I

A compilation of general

observations, statements of

principle, dialectical interludes,

polemical remarks, epithets,

homilies and aphorisms.

II

III

A random collection of

unsubstantiated assertion, blind

prejudice, vacuous sophistry,

metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, dogma,

illogic and nonsense.

IV

Published privately

Printed at HOBS Edinburgh

A DUNCAN © 2015

V

Foreword Philosophy is never complete. Its corpus is an archive both of what society explicitly holds to be true, good and right, as well as what it cannot express, be it too dangerous or simply taken for granted. It is at any moment, an articulation of the differences between what has been and what will become - an expression of the forces that power the trajectories underway.

Philosophers are not repositories of thoughts; rather they are witnesses to thinking. Much, but by no means all, of their labour is solitary: their endeavours to make sense of their own work by gathering together the principles that give it sense, bring to light what society conspires to keep hidden; whether they like it or not, their efforts to recover the principles that for them become, foundational, definitional or axiomatic, articulate both the thinking to which they have been subject and something of the trajectories underway, the passage of history.

VI

I started writing this little book towards the end of 2012 and completed it to my satisfaction at the end of August 2013. Since then, I have made one or two minor revisions. At the beginning of October 2012 I was diagnosed with a malignant and aggressive form of prostate cancer, which I was given to believe would kill me within three years. Before I died, I was determined to get out of my head some of the philosophy I had put into it during the fifty or so years I had been scribbling in notebooks, arguing the toss with anybody with a mind to do so, reading books, engaging in online debates and reflecting on what it has meant to be alive during these interesting times.

I have always felt that the best ways of expressing philosophy are short: epigrams, aphorisms, paragraphs, and essays. When Twitter appeared I took up the challenge, firstly of producing meaningful and interesting tweets using less than one hundred and forty characters, and then of doing so using exactly one hundred and forty. It became oddly clear while using Twitter in this way that it is not only possible but also quite straightforward - it is simply a matter of paying close attention to the versatility of English grammar, punctuation and poetics. Apparently also I was using Twitter to express something different from what mostly appears there; instead of throwaway remarks and micro-gossip, I was producing serious philosophical material.

VII

So began the labour of gathering together those ideas that seemed to have informed my conduct and judgments, fuelled my opinions and underpinned my efforts to understand what it means to be alive. This little book is what emerged from the process. My final statement to the world; some of the ideas my life encountered, pared down to their most essential form, distilled and combined together in a compilation of general observations, statements of principle, dialectical interludes, polemical remarks, epithets, homilies and aphorisms.

One hundred and forty statements, each of which contains one hundred and forty characters, and which together articulate something of the thinking to which I have been witness during this life.

This book can also be regarded as a contribution to a philosophical system, in the old fashioned sense, for its paragraphs are carefully arranged to take the reader along particular trajectories. Of course, they can be rearranged to create many other lines of thinking, and they should not be read as any strict logical series - they are better seen as snapshots, signposts, depictions or illustrations, which, unlike Wittgenstein’s ladder, should not, having been used to attain a position from which the world can be seen aright, be kicked away, but rather allowed to float free, to be used as an aid to clarity, a reminder that things simply are such as they are.

VIII

Their originality is not that each comprises exactly one hundred and forty characters, nor that there are one hundred and forty of them, but that they weave together three distinct, difficult to reconcile, philosophical strands. First, a Nietzschean strand, overturning and exposing all powers responsible for reproducing higher values, while seeking out new ones amidst the detritus of civilisation. Second, a Spinozistic strand, celebrating the absolute infinitude of God or Nature, of creation, and finding itself as a result up against dualisms of one sort or another, reluctantly defending itself against accusations of ungodliness, heresy, and paganism. And third, a Scottish strand, intolerant of nonsense, grounded firmly in ordinary experience, always believing that no matter how desperate conditions have become, there is always hope, love and beauty, and that natural reason and common sense can and must be deployed to improve the lot of humanity.

These three overlapping regions of thinking - political, philosophical and psychological - are united by a polemic against metaphysical transcendence and a strict refusal to engage in sectarianism. This is a contribution to a philosophy that is no longer footnotes to Plato, but that is now working through the details of Freud, Nietzsche and Marx, moving thought away from the Parmenidian tradition, towards engagement in real life.

IX

Here is also a place where the core of classical ethics and European Enlightenment converges with the wisdom of the East. A deep sense of culture that makes good use of reason, respects life and liberty and cares for the places it lives, which, at the same time, strives to overcome what is known in Buddhist teaching as samsara, the eternal web of illusion by which our minds are ensnared, the confusion, uncertainty and lack of clarity that arise from too much information and mental agitation.

A great deal of compassion is necessary when confronting the everyday delusions and prejudices of society and the depth to which these are embedded into the foundations of ordinary experience. Here then is the most obvious source of philosophical samsara: that much of what is already thought of as thinking, of what is recorded in the corpus of philosophy, is just more samsara; that clarity and precision of thought lie on the other side of samsara.

The paths of epiphany do not demand only intellectual effort. There must also be proliferating confrontations between living bodies in their actual material trajectories and the prejudices of society, the mind must become aware of its every gesture, and bring itself into alignment with the infinite conditions of its existence. In fashionable parlance, we must, without reserve, develop practices of mindfulness.

X

Philosophy is not here a search for absolute, objective Truth by means of reason and argumentation; it is actively engaging with the stuff of creation to experience and reflect upon what comes out. This is a celebration of life, a passionate determination to make good use of the intellect we have been given, while being careful to avoid certain ancient illusions about what it can do, about what it means to be alive, what is good and what is not good.

With the practice of philosophy we become intimately aware of the utter mystery of our precarious existence, finding peace with the infinitude of creation. We must all take time and make space to let our consciousness grow, to love and to learn from that which cannot be otherwise, from the absolute truth of our lives at this moment in history, whatever this may be, however desperate, uncertain, impermanent, inexorable or challenging.

The duty of a philosopher is to truth, to produce encouraging, illuminating and penetrating combinations of ideas, to explore terrains of thinking and to communicate general principles. Despite prevailing narratives of moral superiority and economic necessity, these are the most complex, turbulent and violent times humanity has ever known. Simplistic morality, reductionist rationality and neo-liberal individualism do not work. Planetary ecologies and economies are operated by a cabal of cynical elites motivated only to perpetuate their privilege.

XI

There is growing aspiration for something else, new forces are working together to break the cycle of samsara and resist the insanity and obscenity of these societies. Anything can happen. This common experience is already now global; humanity is collectively looking into an abyss - confronting actual extinction - collectively conscious of the fundamental contradictions of its existence. All of which make the necessity of enlightenment all the more pertinent and pressing. If these words contribute to this project, my work has been worthwhile.

I would like to thank my colleagues, family and friends for their love and support; Deirdre Bergson, Sergio Casci, Colin Duncan, Edie Irwin, Jane Kellock, Kevin MacNiel, Sal Obrien, Lorna Waite and Mark Wijering for reading manuscripts and offering valuable feedback; messengers all over the world for being awesome all over the world; and Shona Campbell for coming into my life again just at the right moment - without her wisdom, compassion and honesty, this little book would never have been completed.

Andy Duncan, philosopher cyclist Edinburgh, March 2015

XII

XIII

for Hélène

XIV

1

Think things through as and when they arise, every event in its rarity, making good use of natural reason, your native wit and common sense.

2

Act in keeping with principles that determine events rather than stand in their way - inexorability means only learning to go with the flow.

3

Be polite and well mannered, but do not confuse this with formality - for this presupposes hierarchy and recreates relations of superiority.

4

Find a way of learning from experience that quantitative differences can only be analytical and real differences must always be qualitative.

5

Learn how to know the difference between what is essential and universal and what is a product of these particular conditions and relations.

6

Be kind and generous, but never become complacent of real danger and remember that the rights of property must always defer to need and use.

7

Act in good faith, trust your immediate feelings and do not fear what you do not know; all that you are will then become of your own making.

8

Much as you would like it to be otherwise, your life is temporary and you have no power beyond understanding the energies that surround you.

9

Cyclical change and catastrophe are essential properties of the turn of events - stability and permanence are either illusions or artefacts.

10

Values manifest themselves in many ways during everyday life, but they are rarely permanent or universal, and always related to perspective.

11

That there is no objective value by which to make absolute judgment is no reason to devalue, or not take seriously the values that do exist.

12

Never underestimate the persistence with which the languages you use and the realities you experience will become almost entirely congruent.

13

Do not succumb to dualism in any form, do not confuse a border with a limit and do not believe that language can describe objective reality.

14

Never forget that societies produce individuals or that their improvement rests, not on moral injunction, but on changing social conditions.

Do not behave in such a way that events can take place only because individuals make them happen with their power, desires, will or choices.

15

The only power a being has is its will, an ability to do what is necessary. This is what Capitalist desire is specifically designed to kill.

Depression arises when a defeated will meets the refusal to embody desire - where the only ability is choice and the only choice repetition.

Addiction is the most perfect expression of capitalist desire, the choice continuously to consume, to choose desire itself - no matter what.

16

The illusion that the world comprises things is the principal value of commodity capitalism. It is also just an effect of there being nouns.

For as long as we believe in the world of things it will be necessary to understand these as the outcome of so many processes of production.

17

The point of almost absolute proximity is very often congruent with the moment of absolute difference - the same does not in any case exist.

Two manufactured components may be said to be the same, perhaps two commodities from the same production run, but never two natural objects.

18

The object is a peculiarly human artifice - limited things that are not artefacts, constituents or composites simply do not exist in nature.

Sometimes things are just plain complicated and no measure of simplistic morality or reductive rationality will make any difference to this.

19

If the nature of things is always a continuous condition of flux, it makes no sense to assume for the sake of argument the opposite of this.

That anything takes place for us at all depends on physiological processes discovering their value and language taking on a life of its own.

20

The illusion of the other place - that there is something different from here and now, is an effect perhaps of the simple act of reflection.

But reflection happens as much here and now as any other activity; attention focusing inward, thinking in this place, concentrated, quietly.

21

Reflection is capable of infinite levels and forms of abstraction, but this does not isolate it from events - reflection is itself an event.

22

The dialectic is almost as susceptible to the ontological argument as God, as capable of being brought into existence by definition. Almost.

If what there is to experience is hierarchized, what there is will remain hidden from experience and the dialectic will come into existence.

23

Those who take refuge in the spiritual fail to grasp the complexity of the material – blinded by morality, haste and intellectual cowardice.

The difference between material and spiritual arises in any case from a similar failure to grasp the substance of events as they take place.

24

In the abstract, antithesis, dualism and hierarchy logically presuppose each other, but in reality their combination is entirely contingent.

Capitalism learned very quickly that the responsibility for reproducing cheap labour could not be left to nature - so it invented socialism.

25

Duality lies hidden in abstract space waiting for the consciousness of humanity to be fooled into believing that it is essential to reality.

Axiology is inaugurated by violent separation of social life from nature and sustained by powers that explicitly see this as an improvement.

26

Despite widespread ungodliness, irreligiosity and atheism, enduring sectarian conflict, scepticism, scientism and nihilism, God is not dead.

The idea of enclosure does not make sense beside the absolutely infinite - everything is always already enclosed by the absolutely infinite.

27

Whether the actual stuff of creation be matter, energy, consciousness or God matters less than that it not be enclosed, limited and divided.

28

The essential error of all scientistic positions is a conviction in the absolute priority of quantitative results over qualitative analysis.

Differences between quantity and quality are not made easier to grasp when matters of quality are counted and degrees of quantity estimated.

29

Scientific knowledge is at best a snapshot of society's official position on reality. As history changes, so also does scientific knowledge.

After science has answered all questions and explained everything, the wonder and mystery of existence remain: why is there anything at all?

30

The urge to interpret events within established norms and values is generally more powerful than any will to know what actually takes place.

Even before any knowledge exists, the will to know always already appears to the powers that be as a threat to established norms and values.

Knowing thus betrays the innocence of any naïve will to know, while establishing the intellect as a political power confronting the present.

31

Forces of reaction do not need any ideology to sustain their illusions – their truths are embedded in the very architectures of the present.

Revolutionary thinking is much easier at moments of revolutionary upheaval than during periods of social stagnation and political stability.

32

Freedom exists in understanding the necessity of things, while acting in accordance with principles that determine events, and knowing this.

Becoming fully conscious of individual thinking and personal conduct is the foundation of respectively mystical and political enlightenment.

33

Seeing the world aright, sub specie aeternis, grasping the absolutely infinite substance of things in the moments of their actual existence?

Continuously struggling to overturn dominant powers in a just war against their decadent excess, cynical megalomania and crass exploitation?

Living at peace with one’s fellows, sharing resources among all, nurturing future generations and developing common standards of excellence?

34

Enlightenment is not a condition either of mystical tranquillity or political emancipation; it is the only freedom a being has in this life.

35

The secret to psychological health, inner peace and intellectual integrity, is actively destroying ego and learning that desire is a prison.

36

The existence of ego, as something more than an embodied point of apprehension, depends on this being referred to during bodily development.

Ego arises easily in languages that conjugate verbs - where the second person singular signifies the first person as able itself to signify.

37

When an ego perceives its special position or its unique existence as the source of universal value, it obliterates the plurality of values.

It makes no effort to get inside what it sees, to understand from within; instead it judges only the surface on the basis of its own values.

Although it cannot view from the outside, it takes for granted that what it knows itself to be will be visible to others on its own surface.

38

The effort of communication lies not with the producer, but with the consumer; less making oneself understood, more understanding the other.

The responsibility of communication is to create conditions wherein others are able to express themselves honestly, truly and in good faith.

39

The other is not another human being, nor even a something else; it is but an abstraction projected onto others by egos in need of identity.

40

The notions of thing, person and word are motivated by a similar will to enclose - they do not designate actual objects, beings or phonemes.

There is not now, there has never been, nor will there ever be any kind of relationship between words and things beyond their immediate use.

41

Languages of thought are very different from languages of expression - which is no doubt why philosophy is best communicated with aphorisms.

Language works by deploying grammars that link together words not things, which is why it is important not to confuse language with reality.

42

The author of philosophy is philosophy. Those fated to know this - whether they obey the calling or remain silent - are called philosophers.

For philosophers to criticise one another is not quite seemly; it would be more philosophical for each to point out the others’ differences.

43

The art of philosophy lies in finding the correct combination of words, and the tone that will most appropriately convey the point at issue.

To ask philosophy to be concerned with truth is not to demand that its statements be true. The truth remains that which cannot be otherwise.

44

The heresy of reason is to think without obeying the temptations of personal profit, the authority of knowledge, or the prejudices of dogma.

The essential message of wisdom has not changed much during history, nor has the extent to which it is misunderstood, ignored or suppressed.

45

It was once remarked that all philosophy is but footnotes to Plato; since then philosophy has become footnotes to Nietzsche, Marx and Freud.

46

The contribution of human will to the ordinary turn of events is slight when compared to that of blind, obedient, unreflective, human habit.

47

Your life is a consequence of your choices and not their expression; although you did not choose this life, you can still do so if you wish.

48

The events of which you are conscious are no different from any others - they gain no special status or power because you are aware of them.

49

Most of consciousness is mental noise - idle epiphenomena, superfluous chitchat, with no obvious relation to prevailing material conditions.

50

Only in episodes of concentration and attention is consciousness brought into any kind of adequate relation with actual material conditions.

51

That individual human beings are conscious of themselves does not entail that being conscious is a property only of individual human beings.

52

If human beings learn that consciousness is something different from bodily experience, they create the conditions for their own alienation.

53

Experience begins at the surfaces of bodies, where ambient energies impinge; consciousness learns that it cannot handle all of this at once.

54

Those unable to recall events clearly never learned how to experience events clearly; that experience is of events, not of things or others.

55

Human affairs are historical, that is, they take place in history - there is no place where human affairs take place that is not historical.

56

Historical forces are as natural as all of the forces involved in the flux of material events; no events are subject to supernatural powers.

57

We all must learn that experience is of events taking place in history, and not arrangements of things in moral space or relations of power.

58

The perception a body has of itself does not distinguish between subject and object; it is direct. Consciousness does not have a blind spot.

59

The life demanded of a being prevented from engaging with anything but the abstractions of power has no need of native wit and its own will.

60

A being lives in nature by engaging with the elements within which it finds itself and by making use of its native wit to persevere in life.

61

The only certainty is the power of a body’s perceptual surfaces to respond to changes in ambient energy, and to thus apprehend a real world.

62

People are largely unaware of the forces that motivate them, the conditions of their existence and the immediate activities of their bodies.

They are generally content to move their bodies by dint of habit, within the limits set by prevailing architectures and social topographies.

63

Societies already teach from the earliest moments of life what is good, what there is to experience, what it all means and who is in charge.

Those born now will grow to regard all this as normal - all lies, prejudices and delusions will come to be accepted as true, right and good.

64

If the nature of things is a continuous condition of flux, all powers that support unchanging states of affairs will always eventually fail.

65

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are absolutely terrified of responsibility.

66

Each new generation must realise for itself that the societies within which it has been born are assemblages of illusion, delusion and lies.

67

Each new generation must nurture its own iconoclasts, visionaries and revolutionaries - there is no universal engine of historical movement.

68

Societies are the very embodiment of reactive forces - the absolute victory of slave mentality over any and all noble or enlightened ethics.

69

If it is no sign of health to be well adjusted to a deeply sick society, healthy thought must be opposed to the norms and values of society.

70

In societies consisting of agglomerations of individual egos, forces of transference and projection dominate all efforts to perceive events.

If bringing a child into this world was a kind of betrayal, bringing one up to hold a stake in these proceedings must be a variety of abuse.

71

Most of what humans call emotions is an effect of their experience as an ego in society, where their primary motivation is to seek approval.

72

Fear, rage, grief and joy are all the emotions a living being needs, the rest are decadent, derivative, mutated in the interests of society.

73

Those who have no interest in having the norms and values of present society reproduced in their own private lives should not have children.

When adults forget the joy and innocence they first experienced when they were children, they unwittingly teach their children childishness.

74

If we do not know what a body can do, how can we even imagine what many bodies working together in perfect choreographed synchrony could do?

75

A living body is a complex filter; it absorbs material, extracts what it needs in order to persevere in its existence and excludes the rest.

76

The health of a body depends on the extent to which the material it absorbs is able to provide that by which its existence can be preserved.

77

A body’s intelligence is its power to nourish itself, to maintain health under all conditions, and to undergo periodic processes of healing.

The natural healing power of a body in a state of health is equivalent to the conatus, to its apprehension of the energies that surround it.

78

Disease means severing mind from body and surrendering individual responsibility to society, becoming schizoid and denaturing consciousness.

79

No apparatus of power since Catholicism has more successfully turned human beings from their natural cycles and powers than medical science.

It never strikes anybody as odd that there are institutions dedicated to ensuring that what is produced in the name of food, is indeed food!

80

The integrity and unity of a living being depends on the continuity of its material trajectory - its persistence during the passage of time.

81

The unity of mind and body is as incoherent as their separation, for this unity of presupposes a mind and a body that are already separated.

82

Revolution is only necessary because there exist forces labouring to maintain political conditions and to support existing power structures.

83

Drawing any logical, dialectical or moral equivalence between oppressor and oppressed is unhistorical, reactionary and intellectually naïve.

84

Anti-populism must accept that works of art are sometimes popular not because the elite has said so, but quite simply because they are good.

85

Christian culture has burned itself out leaving only a bland and futile dialectic between right-wing populism and left-wing intellectualism.

86

Music is based on absolute mathematical principles and at once expresses the abstract and the visceral by sculpting the very air we breathe.

87

When the history of the cosmos is written, music will be seen as humanity’s greatest achievement, just ahead of cycling and common humanity.

88

Perfectionism is the most complete expression of negativity, the surest way of obliterating living values, to compare events against ideals.

89

The God atheists believe not to exist is but a caricature of that worshiped by the devout, espoused by religion and described by philosophy.

If it were not for religion, the idea of God would be much less confrontational, and the existence of God may even have become self-evident.

90

Recognising another animal as a conscious being is a step on a journey of learning to see how an animal recognises you as a conscious being.

91

A friend is one in whose company you can be yourself without fear of judgement - there is no reason why everybody should not be your friend.

92

No matter how much pain, suffering and struggle we encounter in this life, the fact that we are alive, that there is life at all, is enough.

93

Love makes no demands, sets no conditions, excludes nobody, has no necessary effects and yet it is the most important force in the universe.

In a society of egos dependent on owning stuff and blaming others for their faults, life’s greatest challenge is letting love be what it is.

In a mechanistic universe, in which the second law of thermodynamics prevails, the coming into existence of life remains a complete mystery.

94

If space is rescued from the Cartesian fallacy, location and distance no longer exist in three dimensions, but become moments of difference.

95

The division of time into past, present and future is entirely grammatical; lived experience does not accumulate, but expands exponentially.

96

It is a small step from taking responsibility by standing ground to claiming authenticity by enforcing authority, from whatever perspective.

97

If you know that what you experience as external is a reflection of what is internal, you can then live a miserable life or a wonderful one.

98

Societies in which individuals are able to develop without being encumbered by ego have probably never existed, but they are not impossible.

There can be no longer any doubt that the societies human beings have built on this planet are so fucked-up that they should be swept aside.

99

The question of what social forms and political processes would be most fitting to natural cycles of change has never really been addressed.

100

It remains necessary to fall between the cracks, so to speak, to refuse to hold a stake in these proceedings - to be here for other reasons.