclesiastes).  Wisdom stands between philosophy and religion,
> avoiding both (politics and business as well) in order to maintain
> oneself in the clarity of seeing.  But of course, Koheleth recognizes
> that human beings are made to have a "pursuit."  So the question
> becomes what to pursue, while recognizing that it is. was, and always
> will be the same show:
>
> "All streams flow into the sea,
> But the sea is not full.
> To the place whither the streams flow,
>  From there they flow back again.
> Everything is wearied,
> Beyond human utterance.
> Beyond sight and hearing.
> (literally: "The eye is not satisfied with seeing and the ear is not
> filled through hearing.")
> What has been is that which shall be;
> And what has happened is that which shall happen,
> So there is nothing new under the sun.. . .
>
> What profit, then, has the worker of his toil?
> I have observed every ambition which god has given the children of
> men for their affliction.
> He has given them a grasp of the whole world,
> Without however the possibility on the part of man to fathom
> the work which god has made
> from the beginning to the end.
>
> I realized therefore, that there is nothing better for man than to be
> happy and to enjoy himself, in his life, and that indeed every man
> who eats and drinks and has a good time in all his toil enjoys a gift
> from god.  I also realized that whatever God does is forever to which
> one cannot add and from which one cannot take away.  Whatever has
> been has already been before, and what is to be has already been.
> (from Chapts. 1 and 5)
>
> Allen, Fuersprecher for Koheleth,
> Former King over Israel in jerusalem
> --
>
> Professor Allen Scult                                   Dept. of Philosophy
> HOMEPAGE: " Heidegger on Rhetoric and Hermeneutics":    Drake University
> http://www.multimedia2.drake.edu/s/scult/scult.html     Des Moines, Iowa 50311
> PHONE: 515 271 2869
> FAX: 515 271 3826
>







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