In recent years, we’ve seen a surge of articles, essays and blog posts by professional philosophers on the future of philosophy. While it isn’t surprising that people who reflect professionally would reflect on the future of their profession, this surge is symptomatic of a deeper anxiety that some philosophers, and many humanists, have felt in the modern, outcome-oriented academy.
Some of the reflections are more conservative, defending the status quo and arguing that philosophy is just as strong, if not stronger, than it ever was (e.g., Scott Soames, “Philosophy’s True Home”). Others are more progressive, contending that the profession must be diversified if it is to be capable of responding to the complex challenges of a pluralistic world (e.g., Minna Salami, “Philosophy has to be about more than just white men”).
Such anxieties are not unfounded. The university’s role in a globally interconnected world is changing, and we need to be responsive to that change. Without sustained, intentional efforts to engage the challenges of a global public, philosophy will languish.
In a New York Times essay, Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle argue that philosophy as an endeavor lost its way when, in an effort to be integrated into the modern research university, it sought to establish itself as a specialized discipline alongside other disciplines. Although controversial, their position rightly identifies a source of philosophy’s current crisis: to turn inward to disciplinary concerns is to turn away from the questions that the world asks of us.
Without sustained, intentional efforts to engage the challenges of a global public, philosophy will languish.
Before its emergence as a department within the modern research institution, philosophy had in fact long been deeply engaged with the world. At its heart, philosophy is a broad human activity requiring a heightened attunement to the environment we inhabit and a cultivated ability to respond to complexity with nuance and a sense for what is just. If it sacrificed this broader scope of concern as a price of legitimacy in the modern research university, then the “purified” discipline of philosophy was indeed significantly different from the embedded practice of gadflies and other lovers of wisdom. Philosophy, disciplined in this way, is not well positioned to live up to the public commitments it has embodied from its earliest beginnings.
But not all modern research universities are the same. Consider, in particular, how philosophy has taken root in the American land-grant universities that emerged in the 19th century to provide all citizens with access to higher education, democratizing an institution that had been available only to a select few. The land-grant mission directs all of higher education, including philosophy, to the lived realities of the world, emphasizing our shared responsibility to support citizen leaders in grappling with difficult challenges from a diversity of perspectives.
To the extent that philosophy lost its way by turning inward, perhaps it can find its way again in the contemporary public land-grant university by returning to an outward focus that addresses the most complex and intractable challenges of our time. Unlike traditional research universities or, for that matter, liberal arts colleges and other four-year institutions, land-grant universities are charged with the responsibility of reaching out to their states and to the broader regions in which they are situated. Further, they maintain statewide extension networks that support the flow of knowledge and information with the public.
Our vision of a philosophy at home in the public land-grant university requires the disciplinary pursuit of a progressive research agenda that emphasizes democratic and inclusive public engagement with real-world issues, such as food security, climate change and environmental justice.
In this context, philosophy can draw on its deepest historical roots as a publicly engaged activity while cultivating the synthesis of a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. Our vision of a philosophy at home in the public land-grant university requires the disciplinary pursuit of a progressive research agenda that emphasizes democratic and inclusive public engagement with real-world issues, such as food security, climate change and environmental justice.
To speak of the disciplinary pursuit of a progressive, inclusive and democratic research agenda is to affirm both the theoretical (and often esoteric) accomplishments of philosophy as an academic discipline and the imperative to be responsive to the world we share. It is a call for an engaged philosophy that recognizes that theory is best informed by practice and that practice is always enriched by theory — such that the segregation of the two always results in the impoverishment of both.
So understood, engaged philosophy is different from a common conception of applied philosophy, according to which one works out the theory in isolation from the messiness of the real world into which it is then deployed. This conception encourages the antidemocratic view that academic philosophers work out solutions on their own and then merely deliver them to the masses; it is a renunciation of the dialogue that enriches the work. By contrast, engaged philosophy emphasizes the coordination of a broad range of voices, which secures responsiveness to complexity, sensitivity to differences in core values and beliefs, and a robust commitment to justice.
Philosophy has a well-earned reputation for analysis, but the practice of engaged philosophy in the land-grant context requires a cultivated capacity for synthesis — of philosophical approaches, of philosophy with other academic disciplines and of academic with nonacademic perspectives. This capacity entails commitment to two key principles.
First, engaged philosophy is committed to cross-disciplinary research, understood as including both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary activity. Complex problems such as food security and environmental justice have important conceptual and empirical dimensions that require input from a wide range of other disciplines; at the same time, they are problems for people outside the academy, and any adequate response will require input from nonacademic stakeholders. Philosophers can and should play a fundamental role in these cross-disciplinary responses, illuminating the nature of the values in play and providing common ground that facilitates the integration of the various perspectives, both inside and outside the academy. But we should also always come prepared to listen and learn, so our own disciplinary approach is enriched by our engagement with others as we respond to the challenges we face. For example, the Michigan State University-based Toolbox Project uses philosophical concepts and methods to facilitate communication and collaboration in cross-disciplinary projects, ranging from work on transplant rejection in pediatric patients, oil and gas inputs into the Gulf of Mexico, and climate resiliency in western Michigan.
Just as universities must adapt to remain relevant and accountable in a changing world, so too must the disciplines that give academic depth to them.
Second, engaged philosophy is committed to inclusivity. A commitment to cross-disciplinary research entails inclusivity in the research response, but research represents only one mode of engagement. Sustainable and just responses to complex social problems require cultivating the habits of inclusive practice and solidarity on a broad scale. This involves ensuring the participation of those who are affected by the problem in all stages of the research process, as well as before research begins and after it concludes. Unless engaged philosophers, and university researchers more generally, work shoulder to shoulder with activists and community members on efforts such as those that involve environmental justice, climate policy and indigenous peoples, the responses they develop will lack the trust and respect needed to ensure long-term viability.
But the habits of inclusive practice must not be cultivated exclusively in philosophy’s external relationships. They must also be embodied in the practices of academic philosophy itself. This means that a much more inclusive understanding of what “counts as” philosophy and of who “looks like” a philosopher is required. Philosophy has been accused of being a monoculture, both in terms of its thematic foci and its demographic composition. Engagement can reveal new contexts for philosophical work, increasing the diversity of philosophical problems and of the philosophical practitioners who engage them.
Just as universities must adapt to remain relevant and accountable in a changing world, so too must the disciplines that give academic depth to them. The anxiety of philosophers is symptomatic of a broader concern about our role in this changing institutional context. But the symptoms themselves point to possible remedies. Specifically, a more inclusive philosophy profession that acknowledges its potential as a partner in cross-disciplinary efforts could model a broader and more diverse understanding of academic excellence — one rooted in publicly engaged initiatives that enrich the human experience.
Although land-grant universities have their own fraught histories, for the land granted was gained through the colonization of indigenous peoples, they remain ideal institutional sites in which to realize this synthetic vision, because they provide the infrastructure and the resources necessary to advance these commitments to an inclusive and engaged philosophy. The humanities more broadly, and philosophy in particular, are well positioned in the land-grant university to catalyze initiatives that can deepen our shared responses to the most difficult challenges we face.
Originally published on Inside Higher Ed. May 12, 2016 | Written by: Christopher P. Long and Michael O’Rourke
