Reflection 6
BEYOND THEORY
The quest for wisdom implies, as suggested by Plato’s cave allegory, going beyond the conceptions we possess, beyond ready-made definitions and formulas. Naturally, we cannot say much about what it means to get out of our current cave any more than a tadpole can say what it means to leave its puddle and live like a frog on land.
It follows that when talking about philo-sophia I should qualify myself: Nothing I say here is meant to be a final answer, an ultimate statement or theory. What I offer here is always a sentence in the ongoing dialogue between fellow seekers, a musical phrase in an ever-developing symphony.
However, this qualification suggests an important insight about the meaning of philo-sophia as a search for wisdom. It implies that contrary to what is sometimes thought, being wise is not the same as possessing correct beliefs about the world. To have a belief is to have reached a definitive theory, a bottom line, a solution: this is the way things are, that’s the truth. As such it is contrary to wisdom, which can never be enclosed in a final formula. Indeed, we can easily imagine a person who believes in any number of theories, as deep and true as they might be, and yet is not wise, but is rather an ideologue, a closed-minded collector of opinions. Philo-sophia is not concerned with accumulating fixed theories and opinions. Inasmuch as it seeks wisdom, it requires a fundamental openness, never being satisfied with any given theory but always going beyond the realm of theories, which is to say—an openness to the infinite horizons of human reality.
This may sound surprising, given a commonly accepted view, namely, that the main road to understanding is theorizing. Presumably, if we want to understand what justice is, or what love is, or indeed what wisdom is, we should seek to describe the conditions or principles that capture what it is. We should, in other words, formulate a theory that specifies the sort of phenomenon that is justice, or love, or wisdom. Thus, as long as we do not possess a theory, we do not really understand. And if wisdom involves an understanding of human reality, then how can it possibly fail to consist of belief in theories?
This question demonstrates, it seems to me, how far the academic state of mind is from that of the philosopher. Because it assumes that to understand means to capture the object in question in descriptions, to encapsulate it within the confines of a theory, and thus to acquire an accurate representation of it. The academic philosopher is therefore expected to take a step back from her everyday life, to put aside her personal feelings and problems and hopes and fears, to focus her thoughts on the object in a neutral and objective way, and to attempt to fit it into a theoretical framework.
This, it appears to me, is fundamentally different from the sort of understanding that we seek in philo-sophia. As I have already suggested earlier, philo-sophia is a way of life that involves my entire being, not just my thoughts or reasoning. Wisdom means taking part in a reality that is greater than my self-enclosed world, broader than my limited personal perspective. It is not a form of possessing but of participating: As a philosopher I seek to take part in a greater and richer reality, not to squeeze reality into my theories.
Moreover, as opposed to the attitude of the theoretician who steps out of everyday life to assume the position of a detached and neutral observer, as a philosopher I seek wisdom in the midst of my personal everyday life. Wisdom is best manifested precisely in mundane moments, not in some abstract, detached realm of thought. It can come into play when I stand in line in the bank, when I argue with a friend, when I sit quietly in nature, when I am sad or happy or anxious. To be sure, it may also come into play when I write theoretical journal-articles in my office—after all, this too is part of my life—but not only there, not even primarily so.
This, by the way, does not make philo-sophia a form of ‘applied philosophy.’ On the contrary, applied philosophy assumes the primacy of abstract thought: Presumably, we first discuss issues in the abstract, and then apply the results to concrete situations. But wisdom is not something that needs to be translated from abstract reasoning to concrete life, because it is born in concrete life and that is where it lives and thrives.
Unfortunately, much of philosophical practice has inherited from academic philosophy the theoretical bias, the monopoly of abstract thinking. Somehow we have forgotten the lessons of Socrates whose wisdom contained no theory, and of Plato who fell silent when leaving the cave and approaching the ‘sun.’ This seems to me a regrettable trend.
I am not suggesting banishing theories from philo-sophia. Anyone who has been inspired by a philosophical text knows that an encounter with theoretical ideas can be very powerful in exposing and shattering the hidden assumptions in which we are imprisoned, in motivating us to go beyond our preconceptions, in opening us to new horizons. But this happens to us precisely when we treat the theory not as a candidate for truth, as a description of the way things really are, but rather as a window that opens to beyond itself, as a pointer that spurs us to go further, beyond the theory.
My point is, then, that philo-sophia requires a form of understanding that is radically different from the intellectual stance of academic thinking. We cannot seek wisdom merely by theorizing, by analyzing concepts, by talking about human predicaments and problems. Philo-Sophia is not about human reality, but in human reality. As a philosopher I do not seek to acquire mere thoughts, but to go beyond the realm of my thoughts to concrete life.
Indeed, it seems to me quite naïve to picture the consciously thinking self, so to speak, as an autonomous and self-sufficient knower who can by itself understand all there is to understand about life. Whether you look at it from a philosophical, psychological, neurological, or spiritual perspective, it is clear that my conscious thoughts are only a small and specialized island in a much vaster ocean of understanding that carries me through life. Conscious rational thinking may be suitable for doing scientific research, or for developing theories and technological solutions, or for solving specific practical problems, but to appreciate the entire scope of understandings that underlie human life, for that it is far from sufficient, just as a calculating machine that superbly solves mathematical problems cannot be expected to philosophize about the meaning of life.
Philo-sophia, then, insofar as it aims at wisdom, should not satisfy itself with the theoretical or pragmatic smartness of the conscious thinking self. As philosophers we seek to submit ourselves to a much broader, deeper, more powerful field of understanding. The search for wisdom is a matter of knowing how to surrender our smart self to something greater. It is, in other words, to tone down our clever thoughts that are so eager to impose their theories on the entire world, and let a greater understanding speak through us.
