Café Philosophy Today

Over the last while I've engaged in several debates, often initiated by myself,  about the status and value of analytic philosophy -- most recently here, and earlier here and here. (Other polemical writings of mine are here; my non-polemical writing about philosophy is here; a general statement of my philosophical position is here.)

One thing in question is whether I should be writing about philosophy at all. I do so because I believe that philosophy is the most general form of non-fiction discourse, and that in some respect the word "philosophy" means the general principles we follow when thinking about anything. By and large, that is not how philosophy is defined in philosophy departments today, where philosophy is usually defined as a technical discipline of a strictly limited type (though I think that ultimately they do believe that their philosophy should be, in some respect, broadly authoritative). .

Something very unusual happens to philosophy when it goes on the internet. Suddenly, I am able to talk.

Almost all conversation about philosophy is conducted in academic contexts, and in those contexts it's always clear who controls the flow of the conversation: the teacher. In undergraduate courses discussion can be free-wheeling -- often enough, with very odd results. But the more competent and the more expert the participants become, the narrower the range of the discussion becomes. The teacher decides what's in question and what's not.

Why? Because in an academic professional context, there's always something material at stake. Even at the undergrad level, students need good grades and are wangling for recommendations -- and much more so in grad school. Later on, hiring, tenure, promotions, and professional advancement come into question. So it's only after someone has received tenure at a job they're willing to stay in that they are able to decide for themself what they want to talk about and what they want to say about it.

The internet can be compared to the coffee shops of XVIIIc France and Britain, or to the free discussions of early humanism (Erasmus, Montaigne, More, Rabelais, et. al.), or even to the Athenian agora  -- clichéd though that last comparison may be. Suddenly anyone can participate in the debate -- and more to the point, anyone can raise a question. To me this is a wonderful thing. Let's hope it continues, and grows.

[Update: I think that I was being pretty optimistic here. But it's a nice idea anyway.]
 

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Original materials copyright John J Emerson

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