Your Adventures In Philosophy Town

Disclaimer: This story is something of a non-sequitur in terms of everything else I've written so far. This is because its target audience is everyone on my Philosophy course at York, so if you don't fit that criteria, and consequently have no clue what most of this means, that's why. If you do want to go ahead and read anyway, then enjoy :) Also, any quotes in bold indicate words directly sourced from the philosopher themselves.

Chapter One - Kant's Ethics of Duty In a Pond

Today hasn't been productive; it rarely is. The last forty minutes on the wall clock have seen you browse Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Buzzfeed, Tumblr, and, once those were exhausted, your uni email account.

    Oh look: another Ethics revision lecture notice for your timetable. The exam is approaching more quickly than the Library Police after thirty minutes of leaving your belongings unsupervised. You sigh.

   The sizeable reading pack, encased in squeaky plastic curls, sits open in the middle of Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, taunting your fatigue. You wonder how student characters in films manage to unearth enough energy to whizz through textbook-stacked all-nighter montages, using only pages of notes as pillows, when you can barely muster the willpower to uncap a highlighter.

   One elbow on your desk, you sink into your bones and silently hope that every other person on your course feels just as hopeless. Maybe you should take another break, make a fifth cup of tea, watch the ‘puppy Harlem Shake’ video again…

   You suddenly notice a change in the air: previously muted and heavy, everything feels electric, like Something Significant is about to occur. Sure enough, before your eyes a purple glow pools around your reading pack. You may not do physics, but you’re fairly sure this kind of thing is contradicting a law of nature.

   You can’t stay glued to your chair for long, though - in one hummingbird heartbeat, you feel a strong tugging sensation and hear the whoosh of paper flapping past your ears. Your eyes drown in a fluorescent haze -

    Wait, it’s not your eyes that are drowning; it’s your lungs! As if a wizard somewhere snapped his fingers, you instantly find yourself submerged in deep freshwater, and it’s cold. You flail like a startled duck and kick your way to the surface, limbs getting entangled in slimy weeds as you go.

    To your simultaneous relief and horror, a large hand fastens itself around your arm and yanks it up, pulling you into the air almost as an afterthought.

    You splutter and dribble, hair in a soaking curtain over your face like the latest indie cut. But, for the moment at least, you cease to care about your dignity, even in a state of complete sobriety. The hand releases your arm; you collapse, still waist-deep in water, onto the bank of this…pond?

   As you push back your wet hair, you see grass blades, daisies, sunlight, and a pair of leather buckle shoes. At this anomaly your eyes travel slowly in an upwards direction: white silk stockings, coattails of pea green, a matching waistcoat, a ruffled linen shirt and, finally, a pallid face framed by a white wig. The face stares down at you, as if your appearance is the one that needs explaining.

    ‘Er…’ is the most articulate thing you can mumble.

    ‘Might I be able to further assist you in excavating yourself from this murky body of water?’

    ‘Y-yes spl-please,’ you say, tripping over words as your brain matches the face of your rescuer to a not-so-distant memory of a Wikipedia image.

  Once again extending his hands, wrapped in creaseless coat sleeves, Immanuel Kant helps  heave you up onto dry land. As dizzyingly confused as you are, your legs stay steady long enough for you to register an extraordinary height difference: Kant is not a tall man. His left shoulder also droops a lot, but you try to ignore that.