Today’s critical state of philosophy is examined by considering two of its aspects: the way in which philosophy presently is ever more typically practised and the new challenges it has to face to keep up with the changed scientific, and more generally cultural and social context. The essay outlines some prospects of progress in the light of those which still now can be considered the proper tasks of philosophical inquiry. Such tasks are singled out through an historical survey of the (...) original characters of philosophy and an appraisal of its theoretical motivations. The importance of the history of philosophy and the necessity of achieving a virtuous relation among the various philosophical disciplines are stressed to contrast the dangers of excess specialisation and professionalism. (shrink)

Part of a special issue of Parallax on 'Field Philosophy and other experiments'. In a number of accounts, field philosophy has been described as providing freedom from disciplinary constraints. In this paper, however, I suggest the importance of paying closer attention to the strength of philosophy’s boundary policing and the consequences this might have for those interested in the approach. Discussing field philosophy in terms of disturbance, I highlight some of the difficulties and opportunities it produces. In particular I focus (...) on the labour involved in adopting new methods and working in new sites of enquiry. I suggest that reconstituting the ‘philosopher’ outside of their traditional habitats is no simple task. Still, I argue that field philosophers should lay claim to the boundary policing question ‘how is this philosophy?’ in order to proliferate accounts of what philosophy is and can be, with the hope that the discipline’s future might be turned more strongly towards supporting diversity rather than defending purity. Keywords: field philosophy; feminist philosophy; inclusion; methods; field research. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a philosophical analysis of interdisciplinary scientific activities. I suggest that it is a fruitful approach to view interdisciplinarity in light of the recent literature on scientific representations. For this purpose I develop a meta-representational model in which interdisciplinarity is viewed in part as a process of integrating distinct scientific representational approaches. The analysis suggests that present methods for the evaluation of interdisciplinary projects places too much emphasis non-epistemic aspects of disciplinary integrations while more or less (...) ignoring whether specific interdisciplinary collaborations puts us in a better, or worse, epistemic position. This leads to the conclusion that there are very good reasons for recommending a more cautious, systematic, and stringent approach to the development, evaluation, and execution of interdisciplinary science. (shrink)

This paper argues that challenges that are grand in scope such as "lifelong health and wellbeing", "climate action", or "food security" cannot be addressed through scientific research only. Indeed scientific research could inhibit addressing such challenges if scientific analysis constrains the multiple possible understandings of these challenges into already available scientific categories and concepts without translating between these and everyday concerns. This argument builds on work in philosophy of science and race to postulate a process through which non-scientific notions become (...) part of science. My aim is to make this process available to scrutiny: what I call founding everyday ideas in science is both culturally and epistemologically conditioned. Founding transforms a common idea into one or more scientifically relevant ones, which can be articulated into descriptively thicker and evaluatively deflated terms and enable operationalisation and measurement. The risk of founding however is that it can invisibilise or exclude from realms of scientific scrutiny interpretations that are deemed irrelevant, uninteresting or nonsensical in the domain in question-but which may remain salient for addressing grand-in-scope challenges. The paper considers concepts of "wellbeing" in development economics versus in gerontology to illustrate this process. (shrink)

The academy is widely reported to be going through a period of transformation: not just changes to what is taught, but threats to tenure and internal funding, perhaps balanced by new possibilities for external funding and interdisciplinary projects. This article discusses a recently conducted survey of US and Canadian Philosophy departments, in an effort to understand one discipline’s perspective on and reaction to these changes. The survey found that, for the majority of departments, Philosophy has largely not changed over the (...) last decade in terms of shifts in subfields, tenure and tenure criteria, internal funding and external grant awards. However, a minority of departments are demonstrating potentially transformative possibilities, especially as related to interdisciplinarity. (shrink)

Le projet philosophique puise ses sources dans la volonté de proposer une explication rationnelle des phénomènes naturels et culturels qui constituent le monde dans lequel l’être humain prend place. Il a servi de trame culturelle à l’Occident et amené le déploiement d’appareils conceptuels où l’on distingue théorie et pratique. On doit toutefois reconnaître qu’une philosophie théorique peut avoir une portée pratique et l’inverse, puisque toute pratique suppose un ancrage théorique pour légitimer la connaissance et les systèmes normatifs à partir desquels (...) les explications sont avancées. Cela fait dire à certains que la distinction est désormais surannée et qu’une théorie philosophique réunifiée s’impose. Que l’on soit tenant de la tradition ou des nouvelles approches, la philosophie pratique s’impose désormais comme un passage obligé pour réfléchir les problèmes et articuler de nouvelles théories faisant écho à l’état actuel de notre monde. Le présent ouvrage revient sur la notion de philosophie pratique afin d’en faire voir les différentes acceptions et manières de la mobiliser pour réfléchir à des problèmes actuels. (shrink)

A growing set of Chinese scholars view field philosophy as a new approach toward philosophical research. Field philosophy offers a meta-philosophy, and a methodology, but most importantly an instit...

This collection addresses two different audiences: 1) historians and philosophers of the life sciences reflecting on collaborations across disciplines, especially as regards defining and addressing Grand Challenges; 2) researchers and other stakeholders involved in cross-disciplinary collaborations aimed at tackling Grand Challenges in the life and medical sciences. The essays collected here offer ideas and resources both for the study and for the practice of goal-driven cross-disciplinary research in the life and medical sciences. We organise this introduction in three sections. The (...) first section provides some background and context. The second motivates our take on this topic and then outlines the central ideas of each paper. The third section highlights the specificity and significance of this approach by considering: a) how this collection departs from existing literature on inter- and trans-disciplinarity, b) what is characteristic about this approach, and c) what role this suggests for the history and philosophy of the life sciences in addressing Grand Challenges. (shrink)

Under the influence of natural science, twentieth century philosophy departed from its Socratic heritage and increasingly isolated itself within the discipline. This new disciplinary way of doing p...

Management and organization studies (MOS) scholarship is at a crossroads. The grand challenges (such as the climate emergency) humankind must face today require an improved contribution from all knowledge fields. The number of academics who criticize the lack of influence and social impact of MOS has recently grown. The scientific field structure of MOS is based on its members’ accumulation of symbolic capital. This structure hinders speaking truth to the elite dominating neoliberal society. Our literature review suggested that a deeper (...) interaction between MOS and philosophy could aid in improving the social impact of MOS. Specifically, an attitude by MOS scholars based on parrhesia (παρρησíα, to speak truth to power) could revitalize the field through heterodox approaches and, consequently, allow them to utter sound criticisms of the capitalist system. Parrhesia would lead MOS scholars towards a convergence of ethics and politics. We investigate whether daring to speak inconvenient truths to the powerful (some peers in the field and some individuals and corporations in society) can be a straightforward tool for revitalizing MOS. Boosting a candid philosophy-MOS interaction requires the fulfilment of three objectives: practical dialogue between these fields, reconsideration of the fields’ structures based on symbolic capital, and a post-disciplinary approach to philosophy. That fulfilment implies the delimitation of the MOS-philosophy interaction, a respectful mutual framework, mutual curiosity, and moving from prescriptive theoretical reflection towards more socially useful MOS. Ethical betterment through parrhesia could be the key to surpassing MOS stagnation. (shrink)

This article focuses on public philosophy, the main approaches to interpreting it, current ways for philosophy to reach the public, and obstacles to this. A major hindrance is that philosophy is an area of professional expertise. This circumstance has both conduced to the development of a large close-knit academic community and enfeebled its already weak communication ties with society and other fields of scientific knowledge. It is argued that, on the one hand, publicness has been immanent in philosophy from the (...) very beginning, and, on the other, philosophy needs a public upgrade and a new experience of a constructive dialogue with society. This new publicness of philosophy may be the way to recovery it. It is also shown that tendency towards greater publicness, which is distinctive of modern academic sciences, is a response to the new economic situation. Sciences are becoming engaged in an info-struggle for the attention of the state and society. This is affecting philosophy as well, although the value and importance of philosophical knowledge have been traditionally recognised and emphasised in culture and by the education system. It is stressed that the idea of recovering philosophy is closely linked to what function the philosopher has in the life of society. The contribution considers various possible types of public philosophers. It is concluded that, contrary to the common belief, society needs not an expert philosopher or a mediator in the field of science but a professional consultant capable of calibrating the thinking routines of people and helping them adopt a rational attitude towards themselves, that is, acquire an ability to think critically, form a conscious judgement of their life, and take responsibility for their decisions. (shrink)