This is an excerpt from an interview with Ann-Sophie Barwich, Assistant Professor at Indiana University Bloomington who talks about being baptized in protest in East Germany, acting, poetry, Faust, Die Toten Hosen, Demian, an early interest in drama and art, dabbling in literary studies in college, and then philosophy and science, dealing with loss, working with John Dupré, the problem with armchair philosophy, Hedwig Dohm and feminism, models and the practice turn in philosophy of science, starting a dissertation on Leibniz and ending up with a dissertation on the history and philosophy of the science of smell, Stuart Firestein, language and philosophy, The Rusty Bike, sexism, petrichor, her new book on the philosophy and science of smell, Ambergris, dogs, beer and Indiana, Gestalt switches, Martha Nussbaum, EEG, the Churchlands and John Bickle, The Philosopher Queens, Lost in Translation, Blondie, Leonard Cohen, Pollock, Death in Venice, Kandinski, Murder She Wrote, Tesla, and her last meal…
What did you find appealing about philosophy, exactly?
Difficult question because I developed an ambivalent relationship with philosophy. I’m deeply convinced of the value philosophical thinking has in science and society. However, its institutionalized profession disenchants me. It too often is an exercise of form over the creation of content. An extreme example is metaphysical debate on “grounding.” Perhaps, this is a consequence of the specialization in the natural sciences in the nineteenth century and the fact that philosophers gave up topics now covered by the social sciences in the twentieth century, but large parts of the discourse have become somewhat self-referential. That’s not to say that there aren’t any good philosophers or debates – there really is some exciting work going on. But these people too often work at the margins, not a great incentive given the current job market pressure. So my distaste for intellectual hand waving is a direct consequence of the potential that good philosophical practice has, but is incentivized to suppress. Before you object, I end with a quote by Habermas, which for me sums up the issue: “Philosophy’s position with regard to science, which at one time could be designated with the name “theory of knowledge,” has been undermined by the movement of philosophical thought itself. Philosophy was dislodged from this position by philosophy.”
Where did you end up going to grad school? Biggest surprise?
I did my Ph.D. at Egenis, the Centre for the Life Sciences at the University of Exeter. One of the first surprises was how different academic Philosophy was done in the Anglo-American world, compared to Germany, for instance. I think we still underestimate the regional differences between Philosophy across the globe and the dominance of Philosophy originating in the UK and US. Compare how many philosophers from the Graduate Center at CUNY you could name from the top of your hat with how many Russian or Brazilian philosophers would come to mind just as quickly.
Philosophically, what was trending at grad school at the time? In general? What were the strengths of your grad program?
Trending in the UK HPS-community was the practice turn, the whole models and scientific representation debate. The strength of the program at Egenis was its intellectual freedom and, at the time, great community and interdisciplinary exchange. There was a lot of support and encouragement to present talks, at the Center as well as at external conferences. The weakness, in hindsight, was that it did not prepare its grads for the academic market. It was a bit of a shock when I saw the training Columbia grads received for the job market. It felt as if I had entered a formula one race on a tricycle.
Who did you talk with most about philosophy? Who did you hang with?
What made grad school special for me (and for many people, I believe) was the comradery. It’s a big part of your life, and you get to share it with a group of people going through the same intellectually transformative and individually challenging rite of passage. At Egenis, we had a great group of grad students, all started at the same time but from different disciplines. We also talked about Philosophy, but often in its relation to science or society. That theme continued throughout my postdoctoral fellowships at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, near Vienna, and at Columbia, where I was in a program that fostered integration of neuroscience with humanities. I was always surrounded by philosophically interested people from different disciplines. Hardly “pure philosophers”. Naturally, this interdisciplinary trajectory has shaped the way in which I understand and discuss Philosophy as a practice outside its confined institutional environment.
How do you see the future of philosophy? Exciting or disconcerting trends?
Philosophy has repeatedly been proclaimed dead. I think it’ll go on. And I do believe it can remain one of the most significant contributions to society – if it wants to. For its future, I hope Philosophy does some soul-searching, however, when it comes to its institutional and personal history. We like to think of our profession, our studies, as training ‘critical thinking’. But both in the Third Reich and East Germany it was the Humanities, Philosophers, who fell far too quickly, saluting to the new doctrines of the regime. The intellectuals, her friends and colleagues, disillusioned Hannah Arendt.They were contemplating about thinking, morals, and rationality. They should have known better, no? Also, it was a Philosophy student who killed Moritz Schlick. We should start also thinking about the darker parts and histories of our professional heritage. If we can honestly handle this, I have high hopes.
The full interview is available at What Is It Like to Be A Philosopher? You can get early access to interviews and support the project here.
Clifford Sosis
Cliff Sosis is a philosopher at Coastal Carolina University. He created, and in his spare time he runs What Is It Like to Be a Philosopher? in-depth autobiographical interviews with philosophers. In Sosis's words, "Interviews you can’t find anywhere else. In the interviews, you get a sense of what makes living, breathing philosophers tick. How one becomes a philosopher. The interviews show how our theories shape our lives and how our experiences influence our theories. They reveal what philosophers have in common, if anything, and what our goals are. Overall, the interviews give you a fuller picture of how the people who do philosophy work, and a better idea of how philosophy works. This stuff isn't discussed as often as it should be, I think, and these stories are extremely interesting and moving!" He has a Patreon page here and tweets @CliffordSosis.
