Philosophy becomes tortured thinking. Thinking that devours itself -- and continues intact and even flourishes, in spite of these repeated acts of self-cannibalism. Or because of them, perhaps? The thinker plays both roles in the passion-play of thought. He is both protagonist and antagonist, both suffering Prometheus and the remorseless eagle who consumes his perpetually regenerated entrails.

. . . . Wittgenstein’s idea that philosophy is something like a disease and the job of the philosopher is to study philosophy as the physician studies malaria, not to pass it on but rather to cure people of it. ~ “Temptation to Exist” ~ E.M. Cioran