sagacious
[ suh-gey-shuhs ]
adjective
1. Having or showing acute mental discernment and keen practical sense; shrewd: Socrates, that sagacious Greek philosopher, believed that the easiest way to learn was by asking questions.
2. Obsolete. having an acute sense of smell.
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“You
know what I should do?” Harry asked.
Ben felt
his eye twitch as he gave the desired response with a heavy sigh.
“I
should write a book.”
“A book
on what?” Ben asked. He feared he
already knew the answer.
“Philosophy,
of course.”
Of
course. That was the answer Ben was
dreading.
“Please
tell me you mean philosophers.”
“Oh,
Ben, Ben, Ben. You know there’s only one philosopher that matters, and that’s
Socrates. And by extension, me.”
Ben
tried not to groan. He barely
succeeded. How could anyone in their
right mind think that he was Socrates reborn?
Not just a past life or something, but the actual person in a different
body. And to make things worse, Harry
was not the smartest person in the world, even if he thought he was.
“Harry,
you don’t know anything about philosophy.
How could you write a book about it?”
“So what
if I haven’t studied it? I don’t need
to. What use is studying when one is a
natural born philosopher?”
“Oh. You want to write your original ideas.” Ben
said heavily.
“Naturally. Whose ideas would I put to page, if not my
own?”
“Someone
else’s? Like, an actual philosopher’s?”
“Bah.
Other so-called philosophers are nothing but hacks and imitators. Only my ideas have merit.”
“You
mean Socrates, right?”
“What’s
the difference?” Ben said with perfect sincerity.
“A few
hundred years for one thing.”
“Years
mean nothing. After all, what is a year,
really?”
Ben
wanted to answer, he really did. But
giving a real, measurable definition for a year would be pointless to someone
who thought himself an intellectual.
“Okay,
let’s hear some of your philosophy. Let’s
hear your ideas on, say, the nature of happiness.”
“Gladly,
my friend, gladly.”
What
followed next could only be described as an insult to Socrates, philosophy, and
intelligence in general. It sounded
good, yes. It sounded deep and
thoughtful and clever. But if one
actually listened, that illusion fell apart quickly. It was nonsensical, contradictory, and had no
merit at all. It actually reminded Ben
of the battle of wits from The Princess Bride, in which the supposedly
brilliant villain gives a series of almost intelligent reasons for his
selection, despite most of them contradicting another, and none leading to the
correct answer.
“And thus,
we see the true nature of happiness.” Harry finally finished. He puffed out his chest with pride.
Again,
Ben wanted to say something. He was no
expert on philosophy. He knew very
little about the subject. What he did
have was actual decent intelligence and basic reasoning skills. He could poke more holes in Harry’s ideas than
swiss cheese. But that would get him nowhere. Harry would just call him an idiot, or some variant
of the word, probably with a few syllables too many.
“Yeah,
sure.” Ben said, making sure he put every ounce of disdain and disagreement
into his words. “That was very
convincing.”
“Exactly!”
Harry exclaimed. “My ideas are always
perfect, and good and true. My ideas
always encompass the totality of whatever idea I think about.”
“Uh
huh. You keep thinking that, Harry. You keep thinking that.”
*********************************
If you don't know much about philosophy, then you can start with this.
