Ποιειν Και Πραττειν - create and do

The precarious relationship between poetry and philosophy

What was so apparent in Ancient Greece has been nearly forgotten in contemporary times, namely the link between poetry and philosophy.

Apparently no one knows anymore how to deal with uncertainty. Instead not just any, but absolute certainty is demanded. Apparently it is so much needed that people flee readily into safe jobs, only to realize too late that they have given up to live a real life. After 35 years they end up realizing not to have fully lived and end up to regret their entire life.

Certainty requires not merely regular payment, a safe job, a stable home, a normal life with nothing unexpected happening, but also the proof with facts, figures and above all success within structures of society which safeguard all of these things. In the end, the stories told are the only ones which can weave around the money pole. Anyone else has nothing to say.

But there is another way to explain the distinct vocabulary of a modern poet compared with the language a philosopher uses, and this in the sense of dialectics still a matter of the images intermingling with other images in a poem while in a philosophical text all doubt is laid to rest. That means the angle fulfils the perception whenever it comes to a standstill not in the traffic but in thought.

Mindless - absent minded another word - can be understood in its nuances as being as well not careful or even reckless. Implied is that the own behaviour has no regard for the consequences the actions have for others. Of course, that does not explain the emphasis upon virtues and etiquettes when praise of character is combined with politeness. Yet even that stance has its weakness for a world filled with competition and no ethics has little regard for the human being, so why should the individual be respected and human life on earth be upheld. The slaughter and destruction going on in Syria since it started in 2011 and has continued in 2012 amounts to thousands of innocent people being killed while many more are driven out of their homes and villages, urban districts and regions. For again a new kind of migrant is being produced by a world looking on.

It is said one turns to philosophy when there is a need to console the soul. To weep in the way Picasso understood the human cry is to fortify the possibility of keeping open the window so that the soul does have a way to look out into the world, and mankind continues to live despite all what is happening. Closed eyes is the counter metapher and can mean the person is already dead or does not want to see. That was a huge problem in Germany 1933-45 and even before that since so many claimed that they had not seen Jews disappear. That prompted a Dutch theologist who had helped Jews to escape during Second World War to begin after 1945 a lecture series with the telling title of 'The Ethics of Seeing'.

Poets observe. They see different things. Their words follow the trail of ants. Philosophers have here a gap to close for their perception becomes invisible once they enter the realm of phenomenology. Kant referred to it as the quest for the 'unity of apperception'. He meant to explore the psychological prerequisite so that the 'I' doing the thinking part could follow the imagination wherever it went.

I c h   d e n k e  ich kann überall hin meine Vorstellung begleiten!

I think that I can accompany my imagination wherever it goes!

That was Kant. It was a rational mood which drove him to assert such a statement. He found out that this was not the case. He could not accompany his imagination wherever it went. Since then philosophy is confronted by structural contradictions which a poet does not seem to see. Instead a poet would resolve that question by turning another page or else leaving the room.

Insofar it is not a matter of acceptance as to what constitutes or not the relationship between poetry and philosophy but rather what are intuitive guesses in poetry about reality named by words which come freely and often unwanted while writing, and philosophical efforts to combine induction with deduction to clarify in the mind what was the question.

Still, there is this important dictum in Kant's statement: 'Ich denke...' - 'I think that I can accompany the imagination everywhere'.

Poets would say that is a belief that you can make it up the mountain. But thinking as a philosophical category is much more a healthier attribute to what we know as a combination of doubt and appraisal since much relies on practical judgement in life: can we make it or not?

That is different to when words whisper and only the paper dropped from the table onto the floor does listen to what is said in a whisper. With such an image poets live all the time. They are usually puzzled that no one or not many understand what they mean. For this reason it is important to remind what Laing, the poet of 'Knots' and resolver of love entanglements in the student movement said, namely that man and woman should talk to each other in poetic language since then each would allow and follow the logic of the other. A poem has in it a sense of such irregular sequences that the one applying a normal standard would not understand it. But a poetic logic would allow this individual to unfold and to express him- or herself in a way which cannot be compared to any other human being and yet is that special kind of craziness Ritsos talks about when living truly in freedom.

A crazy life is not an ideal or the perfect freedom but it is living something which cannot be explained. The freedom comes with living life and therefore by making experiences nothing is 'umsonst' - not for nothing! Such freedom is not felt by those who look back upon their lives and regret what they have not done. It means simply they never dared to step outside the conventional to go after that hunger of freedom and which implies being exposed to a certain amount of uncertainty even though the poets always have a way to know what lies ahead even if they cannot predict the future.

Hatto Fischer

Athens 6.9.2012

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