Scraps of Apparent

S. Apparent was a writer in the mid 20th C. Here at PL we attempt to recoup writings from thinkers in this tradition, this blend of CS and historical "ironism." I enjoy reading this because it seems self-critical and reminiscent of a forgotten Shaftesbury. This short entry will serve as an intro to the style.

This first entry comes from notes discovered from approx. 1950. This seems to be about the nature of the iconoclastic mind.

"If we lived at the beginning of time we would not need iconoclasm. There would be nothing to smash. The world would be laid open. However, we are old and what we need is an indifferent anti-sensitive iconoclasm that starts with a very basic premise: all people are dumb as shit.

"Temporality demands prioritization and discernment. The weight of ignorant stories can crush you not only with its blatant errors, but with its size. There are times when even the best of us cannot see over the pile of crap. It may merely be shit, but it sure does take up a lot of space.

"A true iconoclast has two movements: negative and positive. The negative sweeps away and the positive creates something new. It may take a decade to grasp that Kant really meant notions of "free will" and the impenetrable "noumenal." Fully grasping means seeing that his notion of "free will" is based on the very commonsense he detested, it is ultimately grounding in this "intuition." Kant is time-consuming. Does a writer like Kant, an analytic, justify our time spent reading?

"To see Western Philosophy as an improper response to doubt is the first step. Clearly, there are certain people trying to understand the world and this world is to varying degrees unknowable and that suggests that epistemology (the art of understanding) trumps metaphysics (concepts of reality). Historically it has been the epistemology that is assumed and the metaphysics that is analyzed (worked out). But how can this be?

"The art of iconoclasm is the vision to prioritize firstly and then ridicule those who don't, secondly.

(Note: Here Apparent carefully discusses Whitehead and specifically his difference between Philosophy and Science. This we will discuss in the next entry)