On Melancholy
There seems to be a great deal of the feeling of 'melancholy' in reading any philosophical piece from the greats of philosophy. This seems particularly true in continental philosophy, the existentialists, strangely enough even in the philosophy of both early and later Wittgenstein, and evident particularly in Aristotelian logic. I would dare say that most continental philosophy is imbued with melancholy.
Now, to ask the less esoteric and more direct question.
What is all this melancholy about or over?
Now, to ask the less esoteric and more direct question.
What is all this melancholy about or over?
Comments (63)
If you noticed it, take heed of their path and try a different one. I chose sports and the arts as well as my own individual spirituality. One must take charge of their own life. This is where the most important choice lies.
I'm not sure what you're talking about.
What sort of melancholy is evident in the philosophical work of Wittgenstein and in Aristotelian logic?
For the sake of clarity, I'll note my inclination to distinguish ancient Hellenic philosophy, like that of Aristotle, from Western philosophy, including the so-called "continental" tradition; and I'll emphasize Wittgenstein's association with the so-called "analytic" tradition that runs from Austrians and Germans like Frege through anglophone philosophers from Russell to the present day.
Philosophy means paying deep, prolonged attention to intricate questions. It is based on making a big deal about tiny details. People who live their lives as intellectual beings inside their own heads are drawn to it. That type of person also tends toward a melancholic personality type. Melancholia is the term formerly used for depression.
If you want to laugh, try those wacky eastern philosophies.
That doesn't make sense. Knowledge without wisdom is sorrow, with wisdom, we recognise the sorrow is vanity, because knowledge is vanity, because wisdom is. I think. All I know is ignorance is bliss. Maybe.
Wisdom is not knowledge, but it is a prudent application of knowledge. One may be very knowledgeable but will be miserable because omniscience remains beyond humanity. This is vain; ever searching but never finding. Wisdom limits and ends the circle of this meaningless quest.
The more I think about the world, the more I love it. The more I feel home in it. I belong here. All of us do. You do. Some philosophies hide that fact. I don't know why.
Someone is sane. Can the same be said of other philosophers? I wish there was some sanity check before reading Nietzsche or Schopenhauer. There is some great comfort in the nihilism of the continentals that I've read about on these forums. Why care if there's no obligation to care according to Nietzsche or Schopenhauer?
Schopenhauer at least understood the possibility of transcendence of 'the will', through aesthetic contemplation and asceticism. I don't know if Nietzsche had anything corresponding to transcendence at all.
The whole point about transcendental philosophies is *not* being bound by 'the world', 'the world' signifying identification with the body, with circumstances, with personal history and everything that implies. The means by which to sever such attachment differ greatly from one cultural form to another, but that is what they are basically concerned with. That is why the word 'therapy' is derived from an ancient philosophical school, the 'therapeutae', who were 'physicians of souls'; a connotation which lives on in the modern term.
You cannot attain wisdom without knowledge; wisdom is, to a degree, what Aquinas said: love takes up where knowledge leaves off. So, your algorithm here is problematic.
[quote=N]
There are heights of the soul from which tragedy itself no longer appears to operate tragically; and if all the woe in the world were taken together, who would dare to decide whether the sight of it would NECESSARILY seduce and constrain to sympathy, and thus to a doubling of the woe?
...
There are books which have an inverse value for the soul and the health according as the inferior soul and the lower vitality, or the higher and more powerful, make use of them. In the former case they are dangerous, disturbing, unsettling books, in the latter case they are herald-calls which summon the bravest to THEIR bravery.
...
Happiness and virtue are no arguments. It is willingly forgotten, however, even on the part of thoughtful minds, that to make unhappy and to make bad are just as little counter-arguments. A thing could be TRUE, although it were in the highest degree injurious and dangerous; indeed, the fundamental constitution of existence might be such that one succumbed by a full knowledge of it—so that the strength of a mind might be measured by the amount of "truth" it could endure—or to speak more plainly, by the extent to which it REQUIRED truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, damped, and falsified.
...https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm
The distance, and as it were the space around man, grows with the strength of his intellectual vision and insight: his world becomes profounder; new stars, new enigmas, and notions are ever coming into view. Perhaps everything on which the intellectual eye has exercised its acuteness and profundity has just been an occasion for its exercise, something of a game, something for children and childish minds. Perhaps the most solemn conceptions that have caused the most fighting and suffering, the conceptions "God" and "sin," will one day seem to us of no more importance than a child's plaything or a child's pain seems to an old man;—and perhaps another plaything and another pain will then be necessary once more for "the old man"—always childish enough, an eternal child!
[/quote]
He's esoteric and elitist. But what a poet!
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm
That's it in a nutshell.
I thought so too. It seems we're both wrong.
1) Philosophy is about being grounded in truth - that's the claim.
2) The truth is elusive and many issues are still unresolved. The truths that we can see - obvious ones - are painful: suffering, disease, poverty, death, torture, etc. etc.
1 + 2 = melancholy. The math is correct.
However, philosophers, at least on this forum, are a happy bunch.
I can't explain it but if you ask me, I think the relationship between truth and emotion, particularly happiness, is complex.
Did you even read what I wrote? I said
Quoting Lone Wolf
Therefore, it is true you cannot have wisdom without some knowledge. The point I made was that knowledge without wisdom (which is entirely possible) is vain.
Love, friendship, health, pleasure, joy, interest, fearlessness, conversation, fellowship, curiosity, understanding, compassion, gratitude, generosity
Lao Tzu says, and I think he's right:
In pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped.
I think it's fair to associate the Tao with wisdom. In my experience, wisdom means giving something up - release, surrender.
It depends on what you are giving up. If you gave up happiness, that is obviously not wise. But if you gave up chasing the wind of omniscience, then yes, that is wise. :P
I do agree though, that wisdom must be a release and surrender. One must come to the realization that humans are not very powerful relative to the vastness of the universe; hence inability requires submissiveness to a superior. To learn contentment and acceptance of this is also wise.
I wasn't saying every act of release or surrender is wise. All A is B, but not all B is A.
Being-at-home-in-the-world and enjoying the transmutations of others into the Same is fine and all, but this is separate from the question as to whether or not the world, i.e. the totality that actually exists (and not necessarily a network of meanings in our lives), is justified. Certainly it is inappropriate to suggest a warm, home-made apple pie and a temporarily satisfied biological synthesis are enough to ensure the goodness of existence.
Really, happiness is a delirious escape into the infinite, a transcendence of Being, precisely because Being is not good. All around us there is Being, pressing in and threatening to consume us into the fanged plenum. We're always trying to flee it or keep it at bay, like a peasant shaking a torch at the wolves. Get back! Get back! Leave me be! I do not wish to be disturbed!
Clearly from what I have written, I disagree. I have not been happy much in my life, but I've always known that the world is good and I belong here. Even when I was at my unhappiest I knew and felt that. We were created along with the world, as part of the world, by whatever mechanism you want to propose. This has been going on for billions of years. How could we possibly not belong here?
Nature makes "mistakes", things that don't belong. Frankly it's surprising to me we've managed to hold on for as long as we have. Nature puked us out from its bowels, like everything else.
This is a very funny caricature of what most people think philosophy is about. I don't see any sign that you intend it to be ironic.
Yes, one would have to be very simple-minded to think such. One must learn to recognize what should be held onto, and what should be released.
Pathos, man
Why frame it as an escape? The "transcendence of Being" is also just a mode of being, a way of being. Don't you "write off" the most positive possibility of being as escape only to judge the leftovers as bad? I realize that being can show itself in terrible ways, of course.
Isn't this an interpretation of Nature though? I agree that we are thrown into hazard and a certain amount of suffering. But "mistake" only makes sense to me in contrast to a projection of an ought.
And, how much melancholy do we see in religion? Tons of it. The whole thing from the Abrahamic tradition is based on the fall of mankind from Eden, and then all misery starts. Even in Greek'o-Roman polytheistic theology, there were strong notions of melancholy...
Nitpicking an individual and saying that it's mostly due to their own bias or such is just a pure ad hom in my mind.
If you want people to understand what you are attempting to convey, then don't say things like depending solely on your own understanding and capacity to achieve wisdom is vain.
I totally agree, this actually happened to me and only just recently recovered. There was inflammation of my liver and salivary glands that is provoked by stress, but last year my weight dramatically dropped to 47kg after the accident because of this hurt that I refused to eat anything but fruit and drink soup. I had such incredibly low levels of protein, lean mass and fats that protect the organs that my doctor was like how are you even walking? I slowly - this year actually - started eating again, because I faced what it was that was hurting me in order to recover and the increase in protein and regular exercise - gym, yoga etc - now puts me at perfect weight and no inflammation at all.
I'm not ideal, at least in my book. I'm definitely well above average shape, but those damn fitness models still lord their perfection over me. I make an effort, and continually have been for only like six years or something now, which isn't really all that long, and have made a lot of headway. Hoping to continue to improve for at least six more years.
Still many things I could change, can't say that I'm manic, but I'm usually in a good mood, baring circumstances. Most noticeably, and thankfully for me is the complete overcoming of a life long anxiety problem. Used to have panic attacks, and really high anxiety and pounding heart, and stress all the time, and pretty much all my life. At one point I couldn't even eat solid food, couldn't swallow, kept choking, and lived for like a year on soup myself.
I am now unapologetically at peace and content and I found a natural balance between happy and sad, but I still feel like there is just a bit more to go. I have spent so much time focusing on this recovery that now I am almost recovered, I am provoked to focus on what comes next.
Good on you, Wosret (Y)
What is so hard to understand about that?
I relate. For me it's connected to letting go of some of what one felt one needed to control, needed to be true, needed to be.
Here's a little scene I act out when I'm trying to be funny. I'm not sure it will translate well in words:
Intelligence vs. Wisdom:
Intelligence - Man bangs his head on the wall. Ow!! Boy, I won't do that again.
Wisdom - Man bangs his head on the wall. Ow!!. Bang. Ow!! Bang. Ow!! Bang. Ow!! Bang. Ow!! Hey.... wait a minute!
I thought you'd give wisdom the better role. Seems like intelligence is just faster wisdom in that scenario?
Wisdom: why am I asking this? and is this question likely to lead to that goal? is it the only path?
I'm a smart guy. There are things I get the first time around. There are other things I've gotten only after beating my head against the wall for years, decades. The easy lessons have answers. For the hard lessons, the only answer is to give up and accept the way things are. That's wisdom.
Ah. Very nice explanation.
If you think you have articulated yourself well enough with the above statement, then all the best bouncing off clouds with Tori Amos.
I'm glad to hear that you are better off, and continue improving, sorry about the condescending comment, lol.
Talking about this just makes me think about how much more I should be doing.
Philosophers are at a disadvantage from the start.
Now some smart person will respond "I don't want to be happy, I want to be wise." Which is like saying "I don't want to breathe, but I would really like a sandwich."
I'm smart.
I understand. It's something I always say to pessimists but they don't seem to agree. Why?
Sandwiches give me nausea. Anyhow, Sartre wasn't a exactly a barrel of laughs. The condolences of existentialism are just that. Condolences are offered to the suffering. On the other hand I doubt many would trade away their intelligence or their melancholy to be Mill's fool, so I'll settle for the sandwiches and the nausea (and an oxygen tent??).
That would be my approach but it doesn't come in a bottle at the local supermarket. Telling a melancholic person to just laugh at it all is unlikely to work.
Maybe the battle against melancholy in yourself has wider implications than you realize. Telling someone to cheer up isn't nearly as powerful as being cheerful. A light onto the world, and all that.
Good point.
My melancholy manifests itself in a kind of restless good cheer these days, rather than anxiety which is the killer, so I am indeed armed with a lamp though what it illuminates is open to question.
Every single person on the face of planet earth has a teacher of some sort. No one in his or her right mind thinks he or she does not need any help ever and knows all things. I am sure you can agree with this, you're not stupid.
Why am I not surprised? There has never been any doubt you are smart. Given that you'd rather have the sandwich, you might even be smarter than I.
It's "smarter than me."
Really, is that the best you got? Also, both are acceptable.
It was an assigned text in 17th Century Literature which I took -- God, 50 years ago. I don't remember much about it. But... it is both a discussion of what we would call clinical depression, and a book of far ranging essays.
From wiki... "I write of melancholy by being busy to avoid melancholy" Burton says.
You might, possibly, find it of interest.
“By this art you may contemplate the variation of the twenty-three letters…”
The search for this sentence in Burton's book at least shows that this actually appears in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and is not made up by Borges like so many folks have said.
Best to avoid both works and go take a walk in the woods with your girlfriend or boyfriend, like I would if I had one.
What those walks in the woods might bring to the understanding of the variations of love letters and melancholy, one can only imagine.