Philosophy begins in wonder ... and comedian Robin Williams was a philosopher: whether he played Peter Pan or stood on a bare stage talking about his newborn child, this man expressed a sense of wonder at the closely-seen marvels of new life and a sense of the absurd about grown-ups. Wonder is special domain of children and those souls who-may-grow-old-but-refuse-to-grow-up in our daily-increasing, global- conformity, peer-pressure world of standardized expectations.Robin Williams and Jesus of Nazareth--now there's a pair! But "unless you become like these little children, you shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven" sounds like a blessing or a threat on our style of living. Style or manner of living goes to the heart of being human. Consider: The inanimate world does not possess a style or a set of mannerisms. Rather, our experience of it is as a lump of something that we manipulate in chemistry lab or woodworking class. The evolutionary folks like I. A. Oparin teach about atoms evolving greater stability as they grow to mega-molecule virus size and make evolution understandable on the level of chemistry--- and it still looks like a lump.The plant world does not have a style: it just sits there and takes it: rain, hail, wind, sunshine all appear to be one and the same to it. But even the single- celled creatures are light-years beyond rock crystals in its dynamic activities of nutrition, growth, and reproducing its offspring out of a piece of itself. A biologist's whole life can be devoted to just one aspect of 'cell biology' like microbial genetics or plant cell physiology. At the level of 'higher' life forms, brute animals do not have a style. Lassie, Flipper, Benji and all the other animals in the Screen Actors Guild are a tribute to the human trainers who have taught these appealing actors to mimic human behavior. Darwin notwithstanding, oaks make acorns which make other oaks; dogs breed dogs, not horses; each species of bird builds nests just like all others birds of the same species; novelty, freedom, new arrangements (also called creativity), are just not there. Where Darwin is right and his critics wrong is on the entire notion of species or essencesMan is the miracle. More beastly than any beast: only humans and rats kill their own kind, but rats have no Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot or Ayatollah to exterminate their own by the millions. The only wild animal: no other animal has freedom, is capable of variety, is unpredictable, has made art, literature, music, science, technology, and is capable of being opened to even higher things. ONLY MAN HAS A STYLE AND NEEDS ONE. The rest of the attached is merely a cartoon-sketch of an introduction to the basic style which humans must choose in order to be truly and permanently happy.The structure of the text may be considered secular Thomism: a rational philosophy which appeals to no evidence higher than reason and ordinary experience for its metaphysics, philosophy of nature, philosophy of Man, and its ethics, whether personal, social, or political. It is open to revelation but does not require it, just as eyesight in brute animals does not require the radical upgrading caused by contact with intellect in Man. Finally, "philosophy is not the study of the philosophers but of truth"-- Being able to footnote who said what is only important for tests. Only truth is important for becoming wise From the introduction.
