Philosophy Is Not Ideology
Some within the discipline would be happy to steer philosophy in this direction. This is a problem.
Philosophy and ideology are supposed to be polar opposites. The first is vigorous intellectual inquiry into problems not fit to be answered by scientific investigation; the second is a hardened conviction that a particular political or economic system ought to steer society. Reflecting on hundreds of years of the philosophical enterprise, we might have thought the two activities required diametrically opposed postures. For some today, that seems increasingly less the case.
Consider the case of Rebecca Tuvel, an assistant professor of philosophy at Rhodes College, whose paper on “transracialism” was published in 2017 in the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia. Tuvel drew an analogy between gender transitioning (e.g., Caitlyn Jenner), which she fully supported on broadly liberal grounds, and race transitioning (e.g., Rachel Dolezal). Her paper was scholarly and thoughtful—but of course anyone who disagreed with its argument was welcome to publish a reasoned response. Instead, Tuvel and Hypatia were subjected to undisguised political mobilization from hundreds of other academics — including many philosophers — aimed at getting the paper retracted.
In the end, Tuvel and Hypatia stood firm, but their opponents made clear that publishing such a paper was ideologically unacceptable to them, insofar as the paper’s approach cut across certain dogmas of transgender theory and critical race studies. But when these highly politicized social theories function as a filter by which we establish what is acceptable to explore intellectually and what is not, philosophy becomes ideology.
To grasp why this is so troubling, we should consider the nature of philosophy as a cultural practice and as an academic discipline. In brief, philosophers attempt the intellectually rigorous study of perennial questions that seem to defy empirical resolution. Is there a god — or perhaps more than one — or an afterlife? Do we possess free will? How can we know about the external world? Are moral rules objectively binding on us? What is a good life for a human being, and what is the nature of a just society? Philosophers also tackle moral and political questions that are more specific, such as whether abortion is ethically acceptable and/or whether it should be legally permitted.
In some ways, philosophy has changed over time. Some questions that once fell within its scope, such as those to do with the structure and composition of the universe, are now reserved to the specialized sciences. Conversely, philosophers reflect on new issues as they become socially urgent, such as the ethics of medical research and the varied conceptual and moral issues relating to group identity: not least, how best to understand race, sexuality, and gender.
As an academic discipline, philosophy has adopted a norm that no ideas, or revered individuals, are treated as beyond criticism. Provided that intellectually careful arguments are offered in their favor, no conclusions are ruled out in advance. In formulating their arguments, philosophers often rely upon claims made by other academic disciplines, but those same claims can also be challenged. Often, philosophers will contest them when they are not supported by compelling evidence—when, for example, certain claims appear to be made more for the sake of methodological convenience, political expediency, or conformity to intellectual fashion, than because their truth has been objectively established.
Philosophy has nursed strong traditions of radical skepticism, but its openness to a multiplicity of viewpoints is not based on any assumption that philosophical questions lack correct and humanly accessible answers. At the end of the day, the big, seemingly intractable questions of philosophy might not be intractable in the strictest sense. That is, there might be correct answers that will eventually be demonstrated to everyone’s satisfaction.
Except in the discipline’s most technical areas, however — areas such as formal logic and the philosophical study of semantics — disputes among philosophers seldom converge on anything like a stable consensus. These disputes run into problems of ambiguous, conflicting, and incomplete evidence, conceptual confusion, and a diversity of bedrock assumptions, intuitions, and values. It is therefore typical, rather than unusual, for philosophers to maintain opposed ideas even after honest and strenuous efforts to find common ground. This is well known within the discipline, and in the past, such considerations have obtained far more consensus from philosophers than any suggested answers to big philosophical questions. Thus, philosophy’s tolerant disciplinary norms reflect the practicalities of philosophical inquiry.
Almost by definition, philosophical questions do not have clear scientific answers. Many people do, however, find answers within the world’s various religious and political worldviews. These worldviews attract strongly committed adherents, many of whom find their self-conceptions and their sense of life’s meaning in what are, viewed more objectively, highly questionable beliefs. When philosophers question those beliefs, it can be experienced by true believers as confronting, unsettling, and even hurtful.
At the same time, all such systems are open to doubt, and thus they are fair game for philosophical interrogation. Indeed, questioning of belief systems and worldviews is part of the point of philosophy.
Philosophy has opened its door to arguments for and against the existence of God and the expectation of an afterlife, to denials of free will, to claims that morality is not binding, or is some kind of myth or illusion, and many radical approaches to particular moral questions.
But while it might have once appeared that philosophy is immune to the risk of hardening into ideology—a word that I intend in its everyday sense of dogmatic adherence to a system of ideas about society, politics, and economics—it very much appears to be vulnerable to that outcome now.
Many academic philosophers now place the ascendancy of their preferred ideologies ahead of any commitment to free inquiry and discussion, or to philosophy’s disciplinary norms. Philosophers are welcome to argue in support of their personal ideologies, but it undermines philosophy itself when they respond to disapproved arguments and speakers with attempts to suppress the arguments and punish the speakers.
Unfortunately, the Tuvel case is not an isolated example. There are many others. One is the ongoing mobilization and abuse against gender-critical feminists such as Kathleen Stock, a philosopher at the University of Sussex.
There are ethical and political dimensions to many philosophical questions. But if those considerations supersede our license to collectively think through these questions, then philosophy becomes ideology.
In the past, philosophy has survived, and maintained its integrity, in the face of external pressures, including hostility from church and state. It is not clear, however, that philosophy as an academic discipline can survive the tactics of ideologues working from within.
Russell Blackford is a Conjoint Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle, NSW. His books include Philosophy’s Future: The Problem of Philosophical Progress (co-edited with Damien Broderick, 2017) and The Tyranny of Opinion: Conformity and the Future of Liberalism (2019).
