World Cup Wishes

From the Introduction to ‘Metamorphoses: Great Minds who Changed their Mind’, an unfinished philosophy thesis by Yuval Freed

If we accept the hypothesis that one of the characteristics of the world of concrete experience is its endless changeability (outside my window, the leaves are moving. The sun, which was in the middle of the sky at noon, is now nearing the horizon. A cool wind blows suddenly through the window) and if we accept — and we have no choice but to accept — the fact that our minds never rest for a moment, it too is a constant dance (as I write the Introduction to my thesis, a thought about my favourite football team’s upcoming match flashes through my mind), then one way to understand the nature of existence and the universe would be to try to identify the pattern of the variability, to formulate a kind of ‘movement report’ of life and consciousness. Therefore –

This paper will not deal with the well-known coherent theories of several philosophers, but will focus particularly on their moments of confusion, of intellectual and emotional embarrassment. Not only because there is something human and touching about them, but also to explore the possibility that there — in the faltering, in the regret after the fact, in the lack of knowledge that led to a change — the key to understanding the true nature of thought may lie.

(And again, forgive me, a thought about my favourite team’s game sneaks into my mind, this time as a metaphor: anyone who wants to understand the magic of football will not succeed by simply asking about the team’s line-up. Or the results. Because the true nature is found, not in the results, but in the moments between the goals. In the movement of the ball from foot to foot to head. And especially in those moments when suddenly, for no apparent reason, the game shifts direction.)