Philosophy in the Age of Neoliberalism

Abstract

This essay argues that political, economic, and cultural developments have made the twentieth century disciplinary approach to philosophy unsustainable. It (a) discusses the reasons behind this unsustainability, which also affect the academy at large, (b) describes applied philosophy as an inadequate theoretical reaction to contemporary societal pressures, and (c) proposes a dedisciplined and interstitial approach—“field philosophy”—as a better response to the challenges facing the twenty-first century philosophy.

Keywords:

• Field Philosophy
• Neoliberalism
• Interdisciplinarity

Notes

[1] But the leader of the coup, Helen Dragas, was reappointed by the governor to the board for another four-year term.

[2] Exceptions to this general disregard are often found within the English literature, e.g. Chris Newfield, Louis Menand, and Stanley Fish.

[3] Krohn (2010, 32).

[4] In the early twentieth century, the Vienna School originally had a social–political as well as an epistemological focus. The former was lost in the aftermath of the World War II (Reisch 2005). But there is a crucial difference between social–political philosophy, which offers high-theoretical accounts, and applied philosophy, which seeks to address specific controversies (Frodeman 2011).

[5] The Belmont Report is available here: http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/belmont.html.

[6] One could see principlism as just one of numerous forms of bioethical inquiry, including virtue ethics, feminism, libertarianism, and religious ethics of all types. This diversity has been taken to suggest that nothing identifiable as “bioethics” even exists (see Turner 2009). Can a postmodern queer theorist and a Baptist theologian really form parts of the same whole? Others have argued that “rigor” in bioethics does not really exist, because so many disciplines are involved, each with its own methods and standards for defining problems and establishing acceptable work (Adler and Shaul 2012; Kopelman 2006). Yet although bioethics is clearly diverse, principlism stands out as a predominant and mainstream approach.

[7] Deleuze and Guattari (1987, 27).

[8] An updated plan calls for merely removing all nontenured professors in philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, in lieu of the elimination of philosophy (Etchison 2011).