What Is The Primary Source Of Knowledge In Western Philosophy? Poem by Nathan Coppedge

First, people answer: Plato, because education comes from Plato. But most people don't understand Plato.

Then they say, Practical Experience, because it looks like perhaps the doctors and inventors of the 1800's had a lot going on. But then it is thought, maybe doctors know about medicine but maybe they don't know about the Theory of Everything or how to send a ship to Mars… Well, maybe they do, but people think that doctors might be looney though this probably isn't true. Anyway, they know more about medicine or how to treat people nice than they know about philosophy, at least that's what you think. Maybe most of the time they have more of a clue than you. Maybe sometimes they don't.

Then you think, maybe Stoicism is the answer. Stoics seems to act like they ‘really understand' because they 'know what they're in for' though this is really what people say when they go to jail.

Then you think ‘some woman probably knows the answer'. But women don't talk as much as you think, just the women you know talk a lot. You finally decide that was just some specific person or even a bunch of people who felt like talking. Maybe they did have a lot of knowledge, but it's hard to see how it applies to philosophy.

Then you think, Nietzsche has the answer. Sort of, but years later you think, if he's so great why did he get involved indirectly with such horrors on humanity?

Then you think, maybe Aristotle or Aquinas or St. Augustine of Hippo. It's getting really deep and you think Plato might be on to something.

But at this point you're kind of about drugs, and you kind of think you like your own stuff, except the drugs might technically be better, except you kind of like how it was before when you were just learning and exploring and growing up. You don't like the doctors anymore, you're kind of pissed off and struggling with why people like Schopenhauer and Jean-Paul Sartre.

At this point you like psychology, you like anthropology, you're not sure if you like people. You might like the world, you might like a bright idea. You hate all devils, you love all people who love themselves.

Knowledge is good, knowledge may have arrived at some point. Do you want everything? Do you want nothing? Do you want madness? Do you want peace?

What gives life strategy? Who is the real fornicator? What is the list of things that improves the world? What is the time machine? What is the true literature? Who made emptiness? Who made quiet? Who do you love? What do you most desire?

Everything is wishes, everything transgresses everything. Nothing is motionless, nothing is empty. How good are the birds? How evil are the birds? The city is made of wishes. The tombs are empty.

Who is it that's lying? Who is it that's crying? The pattern is empty, the dimension is everything.