Philia.

Philadelphia.

The traditional view is that those who are hateful are not saved and go to everlasting hell.

Given his experience with Brenin, he redefines Hell as where you go when you inflict suffering on the one you love in the vain attempt to save their life.

Remember, Rowlands wanted to believe that those who love will never go to Hell. He reached the conclusion that those who genuinely love are the best candidates for Hell.

Philia is "brotherly love," just as Aristotle wrote, but it can be more demanding than Aristotle understood. It involves the willingness to love to the point of inflicting suffering, in the hope the suffering is the route to recovering from illness.

4. Exploration: Are there any parallels between Nietzsche ("Meaning of Life" above) and Rowlands in terms of suffering? How about A. Watts ("What Do We Lose When We Die" above) and his view of death?

"I've Loved You So Long" (6 min.) 1. What parallels are there to Rowlands and the death of Brenin? Juliette was a physician and diagnosed her son's terminal disease. She assisted his escape from pain by administering a lethal dose, then lived with the guilt of having "murdered" her own son. Being an intimate part of the death of someone you love ferociously is excruciating, as both Juliette and Rowlands discovered. Your answer: 2: Why is the relationship between death and love so complex? We value our relationship with the loved one suffering. We share the suffering, but when the suffering overwhelms, we want to assist the escape from suffering. It can result in the ultimate, most costly, expression of philia. Your answer:

Rowlands suffered vicariously through Brenin while Nietzsche suffered more directly. But both recognized that suffering is inevitably, perhaps essentially, a part of seeing the meaning in life.

Watts saw death as an inevitable part of the experience of life and to resist it is to resist the natural order of things. Rowlands, though British, is more typically American in viewing death as an enemy to be avoided.

Watts comments at the outset that "there isn't really anything radically wrong with getting sick or dying." Given the pain that he saw Brenin go through, Rowlands would disagree. Watts welcomes the natural order of things, Rowlands sometimes needs a fifth of whiskey to cope.

View the film clip at right and answer the two questions. Set-up: why Juliette was in prison is revealed slowly: that she was in prison for 15 years, that her crime was murder, that the victim was her 6-year-old son, and last the reason why she killed him.

We need the concepts of desire, goals and projects since all are future-oriented. Since future is something we possess now, that is what we lose at the moment of death.

Brenin lost less since he had very limited desires and goals and presumably no projects. Not "damned" by time's arrow, Brenin was free to live each moment in a circular way. Brenin the Reaper at right looks very cool, maybe even should appear in a werewolf movie, but in life he paid the Grim Reaper little mind.

Epicurus claimed "death is nothing to us." Rowlands argues that the ancient philosopher gets it wrong because it does mean something to us just because each moment is the link betwen past and future, with its desires, goals and projects.

Since the future with our desires, goals and projects are defined in terms we can have now, there is something that is lost at the moment of death by the person who dies. The future can be present in a powerful way for a person that it cannot be for a wolf.

If you die this afternoon, you lose your desired goal of writing the world's best philosophy paper for PHI 110!

Time seems to have three dimensions, of course, past, present and future, and we seem to move through them as an airplane moves through the sky. He thought in terms of the flight of the arrow.

So it should not be suprising that he thinks of the pursuit of basic pleasure to be associated with ages 18-30. That does not mean you should fall in the same trap. He was lucky to get another job after Alabama.

Heidegger illuminates in a new way the taking-as structure that he takes to be the essence of human existence. People areessentially finite. This finitude explains why the phenomenon of taking-as is an essential characteristic of our existence.

We are caught between the contradiction of being-toward-the-future, on one hand, and being-toward-death on the other. The only way to get closer to the future we want is to get closer to the death we dread.

3. Exploration: What is Rowlands doing in this important chapter that illustrates "chasing rabbits" philosophically? Why is such an ability important to your future?

"Why is Philosophy Like Rabbit Hunting?" (10 min.) 1. What do philosophy and rabbit hunting have in common? Wolves chase rabbits for a meal. Philosophers chase ideas to reach clarity about some issue or concept. In each case, it is difficult work, but the outcome is important. Your answer: 2: Why does the rabbit in this chase so often successfully elude the wolves? Rabbits can run up to 60 kilometers per hour and can turn abruptly. The wolves have quite a challenge on their hands. The rabbit is faster so they must use strategy if they are to eat. So it is with philosophy as well. Your answer: 3: What is the relationship between employing the full pack to get the "hare" and the doing of philosophy? The first hunt failed since the hare avoided just a couple of wolves. When the full pack was employed, they were successful. Philosophy done in community is more likely to be successful than that done in isolation. Conversation, debate, dialectic means the rabbit hunt will be more successful. Your answer:

Rowlands is trying to do better than those who went before in making sense of his own experience, what would drive him to drinking large volumes of whiskey and dreaming about recently departed, beloved wolves.

Chasing rabbits metaphorically is what will keep you employed in the future in a world saturated by both turbulence and artificial intelligence. You need to be able to hunt rabbits--so to speak--if you are going to feed yourself.

Please do the video in the sidebar at right and answer those questions.

The wolf lives each moment in the moment, not exercised by plans for tomorrow or regrets about yesterday. The wolf's view is circular rather than linear.

Rowlands observes that we are never finally in the moment because each moment is "endlessly deferred in terms of both the past and the future." Apes plan, deceive, calculate, stranded in the present between the past and the future. Wolves relish the moment, each moment, reminding apes of what it is simply to relish being alive in the moment.

Apes chase the rabbits of forgiveness for the past and the things that might be.

We fret about time's arrows as each moment passes, mindful that our time is limited and that the time of all those we love is limited. We are far more exercised about time and the future than other non-human animals such as wolves.

As he puts it, we carry our deaths within us, mindful of the diminishing days.

Preoccupation with death can eviscerate the moment so we cannot enjoy hunting rabbits, metaphorically speaking.

Nietzsche famously wrote of "the death of God" and strove to dethrone traditional ways of thinking about what it means to be human, both philosophically and religiously. Some interpreters of Nietzsche believe he simply rejected philosophical reasoning, replacing it wth a literary exploration of the human condition that was fundamentally pessimistic and unhelpful.

Other interpreters say he was engaged in a positive program to affirm life, and so he called for a radical, naturalist rethinking of what it means to be human.

On either interpretation, it is widely agreed that he represents a major challenge to conventional, modern thinking, one that was welcomed, at various times, by a wide range of writers, from Nazis to New-Age leftists, each claiming his radical challenge for their own projects.