A philosophical home

The hegemony of the new that characterizes our times and its thinking (just remind yourself of those that claim that philosophy is the creation of evermore concepts) are not able to think or cover the importance of being at home in our ideas. To be at home, to know the shapes, the things, the lines and the rustling of whatever it is that carries homeliness, I am afraid, slips out of the hands of the (Western, yet largely globalized) individualism and fetishization of the new, of creatio ex nihilo, of origin-ality, as it is not a thing nor a context. It is not the bed as ‘a piece of furniture to sleep on’, nor its spatial location in the house or its relation to the other furniture. It is more something like recognizing the unique patterns of the wood grains that are visible when you put your head down on the pillow because you have seen them more than a thousand times from this particular angle, or like knowing exactly how to get in most comfortably, or how to turn it into a chair when you are spending the whole day in it because you are sick. This homeliness, that never concerns just objects or just relations, but is more like a symbiosis, does not just concern houses, tools, or people, but also ideas and texts. And I am afraid that the inability to properly take into account the importance of this possible homeliness of ideas and texts will make it more likely that the lack of existential incorporation of philosophical thinking that traverses academic, and even popular, philosophy will continue to render thinking ineffective.

The idea of a being-at-home with texts and ideas, and the desire to write about it, found its way to me through the succession (and therefore juxtaposition) of two happenings. First, something that came up in a conversation I had with Carlo (an incredibly well-read writer and friend of Thought Magicians), namely that the study of the classics of Western art, literature, and philosophy does not necessarily render us virtuous: in fact, no particular practice or cultural tradition necessarily does. Maybe it could for some, but not because it is a perfect recipe with perfect results everytime. In fact, this is one of the core principles of the thinking that I am studying: it is impossible to formulate a practical and clear step-by-step plan that can lead everyone to whatever form of salvation. To specificy a bit more: the study of certain texts and ideas can ‘improve’ you, but only within a particular situation over which we have no control and of which we have no knowledge (that is to say, one cannot know what ideas and texts would be best suitable for this particular you in this particular state of the world at this particular time, before even having read all those things).

Then, a bit later, I read an article that really inspired me, but the inspiring elements of which I was not able to immediatly unite with the above mentioned principle. In Philosophy Pizza: On the Possibility of Trans-Cultural Pizzas and/or Philosophy, Dimitra Amarantidou and Paul J. Ambrosio propose to understand diversification and inclusivity (in academic philosophy) also through methodology. That is, not only should we diversify what we study (not just Western philosophy, but also the text and ideas from other traditions), but also how we study and philosophize (based on these other traditions). What specifically inspired me in this paper was the comparison between the Western approach to (academic) philosophy and the Chinese approach. Amarantidou and Ambrioso underline the importance that the (modern, contemporary) Western philosophical tradition grants to originality and individualism, whereas the Chinese tradition is build on granting authority to the foundational texts of their tradition:

Individuality, scepticism, and breaking with received ideas have been traditionally understood to drive the philosophical endeavour in the West. It is thus expected and laudable, as noted earlier, to propose unique, even highly idiosyncratic readings (“I read this character/passage to mean…”). On the other hand, the Chinese tradition values continuity, trust in tradition, and creative adjustment of positions. Chinese philosophical works customarily include introductions replete with references to lineages of thought where the particular work is proudly ensconced, and new works are the product of selective re-arrangements of older ones.

Indeed, I (and I assume most of those around me) am used to dismissing such authority as conservative and unnecessarilly limiting the creation of personal, creative, and original ideas. This paper, in discussing the Chinese tradition, rather designates ‘going with tradition’ as a ground and condition for creativity. They define this ‘going with tradition’ as follows:

In going with authority, we mean a two-directional process. If we place an authoritative resource in our contemporary discourse, we also need to recognize that this resource is already embedded in its own tradition. “Going with” also means that when we engage in more fundamental critiques we do not completely overturn others (at least not as a rule). We may seek to re-evaluate the roots, or critique others for focusing too much on the branches, but “going with” can mean working through those branches to get at the root.

The parameters that come with traditional texts create the space and condition for creativity to arise, not as obstacles to be destroyed (that is, to negate the space they create), but as roots that create an environment that can be positively harvested.

I have been spending a lot of time (re)reading and actively studying one single author for a while now (that is, a couple of years). Not that I have not or do not read anything else in the meanwhile, but almost all of my more serious philosophical work has concerned a set of philosophical texts all attributed to a single individual. And even after all this time I am not nearly done with this inquiry. Up till recently I thought that this would start to bore me or that I would strongly yearn for something different. So far, however, the opposite is true: more and more I am starting to feel satisfied with the perpetual study of a single set of texts and ideas. And this satisfaction is not just based on the comfort of being knowledgeable about my object of study, but more on the specific possibilities and challengens that it brings. The philosophy-pizza article, and the claim that “The humility of admitting to following others, and working in this way with others, is, we think, a better practice than the now popular call for ‘original contributions’”, resonated with this growing, yet hitherto unexpressed feeling. I have always felt great appreciation of a certain paragraph written by the author whom I have been studying so intensely, and which I somewhat recognize in the approach described by the philosophy-pizza article:

According to another methodological principle - also not discussed in this book - which I often make use of, the genuine philosophical element in every work, whether it be a work of art, of science, or of thought, is its capacity for elaboration, which Ludwig Feuerbach defined as Entwicklungsfähigkeit. It is precisely when one follows such a principle that the difference between what belongs to the author of a work and what is attributable to the interpreter becomes as essential as it is difficult to grasp. I have therefore preferred to take the risk of attributing to the texts of others what began its elaboration with them, rather than run the reverse risk of appropriating thoughts or research paths that do not belong to me.

Yet, at first this respect for and dedication to a determined set of texts, the granting of a certain authority or importance to a tradition, seems somewhat oppositional (but clearly not in an absolute sense, i.e. it concerns in no way a logical opposition) to the earlier mentioned principle that it is impossible for any practice or tradition to function as a blueprint for enlightenment or moral excellence. Differently put, if you accept that no set or tradition of ideas or texts will necessarily be inherently valuable, why dedicate so much energy and time to them? Why not instead read as much different sources as possible?

On top of that, engaging with a set of (traditional) texts requires limiting the scope of what one reads. You only have so much time to read, and granting authority and value to the study of a certain tradition or oeuvre implies spending time on it, and therefore spending less time on other texts and ideas. In 1980, the great Vladimir Nabokov wrote an essay titled Good Readers and Good Writers. In it, he makes the following claim: “Curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, and active and creative reader is a rereader.” Throughout my own studies, in which I have started to reread a lot, I have learned the truth of this comment. But what is the meaning of this difference between reading and rereading? And why reread when there is so much great literature and philosophy to read, more than enough for many lifetimes?

When reading the philosophy-pizza article, I was hoping to also read about pizza, but in the end this metaphor was barely elaborated (I was also naive enough to think that a peer-reviewed article was actually going to argue about pizza). I will therefore turn to the kitchen myself. I have been working in different restaurant kitchens for about two years now, and still regularly have to work in restaurants where I have never worked before. One of the first things I start to do in a kitchen that is unknown to me, is to look around and open all the drawers to see what is inside. While doing so, I try to memorize everything as much as I can. With this focus I attempt to speed up the process of ‘getting at home’ in the kitchen. I am always confronted with the impossibility (but not the futility) of attempting to get at home. It always takes time and countless repetition to learn the little tricks and pieces of knowledge that are specific to this particular kitchen, with its particular tools, machines, spatial organization, and of course the specific dishes to be prepared. Repetition is essential to create a home in the place and practice that one engages in. Every cook, or even every artisan, knows this. And it is only from the automation and ‘acquaintance with’ that belongs to a home that one can start to create new things and, perhaps more importantly even, from where the practical becomes possible. To create new things is great, but what is the use of them if they cannot be practised, lived? It is often said that the knife of a cook is an extention of their body, but in fact the whole kitchen (and everything/everybody that belongs to it, including its routine and social hierarchy), forms the extention from which creation and application sparks.

Coming from a bachelor in art education where the absence of social hierarchy has always been praised, the authorative hierarchy in a kitchen, especially when I myself was the highest authority, was something I really had to learn and get used to. When I was new and only following orders, I never understood the need for this old and seeming unnecessary way of organizing social dynamics. But once I started to understand the kitchen better, and had experienced very rough evenings (again, especially those in which I was the highest authority), I understood the necessity of the hierarchy. Just like in the military, if you want to actually get things done in stressfull and intense situations, you need to know your place and task in order to be organized and efficient. When, in the beginning, I had to start giving commands, it felt really bad to speak in the imperative form and not say ‘thank you’ or ‘please’ all the time, as it just takes too much time and (mental) effort in the super intense moments that occur in kitchens. And the head chefs are not just head chefs randomly: they are in charge because they often know best, they have the most experience, they recognize the desired flavours, etcetera. In the kitchen, I learned that in order to become a great cook and for a kitchen to apply and realize their culinary ideals, you and the rest of the team need to be able to follow and repeat, repeat, repeat. These two things are the basis of any kitchen, that is, the soil from which new culinary creations can sprout and be realized.

Rereading and ‘going with tradition’ are the foundational practices for creating a philosophical home, the place of practice: there where ideas can be turned into a life. I think we can differentiate this being-at-home in a certain set of literature from two other attitudes. One is a sort of ‘homeless thinking’ (a homelessness that is not at home in its own homelessness, which is perhaps the home that we should ultimately strive for) that is defined by a focus on originality and the new, which characterizes, I think, the attitude most of us have today. This is the reader that only reads once and prefers to always just read different things (that is, to not reread). This does not mean that this reader does not read carefully and closely. Sure, they are driven by a desire to understand, but being-at-home is not merely about understanding (the difference between understanding and not-understanding is clearly too simplistic). This reader has the desire to read as much as possible, the extreme figure of which is expressed in social media videos explaining you how to read a book per week, or something like that (Achievement! Results! Numbers!). The thinker with this attitude might even implicitly assume that to have read something once is to then ‘have’ those insights, as if ideas are solid objects that we can hold and put away in our cabinets for when we need them (in other words, they implicitly assume a metaphysics of presence concerning thought itself). Furthermore, this reader finds its equal in the philosopher whose primary activity is the creation of new concepts and whose goal is, first of all, originality. I think many chefs and cooks also recognize the phenomenon of restaurant owners (who are not cooks themselves and not at home in the kitchen) that come in and try to change things: their suggestion, although new and sometimes ideally sensical, often make no practical sense because they are not at home in the kitchen in question. The thinker with this attitude has no philosophical home, has nowhere to depart from properly prepared and go back to with new insights. The philosophical insights they find in texts and through thinking have no place to go and remain floating around, without ever attaching themselves to actual behaviour, attitudes, ways of observing, or actions. Without a philosophical home to get back to, their insights are nothing but bare information, data deprived of potential.

Another attitude, which I think can be found more often in an academic context, is that of the specialist. This figure is even more important for me to distance from philosophical home-building, because the specialist does reread and does grant authority to a determined set of literature. Specialization in itself is not a bad thing. What I am concerned about, however, is that the ideas and the texts that these individuals read and create have no relation to the actual lives of these thinkers/researchers. And I do not think this is a problem for science (‘science itself’ so to say). But it is in the realm of philosophy. Philosophy, as it has been pointed out many times already, is being systematized and institutionalized in a manner that is similar to the sciences. Amarantidou and Ambrioso also pointed this out: “Overspecialization and the increasing scientification of philosophical study have shifted the focus to answering narrow questions and providing very specific (and original) answers. The focus is on informing rather than transforming, more on contributing to future debates than on inspiring readers in life-changing ways.” Philosophy cannot ever be specialist; it needs to be generalized through living. Having a philosophical home means that the ideas and texts that one is acquainted with are constantly tested and reread through the lens of our daily lives. To have a philosophical home means to reread life through the tradition, and to reread tradition through one’s life. Only as such can we differentiate our own times from those of the authors we respect and follow, and turn rereading into creation. The specialist that does not generalize through living will simply apply an old theoretical framework on contemporary phenomena and thereby reduce either one (or perhaps even both) to the other. The specialist lacks what the thinker without a philosophical home has, and vice versa.

When I read back what I have said so far, I think all of these ideas basically already existed in the following passage – the most inspirational one to me – of the philosophy-pizza article:

Throughout the Chinese tradition, philosophical texts have served as practical guides for self-improvement, with Chinese thinkers interested in offering all-encompassing visions of the good life and inspiring readers to embrace and realize them. Reading and mastering the meaning of texts is taken to be a lifetime process of self-improvement, not a one-off act of intellectual understanding. The focus is not on spelling out all-applicable (universal) solutions, but, as mentioned earlier, on mastering the skill of understanding the meaning of a particular character or passage by adjusting it to the unique, concrete situations of one’s own life. Texts are thus not meant to provide final answers, but to create the conditions for reflection: for one to be able to ask (and hopefully answer) their own unique questions. They are to be continually explored, and should inspire one to explore them.

Ideas and texts are not just their content. They exist in minds and in texts that have an actual physical location (like the bookshelves in our homes). They have a degree of familiarity, of homeliness. I believe I live in a time and place where the importance of this homeliness is not recognized enough, and I believe this hurts our ability to actually live our thinking. My own philosophical home is part of a larger city that is the tradition of Western philosophy. The current inability to see the importance of philosophical homeliness defines the current state of this city, and as the place where my house belongs, I have to relate to it in some way or another. I move into the city from my cozy place, to which I also return after every expedition.

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Both ecology and economy have their etymological roots in the Ancient Greek term for house or dwelling place: oikos. Economy, coming from oikos and nomos (managing), concerns the managing of the house, of the household. Ecology, coming from oikos and logia (speaking, discourse, theory). To be at home, however, concerns both speaking and theorizing about the home, and how to improve it, how you would like to change it, where the couch should be, what type of atmosphere is desired, as well as applying this theory to realize these ideals, to manage the house in which we exist. In being-at-home, ecology and economy are no longer apart, but rather come together in one existence (which should not be confused with ‘ecological economics’, which is just the shallow and reductive appropriation of ecology by the hegemonic rule of economics that we today have to fight and resist).