A Discourse Upon The Ontology of Being

TODAY I dropped in on a lecture from a course entitled "Introduction to the Philosophy of German Idealism." We had not yet embarked on the full spectrum of Hegel, etc., but were sitting comfortably in Aristotle and then transitioning to Kant.

Presumably the subject of the lecture was ontology — the problem with philosophy as with many other disciplines, I find, is that one must be extremely careful how to use one's terms once one is no longer permitted the freedom of layman's terminology, just like I felt gingerly about the French language after reading a compendium of naughty idiom.

At any rate, the lecture was about how one describes what exists, i.e. is. There seems to be a fine distinction in that Aristotle does not bother to mention that we may not absolutely know or describe what truly exists, whereas Kant stresses that we know or describe only what we perceive.

There was a certain Socratean element, or rather an element of what I seem to remember my Uncle Pu introduced to my siblings and me when we were little: we would make a statement and he would ask us, "Why?" and then when we had answered ask us "Why?" again, etc. So in the lecture, rhetorically put questions like "What is whatness?" followed each other in quick succession, and I would be vaguely thinking, "This question is either very dumb or very clever, and I'm not always quite sure which."

Basically, however, we were looking at neat little lists of criteria by which one may define a thing, (relatio, modality, quantity, quality; universally or particularly; negatively or positively; etc.), which Aristotle and Kant drew up similarly yet differently; the professor was explaining to us what Aristotle and Kant meant by those terms.

My brain went on holiday part of the way through, and in its leisurely way ambled back again to the substance of the lecture, so it was all quite relaxed; and I'm not attending the lecture for credit or all that regularly. I have the creeping feeling that I will, however, need the knowledge from it.

Then I took the U-Bahn back to the bookshop and spent a quiet couple of hours wasting time on the internet. My first class was Foundations of Ancient History again, and this time the concentration in the spotlight was the Studies of the Ancient Orient, which in a weird roundabout way (which I don't feel like explaining) is like examining the wreck of the Tower of Babylon (Babel transposed to Mesopotamia) in linguistic terms.

Besides I've had two emails, confirming that my archaeology work course is from 10:15 a.m. - 3 p.m. on Fridays, and that I can join the History and Culture of the Near East seminar of my choice, namely on Thursday. So Monday from 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. is free for the bookshop, lectures I might want to attend unofficially, or any desired variety of loitering. And I needn't take off for the work course at quarter after seven as previously feared! (c: