Why Does D2nt Say Unhandled Excession

if the truth were female

that the relationship between the philosophers and women has always been problematic has been enshrined, among others, Nietzsche's famous aphorism with a content at the beginning of Beyond Good and Evil : "Place that truth is a woman, and why not? Is not well founded suspicion that all philosophers, as they were dogmatists are understood little of women? [...]. It is certain that it has not been seduced. "

Poor Nietzsche had perhaps his reasons to put it this way: we know that was not very lucky with women. He had the bad habit of falling in love with those of others, which is always a good recipe for unhappiness. As Lou Salome, or Cosima Wagner. Some biographers claim that his break with Wagner was due not so much a philosophical and theoretical reasons, or the musician to anti-Semitism, as some want, but a strictly personal reasons, and indeed a rather intimate. Wagner reveals the doctor to Nietzsche to be concerned about the excessive tendency of onanism his philosopher friend, habit certainly favored by the presence of Cosima. Gossip Nietzsche not particularly appreciated. Fate, carrion, then that would not only be impractical to seduce women, but rather unlucky in those occasions when he attended a fee, since the tragic circumstances of his death can be ultimately traced back to this (no, it was the giddiness of nihilistic thought to make him mad, was most probably syphilis).

His personal unhappiness made him still keen observation of other people's misery, like that of Socrates, the paradigmatic example of the conflicted relationship between the traditional philosophical thought, male, abstract, logo and phallocentric, and other people's sex. The greek philosopher, lost in his speculations, viene continuamente molestato dalla moglie Santippe, donna stupida, ignorante, ma soprattutto concreta e quindi insopportabile, ragion per cui non stupisce che Socrate, una volta compiuti i doveri coniugali legati alla mera riproduzione, preferisca la illuminata compagnia degli efebi, e si intrattenga con questi in profondi discorsi sulla natura del bene e del male. La nascita stessa della filosofia greca sarebbe quindi dovuta al brutto carattere delle donne, un riconoscimento non so quanto lusinghiero. Certo è che piacerebbe conoscere pure la versione di Santippe.

L'espressione "amore platonico", con la quale si designa appunto il particolare tipo di rapporto che Socrate e i suoi followers entertained not only against women but of eros in general, it is one of the most misunderstood of all time. Today we mean by "Platonic love" a bond of friendship and mutual affection that does not find relief in sex, but with great sacrifice is sublimated in other ways (something similar to what Nietzsche was, after all), while in a sense This is the exact opposite. Platonic love is love without sex (there may be), but a love that is not love, why does not understand the sacrifice, the giving to another, the real attachment to a person other than himself, but is a love where the other is seen only as a tool for their spiritual elevation. Platonic love is precisely where there is passion and it so possessed of the senses, because the other is only half a view of a personal view. But the philosopher loves

sometimes arise even in the guise of the deceiver, perhaps trying to disprove the stereotype niche, in fact failing. The storyteller, skillful juggler of words, one who tries circuit encircles the truth as women take them to bed and then download them, open the newspaper every day and invents a battle of civilizations in which to launch and to which give prestige with their intelligence, and no matter what cause so much because the words and arguments are (in fondo è per questo che viene pagato un filosofo), ben rappresenta certi vizi della nostra epoca. Quella dell'immagine, dove non conta la sostanza, ma l'apparire, dove l'estetica è la disciplina più influente e seguita, ben prima della teoretica e della morale, dove l'atteggiarsi è tutto, e la camicia bianca sbottonata vale più di mille concetti. La tristezza di tutto questo, di questa insostenibile leggerezza, questa finta disinvoltura, fa appunto rimpiangere la serietà di un Socrate, che almeno nutriva un disprezzo genuino per le cose mondane.

"Un filosofo sposato è un personaggio da commedia", sostiene dunque ancora Nietzsche. Di all the characters in the history of philosophy, I can think of only one who has had a relationship, it seems, happy and rewarding experience with women. This is Paul Feyerabend, philosopher of relativism, the author of Against Method , also famous for being quoted by Ratzinger about Galileo Galilei (the cunning of reason: the biggest opponent of relativism, citing its Feyerabend) . In his autobiography, written a few months before his death, and precisely during the illness that killed him, Feyerabend says among other things how he participated as a Nazi officer in World War II, suffering a leg injury that made it impossible, for the rest of his life, walking without the use of a stick. Another thing was impossible because of injury, and that is just a normal sexual activity, but this did not prevent him ever to fall in love and be loved.

The essence of the philosophy of Feyerabend, in a nutshell, was "anything goes". Meaning that there are no recipes to find out the truth, that no philosopher can ever lay claim to claim to speak to a scientist, or any ordinary person for that matter, as it should think. He called himself an "anarchist knowledge." I, actually, I never had great sympathy for the relativist thinking, but you might opine, in the first place, that Feyerabend was indeed a relativist (doubted very notion of truth, or routes traditionally struggled to try to achieve?), and second, that was serious. He had a carefree attitude towards all, and primarily directed against himself. Honestly, self-deprecating, like Socrates, most of Socrates, was fully aware of playing a character, to be a troll who enjoyed violating every taboo. Defended astrology, voodoo defended, defended the Church against Galileo and Bellarmine (conscious of giving scandal). He did not because I believe that Galileo was wrong or astrology really had some validity, but because he feared that science would take the place of religion, as a unique and privileged sistema di riferimento.

Un atteggiamento pragmatico, non assolutista, quindi, che alla fine non può che risolversi in una maggiore saggezza pratica, nel rapporto col mondo e soprattutto con gli altri. Feyerabend è uno dei pochi filosofi che stanno simpatici a mia moglie, forse perché nella sua autobiografia, e soprattutto negli ultimi capitoli, non parla altro che di sua moglie (una giovane studentessa italiana con la quale si era trasferito da Berkeley a Roma), con entusiasmo quasi infantile. Una persona cattiva potrebbe persino dire che si era un po' rincoglionito. E le sue ultime parole parlano di amore nei confronti dell'umanità, un'umanità che si intuisce fatta di persone in carne e ossa, e non assunta come valore abstract.

And then for a photo, which shows that the "philosopher at work" (what I should do a little 'more often, maybe).