There have been numerous pieces on the Guardian’s Comment is Free (CiF) about the Middlesex philosophy closure, usually protesting it on the basis of the department’s research excellence. Below the line, though, some commenters have questioned the very purpose of philosophy: particularly of the continental variety. Surely as resources are squeezed by recession, their argument goes, such a decadent subject, contributing so little to the economy and practical skills has a hard time justifying its existence? Some even suggested that philosophy is something that should just be done in one’s spare time, and does not warrant either a teaching post, or years of full-time commitment to study.
There seem to be a number of naïve assumptions underwriting these suggestions. The first reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my undergraduate students after our last seminar of the term. A few pints in, he asked, like many of them tend to, ‘why do you only want to teach?’ I explained that teaching a related subject in a university is one of the few ways you can have both the mental space and a sliver of free time available to attempt to make philosophical breakthroughs. He had different plans though: he was going to be CEO of a company, and write landmark philosophy books—like a Cicero figure, of sorts. I wished him good luck; but in the full knowledge that nowadays with tens of thousands of philosophers working full time in their fields, the idea is fanciful that anyone can engage at that level of thought in their spare time. It is simply incredulous that we can return to the days when Enlightenment gentlemen wrote treatises in their spare time; and headed to the salons at nighttime to discuss them. All those that engage with contemporary philosophy will know that like most else in the modern world philosophy is not immune to the increasing specialization, division of labour, and depth of knowledge required to produce new knowledge in the field—precluding any retreat to an amateur approach. Like most other professionalized fields, that is, it requires institutional support for its intellectual labour.
There are what are in classical economics are called ‘externalities’. These are effects produced by the operation of the market that are not internalized within the market itself—like the costs of pollution, for instance. However, things sometimes work the other way. Production unsupported by the market that the market gains from quite unilaterally, without bearing the cost of it. Recently I was invited into a major publisher’s office to discuss their new philosophy line. They had done the research; in the marketplace philosophy is thriving. So there is obviously a large demand for these works. But for anyone who knows much about publishing it will not come as a shock to learn that for the authors there is little more than pocket money in royalties produced for all but a handful of authors like J.K.Rowling. It is thus the case the institutional support of universities permits the supply of such rich philosophical works available to the general public at a cheap price. If philosophers were, god forbid, forced to try and make a living from the royalties of their books, the whole system would be unsustainable at anything less than something like £500 a pop! The point being that even to for people to study philosophy in their spare time—at least to the standard available from any inner city bookstore at a reasonable price—it is precisely only institutional support which enables that in the first place.
This leads into the second accusation: the idea that there is no need for philosophy in the first place. Science allows us to build computers, bridges and put rovers on Mars, what can philosophy claim to contribute? Isn’t it all just a bit of a waste of time? But really this is a gross abstraction from the real world. Few would deny that there is a persistent human tendency towards asking the ultimate questions. Questioning the cosmic, existential and greatest social-political questions has hardly withering away with capitalist modernity. In this sense I see philosophy, particularly of the continental variety, as serving principally the continuation of the Enlightenment project. This can be seen, most instrumentally, in drawing out the meaning of the multiple scientific and mathematical discoveries of the last three or four centuries. Alone science permits great technical advance, and yet this is not enough to render these insights meaningful for people’s everyday lives. In the other sense, I also see philosophy as filling in the hole left by the vacation of religion. Philosophy as a secular project seeks to understand what previously was attributed to divine causes. In my opinion it is the case that if philosophy withers, religion can return with vengeance. Cut philosophy, get theology.
Indeed, under New Labour we have seen the introduction of faith based schools, and whilst I don’t (as yet) have the figures to back it up my gut instinct is that whilst philsophy departments have been consistently under threat, theology departments have done rather well. The Arts and Humanities Council, for instance, has a huge Religion and Society program underway. They also recently finished a large project on recovering all of Isaac Newton’s theological writings. In the last ten years theology has, through a combination of intellectual fashion and, I suspect, a well financed revenue stream made great inroads into philosophy itself. It is increasingly expected that philosophers be familiar with the arcane metaphysics of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotas. So, the predictable Marxist that I am, I would argue that we need to defend philosophy precisely because it serves to keep religion and theology at bay.
This argument and others can be debated at the ICA event: ‘Who’s Afraid of Philosophy’.
Eh, all I have to say about that is sitting on the board of a department of Theology and Religious Studies, I can safely say that we are feeling the pinch as much as everyone else and having to defend our existence. The idea that theology departments do rather well, is, to be frank, false – there is a huge struggle over research grants and funding and we have some pretty well known names (as you know) in our department. Any return to theology in the place of philosophy is also in correct, while technical analysis of religious sociologically and particularly of Islam might have had a small uptick, certainly theology (in a confessional mode or otherwise) is getting a sound kicking alongside philosophy. Indeed, theology departments tend to preserve continental philosophy rather than push it out – both here, at Oxford and Liverpool Hope being examples off the top of my head. Moreover, at A Level philosophy, over traditional religious studies, could not be more popular. For example, Mike who organised the conference in Dundee comes from the Nottingham theology department.
And I don’t think it is increasingly expected for philosophers to have a knowledges of Augustine, Aquinas and Scotus. You could get through most analytic or continental programmes and never touch anything pre-modern. In any case, they are part of the tradition and I think, while a knowledge of the differences in participation between Aquinas and Scotus may not be required (though lets face it – you have one now!), some working knowledge of vaguely where they stood is vital for a rounded philosophical education. For example, Augustine’s chapter X on time in the the Confessions is a classic introduction to the problems of philosophy of time. And someone like Deleuze refers to Scotus (which is where the RO people began talking about him in the first place). And even a Marxist couldn’t avoid the just price debate in Aquinas, where there are discussions of the labour theory of value.
Hi,
Thanks for this insight Alex—I thought you might arrive to quickly correct me on this one. As I said it was probably just a hunch, even if wrong.
You say: “Indeed, theology departments tend to preserve continental philosophy rather than push it out – both here, at Oxford and Liverpool Hope being examples off the top of my head.”
But isn’t this a prime example of the incorporation of philosophy under theology, particularly for continental stuff?
I mean it is and it isn’t and I’d mostly go with isn’t. As you say, certain recent themes in continental philosophy have rather lent themselves to this: the turn to religion in phenomenology, Derrida’s later stuff, the fact Badiou wrote a book on Paul and mentions Kierkegaard, Pascal, Cantor (who put a religious spin on his theory) etc as well as talking about the infinite, Zizek’s stuff, Hardt and Negri’s stuff on political theology, and the whole general ‘post-secular’ turn. And yes, you obviously get some pretty poor readings whereby the (broadly secular) continental figure is set up as a straw man for orthodox Christianity to knock down (basically many RO derivative students), but more often these things are read as interesting an in good faith. And besides, you can’t really extract philosophy from theology in a neat way, certainly historically, the boundaries are far more porous, as the two disciplines are intertwined, even at points where people are trying to brace religion against philosophy (ie Jacobi and Hamann post-Kant) or argue for religion not to be restricted by religious thought (Spinoza, for example). Also it seems that, particularly when thinking politically when political actors (ie Al Qaeda being the most extreme example) are speaking in explicitly religious terms, any decent political analysis will have to have some engagement with theology. Using Al Qaeda again, understanding the theological innovations of Wahabi Islam are vital, ie contrary to some commentators who suggest “Islam needs its reformation”, it has already occurred, and we have Wahabism which has many similar structures to later protestantism.
Philosophy not be restricted by religious thought above viz Spinoza, obviously, though the alternative formulation is quite interesting in itself.
I think there is a stronger argument to be made, but along these lines Nath.
Without Philosophy, and in particular continental philosophy, academia as a whole tends towards theology, and by this I mean unsubstantiated metaphysics. . Witness the collapse of empirical enquiry in the mathematical-model-based discipline of economics, that fed directly into the banking collapse.
As an Anthropologist the problem was obvious. No-one was really paying enough attention to how economic decisions are actually made by real living breathing people. What was it that has let Anthropology in general and Social Science in particular progress from a rather patronising exercise of catalogueing [brown] people under statistical headings to actually starting to understand how humans find their way through life? It was philosophy, and continental philosophy in particular that prompted this close attention to what people actually do and how they actually do it.
So yes, ditch philosophy and the danger is you get theology. Like mainstream economics for instance.
Alex: Yes, I acknowledge that a lot of the impetus there probably does come from the secular, continental thinkers. But still, in the end they are philosophers best studied in philosophy departments surely?
Daniel has perhaps put things better here: without philosophy there is a general tendency to impose limits on critical and speculative thought that theology (or variants thereof) come to fill with divine causes. Since science cannot explain everything—the meaning of life, for example—philosophy grapples with the problems which otherwise only religion can posit answers to. So perhaps the point is more general, and less dependent upon the exact funding regim of philosophy departments vis-a-vis theology.
I just notice that I am now sounding more like a 19th century German romantic than a Marxist. But in any case, I think the idea that even in post-capitalist bliss the grand metaphysical question would just wither away is misplaced.
In my crude reading of Heidegger, it seems to me that he was right that there is an ontological concealment of the meaning of life and the world, foreclosing the possibility of any definite, or fully decideable answer.
Continental philosophy is best studied in any department that will have it. Those are the material conditions in academia currently.
A rather banal point. For the ancients, of course, philosophy concerned the kind of ‘meaning of life’ questions as much as it did metaphysical questions, indeed, philosophy was an attempt at a particular type of living. But, again, here the boundaries between philosophy, theology and religious practice of some shape were very fuzzy, perhaps impossible to discern.
Oh and yes, the impetus does come from secular thinkers (broadly construed, obviously some were actually religious in this turn, Marion for example) and the passing waves of academic fashion in continental philosophy.
[…] Necessary Agitation’s latest post […]