What's the Use of Philosophy?

209 Pages·2022·5.043 MB·English

by  Kitcher, Philip;

WHAT’S THE USE OF PHILOSOPHY?

WHAT’S THE USE
OF PHILOSOPHY?
Philip Kitcher
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kitcher, Philip, 1947– author.
Title: What’s the use of philosophy? / Philip Kitcher.
Description: New York, NY, United States of America :
Oxford University Press, [2023] |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2022040696 (print) | LCCN 2022040697 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197657249 (h/b) | ISBN 9780197657263 (epub) |
ISBN 9780197657270
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy—Introductions.
Classification: LCC B103 .K58 2023 (print) | LCC B103 (ebook) |
DDC 100—dc23/eng/20220922
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022040696
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022040697
DOI: 10.1093/ oso/ 9780197657249.001.0001
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
To the wonderful graduate students
whom I have had the privilege of teaching
—
and for all the others
who once fell in love with philosophy
and who would like the relationship
to stay that way

CONTENTS
Preface ix
1. Philosophy Inside Out 1
2. “So . . . Who Is Your Audience?” 26
3. Pathology Report 57
4. The Whole Function of Philosophy 108
5. Letter to Some Young Philosophers 155
Notes 183
References 185
vii

PREFACE
Occasionally, the question posed in my title is asked as if the ques-
tioner eagerly expected an answer. For the most part, however, the
speaker’s tone— heavily emphatic on the “use” and the “philoso-
phy”— suggests something quite different. That the question is
unanswerable. Because, as everybody knows, philosophy is utterly
useless.
For the past twenty years or so, I have been brooding about
the question. The usual dismissive tone is, I believe, readily under-
standable. It stems from the remoteness of philosophy from the
rest of contemporary culture. Philosophers appear to outsiders as
peculiar beings, perhaps highly intelligent but with bizarre tastes
in the ways they spend their “work” time. They labor over ques-
tions without answering them, spend hours in heated debates
about very little (if anything), criticize one another with peculiar,
and often distasteful, ferocity. Their employers, mostly colleges
and universities, pay them for engaging in their pointless jousts.
But even their colleagues, who teach and do research in other aca-
demic disciplines, seem to agree with the general judgment that
their activities are incomprehensible.
During the early years of this century, I became more and more
convinced that this worrying attitude was common enough to
ix