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Every once in a while a new and strange way of looking at academia comes to me. In the middle of a depressive spell last night I had a thought:
All philosophy is just concern about angst.
The existentialists and some of the Germans with their weltschmerz and the sturm und drang movement explicitly state that they are concerned with human angst, but no philosopher is immune.
Plato was concerned with the angst of being unfulfilled by the natural world - we have angst because we're looking at shadows on a cave wall.
Aristotle was concerned about the angst of not being happy, or perhaps even being unable to be happy.
The Enlightenment was concerned with the angst one gets when one doesn't act rationally.
Locke and other political philosophers were combating the angst from living in an unjust society, while Emerson condemned the angst of not living in a way consonant with one's beliefs.
Thomas Aquinas was concerned with the angst one feels when one realises no one can know, love, or serve God completely.
Buddhism is about the angst that comes from unfulfilled desire. Christianity is about the angst of evil in the world. Hinduism is the angst of knowing divinity is everywhere, Deism the angst of fearing it is nowhere.
The philosophers who deal with human language are angsting over not being understood.
Maybe I'm just projecting onto the entire intellectual tradition of the Western world, and maybe I'm just reading too much into things, but philosophy makes sense when understood in this framework, though others work just as well if not better. My only question is what bold 15-year-old philosophers are even now building the groundwork of the next generation of intellectuals on their livejournals with countless mediocre poems and histrionic prose.
All philosophy is just concern about angst.
The existentialists and some of the Germans with their weltschmerz and the sturm und drang movement explicitly state that they are concerned with human angst, but no philosopher is immune.
Plato was concerned with the angst of being unfulfilled by the natural world - we have angst because we're looking at shadows on a cave wall.
Aristotle was concerned about the angst of not being happy, or perhaps even being unable to be happy.
The Enlightenment was concerned with the angst one gets when one doesn't act rationally.
Locke and other political philosophers were combating the angst from living in an unjust society, while Emerson condemned the angst of not living in a way consonant with one's beliefs.
Thomas Aquinas was concerned with the angst one feels when one realises no one can know, love, or serve God completely.
Buddhism is about the angst that comes from unfulfilled desire. Christianity is about the angst of evil in the world. Hinduism is the angst of knowing divinity is everywhere, Deism the angst of fearing it is nowhere.
The philosophers who deal with human language are angsting over not being understood.
Maybe I'm just projecting onto the entire intellectual tradition of the Western world, and maybe I'm just reading too much into things, but philosophy makes sense when understood in this framework, though others work just as well if not better. My only question is what bold 15-year-old philosophers are even now building the groundwork of the next generation of intellectuals on their livejournals with countless mediocre poems and histrionic prose.
