The origin of Western philosophy

Let us go back to the beginning of philosophy.

To Thales? No!

Thales who said that all was water left little behind, and besides a claim as fatuous as his is nowhere to begin. There's nothing to grasp on.

Let us return to Anaximander who in 7th-century BCE sought the source of all things in the Infinite.

Was this a mistake, to seek the nature of all entities in an Infinite Source? Is it premature to ask the question? Or does the question now come too late? Would any answer to the question posed now be irrelevant?

And what is this Infinite Source? Is it a being itself, the Being par excellence? We with Anaximander cannot say. What it is, we know not what.

Anaximander conceived the Infinite Source as endless, limitless, primordial, free of age and decay and yet infinitely and perpetually yielding the Elements, from which everything in the known world is derived.

The Elements make matter through interaction, combinations, reconstitution. When the Elements dissolve, they return to the Source.

Whence things have their origin,

Thence also their destruction,

According to necessity:

What they give to each other in desert and recompense

In indifference they return

In conformity with the ordinance of time.

And that is all we know of Anaximander's metaphysics.

ADDENDUM. In addition to his metaphysics, we know of Anaximander's philosophical method. He proposed a method to improve the collective body of knowledge, which amounts to the following: acknowledge past teachings, yes, but question them rigorously and improve upon them. No wonder Hellenes gave birth to Athens. Such thinking not only smacks of an incipient scientific method but the very nature of democracy.

Excursus on psychotherapy (take two)

Lacan again.

It has been alleged that in an effort to make more money, Lacan qua charlatan analyst introduced the short session, which is, as it sounds, the conducting of short sessions with patients. Instead of the usual hour—really 45 or 50 minutes—Lacan might do 15 minutes, say.

Some would judge this a serious breach of therapeutic ethics. After all, if the patient pays for the hour, isn't he entitled to the hour? Not always, replies Lacan, and here's the rationale: there may be some sessions in which the analyst or patient has landed on a crucial insight, therefore any further communication may only muddy waters, occluding the insight. In such cases, it's perfectly fine to have a short session, argues Lacan.

As legend has it, Lacan and his patients arrived at early crucial insights often—too often—so often that it would appear to any outsider that the man was making a money-grab.

Lacan's personal ethics aside, there is still the question of whether in some instances it might be better to shorten a session if in fact the patient and the therapist have arrived at the point where they needed to be. It would seem if this is to be done, it ought to be done rarely, but there does appear to be sound justification for it, sometimes.