What Kind of Philosophy Gets in the News? (J. Stanley)

Lately, a good deal of philosophical research is reaching a larger public. It seems like every month a major newspaper or magazine publishes an article on the tremendous progress philosophers have been making on the problem of consciousness. The New York Times magazine just published an article by Stephen Pinker on moral grammar that has become wildly popular, though my sense of the article is that much of its interest to the lay public in fact consists of its lucid explanations of basic material about meta-ethics. Experimental philosophy has also recently crossed the boundary into the popular press. But obviously, there is a ton of philosophy that, by its very nature, is never going to be reported on in such a medium. Indeed, much philosophy that philosophers themselves consider to be extremely interesting and innovative is of this character. The popular press will not be producing articles on Field, Fine, Raz, or Stalnaker’s recent work, despite the fact that these philosophers produce work that is among the most admired by other philosophers. Similarly, one can’t imagine a New York Times article discussing new advances in e.g. actualist accounts of modality, epistemicist theories of vagueness, Humean accounts of reasons, or dogmatist accounts of perceptual justification. It isn’t because this kind of work is narrowly analytical. It’s equally impossible to imagine the New York Times reporting on any of the topics discussed in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (“Hot New Account of Autonomy Founders on Noumenal Mysteries”?). My suspicion is that journalists think that the American reading public can only tolerate philosophy that can be packaged in the format of a popular science bulletin. Much philosophy simply cannot be packaged in this mode. The result is that what is most likely to be conveyed in the popular press about what is ‘hot’ in philosophy is philosophy of a naturalistic bent, which does not always cohere with what many philosophers would regard as most interesting.

Comments

[John Turri]

One potential exception to Jason's point about the naturalistic bent: I wager that any clever new argument for the existence of God would be reported on. Headline: "Philosophers Resurrect God, Long Thought Dead."

[Bence Nanay]

This is a very interesting point, and it would be difficult to disagree with it, but one can indeed disagree with the way Jason frames it. There are (at least) two ways of telling the story that there is a mismatch between philosophy that is considered to be good by philosophers and philosophy that makes it to the New York Times.

One is Jason's: the popular press is just not sophisticated enough (or they don't think their readers are sophisticated enough) to understand what's really good in philosophy. Another way of telling the same story, however, would be to say that much of what is considered to be good philosophy by philosophers have little to do with any other questions in other disciplines (or questions an investment banker would be wondering about in her free time). And philosophy that is extremely non-interdisciplinary is, unsurprisingly, as unlikely to make it to New York Times as some really good work on, say, the pyrolysis of acetaldehyde.

I'm not saying that either of these two ways of framing the issue is the correct one - the truth is probably somewhere in between. But to assume the correctness of the fist one may appear slightly arrogant, especially to non-philosophers. Jason is right that the popular press follows fashions and a certain brand of naturalism seems to be (and have been for a long time) very fashionable. But, let's face it, what philosophers consider hip and cool also follows fashions (in large part set by some influential blogs). Thus, talking about the opposition of intrinsicly good philosophy and superficially popular (or populist) one is a simplification.

[Steve Thompson]

There might be something else going on here as well. The scientist who is burrowing away at some arcana (organic chemistry examples go here) might come out at the other end with something broadly useful like a cure for something. The philosopher's arcana can, at best, produce something useful (merely) for more thinking. That's hard to sell.

But maybe that's not all bad. We philosophers have always had to pay our own way: solving problem X will clear up mysteries about the mind, sort out string theory, figure out whether minors can be culpable--stuff society needs to figure out. Maybe we've gotten lazy?

[Eric Schliesser]

Having just returned to accept a position in the Netherlands, I can offer some comparative perspective that may illuminate some of Jason's reflections. Philosophy is very 'hot' in the so-called 'quality media' in the Netherlands. My Chair explained to me I had to write a press release for a workshop on Newton I hosted this past Summer. (This kinds of thing works; I spoke on the radio, for example, about recent work on Newton's metaphysics!) Philosophy books are reviewed by knowledgeable reviewers and philosophers are sought out to participate in various mass media outlets (op-ed pages, talk-shows, etc). I know some of you think: 'sure, but that's Europe!' But this is, in fact, a very recent development; philosophy was never a big deal in pragmatic Holland; how many of you can name a Dutch philosopher other than Spinoza? (Kierkegaard is Danish!) While some of the causes are local much of it connects to some wider trends that also impact many other developed societies. First, much of the interest in philosophy is driven by an acute interest in contested moral and political issues. To be clear this is not primarily the values-issues (abortion, gays-marriage, etc) that dominate American elections. Rather, it focuses on issues pertaining to pluralism, church-state relations, Enlightenment values, the rule of law, constitutional theory, cultural relativism, ethnic conflict, scientific revolution, etc. This can all be explained by societal tension over the existence of a large Muslim minority (the result of immigration patterns in last two generations). Second, the first wave of Dutch Babyboomers is retiring; they were also the generation that dramatically left organized religion behind, turning Holland into one of the most atheist societies within a few decades. A small group in this generation is filling their intellectual/spiritual needs with an interest philosophy (some of which is the new age variety); interest in Spinoza has benefitted from this. (This is not as strange as it sounds; the Dutch reform church they were educated in has a very reason-heavy approach to its faith.) Moreover, thanks to the missionary work of Jonathan Israel, Spinoza has been re-created in the public media as the source of all things good in Dutch/European Enlightenment history. Public lectures on Spinoza can easily attract overflowing audiences. This will also include work on Spinoza's metaphysics. For example, Steve Nadler is a big deal around here now. Third, in orde to 'compete' with the internet and to contrast itself with crass commercialism of most of the media, the so-called 'quality media' (leading newspapers, magazines, tv shows, etc) is moving into life-style issues in which they cater to the social needs of their upper-middle class audience, that is, ways to achieve status. Some of this also follows the popular science bulletin model (my radio appearance was in a science-heavy show), and certainly public intellectual-types do very well in this atmosphere (ever since they appeared on TV a decade ago, Dennett and Nussbaum are media stars here). But to flatter the status-conscious vanity of its readership the quality media must also include coverage of very esoteric subjects on a quasi-regular basis. While this does not guarantee that the media covers the philosophers' philosophers, it all depends on the quality of the media's sources within philosophy. I would not be surprised this third cause is also at work Stateside (and in most developed countries).

[Christopher Gauker]

The on-line archives of Die Welt, Die Zeit and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung all carry reviews of (German translations of) books by Robert Brandom. In 2000, somebody showed me a review of Brandom's Making It Explicit in the Frankfurter Rundschau. It was written by Jürgen Habermas and titled, "Die analytische Sprachphilosophie nimmt Hegel in Besitz". The headline stretched across the page in large type. I do not find any mention of him in the archives of the LA Times, the Washington Post or the Chicago Tribune. In the New York Times his publisher once mentioned him in a letter to the editor. Draw your own conclusions.

[Mark Wales]

Maybe we just need to sex-up the names of some of our fields.

For example, physics has areas like "ferrodynamics". It sounds exciting/mysterious. If you called it "dynamic states in magnetic nanostructures studies" people probably wouldn't want to read about it (though I do not mean to suggest that every other article in the NYT is about ferrodynamics - it is perhaps only every fifth or sixth article).

I think that if you just put the word "quantum" in front of a field it immediately gets people's attention: I'd certainly want to study a course in quantum ethics; though I do not know why.

[Robert Johnson]

Chris is right. I read those reviews, as well as gigantic, very informed, obits for Quine and Anscombe in der Tagesspiegel, Berlin's main paper, during a leave in there in 2000-2001. I was astounded that Germans were so interested in people who are so central to 20th century philosophy but virtually unknown in the US. It would have seemed preposterous to see obits of those kinds in the NY Times, for instance. It made me a bit melancholy; I want that for our culture. So I myself think it's a cultural thing. On the Continent, ordinary folk seem to care more about what philosophers do than here.

Perhaps this is because much of the US is anti-intellectual. But maybe it really has not all that much to do with philosophy in particular. Maybe it has, instead, to do with academe, with research itself. People in general are curious, even those who do not pursue questions so far that they find themselves in academia. So, even though they don't do research, they really want to know what researchers are finding out. They may not realize that research proceeds by fits and starts. Cutting edge research in any area is often baffling to all but five or six people on the planet. Clearly, for some puzzling reason, philosophical appears to many as if it should be more reachable or understandable by the non-professional than other areas of research. But it really is no different from any other area of academe.
Maybe we just need more, or better, popularizers.

[Aviv]

Re: "discussing new advances in actualist accounts of modality", there has been a lot of press recently about the existence of alien individuals.

[Susanna Schellenberg]

I believe some of the cultural difference that Eric and Chris talk about may be a matter of who writes the articles about philosophy in the US and European press. Most of the reviews that Chris mentions are written by people with PhDs in philosophy, some of them have left academia, others are professors. This suggests that there may be a difference in how philosophers stand on writing in newspapers in the US and Europe.

[Jason Stanley]

Susanna,

I don't think that is it; some very prominent mainstream American philosophers do write for the US Press, such as Appiah, Dennett, and Fodor, among several others. My thought was just that lately the US Press seems to want to hear more about naturalistic themes than more a priori themes.

[Vanessa Morlock]

@ Christopher

It is interesting to see which kind of philosophy Die Zeit is inclined to publish an article about. I recently had a correspondence with some people of Zeit Campus (the student magazine of Die Zeit) about whether they would publish an article about experimental philosophy. They told me that x-phi is much too avant-garde for their magazine. And remarked that in one of their future issues, they will have articles about Quine and Frankfurt.
Well, a few weeks later, Die Sueddeutsche Zeitung published a note concerning X-phi, the heading was "trend 2008".

[John Dell]

Since the US Press is at least in theory interested in disseminating information to the broadest audience possible, I think most of what they publish will be what they perceive as the most relevant to that audience. It is hard to imagine the general reader being motivated by the idea (for example) that some kind of a priori knowledge is required to have experiences. On the other hand, something naturalized like innate ideas fits in nicely with the different biological and social sciences that are apart of most peoples curriculum. In short, I think our education system is built around naturalistic themes and this translates into people (in general) taking those themes to be more relevant to their lives.

[Jennifer Howard]

Some of this is governed by practicalities. To get broader/deeper coverage of philosophy in the popular press here--and I say this as a journalist on the humanities beat--you have to have editors and writers who are interested enough and knowledgeable enough to follow and interpret the kinds of work Brian is talking about. They also have to have the clout to get those articles published, in whatever form. And most of them (us) aren't just tracking work in philosophy but in history and literary studies and religious studies and...well, you see the problem. It also helps if scholars reach out to journalists and alert them (us) to intriguing work that's being done.

[Jennifer Howard]

Sorry, I meant to say Jason, not Brian, in my post.

[Jason Stanley]

Jennifer,

Thanks, that's very helpful information. I guess that relates to what Susanna Schellenberg was saying about the difference between Europe and the United States; there are a lot of former philosophy Phds who are journalists in Europe, and so are in close contact with the philosophy community. What happens in the states I think is that only a very small number of philosophers have any connection whatever to the press, and their views about what is most central become salient -- and that has recently combined with the natural American proclivity towards packaging information in the form of quasi-scientific results when reporting on the academy to give on accurate picture of some parts of the field, but not of others.

A while ago, Brian had asked a few people to provide general summaries on the state of various areas of philosophy on his blog. I think that would provide a really helpful resource, not just to philosophers, but also to journalists.

[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]

Does the APA have any kind of public relations position??? It might be a good idea.

[Andy Lamey]

The APA doing media outreach is a good idea. One model it might wish to consider is that of the Australasian Association of Philosophy, which last year organized a very successful press day in Sydney. A half dozen philosophers spoke about their areas of research to a room full of philosophers and journalists. A lot of philosophers made media contacts, and the event itself generated ongoing media coverage. One of the speakers, Raymond Gaita, had his talk reprinted in The Australian, and the same paper's weekend magazine ran a 4-5 page group interview with all the philosophers who spoke.

The Philosopher's Zone, an Australian radio program devoted entirely to philosophy (!), also convered the event. As it happens, the show about the press lunch has just been rebroadcast. Anyone interested can listen or read a transcript at:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/

The Web page for the first AAP press day, which I believe is set to become an annual event, is at

http://aap.org.au/events/pressdays.html

I bet the APA could put on an equally successful event, if it put its mind to it.

[Jennifer Howard]

An APA press day is an excellent idea. I'd go. And a series of status reports from areas of the field, gathered on the blog or elsewhere, would be enormously useful.

Another thing to point out about some of the recent mainstream-media articles on philosophical debates and developments: They've been driven by personality as much as by ideas. Either you get a big byline (Appiah, say) or the latest flare-up of a long-standing rivalry.