Help, please, froggies!

[french frank]

I was reading something which included an interesting quote which I wanted to follow up. The (as it turned out) English translation (passim) is: "The intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself." It was originally written by Albert Camus, and what he wrote was: "L'intellectuel est quelqu'un dont le cerveau s'absente lui-même."

Any ideas for a better translation? What was he getting at?

[Alain Maréchal]

My first reaction, and not being particularly intellectual, probably my last: I think Camus is trying to say that an intellectual's mind makes (or should make) decisions or analyses whilst avoiding the experiences of the brain that holds it, in a vacuum. How about "An intellectual is one whose mind frees itself from the individual"?

Camus has some of the same properties as Mr W.S. - any quote can mean the opposite of itself, and any quote can be used to reinforce two differing points of view (one can say it is the character's view, not the author's).

ps NOT a froggie, as Hercule Poirot constantly points out.
pps. when at school, loved Camus but hated the works, hated Celine but loved the works.

[french frank]

Thanks. I couldn't come up with much of a translation, but my explanation would have been something to do with the mind detaching itself from all aspects of the individual: experiences/memories, opinions, tastes; and judges (if it's possible) objectively by focusing on the external. I think the usual translation picks up on something different: introversion/introspection.

(No, I know you're not a froggie, but you know the language … somewhat. )

My first reaction, and not being particularly intellectual, probably my last: I think Camus is trying to say that an intellectual's mind makes (or should make) decisions or analyses whilst avoiding the experiences of the brain that holds it, in a vacuum. How about "An intellectual is one whose mind frees itself from the individual"?

Camus has some of the same properties as Mr W.S. - any quote can mean the opposite of itself, and any quote can be used to reinforce two differing points of view (one can say it is the character's view, not the author's).

ps NOT a froggie, as Hercule Poirot constantly points out.
pps. when at school, loved Camus but hated the works, hated Celine but loved the works.

[Alain Maréchal]

(No, I know you're not a froggie, but you know the language … somewhat. )

A regular taunt from Mme. M!

[vinteuil]

What was he getting at?

... well, it's all a bit French, ain't it?

We assume he was not necessarily up in the latest ideas of quantum physics and was not referring to the observer effect - altho' his phrase cd be a useful tee-shirt motto for quantum geeks.

But he wd have known his Nietzsche, and praps wanted to indicate the risks where the cerebral supersesses the experiential.

[ I thought Melvyn well below par in today's Nietzsche programme. ]

The problem of the brain watching in on what the brain does is of course vertiginously interesting.

I see Camus as a novelist rather than a philosopher...

[Alain Maréchal]

I see Camus as a novelist rather than a philosopher...

With French writers, it's often difficult to distinguish.

ps I think there already is a tee-shirt.

[DracoM]

<< Alain Maréchal;598419]With French writers, it's often difficult to distinguish.>>


Beat me to it.
Long tradition in mystic philosophy both East and West that ventures into this territory?



PS: SO agree about Melvyn. Is he losing it|?

[jayne lee wilson]

Vide the Camus quote, here's T.S.Eliot on Henry James -

"He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it..."

Or in context....

"James’s critical genius comes out most tellingly in his mastery over, his baffling escape from, Ideas; a mastery and an escape which are perhaps the last test of a superior intelligence. He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it…. In England, ideas run wild and pasture on the emotions; instead of thinking with our feelings (a very different thing) we corrupt our feelings with ideas; we produce the public, the political, the emotional idea, evading sensation and thought…. Mr. Chesterton’s brain swarms with ideas; I see no evidence that it thinks. James in his novels is like the best French critics in maintaining a point of view, a view-point untouched by the parasite idea. He is the most intelligent man of his generation."

(Little Review, 1918)

[french frank]

That's interesting, though it depends what was meant by 'ideas'. I assume one is allowed to originate and develop 'ideas' of one's own? Presumably Eliot meant James's thought was independent, not prejudiced by acquaintance with anyone else's ideas. Not sure what 'thinking with our feelings' means. If Camus' quote means anything, feelings are irrelevant.

I also think that the novelist-philosopher is a common French combination - one I appreciate. Not philosophy in the formal sense of a 'professional philosopher', but certainly one moulded by the French education system where philosophy is so important.

Vide the Camus quote, here's T.S.Eliot on Henry James -

"He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it..."

Or in context....

"James’s critical genius comes out most tellingly in his mastery over, his baffling escape from, Ideas; a mastery and an escape which are perhaps the last test of a superior intelligence. He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it…. In England, ideas run wild and pasture on the emotions; instead of thinking with our feelings (a very different thing) we corrupt our feelings with ideas; we produce the public, the political, the emotional idea, evading sensation and thought…. Mr. Chesterton’s brain swarms with ideas; I see no evidence that it thinks. James in his novels is like the best French critics in maintaining a point of view, a view-point untouched by the parasite idea. He is the most intelligent man of his generation."

(Little Review, 1918)

[ardcarp]

SO agree about Melvyn. Is he losing it|?

He seems to handle the programme worst when he reckons he knows something about the subject. I often find him best on science subjects when he gives his guests a freer rein. Of all the past editions of IOT in the archive, I think only three are on musical topics. What neglect of a major field of human endeavour.

[jayne lee wilson]

Possible free translation:

"An intellectual is someone who can think beyond the purely subjective".

For Eliot, the "emotional idea" or the "parasite idea" is close to ideology at its most generalised. Which as we see from the current political environment can easily morph into disease, corrupting every immediate perception, sensation or clarity of mind, pushing it out of its potential truthfulness; all coloured by the bias of an idea. Trumpians and Brexiteers, or at least their loudest representatives, are crazy with parasitical ideas. It's all they seem to have.

That is what he perceives James to be free of.
I think Eliot's opposition of "thinking with our feelings" against "corrupting our feelings with ideas" is clear enough; I could offer more but I need a break from the screen now...

[Serial_Apologist]

Feelings will always be informed by ideas, surely - ideas being the menu of ingredients comprising how we communicate beyond body language, important though the latter is (and for long overlooked in our particularly positivistic culture though always operating). Maybe its the cleansing of perceptions that Camus was referring to, procedural clarity as the basis of actions guided by wisdom in the manner of Zen teaching?

[french frank]

Feelings will always be informed by ideas, surely

Whose feelings? Camus is speaking of the mind/thought rather than 'ideas'. As I interpret what he's saying, the intellectual is someone whose mind is not affected by his/her own feelings, though other people's feelings may well be a subject for thought, hence ideas. Once feelings modify thought, the thought becomes subjective - subject to the impressions of the individual.

OED says of objective: "not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts; impartial, detached. Also (formerly) (now rare): dealing with or laying stress upon that which is external to the mind; concerned with outward things or events rather than inward thoughts or feelings."

[french frank]

And, come to think of it, the English translation may be describing the ability of the mind to turn inward on itself, observe and crucially judge. Gnōthi seauton - know thyself.

[ardcarp]

though it depends what was meant by 'ideas'

'Ideas' seems to be an all-encompassing word. It includes 'concepts' whatever they are; ways of solving a problem; and (as I suspect for the philosopher) something new which no-one has ever thought of/published before. Is an idea, or a concept for that matter, restricted to the human mind? Could a dog have an idea that behind every kitchen door lurks a feeding bowl....based on its life experience?