What Is Philosophy for?

"Rebecca Buxton: Our third choice is Mary Midgley’s What is Philosophy For? Mary Midgley was a philosopher at the University of Newcastle who wrote on a wide range of topics: animal ethics, philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, moral philosophy. She was one of the philosophers who studied ‘Greats’ at Oxford during the Second World War , with the other members of what’s come to be known as the ‘Oxford four’: Midgley, Iris Murdoch , Philippa Foot, and Elizabeth Anscombe. Mary Warnock was also there at the same time, but a few years ahead of them. This was a really interesting time for women studying philosophy at Oxford because so many men were away. The men that were left were elderly professors or conscientious objectors and so Midgley, Murdoch, Foot and Anscombe were left with slightly more old-school philosophy professors who were interested in Plato and Aristotle and a traditional form of the history of philosophy. And it seems that this really influenced all of their work. Think of Iris Murdoch’ s view of of ethics in The Sovereignty of Good , and her book, The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists. There was this big influence on all four of them and they all stayed friends throughout their lives. Mary was the last one left and she sadly died about a month after What is Philosophy for? was published. “She thought philosophy should be reaching out and talking about how people ought to live their lives.” Midgley had a really unorthodox career in that she only really started publishing articles and books in her 50s when she went back to Newcastle as a lecturer in philosophy after doing other jobs during the war and then taking time off to have children. In a way, that experience comes out in all her books, including the one we’ve chosen. She always wanted general readers to be able to understand exactly what she was talking about. She was very against the kind of academic philosophy—and philosophy more generally—that was insular and overly specialist. Instead, she thought philosophy should be reaching out and talking about how people ought to live their lives. This book is her last word on that topic, in some ways. It also links to her rejection of materialism, which she’s written several books about. This book is very clearly written, for people who don’t really know very much about it, or for a general reader who hasn’t read her other books. This one is a good place to start. I think that’s fair. She was very democratic in that way. She didn’t really care about whether or not she had the best argument. She just wanted to get to the right answer. I think in lots of ways philosophy has strayed away from that, especially academic philosophy. I’m in the refugee studies department here at Oxford, but I work on political theory and as far as I can tell there’s quite a big pushback against that kind of over-argumentative philosophy now. Everybody seems to be genuinely trying to expand what we’re talking about. But because of the academic job market and what you need to do in order to succeed as a philosopher, it’s incredibly difficult not to just pump out these articles that talk about one tiny thing over and over again. Midgley didn’t like that kind of thing and I don’t particularly like doing it. She was very critical of it and it comes across in the book. Lisa Whiting: Definitely, and it links to the title of Midgley’s book. The purpose of philosophy shouldn’t be ego. It’s not about using philosophy to demonstrate our own intelligence. When we did our research around women in philosophy, there was a study that asked academics in different professions how important it was to be a genius to succeed in their discipline. Philosophy was one of the highest. It’s an interesting question, the extent that may be related to philosophy being a more male-dominated discipline, because physics was another that scored highly. I do think asking this question of why we do philosophy is important. One purpose is to deconstruct arguments as far as it can go. The challenge is when that is undertaken in a very aggressive atmosphere, you are likely to fall into a trap of determining a certain type of person who thrives in that environment. Clearly this isn’t directly related to gender, but it’s probably going to have an impact on the kind of people that are attracted to philosophy as a subject if there is only a narrow conception of what “good” philosophy is. I also think Midgley’s work is particularly relevant for this moment in time. Coronavirus has meant we’re living in a time where science is particularly important. We’re very aware of scientific analysis and the prominence of scientists within our public life and clearly this is important. But Midgley’s book is also good at articulating that science is one lens through which to see the world. We’re also living through a time when ethics and philosophy are particularly important because we’re wrestling with questions about competing principles—between privacy, security, collective action and rights. It’s a timely reminder that philosophy has a unique contribution to make to these kinds of crises and the challenges that can arise when we assume science can provide us with all the answers to these questions."