Open space, at the heart of the camps.
What’s it for? As big as St Peters Square … As Times Square …
There must be some reason for this, Sophia says. Spaces like this are left open for a reason.
It’s a … dreaming space, I say. Pure potentiality. Where the campus is allowed to yearn to be something else. And where it’s not yet anything. Where it isn’t some great tower. Where it isn’t some leisure facility – some park.
Not yet philosophers: that’s what Cicero said we were, I say. Philosophical innocents, she called us. We had an innocent’s enthusiasm for philosophy. We mustn’t lose it, she said.
We used to imagine a whole not-yet-philosophy movement, remember? I say. Like, not-yet philosophy becoming the latest thing. Word spreading through the more alert postgraduates … Through the more vibrant postdocs … Through MA students looking for something really transgressive …
Except not-yet philosophy wasn’t anything – that was the point, I say. It was pure potential. The potential to do philosophy – or not. The potential to take a day off, instead. To laze about, instead.
To contemplate – that’s what Cicero called it, I say. To doss about. She thought we were very good at that.
And drinking – she was always impressed with our drinking, Furio says.
We were at our best when we were talking about nothing, she told us, I say. That’s when we were at peak not-yet-philosophical …
More idle talk, Helmut, Furio says. Don’t scowl …
Pointless rumination: that was our great gift, Cicero told us, I say. Chewing the nihilistic cud. Meta-prattle, doubling up the nonsense. Words and words and words, in total pointlessness. Like an endlessly idling engine. Nihilism’s speech, nihilism’s echoing to nothing …
Except we were actually making something out of nothing, I say. That’s what Heidegger never understood. It’s not about morose solitaries, being anxious all alone. It’s about … this. Our whole Waiting for Godot thing. Our aimless passing the time. Our taking the piss. Our endless permutations of disgust … That’s what saves us, even if you don’t think so, Helmut.
Work in Progress 