A Cartography of Philosophy’s Engagement with Society

Abstract

Should philosophy help address the problems of non-philosophers or should it be something isolated both from other disciplines and from the lay public? This question became more than academic for philosophers working in UK universities with the introduction of societal impact assessment in the national research evaluation exercise, the REF. Every university department put together a submission describing its broader impact in case narratives, and these were graded. Philosophers were required to participate.The resulting narratives are publicly available and provide a unique resource permitting a more comprehensive, empirically based consideration of philosophy's influence outside the academy than has hitherto been possible. This paper takes advantage of this to develop a taxonomy of the ways in which philosophers engage society in their work. We identify five approaches: dissemination, engagement, provocations, living philosophy, and philosophy of X. We compare these along the six dimensions proposed by Frodeman and Briggle to characterize the ideal field philosopher. We conclude that there are multiple ways of being a field philosopher, which vary in their emphasis. This pluralism bodes well for the expansion of philosophy's societal influence, since there are routes available to suit different preferences.The STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and math) can make arguments concerning their contributions to health care, technological advance, economic growth and the like. But this isn't the case with philosophy and the humanities. (22) Soon enough, they warn, society will come to the philosophers and ask us to account for our activities. What, pray tell, is the value of philosophy? This question has long been an uncomfortable one. A 1986 satirical British novel about the commercialization of universities focuses on the philosophy department, presumably because philosophy is the field of which it is most difficult to envisage commercialization. The fictional Vice Chancellor took the position that:Philosophy has got to earn its keep, just like any other subject. The days of the ivory tower were over long ago. It's not all that difficult to adjust to the real world. Your colleagues in other departments have shown what can be done with a bit of ingenuity. (Parkin 1986, p. 17) In response, the philosophy dean opened the "Mind and Body Shop" in the red light district.This debate, such as it is, has become more than academic for philosophers working in UK universities. UK universities are subject to periodic national evaluations of research quality, which for the first time in 2014 incorporated assessment of the broader societal impact of research. This exercise, the Research Excellence Framework (REF), helps allocate core university funding. Every university department puts together a submission describing its efforts, and these are reviewed by disciplinary panels that award a grade. Case study narratives were developed to support assessment of broader societal impacts.

Seeing impact: genres referencing journal articles

“…The field facing perhaps the most difficult challenge in establishing societal impact was philosophy. Examining the publicly available REF cases in philosophy revealed that philosophers do have a variety of ways to engage the public including: public dissemination, issuing provocations, exploring the philosophy of everyday items such as wine or information technology, or engaging with people such as prisoners, teachers, the court system, or doctors and helping them address their problems Holbrook, 2020). Examining the references supporting the impact statements in these cases reveals that each case touched multiple genres, and the genres involved were highly heterogeneous.…”

The public relevance of philosophy

“…Under different names such as 'public philosophy,' 'field philosophy,' '(socially) engaged philosophy of science' and 'socially responsible philosophy of science,' philosophers are increasingly trying to have a direct impact with their work (see, among many others, Brister & Frodeman 2020;Cartieri & Potochnik 2014;Fehr & Plaisance 2010;Frodeman & Briggle 2016;Frodeman 2017;Plaisance & Elliott 2020). This has resulted in various organizations devoted to this aim, as well as a range of strategies, guidelines and interesting case studies that can help philosophers hoping to have an impact with their work (Hicks & Holbrook 2020;Nguyen 2019).…”

What Is the Research Impact of (The Ideal Of) Scientific Truth?

“…Most of research on impact focuses on the pragmatics of working with it in order to further the impact agenda. Such research ponders everything from: how to utilise impact for academic career advancement (e.g., Reed, 2018), improve co-production of knowledge (e.g., McCabe et al, 2021), streamline evaluation of research proposals (e.g., Allbutt & Irvine 2019), better promote their own discipline (e.g., Jones et al, 2021) or shape research agendas to be more impactful (e.g., Hicks & Holbrook, 2020), to only mention a few. Even when critical of the impact agenda, it is mostly parochial: in terms of the ability to accurately assess impact (e.g., Lauronen, 2020), questioning of what this does in terms of research ethics (e.g., Macfarlane, 2019), how impact claims differ epistemologically between science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects, and social sciences and humanities research (e.g., Bonaccorsi et al, 2021) or how the writing of case studies changes the relationship of researchers' to their research (e.g., Wróblewska, 2021).…”