Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men.
– John Dewey
Think of organic chemistry; I recognize its importance, but I am not curious about it, nor do I see why the layman should care about much of what concerns me in philosophy.
– W.V.O. Quine
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 data to develop a cartography 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.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this point.
Analogously, Meagher and Martin found in their examination of mathematics REF cases that software distribution was an emerging method for mathematicians to distribute their work more broadly (Meagher and Martin 2017).
References
Abreu, Maria, Vadim Grinevich, Alan Hughes, and Michael Kitson. 2009. Knowledge Exchange between Academics and the Business, Public and Third Sectors. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, Centre for Business Research.
Allen, Vanessa. 2009. I will give £1m to charity, says Oxford don on £33,000 salary. The Daily Mail, 16 November.
Bate, Jonathan (ed.). 2011. The public value of the humanities. London: Bloomsbury Press.
Belfiore, Eleonora. 2015. ‘Impact’, ‘value’ and ‘bad economics’: Making sense of the problem of value in the arts and humanities. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 14(1): 95–110.
Benneworth, Paul. 2015. Tracing how arts and humanities research translates, circulates and consolidates in society. How have scholars been reacting to diverse impact and public value agendas? Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 14(1): 45–60.
Bulaitis, Zoe. 2017. Measuring impact in the humanities: Learning from accountability and economics in a contemporary history of cultural value. Palgrave Communications 3, Article number: 7.
Burroughs, M.D. 2018. How to survive a crisis: Reclaiming philosophy as a public practice. Palgrave Communications 4: 106.
Clemens, Elisabeth S., Walter W. Powell, Kris McIlwaine, and Dina Okamoto. 1995. Careers in Print: Books, Journals, and Scholarly Reputations. The American Journal of Sociology 101: 433–494.
Davey, N. 2011. Philosophy and the quest for the unpredictable. In The public value of the humanities, ed. J. Bate, 303–312. London: Bloomsbury Press.
Frodeman, Robert, and Adam Briggle. 2016. Socrates Tenured: The Institutions of 21st-Century Philosophy (Collective Studies in Knowledge and Society). London: Rowman & Littlefield International.
Frodeman, R., A. Briggle and J.B. Holbrook. 2012. Philosophy in the age of neoliberalism. Social Epistemology 26(3–4): 311–330.
Frodeman, Robert. 2017. The Impact Agenda and the Search for a Good Life. Palgrave Communications 3, Article number: 17003.
Greenhalgh, Trisha, and Nick Fahy. 2015. Research impact in the community-based health sciences: An analysis of 162 case studies from the 2014 UK Research Excellence Framework. BMC Medicine 13: 232.
Gulbrandsen, Magnus, and Siri Aanstad. 2015. Is innovation a useful concept for arts and humanities research? Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 14(1): 9–24.
Hazelkorn, Ellen. 2015. Making an impact: New directions for arts and humanities research. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 14: 25–44.
HEFCE. 2011. Assessment framework and guidance on submissions. REF 02: 2011.
Holbrook, J. Britt. 2017. Designing Responsible Research and Innovation as a tool to encourage serendipity could enhance the broader societal impacts of research. Journal of Responsible Innovation, published online December 7, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1080/23299460.2017.1410326.
Hughes, Alan, Michael Kitson, Jocelyn Probert, Anna Bullock, and Isobel Milner. 2011. Hidden Connections: Knowledge Exchange between the Arts and Humanities and the Private. Public and Third Sectors, Report to the Arts & Humanities Research Council, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
McIntyre, L. 2011. Making philosophy matter-or else. The Chronicle Review. https://www.chronicle.com/article/Making-Philosophy-Matter-or/130029.
Meagher, Sharon. 2013. Public Philosophy: Revitalizing Philosophy as a Civic Discipline. PRAXIS-EDU: Report to the Kettering Foundation.
Meagher, Laura R., and Ursula Martin. 2017. Slightly dirty maths: The richly textured mechanisms of impact. Research Evaluation 26(1): 15–27.
Molas-Gallart, Jordi. 2015. Research evaluation and the assessment of public value. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 14(1): 111–126.
Molas-Gallart, Jordi, and Puay Tang. 2011. Tracing ‘productive interactions’ to identify social impacts: An example from the social sciences. Research Evaluation 20(3): 219–226.
Olmos-Peñuela, Julia, Paul Benneworth, and Elena Castro-Martínez. 2015. Are sciences essential and humanities elective? Disentangling competing claims for humanities’ research public value. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 14(1): 61–78.
Olmos-Peñuela, Julia, Jordi Molas-Gallart, and Elena Castro-Martínez. 2013. Informal collaborations between social sciences and humanities researchers and non-academic partners. Science and Public Policy 41: 493–506.
Parkin, Frank. 1986. The Mind and Body Shop. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing.
Reale, Emanuela, Dragana Avramov, Kubra Canhial, Claire Donovan, Ramon Flecha, Poul Holm, Charles Larkin, et al. 2017. A review of literature on evaluating the scientific, social and political impact of social sciences and humanities research. Research Evaluation 27: 298–308.
REF Case Studies, impact.ref.ac.uk/CaseStudies/.
REF FAQs, Research Excellence Frequently Asked Questions, impact.ref.ac.uk/CaseStudies/FAQ.aspx.
Sassower, Raphael. 2018. The Refuge of the Academy: Response to Socrates Tenured. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 48: 63–70.
Smith, Rebecca. 2010. The impact of impact. The Biochemist 32:3, June, 46-48.
Spaapen, Jack, and Leonie Van Drooge. 2011. Introducing ‘productive interactions’ in social impact assessment. Research Evaluation 20(3): 211–218.
Watermeyer, Richard. 2014. Issues in the articulation of ‘impact’: The responses of UK academics to ‘impact’ as a new measure of research assessment. Studies in Higher Education 39: 359–377.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hicks, D., Holbrook, J.B. A Cartography of Philosophy’s Engagement with Society. Minerva 58, 25–45 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-019-09384-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-019-09384-3