how is the way to write and where is the what to write about, 2019
undergraduate thesis. A5, hand-bound.
Abstract
As an essay formed of several essays, this essay observes the writing of philosophy in both defiance and celebration of institutionalised academic norms and constraints. It locates philosophy at both the centre and periphery of its canon, and perceives the ‘essay’ as closer to a measure of risk than a delineable form.
Each text this essay engages with pushes an aspect native to writing to the edge of its bounds, be it the poetic, the process, the rules, the word, or grammar itself. The writing opens onto a workshop for thinking, tending to materials sourced in and around texts by Joan Retallack, Martin Heidegger, John Cage, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Gertrude Stein – nominatively writers, poets, philosophers and artists, but also walkers, botanists, encyclopaedists and swimmers.
Submerged within these thinkers’ thoughts, this essay appeals to the indissoluble merger of theory and practice; to the idea that cannot be extracted from its saying; to the trial that continues outside of the text, and to language that acknowledges its system’s inadequacy when facing the inexplicable world.
This essay does not presume an authoritative stance or make conclusive decisions regarding the matters it handles, but understands the handling itself to hold the meaning of its labour.