I had made reference to
Francois Laruelle's "Non-Philosophy" ... I do not want to distract you with this, and I have to clarify that this thinker is on the queue, that I have not explored this.
I do appreciate that Cioran was non-systematic, as was Nietzsche, in that neither is trying to create a unified philosophical system or doctrine.
While Schopenhauer did rail against academic philosophy as an institution, he did propose a "system" with Immanuel Kant's work as a kind of canon.
Now, I'm not sure where Laruelle is coming from with "Non-Philosophy" and "Anti-Badiou", but, like I said, I appreciate Cioran's total lack of any "doctrine" ... he wrote aphorisms ... like Dostoyevsky's underground man, just jotting down little paragraphs that, as Henry Fool might say, blow a whole through this world's idea of itself, a brutal iconoclast knocking down idols.
I tend to stay close to the ground, so when I fall, it is only a matter of rolling on the dirt, whereas I do see how Alain Badiou may be setting himself up on a perch as "the great contender" ...
I am intrigued by the writings of Nick Land as well as Ray Brassier who wrote the forward to Thomas Ligotti's "philosophical manifesto" ... and as is stated in the wiki article,
English-language reception of his work owes most to the efforts of Brassier, who published an account of Laruelle’s non-philosophy in Radical Philosophy in 2003 and critically incorporated aspects of that work into his own project, set out in Nihil Unbound.Also from the wiki:
Laruelle claims that all forms of philosophy (from ancient philosophy to analytic philosophy to deconstruction and so on) are structured around a prior decision, but that all forms of philosophy remain constitutively blind to this decision. The 'decision' that Laruelle is concerned with here is the dialectical splitting of the world in order to grasp the world philosophically. Laruelle claims that the decisional structure of philosophy can only be grasped non-philosophically. In this sense, non-philosophy is a science of philosophy.
I think the Great Mother of all the sciences, the Queen, Mathematics, can help keep this in perspective for us. Weren't the first "philosophers" called Logicians?
Non-Philosophy is a subset of Philosophy, right?
I mean, non-philosophy belongs to philosophy, no?
Could this non-philosophy be related to the empty set?
We have run into the same walls as Wittgenstein and Pirsig and Kant because we are in-the-flesh and only know a world as it is filtered through our sensory apparatus. Maybe non-philosophy is just this acknowledgement that philosophy can only go so far. Isn't that why some student gets whacked with the "enlightenment stick" ?
I don't know. Some psychiatrists may say that mathematics is only in the head, and yet, as you like to point out, the whole freaking world is in our head, so what's up with this "only" part?
By the way, I have not purchased a hard copy book since I had been released from the county lock-up back in May (2015). After an exhaustive search and research and scanning, I had made a decision. The book arrived this morning: Elements of Programming by Alexander Stepanov and Paul McJones.
It is an elegant little canonical text that may have an impact on my thinking for the rest of my life on earth. I think it will encourage be to make mathematical notation a part of my thought processes again, so any readings and exercises having to do with Propositional Logic will be beneficial to helping me think more clearly and elegantly.
I don't really want to go mad, although, when I use the term "insanity" I am using it with an understanding of
Robert Pirsig's view on this (see LILA). He said once that the insane are able to see what a bunch of phonies the sane are, and they (we?) resent it!
What is "objective reality" anyway?
So there are specific texts, some quite technical, that I want to go through (as slowly as my manic brain will allow) while slowly going through the highly theoretical Elements of Programming. My god, Holden, I can see why the Pythagoreans formed a cult around the very things we discuss. It matters to us.
“When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion.” (Pirsig, from Lila)
Follow your bliss. I suspect your bliss is contemplating mathematical ideas.