Title: Philosophizing Risk and Adventure
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Assistant professor of philosophy Brian Treanor, Ph.D., sees “otherness” as central to the evolving human need for risk and adventure. “Love, death, risk, wilderness, and similar phenomena challenge us in ways that defy neat, rational formulas.”
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Professor Treanor’s approach to philosophy in his career and courses is to begin with questions. His long-term project revolves around questions associated with otherness. Recently he has turned his attention to focus on risk and adventure, something this philosopher is very familiar with. He’s an avid climber, with ascents around the world, including climbs in Nepal, China, Canada, Yosemite and the French Alps. He’s also an ice-climber, skier, and surfer. “I ask myself this question all the time, especially as I now have a family with kids,” says Dr. Treanor: “Why continue to climb? Why engage in risky behavior?”
An answer, for Professor Treanor, comes to light over a series of chapters in his current project, discussing risk through a variety of lenses, including Aristotelian virtue, psychoanalysis and aesthetics. “As our culture gets more and more controlled, safe, and coddled, you get people BASE jumping, solo sailing, big-wave surfing, climbing big mountains . . . there is a need for an outlet for this aspect of human nature.”
He sees “otherness” as a central aspect of the need for risk and adventure. “The question of otherness, in a way, is my overarching theme. The book I have just finished looks at otherness in ethics and philosophy of religion. The environmental philosophy paper I am writing looks at wilderness as a manifestation of otherness. This project on risk is also engaged in the question of otherness because risk, adventure, or however we want to put it, requires an element of uncertainty.”
In searching for answers to philosophical questions throughout his career, Professor Treanor concludes that rationality has limits, which means that it must be supplemented with alternative strategies. “Love, death, risk, wilderness, and similar phenomena challenge us in ways that defy neat, rational formulas.”