Open Socrates
I’ve been reading Callard (2025) and I found this observation about academic philosophers interesting.
Academic philosophers are, in my experience, eager to allow that one can live a perfectly happy and fulfilled life without ever engaging in philosophy. They are also careful to shield the rest of their lives from their philosophical activities: they would readily admit to taking off their philosopher hat when walking into their homes, when socializing with friends — even friends who are philosophers! — and, more generally, whenever things get serious. Even the practitioners of philosophy are wary of philosophy.
Those who praise philosophy tend to take care to praise it in limited doses. Callicles, a Socratic interlocutor mentioned above, speaks approvingly of young people asking “why?” questions, and compares philosophizing to lisping: charming and delightful right up until someone reaches the age for serious, manly pursuits. It is common today to hear advisors to young people unwittingly echoing Callicles, praising a philosophy major on the grounds that it gives you “analytic tools” and “critical thinking skills” valued by employers. The message is: Do philosophy, but don’t overdo it.
We live inside a bubble of caution and wariness that can only be sustained by maintaining the conviction that, when it comes to the question of how to live our lives, we are already being intellectual and critical and thoughtful enough. The assumption is that no one — not even a professional academic philosopher — needs to be living their whole life in a philosophical manner.
On the one hand, there is a phenomenon of philosophers seemingly setting aside their professed philosophical views, for the sake of ordinary practical life. On the other hand, it isn’t always clear whether they are actually setting aside their philosophical convictions. I know consequentialists who apply it to real life. I know decision theorists who actually create decision matrices to make major life decisions.
I think the harder cases concern more theoretical matters. Does the eliminativist about ordinary objects act as if there are no ordinary objects? Probably not. Though it’s not clear that this makes them a hypocrite. They will often say that it is useful to act as if ordinary objects exist, even if they do not.
In many cases, it seems obscure what practical point we ought to derive from a philosophical position. Suppose I am a dualist. How should that influence my everyday life? I’m not sure. Though I suspect this kind of thing is the reason why philosophers seem to “set aside” their convictions. It is unclear what the conviction ought to yield.