Introduction to an Imaginary Book
“What I shall have to say here is neither difficult nor contentious; the only merit I should like to claim for it is that of being true, at least in parts.”
By these words, J.L. Austin opened a book entitled How to do Things with Words. I am reminded of it as I open the present one, but only to increase the scope of the disclaimer: I cannot even say that parts of what I shall have to say are true, only that I have to say it, and have made reasonable efforts to avoid obvious falsities. That it is all conjecture should be appearant enough; that the ideas are not radically new can be inferred from the fact that the questions broached here are central to philosophical thought since the Vedas1. So, rather than an original or academically relevant philosophical proposition, this essay could be construed as the description of a personal intellectual trajectory, were it not for the circumstances of its writing, which are as follows.
For this book, I would like to blame Ajuni Héloïse Bargel Rai, my 6-month-old2 daughter, who in spite of her short time on Earth3 had already managed to effect major changes on its orbit, at least from where I sat. Consequent to the rise of an apparently unquenchable instinct to care for her, a serious lack of sleep had interrupted the more difficult (and contentious) enterprises of my ripening years, and, unable for a time to write poetry or fiction, I had resorted to turning to philosophy (hence already losing in stylistic grace, as this formulation shows) to feed that other starving baby which otherwise, if neglected, wails like the Sirens of Odysseus, and which sits in my skull. The original draft (available for sale, contact my agent) shows the inordinate hours of conception: first and last, against reason when rest was so vital a need, trains of thought loaded with distant memories, receding into foggy vales, reappearing sometimes over there, sometimes down here, and sometimes not.
Only towards the end did I realize that everyone has been talking about this, in one way or another, throughout the history of insomnia, and much before the advent of the functional MRI. After a small bout of discouragement, for I would never be able to address properly each and every one of these esteemed writers, my dismay turned to hope: that because it has been such a popular topic, it is likely an interesting one, and because it has not ceased to be a popular topic, although a lot is being repeated unwittingly, there must remain something to say, and in effect, to justify what is really a personal need to say it, just go ahead and say-ay it4, I am now able to conceive that just adding a small contribution, not as progress but as a reminder that it is still there, to a much broader enterprise which, actually, contains in itself many fields and courses of study, and tends to bypass them all, entirely falls within my purview as a man of letters.
Indeed, if we consider, as he did, Kant’s reversal of the subject-object relation as aptly compared to Copernicus’ substitution of Sun and Earth in their rotation around one another, maybe what I am doing here, insisting that if our knowledge stops at the limits of our rational and non-rational categories, there is still a reality beyond that pulls us in a certain direction, is aptly comparable to maintaining that for me, for all my perceptions and purposes (practical, ethical, and soteriological), the Sun does revolve around the Earth within a universe in the center of which I reside, and its revolutions produce many colors. That there is such a universe, and that it may actually contain the one which science describes, may be more a matter of faith than demonstration. But faith has always tolerated argumentative discourses, especially when they stop; and the kinds of words which I assemble, sometimes intending to “do things” with them, are perhaps best defined as that which remains of language when the urge to argue has subsided, when the orators take a rest, have a drink, and start making out with each other. Carpe Diem, motherfuckers!
I am here and soon, I won’t. So I would like to make some noise. From as high as I can atop the tree where I have been destined to live. In truth, then, quite far from an original or academically relevant philosophical proposition, not even close to the description of a personal intellectual trajectory, the pages that follow would be best defined as the ramblings of a monkey.