Some Notes on the Role of Academic Philosophy in Everyday Life
Academic philosophy, it goes without saying, is increasingly seen as a venerable yet useless relic—a field of human inquiry relevant only at a bygone time, when science (as we know it today) did not yet exist. The scientific, techno-optimist mindset dominant in many circles today—with its emphasis on empirical testability and measurable results—is increasingly seen as the most effective, and efficient, method to address the concerns that have traditionally fallen under the purview of academic philosophy. The questions as to how to lead a truly fulfilling life, or as to how to make technological progress compatible with other inescapable human aims would, accordingly, be better left alone by philosophy into more scientific, empirically informed hands. Nevertheless, the view that academic philosophy is obsolete is actually at odds with the uniquely valuable, indeed indispensable, function which this discipline plays in everyday life. To make my case for this claim, I will rely on a distinction born out of everyday experience: namely, the distinction between gangster philosophers and actual philosophers. More specifically, I will argue that while many people, even those we consider unethical, possess what we can call a working philosophy, academic philosophy can help us make our working philosophy an examined, “good” philosophy. My hope is that some people, perhaps especially people new to philosophy (such as philosophy students) will find this difference and its significance worth reflecting about. To show why academic philosophy is relevant today, particularly in everyday life, I will begin by invoking some ideas adumbrated by the groundbreaking Latin American philosopher Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. In her Respuesta a Sor Filotea (Reply to Sor Filotea) from 1691—a letter purportedly addressed to a nun that was actually intended for a man, a Roman Catholic bishop who had rebuked Sor Juana for challenging gender roles—Sor Juana observed that she and other women were “kitchen philosophers”: despite having been systematically sidelined from academic philosophy, women were outstanding informal philosophers, capable of philosophical thinking of a quality comparable (or superior) to that of male academic philosophers. This is so because women’s “kitchen philosophy” was born out of everyday life, including the everyday struggles they faced:
“What could I tell you, señora, about the natural secrets I have discovered when cooking? Seeing that an egg sets and fries in butter or oil but falls apart in syrup; seeing that for sugar to remain liquid it is enough to add a very small amount of water in which a quince or other bitter fruit has been placed; seeing that the yolk and the white of the same egg are so different that each mixed with sugar is different from both mixed with sugar. I do not mean to tire you with these inconsequentialities… but, señora, what can women know but kitchen philosophies? As Lupecio Leonardo so wisely said, one can philosophize very well and prepare supper…I say that if Aristotle had cooked, he would have written a great deal more.” (p. 185)
Influential Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci also created a philosophy born out of struggle; hardly out of coincidence, moreover, he, too, foregrounds (and vindicates) a conception of philosophy grounded in everyday life that stands in opposition to the ivory-tower conception of our discipline prevalent in many global North academic circles. Gramsci’s opposition to Mussolini’s regime led to his long imprisonment, and he noted in his Quaderni del carcere (Prison Notebooks, written between 1929 and 1935) that
“[i]t is essential to destroy the widespread prejudice that philosophy is a strange and difficult thing just because it is the specific intellectual activity of a particular category of specialists or of professional and systematic philosophers. It must first be shown that all men [people] are philosophers’, by defining the limits and characteristics of the ‘spontaneous philosophy’ which is proper to everybody.” (p. 624)
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Gramsci are largely right here: every human individual capable of reasoning—from someone who has not learned how to read, to someone who is not necessarily fond of thinking, to a gangster—is a philosopher, at least potentially. For every human individual who is capable of reasoning—regardless of their situation in life—is eo ipso capable of examining their core beliefs, critiquing them, and abandoning those beliefs which do not hold up to scrutiny. Now, if everybody is a philosopher, as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Gramsci maintain, why do we need academic philosophy?
The answer to this question, I submit, starts to emerge when we foreground the contrast I hinted at above: namely, the contrast between being a potential philosopher and an actual philosopher. While every human being capable of reasoning is a potential philosopher, not every human being capable of reasoning is an actual philosopher. By an actual philosopher, I do not necessarily mean an academic philosopher; I mean, instead, someone who operates with an examined philosophy. (Are all academic philosophers also actual philosophers? Intellectual heroes of mine, such as J.L. Austin, would probably maintain that some (or perhaps many) academic philosophers fail to be what I call “actual philosophers.”)
To spell out what I mean by an examined philosophy, I will introduce the idea of a working philosophy. A working philosophy comprises the core beliefs which every human being holds and operates with. Gangsters, for instance, possess a working philosophy, since they operate with a certain conception of reality, a concept of truth and falsehood, a moral code, ideas of justice and beauty, and so on. I have in mind here gangsters such as Tren de Aragua (TdA)—a notorious transnational criminal organization which originated in some jails of my native Venezuela, with support from the dictatorial regime that runs the country—as well as drug cartels, such as the infamous Medellín Cartel, led by the larger-than-life Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar Gaviria. Escobar Gaviria had a particularly twisted working philosophy, whereby he justified his countless nefarious crimes—killing, kidnapping, terrorizing millions of Colombians, and producing and selling narcotics, among others—by characterizing these crimes as (hold on to your seats) part of a Robin-Hood-esque crusade, aimed at redistributing wealth and achieving social justice. While Escobar Gaviria’s rationale for his corrupt lifestyle is glaringly untenable, he actually saw himself as a virtuous man; perhaps more disconcertingly, quite a few of his fellow Colombians (especially in Medellín) held him in high regard.
I want to highlight, here, the first premise of my argument: although people such as Pablo Escobar Gaviria and TdA members (as well as villains of every stripe) possess a working philosophy, they lack an examined philosophy, i.e., they have not subjected their core beliefs to rational scrutiny, with a view to abandoning those beliefs which rational scrutiny deems untenable. I think it is safe to say that all of us, at some point in our lives, have operated with a working philosophy that is not yet an examined philosophy. To put it somewhat differently, I think it is safe to say that all of us, at some point in our lives, have been potential philosophers but not actual ones. (Again, the term “actual philosopher,” as I am using it here, is not necessarily coextensive with “academic philosopher.”)
How do we come to possess an examined philosophy? In other words, how do we become actual philosophers? More specifically, how do we acquire the skills to winnow out the “good” elements of our core belief system from the “bad” ones? (Admittedly, “good” and “bad” are rather simplistic labels; still, they will do for my current purposes.)
To answer this question, I first need to make a confession: I used to be a fairly vocal skeptic of the value of academic philosophy. My conversion into an equally vocal advocate of its relevance (particularly its relevance to ordinary life) was largely prompted by my firsthand experience as a philosophy student, especially by the realization that academic philosophy is uniquely suited to teach us how to develop an examined philosophy. Many of the seemingly endless, and seemingly pointless, debates which academic philosophers engage in are, in fact, a uniquely effective way to teach us the skills we need in order to examine our core beliefs (and potentially abandon those which do not hold up to scrutiny). More specifically—this is the second main premise of my argument—participating in those debates (by reading and thinking about a philosophy paper, or by engaging in a written or oral exchange with our peers) can teach us ways of seeing things—such as heeding the nuances of a given idea, or dispassionately examining views which one finds instinctively repugnant, among many others—without which we are unlikely to develop an examined philosophy, i.e., a set of core beliefs that we can autonomously embrace.
It might be objected, however, that it is far from clear that we need an examined philosophy. If we look at people whose character and actions are depraved, such as Pablo Escobar Gaviria or TdA members, we will find that many of them have achieved success—at least according to a certain idea of success—for they are exceedingly wealthy and wield a great deal of power. Why would, say, a TdA gangster need an examined philosophy? After all, the worry goes, their working philosophy works.
Academic philosophy instills intellectual rigor in its students, thereby instilling in us the habit of ruthlessly scrutinizing ideas which may seem very compelling, but whose logical underpinnings are in reality flawed. In the case at hand, academic philosophy teaches us that a powerful gangster’s purported success and happiness are actually bogus: despite the glamorization, in some circles, of the gangster lifestyle (Escobar Gaviria’s case, we saw above, is particularly illustrative here), this lifestyle is in fact incompatible with any logically (and ethically) tenable conception of a good human life. A rigorous (that is, philosophical) examination of this matter shows that it is self-deception—together with other vices—that prompts gangsters to be under the impression that their working philosophy works. From a purely transactional standpoint, moreover, the skills which a young (or not so young) mind acquires by studying academic philosophy will empower them to excel at virtually any ordinary or professional endeavor. I had noted above that being conversant in academic philosophy empowers us to dispassionately examine, and potentially reject, flawed beliefs that we may find prima facie irresistible. (This is not to say, though, that being conversant in academic philosophy is a necessary condition to acquire this skill set: one can certainly become a critical thinker by other means, such as lived experience.) I will now add that being conversant in academic philosophy also empowers us to acquire a skill set closely connected with the latter: namely, intellectual flexibility and creativity. (Admittedly, some people who engage in philosophical conversations may lose sight of their original purpose; or, as the late Alasdair MacIntyre wisely pointed out, succumb to some form of conformism).
Still, someone might retort that while academic philosophy teaches us thinking skills, it does not allow us to conclusively answer any of the questions that matter in everyday life. As we observed at the outset, some people are strongly inclined to believe that academic philosophy simply needs to pass the mantle to science and technology: while academic philosophy may well teach us how to reason with others, it is constitutionally unable to find conclusive answers; only a “data-based” approach yielding “measurable results” will give us the answers we need. After all, the retort goes, the scientific, techno-optimistic mindset works: science and technology (particularly the latter) have already succeeded in providing us with conclusive answers to everyday problems which our technologically less sophisticated forebears were unable to address satisfactorily: from how to successfully treat a dental cavity (no small feat) to how to communicate, in real time, with people who are not physically near us.
However, as good old academic philosophy teaches us, appearances can be deceptive; we had already observed that gangster philosophies merely seem to work—quite efficiently, in fact. Admittedly, the scientific, techno-optimistic mindset does indeed work for many purposes. Now, it is the assumption that this mindset works for all purposes—that is a sort of master-key that will unlock the answers to any question we may ever raise—that does not work. For this assumption is grounded in two additional assumptions which appear to be very plausible, irresistible even. Firstly, some of the challenges in question admit of “conclusive answers.” While I cannot properly discuss this complex matter in the space I have here, I will merely highlight the fact that most, if not all, instances of scientific, technological, cultural, and moral progress have been a direct result of subjecting to rational, i.e., philosophical, scrutiny the purportedly “conclusive answers” which any given generation inherited from its predecessors. Secondly, many questions of great consequence (for the present and future of humankind) simply cannot be addressed by scientific practice alone. These are questions such as the ordinary belief in free will; the question about what a good human life is; or the morality of sexual proclivities that may differ greatly from what is considered “normal” at any given time. These questions, and many others, can be adequately addressed only by means of an exchange in the free market of ideas, i.e., by the sort of exchange which academic philosophy (at its best) is uniquely suited to carry out.
Alessandro R. Moscarítolo Palacio
Alessandro R. Moscarítolo Palacio is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Marist University. Moscarítolo Palacio specializes in global philosophies—with an emphasis on Latin American philosophy, Indigenous philosophies of the Americas, Africana philosophy, and Anglo-American philosophy—public philosophy, and the philosophy of education.
