I Think, Therefore I Am Misunderstood

I mean, what do you do ?" it's the question every professional philosopher dreads. Most of us first face it as undergraduate philosophy majors, when it's put this way: "I mean, what are you going to do with that?" I wonder if the question will transform itself once more when I lie on my deathbed, posed by a curious nurse or doctor: "I mean, what have you done ?"

On this occasion the question is asked by Carol, who runs the sandwich shop on the edge of campus. The semester ended a few days ago, and she has noticed that my daily routine has not changed. She is trying to imagine what on earth I do all day with no classes to teach or grading to do. As always, the question terrifies me, but I can hardly blame her. When most people try to picture in their minds a professional philosopher at work, I suspect they simply draw a blank--much like the fogginess that floods my mind's eye when someone tells me he is a consultant.

It isn't just strangers who are curious and, frankly, more than a little suspicious about my chosen profession. I swear I can often detect a note of annoyance in my own wife's voice when, upon returning home from a grueling day of prac-ticing law and finding me on the couch engrossed in a book, she asks the not-so-innocent question: "So, what did you do today?"

What I do, in a nutshell, is this: I find a question or puzzle that interests me. I try to figure out a solution, usually reading what others have had to say about it along the way. If I come up with anything good, I write it down and see if anyone is interested in publishing it.

This answer rarely satisfies those who want to know what I do. I suspect that what they really want to know is whether I accomplish anything worthwhile during the day. The essence of their question is something like: "Where do you get off?!" Telling someone that you spent the day trying to figure out whether God could make a stone that even he couldn't lift (a subject on which I've published) is simply not going to cut it. Most people find it ridiculous for a grown-up to spend his time doing this, and outrageous that he's paid for it.

Such people shouldn't be too outraged. Philosophy doesn't pay particularly well. In college I assumed that just about everyone would major in philosophy if not for worries about getting a job; wasn't it obvious that all the really interesting questions were philosophical ones? I quickly learned that this point of view was not widely shared, but it was too late for me. I was hooked. During this time I also learned that the words "What are you going to do with that?" are most terrifying on the lips of the parents of a young woman one is attempting to woo.