skandalon

―What is a philosopher?
—That is perhaps an anachronistic question. But I will give a modern response. In the past one might have said it is a man who stands in wonder; today I would say, borrowing words from Georges Bataille, it is someone who is afraid.

✖ Via The Infinite Conversation by Maurice Blanchot, trans. Susan Hanson, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993, p. 49.

Here’s the original French version:

―Qu’est-ce qu’un philosophe?
―Voilà une question anachronique, peut-être. Mais j’y ferai une réponse moderne. Jadis l’on disait : c’est un homme qui s’étonne; aujourd’hui, je dirai, empruntant ce mot à Georges Bataille : c’est quelqu’un qui a peur. (L’entretien infini, éd. Gallimard, Paris, p. 70)

• Sep 05, 2010 link notes reblogged from georgesbataille [via] tagged: art book author Blanchot Bataille philosophy wonder fear anguish philosopher

Then the men of the Empire, who had been through so much, who had lived in such carnage, kissed their emaciated wives and spoke of their first love; they looked into the fountains of their natal prairies and found themselves so old, so mutilated, that they bethought themselves of their sons, in order that they might close their eyes in peace. They asked where they were; the children came from the schools, and seeing neither sabers, nor cuirasses, neither infantry nor cavalry, they asked in turn where were their fathers. They were told that the war was ended, that Cesar was dead, and that the portraits of Wellington and of Blucher were suspended in the antechambers of the consulates and the embassies, with these two words beneath: Salvatoribus mundi. Then there seated itself on a world in ruins an anxious youth.

✖ Via The Confession of a Child of the Century by Alfred du Musset, 1836

Here’s the original French version:

“Alors ces hommes de l’Empire, qui avaient tant couru et tant égorgé, embrassèrent leurs femmes amaigries et parlèrent de leurs premières amours ; ils se regardèrent dans les fontaines de leurs prairies natales, et ils s’y virent si vieux, si mutilés, qu’ils se souvinrent de leurs fils, afin qu’on leur fermât les yeux. Ils demandèrent où ils étaient ; les enfants sortirent des collèges, et ne voyant plus ni sabres, ni cuirasses, ni fantassins, ni cavaliers, ils demandèrent à leur tour où étaient leurs pères. Mais on leur répondit que la guerre était finie, que César était mort, et que les portraits de Wellington et de Blücher étaient suspendus dans les antichambres des consultats et des ambassades, avec ces deux mots au bas : Salvatoribus mundi.

Alors s’assit sur un monde en ruines une jeunesse soucieuse.” (WikiSource)

• Jun 06, 2010 link notes tagged: art author novel autobiography confession century war anxiety anguish youth generration history confusion desctruction chaos

― The more visionary the idea, the more people it leaves behind. This is what the protest is all about. Visions of technology and wealth. The force of cyber-capital that will send people into the gutter to retch and die. What is the flaw of human rationality?
He said, “What?”
― It pretends not to see the horror and death at the end of the schemes it builds. This is a protest against the future. They want to hold off the future. They want to normalize it, keep it from overwhelming the present.

✖ Via Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo, New York: Scribner, 2003, p. 90-91

Previously on Skandalon: Cosmopolis, Don DeLillo

• May 24, 2010 link notes tagged: DeLillo art author book capitalism critic future market novel protest revolution system representation order chaos community organization anguish anxiety

Willard Van Orman Quine wrote his doctoral thesis on a 1927 Remington typewriter, which he used ever since. However, he “had an operation on it” to change a few keys to accommodate special symbols. “I found I could do without the second period, the second comma – and the question mark.” “You don’t miss the question mark?” “Well, you see, I deal in certainties.

✖ Via A Brief History of The Paradox: philosophy and the labyrinths of the mind by Roy A. Sorensen, Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 349.

About Willard Van Orman Quine:

“Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) (known to intimates as “Van”) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. From 1930 until his death 70 years later, Quine was continuously affiliated with Harvard University in one way or another, first as a student, then as a professor of philosophy and a teacher of mathematics, and finally as a professor emeritus who published or revised several books in retirement. He filled the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard, 1956–78. A recent poll conducted among philosophers named Quine as one of the five most important philosophers of the past two centuries.” (wikipedia)

• May 24, 2010 link notes reblogged from fuckyeahphilosophy [via] tagged: communication logic grammar Quine paradox certainty uncertainty anxiety anguish order chaos

art television series lost animal thriller suspens etymology order chaos unknown uncertainty anxiety anguish deception cartoon humor illustration illustrator

✖ Via The New Yorker: “People watching a thriller about bunny rabbits” by Bruce Eric Kaplan, May 3rd, 2010, p. 60

This is for all Lost’s fans out there.

About Bruce Eric Kaplan:

“Every morning (to this day, I have the same routine, except now I have a desk, albeit a pretty crappy one), I sit down and think about why I am disgruntled or why I am not as disgruntled as I was yesterday and out come these little drawings … after much angst and staring into space and occasional lying on the ground moaning. And each week I send off 10 or so to The New Yorker. And maybe the magazine buys one or two. (Or very often, none. I might mention here that sometimes I merely pump out insane bile that wouldn’t interest one single person on the planet, just like any other journal writer.) And then, finally, they are published. Mostly in The New Yorker, but sometimes in other places as well, such as L.A. Weekly. Maybe they appear days after I did them, but sometimes it is weeks, or months, or even years. And when I look at them, I think back to why I drew whatever I drew and I laugh. Or sometimes cringe. Or, every now and then, just wonder what the hell was wrong with me.” (more)

• May 23, 2010 link notes tagged: art television series lost animal thriller suspens etymology order chaos unknown uncertainty anxiety anguish deception cartoon humor illustration illustrator

Je ne peux plus rien faire, ni rien sentir, répétait-elle, je suis inerte comme une bête de somme, dans un état de prostration dont rien ne peut me tirer. Dès mon enfance j’ai eu de ces moments d’indifférence à tout, de vide du cœur impossibles à exprimer. Non seulement le corps est anéanti, mais l’esprit nous échappe et le cœur va mourir. Tout est ténèbres en nous et hors de nous. L’âme ne voit plus et ne sent plus que le néant où il semble qu’elle va s’abîmer pour jamais.

✖ Via De l’angoisse à l’extase by Pierre Janet, 1927, tome II, part 1, chap. 2, §1, p. 35-36

“Pierre Marie Félix Janet (May 30, 1859 - February 24, 1947) was a pioneering French psychologist, philosopher and psychotherapist in the field of dissociation and traumatic memory.” (wikipedia)

Pierre Janet studied under Jean-Martin Charcot

• May 20, 2010 link notes tagged: science emptiness anxiety anguish neurology depression woman hysteria

✖ Via Encounters At The End Of The World, Werner Herzog, 2007

Can pingouins feel anxiety? Can they get freedom’s dizziness? Is there such a thing as a free pingouin? Those questions adress Kierkegaard’s conception of anxiety : “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom” (English // French)

UPDATE [May 4th, 2010] Anxiety is not anguish. And it’s not fear. In French, there’s a difference between “angoisse” (“anguish”) and “crainte”. “Crainte” is often translated as “fear” though there’s a French word for that : “peur”. Crainte” has to do with anticipation of something not desired, like going to the dentist… it’s not the same thing as “fear” which is usually linked to the knowledge or the perception of an immediate danger. The important thing is that “crainte” works with an objet as though “angoisse” (“anguish”) is without object (for Heidegger and for Simondon as well). Some have suggested that worry, anxiety and anguish are three degree of the same experience.

• Mar 10, 2009 link notes tagged: animal life lost movie philosophy sequence anxiety anguish fear anticipation freedom chaos choice worry Heidegger Simondon Kierkegaard