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Socrates Tenured: An Introduction, Robert Frodeman and Adam
 
Briggle
 
 — 
 August 11, 2014
 — 
 Author Information:
 Robert Frodeman, University of North Texas, frodeman@unt.edu and Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Adam.Briggle@unt.edu  Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1Ap 
 Editor’s Note:
 Bob Frodeman and Adam Briggle were kind enough to share a draft (further abridged) of the introduction to their proposed book
Socrates Tenured: The Institutions of 21st Century Philosophy.
 The book is under consideration for publication in our  
A reply to their Frodeman and Briggle’s
introduction is forthcoming.
Introduction
 There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers.
 — 
 Thoreau Think of organic chemistry; I recognize its importance, but I am not curious about it, nor do I see why the layman should care about much of what concerns me in philosophy.
 — 
 Quine Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the  problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men.
 — 
 Dewey
I.
 
I
n 1917 John Dewey published “The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy.” This essay, a
nearly 17,000 word reflection on the role of philosophy in early 20
th
 century American life,
expressed Dewey’s concern that philosophy had become antiquated, “sidetracked from the main currents of contemporary life,” too much the
 domain of professionals and adepts. While taking pains to note that the classic questions of philosophy make inestimable contributions to culture both past and present, Dewey felt that the topics being raised by professional
 philosophers were too often “d
iscussed mainly because they have been discussed rather than
 because contemporary conditions of life suggest them.”
 Dewey soon traveled to China, where he delivered nearly 200 lectures on education and democracy to large crowds across a two-year stay. In America Dewey commented on the
 
 public questions of the day, a role that he inhabited until his death in 1952. Since then, however, a different set of expectations has ruled. Professional philosophers have followed
Quine’s path in treating philosophy as a t
echnical exercise of no particular interest to the layman. While it is possible to point to philosophers who
work with
 (rather than merely talk about) non-philosophical stakeholders, among the mass of philosophers societal irrelevance is often treated as a sign of intellectual seriousness. Today we live in a global commons created and constantly modified by technoscientific invention. We are surrounded by phenomena crying out for philosophic reflection. Indeed, open your computer and you will find thoughtful exploration of issues as varied as the creation of autonomous killing machines, the loss of privacy in a digital age, the remaking of friendship via Facebook, and the refashioning of human nature via biotechnology. In this sense, as Romano (2012) and Goldstein (2014) have recently argued, philosophy abounds. But professional philosophers have remained largely on the margins of this growing cultural
conversation. It needn’t be this way. Take metaphysics. Every philosophy department
teaches courses in metaphysics. But how is the subject handled? As evidenced by a sample of syllabuses posted online, metaphysics classes are overwhelmingly exercises in professional  philosophy. Classes begin from the concerns of philosophers rather than from contemporary  problems. The same is true of leading textbooks. Consider as magisterial a source as the
Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics
, Loux and Zimmerman, eds. Their introduction begins: Its detractors often characterize analytical philosophy as anti-metaphysical. After all, we are told, it was born at the hands of Moore and Russell, who were reacting against the metaphysical systems of idealists like Bosanquet and
Bradley …
 The discussion is entirely framed in terms of the discipline of philosophy
 – 
 and only 20
th
century analyt
ic philosophy at that. We find no reference to people’s actual lives, to the
metaphysical issues tied to the births and transformations and deaths that we all endure, no acknowledgement that questions of metaphysics involve some of the most intimate and transcendent questions of our lives. Instead, metaphysics is a tale told in terms of  professionals: Moore and Russell, Bosanquet and Bradley, Quine and Lewis. The eight sections of the
 Handbook 
 reflect this Olympian perspective:
 
Universals and Particulars
 
Existence and Identity
 
Modality and Possible Worlds
 
Time, Space-Time, and Persistence
 
Events, Causation, and Physics
 
Persons and the Nature of Mind
 
Freedom of the Will
 
Anti-Realism and Vagueness
 
Chapter titles are laden with jargon like “Supervenience,
Emergence, Realization,
Reduction” and “Compatiblism and Incompatiblism.” This is not to say that the matters
addressed by such essays are not significant. But it takes an adept in philosophy to extract the nut of existential meaning from the disciplinary shell. No wonder even the best students walk away confirmed in their prejudices concerning the irrelevance of philosophy to everyday life. [1]  Why do philosophers begin with insider topics when issues laden with metaphysics are in the
news every day? Today’s (May 25, 2014)
 
Washington Post 
 describes a patient taking heart  pills that include ingestible chips: the chips link up with her computer so that she and her doctor can see that she has taken her medicine. The story also describes soon-to-be marketed nanosensors that live in the bloodstream and will be able to spot the signs of a heart attack  before it occurs. These are is
sues that fall under “Existence and Identity,” one of the sections
of the
Oxford Handbook 
: at stake here are not just new physical instruments, but metaphysical questions about the nature of self and the boundary between organism and machine. Loux and Zimmerman miss the chance to frame this section in terms of our increasingly Borg-like existence rather than solely in terms of scholastic debates. This needs to change, for the health of our culture, and for the health of philosophy itself. Unless professional philosophy embraces
and institutionalizes
 an engaged approach to  philosophizing, working alongside other disciplines and abroad in the world at large, it will  become a casualty of history.
 Nearly 100 years after Dewey’s essay it is time for another recon
struction of philosophy.
II.
 Over time a domain of action previously accepted as given evolved into something deemed worthy of sustained critical commentary, often in association with particular social, economic, or political processes.
 — 
 Rinella
This won’
t be easy. To philosophize today
 – 
 by which we mean professionally, in a salaried  position, at a college or university
 – 
is to live within a paradox. Now, one could claim that it has always been so. A gap has always existed between the concerns of philosophers and our real world philosophic problems. Everyone wrestles with how to live a rich and fulfilling existence. Yet formalize the question
 – 
what constitutes the good life?
 – 
and the topic tends to ossify. People dismiss it as wool gathering. But the contradiction remains. People often describe ethics as merely a matter of opinion, even while they also struggle to ensure that their children are treated fairly. And they reject aesthetics as subjective even as they plan trips to national parks and pour over the details of their kitchen remodel. The tension between the language and concerns of philosophers and everyday philosophical
 problems has been part of the West’s DNA since the milkmaid laughed at Thales tumbling
into a ditch. But Thales had practical chops, too, which he proved when he made a killing in

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