Sunday, April 24, 2005
I walk outside with my dog at 1 in the morning and i am surprised to find that it has rained.
The sky is a shady pink, and the air is misting. My unwashed hooded sweathshirt is zipped tight, though it is not so cold out as it is wet and dark and alive.
I have just finished reading a novel. It is about many things, but I can't get to them in any other way than i would if i were explicating a poem. Theory and evidence.
I would be hard pressed to say where the beauty in the book lies. Maybe because it is about many things.
Finishing a book in one sitting has made me proud, so before the walk i am energetic, humming as i pull on my jeans and find Logan's leash. I speak to her as i am dressing, and she is my companion; a good listener.
I tell her she is a good dog. I tell her that is a silly thing to tell her, and she stretches with her back arched and her front legs pressed to the carpet.
I tell her that in a Greek philosophical sense, she is still a good dog. To be a good dog, I say, is to excell at what a dog is designed to do. The virtue of a hammer is the quality of the hammer in relationship to its function - a good hammer is good because it hits nails well. This philosophy works logically, and has a solid base in the world of the material object, but with living things the Greeks were aware of the complications. Later thinkers were to ascribe to this idea that virture requires a function - since being virtuous first requires a purpose to measure against - and thus extrapolated that since the previous logic dictated that said purpose/function of an inorganic object (say, a cup) is to perform that function which only it is designed to do (in this case, to hold things), to be a virtuous cup is to perform well, i.e. not spill things everywhere.
Thus, they concluded, the only act which distinguishes a human being from the objects and creatures around it - and thus, the human being's purpose - is the human being's ability to use rational thought. A virtuous human, therefore, is a rational human.
What function does Logan perform, and is she a good dog? Is it here that this logic attempts to mask its own weakness - the necessity to apply a single purpose or function based upon our own assumptions about the design and nature of all things?
Is Logan a bad dog if she does not perform the universally agreed-upon purpose of dogs well?
The ambiguity of purpose is its weakness, and oddly enough, it is the metaphor for the weakness of rational thought.
Perhaps I decide logan's function, and thus her virtue.
No, say the dripping gutters and the warm metal smell of rain on concrete,
as if i already knew - she decides her function.
And if upon dying
I learn that there is some incomprehensible math or logic or reason that governs the world,
it will be such that a dog's virtue,
known or otherwise,
fits just as it should,
indifferent to the spite and shit and freindly cooing of old ladies on the sidewalk,
stretching un-combed legs with saucer eyes
fresh to the waking world from dreams unimaginable,
smelling the familliar and the sublime
in the dark morning grass.
The sky is a shady pink, and the air is misting. My unwashed hooded sweathshirt is zipped tight, though it is not so cold out as it is wet and dark and alive.
I have just finished reading a novel. It is about many things, but I can't get to them in any other way than i would if i were explicating a poem. Theory and evidence.
I would be hard pressed to say where the beauty in the book lies. Maybe because it is about many things.
Finishing a book in one sitting has made me proud, so before the walk i am energetic, humming as i pull on my jeans and find Logan's leash. I speak to her as i am dressing, and she is my companion; a good listener.
I tell her she is a good dog. I tell her that is a silly thing to tell her, and she stretches with her back arched and her front legs pressed to the carpet.
I tell her that in a Greek philosophical sense, she is still a good dog. To be a good dog, I say, is to excell at what a dog is designed to do. The virtue of a hammer is the quality of the hammer in relationship to its function - a good hammer is good because it hits nails well. This philosophy works logically, and has a solid base in the world of the material object, but with living things the Greeks were aware of the complications. Later thinkers were to ascribe to this idea that virture requires a function - since being virtuous first requires a purpose to measure against - and thus extrapolated that since the previous logic dictated that said purpose/function of an inorganic object (say, a cup) is to perform that function which only it is designed to do (in this case, to hold things), to be a virtuous cup is to perform well, i.e. not spill things everywhere.
Thus, they concluded, the only act which distinguishes a human being from the objects and creatures around it - and thus, the human being's purpose - is the human being's ability to use rational thought. A virtuous human, therefore, is a rational human.
What function does Logan perform, and is she a good dog? Is it here that this logic attempts to mask its own weakness - the necessity to apply a single purpose or function based upon our own assumptions about the design and nature of all things?
Is Logan a bad dog if she does not perform the universally agreed-upon purpose of dogs well?
The ambiguity of purpose is its weakness, and oddly enough, it is the metaphor for the weakness of rational thought.
Perhaps I decide logan's function, and thus her virtue.
No, say the dripping gutters and the warm metal smell of rain on concrete,
as if i already knew - she decides her function.
And if upon dying
I learn that there is some incomprehensible math or logic or reason that governs the world,
it will be such that a dog's virtue,
known or otherwise,
fits just as it should,
indifferent to the spite and shit and freindly cooing of old ladies on the sidewalk,
stretching un-combed legs with saucer eyes
fresh to the waking world from dreams unimaginable,
smelling the familliar and the sublime
in the dark morning grass.
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