Philosophy is

That's a pretty good definition, I'd say. Also a most excellent riposte next time someone thrusts a "Why would you want to read that?" at me: "Because I enjoy opening up my mind to The Transcendent. Don't you?"

Mmm-hmmm.

And in other news...

Just a bit later in AHoP11, there was some discussion of the attaininment of personhood. According to Copleston...who is speaking through his Theistic Existentialism vocoder at this point, 

"...I become effectively a human person only through self-transcendence, only through actual and conscious communion with other human beings and with God." 

Well, at least God made the cut. But this bit immediately brought me up short. In part because it is one of the central idée fixes of a novel I am working on, and partly because I've always had a soft spot in my heart for hermits. I can see why you might argue this in terms of the early childhood development of a person...in which case Tarzan and Mowgli are fucked...but once you've reached a certain age...let's say 15, just for the heck of it...then do you really still need people to be a person? You might be one of the luckiest people in the world, for sure, but does the lack of other human beings actually cause you to cease to be a person? I have to call bullshit (or b*******, as Google would say) on that. I mean, look at Chuck Noland. In fact, he really kicks the point in for a goal in that when he comes back to society he reintegrates pretty quickly, indicating that the lack of people for an extended period of time might have been difficult for him, but it did not abrogate his personhood. 

Of course, part of my disdain for this concept of the necessity for actual and conscious communion with other beings has to do with the fact that as I get older, the diameter of my circle of friends continues to diminish. And I don't want to think that my personhood is being affected. Come to think of it, it's interesting that Copleston refers to the plural, human beingS. Why not "with another human being"? Is one not enough? I don't see why not. And what if that one is a soccer ball? Or a long dead (martyred, of course) saint? Is that valid? 

Ahh, I do love opening my mind up to The Transcendent.