AN EDUCATION BY QUOTATION

—The Return of the Backward Scholar

The Council is pleased to announce the revival of Mrs. Begonia Contretemps’s Conversations Under the Knife interviews. Her first subject is a correspondent who has been absent from these pages for some time: the Backward Scholar, affectionately known as B.S., whose unconventional approach to education consists largely of quotations—and whose peculiar method of philosophical inquiry proceeds backward.

BEGONIA: Welcome back, Mr. Scholar. I understand you’ve developed an educational method based on quotations. Isn’t that rather a shortcut to becoming educated?

THE BACKWARD SCHOLAR: Perhaps. But how much can one person read? I don’t measure an education by the number of books consumed, but by what happens in the mind of the person encountering them.

BEGONIA: But surely reading quotations isn’t the same as studying a philosopher.

B.S.: Certainly not. Although it does allow me to become acquainted with a great many philosophers. Sometimes a quotation interests me enough to read the book. Other times it gives me something to think about for years.

BEGONIA: And do you find yourself agreeing with these philosophers?

B.S.: Quite often. Although I usually discover the agreement afterward.

BEGONIA: Afterward?

B.S.: I arrive at a thought independently and then investigate whether someone else has thought of it before me. It’s a most gratifying experience to discover that one has been keeping distinguished intellectual company.

BEGONIA: Isn’t that a rather egotistical way of looking at philosophy?

B.S.: Schucks, no! I’m delighted when someone has anticipated me. Philosophy isn’t the exclusive property of philosophers, you know.

BEGONIA: Can you give me an example?

B.S.: Certainly. It occurred to me that since I was born once, I have already demonstrated that coming into existence is possible. Why should I assume it couldn’t happen again?

BEGONIA: But that doesn’t establish that a second existence would be you.

B.S.: Of course not. It’s a question, not a proof. I subsequently discovered that Alan Watts had entertained much the same possibility. Most encouraging.

BEGONIA: And another?

B.S.: We are part of the universe, are we not? And our thoughts arise within it. Therefore, whatever we imagine, the act of imagining it cannot be foreign to the universe. Even if the thing imagined is impossible.

BEGONIA: And someone anticipated you there as well?

B.S.: Spinoza offers some distinguished company, although I wouldn’t presume that our conclusions are identical.

BEGONIA: You seem remarkably pleased to discover that other people got there first.

B.S.: Why shouldn’t I be? I have no wish to claim their achievements. I merely enjoy discovering that we’ve been thinking along similar lines.

BEGONIA: And what if a philosopher contradicts himself?

B.S.: Then I have twice as much to think about.

BEGONIA: What are you working on at present?

B.S.: Chesterton’s turkey.

BEGONIA: I beg your pardon?

B.S.: A quotation from Chesterton’s essay on Christmas that has been occupying my thoughts. Perhaps you should see it for yourself :

BEGONIA: And have you made any progress?

B.S.: None whatsoever. I’m trying not to think about it too deliberately. Original thoughts have a way of bushwhacking me when I least expect them.

BEGONIA: And when do you expect to have an answer to Mr. Chesterton’s turkey?

B.S.: I’m hoping by Thanksgiving.

BEGONIA: And if inspiration fails to arrive?

B.S.: Well, one cannot force these things. There’s always Christmas.

THE THREE ELLIPSES…

Post-it Notes from the Backward Scholar’s Circumstantial Evidence Board