“All men, in the vertiginous moment of coitus, are the same man. All men
who repeat a line from Shakespeare are William Shakespeare.”
- Jorge Luis Borges
Philosophy is difficult. You can read the same piece over and over,
making little progress each time, losing faith and on the verge of giving up
and then... something happens. The fog clears, everything slots into place, the
philosophy offers itself up to you, the tension subsides and your whole being
is filled with warmth and understanding; new clarity dawns. This moment is
something many of you will be familiar with. It comes on quickly, and strong.
And it changes the way you understand forever. You’ve taken it, conquered it,
made it yours. Borges sums it up perfectly; in that moment of clarity we become
part of something larger than ourselves - we access that shared knowledge
(shared, that is, by all those who have gone before, who have walked the same
path) and can speak the words as our own.
Some people call this the ‘Eureka!’ moment, but I am inclined to say there is even more to it than that. The Ancient Greek εὕρηκα translates roughly as ‘I have found it!’, hence its association with scientific discovery. We can all recall the story of Archimedes jumping out of his bath and running naked through the street exclaiming ‘eureka!’ upon his discovery that the volume of water displaced in his bath was equal to the volume of the part of his body that was submerged. In the case of philosophical understanding, something more personal is going on. It is not merely a case of seeing how concepts operate within arguments - the understanding goes deeper than that, is internalised, changes you. It’s like an orgasm in your mind, that permeates your whole being. The more difficult the philosophy you are trying to grasp, the more intense the orgasm. It isn’t about finding a solution to a problem, it’s about augmenting your ideas in preparation for the next exploration. On each subsequent journey, you’ll take those new ideas along with you.
Some people call this the ‘Eureka!’ moment, but I am inclined to say there is even more to it than that. The Ancient Greek εὕρηκα translates roughly as ‘I have found it!’, hence its association with scientific discovery. We can all recall the story of Archimedes jumping out of his bath and running naked through the street exclaiming ‘eureka!’ upon his discovery that the volume of water displaced in his bath was equal to the volume of the part of his body that was submerged. In the case of philosophical understanding, something more personal is going on. It is not merely a case of seeing how concepts operate within arguments - the understanding goes deeper than that, is internalised, changes you. It’s like an orgasm in your mind, that permeates your whole being. The more difficult the philosophy you are trying to grasp, the more intense the orgasm. It isn’t about finding a solution to a problem, it’s about augmenting your ideas in preparation for the next exploration. On each subsequent journey, you’ll take those new ideas along with you.
Philosophy doesn’t translate as ‘love of
wisdom’ for nothing...
Saffron Bowles
