/lit/ - Literature

OP here. I've read all for your posts. Even though i haven't set on an interpretation yet, you've all given me quite a bit to think about. I feel i have a much better appreciation for the poem now thanks to you all. It's threads like these that remind me why i still love this board despite everything else. Thank you.
I'm not going to mass reply to all of you, but know that each and every one of you have a special (you) in my heart.

who here /healthynails/?

>>15252694
I guess i lucked out in having a fascination in the study of society in general. So for me, it's enough to simply read books on sociology, political and social philosophy, anthropology, history, religion, and all the necessary supporting material that inform the aforementioned subjects. Strangely, i don't find much of a desire to actually participate in society, and never really have, but it's study in the abstract is captivating to me. As a bonus, it's a subject matter that i will never run out of source material for. As long as i'm working towards a greater understanding of these subjects and can structure my day around it, i want for nothing. But if i'm not working towards that, i feel incredibly restless and agitated; If you've seen it, it's like episode 16 of ergo proxy.
Aside from that i'm working my way through academia, play a sport, shitpost on /lit/, and watch anime. by all accounts, quite a boring person and a bit of a loser, but that doesn't bother me.
i noted in my last post about forcing yourself to be interested in something, because i think even a small seed of curiosity can grow into a something more substantial if nurtured and attended to. here's a quote from William James i like:
>A practical observation may end this chapter. If belief consists in an emotional reaction of the entire man on an object, how can we believe at will? We cannot control our emotions. Truly enough, a man cannot believe at will abruptly. Nature sometimes, and indeed not very infrequently, produces instantaneous conversions for us. She suddenly puts us in an active connection with objects of which she had till then left us cold. We realize for the first time,”we then say, ‘what that means!” This happens often with moral propositions. We have often heard them; but now they shoot into our lives; they move us; we feel their living force. Such instantaneous beliefs are truly enough not to be achieved by will. But gradually our will can lead us to the same results by a very simple method: we need only in cold blood act as if the thing in question were real, and keep acting as if it were real, and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterize belief. Those to whom “God” and “Duty” are now mere names can make them much more than that, if they make a little sacrifice to them every day. ~Principles of Psychology, p. 661.
Pascal has a similar quote but it would go over the character limit if i posted it. So even if nothing now seems to interest you, you shouldn't think that it will always be so.

>>15095089
The second formulation of the categorical imperative is:
>So act that you use humanity, as much in your own person as in the person of every other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means.
This is often taken to mean simply never using another as a means to an end. And it does mean that, but the reason why it means more than that is profoundly beautiful (at least to me). You'll note the use of 'humanity' and the conditional 'as much in your own person' isn't referring to a single person, a specific 'human', but in a greater concept of humanity. What Kant means here is a rational autonomous agency uniquely capable of making moral valuation.
>All objects of inclinations have only a conditioned worth; for if the inclinations and the needs grounded on them did not exist, then there object would be without worth. [...] rational beings, by contrast, are called persons, because their nature already marks them out as ends in themselves, i.e. as something that may not be used means, hence to that extent limits all arbitrary choice (and is an object of respect). These are not merely subjective ends whose existence as effect of our action has worth for us; but rather objective ends, i.e. things whose existence is in itself an end, and specifically an end such that no other end can be set in place of it.
By treating others as objects of inclinations i.e. as mere wants, we fundamentally degrade them as beings of contingent worth—that is, of no worth in themselves. But in doing so, we undermine our own humanity, which is the necessarily inviolable source of objective value if objective value is to exist at all. That is why no other end can be set in front of humanity, because that end would lose all value if we were to do so. This is what it means for others to be an object of respect, as they bear the very humanity you do and are inviolable ends in themselves.
We have a fundamental dignity as moral agents capable of treating our own reason as law. And it is this special trait of rational agent that Kant believes, if it were embraced by all, would result in the Kingdom of Ends—an ideal where no one would need any incentive or disincentive but their own reason and recognition of the categorical imperatives of morality. Categorical because it applies to all things unconditionally, imperative because it has an overriding and self-evident priority. When Kant proclaimed the motto of the enlightenment to be-
>Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!
- this is what he meant: do not live as an object of inclination to another, as a being of contingent worth, but embrace your reason and moral responsibility and finally live life with the full dignity of a human being!
Perhaps this idea doesn't have the same emotional resonance for others (and i did a poor job of expressing myself), but i think it is an extremely beautiful sentiment. Some sections of Kant can even bring me to tears. Dignity is very important to me.

>>15040076
Ah yes, the reddit player one list. a classic
>>15045875
kek

>>13653670
>>13653672
>>13653681
>>13653746
All credible academics believe Ḍū‘l-Qarnayn is Alexander, but that doesn't really undermine the Qur'an. This is a very modern criticism. No ancient Christian or Jew would have had a problem with this. This is because the Alexander legend in the Qur'an actually has its origins in Talmudic and Christian extra-Biblical legends about Alexander. In these stories, the figure of Alexander is employed typologically as the image of the archetypal pious ruler. Much more important than the historical details is this motif which the Qur'an, in appropriating the Alexander legend, employs for its own purposes. Likewise, the image of the Sun setting in a pool is clearly a reference to the horizon and is also found in earlier legends. To say that the author of the Qur'an believed that the Sun set in a spring in the West and yet rose somewhere else in the East is silly, especially in light of other Qur'anic and extra-Qur'anic (hadith) descriptions of the Sun which clearly consign it to the heavenly sphere. Also, the Qur'an (18:86, 90) does not only describe Alexander as finding the place where the Sun sets but also the place where it rises. This is clearly a hyperbolic allusion to the extent of Alexander's conquests.

>Gas-kun is still here
good luck on your vampire book mate