I. Preface, or the courtesy of arrival
You have arrived. Arrival is already a kind of thesis. We will not improve upon it.
你已经到了。到,本身即可作为论点。下文无意使之更好。
What follows is not an argument. It is the shape an argument would take if it declined to begin.
II. Four positions, none of which are held
- Clarity
- To see a thing is to stop asking it to mean more than its outline.
- Depth
- Depth is what remains after we remove the word “depth.”
- Time
- The present is a rumor agreed upon by consecutive silences.
- Form
- A structure is honest when it contains nothing it could not do without.