YOU WROTE: “The greats, and even the dabblers such as myself, write about their ideas, they speak about them, they communicate - to use my terminology they TRANSMIT what they know and think to others.”
- They don’t need to. The Church does not FORCE anyone to become a philosopher. Nobody OBLIGATES someone to become philosophically intelligent. And there is absolutely nothing in all official Catholic teaching requiring a philosopher (or anyone else) to write down what they are thinking, or to pass it on to others, on pain of mortal sin. Ridiculous. There are plenty of things people think and never write down. I have never, in the whole of my life, seen such behavior classified as “sinful.”
The ONLY reason anyone bothers with philosophy in the first place is for the sake of knowledge in and of itself, and for no other purpose. Because it’s FUN. Must everything have a utilitarian purpose? This is not supportable.
If God wants you to “instruct the ignorant” by means of philosophy, He will send someone your way. If God wishes you to use philosophy in His service, He will make it absolutely unmistakable. Such activity is not “work,” even though it may require effort. It will arise from who you are as a person. This is very different. The Church does not obligate us to use philosophy, or even KNOW philosophy, in any way whatsoever.
YOU WROTE: “Did I say philosophy didn’t constitute work? I’ve studied some, though not deeply, myself, so I know it is indeed work. And it’s noble work. And enjoyable, certainly.”
- Philosophy may indeed involve some “work” (ie., effort.) Philosophical research may require some exertion in the area of study. But practicing philosophy can also be quite effortless. I have noticed (as author Joseph Pieper has) that many people seem to distrust work that is effortless. As if it is not “legitimate” somehow. As if it is not valuable, because it doesn’t conform to our usual concept of “work.”
(From Leisure, The Basis Of Culture
“What happens when our eye sees a rose? What do we
do when that happens? Our mind does something, to be sure, in the mere fact of taking in the object, grasping its color, its shape, and so on. We have to be awake and active. But all the same, it is a ”relaxed” looking, so long as we are merely looking at it and not observing or studying it, counting or measuring its various features. Such observation would not be a ”relaxed” action: it would be what Ernst Junger termed an ”act of aggression.”1 But simply looking at something, gazing at it, ”taking it in,” is merely to open our eyes to receive the things that present themselves to us, that come to us without any need for ”effort” on our part to ”possess” them.”
- Thus philosophy does not somehow obligate us to acquire or possess knowledge through “work.” Such a thing is not an intrinsic requirement for knowledge. Acquisition of philosophical knowledge can often arise from no effort at all. Many people who think that the only things worth having arise through work are flatly wrong. “Work” does not define all philosophy.
Also, you seem to be arguing that even philosophy, too, must be subordinated to some “use.” This I find particularly offensive to the very nature of philosophy. Pieper elaborates:
“But the ancients said that there rightly exist non-useful forms of human activity, that there are such things as liberal arts. There are not only functionary sciences, there is also the knowledge of a ”gentleman,” as John Henry Newman so happily translated the old term
artes liberals in his Idea of a University?34
(continued) “It should go without saying that not everything that cannot exactly be categorized as ”useful” is useless. And thus it is not at all without significance for a people and the realization of a nation’s common good that room be allowed, and respect be granted, for what is not ”useful work” in the sense of immediate application. As Goethe the Minister of State wrote to Friedrich Soret [Oct. 20, 1830]: ”I have never asked… how do I use the whole? - rather, I have only attempted to speak out what I understood as good and true. Of course, this was made use of… in a wider circle, but that was not its purpose, only a necessary result.”35
(continued) “According to Hegel’s fine formulation, there is not only use, there is also blessing.”36
(continued.)“In just such a sense can the medieval statement be understood, that it is ”necessary for the perfection of the human community, that there be persons who devote themselves to the [useless] life of contemplation.”37 To which I would only like to add that this is necessary not only for the perfection of the individuals themselves, who devote themselves to the vita contemplativa, but also for the perfection of the whole human community! Would anyone who thinks only in terms of the ”intellectual worker” be willing to say that?”
- Certainly this does not rule out sharing our philosophical knowledge with others. But there is no direct mandate to so. Plenty of philosophers never publish a single thing out of embarrassment; they feel their work is not good enough, despite its possible brilliance. And yet the human community is enriched anyway, simply by such people BEING philosophers. Knowledge, in and of itself, is good to have. An INTRINSIC good.
By your own definition, every time someone (even a philosopher) does not communicate a brilliant idea to others, they risk Hell-fire. They risk eternal punishment for not communicating every single great thought. This is absolutely false. Nowhere in all official Catholic Doctrine is such a position expressed. People have great thoughts all the time that are never communicated. They occur sometimes in the normal course of the day. The Catholic Church does not officially condemn such people for merely having great insights, and not communicating them. If that was the case, we’d all have to turn ourselves in.
