The stinging and transgressive power of public philosophy

Professor Alessandra Tanesini

Philosophy is blooming because it is looking outward. Until recently contemporary professional Western philosophy was, on the contrary, obsessively concerned with policing its boundaries. Much effort was expended in keeping people out. The refrain - 'how is this philosophy?’ - was used time and again to argue that some questions, approaches, or styles of argumentation did not belong to philosophy proper. In this way philosophy was meant to be kept pure and distinct from empirical science, creative practice and political activity. This exclusionary approach was not universal but it was manifest, for example, in the war between analytic and so-called continental approaches to philosophy. Back then each camp looked at the other with disdain and made no bones of the fact that it thought that what others did was not really philosophy. Further, both barely hid their contempt for ‘applied philosophy’ which neither regarded as philosophy proper.

It is hard to overstate how much things have changed, even though the change is uneven since there are powerful defenders of the old approach intent on keeping philosophy firmly in the armchair within an ivory tower (1). There is, of course, nothing wrong with a preference for some philosophical methodologies over others. The problems emerge only when some take it upon themselves to vet what can be legitimately included within the confines of philosophy. Thus, the question 'how is this philosophy?' functions, like its analogue 'but is it art?', to demand that those who break with tradition must justify what they do by the standards set by the canon they wish to reject. This is why this question is a barely disguised rhetorical manoeuvre designed to downgrade others’ views and to avoid engaging with them (Dotson, 2012).

As the interest in policing philosophy's boundaries has waned, philosophy has gone public. It is doing so in at least four interrelated ways. It is carried out in public (rather than exclusively in the halls of academia) and addresses the public (rather than exclusively professional practitioners) on matters that are of public interest (rather than on topics and problems that do not bear on issues of politics and justice), using methods that at least in some cases involve the publicness of reasons (2). Epistemology, my own area of specialism, offers a great case study of this transformation.

There was a time when research in epistemology addressed almost exclusively a small number of largely exoterical issues. These included figuring out the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge in a manner that avoided the Gettier problem, answering scepticism, establishing the structure and nature of justification. This approach was reflected in what undergraduates were taught. Students reported finding the whole area dry, uninteresting and irrelevant. It is indeed hard to get excited about figuring out the fourth or fifth condition which added to true justified belief might be sufficient for knowledge.

Even if one takes only a casual look at recent literature in epistemology it is impossible not to notice that a cataclysmic change has taken place. Gone are the days when discussing testimony and peer disagreements marked forays in unknown territory. Instead, there are lively debates on a vast range of topics ranging from conspiracy theorising, science denialism, epistemic justifications of democratic institutions and political deliberation, epistemic injustice, implicit biases, the epistemology of profiling and of algorithmic decisions making (3).

This research is largely made possible by transgressing rather than policing boundaries: within philosophy this work combines reflection on epistemological, ethical and political issues in complex ways, but it also transcends traditional Western philosophy because it is informed by, and informs, social science. Thus, for instance, the debate of the (ir-)rationality of being a conspiracy theorist seamlessly moves from discussing the results of the psychology of conspiracy theorising, to arguments about the political and social contexts within which conspiracy theories flourish, to disagreements over the rationality of belief. Similarly, research into the ways in which our current epistemic practices of testimony, of argumentation and of deliberation are marred by stereotyping and cognitive biases relies on work in psychology to analyse how some members of the epistemic community are taken to be less trustworthy than they actually are because of persistent and widespread identity prejudices.

Epistemologists who engage in these topics rarely (perhaps never) do so purely out of intellectual curiosity. Their motivations are different. Many care for the ‘truth’, but also for justice. They think that some epistemic agents are unfairly treated when they try to acquire knowledge, disseminate information, or criticise others’ viewpoints.  They try to understand these phenomena because they want to improve things. In short, these epistemologists are publicly engaged and their engagement leads them to do philosophy in public and for the public.

Accordingly the outlets by means of which philosophical work is shared have changed. Epistemologists still focus on publishing in academic journals and presses in order to gain employment and promotions, but they also spend more time writing blog posts for well-known generalist platforms such Aeon or the Conversation, doing philosophy in podcasts released on YouTube, and exchanging snippets of philosophy on twitter. Thus, there is an explosion of philosophy done in public and especially in digital environments. Such philosophising is carried out outside exclusively professional environments because the public is its intended addressee. But engaged epistemologists do not merely wish to inform the public on topics that are of general interest such as mansplaining, vaccine hesitancy or conspiracy theories. Rather, philosophers who engage in these activities are often advocates. For instance, they are warning the public of the dangers of conspiracy theorising or, conversely, of believing the bad press against conspiracy theories. Some of these philosophers are political activists highlighting the injustices suffered by members of marginalised groups and enjoining others to action.

In short, public philosophy often impassionately takes sides. It does not merely discuss issues that are of interest to the public, but it contributes to topics that are of public interest. This kind of philosophy, therefore, is often continuous with advocacy. Hence, because it is inevitably politicised, it always risks being blown off-course by various ideological wars or being side-lined as mere propaganda. This danger is especially prominent because public philosophers – positioning themselves as advocates - often need to make difficult decisions about how to relate to views that they might think are morally intolerable but which are not regarded by the majority of the public as being beyond the pale.

Broadly speaking, on each occasion given this potential discrepancy, depending on their judgement about the best way to foster moral progress, advocates might choose to engage in debate or to disrupt public discourse. Those who, in some circumstances, opt for disruption, choose a path often seen as  ‘disagreeable’. One version of this path is attempting to promote moral change by showing their contempt for opponents’ views through scorn and sarcasm. This approach is, arguably, defensible in extreme situations when grave wrongs are seemingly tolerated by the majority of the public. It has been adopted on occasion by those who fought against slavery and racism. Alternatively, some choose at times to engage with those whose views they find abhorrent in a particular way of conversing with reasons publicly in the hope that they may potentially be acceptable to all parties.

In recent times we have witnessed public philosophers adopting such paths. Some have passionately defended the necessity of ‘incivility’ in the face of racism and transphobic views. Others have used public platforms in more conventional ways to debate with their opponents. Whatever one’s views might be on the necessity of dialogue or of disruption on each particular occasion, it is abundantly clear that philosophy, by going public, is regaining the stinging power of the Socratic gadfly.

References:

Dotson, K. (2012). How is this paper philosophy? Comparative Philosophy, 3(1), 3-29. doi:10.31979/2151-6014(2012).030105

Cassam, Q. (2019). Conspiracy theories. Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA: Polity Press.

Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power & the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Clarendon.

Gardiner, G. (2020). Profiling and Proof: Are Statistics Safe? Philosophy, 95(2), 161–183. doi:10.1017/S0031819120000030.

Holroyd, J., Scaife, R., & Stafford, T. (2017). Responsibility for implicit bias. Philosophy Compass, 12(3), e12410. doi:10.1111/phc3.12410.

Landemore, H. (2012). Democratic Reason The Mechanisms of Collective Intelligence in Politics. In H. Landemore & J. Elster (Eds.), Collective Wisdom: Principles and Mechanisms (pp. 251--289). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McIntyre, L. (2019). The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression : how search engines reinforce racism. New York: New York University Press.