Philosophers as Exemplars, Not Authorities: Emulation Not Deference
By Grayson McDowell
I once had a professor who would at all costs avoid telling strangers that he was a professional philosopher. As soon as he would utter “I am an academic philosopher,” the stranger would respond, “Oh yeah? Here’s my philosophy: [Insert moral slogan here].” Very often, philosophers in the United States receive, at best, a cold reception from Americans, in stark contrast to the Europeans’ general respect and curiosity regarding professional philosophers.
The New York Philosophy Club has a complicated relationship with philosophy. As non-professional enthusiasts, we may be passionately curious about professional philosophy, but we do not always heed the majority opinion we find there – though we might not always be clear why. Some of us may even be asking: What is professional philosophy even doing in the 21st Century? Why should we even read it? And how do we handle a disagreement between ourselves and the philosophers we read? The existence of the Philosophy Club opens a way to explore this.
Answering these questions with any nuance means balancing the progress to be found in the philosophical tradition with the disagreements we may find we have. And one complication is certainly the fact that there are technical skills that philosophers need to master before they can join in the discussion with any competence. And that takes practice. Philosophers are like bodybuilders. At the beginning we are like newcomers at a gym (with all the attendant feelings of embarrassment and quiet resolve to prove oneself). The muscles we exercise are what philosophers have called epistemic virtues, and exercising them takes commitment and practice because the problems of philosophy can be weighty indeed.
Epistemic virtues include curiosity, intellectual honesty, intellectual humility, imagination, and intellectual empathy. Acquiring them is difficult but not impossible, and that’s done just as it might be for any skill: we need to imitate the experts until we get it right.
Yet even a robust supply of these virtues is unlikely to suffice. The brute strength of a body builder alone will not carry anyone through life. Nor will sheer logical technique or private inspiration. One reason for this is surely the fact that solo adepts typically work in the world of the philosophical imagination, a world all one’s own. And they may forget the limitations this presents. Under such conditions it’s easy to miss the most salient features of real life. And if philosophy ignores the life we actually lead, then what good is it?
The other reason is just as surely the fact philosophy began in dialogue, and continues in the same manner. Even sequestered philosophers have imagined audiences, and publication is often seen as its professional reward because publication opens up one’s project to peer-review. Yet the community can provide a much more streamlined response as well, even before a philosophical paper takes more complete form. Late night conversations at the bar attest to the strength of joint effort, and to how important it might be to replenish the energies of the lonely philosopher.
Here is another way of putting this. Isolated philosophers are not experts. Experts are epistemic authorities. An epistemic authority is a person to whom a rational non-specialist might defer in matters pertaining to some particular specialty. When we defer to an expert, we are doing the wise thing because the expert (to the best of our judgment) is more likely to be correct on some particular matter. We are social, intellectual creatures after all. Given how complicated the world is, we could not possibly know it all. So, we rely on an intellectual division of labor, where we each can specialize in whatever field speaks to our proclivities and gifts. Just as we rely on our highly experienced plumbers and mechanics, so too we rely on knowledge-producers.
These days many of us probably began their own philosophical journeys under something like the slogan “Take nobody’s word for it” (Nullius in verba). This was the motto of the Royal Society, the world’s oldest association of scientists -- then known as “natural philosophers.” Originally this expressed the commitment of the fledgling community of scientists to set aside Church tradition and Aristotelian natural philosophy in the rigorous pursuit of truth. Given that our natural and social sciences are far more mature today, we share an even greater wealth of knowledge, method, and wisdom. So, we would do well to amend our slogan to privilege at least some experts -- who after all are people who not only know facts we cannot discover on our own, but also have embodied a knowledge of how the facts are discovered.
In some particular contexts, nothing is more pressing than to properly identify and defer to epistemic authorities. I once met a climate change denier who guffawed at the idea of deferring to climate scientists because nullius in verba. (I told him I was an aspiring philosopher of science.) He thought it was totally unphilosophical to defer to climate scientists. He thought that we ought to consider “both sides.” I was emphatic that climate scientists have already bothsides-ed the issue through definitive peer reviews.
As a fledgling philosopher of science, I too value consensus among both scientists and philosophers as an indication that it is likely that this group will have hit upon something true. The boundary between scientist and philosopher is a fuzzy boundary indeed, but this matter of authoritative consensus is one indicator of the boundary. All things being equal, we should probably defer to consensus among scientists more readily than among philosophers. Consensus among philosophers is more likely to indicate more the faddish influence of a social contagion than the consensus among scientists might. For example, I am a Christian, and I do not accept the consensus among philosophers on the question of theism. According to the 2009 PhilPapers Survey, around ⅔ of philosophers in the English-speaking world are functionally atheist. We should not downplay consensus among philosophers the way we might among our peers, but certainly large-scale determinants like culture, historical situation, and race may account for a shaky philosophical consensus.
Consensus is not of course the aim in itself. Truth is. And whether a particular consensus points in the direction of the truth or the bandwagon may be the crucial challenge for all philosophy. This is something that we in the NY Philosophy Club might want to take up!
Artwork: Joseph Wright of Derby, A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery (1766)
Grayson McDowell completed degrees in Physics and Philosophy at Wofford College (‘24) in his home state of South Carolina. He is currently at Columbia University to continue pursuing the intersections of philosophy and physics. He loves to spend his leisure perfecting vegan cuisine, hanging out with his boyfriend Denahi, and soaking up nature.
Your essay is wonderfully engaging on a number of interesting topics. The role of experts in successful private and public life, the difficulty assessing expertise, the question of consensus when referring to potential experts, the personal qualities that must be present in a philosopher to approach these issues effectively both privately and among peers, and the question of philosophy as something practiced in isolation or more socially. As you summarize, truth is what we're after. Unfortunately I think Plato was correct in his position that the more that we think we are already in possession of truth the harder it is to encounter, recognize and adapt to. So I like your call to remain humble wherever we are on the issues at hand.