American Philosophy Today

Abstract

PERHAPS THE MOST STRIKING FEATURE of professional philosophy in North America at this historic juncture (1992) is its scope and scale.(1) The historian Bruce Kuklick entitled his informative study of academic philosophy in United States, The Rise of American Philosophy: 1860-1930,(2) even though his book dealt only with Department of Philosophy of Harvard University. This institution's prominence on American philosophical scene in early years of century was such that this parochial-seeming narrowing of focus to one single department--with its half-dozen or so philosophers--was not totally absurd for period at issue. But today it would certainly be so. The American Philosophical Association, to which most United States academic practitioners of discipline belong, presently has more than eight thousand members (see Appendix 1), and comprehensive Directory of American Philosophers for 1992-1993 lists well over ten thousand philosophers affiliated to colleges and universities in United States and Canada.(3) Admittedly, this profession is small potatoes compared with other academic enterprises; Scientific Research Society Sigma Xi currently has a membership of more than one hundred thousand scientists, and Modern Language Association has more than thirty-two thousand members. All same, a small town of not inconsiderable size could be populated exclusively with contemporary North American academic philosophers. To be sure, its demographics would be rather unusual. Only just under twenty percent would be women; and blacks, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans would (each) constitute just over one percent of population. (However much it may annoy liberals among us, fact is that condition of American philosophy professoriate is still very much a matter of live white males teaching about dead ones.)(4) The social classes above and below middle are underrepresented in this community, and a disproportionate fraction of its members comes from families of professional status. Moreover, for reasons that require a deeper sociological analysis than can be attempted here, profession attracts a disproportionately larger fraction of Catholics (generally practicing ones), Jews (generally nonpracticing ones), and immigrants. In an academic discipline of American philosophy's present size, two different--and sometimes opposed--tendencies are at work to create a balance of countervailing forces. The one is an impetus to separateness and differentiation--the desire of individual philosophers to do their own thing, to have projects of their own and not be engaged in working on just same as everyone else. The other is an impetus to togetherness: desire of philosophers to find companions, to be able to interact with others who share their interest to extent of providing them with conversation partners and with a readership of intellectual cogeners. The first, centrifugal tendency means that philosophers will fan out across entire reach of field--that most or all of ecological niches within problem-domain will be occupied.(5) The second, centripedal tendency means that most or all of these problem-subdomains will be multiply populated: that groups or networks of kindred spirits will form so that community as a whole will be made up of subcommunities united by common interests (more than by common opinions), with each group divided from rest by different priorities as to what the really interesting and important issues are. Accordingly, most striking aspect of contemporary American philosophy is its fragmentation. The scale and complexity of enterprise is such that if one seeks in contemporary American philosophy for a consensus on problem agenda, let alone for agreement on substantive issues, then one is predestined to look in vain. Here theory diversity and doctrinal dissonance are order of day, and only interconnection is that of geographic proximity. …

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