A Companion to Public Philosophy

Lee McIntyre, Nancy McHugh, Ian Olasov, Lee McIntyre, Nancy McHugh, Ian Olasov

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781119639572, 9781119635222
• eBook ISBN: 9781119635246
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

The first anthology devoted to the theory and practice of all forms of public philosophy, A Companion to Public Philosophy brings together in a single volume the diverse practices, modalities, and perspectives of this rapidly growing field. Forty-two chapters written by established practitioners and newer voices alike consider questions ranging from the definition of public philosophy to the value of public philosophy to both society and philosophy itself. Throughout the book, philosophers offer insights into the different publics they have engaged, the topics they have explored, the methods they have used and the lessons they have learned from these engagements.

The Companion explores important philosophical issues concerning the practice of philosophy in the public sphere, how public philosophy relates to advocacy, philosophical collaborations with political activists, locations where public philosophy can be done, and more. Many essays highlight underserved topics such as effective altruism, fat activism, trans activism, indigenous traditions, and Africana philosophy, while other essays set the stage for rigorous debates about the nature, value, and philosophical significance of the practice of public philosophy.

A Companion to Public Philosophy is essential reading for philosophers from all walks of life who are invested in and curious about the ways that philosophy can impact the public and how the public can impact philosophy. It is also an excellent text for undergraduate and graduate courses on the theory and practice of public philosophy as well as broader courses on philosophy, normative ethics, and comparative and world philosophy.

Part I
Public Philosophy and Its Problems

1
What Is Public Philosophy?

LEE MCINTYRE

After years of misgivings, false starts, and concerns about “what are my colleagues going to think?” – usually followed by furious clandestine activity – I am elated to think that public philosophy has finally arrived. This is more than just the philosophical profession “having a moment” over an enlarged view of what issues count as philosophical and who counts as a philosophical audience, but a full‐fledged acknowledgment that public engagement is now returning to the rightful place it had at the time that philosophy was founded.

When Socrates began to engage people in the streets of Athens 2400 years ago, philosophy was very much a public enterprise. The idea was that through philosophical discussion, we could learn more about not only the important questions of knowledge, reality, morality, and justice but also how to make ourselves better people in the process. At its inception, philosophy was practiced by and with ordinary people, and it was responsive to their questions and concerns. Somewhere along the way, philosophy got taken over by scholars, but it was not always thus. Indeed, for most of its history, philosophy’s most celebrated practitioners often did something else for a living: Confucius was a governor, Maimonides was a physician, Descartes was a soldier, Hume was an administrator, Hildegard of Bingen was an abbess, Locke was a government official, Bishop Berkley was a religious cleric, Sri Harsa was a court poet, Anselm was a cleric, Spinoza was a lens grinder, Leibniz was a mathematician, Anna Julia Cooper was a school teacher and organizer, and so on.

The standard history tells us that all this changed with Kant, who became the first famous philosophy professor¹ – which means that in about 1780, over two millennia after it got its start, the professionalization of philosophy had begun. Over time, as philosophers began to respond more and more to one another (and philosophical issues got more difficult for even the educated public to understand), there came a growing sense that philosophy was not very applicable to real‐world problems and that those who were interested in philosophical work were most likely to be other philosophers. In the ensuing years, as the analytic and continental traditions began their split (and the former became much more dominant in the English‐speaking world), this problem was exacerbated. More and more, philosophy abandoned its concern with the “meaning of life” and focused most of its attention on the “meaning of words.”

Of course, even in its recent history, there have been those who sought engagement with a general audience or wanted to make their work more relevant to human concerns. Not far behind, though, were the nay‐sayers, who celebrated Bertrand Russell’s work in logic but decried his popular essays and small paperbacks, or those who failed to acknowledge that Karl Marx was a philosopher at all. But in recent years, there has been a revival of interest in the idea that philosophy should matter more, not just to the public but to the lives of the professional philosophers who do it, and that philosophy can and should be written in a more accessible way. More importantly, there has been less apology and embarrassment over the desire to do public philosophy, even while there are still organizations like “Against Professional Philosophy” that keep their membership secret and identify themselves only by code names for fear of retaliation.

In the twenty‐first century, we have numerous examples of prominent members of the profession who write for a general audience (Harry Frankfurt, Peter Godfrey‐Smith, Kate Manne, Jason Stanley, and George Yancy come to mind) but also philosophical radio shows, podcasts, a dedicated philosophy column (until recently) in the New York Times called The Stone, and a new column in The New Statesman called Agora.² We have public events like “Ask a Philosopher” and “Night of Philosophy” in many cities,³ and philosophers who give TED talks, write op‐eds, and give speeches to industry, government, and corporations all around the world.⁴ Some these days even work as consultants on popular television shows that take up philosophical issues, like The Good Place.⁵ Also worth mentioning here are some of the efforts to capture philosophical issues on film, such as The Imitation Game, Memento, and The Matrix, not to mention documentary films like Astra Taylor’s Examined Life and What Is Democracy? and Raoul Peck’s biographical drama The Young Karl Marx.⁶ For those who wish to do public philosophy, the venues these days are abundant.

There is even recognition now by the American Philosophical Association (APA) itself of the value of public philosophy: it started the Public Philosophy Network (before it grew into its own entity) and the APA Committee on Public Philosophy. Other institutions that promote the worth of public philosophy include the Marc Sanders Foundation, the Kegley Institute, the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at George Mason, The Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA), Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO), the Parr Center for Ethics, the Prindle Institute for Ethics, The Kettering Foundation, and the National High School Ethics Bowl.

It is important to remember, too, that in other countries, philosophy never really left public life in the way it did in the United States. Even at the height of the linguistic turn in philosophy in the 1960s, Oxbridge philosophers were on British radio and TV all the time, and there are still philosophical radio and TV programs in France and Germany. While there are surely still some philosophers who look down their noses at anything perceived as “popular,” we have also seen an avalanche of academics who are trying to get their own titles published in the popular philosophy series at Blackwell, Oxford, and Open Court.⁷ It is no longer absurd to think that “public philosophy” is a respectable enterprise within philosophy itself.

The appearance of so many works in the last decade that fall under the banner of “public philosophy” has done much to enhance the idea that one can engage in public philosophy and still be a first‐class scholar, and even to broaden our understanding of scholarship to include public engagement. One hopes that those who are coming out of graduate school in the next few decades will not remember a world that was any different. The challenge here, of course, is to do work that (1) does not give short shrift to the philosophical issues but (2) engages people beyond the academy in important matters that philosophers are thinking about. The balance is tricky. One must strive simultaneously not to “water down” the issues but also not to lose the non‐specialist reader. It’s hard enough to do philosophy with people who share your professional training; try making it comprehensible to a general audience.

Some of the best examples of public philosophy so far seem to come from those who strive to make most of their work accessible so that it exists only in one (clear) form, rather than having a “scholarly” book, followed by a “popular” book, on the same issue. Of course, that is only one way of doing public philosophy. Another model might be where philosophers take on important matters of public concern in their scholarship, with less thought for who their reading audience might be than for the idea that public philosophy means doing work that serves the public good. This can lead to tension. Is public philosophy more about bringing the public into the world of philosophers or getting philosophers to reach out to a larger set of issues in the world? Maybe it’s both. An emerging third modality is when philosophers work collaboratively with outside communities, decision‐makers, and others about issues that they would like to bring to the table.⁸

These considerations can lead to a fair amount of criticism and controversy – and confusion – and perhaps for that reason, they are doubly important to contemplate in a volume such as this, which is the first general anthology devoted to public philosophy in the English language. And after waiting all these years, there’s a lot to consider! What is public philosophy? Is it the same as “popular” or “applied” philosophy? Who counts as a public philosopher? Does one need a PhD? An academic appointment? If we work with collaborators, are they public philosophers as well? What counts as public engagement? Is it merely making our work more accessible to a general audience? Or is it taking on some of the burning issues of our day like fascism or inequality that are of particular moment at present within our society – and taking a stand? What is the line between activism and public philosophy? Is there a distinct set of “public” philosophical issues that carve out a separate subdiscipline? Or does every subdiscipline and specialty area within philosophy have the potential to become a source of public engagement? Should public philosophy be thought of more as an approach to doing philosophy than its own subdiscipline? How should we provide institutional recognition and credit for public philosophical work? And finally, why is it important to do this kind of work at all?

One can find a lot of good work in public philosophy these days that provides different answers to these questions. Indeed, given the amount of work that can credibly call itself “public philosophy,” it is remarkable that until now there has not been a general anthology of readings on this topic.⁹ In this volume, my colleagues and I have sought to remedy this by featuring work from some of the most outstanding public philosophers of our time, who represent a diversity of approaches to the discipline.

What about the critics and the set of open critical issues that face public philosophy’s relationship to philosophy as a profession? As stated, public philosophy has been the subject of a great deal of criticism, which we’ve made an effort to feature here as well. This book is organized to consider both general issues in how to approach and think about public philosophy – what it means, what may be its limits – and examples of outstanding work in various specific areas of concern. Some of the historically neglected topics on race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, class, disability...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Notes on Contributors
• Foreword
• Part I: Public Philosophy and Its Problems
• Part II: Locations and Impacts
• Part III: Modalities
• Part IV: Collaborators
• Part V: Looking Forward
• Index
• End User License Agreement