Of course, I'm nitpicking here, but I see all of your points. People who become tenure-track professors imagine that they have some special merit that allowed them to do so. And they do have a special merit - the same one as people who win the lottery.

What we need is to begin building a system supported on an entirely volunteer basis. If this sounds impossible, I humbly ask that you consider the case of open-source software. Ubuntu Linux is a highly efficient and user-friendly OS built for free by people who simply had the time on their hands and the will to do so. Ditto for every other piece of open source software. If they can do it, why can't we?

What makes you assume that universities do have a higher caliber of discussion? — Thorongil

Man, I'm not assuming it, I've witnessed it. Professionals in their field are often arrogant, yes. But they also spend a good portion of their lives working on their subject, and just like you wouldn't expect some random person to have the skills of a plumber, you can't expect some random person to be as good at discussing that topic as someone who devotes their life to it.

When I first saw Brassier's quote a while back, it did kind of bug me, but on reflection I have to say the elitism of university academics is to an extent justified. Doing a PhD and devoting your life to research/teaching/writing in a subject is a huge and ongoing commitment that most of us here don't have to (and wouldn't want to) make. So, I don't really begrudge them their elitism and I think it's fair to say that serious progress in philosophy as in the sciences will continue to be made through the tough mental grind that academics put in. Good luck to them, I say. I see our task on forums like this as primarily one of edifying ourselves and each other rather than pushing forward the boundaries of knowledge. Not that I see that as impossible (we have some really high quality posters here) but just not what we're about generally. And we don't have to be.

Edit: (Wrote this while @The Great Whatever was posting. Kind of saying the same thing, I guess.)

Yeah, I really don't mean to spark an anti-academic/academic type of dichotomy. I have good friends who are in the academy, and their work certainly shows. My interest is more along the lines of furthering non-academic philosophy than tearing down academic philosophy because I care about philosophy generally, one, and I'm fairly certain I'd find the academic life miserable just because of my political orientations, two. I clearly benefit, as one interested in philosophy, by the work academics put in. I read them all the time and their thoughts help to expand my mind. I'm interested in making non-academic philosophy work on a level that is more than popular, but is actually rigorous. I suppose that's what I mean by I fear "duping" myself -- I can see the dangers of not having an institution dedicated to high quality philosophy, and how it might be fairly easy to convince ourselves without some kind of rigor.

I used to go to Socrates Cafe, which is held in the local Presbyterian Church's huge basement and it drews all age groups, students, lawyers, a wide variety of people young and old. The topics are good but the emcee, the Reverend (who teaches Philosophy at local college) is the host.

He controls the conversation, as if he were in the classroom, which is fitting since we get as many as 30 people show up and many times all want to talk at once. He also gives the introduction to the topic up for discussion and he provides the closing commentary summing up the thoughts of the discussion.

I can't recall the topic we were discussing but in his closing, which was right about the time that those trumped up videos supposedly capturing Planned Parenthood selling fetus part had arisen. The Reverend used his summary to condemn Planned Parenthood.

I confronted him on line about this after I got home, but he had little to say, except that he suggested I watch all the videos which apparently surfaced by that point in time.

I can't see going back.

I also go to a Philosophy Walk, which is held once a month at a local park. Florida has parks everywhere and most are free, nice and beautiful places to walk and think. The group here is a little older, but also diverse.

There is always a topic and the group leader who provides three of four questions which he disburses one at a time. We pair up and walk with a different partner each time and discuss the particular question which is a facet of the general topic. At the end of each round we stop and discuss what we thought, everyone gets a chance to speak, then there is typically a short general discussion.

Around 14 people generally show up.

Philosophic discussions at the Socrates Cafe are sharper then those at the Walk, but the Walk conversations tend to be more pragmatically orientated.

But I can expect that, at least if we take individual cases. Sure, any completely random person off the street is not going to be able to discuss philosophy as a university professor will be able to. But I'm thinking of someone who reads philosophy and literature on their own time, while working a non-academic job. In my opinion, there is no reason at all that such a person would be any less good at discussing philosophy than a professor. There are many professors who are quite frankly ignorant morons, who make one wonder how on earth they ever jumped their way through all the academic hoops to eventually become professors. Nor do these people represent some microscopic exception.

We used to run Socrates Cafe-style meetings w our philosophy club in university. Very cool book too. We would also do reading groups and public debates. That, in addition to communal living, and pseudo-anarchist politics, comprised my "serious" philosophic journey. I'd like to continue in that mold, but I often feel uncertain on the how.

I see our task on forums like this as primarily one of edifying ourselves and each other rather than pushing forward the boundaries of knowledge. — Baden

The boundaries of knowledge are different for each person and a place like this or places like it could potentially encompass the entire spectrum. There's certainly no ceiling on the quality of philosophical discussion that goes on here so I don't see why the internet couldn't be a place for serious philosophical debate.
I don't think Brassier made the case for why he thinks the internet isn't an 'appropriate medium'.
I would think the internet could possibly be the most appropriate medium since the discussion is available to everyone and could capture every point of view, rather than an insular campus community.
If he truly thinks the goal of philosophy is to impede stupidity, isn't the internet the greatest potential tool?

If you have not tired meetup.com you might try it. Plenty of diverse groups post their meetings here. I belong to three or four groups, but only active in Philosophy Walk and Air Plien Painter's group. See what's happening in your area.

Having met and discussed philosophy with a number of philosophy professors, that has not been my experience of them. Some of them come off as arrogant and not very insightful. But then, almost everyone discussing philosophy on the internet comes off that way. Again, because they are not serious about the subject, and do not genuinely care about it.

There is a fundamental disconnect with that way of life and the modern one: it's not a matter of certain contingent things about life being out of whack, but the values that determine what people think a life should consist of to begin with are so foreign to those interests that there's no connection. — The Great Whatever

What would that look like today, and what sort of values would foster that kind of community? Is this the kind of commitment Jesus demanded of his disciples? Leave your normal life and practice philosophy instead?

Also, it seems you think the Cyrenaics figured out most of the interesting philosophical problems, so how would contemporary philosophers improve upon that, in your view?

What would that look like today, and what sort of values would foster that kind of community? Is this the kind of commitment Jesus demanded of his disciples? Leave your normal life and practice philosophy instead? — Marchesk

The models we get from the ancient philosophers are people who, just by living, outraged and inspired people. Many were killed by the state, exiled from their homes, or were banned from teaching. The Cyrenaics made up a portion of these. They did as they pleased; in the words of Aristippus, the difference between a philosopher and an ordinary person is that if the laws were abolished tomorrow, the philosopher's behavior wouldn't change. There is a kind of height of character. They were not political radicals, in the banal sense, but possessed of a deeper personal power and contentment. How true this idealized picture is to real life, who knows. But the end of philosophy on this picture is not excellent theories, but excellent people. The important thing is that when these people come together to learn, they see their learning not as a 'job,' but a lifestyle. How well this extends to theoretical disciplines not like ethics, who knows -- but in a way, that itself perhaps speaks to the inferiority of those disciplines to ethics (!).

Also, it seems you think the Cyrenaics figured out most of the interesting philosophical problems, so how would contemporary philosophers improve upon that, in your view? — Marchesk

Well, problems cease to be interesting once you solve them. And life has no end of problems. And if the project of philosophy is living well, it can't be 'accomplished' so long as you're still living.

Why would the project of philosophy be to live well?

Because that's what matters. You can of course say philosophy is anything you like, but you have to make it something in order for it to have any substance. And the project of living well is one that concerns you by virtue of being alive, and so is of interest intrinsically. Other projects, such as 'knowledge of the universe,' or 'seeing how things hang together generally,' are only of extrinsic interest, that is, they are not interesting on their own terms, but only insofar as an arbitrary opinion decides to grant them interest relative to something else. So in Socratic fashion we're guided by the demands of life itself, as they're imposed in virtue of living (that is, the commitments we already find ourselves committed to in virtue of living, and so which we cannot claim to try to abandon without internal inconsistency).

ther projects, such as 'knowledge of the universe,' or 'seeing how things hang together generally,' are only of extrinsic interest, that is, they are not interesting on their own terms, but only insofar as an arbitrary opinion decides to grant them interest relative to something else. — The Great Whatever

But that's not true. Plenty of people find them intrinsically interesting.

And I'm not denying that living well or ethics are an important philosophical project, I'm just questioning that they are the central project of philosophy, when the evidence seems to be to the contrary. Philosophy is much broader than that, until you narrow your focus to groups of philosophers who think/thought a certain way.

No, they don't. They find them interesting insofar as... Remove the condition following, and they lose their interest. Their interest is, in other words, derivative.

Put another way, it is possible to lose interest in such questions, while it is not possible to lose interest in living well, whatever one's opinions on the matter are. Thus, only an arbitrary opinion imbues such other questions with their (extrinsic) interest.

They find them interesting insofar as... Remove the condition following, and they lose their interest. Their interest is, in other words, derivative. — The Great Whatever

The condition being that an individual or group finds them interesting?

Put another way, it is possible to lose interest in such questions, while it is not possible to lose interest in living well, whatever one's opinions on the matter are. Thus, only an arbitrary opinion imbues such other questions with their (extrinsic) interest. — The Great Whatever

But for some people, the thing that gives their life purpose is pursuing such questions. There was a mathematician who cared about nothing other than math to the point that he was nearly helpless in other areas of life.

The condition might be anything you like. For example, you might be compelled by metaphysical hypotheses about the basic structure of the world because you feel uneasy when you lack understanding of something, and so have a desire to understand, or feel as though you understand, everything. But if circumstances change and so does your psychological predisposition, so that you no longer feel uneasy in these circumstances, the corresponding metaphysical hypotheses will cease to be interesting. Or, you might have an interest in such questions because your intellectual tradition does, and you have independent interests in being a part of, or contributing to, that tradition. When that interest is lost, so will be the interest in the metaphysical hypotheses.

But the only way that living well can cease to be interesting to you is, I submit, to die, in which case philosophy already is out of the question anyway.

For example, you might be compelled by metaphysical hypotheses about the basic structure of the world because you feel uneasy when you lack understanding of something, and so have a desire to understand, or feel as though you understand, everything. But if circumstances change and so does your psychological predisposition, so that you no longer feel uneasy in these circumstances, the corresponding metaphysical hypotheses will cease to be interesting. — The Great Whatever

Or they might find such questions fascinating. It's interesting that you frame it in terms of anxiety or tradition, leaving out the obvious motivation.

But this fascination is itself extrinsic, since it is possible for that fascination to disappear. Thus, it is only fascination 'insofar as...' whereas living well involves commitments that must be made in virtue of being alive, and in particular, pleasure and pain, which have intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, value: they are never good or bad 'insofar as...'.

whereas living well involves commitments that must be made in virtue of being alive — The Great Whatever

True.

pleasure and pain, which have intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, value: they are never good or bad 'insofar as...'. — The Great Whatever

I guess I just disagree with this. I think pleasure or pain are only good or bad insofar as the context makes them good or bad. I can feel pain and think it's a good thing, and feel pleasure and think it's bad. I can also think that a less pleasurable state is preferable. It just depends on the context.

I can feel pain and think it's a good thing, and feel pleasure and think it's bad. I can also think that a less pleasurable state is preferable. It just depends on the context. — Marchesk

But what you think doesn't have to be so, if by 'think' you mean 'have the opinion that...' Certainly I can think 'this is great!' at my pain, but by so thinking I will have made it no better, or made it not bad somehow. If, on the other hand. by 'think' you mean something a bit more primal than opinion, like being affected by it positively, well, then, it wouldn't be pain if that were the case.

The problem is that is no different for our concern about anything we do. At any moment we are caught-up in the business of trying to life-well, no matter what that might be. It's not something given without our particular interests at any point. Examining suffering philosophically, for example, is no more or less than an "arbitrary" interest than wanting to describe how the world works, listening to some instance of music or eating lunch. No doubt pain is bad, but such states are not moments of our interest in something. More to the point, even a given pain can disappear, whether it be through our death or becoming absorbed in some other thought or experience for a moment,

For any interest, it is most most certainly not, "only insofar." At the given moment, there is nothing else a person lives. Our interests our never good and bad insofar as they cause a separate state or life of pleasure or pain, for what matter to any moment of life is what is happen precisely then.

But if circumstances change and so does your psychological predisposition, so that you no longer feel uneasy in these circumstances, the corresponding metaphysical hypotheses will cease to be interesting. Or, you might have an interest in such questions because your intellectual tradition does, and you have independent interests in being a part of, or contributing to, that tradition. When that interest is lost, so will be the interest in the metaphysical hypotheses — The Great Whatever

And? All that means is a person is living their life. People's interests sometimes change. People sometimes feel different. The ceasing of an interest doesnt' mean that it didn't, itself, matter for the times it was of interest. Whether we are talking about a state of interest or a state of pain, there is no difference here. You seem to make this bizarre assumption that interests have to be relevant irrespective of one life, as if only what is turn all the time can matter in life. This doesn't make sense. In states of existence, in the finite, nothing is true all the time and it never will be.

I stumbled into this old thread, and it made me feel sad or ashamed that I never progressed past my BA in philosophy and got a PhD like I once dreamed of. (Meanwhile, on another hand, I simultaneously feel sad and ashamed that I "wasted" my university education on an "impractical" topic like philosophy instead of, I dunno, computer science or something, and that part of me thinks I'd feel even more sad and ashamed if I had ignored the practical reasons I didn't pursue a PhD and "wasted" even more time and money on that instead).

I wonder sometimes what the point is of writing my philosophy book. When I started it, back when I was still getting that BA and planning to go on to a PhD, I expected that it would form the basis of my dissertation. I've since realized that contemporary (at least Analytic) philosophy dissertations are nothing at all like that and I would probably have been unhappy having to eschew doing the philosophical work I was interested in to instead focus excessively on some much narrower problem, probably in the service of someone else's research interests. I have no plans to publish it as a real book in dead-tree format; though it's certainly long enough for that, at about 80,000 words now, I seriously doubt my writing ability, and I don't expect any publisher would be interested in it; and even if they were, I seriously doubt it would get read enough for it to be worth it. My analytics tell me hardly anybody's even reading it for free on the internet (not that I can blame them), so I don't see why anyone more would ever pay for it.

More on the topic of this thread, on academic vs lay philosophy, here's an excerpt from my essay on Metaphilosophy from the aforementioned book:

As regards who is to exercise such faculties, who is it that is to do philosophy, the question is largely whether philosophy is a personal activity, or an institutional one. Given that I have just opined that the faculty needed to conduct philosophy is literally personhood itself, it should come as no surprise that I think that philosophy is for each and every person to do, to the best of their ability to do so. Nevertheless, institutions are made of people, and I do value the cooperation and collaboration that has arisen within philosophy in the contemporary era, so I don't mean at all to besmirch professional philosophy and the specialization that has come with it. I merely don't think that the specialized, professional philosophers warrant a monopoly on the discipline. It is good that there be people whose job it is to know philosophy better than laypeople, and that some of those people specialize even more deeply in particular subfields of philosophy. But it is important that laypeople continue to philosophize as well, and that the discourse of philosophy as a whole be continuous between those laypeople and the professionals, without a sharp divide into mutually exclusive castes of professional philosophers and non-philosophers. And it is also important that some philosophers keep abreast of the progress in all of those specialties and continue to integrate their findings together into more generalized philosophical systems.

I feel like I'm kind of in a weird in-between place with respect to all of that. I have a negligible degree in philosophy, so that's some formal education, but nothing nearly impressive enough to qualify me as a professional philosopher. My interests are extremely broad, as the breadth of philosophy is largely what attracted me to the field, but I really appreciate that other people have done the in-depth specialized work in all of the fields that interest me, so that I can draw from all of that into the big general picture I'm working on. I would love to somehow function as a bridge between those worlds, connecting the many different specialized professional philosophers to a more general and generalist audience, encouraging laypeople to build out their own general philosophical worldviews, for their own sakes, but drawing from the many insights that specialized professional philosophers have already developed. I would love if somehow there was more of such a bridge, socially and institutionally, not just for me to be the entirety of it; some people like Olly Thorne of Philosophy Tube are sort of doing that already, as that whole channel is dedicated to him "giving away his education" after a UK tuition hike. But I don't know what I can really do to help there be more of that, considering I can barely keep my life together enough to do a little bit of mediocre work on my own book a few nights a week.

Rereading this thread just makes me miss Tgw :(



As far as I'm concerned these days, at least -- insofar that you're happy with your life, living a good life, then you're doing philosophy well. No need for recognition. No need to complete that degree. No need to worry about being in-between, too rigorous or not rigorous at all.

Happiness is all that matters. The rest is just for fun. And rigor can be fun. But it needn't impede your happiness.

I like your optimism...

Regarding the original quote lambasting the existence of online philosophical forums/discussion ect. I am slightly unnerved...
Why is it philosophy (alone) that must be held to such serious (elitist) standards for it to even warrant the "title" of philosophy/philosophical discussion? Almost every other hobby/interest/skill can be practiced (without judgement) at different levels and degrees of ability, advancement, and seriousness. For example, what about guys that go and shoot some hoops after class occasionally? Does their lack of basketball training or their obvious lack of advancement (they all know they are not going to play in the NBA) negate the reality that they are still playing basketball? If only to the best of their ability? What about amateur radio operators? Small time botanists with some vegetables in their green house? All of these people are humble enough to admit their inabilities, but yet, are the 'professionals' of these skills the ones mocking them? More often than not professional basketball players donate much money and time to encouraging an interest in the sport, in children's basketball programs, in the construction of basketball courts ect. I doubt any professional athlete, artist, ect. would ever say or downplay the abilities or skills of those obviously less skilled; because they care about the sport/art/skill in question, they are interested in encouraging people's interest in them. Online discussion of philosophy then, flawed and off-topic as it may very well tend to be at times, is just the result of thousands of different voices, opinions, and skill-set levels, having-a-go, and in that sense, and in many ways, I think it is better at bolstering interest and allowing those with the skills and experience, to better encourage and help those new to the subject than the stuffy classroom of exhausted and stressed out undergrads. Just as I think @ProbablyTrue was saying.
Even in the serious sciences, do you think "real" scientists discourage personal research? Experiments? The whole impetus of science is to search for answers, to want answers, why would any "real" accredited scientist discount the interest and fascination of those less experienced than him?

Also the collapse of the humanities is a very real threat in universities. As a university student currently in the process of completing my second undergrad (first in philosophy, currently in law), the undergrad university has entirely become a daycare for middle class kids to help train them for "jobs". Philosophy, even more so than English/history/geography/anthropology is collapsing; @Pfhorrest I concur with some of your feelings. I want my PhD, and I much preferred my philosophy BA to this "practical" law degree I am taking now (as I'm writing this I should be actually doing my law work)-and I face the ridicule from friends and my family. Money-wise I could never justify it, I need a job...hence the law school.

@Phil
Not to call you out, but I believe it was you who noted that you don't regard Orwell or Camus as "real" philosophers, but rather as literary artists ect. ect. But what is literature if not philosophy? Philosophy is a wide ranging discipline-undisputable in my opinion; look at its obvious connections (and historical impetus for) science, art ect. Camus wrote books as well as essays; including journal articles, pamphlets, and plays; all with very deep, complex, and relevant philosophical themes and inquiries. I adore Camus but my point is not to defend him, but to defend all the philosophical writers and thinkers that have not fit the keyhole of "academic"; why necessarily is "academic" the benchmark for professionalism of philosophy? Or as someone else pointed out, how can a subject such as philosophy in the traditional sense; the love and pursuit of wisdom, be squared away as the mere accumulation of a certain strata of knowledge? I prefer the definition of philosophy as the love of questions, of raising thought-provoking, introspective, relevant, and important questions that otherwise get sidelined, dismissed, or overlooked in the daily act of living. To view philosophy as a merely academic-institutionalized activity is to view it only relative to contemporary standards, which obviously, historically, is incorrect.

Of course, I have great respect for academic and professional philosophers; as people have noted, these are individuals who did win "the lottery" and as someone who wants to earn a PhD myself one day (but likely won't), I have only great admiration for their capacities, perseverance, and aptitudes. I have met some great philosophy professors and philosophers in my day-of course I think there needs to be a degree of separation between the ability to teach philosophy and the ability to academically DO philosophy; as other people have noted, I have met some pompous and terrible philosophy professors that did just not teach in a way that students would fully comprehend-but again, that is not to say that they are not 'good' philosophers-teaching is just a whole other skillset. I could probably decently teach a class of high school philosophy for example, I know enough, and I feel very confident in my teaching abilities; but by no means would I then say I am a "professional" philosopher. I am merely a person who loves philosophy.

. Of course the case can be made that the same happens in academia and schools, but if the internet (search engines) directed you to opposition to your position in the way a library might arrange books by topic, there might be more of a realization that there is serious work opposed to the movement. I wouldn't categorize philosophy on the internet as fruitless, but it can give the appearance of a greater understanding and consensus and should be cautious of becoming a "safe" community absent of dissent. — Soylent

This is why an honest and successful endeavor in internet philosophy is to have the balls to use key search phrases like "Argument against belief X which I ignorantly hold" maybe not the last part haha.

Even in the serious sciences, do you think "real" scientists discourage personal research? Experiments? The whole impetus of science is to search for answers, to want answers, why would any "real" accredited scientist discount the interest and fascination of those less experienced than him? — Grre

In the parts of the physical sciences that start to verge on philosophy, I do see a lot of that. Every forum has a crank who thinks he can disprove relativity or quantum mechanics, and a lot of more-educated users start to really look down on everyone who thinks they have a novel thought about physics. That makes me sad too, because I've often had interesting thoughts about physics and wanted to discuss them with people better-educated in that subject than me to find out of someone else has already had this idea, if it's been disproven or is already a part of some existing theory, or is at least a live hypothesis in the field, or if not, how well does the genuinely new idea mesh with the existing research... but the response is more often than not just to shut down the discussion right off the bat at the hubris I have to dare to think I could "do physics" outside of academia without my own hadron collider to prove things with.

Also, it sounds like it's too late already, but Don't Be A Lawyer.