Understanding my philosophy as state philosophy or theoretical philosophy? By Timo Schmitz, Philosopher Part 27 of the series Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion In this philosophical series, I introduced a state philosophy, that does not have the obligation to be original, nor the obligtion to be timeless. It does not have the obligation to be the truth, or the main core of the world. It is not a political line that one should fight for, especially not with weapons, it is not the philosophy of a revolution whatever name it might bear. Instead, I see my Communist philosophy to be a theoretical philosophy. In this series, I stressed the gaining for individualism, the need that people get aware of their uniqueness again, in a society where common wealth and common sense is taught. This idea is not really an original idea by me, as even Karl Marx had the view that freedom means individual selffulfillment or freedom of oneself, which was later dropped out in the 20 th century, by promoting a collectivist will in the Communist world. Collectivism, in my philosophy only plays a role in economy. This is the mainly collective element that I propose, and again, I stress out that workers shall have more responsibility and more influence in their own productive process, instead of creating after a company s will. Critics who may doubt that letting a factory decide on their own how to produce might be ineffective and cause economic problems might have their point, but again, my view on economy is a utopia, whose full realisation is rather a dream, than something we will implement tommorow. During my series, I showed hindrances of individualism, such as societal morality (in Part 4), problems of political representation (by reviewing a presentation in Part 6), working only for one s own gain and profit, and the discrepancies of politicians and its people (especially in Part 8). As a basis for my philosophy I took a glimpse at the history of class struggle in Part 7. Now the question might be left, is my philosophy a practical one? I would clearly answer no! My philosophy shall inspire the masses, and it shall make people think. It shall give a critical review of what the world is like. It shall show that political representation is not what social studies teaches us, that morality stigmatizes us, that smaller units might be administratively better than big world states, such as the USSR that ruled half of the world, but broke down because it became too big and thus too bureaucratic, too unrulable, in the end. These ideas
Timo Schmitz: Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion (Part 27) -2- shall make people think, how they can do a share in daily life to make the world more tolerant. For this reason, I added so many non-state reason philosophers. I wanted to show that living in a just-world-belief is living in a dream far away from reality, that it doesn t help people but hurts everyone (see Part 15). I wanted to show how we can all handle religious life in a better way and how to avoid fanatism (e.g. see Part 11). But although I sometimes give practical advise like we have to do XXX to achieve our freedom, it is just a theoretical conclusion. I don t want my philosophy to be the ground for revolutions. I don t want it to be the ground to overthrow states. Far too many philosophies were misused in the past for a few people s own cause. I explicitely distance myself from people who use my philosophy to act unlawfully in any point in any state. My ideal of a perfect world, a rather anarchist one, is indeed philosophy of politics, but not of state politics. It is the philosophy to one s own politics even to the most unpolitical individual s politics. Therefore, I hope to inspire people to find themselves, to question their own attitudes, to develop their arts and creative life freely as they desire. It shall show that everyone can by questioning his own life position at the moment, get a new view on his or her life. I hope to encourage people to choose individualism, according to their own positions and cultural views although I reject any idea of culture (but that doesn t mean that my readers shall do it too, however, maybe they get culturally less biased). This is the job of philosophy. If we have to define the subject of philosophy, we can take it as such: La Filosofía es el amor por la sabiduría, tal y como la entendían los antiguos griegos, que se preguntaban acerca de materias tan fundamentales como la existencia, el conocimiento, la verdad, o la moral 1 2. However, philosophy was not a Greek invention, but could be observed everywhere around the world in all cultures. There are several definitions on philosophy and it is always a subject to what the philosopher is questioning and which quality a particuliar answer or enlighenment should have for him to be accepted as truthful or worthy by him 3. The goal of philosophy, as I think, is not fulfilled when we try to be adherents of any philosopher and always take the particuliar philosopher as judgment for truth, which would make thinking on one s own obsolete, but the main goal is to find inspirations that can be applied, and therefore even further I want to put away the idea that philosophy only deals with deep questions which answers we do not know, but instead focus on life questions, which answers we do not know yet but try to find 4. The importance of philosophy and its contribution can be seen even more important when it is put in a historical context. All disciplines, whether it is linguistic analysing or natural science is a result of philosophy. Even Platon talked about arithmetic and geometry.
Timo Schmitz: Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion (Part 27) -3- And to an even further point la Filosofía se puede considerar como la madre del pensamiento científico, mediante el que se llega a conclusiones a través de la creación de hipótesis que respondan a las preguntas 5 6. To put it in a nutshell we can take the Spanish phrase la filosofia es la madre de todas las ciencias, meaning philosophy is the mother of all sciences. And keep in mind that even my philosophy, just as any other, is just a constructed philosophy, and not given by natural law. But who gives natural law? We even have to take a look at this question. Is there something like a law by nature and if there is one whose law is it? Who decided over it? Is it God? I think I pointed out a lot of ideas on this. At first, I think human-beings should be able to shape their destiny concerning their own will and they should be their own master (see Part 12 and 13), something I learnt from Juche Idea. Now is there any space for a God within this construction? Are we still master over ourselves if we include God? Well, we can take Plato and Philo into account. We can learn from Plato that we shall not see the world as a mess of separated entities as such, but everything is connected to each other through the world soul. If there is a kind of higher Being, then the world is shaped after the plan of the Being, the manifestation of reality thus is part of its plan (remember the Good and the Idea of the Good in Part 21). However, as human-beings we can still act with our soul. Our actions are determined by which parts of the soul join together. Do we listen to our heart or do we listen to our appetites? It s not determined by God, it is determined by ourselves. According to Philo, the mental world and the perceivable world are strictly separated, and thus doubted the direct perception of God. Then what is the sense behind the Bible? Philo regarded the stories in the Bible to be allegories, and thus not a literal truth (see Part 22). We do not need to reject religion to find any truth, but we cannot say for sure who created the world and how it will end all, we cannot deny that there is any energy or force but we cannot affirm that this energy or force leads our life, since it is beyond our world. We know medicine today, due to science, so illness is not God s punishment, but can have many factors that we can explain nowadays. We can explain how thunderstorms work and which natural cause we find behind them, hardly anyone would regard it to be God s dissatisfaction today. We know so much today, and we can explain our life without God, even the process of birth, the creation of life, is not a sudden by someone else determined phenomena otherwise, anyone who does not want to pay alimony could claim that it s God s child and not one s own. But when we start to talk about a plan, for instance The nature made cows be able to produce milk to feed their offsprings, we leave science and arrive in ethics. We imply that someone
Timo Schmitz: Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion (Part 27) -4- made a plan. We don t assume that it is any coincidence, but we assume that everything made by nature has a perfect plan and perfect sense, so even if one denies the existence of God, when he starts to talk about the natural order and its perfet sense, he believes in something, no matter what it is. But as much as we search for it, we cannot simply grasp the idea behind it. So Philo was probably right. We can describe the world through language, through the way we regard things, remember Fumiko Kaneko s interpretation on affirmation (see Part 25). We are able to talk about God, we are able to think of him, but we can never claim that something particuliar was God s deed. Nietzsche wrote: Ich fürchte, wir werden Gott nicht los, weil wir noch an die Grammatik glauben... 7 8. And still, Nietzsche talked of science and not-yetscience leaving space that the things we attribute to God now will become parts of science later. I think I made the ambitions of my philosophy clear and gave enough input for my readers to think of what we can do to find ourselves. Therefore, my state theory is not a state theory as such, it is an approach to human-beings, to their desire to always regard themselves globally, not in a sense of political globalisation, but in a sense that everyone wants to be the capitalized I, everyone wants to be someone exceptional. I think that it is no problem, we should be individualistic, but everyone thinks that his or her morality, religion, and values should be measured for others, too. I think, and I always think, honestly I cannot not think, that s my job as philosopher, and some might read my philosophy like a novel, without taking anything, others will be inspired to question their life attitude and to develop, and others will try to interprete and interprete my theory again and again. As long as one has a personal use for it, I think my goal to give a new perspective on the world is reached. However, I don t want to be a dusty author, I want to live in the mind of those, who see my points to make their efforts on their journey through life. That s the New Constructivist Communism it s an analysis of what goes wrong in the world nowadays and gives ideas for change! Therefore it should serve for inspiration rather than a revolution (Inspiration statt Revolution)! Notes: 1. Importancia de la Filosofía, http://www.importancia.org/filosofia.php, retrieved on 30 September 2015 2. passage translated by the author: Philosophy is the love of wisdom, as [the term was] understood by the ancient Greek, who wondered [or reasoned] about such fundamental matters, like existence, knowledge, truth, or morality.
Timo Schmitz: Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion (Part 27) -5-3. see Schmitz, Timo: What is philosophy and why is it so important for us?, selfpublished online article, 23 October 2015, https://schmitztimo.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/what-is-philosophy-and-why-is-itso-important-for-us.pdf 4. ibid. 5. Importancia de la Filosofía 6. passage translated by the author: Philosophy can be considered as the mother of scientific thinking, through which we can reach conclusions by creating hypothesis that answer the questions. 7. Nietzsche, Friedrich: Götzen-Dämmerung, Kapitel 5: Die Vernunft in der Philosophie, http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/-6185/5 (retrieved on 30 June 2016) 8. passage translated by the author: I am afraid, we will never get rid off God as long as we still believe in grammar. Timo Schmitz, 1 July 2016. This article is Part 27 of the series Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion. Reprinting for one s own personal non-commercial use is allowed. http://schmitztimo.wordpress.com