Why philosophers are useless

Apparently, the endorsement of a billionaire indicated to some that philosophy, a much-maligned and frequently dismissed subject, is, in fact, worthwhile. Or consider billionaire investor Carl Icahn…another philosopher. Anyone who studies philosophy with the explicit goal of following in their footsteps, though, will entirely miss the point.

The subject teaches students how to think—even and especially those who believe they already have this skill—by forcing them to question and revise the assumptions that beset all beliefs. Questioning self-evident truths can, unexpectedly, lead to practical applications. But rather than being the explicit purpose of the field, these useful applications tend to unexpectedly develop as the byproduct of revolutionary ideas. Philosophical thoughts often end up most useful when their usefulness is willfully ignored; when they are pursued for their own sake, rather than with an eye half-focused on some practical end product.

This was just an experiment that proves the maestro [James Clerk] Maxwell was right. Luckily, we do know that philosophers are superior in virtue to everyone else. This means that the rational part of his soul must rule, which means that his soul is just.

Adeimantus remains unconvinced. None of the philosophers he has ever known have been like Socrates is describing. Most philosophers are useless, and those that are not useless tend to be vicious. Men born with the philosophical nature—courageous, high-minded, quick learners, with faculties of memory—are quickly preyed upon by family and friends, who hope to benefit from their natural gifts. They are encouraged to enter politics in order to win money and power by their parasitic family and friends.

So they are inevitably led away from the philosophical life. In place of the natural philosophers who are diverted away from philosophy and corrupted, other people who lack the right philosophical nature, rush in to fill the gap and become philosophers when they have no right to be. These people are vicious. The few who are good philosophers those whose natures were somehow not corrupted, either because they were in exile, lived in a small city, were in bad health, or by some other circumstance are considered useless because society has become antithetical to correct ideals.

He compares the situation to a ship on which the ship owner is hard of hearing, has poor vision, and lacks sea-faring skills. All of the sailors on the ship quarrel over who should be captain, though they know nothing about navigation.

One issue is the solitary nature of philosophical work. Sure, we cite each other, but outside of a few off-seen philosophical pairs, the vast majority of our works are from single authors.

If philosophy were more collaborative, the seemingly incessant need to publish uninteresting, unimportant drivel might lessen.

A collaborative article might see them work together on a single position that each holds, and each gets credit for the position. But scientific contributions can often help people who do not understand the scientific work. This is not true of philosophy. Generally, philosophical work can only help someone who learns about and understands it. Hence, we generate a lot of work for other academics to read, while largely being irrelevant to the rest of humanity.

Also, the overflow of publications is a symptom of the economization of the academic profession in general, not philosophy as such. Of course it is a pity that we do not value philosophical ideas for what they are, but also, philosophers need to get funding and positions, and having publications simply helps.

Not only is the majority of people ignorant of what philosophy actually is and what philosophers do, but there is also a prevalent prejudice against philosophy itself which is not even considered as a legitimate profession.

In other words: The lack of philosophers engaged in the public domain is not due to their being boring, but because they are not considered in the first place. One could now claim that the reason for this prejudice is exactly because not many philosophers are engaged with the public. But I would say the responsibility lies on both sides. Nobody would dare to claim that it is the sole responsibility of women to be more present in public offices or expert rounds.

To leave it to those who are being ignored and neglected would just support a system in which implicit biases are perpetuated.

Who do we work for the benefit for? Certainly not one another in the profession. The more that we can engage the public in philosophical thinking, the better. But I think it is very difficult to discuss these things on such a general level. Who should benefit and how? I think it is also to the benefit of society if citizens e. I meant that there is enough interesting work out there to prove that philosophy is not boring. But of course I agree with your last remark. We are all so cynical and pessimistic.

Not only that but most of those have been concerned with elaborating a single theory of color that has remained fairly stable over that time. The other stuff concerns even more arcane issues regarding conceptual issues in color science. I also just find color interesting. Now that is some narrowness I could get behind! Contrast scientific disciplines, which have good, talented journalists acting as mediators between research teams and the public. As a side note, this is already happening, but cultural shifts take time.

Philosophy podcasts are on the rise, online venues like Nautilus and Slate feature philosophical work, etc. I think this is exactly right. Very few people would expect that papers in the social or natural sciences would be widely read outside of those working in the subfields in which the work lies, let alone the public.

There is a difference between academic work purely for academic purposes and academic debates, and then carrying that work into the public sphere. The latter is something that philosophers have quite often failed to do over the past 50 years or so, although, as you suggest, things are getting a bit better. But we do need better PR, and we need to get better at communicating to the educated public why they should be interested in what we have to say.

I think that there is something to this, and I think that there are issues with increasing specialization and focus on small puzzles, and drilling down so deep into these puzzles that we forget the bigger reason why we even cared about the issue in the first place.

You have to play by the rules of the game as they exist, and then if you are lucky enough to get a job and get tenure, then hopefully you can start to make changes from the inside. A depressing thought, but at least it provides a template for the sorts of things one can do in order to be more likely to be published… Report. Why should the public pay us to undertake philosophical research? Surely the entire justification is the public good we do with our philosophical research.

Academics better wise up about what business they are in and who foots the bills or things are just going to get worse for them. When I look around now I see, among other things,. And I suspect Barry Lam will soon join them. Things could be better, impact-wise, but it feels very different to 15 years ago. Now, in fairness to everyone else, I think its okay for most in academia to be spinning inside the publication wheelhouse because of the intrinsic fulfillment they get from that work and the satisfaction they get from the conferences, interactions, and students who engage with that work.

I am sympathetic to a lot of what Huemer says here. But as others have noted the situation is not significantly different in any other academic discipline, whether in science or the humanities.

I think the public is largely ignored by academic philosophers because the public is boring to academic philosophers. When was the last time two philosophers did a Dawkins-Krauss style tour, to spread the public understanding of philosophy? But I can tell you, there is a huge pent-up demand for this kind of thing. Those interviews now found on youtube were fantastic and discussed deep, complicated topics in an accessible way. It is astounding that people still talk about the uselessness of philosophy in the age of Philosophy Phridays at the Daily Ant.

So, is it really any surprise that mainstream communications venues do the same with philosophy? I disagree that philosophy is useless. Just think about it. We deal with the most primal aspects of life and have to make moral and ethical decisions all the time. On that count, I largely agree. That the public at large needs, wants, and is desperate for philosophy — now, more than ever — is something that I think ought to light a fire for change amongst these same academic philosophers, frankly.

How can you tell the difference? These, and dozens more, are questions left entirely open because academic philosophy has almost no public presence at all. Is it okay not to help starving children on the other side of the world? That seems particularly problematic in light of issues of diversity and inclusiveness. David — Thanks for your interesting confession. I tend to overstate the case against over-specialisation and there is obviously sometimes a need for it. Colour is perhaps a legitimate discrete specialist area but most areas of philosophy demand a grasp of global issues.

It might help the situation if its critics stopped associating philosophy exclusively with the approach seen in the endless books and articles that Huemer complains about. This is not philosophy, it is the philosophy profession as it is at present.

It is almost impossible to stop people being interested in philosophy but not so many are interested in reading countless very difficult texts that do not explain it. In the end the problem is always the same when these criticism of university philosophy crop up. It is difficult to justify a faculty which identifies problems but never solves them. To bring out the main issue, let me try a different, more blunt approach.

Please help us!