Kierkegaard – odd gloomy Danish fellow. Got himself into a tangle getting married. Worked himself up into thinking that aesthetics and morality are worlds apart. Yet doesn’t good taste conduce to a healthy marriage and thus to a happy life?
Kind people – always recognisable by the fact that they are morally appealing.
Kunderian, Kunderaesque – mystical openness to life that expresses itself in serial adultery.
Laurels – one can’t rest on them if one doesn’t have any.
Lecture – informal presentation. Muddle through. Sometimes accompanied by pictures projected onto a screen.
Leger – French for “light”. What one’s philosophy aspires to be, as well as agreeable and sensible.
Logic – quote Flaubert’s line about the artist needing to know that 2 + 2 = 4 if he is to show that 2 + 2 = 5.
Love – one of the great mysteries. We must complexly recognise its power to move us. (What economists refer to as “growth”.)
Mad – say it’s not so much people but their ideas that are mad, or “as mad as can be”.
Madonna, The – must have been a fine person to have given birth to such a loving son. Would’ve been nice to meet her.
Martini – shaken not stirred. Unlike works of art – be sure one is stirred not shaken here!
Meadow – sometimes covered in spring blossom. Like a carpet that waves to you. (Charming conceit of Willy, our eldest, pronounced on the eve of his 5th birthday.)
Melancholy – professional risk of being an artist, philosopher or religious believer.
Men of genius – often say and do things which make them sound like unhappy dunces trying to re-invent the wheel. The reality is usually more complicated.
Mind-bodice problem – not to be confused with the mind-body problem, which is a more abstract difficulty. The problem of what to do when images of women’s corsetry are constantly passing before one’s mind’s eye.
Mistake – always admit one’s mistakes, it's a sign of character. If necessary admit them whilst at the lectern. Only cry at the lectern if adopting a higher pitched nasal tone will not get one out of the relevant tight spot.
Mistress – “unquenchable friend” etc.
Modernity – pretext for using public spaces as latrines. All students who use the word “modernity” more than twice in an essay should be marked zero (0), F (fail).
Monks – defrocked paedophiles condemned to brew delicious alcoholic beverages.
Moustache – before 1900 a man could have more than one – enchanting!
Nightmare – horrifying series of imaginary events in which someone familiar comes up and says “You smell of earth”.
for more inanities, vide www.glossaire.com.au/nop.html
Odalisque – the best of them gaze at one passively, yet challengingly. Sends shivers down one’s spine. See also: recumbent.
Paradoxes – can function as intellectual laxatives and should never be too paradoxical. Everything can be formulated as one if seen in the right way. C.f.: detail.
Parents – we must acquire the knack of breaking with them physically without renouncing the succour and inspiration they have given us.
Pessimism – we are born in obscenity and destined for death, etc.
Peeing in one’s pants – makes virtually no noise and gives one a warm feeling. Like contemplating a good painting.
Phallus – no need to talk about phallic symbols, speak of “phallic motifs” (See overleaf) [or the illustration to p. 208 of Life, Love, Goethe, depicting a statue of Hermes with an 8-inch phallic motif jutting heavenwards CS]
Philia, joys of – enchanting something that passes between friends. What Odysseus felt for Penelope, what Scylla felt for Charibdis. (See: friendship)
Philosopher – someone who, ideally, keeps his nose so close to the ground that he occasionally falls down holes, at the bottom of which he finds huge pots of money.
Philosophy – a style of life, not a system of thought.
Picasso – unpleasant, lusty chap. Over-admired. Some say he changed art for good. Avoid entering into discussion with them.
“Pits, it’s the” – say it if something’s awful or if you own a mining concern.
Pity – is the queen of the emotions. Though ensure she is a monarch of the constitutional variety.
Plants – see also: animals, rocks. Civilised, civilising beings. One has so many thoughts in their vicinity one begins to sense they have thoughts of their own. Can it be?
Platonist – descends into caves and is told, to his chagrin, that he’s an idiot.
Pleasure – certain things we are attracted to get in the way of us doing other more important and ultimately more rewarding things: one of the crueller ironies of existence.
Plot – mention this a lot along with character and imagery. Plot, character, imagery - the three most important elements of a novel, pace the eternal onanism of the structuralists. (See: structuralists) The faults of all novels are identifiable as faults of either plot, character or imagery. E.g. Daniel Daronda.
Politics – doesn’t exist. Proof of which is that it has no business in philosophy. Say it’s about people, not systems.
Post-coitum – the animal may be sad, but the aesthetician lies awake thinking about many things.
Post-structuralists – structure their obscure “discourse” around the pronouncements of so-called structuralists. It’s oddly inconsistent.
Priest – holy being whose profession is to think in terms of hierarchies. Mind as sharp as a knife. And a good knife, as we all know, can cut through almost everything, as well as spreading butter.
Principles - sacred, even if one has never precisely made a list of one’s own.
Problems of philosophy – generated by taking very simple ideas and pointing out that they can be taken in opposite senses.
Problems of policing – generated when you tell a bad person to go away and he says “No-o.”
Profound – the most dependable way to say something profound is to say something stupid then correct oneself.
Prostitute – (Gk: hetera, pl. heterae) A young man of sensibility should visit the same one many times. Bear in mind that the conversation afterwards can be a significant part of the experience. All prostitutes in literature are called Aspasia.
Proust – Great themes are love and memory. Striking depictions of sodomy. The first person ever to use the first person plural pronoun in the lyrico-didactic sense. “Unforgettable”
Proverbs – a light sprinkling of these does wonders. Always true in a sense.
Psychology – great claims made for this, frequently those who consider themselves the victims of a difficult upbringing. Unless used sparingly can lead to the utmost ruination of one’s sense of the beautiful. Note of tension with one’s wife on this issue – ended with the birth of our eldest.
Realism – what one feels when a student comes to tell one she can’t write her essay because of a drug-habit.
Recumbent – odalisques are always “recumbent”. Men too often go unaware of the pleasures of the recumbent state.
Religion – the spirit of true religion is not in conflict with anything, including, logically speaking, itself.
Or. Religion – its aesthetic interest is not just part of its charm, but part of its significance. Smells and bells.
Rhyme – is only in agreement with reason in the choicest poets.
Romantic School – source of some rare but splendid artistic achievements, though the maturer aesthetician sees how few and far between they are. If one’s wife rolls her eyes at dinner parties it is because she is of the Romantic School.
Russia – has produced few philosophers. Its finest moment for the aesthetician is a movement known as “The Wanderers”, though one doesn’t know what the Russian for it is. All Russian women are mad and are liable to fall in love with one at the drop of a hat. E.g. Anna Karenina.
Russians - best demonstration that human beings have a soul. And of how frightfully difficult they can be as a result.
Scholarship – no book about art which speaks from the heart should contain any references to the work of mere scholars. Indulgence here leads to a situation where one is constantly – as it were professionally – doubting one’s aesthetic impulses!
Science – a little science takes one away from art, a lot brings one back to it.
Scumble – to create a softening effect by blurring everything. Scumble your way through expositions of aesthetic theory.
Sea, the – has been shown empirically to be merely another element, yet it can awaken our deepest yearnings.
Simplicity – widely available in rural areas.
Sincerity – is, agonisingly, not the substance of life. The third cruellest irony of existence.
Smiling – that must mean one’s soul is doing something rather special.
Smoking – in parts of Europe “smoking” is the name of a dinner jacket. How confusing that must be when one is enjoying a cigarette after dinner.
Socialists – despise commerce. All poor because they eat cigarettes by the handful instead of smoking them one at a time.
Stippling – painting in dots but not necessarily joining them up.
Structuralism – rail against it. The pet term of certain fellows who would like to reduce beauty to something they call "structure" and who, one feels, have very little to say.
Students – have awfully half-baked ideas. Take an aesthetic approach, viz. admire the beauty of the female student from a distance. The unfettered curiosity of male students is often a sign of inner ugliness.
Stripling – misguided youth. (See: students, male)
Subject and object, problem of – what it inevitably comes down to is that one has to have some perspective on what is not oneself.
Suffering – the sight of others doing it makes us appreciate the very major goods we have.
Summerhouse – place of delights in a garden.
Swagged – stolen property bound into an ornamental festoon.
Taste – fear of expressing it can envelop us like a fog.
Thanks – Always multiple (“many thanks”), not too effusive though. Always remember to give thanks. How small an amount of them one gets sometimes when one tries to refine people’s sense of what they need.
Theorist – unpleasant fellow, often not very cleanly shaven. Someone one has one’s fundamental disagreements with.
Theory – never admit to having one.
“There’s something going on here!” – rouse your audience from its aesthetic lethargy by saying this all the time as if you’re about to go out of your mind.
Tragedy – all tragedies are, from one point of view or another, moral. Otherwise they’re just accidents.
Twentieth Century - era in which humanity became "enmeshed in a series of ghastlinesses". Source of boundless controversy. Don't mention any of the details, you'll end up crying at the lectern.
University – where one has one’s office. Centre of learning and enterprise.
Universality – we should aspire to this. But in what sense? There’s the rub.
Ur-pflanze – “Er, pflanze”. Goethe’s charming term for the poetic original of every plant.
Ur-question – “Er, question”. The poetic original of every question – i.e. a question asked hesitantly, haltingly.
Vitality – “secure”, “peaceful” and, most certainly, “inner”. Best enjoyed sitting down.
Veil of Maya – female aesthetics students swoon when you mention it because they think you're talking about getting married to them.
“We” – literally “you who have paid”. Oneself and one’s readership. Marks an imaginary community of sentiment and aspiration.
Whitegoods – life is a bit like these - first work out how it works, then you’ll have a better idea of its deeper significance. “What’s this button for?” etc.
Willpower – you lack it if you’re still in bed at 11 with a pillow over your head.
Wisdom – in a world gone mad, consists in sitting on the fence. From which one often has an enchanting view.
Women – the trouble with men is that they have no idea how moving they can be. The Eternal Feminine draws us on, says Goethe. Precisely.
Yearning – a strong desire. Gets the better of one, because it goes unsated. Those in a condition of yearning can be troublesome, yet are they not also a little to be envied?
Yvette – rather grand name for a wife. Alain’s wife. Rhymes with crevette.
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