Reading Derrida today, flying through an address he gave in 1968 about the end of philosophy, I noted a point he made about the agricultural versus nomadic societies and the way that language has changed so much….
And it occurred to me, part of the reason I love philosophy is that it gives me a real sense of adventure, of wandering, of not-settling. How could this be a good thing, you ask? Read Beowulf and tell me how it couldn’t. That may sound typically Anglo of me, but the heart yearns for adventure: martial artists know this; street acrobats know this; professional hikers know this.
Remember the first Diablo game? (Some of you will; that was the last major game I was really into, and I still refer to it sometimes for metaphor.) There seems a certain charm to shopkeeping, like with Perrin, the shopkeeper, who would stay in the same little place, always greeting you, the Hero, the Conqueror of Hell and of Daemonic Lands, with, “Hello my friend! Stay awhile, and listen!” He was charming. But he was also static. He was written that way; and we are not written that way. We are programmed, if you will, with intelligence and the ability to make decisions: why then would I settle for a sole proprietorship?
There is an adventure there, too, of course, the adventure of business, of forging one’s own way of rendering goods and services. But perhaps to the dichotomies of nomad & farmer, abstract & concrete thinker, thinker & feeler, and so forth—we might add, “shopkeeper & warrior.” I never realized I had it in me till I started “doing” philosophy. The craft of language, of ideas, of logic and of theory—how compelling! How exciting! My adventures with a friend of mine in a new, freshly immersive video game that just came out reminded me of these old parallels, especially in light of Derrida’s writing. Isn’t it rather like “leveling up,” like gaining experience and skills, to begin with an overview of everyone from Plato to Aristotle on up through Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and even Lewis and the rest? You start out with questions that take for granted certain presuppositions, only to learn a more nuanced way of wielding the various daggers and bows in your repertoire, and to defend with the shield of your own argumentation and, should it come to that, to the constitution of your own ideology and core beliefs. Are you mortally wounded? Then it means your argumentation hasn’t been strong enough, and your shield was found to be in want. Are you unable to grapple with the Giants across the way with the longsword of your logic? Wait, study, listen, watch, learn: then go and slay them—or find that they’re not quite so huge after all, since you yourself have grown.
This is part of the joy of philosophy, and indeed of theology: swashbuckling and adventuring has never died, only “transcended” into a more abstract way of adventuring. Disagree with me? You, too, will be doing philosophy, and will have joined the conversation—come along, let us banter, now seriously, now jovially; let us argue, and let us teach one another.
