'Preliminary' Thoughts on Philosophy Outside the Academy:
How can we imagine philosophy outside of the academy?
In some sense, the question seems odd. Why would we need philosophy outside of academia? And who's to say it's not already outside of the academy?
Why we would need it outside of academia has several reasons. First, the academic system seems to be imploding. Not only is it 'top-heavy' (with administrators), increasingly staffed by part-time, sessional, limited-term professors who are over-worked, underpaid, unable to fully dedicate themselves to either research or teaching; not only is it increasingly facing budget cuts, where the humanities must constantly justify their very existence; not only is the trend towards job training and always immediate transparent relevance; but the institution is also embedded within a society, one that prioritizes the economy, efficiency, and smooth bureaucratic operation (which is by its nature never smooth). The atmosphere of austerity is only the latest in a chain of ever-more impoverished views to reduce all experience to calculation, balancing, and accounting.
In this kind of situation, it is hard to imagine anything but the current trends continuing. It becomes increasingly difficult to imagine the university as continuing to provide a ripe environment for philosophy or other such pursuits. What it does still offer is an institutional arrangement for funding (problematic though it is), resources (buildings, equipment, spaces), and, above all, great people. For what philosophy needs is a set of social relations, a community of thinkers.
But to return to the question, why would we need philosophy outside of the academy, especially when it becomes increasingly hard to explain and justify why we even need philosophy inside of the academy.
There is of course no way to avoid going into a least a little what philosophy is to be able to speak about it. This is no easy task, and one that philosophers have struggled with. I am in no position to be arbiter on this matter. However, I will say a little about what I think philosophy is or does.
We may think of philosophy as learning how to think. Perhaps a key part to it is that it learns to think with clarity. Philosophy works on giving one's thoughts tractability to phenomena in the world, so that one can speak and think more accurately, with more precision, with more rigor. Yet philosophy is not restricted to thinking, whatsoever we may mean by that term (and action is always thought-ful, even if it is not well-thought-out). Philosophy has to do with living a good life. It works hard on thinking through what it is that is the case, and what this means for one's ability to live well. Philosophy, then, involves being gripped by questions and being transformed in one's inquiry: one's very being is (or can be) at stake. Philosophy can be a way of learning to breath, so to speak. That is, philosophy can involve rethinking, reorienting oneself within one's world, and to let the phenomena appear in a different way, to allow oneself to be struck by different aspects, such that the problems that are encountered can shift and appear differently, such that the world can shift and appear (and be) differently.
Philosophy, for me, is a way of life. It has to do with being responsibly responsive to and in the world, and it has to do with listening and paying attention to phenomena. Philosophy is deeply grounding, gratifying, and engaging. Or it can be.
There are other strains and strands, different conceptions of philosophy, that may not touch upon what I am getting at here: various forms that involve less strain, less at stake, less worry. I won't dwell on this for now.
So why would we want this outside of the academy? There are various reasons, but an obvious one is that it has never really been restricted to the academy, anyway. Just like poets are not necessarily the ones who write with ink and legacy, so philosophers are not necessarily those great canonical figures. Traces are left all over the place in so many different ways. But this does not directly address the question.
I think we would want philosophy outside of the academy because it is fundamental to the way we (ought to) live. We cannot escape (permanently) the questions our existence trails along with it (like a dog trailing along with a corpse). And I don't mean the pseudo-wise questions one asks to sound deep. I mean the questions, concerns, anxieties that grip us in our being. We may flee these, push them away, but they return, nagging us. I will not pose any here because the very posing of questions is a huge issue of philosophy: how can the question itself be given enough room for it to express itself in all its urgency and pain? in all its vulnerability and precariousness? in its fragile, cherished way? Philosophy is a way of giving expression to our tenuousness.
I will not spend time discussing here why, if philosophy is as I have characterized it, more people do not seem to recognize its value. Nor will I try to spell out how it differs from other such inquiries, such as poetry, art, religion, science, etc. Rather, I will ask: what form could it take outside of the academy? This is no easy question, but let me offer some 'preliminary' thoughts.
First, why does it need to take a form? Because it seems to me that our propensity to attempt to flee its consequences is great. It also seems to me that attempting to think through this question is part of trying to find a way to dwell with philosophy once its most easily recognized home may no longer offer it refuge.
Philosophy could take the form of children's books. Not as a diatribe or discourse on philosophical themes, etc., but as a philosophical engagement with important matters. Or, it could also take the form of therapy. This may sound odd: therapy is usually taken as being psychology or, depending on one's definitions, religion. Psychology and religion appeal to the masses, yet philosophy, doesn't it try to appeal to an elite? But I think this is a mis-characterization of philosophy. Sure, philosophy can be elitist and yes it can be quite difficult, but it can also be an activity that is open. It can also certainly help resolve and reframe problems and questions. It is obviously not like medication: its goal is not to treat symptoms or to prepare you to reenter society so you can be more efficient, productive, etc. Rather, it would involve deep work of investigating one's situation.
Philosophy could also take root in think-tanks or policy. I don't just mean in terms of ethical questions like "is it right or wrong to treat animals the way we do in slaughterhouses" but I mean it could ask deeper questions. Or, it could also take the form of a field school, offering a community of learners not necessarily tied to the old institutions of the university.
I think that philosophy in this time must take a great risk (particularly, as is what I am most familiar with, in Canadian society). I wonder whether it can set out well, and I hope it can continue, or regain, its thriving. There is no guarantee that philosophy will ask questions in an incisive and decisive way, but there is the possibility of its opening up to us to give us a way in to ask such revolutionary questions, and to dwell in them for a while.
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