What good is philosophy?

Thanks to a facebook friend's post, I had the opportunity to look at some interesting photographs of philosophers taken by photographer Steve Pyke. Many of these photographs are accompanied by something that the philosopher had to say about herself, how she came to be a philosopher, or something about philosophy. So, for instance, Sally Haslanger says:

"Given the amount of suffering and injustice in the world, I flip-flop between thinking that doing philosophy is a complete luxury and that it is an absolute necessity. The idea that it is something in between strikes me as a dodge. So I do it in the hope that it is a contribution, and with the fear that I’m just being self-indulgent. I suppose these are the moral risks life is made of."

Contrast this with Hartry Field:

"A nice thing about the sort of philosophy I do is that it can never be used to justify wars or oppress the disadvantaged or anything like that. Unfortunately, this follows from a more general principle."

While Haslanger worries that she may not be making enough of a contribution, Field comforts himself that he is contributing nothing (and so nothing bad).

While it is probably true that many non-philosophers worry about whether what they are doing is worthwhile, this worry seems integral to being a philosopher. If we are to question everything, then surely we must also question that very activity. I think that I was particularly struck by these two quotes because they captured views that I have held at various different times. When I first became interested in philosophy I came to believe that it was, as Haslanger put it, "an absolute necessity". I believed that it was through ideas that change would occur and that promoting the right ideas was crucial to bringing about the changes that I believed needed to take place. But my years of studying analytic philosophy in graduate school brought me much closer to Field's understanding of philosophy. I enjoyed philosophy and it did no harm, so maybe it was, as Haslanger suggests, a luxury, but it was a harmless luxury. It took a few years, but I did eventually recover from graduate school and in doing I have thought about the value of philosophy almost every time I step into the classroom.

My current views on philosophy are not captured in either of these quotes. Haslanger claims that the idea that philosophy is something between a luxury and a necessity is a "dodge", but I think that it all depends on what one means by "something in between". There are times when philosophy is a necessity. There are times when a better understanding of the concepts that we are using to understand a problem or revealing unexamined presuppositions is the only way to make progress towards a solution. At such times I would argue philosophy is a necessity. But there are also times when it is nothing but a luxury because sitting around examining the situation is simply not what is called for at the moment. There are times when action is the right thing and though philosophy may lead to action, it is not the same thing as action. But even in such circumstances, we still need for people to be doing philosophy. We need to have people who are practiced in philosophical skills so that when we need them, they are there. Firefighters spend quite a bit of time just hanging around the firehouse. But firefighters are not a luxury - even when they are not needed.

Of course, what Field expresses is not a view about philosophy more generally, but only about the philosophy that he does. I wonder if he is right about that. I think that I still believe too strongly in the power of ideas to feel comfortable about accepting that even his philosophy is harmless without really thinking it through. If there are times when philosophers are needed, then perhaps to be a philosopher and to believe that philosophy has no bearing on life would seem to be shirking one's duty.

Update: At the end of October the NYT carried a photo-essay on Steve Pyke's work and an essay by him.

See these at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/01/opinion/20101101_Stone_Profile.html and
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/philosophers-through-the-lens/

Doing Fieldwork

Last weekend I was at the APSA (American Political Science Association) in Washington D.C. I am currently working on philosophy of science issues in political science and so I was doing "fieldwork". Actually, the quotes probably don't belong there as it really was fieldwork including interviews and participant observation! My primary goal was to talk to political scientists about methodology, particularly about varieties of qualitative methodology and the use of case studies. The trip was very worthwhile on that front. Those working on such issues were very open to talking about philosophical aspects of the questions and I made some great contacts.

But there was a very interesting and unexpected aspect to my experience. I attended four sessions, two of which were Theme Panels on Qualitative and Multi-method research. What was interesting about these theme panels is that political scientist who work in the qualitative tradition clearly feel marginalized. They have concerns about getting their work published, getting tenure, being looked down upon, and so on. In other words, they have many of the same concerns that feminist philosophers have. On one panel, statistics on publication in journals were discussed and it was noted how few publications in the top journals were qualitative. The editor of APSR reported that they had only received 8 submissions that were qualitative and so it was not so much a problem of the reviewers screening out qualitative work as it was submitters self-screening. Three years ago, I sat on a panel at the APA where a nearly identical discussion took place about publications by women - with a very similar conclusion - that there were very few submissions by women to the top journals in philosophy. Another startling similarity was the advice given to graduate students who wanted to incorporate more qualitative methodologies into their work: wait until you have tenure. Again, I have heard senior women given this similar advice to junior feminist philosophers - wait until you have tenure before you reveal that you are a feminist.

So what does this interesting similarity reveal? I suppose the obvious - that the experiences of marginalized academic researchers are quite similar. But it also reveals the way in which the dominate views in each generation slow progress and discourage alternate views. I suppose that there is something inherently conservation about academic research in that we make demands on ourselves to meet certain standards and while some of the restriction that the standards impose may be necessary for the integrity of the discipline, they also will inevitably exclude alternative approaches, some of which may be quite valuable. In witnessing these sorts of discussions in both professions, I also see a strong belief that over time the good ideas will manage to survive in spite of these constraints and ultimately the standards will shift as well. But I think that observing this dynamic should remind us that our own standards will indeed limit the alternative hypotheses that are available (in the sense of being considered legitimate sorts of hypotheses) at any moment in time. Another reason to be cautious and perhaps, humble, about our knowledge claims.

Some useful tips from Feminist Philosophers

Here are some concrete suggestions for taking steps to promote, support, and increase women in philosophy! Thanks to Jenny Saul at Feminist Philosophers!

Society for Analytical Feminism at the APA in NYC

If you are in New York for the Eastern APA please join the Society for Analytical Feminism for the following session:


Monday, Dec. 28, 9:00-11:00 AM
Chair, Sharon Crasnow
Feminism and Contemporary Popular Culture
Laurie Shrage, "XX Radio - Adding Feminist Voices to the FM Dial"
Nancy Bauer, "Hang-ups about Hook-ups: Feminist Philosophy and the New Generation Gap"
Naomi Zack, "White-Privilege Appropriations of Feminism: Carrie Bradshaw, Bella Swan, and Sarah Palin"
Kelly Oliver, "Knock Me Up, Knock Me Down: Images of Pregnancy in Recent Hollywood Films"

Budget cuts hit broad swath of Cal State -- latimes.com

Budget cuts hit broad swath of Cal State -- latimes.com

Posted using ShareThis

Scroll down in the article and you will see that among the departments mentioned for possible cuts at Cal Poly Pomona is philosophy. Something to think about.

This fall the APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy contains my article, Women in the Profession: The Persistance of Absence. One of the main themes of the article is that philosophers need to recognize that the absence of women in the profession is a danger to the profession as a whole. I focus specifically on the absence of women at the undergraduate level as providing one of the most disturbing signs for the profession. In this I am following the lead of the work that Evelyn Brister has done on this topic and blogged about at Knowledge and Experience. She has a number of excellent and thoughtful posts on women in philosophy and so I haven't linked a specific post.

Today I find another article which I think supports the idea that we ought to be worried about philosophy seemingly not having a larger appeal. Though the report is about British universities, we should certainly take notice. Thanks to Jacob Hale for his Facebook news feed link to "Being philosophical may be limited to 'leisured' classes".

*CALL FOR ABSTRACTS*

Feminism, Science, and Values
June 25-28, 2010
The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

In June 2010, the International Association of Women Philosophers
(http://www.iaph-philo.org/ ) will be meeting at The University of
Western Ontario. This will be the organization's first meeting in
Canada and only its second meeting in North America. Co-hosted by the
Rotman Institute for Science and Values and the Department of
Philosophy, the conference is scheduled to take place just before the
international conference on science and values organized by the Rotman
Institute.

The members of the conference organizing committee are: Gillian Barker,
Ariella Binik, Samantha Brennan, Helen Fielding, Katy Fulfer-Smith,
Elisa Hurley, Tracy Isaacs, Carolyn McLeod, Karen Nielsen, Kathleen
Okruhlik, and Angelique Petropanagos.

The organizing committee invites papers from all areas in philosophy,
though we especially welcome papers related to the theme of the
conference, Feminism, Science, and Values. We also welcome papers from
graduate students. Abstracts should be submitted in English, French, or
Spanish. Spanish abstracts will be refereed by the IAPH executive
instead of the conference program committee.

There are many possible topics, the following being just a small sample:

• Questions about the content of science; the evaluation of hypotheses;the uses of science; the idea of "value-free science"; the regulation and control of science; the funding of science; science as oppressor of the disadvantaged; science as a liberator of the disadvantaged; science for the people; science and democracy; the "collapse" of the is/ought distinction; the relationship between ethical and epistemic norms; the role of ethics in deciding what sorts of science to pursue; the role of science in the resolution of ethical questions.
  

• Questions about concepts of sex/gender, race, intelligence,sexuality, sociobiology, health and disease, normalcy, etc., possibly discussed via specific examples and case studies.
  

• Feminist work on questions in value theory, in either the field of ethics or aesthetics
  

• Historical studies of the relationship between science and feminist thought.
  

• Discussions of philosophy's role in supporting modes of thought that perpetuate bad practices and discussions of philosophy's emancipatory potential for women and others.
  

Submissions of long abstracts (750-1000 words) are invited (for
eventual presentation of papers that are no more than 3000 words and 20
minutes maximum reading time). We also welcome proposals for panel
presentations. For panel proposals, please send a title, a one
paragraph description of the panel, names and contact
information for all participants, and abstracts for each of the papers on the panel.

Please email all materials as double-spaced Word or RTF attachments,
prepared for anonymous review, which requires that you remove all
identifying-author tags from your document content and file properties.
Send the e-mail to iaph2010@uwo.ca and include within it (not the
abstract) your full contact information.

More information will be available about the conference on our website,
http:www.uwo.ca/iaph2010 (coming soon).

*Deadline: Midnight Eastern time August 15, 2009.*