It’s a bit surprising to see Timothy Williamson (2024, Philosophia) start his rather critical review of Philip Kitcher’s (2023) What’s the Use of Philosophy? with a reference to Aristoxenus’ account of an anecdote often repeated by Aristotle about Plato’s lecture on the good. For Aristoxenus’ (second hand) report of Plato’s lecture is an obsession for those interested in Plato’s purported esoteric doctrines. Aristoxenus own purported reason for reporting Aristotle’s anecdote is to teach the art of clear presenting. According to Aristoxenus’ report this involves (inter alia) clearly stating (as we teach our students in analytic philosophy) one’s thesis and main argument at the start of the lecture.
Be that as it may, while in the past Liam Kofi Bright (see here) and I (recall) have mused on Williamson’s own fondness for oblique speech, Williamson himself uses Aristoxenus’ account for a different, more polemical aim:
According to Philip Kitcher in his latest book, What’s the Use of Philosophy?, much of contemporary analytic philosophy has lost its audience, because it offers them nothing useful, though he makes no analogy to Plato (43, 58; all page references to the book). Kitcher’s sympathies are with the fleeing audience. He wants philosophy to change, to win them back. [HT: Christoph Schuringa]
After noting that “contemptuous dismissal of analytic philosophy,” itself has a long history (and providing some examples of the genre), Williamson goes on to argue that if one pays closer attention to analytic philosophy than Kitcher has done then, if one sticks around for the details, “contemporary analytic philosophy has plenty to offer other disciplines, as its track record of inter-disciplinary interaction shows.”
In fact, lurking in Williamson’s general stance is agreement with Kitcher that a species of consequentialism is the right way to evaluate philosophy. (This is not a new theme for Williamson.) Rather where Williamson disagrees with Kitcher is that “pieces of research will eventually have practical utility is much harder than it looks” and so he offers a plea for what used to be called ‘pure research;' he then offers several examples of, perhaps, surprising applicability of analytic philosophy. (He has done that before (here).) In fact, such consequentialist self-understanding about the long term fruits or ‘works’ of analytic philosophy is Carnap’s legacy to the discipline (see Howard’s Stein’s (1992): p. 279 with a report of an exchange between Carnap and Quine).
As an historiographic-methodological aside: in analytic philosophy, we have excessive fondness for conveying important methodological and boundary-policing truths through such biographical anecdotes that often rest on fallible memory that reflects an episode through the personal or professional self-interest of the conveyor of the anecdote. This keeps going on (and I have just contributed to it) despite the fact that the epistemology of testimony is a flourishing sub-discipline.
Be that as it may, I haven’t read Kitcher’s book, so don’t expect a stirring polemical defense of his stance. (I am not myself inclined to his version of pragmatism.) Despite my history of polemics many of Williamson’s arguments strike me as quite sensible.* But one paragraph gave me unease in light of his criticisms of Kitcher. Here’s Williamson’s paragraph and then I explain my unease:
Another example is mereology, the branch of analytic metaphysics which studies the abstract structure of relations between parts and wholes. Peter Simons, the author of a standard monograph on mereology (Simons, 1987), was also employed part-time by engineering companies such as Lockheed Martin and Rolls Royce as a consultant on ontology (McCarthy, 2006). His work in mereology turned out to be relevant to the classification of engineering components, which for practical reasons needs to be as perspicuous as possible. Consequently, other work in analytic metaphysics which bears on principles of mereology may also turn out to be practically relevant.
Now let’s stipulate that the principles of mereology are or may turn out to be practically relevant.
I found it difficult to find a version of McCarthy, 2006 (despite the link in Williamson’s text). But while looking for it, I found a (2011) piece in Philosophy of Engineering Volume 2 by Peter Simons, “Ontology in engineering,” where he writes about his work for the “The United States Air Force Manufacturing and Technology Division” at “Ontek Corporation,” for which he “was working at the time, to look into how to rectify or at least partly alleviate the multiple bill of materials problem.”
Now, it’s possible that in the works that Williamson read about Simons’ contributions to engineering companies the fact that this also involves contributing to defense technology is left somewhat opaque. (In what follows, I am assuming that we’re dealing with so-called dual-use (civilian and defense) technology.) But it was the presence of Lockheed Martin in the quoted passage that gave me pause.
For, if one is eager, in consequentialist fashion, to contribute to “facilitating the moral progress of humanity” and wishes to advocate for more relative efforts devoted to it within professional philosophy as Kitcher is reported by Williamson then one will treat a proud response that praises professional philosophy’s contribution to and uptake by the military-industrial complex as revealing a tin ear.**
In particular, Williamson treats the following question by Kitcher as merely “rhetorical:”
Should societies grant blanket permission to people who, in at least some instances, are privileged in the level of support they enjoy, to pursue any venture that arouses their intellectual curiosity, without any responsibility to account for the benefits they take it to deliver?
In his response Williamson focuses on “practical applications” and practical relevance. But that slides over the “responsibility” for those deliverables that Kitcher is said to advocate. That is to say, I understand Williamson as advocating for a position in which analytic philosophers proudly provide intellectual technologies to other disciplines and to society (in the short and long term) without wishing to be held responsible for or held accountable by society for the nature and social consequences of the uptake of these technologies.+
*The exception is his judgment that Ernest Gellner’s Words and Things reflects a “crude attack on linguistic philosophy.” About that some other time more.
**This is not a criticism of Simons because I am unsure what his own views about professional philosophy’s purpose is.
+I actually think that in The Philosophy of Philosophy, Williamson himself recognizes that this is a legitimate concern (recall).
I'm not a huge fan of the military-industrial complex. But I'd assent to the implicit judgement that, on the whole, the US Air Force has been a source of net benefits to humanity, relative to the alternative that its opponents, such as the Luftwaffe and the Soviet Air Force, had prevailed.
So, I don't think a failure to interrogate this point is a decisive argument against a consequentialist view of the role of philosophy, and academic inquiry in general.