Woe to the rash mortal who seeks to know that of which he should remain ignorant, and to undertake that which surpasseth his power!
- William Beckford, Vathek
This website's coming along nicely, there's just a couple things I still have left to figure out; but for the most part I'm ready to start adding notes and writings if anything gets out of the drafting process. Still debating with myself if I want to make a library for all of the anime and movies I've seen similar to my bookshelf. The work coffee is painfully lukewarm.
I read Greg Sadler's article on 10 works of philosophy he recommends for beginners and I think I was being a little too hard on myself in my previous attempts to get it right
when I tried tackling various philosophers in what I considered the correct order
and I hope this website helps me carve out my own personal path for the study of philosophy and read works I might've otherwise passed up since they might not have fit into the curriculum
(if I can call it that) I was working out in my head. His article helped me reconcile the blunt fact that for all my attempts to get it right,
part of the process is fundamentally getting it wrong.
As far as that goes, a few works outside of my usual field of view that I'd like to take on are Kierkegaard's Either/Or, Nietzsche's the Gay Science, and eventually, Schopenhauer's the World as Will and Representation. At some point I'll throw in Pascal's Pensees, which I hope I enjoy since Pascal was relegated to a mere single sentence when mentioned in Hegel's History of Philosophy lectures, along with the works of Cicero which he regards quite lowly as popular philosophy.
Unfortunate!
The other thing I've noticed in my studies is that I've read way too much god damn secondary for someone who hasn't read enough primary to understand what the hell's going on. I don't regret any of the secondary I've gone through but you're definitely going to see me taking more notes and working through more primary texts from here on out.
So far, my plans for the coming months are to get through two translations/commentaries of Heraclitus and then return to finishing my notes on Alexander Baumgarten's Metaphysics in preparation for Kant's Lectures on Metaphysics. Unfortunately I've discovered an entire series of translations of philosophy textbooks that Kant lectured from and I'm more than likely to read all five, including the Metaphysics. At some point between all that I still need to fit in the Port Royal Logic, the Wealth of Nations, and my single volume collection of Locke's Essay, Berkeley's Treatise, and Hume's Enquiry. You see, I'm already doing it again! I can't help myself. I've been feeling an itch to read more works of classic Marxist philosophy so I might take a detour into Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism if I end up deciding to shell out for a physical copy, but I haven't even shelled out for a copy of the Science of Logic even though I told myself I'd get one after I finished reading the Phenomenology for the first time.
I have too many things to read and too many philosophical trails to follow, my only hope is that at least my tlamatinime ancestors find my pursuit noble and admirable. I hope soon enough to engage with their ideas as well as soon as I shell out for Portilla's Nahuatl Philosophy.
As for my plans for this website, one of my favorite YouTube series is Brian David Gilbert's Unraveled on Polygon and I'm continuously impressed by how much reading he tackles, so I hope that I can develop a similar work ethic with my reading and have some of my articles read as a slightly unhinged Philosophy Unraveled.
Regarding my philosophical education, it should be known that I am merely an independent learner and I'm not seeking any kind of degree in philosophy, although at some point in the future I might want to begin a correspondence with a bonafide philosophy professor along with academic philosophy students and get some of my work read to see if after enough laborious effort I can hang with the big kids in the proverbial sandbox. I'm rather open about what particular movements of philosophy I consider fertile ground for study and while getting trained in the Analytic or Continental tradition doesn't sound particularly appealing to me, I'm willing to engage with them enough to see if one day my own writings can withstand their barbed attacks. For now, my education is merely for myself and for you, my kind readers.
Thankfully, now that my busy work for the night is over I have a whole night to work through a bit of Heraclitus and at least take it all one step at a time. Signing off for now, if you've bothered to read this then I thank you kindly for your patience and gentle ear.
Sincerely, Erik