Putting philosophy in its place

Putting philosophers into a setting where they speak, first and primarily, to each other is a disservice to them. It is also a disservice to philosophy. And that means it is, finally, a disservice to the rest of the university, for locating philosophy in one department discourages it in others. Almost every—no, every!—academic subject matter has its philosophical side, and I am enough of a believer in philosophy to hold that any practitioner of any field will be a better practitioner if she engages with the philosophical side of her field. Economists ought to have philosophers of economics around to remind them of, say, the moral implications and epistemological dilemmas of their field; physicists increasingly need philosophers around to save them from some of their metaphysical excesses (just how are we going to verify string theory, anyway? And why doesn’t it matter?) And literary theorists…let’s just say that while Derrida is a fascinating guide to the history of philosophy, he is not a dependable one.

Everyone in the university needs philosophers around. Of course, a lot depends on what “around” means here. There are economists and physicists and literary theorists who have close relationships with philosophers, at their home institution and elsewhere. But if they are in different departments, they do not see those philosophers on a day-to-day basis. They have the option to avoid them. And that they should not have. They should be forcibly reminded of philosophy, and of the philosophical side of their own disciplines, whenever they collect their mail or walk down the corridor. Freedom from philosophy is all too often seen as a virtue by workers in other fields—and it shouldn’t be.

There is not an academic anywhere in the world who should think of herself as safe from philosophy!

So what we need is to free philosophy from its enclosure within philosophy departments, without cutting it free from the university altogether. And here is my proposal:

What if the title “Professor of Philosophy” were an honorific for people who, after having achieved significantly in their original fields, decide they want to think more broadly about things? Such people could then make application to the philosophy department—actually, a philosophy program, since it would not have faculty of its own—and upon being accepted could call themselves e.g. “Professor of English and Philosophy,” or “Professor of Physics and Philosophy.” Bringing their own disciplinary viewpoints and expertise to bear within what would obviously be an extremely diverse intellectual community, they would help hammer out a sense of “how things, in the widest sense, hang together, in the widest sense,” which is one way—though not, I think the best—to define philosophy.

“Philosophy” would then have a chance to be what it needs to be, both for its own sake and for that of the wider university to which it belongs: the crossing of all disciplinary boundaries at once (a second definition of philosophy, a bit better than the previous one).

Is that all? Is there no other place for philosophy within the university? —Or, to put it differently: is there really no honest job that a philosophy department can do?

I think there is. Let's just say that philosophy is whatever philosophers do (this is the best, because most minimal, definition of all). Who, then, are the “philosophers?” On the above proposal, they are people who have applied to, and been accepted by, a philosophy program. The acceptance is based on (a) serious achievement within their field of origin, and (b) their interest in foundational issues that arise within those fields but extend beyond them.

So philosophers are intellectual achievers with unusually broad interests. Sounds familiar. But does it leave out anyone whom we might want to call a “philosopher?"

Yes, because it restricts the set of “philosophers’ to our contemporaries. It is just another case of the American Fallacy: assuming that how things are around here right now is the way they are, or should be (or should have been), everywhere.

In particular,this definition omits the entire group of people I appealed to in one of my previous posts—Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, etc. And any definition of philosophy which tosses these people out is not a definition of "philosophy" at all, but of something else. Philosophy has a uniquely long history—only those of poetry and religion are longer, in the West.

The history of philosophy,moreover, is a single sweep, in the sense that later members of it consciously and critically build upon the work of earlier members. That single critical sweep is important because, together with poetry and a few other disciplines, it has created the fundamental components of the Western vocabulary: we would not have words like “freedom,” “justice,” “beauty,” and “truth” if it were not for the labors of philosophers over millennia.

So the history of philosophy needs to be taught somewhere. In addition to the Philosophy Program, there should also be a Department of the History of Philosophy. A department whose members, once they fulfill the criteria, could become members of the Philosophy Program, just like anyone else. Such a person would then be a “Professor of the History of Philosophy and Philosophy.”

(And philosophy, and philosophy, and philosophy/ creeps in its petty place from day to day/ until the last syllable of recorded time....)

Pretty exciting. Will it ever happen? Probably not. Part of the rationale for the very existence of the modern university is to instill more or less explicit rules and standards into every field. Which makes it  doubtful that philosophy will ever sit comfortably within the university. Philosophy in the university sometimes reminds me of that old description of Wittgenstein at Cambridge: an eagle trying to live in a cuckoo clock

Comments

[Evgeni V. Pavlov]

Do you think philosophers themselves would accept the change even if it was accepted by the university system? It seems that most philosophers in the university like the idea of their own department, if they even think about it, in the recent years to establish a department is to demonstrate the "legitimacy" of something - I'm thinking of departments dedicated to Cultural Studies or other "new" fields...

[John McCumber]

I don't doubt you're right. Philosophers like their departments, though there seem to be fewer and fewer of both philosophers and departments, and there is also inertia: bureaucracy proliferates in academia at least as much as anywhere else.

Still, I have two points to make:

•Those philosophers who work seriously in the history of philosophy wouldn't have to move--their only change would be in their department's name, from "Philosophy" to "History of Philosophy." If having a department of one's own increases one's legitimacy, as you rightly observe, then the historians' legitimacy would increase.

•My overall argument is that an arrangement such as I suggest would be better for philosophers themselves than is their current isolation in a separate department. They would be better philosophers, or would find it easier to do their best work.

How can a philosopher be against that?

[Evgeni V. Pavlov]

I agree with you whole-heartedly, my comment was more of a "think-along" - in my limited experience, however, being a philosopher and teaching at a philosophy department can be, indeed as you pointed out, two completely different things. In this sense, it seems that belonging to the academia in general, while good idea for other disciplines, might, in fact, be harmful for philosophy, don't you think? I have to say that I very much appreciate this blog as I have been thinking about the similar issues - thanks for your time and effort.