A Philosopher and a Cathedral

One of my favorite professors was an unassuming middle aged man, but the man was a real philosopher. Most days during this particular spring quarter,  he wore a faded Under Armor pullover hoodie, awful sandal-shoes, and cargo shorts. And regrettably, I enrolled for only one of his lecture series on empiricism, namely the works of Locke, Hume, and Berkeley. I thought to myself, "Are one of those men right? Will I call myself an empiricist after this course?"

As the philosopher lectured one day, I felt the sense that I had stepped into a beautiful gothic cathedral. And with every argument he made, a new hall or wing would come into view. His lecturing would reveal the general shape and contours of the architecture. And with each question that was asked and then answered, a small hidden corner would be illuminated where there would be intricate carvings, latticework, or paintings. It was a beautiful place to visit—a place to worship (a) greater being.

I studied the intricacies and layout of the cathedral. I studied the engravings. I thought that the stained glass windows would reveal something deeper, or higher, something more profound, something that would guide me through life—something that could orient me in a chaotic world. But the cathedral was as beautiful as it was useless. It was a relic, an artifact of a late culture.

Now, in reflection, I see my mistake. I looked at the works that the philosopher had elucidated; I focused too closely at the works themselves. I looked where the philosopher had pointed: to the intricate words of dead philosophers. Rather, I should have paid more attention to the philosopher right in front of me. I should have studied his method of illumination, his method of reasoning—the process of how he brought light to a cathedral.

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Edit 11/22/2020: see the following link https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201902/finding-key-unlocks-my-cathedral 

"Let me stop here, as the point I wanted to make has been made. My UTUA Framework is a massively complex “cathedral” of interlocking ideas. My experience and argument is that it is a beautiful cathedral, and that it does indeed provide the field what Dr. Waldemar Schmidt called a “Consilient Comprehensive Existential Metatheory” that solves many of the fields long standing conceptual problems. However, even that description reveals the difficulty, which the fact that the solution I am offering is complicated, multifaceted, and not easily transmitted or digested."