A cliche, but a cliche worth repeating many times. There is a prejudice that theory and action are two separate things, and that theory cannot influence action in any concrete or substantial way. Or, the put it in another way, there is a division between "theoretical" and "practical" knowledge, and only the latter supplies what is relevant to action, while the former can only make detached, abstract speculations which have nothing to do with how one actually acts. The strongest argument for this claim ultimately boils down to this truism: at the end of the day, we need to put bread on our table.
However, the above is a false dichotomy. Speculation without action will not put bread on the table. This is true. But then the reverse is also true, namely, that action without speculation will not put bread on the table. There is always a minimum of speculation involved in any act of putting bread on the table. The speculation can take the form of trust ("I trust that if I go to the bakery, the baker will not refuse me bread") or of force ("I can make others give to me what is my due, namely, the means to survive") or of something else. Even if the actor is a farmer/baker/blacksmith/lumberjack, and thus is capable of single-handedly producing everything necessary for making bread, there still is speculation, and a huge speculation at that: namely, that he will not have to rely on others in the future. This is a huge speculation because it assumes that everything which he has at present will work as it is for an indefinite duration of time. There will be no bad harvest, no unexpected malfunctioning of machines, no shortage of wood, or, more radically, no nuclear accidents, earthquakes, hurricanes, or other disasters which will bring everything to ruins in a sweep. In order to ensure that bread will be on the table tomorrow, therefore, the actor must let speculation influence his actions. In this way, his actions are no longer that of simply acquiring the immediate means of subsistence. Already, the action takes the form of an investment.
On the level of subsistence, there are several key questions at present. Will currency depreciate? Will the price of goods fluctuate in such a way that will render my savings irrelevant? Will a natural or human disaster occur in the near future? Will I have a job that will allow me to live without any physical or psychical injury?
Assuming that all of these issues are given adequate treatment, the big question still remains, namely, am I to be satisfied with the security of mere subsistence? I work, I make money, I eat, drink, sleep - I subsist. The answer is an obvious No. The interesting thing about humans is that mere subsistence requires something more than subsistence. This "more" is first of all culture. Or, to put it more concretely, there needs to be a reason behind subsistence. This is nothing mysterious: it is the way one thinks all the time. For example, upon making the decision between working as a waiter, a banker, a civil servant, or a politician, the question immediately arises: why this rather than that? This question is nonsense from the point of view of mere subsistence, since all jobs equally provide what is needed for subsistence alone. But then, what is this "more" which I here called culture or reason?
With this question we are already deep in speculation and at the entrance gates of philosophy. For the question is immediately also about the reality, function, and power of freedom, for to reason is to be free, although at this point one has no idea what it means to "be free." Caprice is the lowest form of freedom precisely because the capricious actor does not give reasons for his or her acting. There are then reasons which appeal to nature ("I had sex because there is a natural drive in animals to mate") and to psychology ("I felt a desire to have sex") and then to culture or society ("In our overtly sexual society, having sex is almost a status-symbol; thus I had sex in order to belong to a certain class of people in my society") and finally to art and religion ("I fulfill the commandment of God and the meaning of the union of marriage by performing this act as the highest expression of authentic love.") All of these reasons express half-truths; truths, in so far as they can be reasons at all for the action in question; half, because there are higher and more concrete reasons which can accommodate the previous one. The highest reason, however, is paradoxically also the lowest, namely, that there is "something beyond all this that made me do this." This is because, while the action might be accounted for by all of these reasons, it is also part of the action that these reasons are given - in this example, the action won't appear as sex in the first place unless it was represented to me and others in such a way that it appears to be sex, that there can be reasons given to it, etc. But the act of giving reason is itself in need of explanation. And the attempts to explain will always also leave something out - thus proving that there are certain dimensions in this "act of giving reason" which cannot be given reason. But this line of thought is very hasty, unconvincing, and thus in some sense false. For at this point, there seems to be no distinction between this final "I did this ultimately for nothing" and caprice. Both are "groundless," both are reasons which appeal to nothing - literally. And yet, there is a big difference. To grasp this difference is the business of philosophy.
In the path of this critical train of thought, philosophy will illuminate so many particular issues, that this path will prove to be simultaneously the most general and the most particular, or the most abstract and the most concrete. To take an example: Marx. It is an idea of Marx's that money turns to capital when the production of exchange value uses the production of use value as a means to its own realization. From the point of use value alone, therefore, money only appears as a means of exchange, in which the end is to satisfy my own needs. Therefore, capital never appears from the point of view of, say, the consumer or the hard-working laborer. Capital appears for the merchant and for those who use money to make more money, or for those who take the use of a product as a means to satisfying the expansion of the quantity of money. Capital is founded and perpetuated upon this perspectival difference, which is not "merely" a matter of "points of view," but rather a real division that actually structures the way people live in our society. Just this insight is enough to organize a whole range of contemporary phenomena - from the "bait-and-switch" system of unemployment and job-hunting, all the way up to the seemingly never-ending thirst for expansion confessed and even boasted by many CEOs - and bring them into relation. This will further show that unemployment, the so-called "working-poor," and the just mentioned thirst for expansion, are not individual "psychological" problems, as if the unemployed are lazy and the CEOs are greedy. These will rather be seen as necessary symptoms of the overall system of economy and politics, what Marx calls "capitalism," in short, the interplay between those whose primary concern is use-value and others whose primary concern is exchange-value.
Now, assuming that through philosophical education and well-informed action, I secure a relatively good life for my self, and also open up a certain space for good change to happen to others and to the larger political and economic system - say, by writing books and stimulating others to think, and to reassure superior thinkers that there is one more person trying to follow in their wake. There still is the obligation to others in the future, primarily my family. With this a whole new dimension opens up. The question of the meaning of love and the question of the meaning of education. On the assumption that things will turn out to be even worse than what I can possibly imagine at present, and thus thinking in the most pessimistic way possible, I am still also under obligation to secure the subsistence and freedom of my family members. How is such a decision possible? Of course, complete security is impossible. Just as the highest reason for any action includes the lowest ("ultimately, I did this for nothing") here too any decision will have to involve an element of nothingness, an element of absolute uncertainty. But there is still a world of difference between acting upon just such an uncertainty and acting after full consideration of all dimensions and still on the basis of uncertainty. In the former case, the result of the action will almost surely lead to regret - "why didn't I think of this before acting so hastily?" The latter will lead to acceptance - "there was no way that I could have foreseen this."
