Creating a Philosophical Culture of Engagement

There appears to be a growing consensus that philosophers should be doing more to connect with audiences outside academia. Whether it’s the slow war on philosophy (and other humanities) being waged by university administrators or the current political situation in the US and Europe, we realize we must do more.

The public is interested; uninformed philosophical discussions abound in the media. But philosophers still struggle to engage. Philosophy is definitely improving, the last decade has seen a substantial increase in the amount of engagement. But, one worries about why we needed to improve at all. What led to our discipline’s isolation? And what can we do to hasten our progress? I thought I would take this opportunity to discuss what I take to be institutional and cultural factors that have led to this unfortunate state of affairs.

1. How we reward work

I’ll start with the obvious: public engagement rarely counts for tenure and promotion. When it does, it counts in an obscure, “isn’t that nice” kind of way. This has the immediate effect of discouraging junior faculty from allocating their limited time to this activity. Professional habits have a way of sticking with us; people rarely find the time to try new things later in their career. So those who avoid engagement when they’re junior often do so after tenure as well. As much as we like to deny it, people respond to their financial and social incentives. If we want people to engage more, we need to reward it in concrete ways.

But institutional rules are only a small part of the story. Philosophy has strong cultural norms that discourage public engagement. Writing for the public is sure to generate criticism from other philosophers. In response to my public-facing work, I’ve heard many complaints. Some object to how I choose to simplify an issue (or that I choose to simplify it at all). Most often, people ask why I left out some relevant aspect of the problem. Rarely have they given any thought to how I could have included it and kept within the word limit.

Often this criticism is well-meaning, but it can make many academics weary of engaging with the public. I have tenure and a devil-may-care attitude to insulate me from some criticism (although not all of it). Even with that, I’ve shied away from a few projects because I didn’t want to deal with how other professional philosophers might view work that wasn’t intended for them.

If we want to encourage more engagement, we need to remember that we are not the audience for public-facing work. Just imagine how you would feel if a philosopher engaged in a detailed critique of how you described your research at a cocktail party. Before you criticize, think about whether that criticism is germane for the intended audience (and that you are not the intended audience). And recognize that some editorial choices are inevitable.

2. How we think about applications

We are all aware of the long-standing battle in ethics over the undeserved stigma of “applied ethics.” The ethics community has gone a long way toward reshaping our disciplinary biases against work that is too “close to the ground,” although I am told that some substantial bias remains. Less well known are similar discussions in other parts of the discipline like epistemology and philosophy of science. Especially in epistemology, I think, there remains a strong bias toward the abstract and away from more concrete epistemic problems (although change may be afoot).

This culture has the unfortunate consequence of reducing the number of philosophers who are ready to connect their research to the problems of the day. In my more cynical moments, I think the allocation of philosophical labor is inverted relative to a problem’s cultural importance: the less important the problem the more philosophers who work on it. This is probably driven more by the gravitational pull of philosophical curmudgeon-hood than by the facts. Nonetheless, I think we need to give serious thought to what we are doing to discourage graduate students taking up problems directly relevant to people outside academic philosophy.

This is related to how we view applying philosophy outside of academia more generally. Most graduate programs are designed exclusively as professor-in-training programs. People who don’t get academic jobs are “placement failures” even if they go onto do world-changing work in policy-making, the non-profit sector, or in industry. Non-academic career paths are rarely discussed, and when they are it’s in the hushed tones of familial shame. Much has been written about how cruel this culture is. Beyond that, this way talking about work outside academia reinforces a culture of exclusivity, where those who dare to reach out worry about how it will be received.

3. How we (don’t) train graduate students to do public engagement

Another obvious impediment to connecting with popular audiences is that we aren’t trained for it. Writing an OpEd is worlds apart from the standard philosophy paper. Our graduate programs are designed to optimize a young student’s ability to speak to other philosophers. Very little focus is placed on communication with other disciplines and none on engaging with popular audiences. It is no wonder that after spending almost a decade single-mindedly focusing on writing for one audience, academic philosophers struggle to connect with another

Some universities offer extra-curricular programs, but even those tend to focus on science communication. (I suspect philosophers could benefit from those despite their topical focus.) Professional organizations, like the APA and PSA, are also starting to develop programs. All this is great, but it’s no substitute for being part of the curriculum. If we started training our students to do outreach and rewarded them for it, this might go a long way toward creating a new generation that takes public engagement seriously. Of course, graduate students have many demands on their time. If we are truly committed to this, something else has to give way, and we have to make hard choices about what that might be. But it’s not enough that we forward an email about an evening workshop – or whatever – we have to make time in the curriculum.

4. How we think about expertise

I spoke with a philosopher who wanted to engage more but said that he didn’t think anyone outside of philosophy cared about the little bit of Aristotle he worked on. I genuinely don’t know if he is right about that, but it doesn’t matter. By dint of having two or three degrees in philosophy, he has sufficient expertise to speak on a wide range of issues. Of course, he wouldn’t be the most qualified philosopher to speak on that topic, but who cares? He knows more about any philosophical topic than almost all of his potential readers.

Needlessly restricting our own expertise discourages journalists from engaging with us and discourages us from seeing what we can contribute. A few weeks ago a journalist reached out to me about a topic I know little about. I referred her to others I thought better qualified, but her deadline was less than twelve hours away. Chances are, if I didn’t respond, she would have ended up with no philosophical input. So, in addition to giving her the names of more qualified philosophers, I did my best to give intelligent answers to her questions.

A specialist in the field might cringe at my ignorance. I’m confident that someone reading that piece would wonder, “how dare he talk about a topic he knows so little about?” I’d be lying if that didn’t worry me. On the other hand, I thought it important that there be some philosophical input, and I thought I might be the last chance.

We need to think and talk differently about expertise when it comes to public engagement. One need not have an AOS in a subfield to talk intelligently about it to a journalist or an OpEd. Nor should we criticize others who are willing to talk about things outside their philosophical expertise. Of course, I’m not encouraging irresponsibility: admit what you know and don’t know. I suspect any philosopher can speak intelligently about the basic criticisms of utilitarian thinking, for instance, even if they don’t have an AOC in ethics.

While I think the desire for more public engagement is there, I’m not sure we as yet have a clear plan for how to achieve our ends. The philosophical community needs to do some soul searching about how we managed to unnecessarily isolate ourselves and what can be done to reverse that trend. Luckily, I think that positive cultural change in within reach. If we make a few small changes in how we train graduate students and how we talk to one another, we may well train a generation of philosophers who will put philosophy back at the center of intelligent public discourse.

Kevin Zollman

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Kevin Zollman is a professor of philosophy and social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. His research focuses on the use of mathematical and simulation models in the social sciences and biology. Along with Paul Raeburn, he is the author of The Game Theorist’s Guide to Parenting. On Twitter, he is @KevinZollman.