“How Professional Academic Philosophy Assassinated Real Philosophy,” by Q
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My Presidential Address to the American Philosophical Association 2025 Eastern Division Meeting
Members of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association (APA, 2025),
I am deeply, deeply humbled by this Presidential honor. So deeply, deeply humbled am I. I mean, I’m so deeply, deeply humbled, am I, that it’s really hard to get over it. But I digress.
As I philosophically reflected on the all-encompassing question of life, the universe, and everything, and on the best-known answer to this question, in all its 42-ness, in preparation for composing my Presidential Address, then it suddenly occurred to me that I could think of at least one other Address that I would very much like to emulate. Very conveniently, it was also delivered by a President and it also has the word ‘Address’ in its title: namely, Abraham Lincoln’s justly famous and deeply inspiring Gettysburg Address, as per the image displayed directly below:
“Gettysburg Address,” by Abraham Lincoln (Delivered at Gettysburg, PA, 19 November 1863; Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC USA)
Now for my APA Presidential Address, which, as it so happens, is just like Lincoln’s, only a little bit different.
Six score and five years ago our white Ivy League fathers brought forth on this continent, a new Association, the American Philosophical Association, the APA, conceived in Capitalism, and dedicated to the proposition. Just the proposition.
Now we are engaged in a long dialogue, testing whether the proposition that “P is true,” is true, the great business of professional academic philosophy. We are met here on a great professional academic battlefield, the Big Apple, again, showing that such business can long endure. We are here to dedicate a portion of this meeting, at least two entire days of it, to those who, having published and published, then perished, and so having given that last full measure of devotion, to our glorious cause, the pursuit of a professional academic career, still have not shown that “P is true” is true, therefore have reasoned in vain. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a very real sense we cannot dedicate this hour, cannot ourselves even show that P, let alone that P is true, or that “P is true” is true. The world will little note, nor long remember, the pursuit of the meaning and implications of “P is true,” but it can never forget that we religiously follow Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion guidelines in our job-interviewing and always do everything else the APA commands us to do, or not do, and correspondingly that we no longer smoke at the Smoker, nor do we even call the APA reception “the Smoker.” It is for us, the philosophical living dead, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who have belonged to the APA have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. That from these honored philosophical dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here highly resolve that the pursuit of the meaning and implications of “P is true,”of the triune commandment Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and of no smoking at the non-Smoker, will be iterated forever. That this Association, still under Capital but now also under Big Science and the Military-Industrial-Digital Complex too, shall have a new birth of Best Practices and no drinking, as well as no smoking, and no thinking, at the non-Smoker. Hence no new Socrates at the non-Smoker, or belonging to this Association, forever. And a new birth of method, showing that P, by P, of P, and for P, shall not perish from the earth.
Thank you, all members of the Against Professional Philosophy circle over the years (APP, 2013-2025), and especially thank you, V for Vendetta, for contributing to an earlier version of this Address. Thank you Socrates, for everything. And thank you professional academic philosophers, and the American Philosophical Association, for considerably less than nothing.
REFERENCE
(APA, 2025). American Philosophical Association. “American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting, 1-8-2025 >> 1-11-2025, New York, New York.” Available online at URL = <https://www.apaonline.org/mpage/2025eastern>.
(APP, 2013-2025). W, X, Y, & Z, aka Hanna, R. Against Professional Philosophy. Available online at URL = <https://againstprofphil.org/real-philosophy/>.
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