If you were a book, your opening sentence would be my first impression of you. It is that type-set handshake, that eye contact, the initial body language of our literary relationship, from which I will decide whether we might become friends. I should warn you, I am exacting when it comes to first impressions.
I have on at least two occasions here surveyed first sentences of literature. (First Sentences, and First Sentences II.) I thought it might be of interest to run the same exercise with some classics of philosophy, to see how the thinker begins the engagement. At first glance, it appears that the philosopher is less cordial–less needy?–than the artist-novelist. That is, I guess, to be expected of a writer less interested in drainage and more interested in hydraulics. So, to make it easy, I pull some books off the shelf, from the Philosophy section:
Despite my comment above, Robert Nozick (1938-2002), provides one of the best opening sentences of any genre, From his
The Unreadable Book?
“I too, seek an unreadable book: urgent thoughts to grapple with in agitation and excitement, revelations to be transformed by or to transform, a book incapable of being read straight through, a book, even to bring reading to a stop.”
Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), Philosophy (vol 1.):
“Philosophy means to dare penetrate the inaccessible ground of human self-awareness.”
A favorite thinker, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), from Genealogy of Morals:
“We are unknown to ourselves, we men of knowledge–and with good reason.”
And, for grins, Nietzsche, again, in a sentence which shows why he was, arguably, the most literary writer of the thinkers, from Thus Spake Zarathustra:
“Three metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: how the spirit becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.”
Heidegger begins his magnum opus with a quote from Plato: “For manifestly you have long been aware of what you mean when you use the expression you use the expression “being”. We however, who used to think we understood it, have now become perplexed.” Then the first sentence of Being and Time:
“Do we in our time have an answer to the question of what we really mean by the word ‘being’?”
From Sartre (1905-1980), Being and Nothingness, the opening chapter titled, The Phenomenon, comes this twist:
“Modern thought has realized considerable progress by reducing the existent to the series of appearances which manifest it.”
And here, the doubt-filled precision of Wittgenstein (1889-1951), from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus:
“Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it–or at least similar thoughts.”
Wittgenstein, as an aside, lays claim to the most wonderful last words. From his death-bed: “Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life.” Lovely.
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The Book of Dead Philosophers, Simon Critchley
If you’re in the mood for an eminently readable survey of the history of philosophy, I recommend Simon Critchley‘s The Book of Dead Philosophers (2009). It is entertaining, fun (last days of the big thinkers), and when you’re finished, you will have touched all the bases of philosophy.
