But this is precisely why philosophy is not just an intellectual exercise, but an existential task that – as Aristotle saw so clearly – requires patient practice.
Kierkegaard had little interest in solving the metaphysical problem of evil: he focused on the human condition and the existential task of Christian faith.
Kaag rather spoils the moment here by reducing this awful existential task to a version of the old metaphysical idea "that the movement of reality is best described in terms of cycles and epicycles".
Hermeneutics now deals with the meaning or lack of meaning of human life: it is turned into an existential task.
The hermeneutic circle is no longer perceived as a helpful philological tool, but entails an existential task with which each of us is confronted.
In "The Origin of the Work of Art" (1936), however, such "existence" no longer simply describes the way we always-already are; it now becomes an existential task to become Dasein by realizing what we already are implicitly.
Can a solitary DIA pull off this existential task?
The counter-intuitive undoing of the negative in taking the pain of the warrior and turning it to something noble is an essential existential task for modern life in the fast lane, I say.
But a) the president he has fallen short on the task of defining for us the existential crisis (a task which is critical for a leader in a crisis like this), and b) "fixing" it is not his job anyway.
