Source: Nicolas Guibal, CC BY-SA 2.0 FR, via Wikimedia Commons
One of the big discussions of our time centers on the nature of what is often called “public philosophy.” What is it? How do we define it? Who should be doing it? How should it be done? These are all questions that capture the attention of faculty and graduate students alike.
Much of this concern springs from the political moment in which we find ourselves. In the United States, philosophy is being marketed as a stimulant that can rouse certain members of our political order out of their dogmatic slumber. Philosophical analysis is pitched as providing a set of special powers, such as clarity and precision. On this view, if we just promote analytical tools to the masses, we will be able to reaffirm certain values that seem important, if not indispensable, to participating in a genuinely democratic process.
There are several problems with this approach, most of which I believe can be subsumed under two categories: a problem of definition and a problem of audience.
The definitional problem concerns what we take to count as philosophy. One of the main critiques of the notion of “public philosophy” is that, whatever it is, it cannot and should not be understood as philosophy proper. Contained in this assumption is the stubborn belief that philosophy, strictly speaking, admits of certain “fundamental” questions, debates, and texts that require years of intensive training and scholarly discipline before one can meaningfully participate.
But this is an inaccurate conception of philosophy, by its own lights. Professional philosophers go wrong when we assume that the term “philosophy” and its conceptually fuzzy counterpart “public philosophy” refer to independent phenomena.
Consider Socrates, the father of Ancient Greek philosophy, on whom we still base our collective philosophical tradition. Imagine drawing any distinction for him between “philosophy” and “public philosophy.” That it is so difficult to conceive suggests that philosophy, from its inception, presupposed a specific kind of public philosophy. Call this method “street philosophy.”
Dig deeper than the details and form a picture of the general Socratic technique. The first thing that may become salient is the setting in which Socrates embarked on many of his escapades, such as the marketplace (agora). One way to describe these spaces is to say that Socrates philosophized in the “streets.” Many who hear this term, however, may struggle to remove a number of associations that are commonly attached to this label in our popular culture. The average person who hears talk about “the streets” immediately begins forming images in their mind of poverty and crime relegated to marginalized spaces.
While Socrates was poor and indeed tried and convicted for crimes against the Athenian state, he and his reflections, from the point of view of Western history, cannot be said to be marginal in any sense. So how then could we consider him “street”?
What the Socratic mode reveals to us is that, contrary to the meaning that is normally attached to the term in our society, the streets, as a phenomenon, obtains everywhere, and everywhere contains elements of the streets.
The temperament on which Socratic engagement is based represents this. The same spirit that Socrates exudes while reflecting on the nature of justice in the Republic is consistent with the attitude he employs to defend his life-values in the Apology. Anyone who is remotely familiar with the collection of Platonic dialogues that serve as windows into Socrates’ movement knows that he was comfortable doing philosophy anywhere. At its core, philosophy, for him, requires a sort of democratic engagement.
All spaces for Socrates share one universal property: the possibility to engage with the power structure critically. Thought of in this way, what is public philosophy other than the practice of critically engaging unexamined principles with the collective good of others in mind?
This brings me to the problem of audience. All rich philosophical inquiries, even our traditional ones, are products of what I call “the street disposition.” This disposition is anchored in a general inclination to makes sense of existential puzzles that haunt the human experience. Under the guise of protecting their control over certain kinds of questions, many professional philosophers neglect the universal disposition from which all philosophical inquiries emerge. As a consequence, philosophy has evolved into a set of competing ideological frameworks and lost its grounding in the genuine compassion for bringing truth to bear on the countless frustrations, worries, and problems distinctive to the human condition.
This detachment not only harms the discipline but it also damages the public insofar as it limits the philosophical standpoints that can contribute and be taken seriously.
Traditionally ignored, a number of questions are now beginning to weigh heavily on the minds of many practitioners of our discipline. As a response, some professional philosophers are rallying for a semantic revision of the term “philosophy.”
But, as Wittgenstein and Quine taught us, words—even complex phrases such as “public philosophy”—have no meaning beyond the way that we use them.
So, yes, acknowledging that our discipline should be engaged in public affairs is a small step toward moving philosophical discourse outside the confines of the ivory tower. However, until we will realize that word “philosophy” already presupposes a particular kind of civic engagement—one that Socrates models—there will be no commitment to the street disposition that supplies an essential semantic grounding for this term’s meaning.
Darien Pollock
Darien Pollock is a Ph.D. student in philosophy at Harvard University. He is also the founder and president of Street Philosophy Institute, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to promoting research in public philosophy.
Interesting thoughts here. But a question: why are you, then, getting a PhD in philosophy from Harvard? It sounds like you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too, leveraging the prestige of the brand in order to attack it because that’s the area in which you can create your own personal brand (and, perhaps, a tenure-track position?). This critique may be too hasty, but it is a legitimate question given the two-sided tendency in this piece to both promote and demote brands, to your personal advantage (for surely, given the logic of the piece, you don’t need to name-drop or use fancy philosophical jargon in order to present the theses that you do, here!)
i’m code switching.
Ron, let me see if I can “bust in here” with my “super-fly ghetto style” and answer your stupid questions.
Q1. Why are you, then, getting a PhD in philosophy from Harvard?
A1. He is getting a PhD from Harvard because there is a discussion going on, that’s been going on for over 2000 years, and only professional, academic philosophers are allowed to speak at this table. So his PhD will give him a seat and a voice at the table. But why him? Because he is Black, Ron. And a Black body needs a Black heart, and needs a Black head. You don’t want to see a body with no head Ron, trust me. It’s very disconcerting. (LA Riots, 1993, Pocahontas was on the roof with a shotgun.)
Q2. It sounds like you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too, leveraging the prestige of the brand in order to attack it because that’s the area in which you can create your own personal brand (and, perhaps, a tenure-track position?).
A2. Brands are names. And if you were an existentialist, Ron, you’d allow that the meaning is always changing and evolving. Do you blame Harvard for wanting to remain fresh with change and to continue “becoming”? It’s how you stay young. And it’s how you survive. Don’t be so banal. It’s seriously boring.
As for the so-called “name-dropping”: If Darien is name-dropping, you can’t assume that it’s necessarily for his own personal gain. For all you know, it’s for your benefit, Ron. It’s a warning. That he’s with Harvard. So quit tripping.
Socrates in street or out of it, can’t decide (exception of a poor philosopher). But one thing for sure we have always been taught that philosophy has always been a passtime of Athenian aristocracy rather than the destitutes. Are not your views contrary to history of philosophy?
Faisal, you asked: “Socrates in street or out of it, can’t decide (exception of a poor philosopher). But one thing for sure we have always been taught that philosophy has always been a past-time of Athenian aristocracy rather than the destitutes. Are not your views contrary to history of philosophy?”
Answer:
There’s 2 points to make here, and so there are 2 answers to your question.
Point 1: Doing “philosophy” proper involves, to my understanding at least, “making a clear distinction between what is and what is not”. The skill involved here is not just any skill/sophia, but specfically, a judgment-making skill. Presumably, the best judgment-making requires heightened sensitivity to relevant particular content. This last thing I just said, is the relevant part here because Socrates said (in the Crito) that if you wanted to know what is best, you would ask the expert (who Socrates calls, “the one who knows”). Presumably, the expert of YOU would be you, just as the expert of logic would be a logician.
So, one answer to your question is simply this: The reason why even the lowly paeans who are “destitute” must engage in the activity of “philosophy” (as I had defined above) is because if the lowly paean does not do this work, and nobody else has sufficient qualification to do this work well (and this word “well” is key here), then there can never be an excellent way to be a “lowly and destitute paean”. Put simply, nobody can know how best to be you and how best to live your life, except your own self. So if you want to live the best life that is authentically yours, then this is a task that you must engage in.
And again, being tenacious, after all, you may ask next, “Why do paeans need to be excellent at all?” And if you are so tenacious, I will return with another question: “Who let the dogs out?”
Point 2: You are right. This activity is the traditionally the prerogative of the aristoi, as you say, because it is not traditionally considered the proper activity of the oi-polloi (ie, the masses), since they are considered to be, generally speaking, unfit for this type of work. In other words, doing this type of work typically doesn’t make them feel happy, because what they really want is just to reap the benefit(s) of the result(s) of this activity, rather than to engage in the doing of the activity itself. Well, this is the traditional presumption.
Of course, Socrates changed all that because he’s such a bad-ass paean (and you should totally let him study at Harvard, srsly, before he dies again).
Now, I am going to quote something significant that Darien said, which you apparently missed. He had written: “In the United States, philosophy is being marketed as a stimulant that can rouse certain members of our political order out of their dogmatic slumber.”
So what does this sentence mean? It ultimately means this: Just as Socrates once made Alcibiades ashamed of receiving honors and titles just because he was a member of the ruling class though Socrates was the one who was truly deserving (this is from Plato’s Symposium), a virtuous and just populace has the potential to incite shame in the ruling classes now, hopefully prompting them to be what the people “expect” them to be. This is what is meant by Darien’s phrase, to “rouse certain members of our political order out of their dogmatic slumber”.
Now, what do “the people” expect the members of the ruling class to be like? I have spoken with some of “the people” (because that is what I do), and as irrational as it actually is, they seem to expect the following thing: With power comes responsibility; therefore, the wealthy and privileged should be nicer, more generous, more benevolent, than ordinary people.
I do not know why they expect this, or why they seem to believe in this maxim. But the fact is that they do. And what’s more, it’s very difficult to show them with logic that their reasoning is flawed (very, very, difficult); try it, and you may get stabbed. And then, here is the clincher: if their expectations are not met, then there will be rioting in the streets again. So, just picture Pocahontas on the roof with a shotgun and ask yourself, is that what you really want? No, I didn’t think so.
In summary, the answer to your question is this: According to some, the oi-polloi should do philosophy because “irony” is the best tool that they have for bringing about a more just world — a world in which the worse do not rule over the better.
Unbelievable analysis Ron
I facilitate a public philosophy group.
Good article.
It is said that the Spartans were some of the best philosophers.
Darien, a thoughtful piece on a topic of increasing significance. (I also enjoyed the ‘code-switching’ rebuttal above).
As a recent graduate student in Philosophy of Education I’m curious about what I see as an increasing move towards a ‘pedagogical turn’ in philosophy. Public philosophy being a dialogical ‘two-way street’ in educational terms. What can philosophers learn from engaging a public? What can a public learn from philosophy?
While you make a good case for the origins of philosophy in the foundations laid by Socrates, I can understand why the commenter above (Faisal) is moved to raise the point about class: ‘aristocracy rather than destitutes’. My sense is that it might be worth considering Dewey directly, since it is worth asking why he found it compelling to move towards education rather than other areas of inquiry. At least Dewey was faced with a similar problem to our own: pursue, abandon or reconstruct the path of the academic research philosopher. (Dewey’s reconstruction begins to conflate education with the general purposes of philosophy, an open question in my view).
Let’s be clear, the type of academic philosophy (which has its own status-anxiety) practiced by researchers serves a different function. I would like to see that work continue, though its not my game. I wonder: must philosophy be reconstructed (even semantically) in order to pursue what are two worthy aims?
Adam, your question was:
“Let’s be clear, the type of academic philosophy (which has its own status-anxiety) practiced by researchers serves a different function. I would like to see that work continue, though its not my game. I wonder: must philosophy be reconstructed (even semantically) in order to pursue what are two worthy aims?”
I take it that you’re not so interested in any old response to your question, but rather to Darien’s response to the question because it’s his opinion which you value. But seeing as he did not yet take the time to respond, I thought that I could try to answer your question by citing something that Darien himself had written.
To anticipate the answer, then, perhaps I can say this: Just as the domain of justice has two sub-divisions, namely that of having a right relationship with the gods and that of having a right relationship with fellow humans (from Plato’s Euthyphro), perhaps the domain of philosophy is also already of two sub-divisions — namely, the judgment-making skill in terms of the practical (phronesis) and judgment-making skill in terms of theory (theoretical sophia). Briefly put, the definition of “philosophy” doesn’t need to be reconstructed, since the infrastructure of what it is essential to philosophy is already there. We just need to recognize that excellence in theoretical-sophia is, in some sense, supervenient on excellence in practical-sophia (ie, phronesis). This is obviously a bottom-up view.
I take that this is what is meant by Darien’s statement: “However, until we will realize that word “philosophy” already presupposes a particular kind of civic engagement—one that Socrates models—there will be no commitment to the street disposition that supplies an essential semantic grounding for this term’s meaning.” And if I have misspoken, perhaps Darien can correct me.
Now, I made a claim about a bottom-up view earlier, so I will buttress that view a bit here. The notion that the essence of a meaning is dependent on experience comes from Plato’s Symposium. In that book, Socrates talks about a “ladder of love” which allows a person to metaphorically “ascend”, mentally speaking, eventually allowing them to comprehend abstract ideas. However, being fixated on the target and dazzled by its beauty, I think that Western philosophers have, for so long (even Aristotle himself), failed to see that Plato already shows us what is the origin (aitia) of this ascent. And that origin is in the body itself. But being fixated on a goal, the body simply becomes transparent to us, and we fail to notice it at all. So we make the mistake of thinking that it has no part to play in higher-level thinking. But it does.
In addition to this, Plato also tells us that nothing imperfect can come from something perfect (Timaeus).
And so, if we take Plato seriously, then we can say that the strength of theoretical-sophia is, in some sense, critically dependent on the strength of the practical-sophia that we start with, since that is, as Darien says, essentially its origin.
I am staggered by how laboured a training in philosophy has rendered many of these comments on a lucid argument.
I know, Mary. It’s so totally ironic, don’t you think? However, only you and I seem to sense the poignancy in it.
[…] as a free people. Consider this then inspired by other recent exhortations that we undertake more public philosophy as well as recent profiles of important American philosophers and rectifiable civic […]
“A riot is the language of the unheard.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
LA RIOTS – 1992 news footage : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gCHS7CsjsE
1992 LA RIOTS news footage : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqA1Qj2MAu0