Work is more than just a means of survival. Work isn’t just a series of discrete tasks, nor is it merely how we are economically productive, pay our rent, or receive social validation. In work, at its best, we express our very mode of being.
Work has a pedagogical function: it’s where we learn to coordinate with strangers, negotiate commitments, build trust networks, and take responsibility for our promises. The workplace becomes a school for the skills of living together.
Work is not merely the execution of tasks. It involves the conversational coordination of commitments through which we take care of concerns together. It is a way of being answerable to others, of negotiating standards, of repairing breakdowns, and of sustaining shared forms of life. These capacities cut across every domain in which human beings must coordinate action around what matters.
Drawing on Heidegger’s metaphysics, philosopher B. Scot Rousse argues work is our main way of connecting with the world beyond our own minds. Western thought has long prized detached contemplation, but genuine understanding comes from trying, failing, caring, and being answerable to others. In work, we sharpen our skills, test our limits, and engage with reality through shared responsibility. Without that crucible of effort, obligation and accountability, Rousse warns, we risk shrinking into isolation.
A post-work world would be a solipsistic nightmare.
By B. Scot Rousse. His writing can be found at withoutwhy.substack.com. For further development of the ideas above, see B. Scot Rousse, “Heidegger and Phenomenological Approaches to Work,” Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Work, edited by Julian Jonker and Grant Rozeboom (forthcoming in 2026).
