Monday 15 September 2014

The autogenic ends of philosophy

I am not a philosopher and am not interested in philosophy for its own ends. Then again, I am enough of a philosopher to be suspicious of anyone who is interested in philosophy for its own ends. Such introversion and self-interest seems, to me, to divert thought away from both where it is needed and where it thrives.

Call it conceptual callisthenics (Latour), the creation of concepts (Deleuze), or the development of a wisdom tradition (Sloterdijk) -- either way, the point is that philosophy mustn't pursue its own ends. Such self-pursuit is, one could even say, unphilosophical.

Self-pursuit is scholasticism; is a dog chasing its own tail; is a serpent eating itself...

Such autogenesis becomes autoerotic.