Popular vs populist philosophy: a response to Timothy Williamson

I am an academic philosopher. My specialty is the philosophy of science. And specifically the philosophy of biology. And even more specifically, the philosophy of evolutionary theory. Oh, I’m also interested in the so-called demarcation problem, the distinction between science and pseudoscience.

Titles of some of my recent academic papers read something along the lines of (links for free downloads, in the unlikely case you are actually interested): “Causality and the role of philosophy of science,” “Scientism and pseudoscience: in defense of demarcation projects,” and “Philosophy as the evocation of conceptual landscapes.” (If you’d like, you can look at all 165 of my technical papers here.) Trust me, these don’t make for light reading.

But I am also a “popular” philosopher, meaning someone who devotes a significant amount of time to bringing philosophy, and particularly practical Stoicism, to the general public. You can find my seven books for a broader audience here (along with my technical ones), hundreds of episodes of my podcast here, and hundreds of essays here and here.

I therefore take issue with a post by Timothy Williamson over at Daily Nous, that casts popular philosophy in the decidedly unflattering light of “populist” philosophy. What’s the problem? Williamson begins by…