From time to time I am asked, “What is a freelance philosopher?’ ” Well, the “freelance” part is easy. It means I am not employed or retained by any institution or individual to do what I do. And what is it that I do? Not anything much different from what many of you do every day.
I practice philosophy.
A representative from a magazine contacted me recently. Seems they wanted to do an article about me, not as a writer but as a freelance philosopher. They planned to photograph me against a backdrop of some sort of Grecian pillars, or so I gather. This amused me. Did they expect I would show up to the interview in a toga?
Still, I suppose that is what most folks think of. Greece. Plato. Socrates. Men lounging on couches debating the meaning of existence while drinking copious amounts of wine. Not a bad gig, actually. Or they envision the musty halls of academia, and men (again, not women, mind you) with thick spectacles and beards, expounding in lofty language their theories on ethics, metaphysics and sundry other weighty topics far too complex for the ordinary man in the street (let alone woman) to understand.
Codswallop.
Anyone who has sat gazing out the window while their tea goes cold, trying to puzzle out why their fellow humans behave the way they do, has practiced philosophy.
Anyone who has read several different articles about the various political candidates – weighing the difference in opinion and struggling with competing values and possible outcomes, all while trying to decide for whom they should cast their vote – has done just what a philosopher does.
Anyone who has sat with a young child who has asked a particularly tough question about death, or war, or suffering (especially if God enters into it), and spends some time trying their best to help that child understand, in the process trying to figure it out themselves, has done the most important kind of philosophy.
Philosophy is nothing more than the earnest search for wisdom. Those of us who have a passion for it are philosophers.
Children are natural philosophers. They want to know how the world works and why. They want to know where their place is in the whole confusing catastrophe. As they get older, and discover the shocking truth that adults don’t know everything, they struggle to figure out what they can believe in, what is solid and real – truth they can trust. Cogito ergo sum.
Some of us find that truth, that solid thing we can believe in. We settle for a world view that makes sense to us and we cling to it. We are drawn to others who share it, and we reinforce each other’s convictions.
This can be a good thing; it can bring us peace and security, a sense of community and understanding. It can also be dangerous. We become so sure of ourselves and what we believe in that we refuse to entertain any contradictory information. We ignore facts, close our eyes to fresh insights and new truths. At that point we cease being philosophers. At that point we have lost our way to wisdom.
There are, of course, professional philosophers. They are often overlooked and marginalized, viewed as obsolete in this data-obsessed, information-driven world. But they have a great deal to say to us.
Look up Daniel Dennett and his short but startling “Where am I?” Look up Marth Nussbaum, a bold and controversial feminist philosopher. Look up David Chalmers and his book The Conscious Mind, a radical take on the distinction between the physical world and consciousness. Look up Sam Harris, if you haven’t already heard of him thanks to his outspoken views on atheism.
They teach in universities. They publish books. They give TED talks. But not often.
The practice of analysis, synthesis and reflection is not considered practical unless it can be used to turn a profit. Philosophers are looked upon as curiosities, almost atavistic, like monks or poets. They survive like rare specimens of orchid, kept in the captivity of academic institutions.
I think that is a tragedy. Never in the history of humankind have we needed philosophy more.
Never have human beings had so much power, so much influence on the natural world and its creatures, and on each other.
Science and the internet have given us amazing powers. We need to be able to judge how best to use these powers. We need to take a long, reflective look at our lives and our choices. We need to examine our values to see if they really pass muster with what is important in life.
This process cannot be shrugged off onto an institution. We can’t leave it to the government, or a church, or any of an assortment of celebrities and experts. Each of us, as an individual, has to take the time to carefully consider our choices.
Because it is the accumulated actions of millions of individuals that drive humanity. Those people whom we see as powerful, those forces we think of as irresistible, derive their power from us. We make what happens possible.
When we take perverse pride in our ignorance, when we do as we are told without asking why, when we blindly react and follow impulses without questioning them, when we prioritize constant doing and accomplishing at the expense of meditating and pondering, we become the tools of others, or the mere unthinking products of our animal evolution. We allow ourselves to be manipulated by others and by ourselves.
Do you look around and despair at the suffering and idiocy in the world? This is what happens when large collections of individuals abandon their power to think, reflect and act wisely.
I am a freelance philosopher. I am passionate about learning, thinking and reflecting. I grasp at every tool, every scrap of knowledge that science, theology and the long history of philosophers provide me to understand the world and my place in it, and how I can best make use of this precious, brief opportunity that life provides me.
That’s really all there is to it. You can do it, too.
Just think.
(Justine “Mel” Graykin lives and writes in Deerfield and practices freelance philosophy on her website at justinegraykin.com.)