Issues in PhilosophyPhilosophy in the Contemporary World: Can Philosophy Survive the Neoliberal Academy?

Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Can Philosophy Survive the Neoliberal Academy?

Note: This piece is adapted from Brandon Absher’s presentation at the Eastern APA 2019, entitled “The Neoliberal University and What This Means to Society”

In March 2018, the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point (UWSP) announced that it would be eliminating thirteen majors. In its statement, the university justified these sweeping cuts by referring to “fiscal challenges” that had resulted in a $4.5 million deficit over two years and declining enrollment. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the liberal arts and social sciences were decidedly over-represented among the departments selected for closure. Philosophy was initially among them. As of this writing, the philosophy department, along with most others, has been removed from the slate of programs to be cut and it appears that there will no longer be layoffs. Still, this reprieve can hardly be reassuring.

To understand this turn of events in Wisconsin, it is important to recognize that the state has been in the vanguard of the neoliberal restructuring of the university since at least the election of Scott Walker to the governorship in 2010. When I talk about the “neoliberal restructuring of the university,” I am pointing to a number of changes in the funding, organization, and conception of higher education both in the United States and around the world. Neoliberalism describes an ideological project to use state power to establish competitive markets in all aspects of life and thereby advance individual liberty and encourage entrepreneurship. Political theorist Wendy Brown has described the ascendance of neoliberalism as a “stealth revolution” that has advanced a “governing rationality that disseminates market values and metrics to every sphere of life and construes the human itself exclusively as homo oeconomicus.” As applied to higher education, neoliberalism has meant widespread and extreme cuts in state funding. Alongside this, it has resulted in a shift in common sense so that education is now widely viewed as a private consumer good and students and their families as consumers. Within this marketplace, colleges and universities are supposed to compete for tuition dollars, as students and their families are imagined as shrewd investors looking to increase their “human capital.” Simultaneously, nations are thought to compete with one another – particularly for jobs – such that investment in education is supposed to ensure “global competitiveness.” This changed neoliberal understanding of the university, it seems clear, is the basic logic behind the devastating closures and proposed layoffs at UWSP.

To get a sense of what all this means for philosophy, it is worth more closely examining some of the reasoning that was used at UWSP. There were two primary considerations offered in the decision to eliminate particular programs. First, departments with low enrollments were targeted. Second, departments with majors that do not provide “clear career pathways.” Of course, these rationales are connected: Presumably, departments have low enrollments due to the fact that their majors do not provide “clear career pathways.” Notably, though, this concern did not apply in the case of philosophy; the department boasted more than 100 majors at the time they were marked for closure, very near, if not more than, the number at the flagship university in Madison. Despite these numbers, two further reasons were cited to philosophy faculty to justify closing their well-enrolled program. Namely, most of their students had other majors as well and those who majored in philosophy tended not to declare it until later on in their undergraduate careers (as we often say – philosophy majors are made, not born). Ultimately, the program was not itself drawing students to UWSP and was not therefore enhancing the “competitiveness” of the institution in its attempt to maintain enrollment. In an early draft of its “Point Forward” proposal and again in an interview with Provost Greg Summers in The Atlantic, it was made clear that even increased funding or an improved financial situation probably would not avert the cuts. After all, there are “opportunity costs” to funding any program; the costs of “investing” in one major would have to be weighed against the potential benefits of “investing” in others. In short, just like their potential students, college administrators must now consider their “return on investment” (ROI) as they seek out “market share” in a global competition for students and their tuition dollars. Perhaps this is why, as reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 651 departments in foreign languages in the United States were closed in the past three years.

There is, sadly, much for philosophers to worry about in this situation. Obviously, all of us but the most privileged should be concerned about our own job security and that of our colleagues. Further, we should be troubled by the winnowing of the definition of education so that it is now tailored to the narrowly utilitarian end of “meeting workforce needs.” This narrowing is especially unsettling if we believe, as Martha Nussbaum has argued, that humanities education in particular is essential for democracy or, following Henry Giroux, that the university itself should be a democratic public sphere. Likewise, the sudden extinction of foreign languages departments even as the United States becomes increasingly diverse and universities increasingly rely on the enrollment of international students to make up budget deficits is an alarming contradiction. In a “post-truth” era in which white nationalism has a very well-placed megaphone, the political consequences of such devastating curricular changes are undoubtedly disquieting. But I think we must further consider what they mean for the practice of philosophy and the kinds of knowledge it produces. Something of this is hinted at in the “Point Forward” proposal referred to earlier. The authors suggest that traditional liberal arts disciplines should be “reimagined” for “students seeking applied learning to improve their career potential.” They further ask, “Instead of a Philosophy major, can we develop offerings in applied ethics for the next generation of professional leaders?” In contrast to the supposedly staid, boring, and essentially useless hot air of traditional, “pure” philosophy, the neoliberal university demands an exciting “applied” philosophy. This seemingly innocuous and even potentially progressive demand that philosophy be “applied” raises the question, though: What qualifies as “applied” philosophy?

Before I explore this question, let me issue a disclaimer: the criticisms of the concept of “application” as it is used within the neoliberal university that follow should not be seen as suggesting that there is anything particularly wrong with applied philosophy as such, as this is understood by professional philosophers, or with addressing the issues of the day philosophically in publicly accessible forums – as hopefully this very blog post demonstrates by example. In any case, I argue that philosophy is “applied” in the context of the neoliberal university so long as it serves the demands of potential employers and corporations within the new, high-tech global economy.  Philosophical ideas that call into question the social values and material practices underwriting this economy and the careers for which students are to be “made ready” are ruled out in advance. Consider, for example, whether the groundbreaking writings of Frantz Fanon are “applied” philosophy. They certainly changed the world, but one can only surmise that their strident critique of colonialism and defense of revolutionary violence is not what the call for “application” is really after. Or again, consider whether Angela Davis’ magisterial theorization of mass incarceration and call for prison abolition is “applied” in the relevant sense. I somehow doubt it. Instead, “applied” philosophy is supposed to accept and attempt to fit into, indeed develop an “ethics” for, a world in which, to quote only one recent statistic in a flood of similarly horrifying news, the world’s richest one percent took home 82% of all wealth produced in 2017, according to Oxfam International. Certainly, philosophy should have a public, even political mission – and one, I would suggest, that serves the interests of the great majority of humanity. Unfortunately, this is anything but what is demanded of philosophy in the neoliberal university under the heading of “application.”

From the inception of Western philosophy, its application has been regarded with fear by those in power. Socrates was executed for impiety and corrupting the youth. If Plato is to be trusted, Socrates was almost recklessly defiant in his public denunciation of the values of Athenian society. As a “gadfly,” he sought not to promote integration into the status quo, but instead what Nietzsche might have called a “transvaluation of values.” Following this inauspicious beginning, philosophy has always had an uneasy relationship with constituted power and prevailing ideology; at times cozying up to tyrants and dictators, at times suffering mightily even in supposed democracies. As departments across the country face similar situations as those at UWSP, we are all confronted with a choice: Will we become “applied” philosophy in the sense desired by the neoliberal university or will we continue, in the untimely legacy of Socrates, to step outside the present and herald a future beyond the contemporary order? We must confront the question of how and in what condition we will survive. As I suggested above, the stakes are high: democratic citizenship, the existence of a robust public sphere, intercultural understanding, the value of truth itself. More than ever, it seems to me, philosophy, in its most ancient sense, is called for.

Brandon Absher

Brandon Absher is an Assistant Professor at D’Youville College in Buffalo, NY and a co-coordinator of the Radical Philosophy Association. His primary research is in 20th century Continental philosophy. He is also a longtime activist.

4 COMMENTS

  1. The use of the word “neoliberal” is accurate, because now linguistically traditional, but it is also misleading, as the reality it refers to is better described as “neoconservative.” This is especially true — or relevant — inasmuch as the Democratic Party is, tragically and for the most part, merely Republican Lite. What America needs is not a third political party, but a viable and authentic second. No other democratic nation is so devoid of (and makes it practically impossible to implement) political party pluralism. Meanwhile, America’s colleges and universities are largely to blame for “educated” citizen ignorance of the nation’s own modern history and tragic trajectory; and they are largely responsible for their own corporate takeover, including high-paid bloated bureaucracies, pervasive slave-wage adjuncts, and astronomical student tuition, thereby selling their souls in a Faustian bargain that benefits only their own bureaucrats and the nation’s banks, while dumbing down the American populace that increasingly votes for the neofascists who betray them at every turn.

  2. Well said!

    Is Philosophy adopting the tradition of Socrates or has she too succumbed to the whims and wishes of the establishment?

    Considering her reluctance to open up to new thoughts and ideas and her tendency to keep status quo about her existing or established knowledge foundations, it seems, she too has succumbed.

    When other leading people friendly ( supposed to be!) institutions like media and industry stand one with the establishment, democratic or royal or autocratic, Philosophy was the only institution that should have stood with humankind, her knowledge progress uninhibitedly. But alas!
    Humankind is sadly orphaned.

  3. Philosophy indeed has a place in higher education and to argue further, a place in secondary education… It is also true that philosophy must ‘measure up’ to the very metrics similarly required of all academic disciplines and so the applied value argument does have relevancy. A philosophical ‘think tank’ is needed just as surely as an Internal Affairs division within any and every institution and business.

  4. Absher writes, “There is, sadly, much for philosophers to worry about in this situation.”

    Or perhaps not. It can be argued that one’s philosophy can be greatly enhanced over time by trading the too comfortable ivory tower for a rich diversity of challenging experience in the real world beyond. If one wishes to think and write about the human experience, it helps to have as much such experience as one can find.

    My own work history has traveled the breadth of both the blue collar and white collar worlds. I’ve driven truck loads of human waste out to farmland in middle of the night, built and sold a Net startup for big bucks, and too many other adventures in between to begin to list here.

    In the real world beyond the ivory tower one meets all kinds of different people living all kinds of different lives, and one’s own abilities are challenged from a variety of directions. All of these varied experiences become fuel for philosophical reflection if one is so inclined.

    If one has traveled the real world realm beyond the ivory tower inconvenient questions such as the following may arise.

    It seems reasonable to ask why our society should take money from hard working barely paid waitresses and truck drivers to fund philosophy departments when here on a leading philosophy blog professional philosophers show such little interest in each other’s work.

    There have been periods here on the blog when this former wallpaper installer has shown more interest in APA member’s articles than all of your professional peers put together. What’s that all about?

    If you can answer that question honestly you may develop a deeper insight in to why academic philosophers are so often concerned about budget cuts. It’s not sensible to expect the general public to be more interested in your field than you are.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

WordPress Anti-Spam by WP-SpamShield

Topics

Advanced search

Posts You May Enjoy

International Women’s Day Profile: Cristina Peri Rossi

This post was originally published on Filosofía en la Red. It has been translated as part of the APA Blog’s ongoing collaboration with Filosofía...