You’re not the most famous among philosophers, are you?
“That’s true.”
Have you acknowledged that or what?
“Everything else probably wouldn’t be very realistic.”
With yourself?
“Yes. Since you ask.”
But still you’re trying to become a public figure?
“Yes. At least I’ve made a popular philosophical theory.”
And the theory consists of two theorems that you argue that any intellectual endeavor in our time must necessarily take into account. The first theorem is that cool things have happened and happen here-and-now and the other is that a lot of things are and feel permanently grotesque, for example space. The one with space I understand, it is strange that it is so big and planets swing around the sun which again swings around galaxies, but the fact that cool things happen and have happened here-and-now is harder for me to understand. Is it related to, do you think, the fact that there is an annoying clothes-peg attached to my ear?
“That could easily be the case. After all, a clothes-peg is a clothes-peg. It pinches. And it’s annoying, as you say. The first theorem is far more difficult to understand than the second. The first theorem is a knosi theorem and the second is a ybscher-knosi theorem. So you’re perfectly right when you claim that both are knosi.”
I haven’t said that.
“But you could have said it if you were a ventriloquist’s dummy.”
There are many of them out there.
“That’s true.”
I understand what you mean. But shouldn’t there be more theorems than the two?
“We don’t actually need more.”
Yes, I want more than them. I feel they relate to two very different parts of reality and that they don’t relate to each other.
“OK then. Grab a few more.”
But I’m still interested in how on earth you can earn you 24 bucks on the first theorem about the cool stuff. Won’t you tell me a little more about what the meaning of the first theorem is and why you think you personally attach so much importance to it?
“Hmm. It is easy to answer regarding the second theorem. It is, to me at least, a relatively simple intellectual movement I must perform to feel the existential and emotional correctness of number two. By the way, I think the theorem is similar to what Martin Heidegger calls thrownness, but that’s besides the point. As for the first theorem, it requires me to think of concrete past or more or less contemporary experiences in order for me to feel that it is true. I guess it’s about getting older and having a past. Something about being middle-aged and looking back. It sounds a bit silly, but the fact is that you get into a kind of mixed, semi-confused state more and more often by ageing.”
