PHILOSOPHY

 

The term when I took that course, I was thrilled. I had been published in a weekly paper in California. My short story “Night without Ending” got attention from a Los Angeles critic and was deemed “promising.”

So, I entered the course with a light heart and substantial self-esteem.

The professor of the Institution was holding a welcoming seminar all by himself, where he perhaps wanted to see if there were any talented minds among the newcomers.

There were approximately fifteen new students.

Like most professors in the Institution, this professor did not hold Theoretical and Practical Philosophy separated very much, as they initially ought to be. Still, he immediately started to demonstrate a problem that a theoretical philosopher might very much appreciate but not a practical one.

Five of his colleagues lurked in the doorway to the hall, all with broad smiles on their faces.

It turned out that in this Institution, people were always SMILING at all events, during all circumstances.

 

The professor had a large, bald head with many small brown spots on the surface.

Professor Baldness smiled, ogling the small congregation of newcomers.

- Imagine you are looking at a color spot. Like this one. He pointed to a small red spot on the wall.

- It is a red one for me. What I see creates a sensation in my brain, and I always refer to that sensation as “red.”

But I cannot be sure that my sensation is just like yours. When you ( he pointed at a boy named Lester ) see that spot, you also say it is a red spot, but the image in your head is not necessarily the same as mine. The color of the spot in your head might be one that I would call “blue” if I saw it.

We are never sure of what other people are seeing. What I am referring to as “red” you are also giving the name “red” while in your head, you are experiencing what I would call “blue.”

And I will never know. And you will never know. This is the problem of the private mind and subjectivity.

This problem, which borders on the field of paradoxes, is central in what generally is referred to as Pheno-menology, which is the philosophy of phenomena, which means the philosophy of those things that are “visible” or that are in some way objects for our senses.

Phenomenology deals with the problems of perception. Perception is paramount in all philosophy, apart from logic, philosophy of Mathematics, theory of argument-tation, and the like.

Our world is a world of experience.

 

Hence, it is essential to know about this branch of philosophy that deals with the fact that every mind is solitary and that we cannot determine the nature of other people´s perceptions. I don´t know what you see, and you don´t know what I see.

                 Perhaps this wasn´t at all what he said. But this was what I thought Professor Baldness said. Probably, he took it a couple of steps further and made it more interesting. I don´t remember.

I was, however at the time enthusiastic and eager to find a way to solve this puzzle.

 

The main problem of Phenomenology is the one that deals with the nature or essence of something. What IS a thing? What IS a specific phenomenon? What is a pencil? What IS a house? What is a flower? To determine these questions, which are labeled “phenomenological questions” or ”phenomenological research” by its proponents, some phenomenologists conduct this research by putting themselves in a particular state of high concentration, called époché.

 

               Later, when I was slightly more experienced, I never thought phenomenology was anything for me. And I always get highly suspicious of anyone I meet if they claim to be conducting “Phenomenological Research.” This term is some sort of a cover for people who want to speculate freely on pretty much everything without being subjected to any genuine criticism.

 

Regarding the  “jolly” mood of the teachers at the Philosophical Institution and the habit of everlasting smiles, I got very nervous about it. I already in other institutions in the Cultural Department, in connection to courses in French Literature and History of Arts, met a strong attitude of Irony, so that I almost thought I was facing a WALL OF IRONY, an ironic crowd, and if such a crowd is a troublesome and tu tiresome obstacle, irony at least REFERS to something. The irony of the professors in the Literature Department was put in contraposition to actual trends, ways of looking at life, values, and so on.

The enormous smiles of the philosophy teachers, and later on the faces of most of the pupils, on the other hand, were not REFERRING to ANYTHING AT ALL. Smiles in the Philosophy Department were infinite and empty since they seemed to refer to EVERYTHING.

Smiles are often hostile and similar to how some animals, carnivores, and others show their teeth.

That was not precisely what the smiles were at the Philosophy Department. The smiles of the philosophy teachers were still worse. Their smiles indicated that whatever you say in these rooms will be subjected to infinite criticism and will most certainly have no value. Everything philosophical has been thought and said before, and we merely repeat it at this place. Our smile is to ensure that we can cope with this. Our institution is an institution of utter meaninglessness and pure nonsense.