Philosophy for the unwashed masses

I have been asked (I think) to weigh in on Julian Sanchez's contention that it is impossible to write about philosophy in such a way that one can communicate it to a lay audience. (I am a graduate student in philosophy (ABD), teach undergraduate philosophy at a large state university, and one of my areas of specialization is philosophy of mind.) My response is: it is and it isn't.

There are many, many frustrating things about discussing philosophy with lay people. The worst is their tendency to dismiss what you do as useless BS without actually having any idea what you do, but that's for another day. The second worst is that most people already have pat answers to some of the major philosophical questions (is there free will, is the mind identical to the brain, what rights do people have and in virtue of what do they have them, etc), and really resent being told why philosophers generally think their pet view is not workable, or at least faces many problems. They are dismayed that you have almost always heard their argument before (if not from a philosopher, then from one of the many many students to whom you have taught a lower-level philosophy class), and seem to think if you critique their view, you must think they are stupid. It is hard to break the professional habit, which is completely socially acceptable among philosophers, of immediately pointing out how a certain philosophical gambit faces a problem. They think that most people should just be able to have a philosophical view on anything.

The fact is that working in any area is going to give you an expertise that lay people cannot have. I read a lot of popular stuff about medicine, but I will never be able to claim the knowledge Dan has, both from going to medical school and simply dealing with patients every day. This is true for physics, car mechanics, contracting, or pretty much any skilled job. I have spent at least a couple of hours a day (often more) most days for the last 7 years reading and writing philosophy. Most people, even extremely intelligent and well-educated people, have not. I will have been much more exposed to the thinking of philosophers on most topics, and much more practiced in that way of thinking. There is no substitute for that (and, no, we don't think people are stupid for not already knowing what the problems are that face a certain philosophical view). There is a reason that the vast, vast majority philosophy that is taken seriously is produced not by the large number of lay people writing about philosophical topics, but by professional philosophers - we have had the time to read through the literature and the practice at crafting arguments that philosophers find convincing. We also interact every day at work with people who are also well-versed on stuff and who challenge the views we might be forming. This adds up.

That said, we also teach philosophy to undergraduates. Most undergraduates have zero interest in actually becoming a philosopher, so for the lower-level classes, you are teaching lay people. And of course you can teach them some of the major questions, some of the major replies to those questions, and a few problems facing each of those replies. It is helpful to be able to actually converse with them to make this happen, but there are really good summations of philosophy that are in textbooks. What undergraduates learn is very different than what gets discussed with graduate student or at professional conferences, of course, but it's not content-less.

Sanchez says: "Someone reading about an important finding in biology or physics understands full well that what they’re getting is the upshot of a complicated process of math-laden theorizing and experiment someone else has done. Summarizing a philosophical argument, by contrast, basically looks like doing philosophy." Not so. Almost every philosophy talk or article begins with a summary of the previous work on your question. You try to introduce the question to philosophers who are not already familiar with the topic. That's usually not the"doing philosophy" part, which can go into much more detail.

So, to sum up, you cannot explain a philosophical issue in the detail that it is understood by a philosopher. Does that mean lay people should forswear all philosophical opinions? Of course not, but it would be lovely if they could be a bit more cautious about it, and willing to learn about it (as I'm sure Dan wishes lay people would be with medicine). You can certainly do a good-enough explanation that would enlighten most people and give them the upshot. Most philosophical pop writing is absolutely crap. But I don't think it's inherently crap, and not all of it is crap. I think it is usually crap when it is because of either the writer biting off more than she can chew (free will cannot be explained in 2000 words), or from being philosophically ill-informed. I would love to sum philosophy up for lay people, actually, and hope to do so more in the future.