Philosophy and the Professional Image of Philosophy
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy Philosophy and the Professional Image of Philosophy A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Thomas Doyle IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Co-advisors: Alan Love & Doug Lewis May, 2014 Copyright Thomas Doyle, 2014 Acknowledgements The first philosophy course I took was called "The American Pragmatists" (I have never thought of the logic course I took before that as a course in philosophy). It was taught by John Dreher at Lawrence University. Professor Dreher introduced me to philosophy and has continued to be a model for me of what a philosophy teacher should be. He was funny, demanding and caring. It is because of him and that course that I have always thought of John Dewey as an important philosopher, and it was because of him that I wanted to be a philosophy professor. I have known Sandra Peterson and Doug Lewis for more than 20 years now, and they continue to be my teachers. It is because of them that I love the history of philosophy, and it is in comparison to them that I continue to see how much more I have to learn. Sandra opened my eyes to a different way of reading Plato, and her insights and scholarship have emboldened me to question the traditional ways philosophical texts have been read. The many hours Doug spent with me talking about this dissertation, and about his experience as a philosophy professor, and then this year with Yi talking about the history of logic, have been the highlight of my education (and that's saying something, because I've been in school for a long, long time). Attending Philosophy Camp, run by John Wallace, helped me to get some distance from what I call in this dissertation the professional image of philosophy. When I talked to students there, I saw how much value there was in different practices of philosophy. It took me a long time to understand this, and I am grateful for John's putting up with my question about why Kant wasn't taught at philosophy camp. Now I know that was a stupid question. Luckily Alan Love came to the philosophy department at the University of Minnesota at the same time that I started my second round of graduate studies here. It is no exaggeration to say that this dissertation would not ever have been completed were it not for his quiet but continued confidence in me. And it was talking with him that helped me to figure out what I loved about philosophy and how to write about it. I'm also sure that I wouldn't have stuck it out without my friend Josh Kortbein's conversation and help. And if Yi Tong hadn't been around, these last years would have been much, much lonelier and more dispiriting. Thank you, Yi, for all the laughs. That's a large part of what I will remember of my time in graduate school. Tom Myhre has been a friend since he took my class, and I have profited from his insights. i Anita Wallace's help has been indispensible to me throughout my time in graduate school. Doug Lewis, Alan Love, Josh Kortbein and my father-in-law, Peter Pereira, each read through a late draft and saved me from some embarrassing errors. Discussions with Peter Pereira over the years led to my appreciation for Dewey's habit of creating a tension in his titles, and I have tried to achieve something like this with my title. Finally, my family has made the last 8 years enjoyable. Thank you to Sam and Lily for all the love and good times, and especially for the many, many stories I now use in my teaching. Thanks to Phoebe for keeping the pressure on by constantly asking me about my "paper." And thanks isn't enough to offer to Laura, and I can't list here all the ways that you have made me better. I'll just say that I'm looking forward to the rest of life with you (I’m finished going to school, I promise). ii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my mom and to the memory of my dad. Incredibly, they never once doubted that I would finish it, and they have been a source of support and love for a long, long time. Thank you. iii We do not learn by inference and deduction, and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy. - Thoreau, "Natural History of Massachusetts" iv Abstract Philosophy is an academic discipline whose practitioners are subject to forces of professionalization. These forces shape the discipline in ways that often go unnoticed. I present an analysis of the currently dominant image of philosophy that working philosophers have, one that focuses on philosophy's formality, fundamentality, and the widespread use of intuitions, showing that it is partly determined by the history of the professionalization of the discipline. I argue that readings of historical philosophers that are informed by this image tend to obscure the thought of those philosophers. In particular, John Dewey's work in logic is misunderstood when it is evaluated according to the now dominant conception of logic as the study of validity; and the moral writings of John Dewey and Henry David Thoreau are neglected because they do not engage in the contemporary project of grounding normativity. Finally I propose that thinking of philosophy as a practice can help to recover lost historical insights at the same time that it can appropriately focus our attention as philosophers on institutional problems that currently bedevil the discipline. v Table of Contents CHAPTER(1(INTRODUCTION:((PHILOSOPHY(IS(A(PRACTICE(...................................................(1! I.!!PHILOSOPHY!AND!ITS!PREDICAMENT!................................................................................................................!1! II.!!HATING!SCHOOL!...................................................................................................................................................!5! III.!!THE!PROFESSIONAL!IMAGE!..............................................................................................................................!9! IV.!!DISCIPLINE!.......................................................................................................................................................!11! V.!!SITUATING!THIS!DISSERTATION!.....................................................................................................................!16! VI.!!SUMMARY!OF!CHAPTERS!................................................................................................................................!29! CHAPTER(2(THE(PROFESSIONAL(IMAGE(......................................................................................(33! I.!!INTRODUCTION!...................................................................................................................................................!33! II.!!WHAT!IS!PHILOSOPHY?!...................................................................................................................................!36! III.!THE!DOMINANT!PICTURE!–!THE!PROFESSIONAL!IMAGE!...........................................................................!41! III.1$$$A$penchant$for$formalism$...................................................................................................................$41! III.2$$A$penchant$for$generality,$fundament$and$timeless$questions$...........................................$46! III.3$$A$penchant$for$intuitions$and$thought$experiments$...............................................................$51! IV.!!CONCLUSION!....................................................................................................................................................!56! CHAPTER(3(A(MODEL(OF(CHANGE(IN(PHILOSOPHY(.................................................................(58! I.!!INTRODUCTION!...................................................................................................................................................!58! II.!!CHANGE!IN!PHILOSOPHY!.................................................................................................................................!61! III.!!MODELS!OF!CHANGE!.......................................................................................................................................!63! IV.!!(HAP)HAZARDS!OF!PHILOSOPHY!..................................................................................................................!64! V.!!EXPLAINING!PHILOSOPHICAL!CHANGE!..........................................................................................................!66! vi VI.!!PROFESSIONALIZATION!..................................................................................................................................!71! VII.!PHILOSOPHY!....................................................................................................................................................!79! VIII.!!CONCLUSION!.................................................................................................................................................!86! CHAPTER(4(DEWEY(AND(THE(PROFESSIONAL(IMAGE(............................................................(87! I.!!INTRODUCTION!...................................................................................................................................................!87! II.!!!DEWEY’S!PICTURE!OF!PHILOSOPHY!..............................................................................................................!91! III.!!!DEWEY!MEETS!THE!PROFESSIONAL!IMAGE!...............................................................................................!98!