WillOTheWispYes, suspense and not suspension. And also belief, not disbelief.
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I felt this note was necessary so as to substantiate the assertion that I must flatter myself, I made a little earlier, elsewhere. To the end of having recognised all by myself, one of these days, somewhere along the way, that most nonsense that occupied my mind, most of the time, could quite simply be eliminated by employing a singular principle :-
‘What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence‘ – Ludwig Wittgenstein
It just does not exist. And if you insist that it does, it does in a space that is inconceivable. And therefore Absurd for me to let it occupy any space in my head, which is conceptual. Reductio et Absurdum? You bet. Camus would have been proud.
It stems from understanding, to a large extent, as Wittgenstein puts it, ”the clarity we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear.”
And that, for me, is the only sensible and tenable philosophical credo – Suspend your Belief. You do not need to believe that you are seeing clearly for you to see clearly. In fact, when your perspective is no longer coloured by any belief or the necessity of belief, it is only then possible to state that you see clearly. Think about the difference between when you say – ‘I see a dog’ & ‘I believe I see a dog’ or “I see something. I think it is dog”. No?
And that is all there is.
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Do we see the same thing? Verify. If yes, then what and/or where is the difference between what you see and I see. And that is all that is required to get by. Fortunately or unfortunately, that is all that you can assert to ‘know’. Ever.
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Personally, I feel that belief, of any form or kind, is superfluous and unnecessary. And I’d be worried about the kind of suspense it places your sensory/perceptual apparatus in. Because you cannot claim that you know and because you will not assert that you do not because you believe. It is almost as if you conspire against your own clarity of sight. Again, Wittgenstein comes to the rescue – “Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language“.
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