The Crier

Ontology Today

R. R. Slatebreech · Ask A Philosopher · Apr 02, 2007

Dear Mr. Slatebreech,

I was reading the Wikipedia article on qualia the other day, and I noticed that some people still think physicalism is false. What the hell?

Yours, Roth Winkles

P.S. Hilary Putnam is a girl’s name.

RW,

I take it to be quite evident that ontology is in crisis. What’s more, it is a crisis neglected. What is so compelling about a young woman arranging teacups or a child operating a kaleidoscope, you ask? Effortless involvement in the immediacy of being, you impertinent lunkhead! And what ends being? Death! Take notice, valkyries of substance: The scene of each moment is corpulent with the splendor of the ages! If you considered it well enough just now, you probably would have had an epiphany regarding the nature of existence. But hold for a moment — I have a story I wish to tell. Then there will be philosophy.

On the twenty-sixth of March I was leaving my study, seeking my copy of the International Herald Tribune, when I knocked a large pile of knives off the kitchen table. An eight-inch carving blade dove like a hell-bat and stuck itself between my second and third metatarsals. Luckily, I barely bleed anymore, and it left only a small and manageable stain on my Isfahan rug. Nevertheless, it hurt. I stood perched for a moment, slowly pivoting my foot to observe and assess the wound, then took off, hopping and staggering toward the den to remove my accursed assailant. On my third thudding leap, the blade simply fell out of its own accord.

With my immediate task unexpectedly (and pleasantly) completed, I paused to assess the situation — one few imagine themselves ever facing! Confronted with the undignified alternative of seeking help, I removed my bathrobe, hypothesizing that properly assembled it might make an agreeable, if not wholly sturdy, bandage. Pulling the cloth from my shoulders left the pockets inverted, and I was pleased to hear a container fall clicking and rattling to the floor. Twisting open its childproof gates, I discovered a paradise of synthetic opiates that had incubated quite forgotten in that silky womb. A handful of those, and I was quite content to leave my bathrobe-bandage unfinished. I left it in the hallway, modesty being a luxury lost in times of such calamity. Still, Mrs. Slatebreech seems to have a had quite a fright when she arrived home to find me a blathering, bloodied, and naked mess sprawled out in the den.

Two days vanished in that stupor. I awoke to find that a proper medical plaster had been fitted to my foot. Furthermore, it seemed that the neighbourhood children were allowed into my bedroom to decorate it with markers. Hearts and cats, mostly. After failing in a prolonged search for the remaining painkillers, I covered the cast with a long black stocking and went searching to have a shout at Mrs. Slatebreech. And indeed I did.

Finding complete this unfortunate odyssey to retrieve the Herald Tribune, I returned to my study to continue editing a collection of essays on deviant sexuality in Savoyard monasteries. And by Hera’s goose-pimpled teat I was yet again interrupted! A great hooting owl crashed through the den window, flapping away my books and papers into a swirling tempest of knowledge arcane — with glass.

I grasped my fire poker with the well-storied rage of the disrupted scholar and stuck the beast with a harpoon swoop through its left wing. I seized my captive and clutched him close to my bosom — then I shouted and shouted and finally strangled it!

That was quite enough for me. I disposed of the bird, retiring to the observatory so that I might fill my pipe and clear my head. While winding my way up the tower stairs I finally had the flash of insight that had eluded me these last weeks. Then I realized it already belonged to Spinoza. Is that enough of a cliffhanger, Dear Reader? Bah!

(to be continued…)