[Networkologies - What is Philosophy? A Networkological Spin On the Age Old Question “Why”?- . Or when Franz Fanon asked, “What does a black man want?,” he was asking a question of philosophy. More so than Eliot or Williams, however, Fanon was asking this not in a merely abstract sense, however. If you know anything about Fanon, his was a question of action. That is, not only what does a man want, but what does a black man want, and in regard to the context of how he is asking this, in regard to the possibility of changing the world, to make it a better place, a world with less racism.
Fanon’s approach to the question is similar to that put forward by Marx, in his famous Theses on Feuerbach, when he stated that “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” And here we see another level of reflection going on. For if the first level of philosophy is meta-ethical (ie: why I value what I do?), and the second is meta-meta-ethical (ie: how can I determine the value systems whereby I choose, implicitly or explicitly, what I value?), the level beyond this, as described earlier, is to question what value is in the first place (ie: in relation to my community, species, cosmos, etc.).]
[Larval Subjects . - Beauty - When I read architectural theory written during the Middle Ages, Rennaissance, and early Enlightenment period, beauty is an index to truth. It resonates with us because our ability to discern it is a sort of index of the divine that dwells within us; it is that which draws us towards the divine or God and that which indicates God’s signature on his creation. In a naturalistic framework all that falls away. We find we must give an immanent account of beauty. The question then becomes that of why we find the beautiful beautiful, of why we encounter the beautiful at all. This is not a question– at least at first –of what we find beautiful. In other words, it is not a question where discussions of harmony, pattern, and proportion would be appropriate answers. Again, the question here is not what is beautiful, but why such things would be beautiful to us at all. What is the ground of the ability to have, as Kant put it, “disinterested pleasure” or the ability to find things beautiful?]
What happens or action is always seen as more decisive than theory. The course of events, not only surprise many a time, but also maul many established notions beyond recognition. Nothing objectionable barring the overbearing role ascribed to human agency. Academicians hold this superficial view that human beings are the sole originator of own action while larger events like earthquake is safely left to the nature.
If one is acquainted with Sri Aurobindo, then an autonomous human being appears as an oxymoron. Nothing is outside Nature, he would insist, and though "random seem the ways," there is always a greater unseen plan. Translating this in political terms is surely difficult but to lose sight of this basic ontological concept would land one in uncertain waters. Seen in this light, current events assume a great significance and hence deciphering their evolutionary relevance is so crucial. [TNM55]
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