No Holds Barred in the Debate Ring with Pro Philosopher 2

With a busy schedule and an impending fear of time being wasted on yet another Netflix binge-watch, I find myself enjoying small games more and more, particularly those that leave me with some takeaway. There are many games that try to scratch that itch with the reification imagery, soundscapes, and storytelling they portray; I am thinking of Disco Elysium, Norco, 1000xResist, or Night in the Woods, perhaps.

Nevertheless, these games – I say, having devoured them – are often strenuously long, in a way that playing them over multiple days, or weeks, doesn’t let one keep track off the complex messages hidden beneath. Additionally, they avoid clear declarations of intentions perhaps from the fear of spoon-feeding patronizing commentary to their consumers (with the most egregious cases being interpretative “art” games like Neva or The Longest Road on Earth, which I love, but whose statements are removed from daily life).

Some weeks ago, though, I played a game that addressed these concerns and that has left me with both food for thought and a sweet aftertaste of time spent – Pro Philosopher 2. Now, perhaps you are thinking: “yet another bland, serious game”. No.

Pro Philosopher 2 might be about philosophy, and might contain historical characters and arguments, but we are not talking about a slide-show with points and badges over it. This game, much like Ace Attorney (or Golden Idol if we stretch it), is one of deduction and logic. It contains seven 30-minute-long dialogues/chapters, and taps into seven famous political philosophers whose ideological and political limitations you have to disentangle.

The overarching theme of Pro Philosopher 2 is “how should humans govern themselves?”. Set in an esoteric dimension, the plot begins almost in medias res (with a vague excuse to make sense of it) with Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher. Confucius hits you with a straightforward argument: The job of a government is to keep things “running smoothly”, which necessitates that everyone do “their duty”. I have set “smooth” and “duty” in quotation marks because the player’s first task is to probe these generic, abstract statements by asking for clarifications.

Pro Philosopher 2 makes you ask for both clarifications and for your opponent’s statement backing, which allow Confucius’s statements to be updated, and this process gives you arguments to challenge his statements. Your task is then to question the logic of your opponent using their very own arguments, inherently testing their coherence!

In the case of Confucius, he argues that the ruler, through their perfected talents, will inspire others to act magnanimously like them. The counterargument Pro Philosopher 2 provides you here is that of the “ruler without checks” – as Confucius’s hard-on-crime frenemy, legalist Han Feizi, suggested, an unchecked ruler can turn to self-perpetuation by installing a realm of punishment that is not magnanimous whatsoever, breaking Confucius’ logic.

Notably, having read Confucius, although the portrayal is compact, I’d argue it remains faithful to his message. I think this is kinda nice, since it can help people understand the culture of today’s mainland China.

Now, if this gameplay loop sounds easy, or if it sounds like it would get boring rapidly, let me put those concerns at ease. In addition to intertwining historical arguments, the contained palatable length of the chapters and the variety of the debaters keeps the game fresh yet thought provoking.

For instance, in the game’s fourth chapter, we get to argue against Karl Marx! In the game, Marx, famous for his vanguard dictatorship of the proletariat, acknowledges the possibility that in the transition of power between capitalism to socialism the power is usurped by an elite few – as historically ended up happening with the Stalin-Trotsky debacle. Here, instead of remaining static on Marxist literature, the game switches it up, and the player is asked to challenge Kropotkin’s Marxist alternative: Anarcho-communsim.

I found this particular instance quite challenging, as I am a firm believer of mutual aid principles, but the game proposed a counterargument that I had to concede: Free trade allows for concentration and usurpation if there is no anti-corruption group to supervise it. Even if everything belongs to everyone, in situations of scarcity, which are bound to happen, there would be rationing, and some people would get what others can’t, creating inequities and fights herein.

Although I think of myself as pretty versed in philosophy, these nuances helped me remember that other people on the political spectrum will have different trust and risk aversion than I do, and they may consequently prioritize certain responses that I wouldn’t chose. In this sense, I’d argue Pro Philosopher 2 can bring memorable entertainment while also being a very nice (and needed) first dip into political philosophy. Heck, it even manages to put Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance and Nozick’s Minarchist State to talk to each other, while bundling in Fanon’s decolonial perspective.

Even if we ignore the societal pressure to make the most of our time, I don’t think we should eschew the revisionist principle of contesting our own ideals from time to time, and I think this shouldn’t further limit the leisure and rest time we have. Pro Philosopher 2’s efforts to disentangle limitations don’t take the work out of the logic, but with its bite-sized scenarios, you get time to check it for nuances while having fun  – as the game confronts the tense extractivist-punitivist logic of our current political systems while proposing alternatives without any sugar-coating.

Furthermore, upon finishing the game, you can review the different chapters by their statement updates, offering an approachable tool to check the thoughts of these philosophers afterward, as you may wish to show Pro Philosopher 2 to a friend or a class of students.

But if you wish to test the waters first, not only does the game have a demo, but also has a free prequel – Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher, with different philosophers to get angry at! If you think leisure can’t be educational, I’d ask you to give the game a try – if nothing else, it lasts less than five hours.

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Dídac Jiménez-Torras is a games and education PhD student at Open University of Catalonia. As you read this, they are probably engrossed in a debate defending an anarchic perspective, or reading a visual novel about future societies…. Feel free to say hello through their Linktree.