In this second part of my essay (see the first part here), I focus on exploring the relational identity of philosophy in terms of philosophy’s social relevance and contributions.
A number of recent articles have directly or indirectly addressed the question of philosophy’s identity. Some of the common themes that emerged include philosophy’s role in creating new concepts and categories of understanding to help grasp novel scientific discoveries and technological advances, problematise and think about their broader implications, as well as foster interdisciplinarity in research required to adequately approach the increasingly complex problems we are facing globally (e.g., Massimi 2019; Peters and Besley 2019; Peters et al. 2023).
I briefly focus on Massimi’s paper in particular because it offers a comprehensive view of the identity, role, and value of philosophy as socially situated and actively engaged by addressing all of the themes mentioned earlier based on the example of philosophy of science. In addition, Massimi thematises and challenges “a widespread (and ultimately misguided) assumption: namely, that philosophy has to be of use for scientists, otherwise it is of no use” (2018, p.358).
Her paper offers a helpful case study for elaborating on the two points I summarised at the end of the previous part: the relational position (identity) of philosophy and engagement with other areas in a shared coordinate system; the importance of not idealising any one area and its position in the coordinate system as representing the universal standard all must measure up to if they are to be considered valuable and useful.
Massimi places her paper in the context of defending the importance and values of interdisciplinary research. She specifies three such values: interdisciplinary research is exploratory (knowledge transfer across fields), unifying (identifying and investigating inferential strategies and methodologies shared by diverse fields) and offers critical engagement (with a discipline). As an example of interdisciplinary research, Massimi proposes philosophy of science, which is situated “at the junction between the sciences and the humanities” (2018, p.353).
Although she elaborates on how philosophers of science contribute to all three values, for my paper it is most interesting to look at the role philosophy plays in offering critical engagement. Indeed, Massimi identifies it as the main value to which philosophers of science have contributed and can contribute by fulfilling their responsibility to deliver on philosophy’s social function.
The social function of philosophy of science consists in contributing to the public discourse on science. Massimi discusses in detail how philosophers do that by referring to three key terms in science and our public discourse: evidence, progress, and truth. For example, she writes: “It is part of the social function of philosophy of science to work alongside the relevant sciences and build narratives about evidence and its use to inform political decision-making and public policy” (2018, p.359). Massimi calls this the enabling role of philosophy (of science).
Concerning the concept of progress, she highlights the self-reflective role of philosophy of science in what is its meta-level contribution (e.g., how should we understand progress in science?). Lastly, Massimi refers to the empowering role of the philosophy of science in connection to truth in science (e.g., as opposed to alternative facts and “unqualified blanket pluralism” (2018, p.363) making their way into public discourse).
Massimi’s framework of thinking about philosophy of science as situated at a junction between disciplines and fulfilling its social function by contributing to the public discourse on science is a powerful example of approaching the question of philosophy’s identity in a relational way, making philosophy actively engaged with other areas in a shared coordinate system, without idealising any one area in that system as a universal standard.
However, there is a risk here. It is one thing to think about philosophy of science in relation to science(s) and a different thing to think of philosophy in all its manifestations in relation (only) to science. How can we think about philosophy’s identity without slipping into the familiar pattern of dichotomous comparison?
Regardless of the specific contestants (e.g., philosophy vs science, philosophy vs theology or religion), this dichotomy is problematic because it precludes a broader and more dynamic relational approach to thinking about philosophy’s identity. Therefore, one way forward is to broaden the field of comparison.
Broader Field of Comparison
A recent article titled ‘What Is Philosophy’ (Kuzin 2023) offers an interesting example of following this path (I wrote a series of posts about his article: first, second, third, fourth). Although Kuzin proposes his answer to the question of philosophy’s identity and role, which merits a separate engagement beyond the scope of this paper, I want to focus on his approach to that question.
He begins from a broader context of human culture, which, for him, contains various ways people have created to alleviate suffering in life. Kuzin understands suffering as “the disharmony between the world and the individual, the mismatch between our desires and the state of affairs in the world” (2023, p. 15, my translation). Overcoming suffering is the common theme connecting all manifestations of human culture that each deals with differently.
Therefore, whether we agree with Kuzin’s interpretation of human culture and its individual manifestations or not, his approach to thinking about philosophy’s identity from within a broader context shows that the distinct identity of each area of human endeavour is ensured by its position in relation to others in this shared coordinate system.
Kuzin proceeds by placing philosophy in a broader framework of relations where he compares four ways people have created to deal with life’s difficulties: art, philosophy, religion, and science. The crucial point here is not that there are no other ways or that this is an exhaustive list, but instead that it is too restrictive to think about philosophy only in comparison to science, for instance (or only religion, art, and so on). What is required is the recognition of a broader framework of relations and philosophy’s positioning within it.
As soon as we recognise this, however, it becomes clear that any comparison with the goal to delineate individual distinctness is possible only because of sufficient similarities, which make the metaphorical coordinate system a shared one. If this was not the case, we could not comprehend the relation and the comparison.
Thus, even if we tried to understand philosophy’s identity as it is purely ‘in itself’, outside any relations to anything else, as soon as we start emphasising its distinctness, we are already thinking in relational terms (distinct from what? ‘in’ itself as opposed to which ‘out’?). The risk with such an approach to understanding identity is that in our effort to highlight the unique, ‘intrinsic’ defining features, we forget that our ability to comprehend these features is based on comparison, on relational thinking, which is possible when sufficient commonality among the compared ‘things’ exists.
Therefore, the relational identity approach to understanding what philosophy is acknowledges both the continuity with other areas of human endeavour that is enabled by and enables a shared coordinate system and philosophy’s distinct position within that system.
How can we recognise that position in the coordinate system as philosophy? How does it reveal itself to us? I suggest we can approach these questions by thinking in terms of contributions philosophy offers to discussions with what we consider not-philosophy or ‘other’ areas of human endeavour. However, in addition to following the familiar line of thought (as in the example of Massimi’s excellent article), we can explore another, more unusual path that might help us think differently about the question of philosophy’s identity and role.
Specifically, what could the absence of philosophical contributions to discussions with ‘others’ reveal about philosophy’s position in the shared coordinate system or, in short, about its relational identity? In Being and Nothingness, Sartre argued that absence is a form of relation in the ‘human-reality’ – our intersubjective, social ‘world’. For him, I can be absent only in relation to other people. Sartre defined absence as “a mode of being of human-reality in relation to locations and places which it has itself determined by its presence” (1992, p.371). Since philosophy is a human endeavour and, therefore, part of ‘human-reality’, we can apply Sartre’s idea of absence as a relation to thinking about philosophy’s relational identity.
The line of thought might go something like this: philosophy is what it is in virtue of its position in the shared coordinate system (relational identity); this position or philosophy’s presence in that ‘location’ is determined by and determines its relations to positions of other areas of human endeavour in the shared system; one way of understanding philosophy’s position is by thinking about its contributions through its relations with other areas and, in particular, by thinking about the absence of such contributions; if philosophy’s identity is indeed relational then the absence of its contributions should reveal its ‘location’ in the system through the manifested absence of its usually present relations to others in that system.
In simple terms, it could be a case of noticing something when it is gone.
Concluding thoughts
At the beginning of this paper, I promised not to provide a definitive answer to the question ‘what is philosophy’. I hope I have delivered on this promise. It was also my goal to explore the question and its meaning for us. In the process of this exploration, I found that whatever philosophy is, if thinking constitutes an important part, we must keep the question of philosophy’s identity open and alive. Not because it is unanswerable but because it enables a tension necessary to keep the thought process flowing.
As soon as we decide that we have finally defined philosophy and stop asking ourselves what it is and what philosophers’ role is, we will ‘resolve’ (eliminate) the tension that fuels creativity and the development of thought in philosophy. If philosophy runs out of fuel, we will run out of philosophy. However, besides personal and professional considerations, why should we care? Would the world really be worse off if there was no philosophy in it? To answer this question, we first need to say what we think philosophy is, bringing us back to reflections on philosophy’s identity.
I proposed that, in order to understand better the tension that fuels philosophy’s flow of thought (and to keep it flowing), it is helpful to frame the question in terms of philosophy’s identity, which offers an open-ended path rather than its definition, which is a closed-ended project. In particular, I argued in favour of a relational approach to understanding philosophy’s identity, which can be thought of as a position in a coordinate system that determines and is determined by its (mutual) relations to others in that system (e.g., sciences, arts, religion and so on).
Relational identity can account for philosophy’s productive tension of thought and social relevance better than the intrinsic identity approach, which focuses on what something is ‘in itself’, ‘inherently’, without affording that thing’s relations and position in relation to others any significant role in its identity.
Finally, after briefly introducing historical context in support of my claim that this relational approach to thinking about philosophy’s identity is an ongoing development (and, hence, deserves attention and exploration), I suggested that a helpful way of understanding the (relational) identity of philosophy is to think in terms of its contributions to mutual conversations with other areas of human endeavour.
This approach has two benefits: because all identities are viewed in terms of reciprocal relations and their positions in the shared coordinate system, it offers a way to avoid idealising any one area as the universal standard where others are ‘means to an end’; it opens possibilities to think differently about philosophy’s identity, for example, in terms of the implications of the absence of philosophical contributions to conversations with other areas, which is a more probing way of asking ‘Would the world really be worse off if there was no philosophy in it?’
keep exploring!
P.S. Thank you for visiting me here on the humanfactor.blog! If you enjoyed this post and are interested in more philosophical content, I invite you to explore the blog, leave a comment, like, and subscribe to get notified of new posts.
Note: This post is part of an essay I wrote for and presented at the recent Society for Women in Philosophy Ireland conference that took place in Maynooth, Ireland on 17 and 18 November 2023. My research for this essay was undertaken while in receipt of funding from the UCD College of Social Sciences and Law Research Scholarship.
Featured image credit: Metal statue of a woman thinking, entitled “la Pensadora” by José Luis Fernández in Oviedo, Asturias, Spain, ca. 1968/1976. By ÁWá – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2179748
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