To philosophize is to cease living

by Oscar Brenifier, February 2009

Contents

• Ingress
• Two philosophies
• The wise has no desires
• Stopping the narration
• The asceticism of the concept
• Working
• Intellect
• Thinking the unthinkable
• More important things to do
• To be no one

Discuss / diskuter

• [in English]
• [på norsk]

Download

---

Ingress

“Those who apply themselves to philosophy in the proper way are doing no more nor less than to prepare themselves for the moment of dying and the state of death.”—Plato

“The Tao Te King is so mysterious that one is willing to die soon after hearing it.”—Confucius

“To change my idea? Biologically, I cannot!”—Carmen

If to philosophize is learning to die, learning how to die, it cannot be done except than by practicing dying. Thus our proposal is that to philosophize is actually dying, in order to acquire a real experience of death. So we will try in this text to show that to philosophize is to cease living, or in other words, how philosophy is opposed to life.

---