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METAPHILOSOPHY
Vol. 48, Nos. 1–2, January 2017
0026-1068

ON THE DOMAIN OF METAPHILOSOPHY

BOB PLANT

Abstract: This article argues for four interrelated claims: (i) Metaphilosophy is
not one sub-discipline of philosophy, nor is it restricted to questions of
methodology. Rather, metaphilosophical inquiry encompasses the general
background conditions of philosophical practice. (ii) These background con-
ditions are of various sorts, not only those routinely considered “philosophical”
but also those considered biographical, historical, and sociological. Accordingly,
we should be wary of the customary distinction between what is proper (internal)
and merely contingent (external) to philosophy. (iii) “What is philosophy?” is best
understood as a practical question concerning how members of different
philosophical sub-communities identify what is pertinent to their respective
activities and self-conceptions. (iv) Given (i)--(iii), understanding what philosophy
is requires us to take more seriously the social-institutional dimension of contem-
porary philosophical practice.

Keywords: institutions, background, community, style, integrity, professionalization.

The task of philosophers who seek to define their subject is akin to that of
fools who attempt to shovel smoke. It is not exactly that theres nothing there,
but whatever it is, it isnt amenable to shovelling. (Mandt 1991, 77)

1. Introduction
Few philosophers enjoy being asked “What is it you do?” Fewer still
relish the follow-up question “What is philosophy?” Even if one is suf-
ficiently confident to describe oneself as a “philosopher,” one invariably
struggles to say anything plausible and informative when asked “What
is philosophy?”1 Here we routinely sidestep the question, offer plati-
tudes, or say things many other philosophers would reject as an
adequate characterisation of what they do. Thus, in a recent survey of
professional philosophers, philosophy was variously defined as the
1
I will assume that this difficulty does not arise because philosophy is uniquely
demanding.

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activity of thinking hard about fundamental questions, the attempt to

make sense of ourselves and the world, an inquiry into what is true, the
analysis of concepts, reflection on anything one happens to be inter-
ested in, an examination of those things we ordinarily take for granted,
the love of knowledge, the search for wisdom, the process of clear and
critical reflection, understanding what really matters, an inquiry into
what is unknown, and an investigation into the meaning of life (see
Edmonds and Warburton 2012, xiii–xxiv). (Some of the surveys partic-
ipants were unsure how to respond to “What is philosophy?,” two
laughed, and one replied with a joke [xiv, xix, xxi].)2 It is striking just
how unhelpful these responses are. Allusions to the “love of knowl-
edge,” “search for wisdom,” and “pursuit of truth” are far from
enlightening, for it is not as if historians, linguists, or chemists are less
capable of saying wise and true things about their respective domains.
And here philosophy faces a deeper problem—namely, what exactly is
its proper domain? In Sellarss estimation, philosophers aim to
“understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term
hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term,” including
“such radically different items as . . . numbers and duties, possibilities
and finger snaps, aesthetic experience and death” (Sellars 2014, 21). It
is not surprising that Sellars is cited more than once in the aforemen-
tioned survey (see Edmonds and Warburton 2012, xvi, xxiii), for the
great virtue of his formulation is its accommodation of a vast array of
meta/philosophical views. This is a virtue because we tend to play
down the diversity of philosophical practice, often reconstructing phi-
losophys history to suit our own current interests, procedures, and
aspirations. (Indeed, we sometimes portray the history of philosophy as
a chronicle of error and confusion.) But whatever the merits of Sellarss
view, it is unlikely to enlighten those unfamiliar with what philosophers
actually do. There are, of course, other ways of responding to the ques-
tion “What is philosophy?” One might insist that philosophy is an
activity rather than a body of knowledge. But not only is it unclear
whether our predecessors would have recognised this characterisation
of the philosophic enterprise (see Crane 2012, 22), being an “activity”
is hardly distinctive of philosophy. In any case, what sort of activity
philosophy is permits a wide variety of answers.
Part of the problem philosophers face when asked “What is
philosophy?” is the essentialist form of the question itself (see Janz
2004, 106). For while it would be convenient to transform “the
philosophical point of view” into an analytic truth “that would then
determine what is and what is not philosophy” (Weitz 1977, 249), it is
unduly optimistic to think that there are necessary and sufficient
2
On what many contemporary philosophers believe, see Bourget and Chalmers 2013.

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 ON THE DOMAIN OF METAPHILOSOPHY 5

conditions for a “work of philosophy.” Just as we routinely underesti-

mate the role individual temperament and group psychology play in
the formation and sustenance of our meta/philosophical views (see
Morrow and Sula 2011, 302–4), rarely do we seriously consider that
what we think of as the “real” philosophical issues could ever become
passe or no longer part of philosophy.3 But perceived “hot topics”
soon go off the boil, just as particular debates fall silent, not because
the problems are solved or, once agreement about solutions is wide-
spread, lasting consensus is attained. On the contrary, philosophical
debates run their course without ever reaching substantive resolutions,
only to re-emerge later in one guise or another (see Unger 2014). Like-
wise, despite the fact that the philosophical canon is a dynamic assort-
ment of authors and texts, as philosophers we often struggle to imagine
particular canonical figures ever becoming of merely historical interest.
Indeed, talk of “the philosophical canon” obscures the fact that the sta-
tus and influence of many philosophers have waxed and waned for dif-
ferent philosophical communities at different times. We might therefore
characterise “philosophy” as a family-resemblance term, pertaining to
a loose constellation of “overlapping traditions of thought,” with often
very different “conception[s] of which texts are canonical and which
inquiries are worth pursuing” (Crane 2012, 22). Indeed, as Crane sug-
gests, understanding a philosophical tradition as a “collection of inter-
related texts, rather than a body of doctrines or a distinctive technique,”
might help to explain why “fundamental disagreement” (2012, 23, 32) is
such a pervasive feature of philosophy (see Rescher 1978, 1985; Van
Inwagen 2009; Kornblith 2010; Plant 2012a).
Of course, to appreciate the diversity of philosophical practice one
does not have to trawl through the annals of history. The pages of cur-
rent journals, publishers catalogues, and conference proceedings
abound with discussions of topics that seem eccentric to philosophers
of different metaphilosophical persuasions. Indeed, as Rescher notes,
there are countless academic societies “dedicated to the pursuit of
issues, now deemed philosophical, that no one would have dreamt of
considering so a generation ago” (Rescher 1993, 729). It is perhaps nat-
ural to consider the time and place we happen to occupy as having
unique meta/philosophical importance. But assuming that philosophy
survives as a distinct discipline beyond the twenty-first century, we
might reasonably wonder how much contemporary philosophical work
our successors will judge to have been worthwhile, which texts and
authors will achieve and maintain canonical status, and which issues
and debates will become solely of antiquarian interest. While some of
3
Recent discussions of women in philosophy (see Saul 2012; Hutchinson and Jenkins
2013) have started to open up metaphilosophy to sociological and psychological
questions.

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6 BOB PLANT

our currently perceived philosophical achievements may survive more

or less intact, our immersion within specific philosophical sub-
communities tends to obscure the fact that philosophys future—includ-
ing its future assessment of us—remains uncertain.
So, offering a plausible and informative answer to the question
“What is philosophy?” is extremely difficult. It is therefore unsurpris-
ing, not only that non-philosophers often have misgivings about the
value of philosophy, but also that philosophers themselves are some-
times plagued by self-doubt. Glendinning thus cautions: “Its always a
tricky moment for any philosopher to acknowledge that what you are
doing, what you think might be worth doing, might just be a spinning
in the wind or just a kind of doing nothing at all, or doing something
very badly” (2002, 207; see also Vattimo 2010, 114–15). These sorts of
worries should not be dismissed as mere expressions of metaphilosophi-
cal despair. On the contrary, the difficulty of responding to metaphilo-
sophical questions is exactly as it should be, and sets philosophers
apart from their colleagues in other disciplines. For the history of phi-
losophy is a history of disagreements about both specific philosophical
issues and the nature of philosophy itself. In this sense at least, philoso-
phers aspirations seem inversely proportionate to their results, for
there is no widespread consensus on what such “results” might consist
in.4 It is therefore interesting to note that in two of the four multidisci-
plinary funding panels Lamont studied, “philosophy emerged as a
problem field, seen as producing proposals around which conflicts
erupt.” Specifically, a number of the panellists “expressed at least one
of the following views: (1) philosophers live in a world apart from other
humanists, (2) nonphilosophers have problems evaluating philosophical
work, and they are often perceived by philosophers as not qualified to
do so, (3) philosophers do not explain the significance of their work,
and (4) increasingly, what philosophers do is irrelevant, sterile, and
self-indulgent” (Lamont 2009, 64; see also 66). Lamont concludes:
“[P]hilosophys reputation as a potential problem case is not helped
by the fact that the discipline is defined by its own practitioners as con-
tentious. Philosophers tend to approach each others work with scepti-
cism, criticism, and an eye for debate. Disagreement is not viewed as
problematic; rather, it largely defines intelligence and is considered a
signature characteristic of the culture of the discipline—with often dis-
astrous results for funding” (69; see also 105).
That “What is philosophy?” is one of philosophys most stubborn
questions is not because philosophers happen to be more cantankerous
or befuddled than historians, chemists, anthropologists, or mathemati-
cians. Rather, it is part of the philosophers task to question the nature
4
For extremely negative assessments of philosophy, see Lycan 1996, 149; Unger 2014.

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and value of his own activities. For not only is “What is philosophy?”
tacitly in play whenever we are doing philosophy, being reflective about
what philosophy is constitutes a basic philosophical responsibility. That
is to say, “What is philosophy?” is not only a legitimate philosophical
question, it belongs to philosophy in a way that, for example, “What is
science?” does not belong to physicists, chemists, or biologists. While
the latter do sometimes ask these reflexive sorts of questions about
their respective modi operandi, only in philosophy are such “meta”
questions part and parcel of the discipline (see Sayre 2004, 242–43).
Indeed, even where we think it appropriate to begin philosophical
inquiry is inextricably bound up with our more-or-less tacit metaphilo-
sophical commitments. There are then at least three things that distin-
guish philosophy from other academic disciplines: (i) When the latter
do examine their own background aims, assumptions, and methods we
commonly describe them as doing something “philosophical.” (ii) As
previously suggested, there is no specific range of phenomena constitut-
ing the proper object(s) of philosophical inquiry. Accordingly, “What is
philosophy?” is unavoidably one of philosophys own questions. (iii) As
philosophers we often pride ourselves on our ability to critically inter-
rogate those things routinely taken for granted both in ordinary life
and in other academic domains. What philosophers take for granted is
therefore an unavoidable question for philosophers themselves (though
perhaps not only for philosophers). Mindful of all this, deep and some-
times acrimonious philosophical diversity is only to be expected in a
discipline that lacks shared aims, methods, communicative norms, and
subject matter. It is also unsurprising that philosophy is often taught
outside departments of philosophy, much to the chagrin of many pro-
fessional philosophers.
If “[p]hilosophy has a way of being at home with itself that consists
in not being at home with itself” (Derrida 2001, 55), then metaphiloso-
phy is poorly understood as one philosophical sub-discipline alongside
others.5 This is not to deny that only a minority of contemporary phi-
losophers would include metaphilosophy in their designated areas of
specialisation, competence, or even interest. (After all, we generally pre-
fer to go “directly to the issues” without a lot of agonised “navel-
gazing” [Couture and Nielsen 1993, 2].) Nevertheless, while the explicit
question “What is philosophy?” arises relatively infrequently in the his-
tory of philosophy, how philosophers have variously practiced their
trade reveals a great deal about what they took philosophy to be. And
the same is true of contemporary professional philosophers. Let me be
clear: my aim in this article is not to defend a thoroughgoing
“institutional theory of philosophy” (see Harries 2001, 51), or indeed
5
On Derrida and metaphilosophy, see Plant 2012b.

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any particular theory of philosophy. I do, however, want to question

the assumption that thinking seriously about what philosophy is means
thinking about philosophy “in terms that are philosophical rather than
sociological” (Sayre 2004, 243). It seems to me that sociological consid-
erations (broadly construed) bear upon metaphilosophical issues in
highly significant ways (see Morrow and Sula 2011, 297–98). Certainly,
the social-institutional dimension of contemporary philosophy can
sometimes be disheartening; there is, after all, no shortage of unbridled
careerism, abuses of power, cults of personality, gender bias, intellectual
bandwagon jumping, sexual harassment, and other vices. But this too
might tell us something about how philosophers understand their own
activities, and how particular metaphilosophical views are instilled, dis-
seminated, and sustained. In the next section, therefore, I want to
explain why philosophical institutions (philosophy departments,
research centres, and so on) are not wholly “external” to philosophy
proper (see Bourdieu 1983, 4).

2. Inside/Outside Philosophy
Plantinga invites us to imagine the following scenario. Having com-
pleted her first degree in philosophy, a Christian student decides to
pursue a career as a professional philosopher. While attending graduate
school she soon learns how mainstream philosophy is currently prac-
ticed, and what academic philosophers consider the pressing issues of
the day:

It is then natural for her, after she gets her Ph.D., to continue to think
about and work on these topics. And it is natural, furthermore, for her to
work on them in the way she was taught to, thinking about them in the light
of the assumptions made by her mentors and in terms of currently accepted
ideas as to what a philosopher should start from or take for granted, what
requires argument and defence, and what a satisfying philosophical explana-
tion or a proper resolution to a philosophical question is like. She will be
uneasy about departing widely from these topics and assumptions, feeling
instinctively that any such departures are at best marginally respectable.
(Plantinga 1984, 255)

According to Plantinga, however, Christian philosophers should not

feel obliged to follow contemporary philosophical trends. For as
Christians they will have their own salient questions, problems, and
guiding presuppositions. Indeed, they will sometimes have to reject
“currently fashionable assumptions about the philosophic enterprise,”
including what are widely regarded as “the proper starting points
and procedures for philosophical endeavour” (Plantinga 1984, 256).
In doing this, the Christian philosopher is perfectly entitled to those

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background assumptions she brings to her work (see 256). After all, we
each “come to philosophy with a range of opinions about the world
and humankind,” and part of philosophys task is to clarify these “pre-
philosophical opinions” (268). Plantinga is not denying that Christian
philosophers have something to learn from members of other philo-
sophical sub-communities. Rather, he is encouraging Christian philoso-
phers to cultivate greater self-confidence in pursuing their own phi-
losophical interests in their own ways (see 255, 258, 268).
Plantingas focus on the concrete academic environments in which
philosophers are trained and later employed is interesting. Unsurpris-
ingly, however, this broadly sociological emphasis has provoked explicit
metaphilosophical criticism. Phillips thus objects that, just as “[t]he
nature of philosophy is itself a philosophical question,” so too is “Can
there be a Christian philosophy?” (1993, 223). Accordingly, he main-
tains, this question “cannot be answered by saying, Of course there
can be, and we have regional meetings to prove it” (223). That sort of
response would be misguided in its “attempt to answer, by an appeal to
external considerations, what ought to be discussed philosophically”
(223). Phillipss demarcation between what is inside and outside philos-
ophy reflects a more pervasive desire among philosophers to keep
“properly philosophical” questions uncontaminated by “contingent,”
“external,” or “merely empirical” considerations. Indeed, this is part of
a more general tendency of philosophers to forget that they are situated
human beings, and thereby inheritors of (amongst other things) a spe-
cific historical, economic, and cultural context. And we need reminding
of this seemingly obvious fact if we are to avoid confusing philoso-
phers aspirations with the reality of philosophical practice. I do not
want to paint an unduly bleak picture here. But as philosophers we do
habitually underestimate that, for example, changes in the status, repu-
tation, and influence of specific philosophical texts are formed and sus-
tained by a variety of “external” contingencies. (Consider the fractious
relationship between the so-called Analytic and Continental traditions.
Although the nature of this alleged “division” remains contentious [see
Glendinning 2006, 7; 2011, 71], it is surely relevant that studying the
history of Western philosophy is central to many European education
systems [see Gutting 2001, 382; 2011, 7–23]. For as Schrift notes, the
orientation of twentieth-century French philosophy was shaped by
which historical figures appeared on the agregation exam in the late
1950s, when many of the prominent names in recent French thought
were either students or just beginning their professional careers [see
Schrift 2006, 188ff.; 2008].) Despite the fact that the history of Western
philosophy is a history of particular texts with often very different
aims, methods, styles, and audiences, philosophers often treat this as
incidental to the real business of doing philosophy. This attitude is
both reflected in, and perpetuated by, the sorts of expectations we

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commonly have of contemporary philosophers. In the next section,

therefore, I want to consider those expectations pertaining specifically
to communicative norms.

3. Communicative Norms
For the most part, the contemporary professional philosopher is
expected to present herself as a member of an established working com-
munity, with designated interests, competencies, and expertise in
respected areas of the discipline. Accordingly, one of her main responsi-
bilities is to publish in the most prestigious—usually English-
language—journals, and in doing so refer to recent literature in the
relevant field(s). Here, then, the philosopher views her research (and
wants others to do likewise) as contributing to particular, well-defined
debates in which substantive progress can be made. Contemporary phil-
osophys preoccupation with producing short, often highly specialised
journal articles thus manifests a conception of philosophers as what
Danto terms “vehicles for the transmission of an utterly impersonal
philosophical truth” (1984, 7). This, in turn, “implies a vision of philo-
sophical reality as constituted of isolable, difficult but not finally
intractable problems, which if not altogether soluble in fifteen pages
more or less, can be brought closer to resolution in that many pages”
(1984, 7). The journal article has therefore come to be seen as an
“impersonal report of limited results for a severely restricted reader-
ship, consisting of those who have some use for that result since they
are engaged with the writers of the pages in a collaborative enterprise,
building the edifice of philosophical knowledge” (1984, 7). In Dantos
estimation, all this renders most contemporary philosophy “abstract
and distorted,” with few “tethers to human reality beyond the dubious
intuitions alleged to be universal” (Danto 2001, 244). While philoso-
phers once employed a variety of literary forms (dialogue, aphorism,
meditation, confession, and so on), these are no longer viable modes of
professional communication.6 The prose of most academic philosophy
is intentionally abstract, dispassionate, and detached in its attempt to
mimic the languages of science and mathematics (see Nussbaum 1992,
3, 19; Rescher 1993, 723; Harries 2001, 53; McNaughton 2009, 1–2;
Unger 2014).
One feature of this dominant form of philosophical communication
is the way it suppresses authorial individuality. Of course, how one
evaluates this “loss of voice” (see Danto 1984, 7, 19; Nussbaum 1992,
20; Mason 1999, 119; Danto 2001, 241, 244–45) depends on ones other
6
Today, podcasts, blog posts, and tweets play an increasingly significant role in the
daily practice of professional philosophers.

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metaphilosophical commitments. Thus, according to Smith, Analytic

philosophers have rightly distanced themselves from the “more literary
associations of their discipline”—not least from any “aesthetic fascina-
tion with languages” (1991, 157). For most contemporary philosophers,
language is either “merely an instrument” or a “pre-packaged object of
investigation” (157). Unsurprisingly, in the wake of such stylistic mod-
esty, there is little room for the philosopher to “manifest himself in his
peculiarity as an author” (158). It is therefore reasonable to suppose
that most academic philosophers would consider that the main objec-
tive of a philosophical education is to produce not engaging, imagina-
tive, and eloquent writers but sharp, clear, robust arguers who can
produce, defend, and critique well-defined theses (see Rorty 1982, 221).
For not only is ones philosophical seriousness commonly judged on
the basis of the perceived quality of ones arguments, it is particularly
damning to accuse a philosopher of being unable (or unwilling) to
argue. But while Smith judges the voicelessness of philosophical writing
to be a virtue, there is no metaphilosophically neutral reason to share
this view. Nussbaum, for example, criticises the prose of much recent
philosophy, describing it as an “all-purpose solvent in which philosoph-
ical issues of any kind at all could be efficiently disentangled, any and
all conclusions neatly disengaged” (1992, 19). In her estimation, “there
is a mistake made . . . when one takes a method and style that have
proven fruitful for the investigation and description of certain truths—
say those of natural science—and applies them without further reflec-
tion or argument to a very different sphere of human life that may
have a different geography and demand a different sort of precision”
(19–20). And as Nussbaum proceeds to note, part of the problem here
is the way increasing professionalization “leads everyone to write like
everyone else, in order to be respectable and to publish in the usual
journals” (20). (I return to professionalization in the next section.)
It is not difficult to see why the desire for optimal intelligibility gen-
erates anxieties about more indirect, oblique, or literary modes of phil-
osophical expression. But while most philosophers feel able to
recognise clarity when they see it, exactly what it consists in remains
elusive. It is not surprising that we often dismiss as intellectually sus-
pect—if not patently unintelligible—those authors and texts with which
we are merely unfamiliar (see Barnes 2008, 10–11). But then, extracted
from their broader intellectual contexts, the writings of many philoso-
phers would fail the test of modest “plain speaking” (see Culler 2003,
44–45).7 In any case, it is all too easy to defend the obscurities in those
texts we judge to be grappling with deep philosophical issues, while
accusing others of manifest nonsense. For how one distinguishes
7
On the numerous “deplorable” styles in academic philosophy, see McNaughton
2009, 3–4.

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between philosophers who are legitimately demanding and those who

are irresponsibly abstruse depends on our prior exposure to—and
metaphilosophical sympathy for—particular authors, the sub-
communities to which they belong, and the specific audiences they are
addressing. As such, there is little reason to suppose that members of
all philosophical sub-communities ought to be intelligible to one
another simply in virtue of being fellow philosophers.8
Given the widespread assumption that the function of style is merely
decorative, it is unsurprising that the writing of philosophy is of mar-
ginal interest to most contemporary philosophers. As Magee remarks:
“If a philosopher writes well, thats a bonus—it makes him more entic-
ing to study, obviously, but it does nothing to make him a better phi-
losopher” (Magee 1982, 230). On this view, any philosophical work
that could not be understood independently of its specific mode of pre-
sentation would thereby have failed to communicate in an appropriately
“philosophical” way. But whatever the appeal of the minimalist, “self-
effacing plain style” (Mason 1999, 31), we cannot assume that the
form and content of all genuinely philosophical writing must be easily
separable. Indeed, not only can “plain language” be seen as a particular
style, embodying a more-or-less specific conception of what philosophy
is, one might say that philosophers general disinterest in questions of
style is itself “an expressive feature of philosophy” (van Eck 1995, 2).
Here, then, we are not faced with a simple choice between either adopt-
ing a philosophical style or opting for no style whatsoever. (In fact, one
highly effective way of entrenching communicative norms is to deny
that they raise any questions of style [see van Eck 1995, 6].) If one sees
oneself working in a community of philosophical problem solvers,
whose primary task is to contribute to specialised, well-defined debates,
then some conception of “plain speaking” will likely be taken for
granted. My worry here is not about the detached “voiceless” style per
se but about the assumed obviousness that this is the way serious, bona
fide philosophy ought to be done. Those who do not share the
problem-solving conception of philosophical practice might reasonably
feel the need to adopt very different communicative strategies. Varying
degrees of stylistic experimentation might, for example, be seen as nec-
essary by philosophers wary of the distinction between literal and met-
aphorical language, or those who see plain or “ordinary” language as a
cause of philosophical befuddlement, or those who believe that the
clearest of utterances are already metaphysically and/or politically
loaded. It is only to be expected that readers unfamiliar with these
more reflexive, even sometimes “playful” texts judge their authors to be

8
Even when we understand what a philosopher is saying, we may not understand why
she is saying it, or saying it in that particular way.

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less than intellectually serious. But then, of course, to other audiences,

texts embodying the ideal of modest plain speaking will seem, at best,
metaphilosophically na€ıve.

4. The Philosophy Industry

Nussbaums aforementioned concerns about philosophys professionali-
zation are not new. In the early twentieth century, James complained
about the dreariness, over-technicality, and cultish appeals to authority
of the younger generation of philosophers of his time (see 1920, 15–17).
More recently, Stroud laments how increasing professionalization has
“rendered much more of philosophy sterile, empty, and boring,” and
how this is encouraged (explicitly or otherwise) by demands for
“quantity of publications, frequency of citation in the professional liter-
ature, widely certified distinction in the profession, and other quantifi-
able measures of an impressive resume” (2001, 30). Cottingham
likewise bemoans the “fragmentation of philosophical inquiry into a
host of separate specialisms, and the associated development of swathes
of technical jargon whose use is largely confined within hermetically
sealed sub-areas,” which he believes “represents a disintegrated concep-
tion of philosophising” (2009, 254; see also Norris 2012, 9). Whether
one agrees with these specific diagnoses, the continual demand for pub-
lications does facilitate a certain type of philosophical output—namely,
short, narrowly focussed journal articles that make relatively minor
moves in a current “live” debate. Indeed, it is reasonable to think that
many philosophers primarily publish not because they have interesting
things to say but because they recognise the professional expectation to
publish. For some, no doubt, this expectation provides a motivation to
find something genuinely interesting to say. But there is little reason to
think that, as a general strategy, this engenders philosophical work of
deep and lasting significance.
For good or ill, then, philosophy has become an industry with
“thousands of operatives” and a “prolific and diversified range of
products” (Rescher 1993, 722–23). If philosophys professionalization
constitutes “the fact that distinguishes the discipline of philosophy at
the dawn of the 21st-century from the prior two millennia” (Leiter
2008, 28), then we should not underestimate the extent to which our
differing conceptions of what philosophy is are shaped by concrete
social-institutional features of everyday philosophical practice. After
all, as professional philosophers, we routinely prioritise specific meth-
ods and forms of argumentation over others, draw on particular
authors and texts, consider only some issues worthy of attention, adopt
and endorse particular modes of oral and written communication.
Likewise, operating within institutes of higher education, we decide

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which courses to offer our undergraduate and graduate students, which

should be mandatory and which optional, which topics and authors
can be safely ignored, and which are essential to maintaining philo-
sophical integrity. (I return to integrity in the final section.) As Mason
rightly notes, there is a “close connection between what philosophy is
considered to be and the given curriculum of a philosophy department”
(1989, 13). Through a variety of activities—including teaching, curricu-
lum design, internal and external examining, conference organisation,
refereeing articles, editorial and committee work—members of philoso-
phy departments and research centres sustain metaphilosophical norms
throughout a population of students, teachers, and researchers. In pro-
moting their philosophical merchandise to the wider academic world,
these institutions compete for international prestige and funding. And,
of course, these institutions are seen to possess the requisite expertise
and authority to evaluate the intellectual competences and potential of
students and professional practitioners by means of peer review, teach-
ing assessments, and research evaluation exercises. There are, no doubt,
many things that bind a philosophical community together; a shared
collection of texts, salient issues, preferred methods, forms of argument,
and modes of communication play a crucial part in this. But members
of philosophical communities also share “professional familiarity
rooted in meetings and seminars attended together, journals read in
common,” extra-curricula socialising, and myriad other seemingly
external factors. It would therefore be mistaken to think that “these so-
called extra-philosophical factors have no direct bearing on what phi-
losophers think” (Mandt 1991, 99)—including, of course, what philoso-
phers think philosophy is and should be.
While there is much to say both for and against the philosophy
industry,9 it is not my aim to weigh the relative costs and benefits of
philosophys professionalization. I simply want to highlight how much
of what we—a “we” that is always more or less local and transient—
consider to be philosophy is formed and sustained by a host of contin-
gent background conditions. Accordingly, what lies, respectively, inside
and outside philosophy cannot, in good metaphilosophical conscience,
be taken for granted. Although immersion in a particular philosophical
sub-community is near unavoidable, our subsequent tendency to lose
critical distance on our mundane philosophical practice is worth
reflecting on. For this immersion diminishes our ability and willingness
to see how the borders of philosophy, for historical, economic, cultural,
and professional reasons, have changed. We therefore need to take seri-
ously the variety of “external” factors that shape our understanding of

9
See Rescher 1993, 725, 727; Harries 2001, 52; Sayre 2004, 249; Nolan 2007, 12;
Leiter 2008, 28; Saul 2012; Hutchinson and Jenkins 2013.

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what philosophy is. Mindful of this, let me return to the question with
which I began: “What is philosophy?”

5. Is That Philosophy?
Thus far I have argued that social-institutional factors play an impor-
tant, albeit often neglected, role in the formation, development, and
sustenance of individual philosophers and the sub-communities to
which they belong. Accordingly, these broadly sociological considera-
tions ought to figure more prominently in metaphilosophical inquiry.
Because the background conditions of everyday philosophical practice
are not wholly external to the philosophical issues philosophers con-
cern themselves with, it is a mistake to ignore what causes particular
positions, arguments, and methods to dominate—albeit temporarily
(see Morrow and Sula 2011, 298, 301). As Gross reminds us, each pro-
fessional philosopher “must decide which substantive areas of philoso-
phy to specialize in” and thereby “select one or more intellectual
traditions in which to situate their work” (1984, 53). After all, these
sub-communities “help define the kind of intellectual problem thinkers
see as significant, the style and approach of their solutions to those
problems, and the range of other thinkers with whom they are in con-
versation” (53). Of course, most often we do not consciously choose
an intellectual tradition in which to work but rather find ourselves
already situated within particular philosophical sub-communities as a
result of numerous contingent factors—not least when, where, and
from whom we received our philosophical training. Taking these social-
institutional factors into account thus raises important questions about
what is unreflectively embedded in our philosophical practice, including
the more-or-less tacit agreement of group members regarding which
topics, authors, and texts are worthy of transmission to the next gener-
ation of philosophers. In emphasising this, I do not want to trivialise
the role played by rational persuasion and argument in ordinary philo-
sophical practice. As I said earlier, I am not proposing a thoroughgoing
“institutional theory of philosophy.” (After all, that the distinction
between internal—philosophical—and external—non-philosophical—
factors cannot be maintained with absolute precision does not mean
that there are no workable distinctions available.) But we should not
exaggerate the part that rational persuasion plays in philosophical
practice, or indeed what argument can reasonably be expected to
achieve. It would be pretty odd to think that philosophers are immune
to sociological, psychological, and other “non-philosophical” forces.
And while it is possible that philosophers qua philosophers are espe-
cially resistant to such “external” influences, this is an empirical claim,
not something we can intuit from the comfort of our armchairs. It is

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important that we take seriously the sociological, biographical, psycho-

logical, and historical determinants of philosophical practice, not only
because they form part of the metaphilosophical terrain philosophers
actually inhabit, but also because we cannot assume that the question
“What is philosophy?” must be answered in the abstract before it can
be answered in the concrete (see Janz 2004, 106). In short, failure to
acknowledge philosophys entanglement in sociology, psychology, and
history (among other things) can only hinder our understanding of
what we are really doing when doing philosophy.
As previously suggested, of the aforementioned background condi-
tions that shape our meta/philosophical preferences and aversions,
institutes of higher education in particular play a crucial role (see
Nolan 2007, 2–3; Kitcher 2011, 259–60).10 Of his own graduate studies,
Putnam recalls how he soon learnt “what not to consider philosophy,”
as his training involved a more-or-less explicit process of metaphilo-
sophical “narrowing” (1994, 57–58). Schacht likewise recalls how the
guardians of orthodoxy of his early philosophical development “did
not look kindly upon the interest of many of us in the likes of Hegel,
Nietzsche, and Heidegger”—indeed, even uttering their names “could
get one in very serious trouble” (1993, 432). Desanti similarly recollects
that for his generation of French philosophers, mathematical logic was
simply not part of their heritage. As a result, Desanti and his peers
struggled to “forge a relationship to mathematical logic for ourselves
on the basis of what our tradition—which was basically historicizing—
had already made of us” (Desanti 1983, 54–55; see also Bouveresse
1983, 10–11, 22; Engel 1987, 1). What interests me here is the general
sense of “narrowing” Putnam refers to. For we should not conclude
that exclusions and prioritisations of particular authors, texts, styles,
and methods are a wholly negative or destructive part of philosophical
training. Rather, this sort of “narrowing” plays an important role in
sustaining philosophical communities. Let me explain what I mean.
I said earlier that the question “What is philosophy?” belongs to phi-
losophy because what philosophy is, is always an issue for philosophy. I
now want to suggest further that “What is philosophy?” is better
understood as the concrete question “Is that philosophy?”—a question
particular philosophers (and groups of them) ask about particular
authors, texts, issues, methods, and communicative norms. Understand-
ing the question in this way captures important features of ordinary
philosophical practice obscured by the more abstract formulation
“What is philosophy?” The first thing to note here is that responding
to the concrete question “Is that philosophy?” does not presuppose
10
Sulas “Phylo” project (http://phylo.info/) usefully charts the web of influences—not
least between supervisors and doctoral students—that shape an individuals philosophical
profile. See also Healy 2013.

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that we have an answer to the abstract, essentialist question “What is

philosophy?” (see Janz 2004, 106). For answering the former is a practi-
cal matter that requires an ability (what I will call metaphilosophical
“know-how”) to distinguish between what does and does not qualify as
bona fide philosophy, what does and does not count as being of genu-
ine philosophical interest, and so on. This know-how is acquired
within, and sustained by, particular philosophical sub-communities. It
is doubtless true that ones “awareness of belonging to a particular tra-
dition comes with time” (Davidson 1994, 42). But what also comes
with time is the ability to recognise “philosophy” when we encounter
it. Early on in our philosophical training, most of us happily include
works of literature, anthropology, and many other things under the
umbrella term “philosophy.” But the more academic philosophy (and
professional philosophers) we encounter, the sooner we come to see
these as not being works of philosophy written by philosophers—what-
ever indirect philosophical insights they might offer. This practical skill
of discriminating between bona fide philosophy and what falls outside
its boundaries (or somewhere on the periphery) operates more at the
level of engrained habit than rational reflection—though, of course,
reasons can often be found after the fact. Nobody provides us with
explicit metaphilosophical criteria to sort the philosophical wheat from
the chaff. Rather, we gradually, and for the most part unreflectively,
develop a sense of what properly philosophical texts look like, what
sorts of topics are of genuine philosophical concern, what issues and
debates are “live,” what institutions, authors, journals, and publishers
are respectable, and what modes of expression are appropriate to seri-
ous philosophical work. For example, demarcating between so-called
Analytic and Continental traditions does not require the ability to pro-
duce a checklist of defining characteristics for each (see Mandt 1991,
87–88; Sluga 1998, 107; Crane 2012, 22–23). All that is needed is the
practical ability to distinguish between the sorts of books, journals,
authors, communicative styles, and topics members of each favour—an
ability acquired and sustained during ones training and everyday phil-
osophical practice.11 We should not, therefore, be surprised that profes-
sional philosophers are able to recognise philosophy when they see it,
though unable to provide widely acceptable criteria for their being able
to, or to offer an informative and plausible response to the question
“What is philosophy?” It is not that there are no standards in opera-
tion here; contemporary philosophy is not an anarchic free-for-all.
Rather, metaphilosophical standards are embedded in local practice,
and so feel entirely natural to those working within a given philosophi-
cal sub-community but at best optional to those working elsewhere.
11
On a related point, see Rorty 2007, 120.

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Before I conclude, let me briefly return to the question of meta/philo-

sophical integrity.

6. Meta/Philosophical Integrity
We often assume that our membership of “the philosophical
community” ought to ensure a high degree of mutual intelligibility
between us. As noted earlier, alongside our general intolerance for the
unfamiliar, we tend to avoid metaphilosophical anxieties in order to go
straight to the philosophical issues without detour or delay. All of this
is perfectly understandable in what has become a highly competitive
professionalised industry. As I have suggested, however, in all of this
we are prone to trivialise the way sub-communities are “divided from
the rest by different priorities as to what the really interesting and
important issues are” (Rescher 1993, 719). Immersed within specific
philosophical sub-communities, we rarely ask whether there is such a
thing as “the philosophical community” or if there is some underlying
philosophical solidarity between us simply in virtue of sharing the same
profession. (Even if philosophers share an “ineliminable backward ref-
erence to Platos dialogues” [MacIntyre 1995, 45], how much metaphi-
losophical cohesion this actually sustains is unclear.) Of course, we
should not over-dramatize the fragmentation of contemporary philoso-
phy; philosophical sub-communities—including departments and
research centres—are generally not discrete islands of intellectual activ-
ity (see Rescher 1993, 719). But neither should we forget that we rarely
engage with philosophical communities much different from our own.
Indeed, often we only become aware of their existence when confronted
with conference announcements and book releases on topics we barely
recognise as “philosophical” by authors we have never heard of.
Given all of this, it is tempting to think that when one philosopher
accuses another of not being a real philosopher, such charges are
merely a “rhetorical gambit” (Rorty 1990, 370), demonstrating nothing
more than the accusers failure to appreciate the diversity of philosoph-
ical practice. Sometimes, no doubt, that is all there is to it. But these
accusations are not always mere posturing. For as I discussed earlier, it
is significant that the practical concerns of (for example) curriculum
design and implementation manifest the desire of philosophers to draw
disciplinary and sub-disciplinary boundaries—not least between
authentic and counterfeit philosophy. Identifying oneself as belonging
to a particular philosophical sub-community inevitably involves the
sort of “narrowing” Putnam speaks of. Sometimes, specific authors,
texts, problems, methods, and communicative norms are openly ridi-
culed as “not real philosophy.” More commonly, particular authors
and texts simply do not find their way into university curricula or onto

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the shelves of university libraries and bookshops. Either way, these

exclusions are important to the extent that we identify who we are,
philosophically speaking, by differentiating ourselves from those in
other sub-communities. Williamson therefore maintains that for anyone
who acknowledges certain “advances in philosophical standards” in
recent Analytic philosophy, there would be a profound “loss of integ-
rity involved in abandoning them in the way that would be required to
participate in continental philosophy as currently practised” (2002,
151). If the implication here is that these are standards all bona fide
philosophers should at least attempt to meet, then that seems a highly
questionable bit of metaphilosophical stipulation. Still, Williamsons
allusion to integrity highlights something of broader significance. For
being a member of any philosophical sub-community presumably
requires (i) a common heritage of recognised authors, texts, issues,
methods, and communicative norms, (ii) that this heritage be embedded
in ones current practices, and (iii) a shared conception of what is pos-
sible for maintaining the future integrity of ones community. This third
point is crucial. For at any given time some future possibilities will be
significantly unthinkable for members of a particular philosophical
sub-community. To exclude, inhibit, or even explicitly caution against
specific authors, methods, styles (and so on) need not therefore be an
expression of bare intellectual parochialism. Rather, respecting these
perceived limits is part of what constitutes community membership.12

7. Conclusion
Philosophers have never achieved widespread consensus regarding what
philosophy is. Notwithstanding the fact that philosophers themselves
sometimes talk of philosophy being in one “crisis” or another, and
while the contemporary philosophical landscape is in many ways frag-
mented, philosophy has thus far managed to avoid total collapse. I
have suggested, however, that philosophys relative stability is not due
to it possessing some essential core, a set of defining characteristics, or
even a unifying genealogy. Rather, it is because members of different
sub-communities congregate around specific collections of authors,
texts, debates, and issues, and employ more-or-less unquestioned meth-
ods and communicative norms. In short, the boundaries of philosophy
are secured locally by philosophers everyday activities. If that is right,
then metaphilosophical inquiry needs to extend beyond questions of
12
New members of a philosophical community cannot simply till the philosophical
soil already laid. To “advance in the profession” one must find more-or-less novel and
provocative things to say within the terrain mapped out by the generation who supervised
ones doctoral work, and who now sit on the boards of funding bodies, promotion panels,
research centres, and academic publishers.

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20 BOB PLANT

methodology and encompass the wider background conditions of phil-

osophical practice (see Morrow and Sula 2011, 312).

Department of Philosophy
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen, AB24 3UB
United Kingdom
r.plant@abdn.ac.uk

Acknowledgments
Thanks to Joe Morrison, Gerry Hough, Paula Sweeney, and Carrie
Jenkins for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

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