A compilation of general

observations, statements of
principle, dialectical interludes,
polemical remarks, epithets,
homilies and aphorisms.

II

A random collection of
unsubstantiated assertion, blind
prejudice, vacuous sophistry,
metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, dogma,
illogic and nonsense.

III

Published privately
Printed at HOBS Edinburgh
A DUNCAN 2015

IV

Foreword

Philosophy is never complete. Its corpus is

an archive both of what society explicitly
holds to be true, good and right, as well as
what it cannot express, be it too dangerous
or simply taken for granted. It is at any
moment, an articulation of the differences
between what has been and what will become an expression of the forces that power the
trajectories underway.
Philosophers are not repositories of
thoughts; rather they are witnesses to
thinking. Much, but by no means all, of their
labour is solitary: their endeavours to make
sense of their own work by gathering together
the principles that give it sense, bring to
light what society conspires to keep hidden;
whether they like it or not, their efforts to
recover the principles that for them become,
foundational, definitional or axiomatic,
articulate both the thinking to which they
have been subject and something of the
trajectories underway, the passage of history.

I started writing this little book towards

the end of 2012 and completed it to my
satisfaction at the end of August 2013. Since
then, I have made one or two minor revisions.
At the beginning of October 2012 I was
diagnosed with a malignant and aggressive
form of prostate cancer, which I was given to
believe would kill me within three years.
Before I died, I was determined to get out of
my head some of the philosophy I had put into
it during the fifty or so years I had been
scribbling in notebooks, arguing the toss
with anybody with a mind to do so, reading
books, engaging in online debates and
reflecting on what it has meant to be alive
during these interesting times.
I have always felt that the best ways of
expressing philosophy are short: epigrams,
aphorisms, paragraphs, and essays. When
Twitter appeared I took up the challenge,
firstly of producing meaningful and
interesting tweets using less than one
hundred and forty characters, and then of
doing so using exactly one hundred and forty.
It became oddly clear while using Twitter in
this way that it is not only possible but
also quite straightforward - it is simply a
matter of paying close attention to the
versatility of English grammar, punctuation
and poetics. Apparently also I was using
Twitter to express something different from
what mostly appears there; instead of
throwaway remarks and micro-gossip, I was
producing serious philosophical material.

VI

So began the labour of gathering together

those ideas that seemed to have informed my
conduct and judgments, fuelled my opinions
and underpinned my efforts to understand what
it means to be alive. This little book is
what emerged from the process. My final
statement to the world; some of the ideas my
life encountered, pared down to their most
essential form, distilled and combined
together in a compilation of general
observations, statements of principle,
dialectical interludes, polemical remarks,
epithets, homilies and aphorisms.
One hundred and forty statements, each of
which contains one hundred and forty
characters, and which together articulate
something of the thinking to which I have
been witness during this life.
This book can also be regarded as a
contribution to a philosophical system, in
the old fashioned sense, for its paragraphs
are carefully arranged to take the reader
along particular trajectories. Of course,
they can be rearranged to create many other
lines of thinking, and they should not be
read as any strict logical series - they are
better seen as snapshots, signposts,
depictions or illustrations, which, unlike
Wittgensteins ladder, should not, having
been used to attain a position from which the
world can be seen aright, be kicked away, but
rather allowed to float free, to be used as
an aid to clarity, a reminder that things
simply are such as they are.

VII

Their originality is not that each

comprises exactly one hundred and forty
characters, nor that there are one hundred
and forty of them, but that they weave
together three distinct, difficult to
reconcile, philosophical strands. First, a
Nietzschean strand, overturning and exposing
all powers responsible for reproducing higher
values, while seeking out new ones amidst the
detritus of civilisation. Second, a
Spinozistic strand, celebrating the absolute
infinitude of God or Nature, of creation, and
finding itself as a result up against
dualisms of one sort or another, reluctantly
defending itself against accusations of
ungodliness, heresy, and paganism. And third,
a Scottish strand, intolerant of nonsense,
grounded firmly in ordinary experience,
always believing that no matter how desperate
conditions have become, there is always hope,
love and beauty, and that natural reason and
common sense can and must be deployed to
improve the lot of humanity.
These three overlapping regions of
thinking - political, philosophical and
psychological - are united by a polemic
against metaphysical transcendence and a
strict refusal to engage in sectarianism.
This is a contribution to a philosophy that
is no longer footnotes to Plato, but that is
now working through the details of Freud,
Nietzsche and Marx, moving thought away from
the Parmenidian tradition, towards engagement
in real life.

VIII

Here is also a place where the core of

classical ethics and European Enlightenment
converges with the wisdom of the East. A deep
sense of culture that makes good use of
reason, respects life and liberty and cares
for the places it lives, which, at the same
time, strives to overcome what is known in
Buddhist teaching as samsara, the eternal web
of illusion by which our minds are ensnared,
the confusion, uncertainty and lack of
clarity that arise from too much information
and mental agitation.
A great deal of compassion is necessary
when confronting the everyday delusions and
prejudices of society and the depth to which
these are embedded into the foundations of
ordinary experience. Here then is the most
obvious source of philosophical samsara: that
much of what is already thought of as
thinking, of what is recorded in the corpus
of philosophy, is just more samsara; that
clarity and precision of thought lie on the
other side of samsara.
The paths of epiphany do not demand only
intellectual effort. There must also be
proliferating confrontations between living
bodies in their actual material trajectories
and the prejudices of society, the mind must
become aware of its every gesture, and bring
itself into alignment with the infinite
conditions of its existence. In fashionable
parlance, we must, without reserve, develop
practices of mindfulness.

IX

Philosophy is not here a search for

absolute, objective Truth by means of reason
and argumentation; it is actively engaging
with the stuff of creation to experience and
reflect upon what comes out. This is a
celebration of life, a passionate
determination to make good use of the
intellect we have been given, while being
careful to avoid certain ancient illusions
about what it can do, about what it means to
be alive, what is good and what is not good.
With the practice of philosophy we become
intimately aware of the utter mystery of our
precarious existence, finding peace with the
infinitude of creation. We must all take time
and make space to let our consciousness grow,
to love and to learn from that which cannot
be otherwise, from the absolute truth of our
lives at this moment in history, whatever
this may be, however desperate, uncertain,
impermanent, inexorable or challenging.
The duty of a philosopher is to truth, to
produce encouraging, illuminating and
penetrating combinations of ideas, to explore
terrains of thinking and to communicate
general principles. Despite prevailing
narratives of moral superiority and economic
necessity, these are the most complex,
turbulent and violent times humanity has ever
known. Simplistic morality, reductionist
rationality and neo-liberal individualism do
not work. Planetary ecologies and economies
are operated by a cabal of cynical elites
motivated only to perpetuate their privilege.

There is growing aspiration for something

else, new forces are working together to
break the cycle of samsara and resist the
insanity and obscenity of these societies.
Anything can happen. This common experience
is already now global; humanity is
collectively looking into an abyss confronting actual extinction - collectively
conscious of the fundamental contradictions
of its existence. All of which make the
necessity of enlightenment all the more
pertinent and pressing. If these words
contribute to this project, my work has been
worthwhile.
I would like to thank my colleagues,
family and friends for their love and
support; Deirdre Bergson, Sergio Casci, Colin
Duncan, Edie Irwin, Jane Kellock, Kevin
MacNiel, Sal Obrien, Lorna Waite and Mark
Wijering for reading manuscripts and offering
valuable feedback; messengers all over the
world for being awesome all over the world;
and Shona Campbell for coming into my life
again just at the right moment - without her
wisdom, compassion and honesty, this little
book would never have been completed.

Andy Duncan, philosopher cyclist

Edinburgh, March 2015

XI

XII

for Hlne

XIII

XIV

Think things through as and when they

arise, every event in its rarity, making
good use of natural reason, your native
wit and common sense.

Act in keeping with principles that

determine events rather than stand in
their way - inexorability means only
learning to go with the flow.

Be polite and well mannered, but do not

confuse this with formality - for this
presupposes hierarchy and recreates
relations of superiority.

Find a way of learning from experience

that quantitative differences can only
be analytical and real differences must
always be qualitative.

Learn how to know the difference between

what is essential and universal and what
is a product of these particular
conditions and relations.

Be kind and generous, but never become

complacent of real danger and remember
that the rights of property must always
defer to need and use.

Act in good faith, trust your immediate

feelings and do not fear what you do not
know; all that you are will then become
of your own making.

Much as you would like it to be

otherwise, your life is temporary and
you have no power beyond understanding
the energies that surround you.

Cyclical change and catastrophe are

essential properties of the turn of
events - stability and permanence are
either illusions or artefacts.

Values
during
rarely
always

10

manifest themselves in many ways

everyday life, but they are
permanent or universal, and
related to perspective.

That there is no objective value by

which to make absolute judgment is no
reason to devalue, or not take seriously
the values that do exist.

11

Never underestimate the persistence with

which the languages you use and the
realities you experience will become
almost entirely congruent.

12

Do not succumb to dualism in any form,

do not confuse a border with a limit and
do not believe that language can
describe objective reality.

13

Never forget that societies produce

individuals or that their improvement
rests, not on moral injunction, but on
changing social conditions.
Do not behave in such a way that events
can take place only because individuals
make them happen with their power,
desires, will or choices.

14

The only power a being has is its will,

an ability to do what is necessary. This
is what Capitalist desire is
specifically designed to kill.
Depression arises when a defeated will
meets the refusal to embody desire where the only ability is choice and the
only choice repetition.
Addiction is the most perfect expression
of capitalist desire, the choice
continuously to consume, to choose
desire itself - no matter what.

15

The illusion that the world comprises

things is the principal value of
commodity capitalism. It is also just an
effect of there being nouns.
For as long as we believe in the world
of things it will be necessary to
understand these as the outcome of so
many processes of production.

16

The point of almost absolute proximity

is very often congruent with the moment
of absolute difference - the same does
not in any case exist.
Two manufactured components may be said
to be the same, perhaps two commodities
from the same production run, but never
two natural objects.

17

The object is a peculiarly human

artifice - limited things that are not
artefacts, constituents or composites
simply do not exist in nature.
Sometimes things are just plain
complicated and no measure of simplistic
morality or reductive rationality will
make any difference to this.

18

If the nature of things is always a

continuous condition of flux, it makes
no sense to assume for the sake of
argument the opposite of this.
That anything takes place for us at all
depends on physiological processes
discovering their value and language
taking on a life of its own.

19

The illusion of the other place - that

there is something different from here
and now, is an effect perhaps of the
simple act of reflection.
But reflection happens as much here and
now as any other activity; attention
focusing inward, thinking in this place,
concentrated, quietly.

20

Reflection is capable of infinite levels

and forms of abstraction, but this does
not isolate it from events - reflection
is itself an event.

21

The dialectic is almost as susceptible

to the ontological argument as God, as
capable of being brought into existence
by definition. Almost.
If what there is to experience is
hierarchized, what there is will remain
hidden from experience and the dialectic
will come into existence.

22

Those who take refuge in the spiritual

fail to grasp the complexity of the
material blinded by morality, haste
and intellectual cowardice.
The difference between material and
spiritual arises in any case from a
similar failure to grasp the substance
of events as they take place.

23

In the abstract, antithesis, dualism and

hierarchy logically presuppose each
other, but in reality their combination
is entirely contingent.
Capitalism learned very quickly that the
responsibility for reproducing cheap
labour could not be left to nature - so
it invented socialism.

24

Duality lies hidden in abstract space

waiting for the consciousness of
humanity to be fooled into believing
that it is essential to reality.
Axiology is inaugurated by violent
separation of social life from nature
and sustained by powers that explicitly
see this as an improvement.

25

Despite widespread ungodliness,

irreligiosity and atheism, enduring
sectarian conflict, scepticism,
scientism and nihilism, God is not dead.
The idea of enclosure does not make
sense beside the absolutely infinite everything is always already enclosed by
the absolutely infinite.

26

Whether the actual stuff of creation be

matter, energy, consciousness or God
matters less than that it not be
enclosed, limited and divided.

27

The essential error of all scientistic

positions is a conviction in the
absolute priority of quantitative
results over qualitative analysis.
Differences between quantity and quality
are not made easier to grasp when
matters of quality are counted and
degrees of quantity estimated.

28

Scientific knowledge is at best a

snapshot of society's official position
on reality. As history changes, so also
does scientific knowledge.
After science has answered all questions
and explained everything, the wonder and
mystery of existence remain: why is
there anything at all?

29

The urge to interpret events within

established norms and values is
generally more powerful than any will to
know what actually takes place.
Even before any knowledge exists, the
will to know always already appears to
the powers that be as a threat to
established norms and values.
Knowing thus betrays the innocence of
any nave will to know, while
establishing the intellect as a
political power confronting the present.

30

Forces of reaction do not need any

ideology to sustain their illusions
their truths are embedded in the very
architectures of the present.
Revolutionary thinking is much easier at
moments of revolutionary upheaval than
during periods of social stagnation and
political stability.

31

Freedom exists in understanding the

necessity of things, while acting in
accordance with principles that
determine events, and knowing this.
Becoming fully conscious of individual
thinking and personal conduct is the
foundation of respectively mystical and
political enlightenment.

32

Seeing the world aright, sub specie

aeternis, grasping the absolutely
infinite substance of things in the
moments of their actual existence?
Continuously struggling to overturn
dominant powers in a just war against
their decadent excess, cynical
megalomania and crass exploitation?
Living at peace with ones fellows,
sharing resources among all, nurturing
future generations and developing common
standards of excellence?

33

Enlightenment is not a condition either

of mystical tranquillity or political
emancipation; it is the only freedom a
being has in this life.

34

The secret to psychological health,

inner peace and intellectual integrity,
is actively destroying ego and learning
that desire is a prison.

35

The existence of ego, as something more

than an embodied point of apprehension,
depends on this being referred to during
bodily development.
Ego arises easily in languages that
conjugate verbs - where the second
person singular signifies the first
person as able itself to signify.

36

When an ego perceives its special

position or its unique existence as the
source of universal value, it
obliterates the plurality of values.
It makes no effort to get inside what it
sees, to understand from within; instead
it judges only the surface on the basis
of its own values.
Although it cannot view from the outside,
it takes for granted that what it knows
itself to be will be visible to others
on its own surface.

37

The effort of communication lies not

with the producer, but with the
consumer; less making oneself understood,
more understanding the other.
The responsibility of communication is
to create conditions wherein others are
able to express themselves honestly,
truly and in good faith.

38

The other is not another human being,

nor even a something else; it is but an
abstraction projected onto others by
egos in need of identity.

39

The notions of thing, person and word

are motivated by a similar will to
enclose - they do not designate actual
objects, beings or phonemes.
There is not now, there has never been,
nor will there ever be any kind of
relationship between words and things
beyond their immediate use.

40

Languages of thought are very different

from languages of expression - which is
no doubt why philosophy is best
communicated with aphorisms.
Language works by deploying grammars
that link together words not things,
which is why it is important not to
confuse language with reality.

41

The author of philosophy is philosophy.

Those fated to know this - whether they
obey the calling or remain silent - are
called philosophers.
For philosophers to criticise one
another is not quite seemly; it would be
more philosophical for each to point out
the others differences.

42

The art of philosophy lies in finding

the correct combination of words, and
the tone that will most appropriately
convey the point at issue.
To ask philosophy to be concerned with
truth is not to demand that its
statements be true. The truth remains
that which cannot be otherwise.

43

The heresy of reason is to think without

obeying the temptations of personal
profit, the authority of knowledge, or
the prejudices of dogma.
The essential message of wisdom has not
changed much during history, nor has the
extent to which it is misunderstood,
ignored or suppressed.

44

It was once remarked that all philosophy

is but footnotes to Plato; since then
philosophy has become footnotes to
Nietzsche, Marx and Freud.

45

The contribution of human will to the

ordinary turn of events is slight when
compared to that of blind, obedient,
unreflective, human habit.

46

Your life is a consequence of your

choices and not their expression;
although you did not choose this life,
you can still do so if you wish.

47

The events of which you are conscious

are no different from any others - they
gain no special status or power because
you are aware of them.

48

Most of consciousness is mental noise idle epiphenomena, superfluous chitchat,

with no obvious relation to prevailing
material conditions.

49

Only in episodes of concentration and

attention is consciousness brought into
any kind of adequate relation with
actual material conditions.

50

That individual human beings are

conscious of themselves does not entail
that being conscious is a property only
of individual human beings.

51

If human beings learn that consciousness

is something different from bodily
experience, they create the conditions
for their own alienation.

52

Experience begins at the surfaces of

bodies, where ambient energies impinge;
consciousness learns that it cannot
handle all of this at once.

53

Those unable to recall events clearly

never learned how to experience events
clearly; that experience is of events,
not of things or others.

54

Human affairs are historical, that is,

they take place in history - there is no
place where human affairs take place
that is not historical.

55

Historical forces are as natural as all

of the forces involved in the flux of
material events; no events are subject
to supernatural powers.

56

We all must learn that experience is of

events taking place in history, and not
arrangements of things in moral space or
relations of power.

57

The perception a body has of itself does

not distinguish between subject and
object; it is direct. Consciousness does
not have a blind spot.

58

The life demanded of a being prevented

from engaging with anything but the
abstractions of power has no need of
native wit and its own will.

59

A being lives in nature by engaging with

the elements within which it finds
itself and by making use of its native
wit to persevere in life.

60

The only certainty is the power of a

bodys perceptual surfaces to respond to
changes in ambient energy, and to thus
apprehend a real world.

61

People are largely unaware of the forces

that motivate them, the conditions of
their existence and the immediate
activities of their bodies.
They are generally content to move their
bodies by dint of habit, within the
limits set by prevailing architectures
and social topographies.

62

Societies already teach from the

earliest moments of life what is good,
what there is to experience, what it all
means and who is in charge.
Those born now will grow to regard all
this as normal - all lies, prejudices
and delusions will come to be accepted
as true, right and good.

63

If the nature of things is a continuous

condition of flux, all powers that
support unchanging states of affairs
will always eventually fail.

64

Most people do not really want freedom,

because freedom involves responsibility,
and most people are absolutely terrified
of responsibility.

65

Each new generation must realise for

itself that the societies within which
it has been born are assemblages of
illusion, delusion and lies.

66

Each new generation must nurture its own

iconoclasts, visionaries and
revolutionaries - there is no universal
engine of historical movement.

67

Societies are the very embodiment of

reactive forces - the absolute victory
of slave mentality over any and all
noble or enlightened ethics.

68

If it is no sign of health to be well

adjusted to a deeply sick society,
healthy thought must be opposed to the
norms and values of society.

69

In societies consisting of
agglomerations of individual egos,
forces of transference and projection
dominate all efforts to perceive events.
If bringing a child into this world was
a kind of betrayal, bringing one up to
hold a stake in these proceedings must
be a variety of abuse.

70

Most of what humans call emotions is an

effect of their experience as an ego in
society, where their primary motivation
is to seek approval.

71

Fear, rage, grief and joy are all the

emotions a living being needs, the rest
are decadent, derivative, mutated in the
interests of society.

72

Those who have no interest in having the

norms and values of present society
reproduced in their own private lives
should not have children.
When adults forget the joy and innocence
they first experienced when they were
children, they unwittingly teach their
children childishness.

73

If we do not know what a body can do,

how can we even imagine what many bodies
working together in perfect
choreographed synchrony could do?

74

A living body is a complex filter; it

absorbs material, extracts what it needs
in order to persevere in its existence
and excludes the rest.

75

The health of a body depends on the

extent to which the material it absorbs
is able to provide that by which its
existence can be preserved.

76

A bodys intelligence is its power to

nourish itself, to maintain health under
all conditions, and to undergo periodic
processes of healing.
The natural healing power of a body in a
state of health is equivalent to the
conatus, to its apprehension of the
energies that surround it.

77

Disease means severing mind from body

and surrendering individual
responsibility to society, becoming
schizoid and denaturing consciousness.

78

No apparatus of power since Catholicism

has more successfully turned human
beings from their natural cycles and
powers than medical science.
It never strikes anybody as odd that
there are institutions dedicated to
ensuring that what is produced in the
name of food, is indeed food!

79

The integrity and unity of a living

being depends on the continuity of its
material trajectory - its persistence
during the passage of time.

80

The unity of mind and body is as

incoherent as their separation, for this
unity of presupposes a mind and a body
that are already separated.

81

Revolution is only necessary because

there exist forces labouring to maintain
political conditions and to support
existing power structures.

82

Drawing any logical, dialectical or

moral equivalence between oppressor and
oppressed is unhistorical, reactionary
and intellectually nave.

83

Anti-populism must accept that works of

art are sometimes popular not because
the elite has said so, but quite simply
because they are good.

84

Christian culture has burned itself out

leaving only a bland and futile
dialectic between right-wing populism
and left-wing intellectualism.

85

Music is based on absolute mathematical

principles and at once expresses the
abstract and the visceral by sculpting
the very air we breathe.

86

When the history of the cosmos is

written, music will be seen as
humanitys greatest achievement, just
ahead of cycling and common humanity.

87

Perfectionism is the most complete

expression of negativity, the surest way
of obliterating living values, to
compare events against ideals.

88

The God atheists believe not to exist is

but a caricature of that worshiped by
the devout, espoused by religion and
described by philosophy.
If it were not for religion, the idea of
God would be much less confrontational,
and the existence of God may even have
become self-evident.

89

Recognising another animal as a

conscious being is a step on a journey
of learning to see how an animal
recognises you as a conscious being.

90

A friend is
be yourself
there is no
not be your

one in whose company you can

without fear of judgement reason why everybody should
friend.

91

No matter how much pain, suffering and

struggle we encounter in this life, the
fact that we are alive, that there is
life at all, is enough.

92

Love makes no demands, sets no

conditions, excludes nobody, has no
necessary effects and yet it is the most
important force in the universe.
In a society of egos dependent on owning
stuff and blaming others for their
faults, lifes greatest challenge is
letting love be what it is.
In a mechanistic universe, in which the
second law of thermodynamics prevails,
the coming into existence of life
remains a complete mystery.

93

If space is rescued from the Cartesian

fallacy, location and distance no longer
exist in three dimensions, but become
moments of difference.

94

The division of time into past, present

and future is entirely grammatical;
lived experience does not accumulate,
but expands exponentially.

95

It is a small step from taking

responsibility by standing ground to
claiming authenticity by enforcing
authority, from whatever perspective.

96

If you know that what you experience as

external is a reflection of what is
internal, you can then live a miserable
life or a wonderful one.

97

Societies in which individuals are able

to develop without being encumbered by
ego have probably never existed, but
they are not impossible.
There can be no longer any doubt that
the societies human beings have built on
this planet are so fucked-up that they
should be swept aside.

98

The question of what social forms and

political processes would be most
fitting to natural cycles of change has
never really been addressed.

99

It remains necessary to fall between the

cracks, so to speak, to refuse to hold a
stake in these proceedings - to be here
for other reasons.

100