Re: Steven Katz’s post 104225 of 7/5/24
As Harry suggests, it’s hard to pick a single favorite when every essay is remarkably stellar in its own way. But to me personally, because of where I was intellectually and what I was thinking about when it first came out, her West Point Address, “Philosophy: Who Needs It” (which is also the first chapter of the book by the same name) has always been a special favorite of mine.
The short “stranded astronaut” story she leads with is a beautifully succinct encapsulation of why one needs philosophy: to live — i.e., to figure out where one is, what’s the nature of one’s surroundings, how to know it, what to do about it. And, as she goes on to elaborate, she cautioned about avoiding the common trap of not defining one’s philosophy properly, in an elegantly worded summation that could only have been written by Ayn Rand:
Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation––or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.
I’ve often thought: My goodness; what magnificent wings her mind grew!
(I realize that some HBLers would dispute the accuracy of saying that one’s subconscious can integrate ideas in the way the statement implies. But to me, the overall observation is wonderful, and the passage is written so beautifully that the subtle inaccuracy can be overlooked.)
/sb
