In his correspondence with Rabindranath Tagore, Gandhi argued that when “there is war, the poet lays down the lyre … The poet will sing the true note only once the war is over.” (The Mahatma and the Poet, 93). Note that Gandhi does not say that when war comes the job of the poet is to rhapsodize about the glory of armed conflict, but that the poet has to stop composing verse and contribute to the cause. Gandhi thus implies an opposition between war and poetry. When there is war, there is no time for verse. But war is not something to be celebrated but endured and overcome. The true note can only be sung after the conclusion of hostilities.

I think something similar can be said of philosophy. If it comes to a fight then the philosopher, as a member of a community under attack, has to put down their pen and fight alongside their comrades. In other words, where war begins, philosophy, like poetry, ends. The poet does not glorify and the philosopher does not justify; they fight, if they must, for the the restoration of the conditions in which thought can unfold and verse can be composed free from fear and violence.

I was motivated to reflect on these issues by an article I read by a philosopher who abandoned his work to take up arms in Donbass. I am not judging his decision to fight, but I do question his understanding of the relationship between philosophy and war. Andrey Korobov-Latintsev argues that philosophical argument is analogous to war and philosophical education akin to military training:

“For a philosopher, the military path – the path of war – is quite natural. In reality, such a scholar is always engaged in this process – the conflict of ideas. He understands that war is the forefather of all things and since he is looking for the origin of everything, turning to war, both as a subject and an element of existentialism, is natural.”

Heraclitus argued that all things are born of strife, but strife comes in many forms and is not necessarily military in nature. But setting aside the historical question of whether or not “war is the forefather of all things,” Korobov-Latintsev is wrong to draw an analogy between the conflict of ideas and armed violence. In truth, they are opposites, not analogues. The conflict of ideas leaves both parties to the dispute standing; military violence tries to kill the enemy. War begins where argument fails. One might say that war is the failure of philosophy, and not, as Korobov-Latintsev implies, philosophy by other means.

I would go further: philosophy is not, first and foremost, a conflict of ideas, but a search for the most important truths of human existence: where did we come from, what is our purpose on earth, how ought we treat each other, are shared values possible, are there definitive answers to these questions? Philosophy begins, as both Aristotle and Descartes noted, in wonder. Before we answer, we question, before we categorize, we are open to what presents itself. We look to the heavens in awe, feeling insignificant and unique at one and the same time. The universe is immense and we are as nothing. And yet, the stars- distant, silent, beautiful- cannot ask themselves about their place in the whole. Only we can. And so far as we know, we are the only creatures who ever could, can, and will be able to ask those questions.

Real questions, questions posed from a position of receptive openness, are peaceful. The interrogator’s questions are violent, but they only ask what they already know. Their question is meant to intimidate, to terrify, to elicit the confession that will justify the punishment that has already been decided. The philosophical question is peaceful: knowing what they do not know, philosophers open themselves to the universe and ask it what it all means. Not hearing an answer, they go in search of others for help until they find a truth. Having found it, they do not keep it to themselves but immediately share it with everyone who is willing to listen. Openness to what presents itself and a desire to share the truths that have been found: those are the dispositions of the philosopher. As Plato argues in Gorgias, philosophers have a “thirst for victory when it comes to knowing what the truth is,” because the truth is “a good, common to everyone.” The philosophical victory does not leave the enemy vanquished, bloody, and dead on the battlefield, it elevates everyone by showing them what they really need to live fully.

Korobov-Latintsev traces the origins of “just war theory” to Plato. I am not sure what work he is thinking of, but Plato does discuss the origins of war in The Republic. However, his goal is to understand its causes, not to justify one side or the other. War breaks out, Plato argues, when a society becomes motivated by superfluities. Once human desires grow beyond the basics of what we need to live we become undisciplined and greedy, and once we become undisciplined and greedy, we require more resources. Once a society exhausts its resource base it must appropriate that of a neighbouring society. War is the means by which others’ resources are seized.

Plato is not concerned with the justice of war. According to the definition of justice he later defends, all wars would be unjust because they ultimately result from a disharmony in the souls of those who demand more than their fair share. If anything, Plato tries to understand the causes of war so that armed conflicts can be avoided. Certain desires and policies make war necessary, not just. But since people can reflect upon and change their motivations, this necessity is embedded in a deeper layer of contingency. Given a set of unquenchable desires as motivations, people will demand ever more resources. People come into conflict with their neighbours, in other words, because they are in conflict with themselves. Cure the malaise in their own souls, Plato implies, and they will live in peace with others.

Whatever one thinks about the details of Plato’s politics, I think that these arguments continue to teach us important lessons. They teach us that the aim of philosophy is not to justify either side in a war but to understand its causes. Philosophy, like poetry, is a peacetime pursuit: if philosophers want to promote the conditions in which everyone can reflect on the fundamental problems that shape our time on earth, then it is our job to contribute what we can to the solution to the underlying conflicts that start wars. Plato’s account of the origins of war is speculative but contains an important truth, confirmed time and again in history: resources are at the root of most large scale conflicts. If no group ever sought to appropriate the lands and labour of others, there would be no war. Demonizing and chauvinistic ideologies arise to justify armed violence but they are rarely its cause.

Unless philosophers want to accept the truth of those ideologies then they are obliged by their vocation (to understand the causes of events) to oppose argument to violence. It is never the part of a philosopher to justify one side or another in an armed conflict, because the existence of the armed conflict is proof that rational argument has collapsed into a hardened conflict between one-sided positions. That philosophy is opposed to war does not mean that philosophers are indifferent to injustice or believe that victim groups should simply accept whatever treatment their tormentors impose on them without fighting back. People have the right to protect themselves and their societies.

But philosophy, as fundamental inquiry, serves the cause of justice by working beneath particular arguments pro and contra war to draw attention to the underlying drivers. Unless we are satisfied with a world where the solution to one conflict immediately gives way to another somewhere else, then we need the sort of abstract, general inquiries into causes that philosophy can provide. The point is: one or another side may have legal and moral right on its side, but philosophy is not concerned with that historical question but the deeper problem of how members of the same species, who share fundamental needs and capacities, who prove themselves capable of understanding one another and getting along, degenerate into violent conflict.

Thus, we should approach the problem of war in the register of necessity, not justice. If a society’s lands are invaded, if their people are enslaved, then they will fight back. The right of self-defence follows from the physical necessity of self-protection. But having exposed the particular histories that lead up to the outbreak of warfare, I argue that philosophers have to go one step further to expose the deeper layer of contingencies from which necessities emerge. I mean that historical events are never absolutely necessary. Given decisions a, b, and c, d becomes necessary. Philosophy re-traces this history but argues that while d follows from a.b, and c, a itself was not necessary. If instead of a.b, and c, the group had chosen policies 1,2, and 3, then 4, not d, would have followed. Philosophers have the difficult task of trying to walk their fellow citizens back to the moment where there was a real choice between a and 1.

For fulfilling this duty philosophers can expect to be attacked. They will be denounced as fence sitters, or worse, enemy agents. But philosophy does not sit on the fence. It is militant and partisan, but on the side of truth. Unless someone looks out for the truth: not the truths that link a,b, and c, but the deeper truth, that different values and goals lead to different possibilities and that reason can uncover common ground, then we will be condemned to stay stuck in the cycle of armed violence. Different combatants will rotate in and out but the wheel of destruction will always be setting one or another part of the globe on fire.

Korobov-Latintsev concludes that wars are ultimately justified by their results. He points to the principle of “‘jus post bellum’ (rights after war),” explaining that “this means that the world after the war should be better than the world prior to the war.” However, he does not specify the time frame for analysis. Over a long enough time frame, the traces of even wars of extermination will fade. One might argue on this basis that World War Two was justified because it gave rise to the EU, the UN, and catalyzed anti-colonial revolutions. But note; we are justifying the war to living people, not to the people who fought and died in it. If there was a way to create international institutions that, at least in principle, offer legal and diplomatic alternatives to war, if there had been alternatives to colonization, then the world that would have followed had they been chosen would have been better than the world that followed the war, because the same good results would have been achieved without the deaths of 60 million people. The people who died fighting for the cause would have been alive to enjoy the benefits.

Yes, but philosophy must deal with reality or consign itself to irrelevance, my opponent will say. In the real world people must fight. Talking about what might have been the case is a cowardly distraction from the battlefield action. Even a pacifist like Gandhi recognizes the necessity of war.

Too true, I respond, philosophy does deal with reality, and sometimes one must fight. But reality is not so simple as the historical links between choice a and consequence b. Human reality is a field of possibilities. Once Frost’s traveler on a snowy evening has chosen his road, the alternative disappears behind him. The politician is like the traveler after he has had made his choice: to him, there never was any other road. But although it cannot be seen from where the traveler ends up, there once was another road, and he knows it. Philosophy is the reminder that the other road was real.