The Importance of the Interlocutor
And a quote attributed to Albert Camus.
I’m a fan of high and low art: I’m attending Handel’s Messiah at 7PM this Wednesday and then a stand-up show at 11:30PM that I won’t specify due to the vulgarity of the main act. He’s hilarious. Analogously, I’m a fan of philosophical insights wherever I can find them, be it in a textbook, in a philosophy class, in media, or on Instagram.
You read that right: Instagram.
Instagram does not limit its range of content to Star Wars, Spider-Man, Power Rangers. . . as I write, I realize I am revealing more about myself and my interests than the average Instagram user’s experience. No matter! Alongside panels from the Berserk manga series are pithy quotes attributed, either apocryphally or actually, to philosophers, authors, and other intellectuals—you know, people who spend too much time in their own heads.
Or do they?
Well, I don’t think they (we?) do.
I stumbled upon the following post from @dailyphilosopher, which reads: “‘An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.’ Albert Camus.” Prima facie, this struck me as poetic, true, and worth sharing with one of my interlocutors (whose identity shall remain anonymous so that, in the [likely] event I fall into disrepute, her reputation shall remain unharmed).
After a couple hours had past, I checked my Instagram personal messages. Sure enough, she had responded to the post—but not in the way I had anticipated: “Idk if I believe this.” My interlocutor’s dubious attitude toward the quote made me reconsider my original confidence. In a moment of meta-cognitive epiphany, I replied: “I prefer having my interlocutors’ minds watch over mine.”
This quote she approved of wholeheartedly. Nicastro: 1; Camus: 0.
So, do philosophers spend an excessive amount of time in their own heads? I say they do not; they spend an excessive amount of time in others’ heads. They do this through reading, listening, and dialectical conversations with interlocutors. After all, everyone else is more likely to find faults in your thinking than you are—it’s painful to realize you’re wrong; it is neutral-to-delightful (depending on how sadistic you are) to point out the flaws in others’ thinking.
If philosophers are truly lovers of knowledge, i.e., they are actively engaged in the pursuit Truth, then we (yes, I’m including myself in the category of “philosopher” and so should you, if you’re a curious, thoughtful person) ought to spend as much time as possible engaged with interlocutors. Doing so is more likely to elucidate complex questions than misanthropically muttering to ourselves in the privacy of a study. . . or the Stacks of Baker-Berry library.
I am lucky to have many interlocutors (read: true friends) in my life with whom I spend hours—I mean, h o u r s—speaking to about matters big and small. I am at my happiest, my most eudaimonic when with them. If you’re one of them, you know it, and thank you.