As I observed some while ago, I have taught Kant's Critique of Pure Reason fourteen times over the course of my long career, so one might think that my forthcoming lecture series on that text would be mother's milk to me, to steal a phrase from Eliza Doolittle. And yet, as I approach August 29th, the date of the first lecture, the series has a valedictory feel to me, as though I were saying farewell to a book that has been a part of my life for sixty-three years.
Growing old is strange in unexpected ways, even though, as Gertrude Stein shrewdly observed, we are always the same age inside.
A while back, you remarked that upon rereading your book, you noticed that there were things that you omitted. Such as?
ReplyDeleteThat is actually a very big subject. briefly, I did not talk about the fact that subjective consciousness is also the states of an object in the world, namely me, and that complicates the final version of the argument.
ReplyDeleteAre we always the same age inside?
ReplyDeleteFor many years there was a rebellious, critical 17 year old who was the "real me", but even that 17 year old has aged. I'm not sure what age he is now, but he's way over age 17 now.
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ReplyDeleteAnd that begs the question, what age are you always the same...inside?
ReplyDeleteJerry Fresia,
ReplyDeleteNo doubt your question is directed towards Professor Wolff, but here's my answer.
It was the force of events that broke down the defensive wall between my age inside and my passport age: the death of my son, the almost successful suicide of a woman partner, a very unhappy and frustrating long love affair (where there wasn't much love on her part), the collapse of the political project I believed in and had bet my life on, then therapy.
Now I'm an old man, both inside and out.