“I don’t know if philosophy is for me,” one student admits halfway through her three-week intensive introduction to philosophy. “I don’t know if it’s for me,” she says, “because I don’t really like questioning for the sake of questioning. The others don’t mind, but I don’t see why it matters.” We were reading Plato, Kafka, Ellison, Thurber, Descartes, Sartre, just in the first week, and the students were thoughtfully engaged with the texts, with one another, with making one text speak to the next. Most found excitement in asking questions about what constitutes personal identity: where does a sense of self come from; how does it change; how can we be responsible for who we are; how do we successfully examine ourselves; and what comes of such examination? The students were curious, considerate, and clearly filled with wonder at what they could achieve in such a short period of time. But then what? What were they to do with what they discovered?

“I don’t really like questioning for the sake of questioning… I don’t see why it matters.” It is a reaction nearly as old as philosophy itself. In the 4th century BCE, Plato’s Academy was criticized by a rival, more successful school for being useless and impractical: while the theorizing philosophers are busy with “mental juggling” (Antidosis 285) and “contending subtly about trifling matters” (Ad Nicoclem 39), “they are no help in the present either in speech or in action” (Antidosis 265-6). This rival school claimed rather to teach the practical and essential business of managing private households and the welfare of the city. Plato’s Republic responds that the apparent, rather than true, uselessness of his philosopher is due to people not knowing how to put philosophy to use (489b). The Republic maintains that philosophy, when performed and recognized in certain ways, is not only useful in practical and political affairs, but it can even create the ideal city and the most knowledgeable and healthy soul.

We continue to struggle, however, with the notion of philosophy’s usefulness. What is philosophy supposed to do? Why does it matter? Even college philosophy majors are often at a loss when asked these questions. But few people pursue classroom philosophy that far; for the others, what is called formal philosophy may have been found in an interesting book or film, or perhaps in an introductory course on Western civilizations or the history of philosophy. While many find such introductions intriguing, they often opt out of further disciplined study for fear of increasingly specialized vocabulary, ever more aggressive discussions, and intellectual exercises about minutiae more and more removed from their everyday lives. This is when philosophy “goes over my head”, becomes “pretentious” and stereotypically the calling of coffee house pretenders, or as many ancients, it seems, believed, no help in speech or action: “precise knowledge about useless stuff” (Helen 5). We are still suspicious of philosophy, unsure of its power and our own, even when we naturally feel drawn to the “big” questions.

The use of philosophy in speech and action can be found by those who take time to explore it in its most elementary form. Philosophy need not be a specialized vocabulary; it is, as Socrates famously portrays it, understanding the way we use everyday words and ideas, the way we communicate everyday things, the way we perform everyday actions. Philosophy is taking the time and finding the courage and patience to examine and organize our most basic assumptions and ways of thinking. Organized thought, in turn, makes for coherent and effective communication and action. This philosophy is something we all can do and naturally want to do. Young adults are especially hungry for it. We have seen on the first day of class twenty-five high school students—all new to one another, to us, and to this discipline called philosophy—breathlessly and earnestly respond to Plato's allegory of the cave out of their own impulse to invent. In those two hours of class, they unexpectedly, even shockingly generated 2,400 years worth of reactions to a timeless idea. They simply need an outlet, the resources, and encouragement for turning that natural energy and wonder into organized and effective thoughts, speech, and action. They need the resources for putting their natural capacity for philosophy to use in everyday life.

“I don’t really like questioning for the sake of questioning.” Students need to be shown how asking questions can lead to more than mental juggling. When several curious and ambitious young men gathered over two millennia ago to ask questions about the nature of justice, one lifelong student of philosophy reminded them that “this discussion isn’t about a common matter, but about the way we should live” (Republic 352d). Socrates insists that this philosophical discussion be pursued with as much earnestness as a drowning man spends to secure a lifeboat. These questions are not purely intellectual; they are not merely a speculative exercise. These questions are not made for the sake of questioning. These questions are asked because the condition of our lives is intimately connected to them. Plato’s Republic demonstrates how asking questions can lead to learning how to ask better questions, how to evaluate answers, how to improvise answers, how to determine how far questions can go, and how to have fun doing it. The lively discussion is presented theatrically as a dramatic dialogue among extraordinary characters. Theatricality and an attentive mind can turn mental juggling into an exploration of how to think, speak, and live effectively.

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