Peter asked:

I am not sure if this statement is better suited for analysis by a psychologist than a philosopher but I
will give your team of philosophers the first crack at it. I dropped out of college on purpose for no
reason. Is this possible? Does it make sense? I would also like to know how you came up with the
answers to these two questions.

============

Does it matter whether it "makes sense"? Whether you can now reconstruct the reason, whatever it
may have been? My question to you is, why are you asking this question? Why is it important to you?
What purpose will answering it serve, for you? Why not just ask what you want to do now?

Steven Ravett Brown

I believe I have a stronger understanding of psychology than philosophy, but I will give a satisfactory
answer to your question, hopefully.

In brief, a reason is not necessary. Whether you know WHY you decided to drop out does not have
any effect on the outcome of your decision. You will still be dropped out either way. [if we restate your
question: "I dropped out of college on purpose."]

I assume from previous personal experience that you can "drop" by failing to register for the following
session. The system has to work this way. [now your question could be: "I failed to register on
purpose."]

Now, for my explanation of why:

If your college is like those with which I have experience, the college cannot keep you enrolled
against your will. That is, students must actively signify their willingness to attend by registering. If
nobody registered, the college would not offer any courses, nor would they need to. In fact, it is more
surprising from an effort standpoint, that people register for courses at all.

Does this make sense? Certainly. College is a social contract. You pay for the courses you attend
according to a published schedule. As long as you register and pay, you can expect full privileges as
a student. Just as you should not expect to use the college's facilities without paying, the college
cannot charge you when you are not registered for classes.

Jeff Kenton

If you do something 'on purpose' that means you do not do it inadvertently, or accidentally, or
unknowingly. After you have done it, you know what it was that you did, and you know that it was
indeed your intention to do that thing, and not nothing, or something different.

It won't help in explaining the meaning of 'doing something on purpose for no reason' to give an
example of something one fails to do, a state of affairs that is brought about as the result of nottaking
a certain action. For one can still ask the question, 'Why?' Why did you intentionally, knowingly drop
out of college?

Suppose you reply, 'I could see no reason to continue' then that isa reason, and a sound reason.
College costs money. You could be doing better things with your time. The drawbacks outweighed
the benefits. But that is not what you want to say. What you want to say is that your dropping out —
your not turning up to register, or whatever — was your doing, but there was no explanation that you
could give, then or now, of why you made that choice, rather than the opposite choice. It is as if the
decision just happenedout of the blue. One minute you were going to continue, the next minute you
found that you had 'decided' to drop out, but without having any reason to give for that decision.

Sometimes it happens that one forgetsthe reason for doing something. Perhaps you once had a
reason for continuing in college, you saw the point to it, then one day you could no longer see the
reason. But even here, one can say that that your reason for not continuing was the things I
mentioned under the heading of 'drawbacks'. So in this scenario it is not the case that you dropped
out for no reason. Your reason was (what you saw as) the unnecessary waste of time and money.

Let's suppose finally that you did have all the time, and the money, in fact you had absolutely nothing
to lose by continuing at college. But you also forgot the reason why you had previously chose to
attend college. Well then, I suppose, whether you continued or did not continue was nothing to you at
all. You dropped out on a whim.I grant that this makes sense. That's why there is a word for it. But is
it really true — in your case?

Geoffrey Klempner