The Consolation of Philosophy
Coping at Starbucks.

By Peter Wood, associate provost, Boston University.
October 24, 2001 9:10 a.m.

he air war against the Taliban, the anthrax scares, and the "one hundred percent certainty" of further terrorist attacks in the United States have tightened the already taut cords of public tension. The best thing we could do is relax.

The ancient Stoic philosophers advise us to try to maintain a sense of inner tranquility as we face the perils of the times and go about our duties. Television news prefers the faces of anguish, exhaustion, and steely resolve to the face of tranquil determination, but here and there we have caught glimpses of a fireman, a rescue worker, or a soldier calmly doing his work. Americans tend to call this "professionalism," but it is deeper than that.

In 524, the neo-Platonic philosopher Boethius was charged with treason and imprisoned by his erstwhile friend the barbarian King of Rome, Theodoric the Ostrogoth. Boethius was suspected, perhaps accurately, of having contacted the Byzantine Emperor in hopes of some kind of political and religious reconciliation between the two remnants of the Roman Empire. Cast into prison at Pavia, Boethius wrote his greatest work, The Consolation of Philosophy. It is a moving testament to the idea that, despite apparent injustice, the highest good "strongly and sweetly" governs the universe. Shortly after he finished it, Theodoric had him executed.

These are somber thoughts for a somber season, but the consolations of philosophy don't all have to be Stoic meditations. In fact, American professors of philosophy are pioneering another approach.

I recently received a copy of an e-mail circulated by the Centennial Committee of the American Philosophical Association. The APA is the scholarly association for academic philosophy in the United States, and a body we might reasonably look to for advice in troubled times. And indeed the Centennial Committee, chaired by John Lachs, Centennial Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, has been at work developing a promising campaign titled, "Philosophy Matters."

I am relieved to know. For many years I have wondered if philosophy matters. I knew from the titles of many books that almost everything else matters. Cooking matters. Farming matters. Sex, goodness knows, matters. So does money. Cornel West has instructed us that Race Matters, and inspired a whole train of epigones who tell us that class, gender, beauty, and culture matter. Home electronics and peanut butter and jelly seem to matter. But, in the absence of a strong affirmation from the Philosophy Community (which I think is in southern Ohio), I had doubts whether philosophy really matters.

But now John Lachs and his colleagues have put that worry to rest. "Philosophy Matters" shapes up as an eleven-point program of sensible self-promotion. The APA will, for example, present a nationwide series of book signings at Borders bookstores. Point #3 is "a letter from President Bush indicating appreciation of the contribution of philosophy." Point #5 is a series of "30-second radio spots presenting appetizer-size philosophical ideas," to be recorded by former Monty Python member John Cleese.

Cleese is, I think, the perfect spokesman for this effort: witty, a master of the distracted intellectual air, and adroit at combining the pompous and the deflationary. These philosophers really do know themselves.

Another APA proposal is an agreement with Starbucks "to host coffeehouse style discussions in their stores featuring philosophers." Starbucks has yet to agree. I myself don't drink coffee, but I applaud the idea of restoring genuine philosophical discussion to coffee houses. I wonder, however, if the APA is missing an opportunity in not getting important philosophical thoughts printed in pithy form inside bottle caps. But perhaps the APA simply forgot to include it on the list. That would explain all the Diet Pepsi caps I got last summer that said, "Sorry, play again," which seems a fairly succinct summary of modern philosophy.

At the higher end of the promotional campaign, the APA is offering a $1,000 prize "for the best letter to the editor written by a member."

Every society, I suppose, remakes philosophy in its own image, and it would be uncharitable to begrudge academic philosophers their chance to market themselves to a broader public. But I am old enough to remember when even lawyers considered it beneath their dignity (and unethical) to advertise. It is a bit startling to see philosophers groveling for a bit of public attention.

Still, I think we should take this in good spirit. Contemporary academic philosophy seems to have little to teach us in the way of profound truths or governing ideas about how to lead our lives. The stock-in-trade of some philosophers is an incomprehensible algebra of logical notations. Others offer mummified bits of Marxist theory or strive like the Sophists of old to find plausible reasons to support whatever happens to be trendy on the political Left. When America is attacked, Americans turn for help in many places — to their churches, to their national leaders, to each other — but who turns to the academic philosophers? We may not understand exactly what they do, but we understand triviality when we see it.

And, of course, we accommodate it. Triviality that announces itself as such is swept up in our love of amusement and indulged for its own sake. We can afford philosophy in our coffeehouses because, unlike the coffeehouses in Paris, Prague, and Budapest, the venue isn't a breeding ground for disaffected intellectuals dreaming of the day when they will seize power. Most of Starbuck's customers have jobs.

So good luck to you Professor Lachs and the APA. I'm sorry you are stuck with a light-hearted campaign in a dark-feeling time, but it may be all right. If philosophy teachers have little really to teach us about philosophy in this perilous passage, at least they offer some distraction, and that too is a consolation.