The class sniggered in response to my jeer, and the boy smirked back at me seductively. I ignored it.
“Chapter one begins with an overview of some of the earliest men now considered philosophers. Many see the Republic as the advent of philosophy, but to be sure many philosophical thinkers came before Plato.” I pushed off the desk, walking slowly in front of the class. “For instance his very mentor Socrates for one. But even hundreds of years prior to that, we know of others. Thames, Laozi, Pythagoras. The problem with these earliest thinkers is that very little is known of them.” My fingers kept picking and fidgeting at the pen in my hand as I continued to walk. “In some cases their writings have survived but little else about their actual identity—in other words, credit is difficult to assign. In other cases, we know the man, but their writings, if ever they truly existed, are long lost and little remains but theory.” I stopped for a moment, taking in the eyes still studying me. Many, if not most, looked engaged. That was a good sign.
“But that’s not to say all is lost. There is a particular progression within philosophy that exists in nearly all fields of study—mathematics, biology, astronomy, the sciences in general. And that progression exists within the field of philosophy as well. This does, for those of us who’ve devoted our lives to the study, lend a particular validity to the field of philosophy.” My hand moved again, twisting the cap of the pen back and forth. “The progression is this: at its earliest, philosophy started with the simplest of questions. That’s not to say the questions were themselves simple to answer. Only that they were broad, sweeping, wide scoped. For instance, take the difference between these two common philosophical concepts that largely relate to the same topic on many levels. Number one: What is it to exist? Number two: A black man’s destiny is white. Would anyone care to tell me which concept arose earliest in the evolution of philosophy and which came later?”
I waited for a hand to rise as I stared out at the people in front of me. I could see some biting nervously on a nail, others were staring at their desktops, some didn’t seem to have a clue what I was asking, and one, seductive smirk boy, was lounged back staring at the ceiling.
“Anyone?” I asked. “Don’t make me start calling on people,” I threatened with a smile.
Kane’s hand rose, and as I looked at him, he glanced at my hands. I inhaled deeply as I walked toward him, twisting the cap quickly, pulling it off and pushing it back on. I was nervous, and the poor pen was paying the price. I was nearly afraid to hear his voice—as though it might affect me in some way I wasn’t prepared for.
“Yes, Mr. Thorson.”
He studied the pen in my hand for a moment as I cranked against the cap.
“Both topics relate to being,” he responded. “Being on a core level that is. But the first relates to humanity in general. The second relates to a subset of humanity that impacts the existence of only some. The broader of the questions came first. The question of what it is to be.” His eyebrows shot up as he watched me.
“Yes,” I said.
But before the word was even fully out of my mouth, the pen dropped from my hand rolling toward the place where Kane’s feet were stretched out in front of his desk. Students around him craned their necks to see what had happened, and as I quickly took the couple steps toward him and leaned over to pick up the pen, he just as quickly stood and reached down for it too. He managed to pick it up first, and as I stood back up slowly, moving in tandem with his body, he reached for my hand, placing the pen on my palm.
“Your hands are covered in ink,” he said quietly even as his fingers ran gently over mine.
I looked down, and my fingertips were blue. Fuck. When I glanced back at his eyes, he was studying me calmly.
“Oh…” I breathed out as I glanced around for a moment. I walked back to the desk, setting the pen down and trying to ignore the blue. When I turned around, I finally continued. “You’re correct. The broader question came first.”
I paused for a moment, refusing to look at my hands again. “In some sense it’s similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy as you may have studied in your general psych and sociology courses. It’s the same concept if nothing else. You must satisfy the basic questions before moving onto the more detailed. And therein lies the importance of starting from the beginning, the ancient world, before we progress in time to the more contemporary arguments.”