A Philosophical Happy Hour contemplating the role of knowledge in the various vocations of life
Lately—though, perhaps always, implicitly—we have found ourselves circling the topic of vocation. What is the calling of the human person? Does it fall into determinate categories—as husband or priest, mother or c-suite executive—or does it admit greater variability and complexity? Are there aspects to life which might be called vocational without specifically being “vocations”? To what end do we have (and should we respond) to various callings in life?
The Ages of Life
With respect to these questions, a Faculty member of the Lyceum brings up a famous speech from William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. “All the world’s a stage”, says the melancholic exiled nobleman, Jaques:
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like a snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
A pastoral comedy, As You Like It explores themes of identity, calling, and temperament, with all the major characters experiencing some notable transformation in personality by the end of the play—with the exception of Jaques. He plays the role, common among Shakespeare’s comedies, that literary critic Northrop Frye names the idiotes. By this term, Frye does not identify an “idiot” in the modern English vernacular, but rather the character who by his singularity (the meaning of the Greek root idio-) opposes the festivity characteristic of the play. The idiotes stands apart from the rest. The character of Jaques, in particular, stands as a commentator upon the rest of the characters and their behavior.
So let us ask: the infant, the school-boy, the lover, the soldier, the justice, the bespectacled, and second childishness: are we each and all ordained to these seven ages of life, seven acts upon the stage? Do we have a choice in the matter of our lives’ order—or are we confined to roles given us from without? Can we understand those ages more advanced than those we have experienced ourselves?
Vocations and Knowledge
While a careful study of As You Like It would profit us all—and perhaps, someday, form the basis for a symposium here—let us bring a specific focus to our inquiry. “Vocation” is a large topic, and meandering are the paths around and through its territory. Historically, the concept has concerned the path one takes to fulfill life’s purpose in a sense accordant with religious practice and belief, as priesthood, the religious life, or marriage. But it has also been used to identify (especially subsequent to religion’s decentralization) how one best fits into the fabric of society. Thus it may be proposed that there exists a vocation of the manual laborer, the teacher, the researcher, the therapist.
Today, it seems, the strong sense of vocation has been lost, cast off; the conception of the human person has been re-rooted, in our times, in the soil of radical autonomy. A “calling” can only be from without—an external demand which challenges that autonomous self-determination. We perhaps cannot escape being mewling babes or toothless senescents (though many hope to delay or avoid old age some one way or another), but must we be lovers, soldiers, justices? Must we shrink beyond middle age?
And yet: endless are the opinions that many persons have of what others ought to do—simultaneous with rebelling against what seem to be their own vocations, their own “acts” of life. What do we know of vocation, and how do we know it?
Ages of Human Living
Join us this Wednesday (30 July 2025, from 5:45-7:15+ pm ET) to contemplate the role of knowledge—of self, of human nature, of other persons, of the universe in which we live—in the right discernment of vocation.
philosophical happy hour
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Come join us for drinks (adult or otherwise) and a meaningful conversation. Open to the public! Held every Wednesday from 5:45–7:15pm ET.
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