Dialogue the First

The Scene: A small clearing in an unspecified but inviting forest. A stream passes through, flanked by
several boulders on which Trystyn is sitting, apparently reading. Steven and Anna enter from the
west, perhaps thirty minutes before sunset.

Steven: (Indicating Trystyn) Here's the fellow—just as I said.

Trystyn: (mutters) Here we go again...

Steven: How goes it, my philosophical friend? (He slaps Trystyn good-naturedly on the back, causing
him to drop his book.)

Trystyn: As well as can be expected. (He picks up the book.) Are you back for more fun at my
expense?

Steven: What's that you're reading? (He hasn't listened and makes a grab for the book.)
Feyerabend? Never heard of the fellow.

Trystyn: No doubt. (Indicates and smiles at Anna.) Who's this?

Steven: Of course! May I present Anna—a scientist, thank goodness...

Anna: Not yet...

Steven: (Interrupting) ... but given to literary pursuits. I told her about you and she insisted on meeting
you.

Trystyn: Well... (smiles at Anna.)

Steven: You see, my dear, the fact is that Trystyn can be found here as regular as clockwork, head in
a book or in the clouds—very much the subject of an uninteresting experimental study. You could
probably set your watch by him. A splendid fellow, of course, but no concern for the real world at all.

Anna: You're a philosopher?

Trystyn: Better ask him... (he rolls his eyes...)

Steven: Well that's the point, isn't it? Reading and thinking a good deal but not getting anywhere. A
philosopher is a well-intentioned creature that achieves nothing of any consequence.

Anna: What do you study?

Trystyn: Ideas; methods; their foundations; justification. What is there and how can we know anything
about it?

Steven: He paints a pretty picture, I'm sure you'll agree, but nothing comes of it.

Anna: What have you learned?

Trystyn: That I have much to learn.

Steven: A noble sentiment, but really: what have you achieved—any of you? You're still struggling
with the same questions as the Greeks.

Trystyn: Of course, but that's the point.

Anna: How so?

Trystyn: (Puts his book down.) The matters that bothered the Greeks concern us still precisely
because they're the questions that we all ask ourselves—they never go away.

Anna: Such as?

Trystyn: How are we to live? To what end?

Steven: (Sits down next to Trystyn.) But these are things we scientists ask ourselves too; meanwhile,
we set about tackling questions we can answer. You never get anywhere.

Trystyn: Perhaps you're right? But it needn't be a bad thing: maybe all we can do is go over the old
arguments and rehearse them, but we learn then that these questions are not so easily answered.

Anna: And we ought to be careful how we go about our lives...

Trystyn: Right. We study the past and find that people have struggled with many of the same
questions, to which none of the suggested answers seems completely satisfactory. Perhaps there are
no answers, or perhaps we aren't asking the right questions?

Anna: But surely the fact that these things are still undecided would make us wary of choosing one
answer or another?

Trystyn: Yes—ideas have consequences. Hence the philosophical temperament: stop and think
rather than charging on ahead. Are we attacking a problem in the right way? Are we using the right
tools?

Steven: In the meantime, I guess I'll keep working to make your lives easier while you fritter it all
away...

Trystyn: Philosophy isn't opposed to science, Steven, but what can we do with the things you
discover? Whether we live in a mud hut or a space station, we still have to ask how we'll treat each
other.

Anna: That's it.

Steven: But where are the results of your questioning? (He strikes a triumphant pose.)

Trystyn: You're missing the point. We keep asking these questions because it isn't enough to just be
told that you should live in one way or another, like you can be told how far away the sun is. That no
one knows the answers is what makes life interesting and not just a collection of facts, however
helpful they may be.

Anna: So you keep asking.

Trystyn: I keep asking because I'm not content to leave these questions alone. Maybe I missed
something? Maybe the goals I'm aiming at are too much for me? Maybe the people I meet are more
important than resolving factual matters that fascinate us but ultimately don't tell me how we can all
live together?

Steven: I don't see how philosophy can compete with all we learn from science, though. Every day
we discover new things.

Anna: They're separate things, surely?

Trystyn: Kind of. No amount of facts can tell us what to do. We can find out that doing A will result in
x and doing B in y, but before we get to that information we have questions like "what do I want to
achieve?" "Are there limits on what I'll do to get there?" "How certain do I have to be before I'll try?"
And so on. The facts help us but we have limits beforehand on what use we'll put them to. (He looks
at his book and smiles.)

(There is a long silence.)

Anna: Maybe we should watch the sunset?

Steven: Let me tell you about the sunspot cycle...

(Curtain. Fin)