reading philosophers is not quite the same thing as reading philosophy is it ... I mean you have to read the philosophers to read philosophy because it's a necessary means to an end ... but that's all ... philosophy itself is the end ... you can be an eclectic and collect a little from parmenides from plato from aristotle from plotinus from augustine from thomas from berkeley hegel schopenhauer kierkegaard blanshard and hartshorne even popper too ... you can put it all together ... season it with a little insight you've had yourself ... put it in the oven for a decade or two ... and then use it to defend the way you've spent your life ... or upon your coming up to an end of that life grace may be given to you ... to pull a book down from off the shelf ... a book by a philosopher on death ... a little book ... a hundred and twenty pages ... but he tells you to read it more than once ... and here too as almost always in this book he's right ... this philosopher who says death is our food and we eat it up as we do matter mystery and time for they nourish us
cf peter kreeft, love is stronger than death
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