The State of Philosophy - And Our Need for Improved Critical Thinking

 Whither philosophy? from Aeon looks at the problem

‘As long as there has been such a subject as philosophy, there have been people who hated and despised it,’ reads the opening line of Bernard Williams’s article ‘On Hating and Despising Philosophy’ (1996). Almost 30 years later, philosophy is not hated so much as it is viewed with a mixture of uncertainty and indifference. As Kieran Setiya recently put it in the London Review of Books, academic philosophy in particular is ‘in a state of some confusion’. There are many reasons for philosophy’s stagnation, though the dual influences of specialisation and commercialisation, in particular, have turned philosophy into something that scarcely resembles the discipline as it was practised by the likes of Aristotle, Spinoza or Nietzsche.

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 The 20th century proved to be a crucial turning point. While many great works were published, philosophy also became highly specialised. The rise of specialisation in academia diminished philosophy’s broader influence on artists and the general public. Philosophy became less involved with society more broadly and broke off into narrowly specialised fields, such as philosophy of mind, hermeneutics, semiotics, pragmatism and phenomenology.

There are different opinions about why specialisation took such a hold on philosophy. According to Terrance MacMullan, the rise of specialisation began in the 1960s, when universities were becoming more radicalised. During this time, academics began to dismiss non-academics as ‘dupes’. The problem grew when academics began to emulate the jargon-laden styles of philosophers like Jacques Derrida, deciding to speak mostly to each other, rather than to the general public. 

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 There is a disconnect between philosophy as it was practised by the likes of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Kant, and what readers are being offered today. Corporatisation and commercialisation have not only dulled people’s tolerance for critical thinking but have warped their expectations about what it means to read philosophy, seeing it only as something that can make them happier. But as Monk reminds us: ‘Philosophy doesn’t make you happy and it shouldn’t. Why should philosophy be consoling?’

Ted Gioia published on his Substack The Honest Broker a piece, Why I Ran Away from Philosophy Because of Sam Bankman-Fried, that I think fits here.

I abandoned philosophy because of Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto scammer.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I abandoned my formal study of philosophy because of people like Bankman-Fried.

Unfortunately, they were my professors at the time.

He goes on to explain a bit more:

 They were erudite and devoted teachers, but I was disillusioned by what they taught. It eventually chased me away from philosophy, specifically analytic philosophy of the Anglo-American variety.

I had no idea that their worldview would come back to life as a popular movement promoted by the biggest scam artist of the digital age. But I’m not really surprised—because it’s a dangerous worldview with potential to do damage on the largest scale.

The philosophy is nowadays called Effective Altruism. It even has a web site with recruiting videos—there’s a warning sign right there!—where it brags about its origins at Oxford.

But here’s the catch, if you actually try to put this philosophy into practice, you might sell your granny to sex traffickers.

I wonder if I had a critical mind before I started reading philosophy, which was before I started practicing law. I came from a divorced family, which did open my mind to doubting the verities handed out about life and living. It may have left me more than a little distrustful of people - it certainly left me doubtful of my worth and place in this world. I was the new kid in town twice in my school years; which included 5 schools between 1965 and 1978. That will make one distrustful, too. My family encouraged thinking for one's self, too. I first read Nietzsche and William James and Francis Bacon, and David Hume, and John Stuart Mill when I was 18 (thank you, Modern Library!)

All of which has made me decide the great failure of American society is its lack of critical thinking. Herd mentality being substituted for judging for one's self. It is almost as if our Protestant nation has adopted a most Roman Catholic way of thinking - not by our own consciences, but that of the hierarchy ascending above us. This is why so many Americans do not see Donald J. Trump endangers them - he says nasty words in a loud voice about people his supporters find threatening.

(Any Roman Catholic thinking these right-wingers calling themselves Christian Nationalists include Rome, will get a nasty surprise. Only American historical amnesia keeps the majority from recalling what Protestantism protests and the history of anti-Catholicism in this country. I would say my mother's mother generation definitely lacked amnesia on these points, and I believe this is also true of my parents' generation. I will say here that I think the abortion issue induced this amnesia as Roman Catholics and anti-abortion Protestants formed a political coalition.)

Go a library, a bookstore, or Project Gutenberg. Find Plato, or Aristotle, or David Hume, or Montaigne's Essays, or William James, or John Dewey, or Nietzsche, start reading.

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