Geography of Philosophy
  • Daniel Banyai
    6
    Hello.

    My name is Daniel Banyai. I'm a 21 yo philosopher from Romania. IDK how many true philosophers there are today. Maybe I'm the only one.

    Anyway, I haven't been in contact with my philosophical side since I fled the place which allowed it to prosper (a small town in the south of Germany) and moved back to Romania. I'm still doing everything right. I eat properly. I make sure to move a lot. But I'm simply not the philosopher I was 2 years ago. And that's because of air.

    I currently live in Bucharest, which is probably one of the worst places a man like me could live. I had to move to Bucharest because I fucked up in life and lost my home. I'm not upset that I fucked up, and I don't have any regrets, but it definitely affects me now. And I don't have the money to afford a place back in Germany. I could live on the street, as a last resort.

    But I could afford a place elsewhere. The thing is, I don't know where. Should I move to Athens, the place where philosophers have historically lived? It's a pretty affordable city. I could find a place for 200 Eur and work on 1k -1.5k euro / month and then once I have maybe 3k I could move back to Germany and live off my savings until I found a job. That's literally all I want in life. I want to be able to live in that place for the entirety of my life and philosophize. I get an immense sense of fulfillment that I could otherwise not receive from anything else in life.

    But IDK if Athens is still inhabitable by philosophers. Is it? Do you know? Philosophers require dry and nutritious air, from which one can fuel his metabolism. Or are there other affordable places that are conducive of philosophy, of which I don't know? IDK what to do.
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  • Daniel Banyai
    6
    Upon my elongated research, I think the places where philosophers can live are mostly Europe. There are good cities in Switzerland, but that's hella expensive. There are some places in Germany, some in Italy, some in Greece and very few in other countries in Europe. Then there are some in Russia and, suprisingly enough, South Korea. All places in America, both Latin and North, are uninhabitable. The air there makes lazy. All places in Eastern Europe are also uninhabitable. All places in Africa are uninhabitable. And most definitely all places in Oceania are uninhabitable.

    But here's the deal: you can't really know if an air is good until you're there and can feel its influence upon your own self. So being someone like me, who has no money and not many ways of making money, is tough because you basically have to just coinflip it.

    I mean sure you can google barometric pressure, the landscapes, the pictures, the humidity of a place, but that's of very little help. IDK why, I'm not at my fullest philosophical capacity. Maybe I will know once I'm in a good place for philosophy.
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  • alan1000
    200
    I think you should just go with the flow for the next year or two at least, Daniel. Let's face it, your intellectual life is currently a dog's vomit and your philosophical consciousness is a toilet. One thing that even the cat at home knows is that you won't find any magic answers in Athens or anywhere else, because enlightenment comes from within, if indeed it ever comes.
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  • T Clark
    14k
    I think you should just go with the flow for the next year or two at least, Daniel. Let's face it, your intellectual life is currently a dog's vomit and your philosophical consciousness is a toilet. One thing that even the cat at home knows is that you won't find any magic answers in Athens or anywhere else, because enlightenment comes from within, if indeed it ever comes. — alan1000

    Graceless.

    Whether or not there are "magic answers," I've known quite a few people who were led through the dark with the help of Athens, enlightenment Europe, and ancient China.
    T Clark Options
  • Joshs
    5.8k
    ↪Daniel Banyai
    All places in America, both Latin and North, are uninhabitable. The air there makes lazy. — Daniel Banyai

    For two hundred years , from Leibnitz to Heidegger, Germany absolutely dominated philosophy. Then it destroyed its intellectual environment thanks to two world wars and the extermination of many of its best intellectuals. Most of the rest fled to the U.S. and elsewhere. For a brief period , from the 1940’s through the 1980’s ,France took up the slack as the default philosophical center of Europe( Sartre, Levinas, Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, Deleuze, Bausrillard) but since then I would argue that Europe has not produced any philosophical ideas more notable than what is coming from Britain or the U.S. In my opinion. the U.S. has taken the baton from Europe as the new philosophical center of the world. I think it was helped in this regard by the wave of intellectual refugees from the Nazis who settled in places like NewYork and made the new school for social research a haven for cutting edge thought. And later on French thinkers like Derrida and Foucault spent much time in the U.S. and influenced American writers like Judith Butler.
    Throughout the centuries , remarkable centers of philosophical talent have emerged , such as Athens , Alexandria, Florence, Amsterdam, Paris , Vienna and New York. But one should probably start by listing those living writers that mean the most to one and see if they happen to be clustered in a particular region. Or pick a single figure and see if you can find a way to study with them.
    Joshs Options
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