In an article that is by now almost three years old, James Ladyman (Dept. of Philosophy, University of Bristol) defends specialization in philosophy and attempts to refute the claim that philosophy needs to be accessible. He's quite clear in his points, which is appreciated, and stands in stark contrast with far too many writings on this subject. (But hey, they're not paying us enough to be clear, at least not the ones around the mean of that lovely bell curve.)
First off, Ladyman has in mind here professional philosophers, that is to say, people who earn their living doing philosophy in an academic department. Second, he has in mind a particular kind of philosophy, specifically that which has an "overlap between a subfield of philosophy and another specialised subject matter, where that may be the history of philosophy itself. This is the kind of philosophy that I am most sure is worthwhile."
He then argues that, just as it is unreasonable to expect of physics or of mathematics that they abstain from any technical jargon, and to insist that they be totally accessible to the layman, so too is it unreasonable to make such a request of philosophy. After all, if physics is complex and requires specialization in order to be investigated, it seems appropriate that the philosophy of physics would be complex and require specialization as well. If the philosophy of physics aspires to say anything meaningful or helpful about physics, then its practitioners must specialize to the point of understanding the subject matter of their philosophy. "It is absurd for philosophical inquiry into nature to be conducted in complete ignorance of science. Hence, some philosophers must specialise in some parts of logic, mathematics and science, and bring their knowledge to philosophical debates with their colleagues. ... It would be folly to suggest that philosophical debates about philosophical logic – as well as ancient questions concerning essence, existence, identity, individuality, properties and so on – should be conducted among experts in an idiom that is accessible to the layperson."
Without engaging with the technical language of science, it would be impossible for philosophers to interact with scientists, therefore making it impossible to meaningfully engage with that science. To abstain from engaging in that language would mean to abstain from analyzing the science from which it arises: "There would be something badly wrong if work in the philosophy of physics were as accessible to a linguist as to a physicist, or if work in the philosophy of language were as accessible to a physicist as to a linguist."
Ladyman then goes on to set up a dichotomy between, on the one hand, these highly-specialized fields, where large advances are hard-won, and achieved through a small army of researchers each working on their highly specialized slice of the pie; and, on the other hand, those who popularize philosophy in countless books, for which there is a thriving market and an ample supply. "There are many excellent people who mediate between academia in general and the rest of the population. I am baffled as to why people are calling for all academics to do these things. The case of philosophy is in this respect no different from that of pure mathematics or microbiology. The idea that every scientist should be a part-time science journalist and public speaker is absurd."
Ladyman goes on to make some rather biting remarks about using jargon as an excuse: if philosophy is so difficult and obscure, it can't be all that important, and this belief justifies not putting in the effort necessary to learn the language and get up to speed on the ongoing debates. For what it's worth, I think that there's a grain of truth here: people really do dismiss philosophy quite quickly, and are always ready with just such a rejoinder when one (often a philosophical one) presses them to learn more.
Finally, Ladyman claims that because our knowledge has advanced so far that only through specialization and the work of experts can hitherto-unanswered philosophical questions be addressed, knowing that these questions will be minute, but add up to a more impressive totality when all taken together. "This may not amount to advancing our understanding of the meaning of life, but it is in keeping with Socrates’ conception of the philosopher as gadfly, asking awkward questions and exposing epistemic hubris. Our knowledge of the world has grown immeasurably since ancient times, and philosophers would be failing in their role if they did not specialise sufficiently to know enough to be able to point out exactly where lie the limits of our understanding."
As many of you know, my belief is that accessibility is an important virtue in philosophy, and so I'd like to take this opportunity to respond to Ladyman. First off, he begins with the assumption that philosophy must always be a philosophy of something, where he basically believes that that "something" will be another highly specialized academic discipline. However, what about a philosophy of everyday life? Surely there are problems that one encounters outside of specialized research that have philosophical bearing, and for which a philosopher's insights would be very valuable. During the last few decades, when this sort of Lebensphilosophie has been out of vogue (in North America) and outside the realm of accessibility (basically everywhere), everyday life has changed a lot. There are new problems that need philosophical treatment, and so it is a non-starter to claim that philosophy has already solved those problems and that the only live issues are now at the fringes of our knowledge. We encounter the fringes of our knowledge every day in the practical world; one need not go to science to find such limits. If philosophy of physics is supposed to be meaningful to the physicist, then presumably the philosophy of everyday life should be meaningful to those who live it!
That is not to say, of course, that there are not interesting and important problems to be found in the philosophy of specialized sciences. The discovery(?) of the Higgs boson at the hadron collider in Switzerland raises enormous questions about the fundaments of reality, and what it is for stuff to be stuff. Ladyman's argument about such research basically claims that because we don't reprimand mathematicians or physicists for using jargon, we shouldn't reprimand philosophers either. He assumes that jargon in math and physics is acceptable. That's not necessarily the case. What's being discussed here is whether jargon should be accepted, and whether it is accepted from math or physics (or philosophy) doesn't determine what ought to be the case (that's an instance of the naturalist fallacy). If jargon is not acceptable in physics or math, then it isn't in philosophy either. If it is acceptable in physics and math, we might still not accept it from all philosophy, because not all philosophy will treat specialized subjects of this nature, as I argued above.
What I've tried to argue here is that there is important work to be done in the philosophy of everyday life, and that professional philosophers are not doing enough to address that (in a way that is accessible and meaningful to the people that it concerns). But Ladyman has claimed that there are plenty of authors who popularize philosophy, "excellent people" who mediate between academic philosophy and those outside of academia. Certainly there is a healthy market for such books, and there is an adequate quantity of them to satisfy the demand, but is there an adequate quality? As a philosopher myself, and one who currently resides in the Ivory Tower, I have had many students arrive at my office with one or another of these books, and I've seen what they have to offer. (I've even read a few of them myself.) They really aren't very good, and in my estimation that's because the academic realm doesn't give any recognition to those who successfully popularize the field. Consequently, "excellent people" by and large do not venture into these realms (with the notable exception of Alain de Botton, who's actually English once you get past the name).
It is certainly tough to recognize the great thinkers of one's own time, to separate the wheat from the chaff without the benefit of historical retrospect. But it's not very difficult to see that many people who publish these popular philosophy books are on the fringe of academia: they are not hailed even as potentially great thinkers. I hate to say it, because I have friends who have published these kinds of books, but they aren't the up-and-comers who will one day make a splash on the academic scene, and even if they do (and of course I hope for such things for/from my friends) it will be in spite of more than because of these popular texts. When was the last time that a big-wig from Oxford or Cambridge decided that they would take a nice sabbatical to write a book about the changes in the philosophical landscape brought about by the advent of Facebook, and write it in a way that Facebook users could understand, relate to, and reflect upon? The people that academia hails as its brightest lights just don't deign to illuminate such things.
Ladyman is right. Studying the philosophy of physics or math requires engaging with those fields, and that means engaging with their jargon (whether those fields ought to fall back into jargon or not). But there is an appreciably large and important segment of philosophy, namely, the philosophy of life, that should not be inaccessible in that way. Real people have real benefits to gain from real good philosophy of life. That sector of our field doesn't get enough attention; and when it does get a little, it's not the intellectual heavyweights who are weighing in. One contributing reason for the problem is that academia simply doesn't recognize such work as philosophically worthwhile, and therefore doesn't prioritize it.
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