Nāgārjuna, Nietzsche, and Rorty’s Strange Looping Trick

Amazing!

Absolute Irony

(This is a modified excerpt from the epilogue of my book, Talking in Circles: Serious Dialogues on the Silliness of Everything, a book which is itself intended to be one big looping trick.)

Philosophers have lots of tools and tricks up their sleeves. They, of course, can use formal argumentation, they can employ all sorts of thought experiments to elicit various intuitions, they can lay out examples, dilemmas, and dialectics, and do a whole host of other things. But I want to talk about one particular trick that only a select few philosophers have employed. This trick involves wrapping everything up in a philosophical system only to have that system knock itself down by its own internal means, and doing all in order to produce some sort of anti-philosophical result. I’ve come to call this the “looping” trick, and it’s one of the most philosophically curious things that I’ve ever stumbled upon.

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Mirror, Mirror: Viola & Feste

Viola & Feste are both characters that serve as mirrors to each of the characters in the show with whom they interact. While Viola shows characters what they want to see, or how they’d like to see themselves, while Feste shows each character how they act by mocking them and showing their foolery.

When Viola and Olivia meet for the first time, Olivia is cold-shouldered, unamenable, and as Cesario puts it: “I see you what you are, you are too proud; But if you were the devil, you are fair.” (Act 1, Scene 5) All of this attitude is caused by the death of Olivia’s brother, which echoes Viola’s loss of her own brother. Upon meeting Olivia in this cold, unloving state, Viola begins to take on her harsh, blunt attitude. Where Orsino is simply in love with a far off maid and pining uselessly, Cesario may speak plainly, honestly, with eyes unblinded by love for Olivia. This blunt, cold, un-loving demeanor that Viola mimics in Olivia actually causes Olivia to fall in love with Cesario. The same occurs in reverse with Cesario and Orsino. Viola has great affections for the Duke, and heart full of pining unrequited love the same as the Duke. Orsino takes great liking to Cesario because of what he believes he sees in Cesario: a mirror. “Cesario, thou knows’t no less but all. I have unclasped to thee the book even of my secret soul.” (Act 1, Scene 4)

Feste, turn for turn, makes a fool out of Maria, Olivia, and Malvolio, using their own words against them to show them their foolery. “Those wits that think they have thee do very oft prove fools; and I that am sure I lack thee, may pass for a wise man.” (Act 1, Scene 5) He even demonstrates to Olivia that she is a fool for mourning her brother, who is in heaven.

In Act 3, Scene 1, The two mirrors meet and have an interesting interaction. Feste is engaging in his usually foolery and play with words, “No such matter, sir. I do live by the church; for I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.” In normal circumstances, Feste most likely expects to be written off as a fool, or ignored. However Viola, as Cesario, mimics the wit of Feste to a tee: “So thou mayst say the king lies by a beggar, if a beggar dwells near him; or the church stand by thy tabor, if they tabor stand by the church” This delights Feste, and the mirrors discuss the tricky situation of words, how they turn false, and Feste says he is “loath to prove reason with them.” Viola and Feste stand toe to toe in a battle of wit and words, and Viola renders the best explanation of Feste, and the wisdom of the fool:

“This fellow is wise enough to play the fool, and to do that well craves a kind of wit. He must observe their mode on whom he jests, The quality of persons, and the time; and like the haggard, check at every feather that comes before his eye. This is a practice as full of labor as a wise man’s art; For folly that he wisely shows is fit, But wise men, folly fall’n, quite taint their wit.” (Act 3, Scene 1)

Those who fashion themselves wise, learned, whatnot, are most often not anything they say to be, and only so because they claim to be wise or learned. True wisdom comes from the characters who have no pretension to knowledge or wit; Viola, while very witty, is most wise because she understands the befuddling and confusing nature of her situation, “to time” she must commit the undoing of this mess of love, she must simply “play along”. Feste much the same takes foolery, folly, nonsense and confusion as his bread and butter, and together, both of these characters are wisest for reflecting the people they encounter.