Las Vegas a philosopher’s ‘paradise’ - who’d have thought?

By Charlotte Hsu

Sunday, Oct. 7, 2007 | 7:20 a.m.

What's it like to be a philosopher in Las Vegas?

That's the question Todd Jones, chairman of UNLV's philosophy department, gets a lot when he goes home to Pennsylvania - "as if there's an interesting answer or there's something odd about that," he says.

Las Vegas brands itself as sexy, carefree, decadent, the place where cocktails and risk-taking trump the philosopher's weapons of reason and logic. Living in a land of excess and hedonism, people surmise, must surely shape a thinker's views.

To UNLV philosophy professor Paul Schollmeier, Las Vegas is a "paradise" for his kind. It is a place of fables.

Outsiders often express surprise that people live here (although given a bit of thought, it's obvious: Someone has to run the casinos, divvy up the water, provide police protection). To visitors, casinos are gambling hubs, whereas to locals, Schollmeier says, the Bellagio, Venetian and other resorts are community centers, housing shops, fine dining, art galleries and other amenities.

The mystique engulfing the region is an ever-present reminder that humans can never know anything for sure, an argument Schollmeier - and Socrates - have made more than once.

"The fact that there are so many myths about Las Vegas serves as a reminder that human knowledge itself is a myth," he said. "We really don't know anything."

The Luxor, Mirage, Caesars Palace and other structures are physical manifestations of chance, calling attention to the fact that humans cannot fully control their fates, Schollmeier said.

David Forman, another faculty member in Jones' and Schollmeier's department, sees nothing unusual about philosophizing amid billboards pushing strippers and party buses trolling the streets.

Philosophy deals with universal questions, he says. Does God exist? If so, what is God? Which actions are moral and which are wrong? What is beauty? What is goodness?

Philosophers try to answer these questions using well-constructed arguments, a job they can do anywhere - even on a campus with a view of the MGM Grand.

Scholars often find inspiration not in their surroundings but in colleagues who can find faults with their reasoning. A smart set of fellow faculty members - not the indulgence people associate with Las Vegas - is what drew Forman to UNLV.

Jones, too, says he hasn't been hugely influenced by his environs.

When relatives or friends ask what it's like to study philosophy in Las Vegas, "it's always sort of hard to answer because it's a boring answer," Jones says. "It's the same as if you're teaching it at Penn State."

Still, one way in which Las Vegas has affected Jones' thinking is that the culture of gambling has made him less inclined to accept the argument that humans always seek to act in ways that benefit them the most.

Another Las Vegas-specific oddity Jones has noticed: Many UNLV students seem fluent in basic probability even before completing a class in the field.

Schollmeier says what people may not realize about Las Vegas is that it's really a very philosophical town.

"Philosophy is thinking about thinking, or thinking about what you're doing," he said.

Every comedian, dancer or magician who stops to ponder his routine is, in fact, philosophizing.

So really, what's the mystery? We all know what it's like to be a philosopher in Las Vegas.