This is the first of two installments.
Philosophy in a Newer Key: Outside the Professional Academy and Inside the Real World, #1.
0. Introduction
If one feels the need to philosophize, how should one finance it? This is the real question for many postgraduate and PhD students who leave the university without a paid job. Universities are educating more and more students, but it is a sad truth that only a fraction of them get to make a living by doing that which they feel passionate about.
But even then, the professional academy is hardly a friendly environment for many aspiring researchers. Tenure tracks, continuous stress, deadlines, publication pressure, intellectual conformity, and more: all these factors are likely to stunt and deform rather than nourish real thinking. And even if one starts out with the lofty ambition of addressing the most fundamental questions of humanity, how long will it take before this person’s hopes and dreams are crushed underneath the ruthless institutional reality that is let loose upon them?
So, the choice to enter the professional academy even when one has the formal or official educational qualifications is by no means an obvious one. And neither is the choice to remain in the academy. After all—and Schopenhauer already made this point in the 19th century—the professional the academy, in many cases, is not the home of the brightest minds, but only of the most politically astute ones.
But then, after leaving the academy, what are one’s prospects? One would hope to procure an income, or to support a family. And as philosophizing is unlikely to procure such an income, the question should be raised: is there, outside the professional academy, any use for philosophy at all? And, if the answer is yes, what are its applications? I sketch an answer in two installments, the first of which deals with the need for philosophy outside the professional academy, while the second one deals with some defining characteristics of this type of philosophical thinking.
I. The Real World Really Needs Real Philosophy
I claim that there is, and always has been, a real need for real philosophy in the real world. The very idea that philosophy can only properly be practiced within the walls of the professional academy is an intellectual and cultural aberration and myth that has stubbornly been perpetuated form the 19th century onward, exactly at the point that academic philosophy rose to power. Professors of philosophy—Kant was actually one of the very first in the modern era, and he set an example that no one could follow—were all too eager to accept a nod from powers-that-be as a condition to defang their thinking. Thou hast done well, my good and faithful servant!
Let’s start with an initial distinction. Real philosophy should be sharply distinguished from technically competent philosophy. The latter is a useful technique that can be taught, tested, and rehearsed, and that thrives well within the confines of the professional academy. It is a metier that depends on tests, scores, hierarchical structures, tenure tracks, credentials, citation indexes, and departmental and editorial politics, as well as on the intellectual posturing that goes along with any form of institutional prestige. In short, real philosophical thinking very often dies a suffocating death within the unhospitable walls of professional academic institutionalization.
Now, someone who practices real philosophy can be a technically competent philosopher—or not, as the case may be. But being merely technically competent does not suffice for being a real philosopher. One can churn out one technically competent published paper after the other, and still fail to think.
But the real world outside the professional academy desperately needs real philosophers. What does an academic philosopher have to say outside the ivory tower? To whom can he or she speak, and about what? The enormous conceptual problems of Rawls’s account of personhood? The subtleties of modal logic? The implications of someone’s reading of Kant’s aesthetics? I know, I am exaggerating somewhat. The point is that the world requires the skills that a thorough and real philosophical education can offer. The good news is that this offers chances left and right for those who cannot imagine working in the professional academy, or for those who simply cannot obtain a position in it.
Don’t let the highly restrictive norms and rules of the professional academy around you bog you down. In the real world, the social-institutional norms imposed on papers, books, arguments, and forms of expression are often blessedly absent, and a very different type of philosophizing is required. For one thing, it is a form of thinking that’s not primarily aimed at convincing other professional academics or experts but is instead addressed to people who and organizations that are not knowledgeable in the technical language of philosophy.
In a great many cases, mere technically competent philosophy is not all that important in the real world, although it can be useful. The real issue is what real philosophy can offer in various personal and social-institutional contexts in which professional academic technical competence and styles of expression are not required or even desirable. And real philosophy can offer a lot, including critical thinking, a sharp eye for argumentation and objections that can be raised, the synthesis of many ideas into one storyline, posing fundamental questions, contextualizing ideas, and writing clear and convincing texts for various audiences, to name just a few.
I could go on and on about the merits of a good real-philosophical education, but I suppose the main point is clear. While it might seem that real philosophy can be adequately practiced only in a professional academic context, actually the reverse is true: only outside the professional academy is real philosophy really possible. The skills that one acquires during a real-philosophical education can be put to truly good use and can be truly valuable only outside the professional academy,
That being said, from the standpoint of the problem of earning a living income as a real philosopher, I also think it is very useful to be proficient in a primary discipline, and then approach real philosophy as a secondary discipline that supports the first.
For example, my educational background is primarily in landscape architecture and urban design. Once I obtained a PhD position, I found myself confronted with the assignment to write a doctoral dissertation. Despite having published already one book at the time, I felt I lacked the requisite skills to say what I liked to say with sufficient clarity and structure. So, I took a master’s degree in philosophy. That experience gave me a lot of ideas and provided me with handholds of where I wanted to go, as much as where I did not want to end up.
My philosophical education provided me with the technical toolkit to think critically, analytically, and logically through various conceptual problems and issues, ranging from political philosophy to aesthetics, and ultimately landscape architecture and urban design. Moreover, it sharpened my reasoning skills and provided numerous techniques for setting up arguments.
All these things are enormously useful for any profession, whether one is a psychologist, life coach, engineer, computer programmer, general manager, or designer. Clear argumentation, critical engagement, careful analysis of what is being said, and well-focused thinking about the logic of a given line of argumentation, serve many professions and contexts.
However, if my primary background had been in philosophy, I strongly suspect that developing a career would have been more difficult. Although this might at first seem unintuitive, in order to make real philosophy outside the professional academy work as a lifetime calling, it is immensely useful if one also speaks the technical language of an adjacent discipline or domain of expertise. Granted, there are disciplines in which process knowledge takes center stage, and intimate knowledge of technical content is not required. For instance, a consultancy specialized in project management and writing funding applications might collaborate with research institutes, but their employees need not be scientists or researchers themselves. But then again, it is an enormous asset if a consultant has a good working knowledge of the area the scientists are specialized in. Such a knowledge base will make discussions easier and will most likely result in better output.
The same point can be made with regard to real philosophy in the real world. It is entirely possible that one can improve processes, interactions, and discussions once one has a background in real philosophy. But I also believe that some level of technical knowledge in a non-philosophy discipline is immensely valuable, precisely because the combination of technical knowledge in a given non-philosophy field, when taken together with real-philosophical and/or argumentative acumen, creates much added value for all those involved.
So, I am in favor of living up to an old Jewish adage: one can be a real philosopher only when one engages with an additional discipline or field that might or might not overlap with it. I think it keeps real philosophy “grounded”: it has to find a practical perspective on the real world as such. It is all well and good to think about the varieties of reference, but then, what about when you have to talk to a farmer about the loss of biodiversity and biological production? And the difference between these two worlds is utterly productive. It creates a tension and a highly valuable “shock” effect that reverberates throughout one’s thinking. Above all, it keeps real philosophy practical. To me, this is essential. Philosophy stops being meaningful when it stops engaging with the real world. And my strong suspicion is that many professional academic philosophers declare loudly and publicly that they philosophize to improve the world, but at the same time they build a fortress of books and publications to keep the real world out. After all, it is very cosy indeed to cuddle up with other like-minded professional academics who claim to be changing the world by engaging vigorously in university politics.
This attitude reminds me of a poster I once saw in a bookstore in Germany. The text printed on it read “Actually I wanted to save the world today, but it’s raining”. This is exactly what the attitude of many professional academics (not only professional academic philosophers!) seems to be. Yes!, let’s do something good, but only in a way that does not push up against the boundaries of our comfort zone.
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