"I recall how an orderly from the sick barracks once gave me a plate of sweetened grits, which I greedily devoured and thereby reached a state of extraordinary spiritual euphoria. With deep emotion I thought first of the phenomenon of human kindness. That was joined by the image of the good Joachim Ziemssen from Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain. And suddenly my consciousness was chaotically packed to the brim with the content of books, fragments of music I had heard, and—as I could not help but imagine—original philosophic thoughts. A wild longing for things of the spirit took possession of me, accompanied by a penetrating self-pity that brought tears to my eyes. At the same time, in a layer of my consciousness that had remained clear I was fully aware of the pseudoquality of this short-lived mental exaltation. It was a genuine state of intoxication, evoked by physical influences." Jean Amery, writing on his experience at Auschwitz, At the Mind's Limits pg.9, Indiana University Press 1980
Philosophy requires protection. This is no doubt a strange way to speak. What do we mean, philosophy requires protection? We mean that it can only come into being if the instrument of its conveyance is sheltered from danger. The existence of philosophy presupposes favorable conditions, without these conditions philosophy would not exist. Strange as this might seem, it remains the concrete fact of philosophy's being. All philosophy presupposes social conditions more primitive than itself. To subtract these conditions, or to disrupt their uniformity, is to impair philosophy. To be a philosopher one must be born into conditions which, first of all allow the brain to develop, and secondly, allow the brain to exist in the right kind of environment, an environment that nourishes high level cognitive function.
When we see a philosopher we are not beholding a subject of infinite will, we are beholding an organism that has been privileged enough to pass through a stable maturation process, both mental and physical. This concrete component of philosophy completely alters our understanding of what it means to be a skilled philosopher. It doesn't mean, as has been the presumption from ages past, that one possesses a higher capacity of will, it means that one has benefited from a social structure. And because this is the case in which quality emerges, philosophy is compelled to turn its sights on the mass reproduction of these conditions. If philosophy sees itself as a thing of value, if it believes its value should be replicated, then its duty is not to take aim at the will, but to figure out how favorable social conditions can be mass produced. No doubt this will require the uprooting of much cultural superstition and dogmatic confusion.
When we see a philosopher we are not beholding a subject of infinite will, we are beholding an organism that has been privileged enough to pass through a stable maturation process, both mental and physical. This concrete component of philosophy completely alters our understanding of what it means to be a skilled philosopher. It doesn't mean, as has been the presumption from ages past, that one possesses a higher capacity of will, it means that one has benefited from a social structure. And because this is the case in which quality emerges, philosophy is compelled to turn its sights on the mass reproduction of these conditions. If philosophy sees itself as a thing of value, if it believes its value should be replicated, then its duty is not to take aim at the will, but to figure out how favorable social conditions can be mass produced. No doubt this will require the uprooting of much cultural superstition and dogmatic confusion.
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