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Has anyone here enjoyed the experience of having to explain what a
philosophy student/professor/research does to an inquisitive family
member? I'm sure that, to some degree or other, it has. I personally
don't mind discussing my areas of interest for a few minutes here and
there, but sometimes you run into someone with a certain idea about
philosophers (yet not about philosophy) who is going to ask the
ironically philosophical question "Okay, I know what you do, but why
do you do it? What's the point?".
I found myself in such a situation just the other day, when my sister
and her friends, unsatisfied with my already subservient behaviour
(have you ever tried to taxi 4 teenage girls around shopping centres
all day? It's not the most fulfilling pastime...) set out to torment
me with the invalidation of my (or I should say 'our', since you most
certainly are targeted by proxy, by their cruel endeavour) academic
field. I tried in vain to present philosophy as a sort of "mother of
all sciences" (Jon Lowe's BUPC '05 keynote, anyone?) only to be
countered with the predictable "every academic says that about their
field". I commented upon how philosophical investigation was perhaps
the modern day computer, due to Babbage's will to create an analytical
machine that could compute logic rather than just quantities, I
discussed the rebirth of democracy and right of state through the
ethical and political discussions of the Enlightenment, and about how
rational philosophical thought had always walked hand in hand with
scientific progress in the dispelling of absurd old world concepts of
a flat earth, orderly heaven, and miraculous events, only to be told
that I wasn't talking about philosophy at all. I was merely talking
about science, about psychology and politics, about human nature...
I was in some way reminded of the example in philosophy of language of
the foreigner who is being shown around oxford, visiting college after
college, the library, the exam hall, only to ask "Yes, but where is
the university?". Kids these days seem to be asking in parallel "Yes,
but where is the philosophy?". And really, you can't blame them. The
modern day concept of the philosopher lives in the minds of the masses
as some toga-draped bearded old man walking along olive-lined dusty
paths, or perhaps some 19th century existentialist, garbed in black
with a frilly mustache, but people have a pretty poor idea about what
a philosopher is today, about what philosophy is today. When I was
younger (in other words, pre-university) I met a french philosopher by
the name of Michel Fattal who for all his interesting things to say
about philosophical thought in the middle east contributing to the
preservation of Aristotelean thought during the middle ages, could not
describe philosophy without using vague poetic sentences such as
"Philosophy... why philosophy is nothing, it is nothing and
everything". With models like this, no wonder the lay public put forth
such challenging queries. Not challenging in that they are difficult
to answer (although they can be as well), but in that they challenge
our vary subject's right to exist.
At a time where physicists and chemists struggle to woo the younger
masses into a university formation in these subjects, we too must ask
ourselves what image philosophy has in the public's mind. We too must
arm ourselves with tools to seduce, interest and explain. We don't
have flashy lasers or crystalline arrays of bubbles, so we can only
rely on words to explain what we do, why we do it, and why others
should give a damn.
So I turn to the certainly-more-verbose-than-I mass that is BUPS-DIS
to ask you all: how do you explain these things to your skeptical
sibling? How do you plan on helping keep the subject alive? (For
reference in France more and more universities are closing down
humanities departments do to lack of funding, lack of dynamic
research, and lack of popular interest. Anthropology is going fast...
who's next?)
- Edward.
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