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Ken and Colleagues This is a short, off the top thought about philosophy today, and American philosophic thought in particular. The great pragmatic tradition among American philosophers is a model you do not cover that I hope you will. American pragmatic philosophers Jefferson, Adams, Dewey, James, Pierce, Dennett, Lakoff were almost always multidisciplined: Jefferson - inventor, farmer, politician; Adams - politician; Dewey - education, James - psychology, Pierce - linguistics, Dennett - neuroscience; Lakoff- psycholinguistics. Their philosophies emerged from particular points of view and focussed experience, usually within the context of a University. Their ideas often substantially influenced the University in which they worked, not always through a philosophy department. Most were current reinterpretations of established fields. I believe that is why their visions are so useful today. The New York Times article didn’t really consider this, preferring to describe the disciplinary silo not the field of philosophical thought. Or, so I believe, Chuck > On Jan 18, 2016, at 1:52 PM, Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > Dear Harold, > > Thanks for the post you sent to the PhD-Lesign List. I read the article by Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle titled “When Philosophy Lost Its Way” in the New York Times column, The Stone. Those who have not read it will find it at URL: > > http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/11/when-philosophy-lost-its-way/ > > When I read this article, I didn’t think of it with respect to design. I was thinking in terms of philosophy and the life of the mind in cultural context. That is, I was thinking of philosophy more or less as Frodeman and Briggle raised the question. > > It is hard to say whether the issues that apply to philosophy apply to design. I suspect you may be right, and I think that some of these issues do apply to design. The degree to which they apply raises questions on issues that have long interested many of us. I hope to respond later on the question of design in the university. > > After thinking on Frodeman and Briggle’s article for several days, I want to offer a few thoughts. This article is a serious and responsible critique of the university system. What interests me about the article is I very much agree with Frodeman and Briggle — and I see other sides to the questions they raise. > > Niels Bohr once said that there are two sorts of truths, profound truths and trivial truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is merely false. The opposite of a profound truth may be another profound truth. > > Frodeman and Briggle raise profound truths, but they have not brought forward the full context in which we should examine these issues. This context offers a series of opposites to the deep and valid issues they raise. > > Frodeman and Briggle write that philosophers came from many backgrounds in the era before university-based philosophy departments. This is true. Those philosophers focused on philosophy from whatever station in life they held. > > In stating this, it is vital to acknowledge that these philosophers were generally located in the upper class. They were often wealthy, and they held privileged positions in life. They may have held jobs, but their jobs were high status jobs in service of the church or the state as diplomats, physicians, or clergy. There were few bakers, plumbers, or house cleaners among the philosophers of past centuries. These kinds of high status jobs were generally appointments or sinecures that are not terribly different from university appointments today. But these kinds of jobs no longer exist in contemporary society. > > Today, most philosophers are supported by research universities. In part, this is because universities are among the few institutions that support people who think. A few philosophers still work for the church because the church assigns some priests to church universities and research institutes. Philosophers do not work for the state because governments no longer offer the patronage that princes and kings once made possible to their servants. Today’s diplomat works in a foreign ministry, and today’s diplomatic corps is far different than the diplomatic corps was in the days of a Leibniz, a Jefferson, or an Adams. Governments today employ philosophers through the university, not through the myriad channels where royalty and the higher nobility might once have used people of talent who did philosophy on the side of a day job. > > Frodeman and Briggle mention several professions in which past philosophers made a living. One profession is that of the diplomat. Philosophers served as diplomats because they served royal patrons. For example, Gottfried Leibniz served the Elector of Mainz as a diplomat. He later served the Elector of Hanover as a librarian. What their patrons requested, assigned, or required, these philosophers did. Other diplomat-philosophers include both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. They wrote extensively on government, law, and on human nature. They were wealthy, upper class citizens of the fledgling American republic, and their diplomatic work and private wealth enabled them to think deeply and write on many issues while representing the United States in their postings. Both Adams and Jefferson went on to serve first as vice presidents, then as presidents, before retiring to a long life of thinking and writing. > > Frodeman and Briggle also note that philosophers lived on pensions. The kinds of pension to which they refer are not what we call a pension today. Those who lived on pensions were generally not retired people who became philosophers after a long life fitting pipes, building houses, or working as a dentist or physician. These pensioners are people who received steady incomes or annuities. This generally meant pensions or bequests from patrons or an inheritance from wealthy families. The equivalent today would be a fellowship or grant — but a pension lasted for life. > > While Frodeman and Briggle mentioned lens grinders, only one great philosopher worked as a lens grinder. This was Baruch Spinoza. He is one of the few philosophers who worked at manual labor by his own free choice. Late in his short life, Spinoza was called to the Chair of Philosophy at Heidelberg. He rejected the offer because he believed that accepting a university professorship might limit his intellectual freedom. Spinoza worked at a manual job because he believed it the best way to make a living. > > The article mentions three philosophers from earlier times by name, Priestley, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Joseph Priestley made his living as a Unitarian minister. He was also a moral philosopher, a political philosopher, and a theologian, as well as a natural philosopher who made significant contributions to chemistry. Søren Kierkegaard was the son of a wealthy Danish merchant. Kierkegaard originally planned to be a minister, but he never entered the church. He never worked for a living at all. He lived on his father’s money for the full 42 years of his life, and his inheritance was large enough to finance the publication of his many brilliant books. Friedrich Nietzsche was a brilliant but often controversial scholar who was appointed full professor in classical philosophy at the age of 24. While Nietzsche was not wealthy, he had money enough to live an interesting, peripatetic life, travelling extensively about Europe to visit friends and meet acquaintances even during his years as professor at University of Basel. > > Frodeman and Briggle mention one modern philosopher by name, Bruno Latour. While Latour criticises “purified” philosophy, he does so from the protected position of research universities that have employed him for his entire career. This is also the case for Frodeman and Briggle. I don't complain about this — I also work at a university. > > Unlike Latour, Frodeman, or Briggle, though, I only began my academic career in “purified” research at the age of 44. Between completing my PhD in 1976 and getting my first research appointment in 1994, I got “dirty hands” working in many kinds of jobs. Some of these were the sophisticated kinds of positions that employ thinkers as an editor, publisher, consultant, or designer. Other jobs were quite workaday. At one time, I created an entrepreneurial sandwich delivery service in Berkeley, California. Another time, I chose to work as a delivery man while I attempted to study mathematics and logic. (I did badly at maths, better at logic.) > > My point is that Latour, Frodeman, and Briggle criticise the institution of the modern research university — as I do — from within the modern research university. Perhaps they were smarter than I was — or perhaps just luckier. While selling sandwiches and delivering printer’s proofs permitted independence of mind, these jobs did little to help me to think in a more independent way, and they left me far less time for thinking than the kinds of jobs I held in universities. > > Frodeman and Briggle criticise the technical approach to philosophy in a world where nearly the only job for a philosopher involves an academic position in a research university. Their complaint about the failures of overly technical philosophy is fair. But this complaint points to a general problem of the technocratic university. Nevertheless, the previous era had other drawbacks. > > To say that philosophers had “dirty hands” in the past is a metaphor, not a realistic description. In classical Greece, slaves and illiterate servants did most of the work. Greek philosophers generally belonged to the literate upper class. If they got their hands dirty, they did so in athletic competition or military service. It’s been the same ever since in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. > > To be a philosopher generally requires reading and writing. In the West, literacy in major nations remained low until the birth of printed books in the middle of the 1400s. In the 1400s, the highest literacy rate was that of the Netherlands at 17%. It was 15% in Italy, 9% in Germany, 5% in Great Britain, 1% in Sweden. Literacy rates began to creep up following the industrial revolution. This was, in part, due to the increased need for literate engineers, managers, and finally the increased need for literate workers. The literacy rate finally moved beyond 50% as modern nations industrialised. This was also a result of the fact that modern nations began to develop universal free public education. Only in the 20th century has literacy became widespread around the world. > > The growth of literacy in industrialised nations was linked to two phenomena. One was the spread of public education. The other has been the later spread of heavily financed public universities — as well as the growth and spread of private non-profit universities. Broad, general literacy today is linked to the massive growth of free public education and the even more massive growth of the great universities. While most of the world’s 23,000 universities are not great research universities, the research university is a kind of idealised model for the rest. If we have a large literate class today who might be able to engage in philosophy outside the university, however, we are short of the patrons and princes who might employ them. > > Frodeman and Briggle describe serious problems in philosophy. But this article does not describe the earlier context that made philosophy possible as a literate profession. And is does not describe the earlier philosophers as what they were: wealthy men in a poor world, literate men in an illiterate world, men in a world where opportunities were denied to women, free men or slave owners in a world that permitted slavery. Many were the servants of grand rulers. They were able to carve out niches of intellectual freedom because their patrons were absolute rulers whose rule was premised on a distinctly unfree world. Others were employees of the church in a world where religious freedom was uncommon. > > In those days, it was never the case that the majority of philosophers added much more to the body of philosophy than philosophers employed by research universities today. The history of Greek philosophy from the pre-Socratics to the Hellenistic era shows that the majority of philosophers were minor commentators. They often dealt with narrow, technical issues. Many worked as tutors or teachers. That’s about the way it is today. > > That’s also the case for philosophy in the Middle Ages. And it was the case in universities before the Humboldt reforms in Germany gave rise to the modern research university. > > The modern research university limits philosophy by constraining people with respect to the terms of employment and a frame of inquiry focused on narrow, technical publications. In the earlier world, philosophers were free to think about anything — as long as what they published did not offend their patrons or violate censorship laws. > > The narrow, technical focus of the modern research university is, in great part, determined by the decisions of the voters who fund universities through their taxes, setting university policy through the mechanism of the different governments we vote into office. To some degree, that’s you and me. Now the people we vote for probably have slightly different policies than the folks who have by and large been elected during the last few decades — but this is the problem of democracy. Could universities function in a better way than the metric audit culture that makes philosophy so problematic today? Yes. But what should that way be? How should we fund it? > > Lord Russell, one of the great philosophers of the 20th century, was a wealthy man, third Earl Russell and a descendent of one of the most prominent patrician families of England, with nobles and aristocrats in his line dating back to the Tudor monarchy. His grandfather, the first earl, served twice as Prime Minister. Russell was a professor at Cambridge — but he did not need to work for a living. The same for Ludwig Wittgenstein. He was rich, but he gave his fortune away. He also worked at university, though he had a diffident, on-and-off relationship to university philosophy. What’s interesting, of course, is that the university provided the context in which both of these thinkers could flourish — and it employed the people with whom they could think, debate, argue, and disagree … as well as people they could teach and learn from. I can’t imagine what kind of institution other than a university would employ people such as Martin Heidegger, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Taussig, Hannah Arendt, Mario Bunge, and dozens of others I might name. > > It is true that the modern research university is a problematic place for philosophers. The problem is that it is nearly the only place where philosophers can earn a living and still have the time to do philosophy. There are exceptions, to be sure. George Soros is one of the exceptions. He was a student of Karl Popper who earned his PhD in philosophy at the London School of Economics. Once you’ve made your first few billions of dollars, you can take time out to write. Jimmy Carter is a philosopher — or at least a philosophical writer — as well as a social activist. And he’s done it in retirement, living on a government pension after a long life getting his hands dirty as a farmer, sailor, businessman, and politician. By and large, though, the best philosophers work at university alongside the tedious and the technical. > > Bringing these issues to bear on the work of designers in the modern research university requires a similar look at context. I hope to come back with added thought. > > For now, I want to say that Frodeman and Briggle are quite right. Nevertheless, there is more to the story than they’ve written. > > Yours, > > Ken > > Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/ > > Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia > > -- > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> > Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design > Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design > ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------