Ramón Xirau Subias - Barcelona 1924 - Mexico City 2017

In one of my favourite CBC Radio programs, Ideas I heard something that astounded me and later made me connect to what I am  writing here today. The program was about St. Augustine. There are many saints in the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. But there are only two who are seen also as philosophers. One is St. Augustine and the other is St. Thomas Aquinas.

St. Augustine stated (atonal music was yet to be invented!) that when you listened to music you heard a note in the past, followed by one in the present and then you would forsee the future note. Thus you could predict the future accurately.

From 1962 to 1963 I studied at the American institution Mexico City College. For two years I took all the courses I could of the man who was to become an intellectual phenomenon in Mexico. His name was Ramón Xirau. He began with the Pre Socratic Philosophers and ended with Sartre. I was particularly interested in his rendering of the philosophy of Plato. But what he told us of Herodotus stayed with me. It was with Herodotus and St. Augustine that I saw a connection today.

Everybody knows about Herodotus stating that the water before it enters a bridge is water you cannot then ever dip you hand into after. The past is the past and it does not connect with the present.

Thinking about what St. Augustine said about music took me to the idea that I can place an object on the water before it gets to the bridge. Then when I see it pass the bridge I can run ahead and then dip my hand into the same waters!

As I have often pointed out that when Time Magazine had its famous April 8, 1966 God is Dead cover they should have followed up with one Philosophy is Dead.

Thank you, Ramón Xirau, for having taught me to think. Curiously last night I dreamt of Xirau being alive. He is not.