What am I?

Metaphysically, I am a mystic.

Ethically, I am, at bottom, and maybe only at bottom, Reform Jewish.

Somehow, not exactly epistemologically, I am a Deweyan pragmatist, an Instrumentalist. I suspect I believe epistemology is one huge category mistake. Maybe my ontology of truth is pragmatist. My politics certainly are pragmatist. If you are asking “and therefore…?”, the pragmatic consequence of my pragmatism — its cash value — is that I analyze the meaning of beliefs using pragmatist method.

Oh! Epistemologically, I am scientific. But this is less a matter of “how do we know” and more an ethic of what must be done in order to expect to have one’s beliefs considered true by others.

Ontologically, I suppose I am a phenomenologist, as long as the fact that I am a mystic realist is kept in mind.

Anthropologically, I am Nietzschean.

*

I do a lot of thinking, and I think hard about all my doing. I’m a reflective practitioner funhouse. Most days, it is wise to think thrice before asking me a simple question.

It is hard to live with me, especially before noon.

Leave a Reply