The Theoretical Activity and Interruptions
The key to participating in the definitive activity of the philosophic life is not, as may sometimes be assumed, merely a matter of having sufficient private time, let alone of being alone for any specific length of time. The essential thing, rather, is the subjective certainty of being free to become immersed in one’s train of thought without any (perceived) threat of interruption. The moment interruptions — a friendly knock on the door, a random phone call asking a favor — become expected, which is to say the moment one becomes habituated by experience to regularly anticipating such interruptions, total immersion in one’s thought processes becomes impossible. That is to say, even if one is alone and uninterrupted as a matter of practical fact for eight consecutive hours, if throughout those hours one feels a constant background apprehension about the possibility or likelihood of being suddenly disturbed, and thus the intricate, nebulous web of dialectical reasoning torn and swept away by the broomstick of external demands, then the total immersion in the workings of the intellect which is an indispensable condition of the fullest philosophic investigation remains impossible, and hence the most elevated (and also the most pleasant) activity of the soul thwarted.
To clarify this issue of the theoretical life by way of analogy with its practical counterpart, consider Rousseau’s observation, adapted from his fellow materialists Epicurus and Lucretius, that the transition from the natural, nomadic freedom of the pastoral life to the stability and security of agricultural society may be identified with the invention of the notion of property ownership and the legal institutions to protect it. That is to say, the reason there was little or no farming in primitive times is a simple matter of human psychology: No one would plant crops unless he felt sure of being able to settle upon and safely occupy the same piece of land for months, i.e., until harvest time, without fear of displacement or theft by other men; and no one living in the primitive freedom of nature could feel such security from the persistent threat of other men until, in accordance with reason, he had formed a covenant with others to establish rules of mutual non-harm to protect each man’s settled land, and a dispassionate authority to enforce these rules. Before this political development of the idea and practical establishment of stable property ownership, the constant awareness of physical insecurity — and note that this awareness itself, rather than any actual invasion or violence he might suffer, is what matters — mitigated against anyone engaging in the long-term planning entailed in planting crops for food.
The philosopher deprived of the basic material condition of uninterrupted private thought — and again, what matters most is the subjective feeling of being safe from interruption, rather than the mere factual absence of encroachments — is in a similar condition relative to his essential activity as that of nature’s potential farmers in the ages before the establishment of property laws and civil government. Who would plant his best crops in his most arable soil, with all the patience and long, hard work needed to see them through to harvest, as long as his mind remained beset with agitation and apprehension about the way his efforts may be undone at any given moment by a careless interloper heedless of what kind of delicate work he may be interrupting? Who would think his ideas all the way down to their deepest roots, tending them lovingly as though his life depended on them, if he could never escape the sense that his tender shoots could be destroyed at any moment by a passerby oblivious to the efforts at spiritual development one may be trampling under foot in one’s ignorance of the necessary conditions of the thinking soul’s agrarian life?
