jsp Lessons from America’s Public Philosopher Eric Thomas Weber university of mississippi abstract: This article argues for a definition of public philosophy inspired by John Dewey’s understanding of the “supreme intellectual obligation.” The first section examines five strong reasons why more public philosophy is needed and why the growing movement in public philosophy should be encouraged. The second section begins with a review of common understandings of public philosophy as well as some initial challenges that call for widening our conception of the practice. Then, it applies Dewey’s argument in “The Supreme Intellectual Obligation” to public philosophy, which must not be seen simply as a one-way street from intellectuals to the masses but, rather, as the task of fostering the scientific attitude and intellectual habits of mind in all citizens. keywords: public philosophy, John Dewey, intellectual, obligation, science In the last decade there has been a resurgence of interest and practice in public philosophy. In the wake of the Great Recession, frustrating health care town hall meetings, and the shutdown of the federal government, there is great need for a return to civil and insightful debate. Philosophers can help and are writing increasingly for general audiences. Writers, public figures, and general readers could all benefit from the guidance and example of a great public philosopher. Those who champion public philosophy can find inspiration and lessons in John Dewey’s work. Dewey is well known as one of America’s greatest public philosophers. In this essay, I highlight key lessons journal of speculative philosophy, vol. 29, no. 1, 2015 Copyright © 2015 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA lessons from america’s public philosopher 119 we can learn from his example to understand and appreciate some of the central and necessary features of good public philosophy. In the context of great varieties of conceptions of public philosophy, I argue that it can best be understood as the application of what Dewey called the “supreme intellectual obligation” to the kinds of activities in which philosophers and public intellectuals can engage. In what follows, I begin with a brief look at the kinds of problems that prompt a return to Dewey’s example for guidance toward richer and more civil debate. Next, I present a number of varied understandings of public philosophy, which I sum up and then distill. Finally, I show how Dewey’s outlook on the greatest obligation for intellectuals can offer helpful insights into the nature of public philosophy. I. Problem There are many reasons to think that the growth of public philosophy is vital today. I will focus on just five of them: ignorance, incivility, polarization, irrelevance, and negligence. I.A. Ignorance The Great Recession of 2007 and 2008 was a frightening time in which people panicked and struggled to understand the cause of the decline. Given the results of economic growth for many years under a process of expanded liberalization of markets, including the financial and housing industries, people discounted prophets of doom and gloom because the country was getting richer. Anecdotally, I remember family members telling me many years ago that most investments are unstable but land and property are not: buying a house is a secure and wise investment. The unexamined ideologies that led to radically insecure financial mechanisms inflated people’s sense of security about the stability of home loans. One example was the credit default swap, which essentially was insurance on portfolios of loans that investors could buy from banks to free up capital for further loans. Given the insurance, people thought that they were protected against the risk in lower-graded portfolios. Many more loans were generated when banks were enabled to make riskier loans. Critics on the Left rightly chastise loans for “McMansions”—purchased with enormous home loans 120 eric thomas weber that even relatively wealthy people would not have been granted because the loans were higher risk. Critics on the Right point the finger at governmentsponsored enterprises, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which helped less advantaged citizens get into home ownership despite the increased risk in such loans. All around, people took advantage of deregulation to issue more loans than regulated financial markets used to be able to offer. The result included a startling admission by Alan Greenspan, champion of deregulation, who said that “those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief” over the self-destructive behavior of the financial industry.1 It also yielded a call from Ben Bernanke, who said that what we need for our economy today is more philosophy.2 Similar concerns arose concerning schools of business around the country, which have been blamed for failing to educate their students in ethics.3 Leaders of the financial world, in the private sector as well as the public sector, and of business schools are all calling for greater wisdom and education in ethics. I.B. Incivility The United States has been suffering from deep incivility. In 2010, billboards featured Barack Obama as a Nazi.4 MoveOn.org published an absurd advertisement asking: “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?”5 The effort to foster meaningful discourse about health care in the 2010 town hall meetings was a total failure.6 The Affordable Care Act was among the most substantial policy initiatives that Congress and President Obama have addressed, yet discourse in the time of its development was at a troubling low.7 Awareness and observation of the virtues that make up civility enable wiser and more humane democratic leadership. Philosophers can clarify the nature and demands of civility, call people to practice it, and exemplify it in their own contributions to public discourse. I.C. Polarization When it comes to political polarization in the United States, it is certainly true that there have been no golden periods of harmony. Nevertheless, a radical polarization has accompanied the decline in civility, which is evident in terms of how much Americans are willing to risk to oppose one another. lessons from america’s public philosopher 121 Even after the United States had already suffered the first-ever downgrade in the nation’s credit rating,8 Americans were so polarized that in 2013 they let the U.S. government miss a budgetary deadline, yielding a shutdown of the federal government.9 The shutdown was a risk not only for Americans, of course, but for the world as well.10 Among the tools philosophers bring to public discourse is the ability to recognize assumptions and to analyze beliefs, claims, and inconsistencies. In addition, when we consider the implications of people’s positions and beliefs, we can often locate underlying shared values, even with regard to issues as polarizing as abortion.11 When public intellectuals help people to see common values shared across opposed positions, it becomes easier to see each other as reasonable and to identify resolutions to conflict, to moderate differences. I.D. Irrelevance In “The Supreme Intellectual Obligation,” Dewey notes that “a certain degree of specialization is a necessity of scientific advance,” but “with every increase of specialization, remoteness from common and public affairs also increases.”12 The danger in specialization is that the increase of remoteness can get in the way of including the greater public in inquiry. It also makes it less likely that scholars will succeed in disseminating lessons learned from their research. Still more troubling is the potential for losing sight of the real problems people face in life and in the public sphere, rendering scholarship and scientific study irrelevant to people beyond the small circles who debate each other in their discipline’s unique foreign language. Dewey believed that there were greater dangers to avoid, which I will explain in considering the nature and value of public philosophy. What we can learn so far from Dewey’s essay is the general danger of irrelevance. In Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline, jurist and university professor Richard Posner argues that the academy’s reward structure motivates increased specialization and consequent remoteness.13 This force has been bolstered by the philosophical outlook that says “engaged” or “applied” philosophy is a corruption of the discipline—that true philosophy is abstracted from the murkiness and biases of real life.14 Fortunately there are exceptions even in “mainstream” philosophical circles, such as in Princeton University Press’s creation of the influential journal Philosophy and Public Affairs or in the work of scholars such as Elizabeth Anderson and 122 eric thomas weber Martha Nussbaum.15 Despite some prominent exceptions, there is cause to worry about the very common irrelevance of much academic philosophy to social life, which has been called “deeply troubling” even among those who practice mainstream analytic philosophy—from which camp we often hear criticisms of engaged or public philosophy.16 Famed physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson reviewed a philosophical book about existence in 2012 and was startled by its remoteness. He sharply asked, “When did philosophy lose its bite?”17 Other philosophical traditions are not without critics of practical, applied, or public philosophy, such as Continental philosophy. A Continental philosopher I know once insisted that philosophy must not be applied or practical or else it is not philosophy. Among the sources he was studying was Edmund Husserl’s The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology.18 Husserl at least thought that he was addressing a crisis, something important. Straw man fallacies are common in charges against public philosophers nonetheless. Critics unfairly say that public philosophers see truth as a matter of what is expedient or in one’s private interest, like those in denial of evolutionary or climate science. The important point for appreciating public philosophy is that remoteness is not only a consequence of specialization. It sometimes comes to be seen as a virtue, as a sign that one is serious about philosophy. A return to public philosophy, if not for all, for many more philosophers, could work to alleviate or undo the remoteness of scholarship, to invite the public into conversations about topics that matter and to offer the benefits of philosophical thinking for refining public discourse. I.E. Negligence I have argued elsewhere that it may not be necessary for all philosophers to think of themselves as public philosophers, at least with regard to common conceptions of the idea. For a society needs police officers, but it does not need all citizens to serve in that capacity.19 A longtime champion of public philosophy in the American philosophical tradition, John Lachs has offered reasons to raise expectations for philosophers with regard to public engagement. This does not mean that all philosophers need to write for newspapers or to deliver radio addresses. Public philosophy can take many forms, such as in hosted public symposia and programs that bring philosophy to secondary schools and to prisons, among other activities. lessons from america’s public philosopher 123 If it is true that not all philosophers need to be publicly engaged thinkers, it is still the case that many more ought to do so and to be encouraged in that work. There are two reasons why, according to Lachs. The first reason is that scholars in university settings enjoy a special privilege, as do some other fortunate writers and thinkers in the field of journalism or in the think tank world. We are enormously lucky to have access to rich resources in terms of research databases, libraries, colleagues, and sometimes travel funds to go meet with people who can help us to refine our ideas. We have, therefore, remarkable opportunities to contribute to public intellectual leadership that are largely unparalleled. The first reason more philosophers ought to do as Dewey did, then, is that unless more do so, many opportunities for moral and social progress will be missed. Not engaging in public philosophy has what economists call an opportunity cost—the loss of benefit in exchange for what we choose to do. Lachs adds a further dimension to the point in his second argument. Scholars not only have opportunities to contribute to intellectual leadership—they have an obligation to do it. The opportunity cost involved when scholars choose remoteness is felt not only by themselves but by the wider public. Public discourse is weaker than it could be and more poorly informed. Always hoping that incentives will work better than regulation, Lachs concedes that “if encouraging intellectuals to engage in public debate does not work, we may have to make it mandatory. As part of the job description of thinkers, writers and scientists, such participation would become a matter of habit. To get things going, we might have to impose the obligation that each intellectual undertake two or three critical sallies a year.”20 To scholars set firmly in the habits of universities as they now function, the changes Lachs proposes may seem radical. At the same time, the profession of law places analogous demands on attorneys, who must devote a certain portion of their yearly work to pro bono cases. Noam Chomsky once presented arguments that resonate with Lachs’s view. In 1968, Chomsky participated on an American Philosophical Association panel, “Philosophers and Public Philosophy,” presenting a paper that was later published in Ethics. Chomsky writes that philosophers . . . may be in a somewhat more fortunate position [than many professionals]. There is no profession that can claim with greater authenticity that its concern is the intellectual culture of the society or that it possesses the tools for the analysis of ideology and 124 eric thomas weber the critique of social knowledge and its use. If it is correct to regard the American and world crisis as in part a cultural one, then philosophical analysis may have a definite contribution to make. . . . . . . To restore the integrity of intellectual life and cultural values is the most urgent, most crucial task that faces the universities and the professions. Philosophers might take the lead in this effort. If they do not, then they too will have betrayed a responsibility that should be theirs.21 Chomsky and Lachs agree that scholars bear a profound obligation to contribute to the intellectual guidance of public culture. Failing to fulfill that obligation both leaves potential unfulfilled and represents a form of negligence of one’s intellectual duty. II. What Is Public Philosophy? If the problems described so far are serious concerns for the public or for scholars and thinkers, then it is important to determine what we mean when we say that there is a need for more public philosophy. First I will present some of the common conceptions available, and then I will show how Dewey’s arguement about the “supreme intellectual obligation” can help to refine and enrich our understanding of public philosophy. II.A. Various Conceptions of Public Philosophy A look at a few of the central ways in which public philosophy has been understood will help to situate Dewey’s useful refinement of the idea. The first sense of public philosophy to note is what Walter Lippmann meant when he used the term in his book The Public Philosophy.22 Lippmann worried about the dangers of excessive selfishness and total faith in market forces. He was not arguing against the importance of markets but, instead, that there are needs that markets and narrowly self-interested action do not fill. For a flourishing society, democracies need a public philosophy. He meant by the term a set of social beliefs about citizens’ interdependency, about how and why they ought to care for each other’s well-being. Lippmann believed in the potential for people to be convinced about the public interest and united in support of it. In this sense, what Lippmann lessons from america’s public philosopher 125 meant was akin to what we might mean by a “way of thinking” focused on the public interest. This sense of public philosophy is less common today than the sense of the term that refers to an activity of philosophy, which the remaining definitions address. While Richard Posner writes especially about public intellectuals, a broader group than public philosophers, he argues sympathetically with those who believe that there has been a decline of public philosophy or an increase in scholars’ remoteness. His understanding of the nature of a public intellectual is useful for considering the meaning of public philosopher. After much exposition and consideration, Posner concludes as follows: To summarize, a public intellectual expresses himself in a way that is accessible to the public, and the focus of his expression is on matters of general public concern of (or inflected by) a political or ideological cast. Public intellectuals may or may not be affiliated with universities. They may be full-time or part-time academics; they may be journalists or publishers; they may be writers or artists; they may be politicians or officials; they may work for think tanks; they may hold down “ordinary” jobs. Most often they either comment on current controversies or offer general reflections on the direction or health of society.23 What is missing from Posner’s definition concerns the contribution that philosophy would or could make to the efforts of such a public intellectual, who, I would add, might be male, female, or transgender. Philosophy can do many things, and so an exhaustive list is not my intention. We can note for now some key areas of strength for philosophy, however, such as in offering (a) clarity of statement and argument; (b) analysis of complexities and logic; (c) understanding of syntheses and patterns of ideas; (d) exposition of implications, assumptions, and inconsistencies in ideas; (e) assessment of moral agents, actions, stakes, and concepts; and (f) theoretical evaluation of economic, political, or other ideologies. Posner is certainly right that accessibility of communication for the public is important, though it is a term that needs unpacking as well. Accessibility might refer to the avoidance of jargon in one’s expression. It also has to do with the avenues one uses to communicate. If all of one’s writings for public audiences are found in hard-to-access academic journals, then it will fall on others’ work to render one’s philosophy accessible. In that sense, then, a “remote” or abstract philosopher may be said to be in a chain 126 eric thomas weber of public philosophical contributions, particularly if his or her work has value for addressing public concerns. At the 2014 American Philosophies Forum, John Stuhr pointed out to me that venue and location are not the only kinds of distance that sometimes can be bridged to render philosophy “public.” He explained that what may not appear to be public philosophy today can come to be of great importance to public debates in the future. Just as some of Einstein’s theories were conceivably testable long before they were actually testable, some philosophical ideas might appear to be fantasy today but may become far closer to the mainstream in time. Ideas about homosexual marriage may have seemed to be merely hypothetical exercises in social theorizing forty years ago, but today they are at the center of debate and controversy. Given these additional complexities concerning the ways, places, and times in which philosophy might be called public, we could add that philosophy that could conceivably be accessible and attentive to matters of public concern should qualify in at least a broad understanding of public philosophy. I suspect that Lachs might argue that some philosophers’ efforts in public philosophy ought to be timely, even if others take a long view. More specifically referring to public philosophy than Posner, Michael Sandel has published a collection of essays under the title Public Philosophy. He introduces the volume by explaining that the essays “find in the political and legal controversies of our day an occasion for philosophy, and they represent an attempt to do philosophy in public—to bring moral and political philosophy to bear on contemporary public discourse.”24 To be sure, Sandel is not trying to offer a definition of public philosophy that captures all of its forms or areas of application. Given that clarification, it is worth noting that public philosophy need not always or only be about moral or political concerns. Philosophers who focus on aesthetics may have invaluable insight for thinking about how certain art ought to be understood, categorized, protected, supported, or otherwise valued. Philosophers of mind might help the wider public to understand the implications that stem from discoveries about communication with comatose patients. Phenomenologists may offer enriching insights about how experiences of various sorts can be best understood or guided, such as in response to developments in the neuroscience of hearing and its role in learning.25 For the most part, Posner’s and Sandel’s conceptions of public philosophy match one of the more common understandings of public lessons from america’s public philosopher 127 philosophy. Jack Weinstein distills elements of this conception in his introduction to a journal issue of essays on public philosophy, defining it as “doing philosophy with general audiences in a non-academic setting.”26 While it may not have been their intent, Posner’s and Sandel’s conceptions of public philosophy can sound elitist or undemocratic, prioritizing experts and thinking of public philosophy as delivered to the masses, rather than engaged with fellow citizens in its activity. In other words, public philosophy as understood so far appears to have a direction, but only one: out from universities or the mouths of privileged experts and into the ears of the public—the “audience.” Former member of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Public Philosophy Sharon Meagher has raised just such criticisms about understandings of public philosophy that are expert driven and unidirectional, from philosopher to an audience. Meagher and a number of philosophers believed that there was a need to found the Public Philosophy Network, for which she and Ellen K. Feder drafted a report, “Practicing Public Philosophy.”27 Meagher and Feder published a related essay that same year titled “The Troubled History of Philosophy and Deliberative Democracy.” In the latter essay, they argue that one of the central premises “of deliberative democracy is that all members of a democracy should be both prepared and invited to participate” in public deliberation.28 Meagher and Feder find fault in the model which sees the philosopher as the expert who simply delivers truth to his or her audience. What is missing from the picture is the fact that there are things to learn from ordinary people. There certainly is more intelligence involved in everyday labor than is typically appreciated.29 In addition, even the expert in medicine has to ask his or her patients how they are feeling, what hurts and where, and so on. Dewey’s famous line that he attributes to Aristotle is that the people know “where the shoe pinches, the troubles they suffer from.”30 In their 2010 report, Meagher and Feder note that at the meeting on which they are reporting participants advocated for three positions that are not mutually exclusive: • Philosophical practice is a public good and should therefore be practiced in and with various publics • Public philosophy is philosophy that has the explicit aim of benefiting public life 128 eric thomas weber • Public philosophy should be liberatory, i.e., it should assist and empower those who are most vulnerable and suffer injustice, particularly through a critical analysis of power structures.31 In this passage, I have emphasized the adjustment that Meagher and Feder report regarding the inclusive processes of “doing philosophy.” Recall that Weinstein refers to “doing philosophy with general audiences.” It may be that Weinstein has an element of Meagher and Feder’s point in mind. At the same time, Meagher and Feder warn that “we must recognize that whether we are communicating to the press or other audiences, that those listening are not passive receivers of information.”32 In 2013, Meagher released a report for the Kettering Foundation, titled “Public Philosophy: Revitalizing Philosophy as a Civic Discipline.”33 In that report, she offers a number of theses about public philosophy. Among them, four of the five add to what has been said so far.34 The first thesis is that public philosophy “should be transformative.” A philosophical gadfly stings the resting horse and, as the metaphor explains, makes the mind race—one of philosophy’s primary transformations. Of course, Meagher would caution that philosophers often need their eyes opened as well, to get their minds racing about matters that people beyond the academy know more intimately than professional scholars do. Meagher’s second thesis asserts that philosophers should not be thought of as “experts.” The idea here is essentially connected to the need for public philosophy to be understood as a two-way communicative street. The third thesis suggests that public philosophy “demands collaborative and interdisciplinary work.” In explaining this thesis, Meagher qualifies that “most public philosophy work demands” collaboration across disciplines.35 This qualification seems necessary, as it is certainly conceivable that other “disciplines” may not be explicitly or directly involved in some good public philosophy. At the same time, Meagher seems right in thinking that philosophers would be missing crucial details about the contexts they address if they fail to consider the insights that scholars, professionals, and experienced persons from other fields and backgrounds have to teach us all about the relevant subject matter. A medical ethics conference would be wise to include persons with a medical degree or a degree or experience in nursing. Hospice workers, attorneys, and clergy may also have valuable insights to offer those aiming to be well informed on their subjects of interest. lessons from america’s public philosopher 129 Meagher next proposes that public philosophers “must be committed to assessing their work and being accountable to their public partners” and should “work to make philosophy more inclusive and representative of various publics.” These fourth and fifth theses especially embody democratic values. The former is another way of making the point raised about interdisciplinarity and collaboration. If we need precedent that philosophers see others as sources of insight, we can look to all of the questions that Socrates asks people such as Euthyphro, Gorgias, and Phaedrus. The Socratic method itself illustrates part of Meagher’s point and part of the democratic ideal in inquiry. Dialogue, interaction, and engagement are vital for philosophy to work and to qualify as “public.” Given the varieties of insights so far developed to understand public philosophy, we can say that it is (a) a form or application of philosophical engagement, be it in writing, dialogue, or other collaboration in which (b) people communicate clearly, while (c) avoiding jargon, (d) being transformative, (e) keeping in mind and being inclusive of underrepresented people, and (d) taking place in venues accessible to (e) relevant publics who are treated as sources of insight as well as (f) persons who can gain from philosophers’ contributions to thinking about (g) matters of present or future public concern. In short, public philosophy is accessible, engaged, and democratically respectful philosophical dialogue about matters relevant to life in and beyond the academy. II.B. The “Supreme Intellectual Obligation” and Public Philosophy Dewey delivered his essay “The Supreme Intellectual Obligation” in 1933 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. That year, the United States experienced the peak of the unemployment rate during the Great Depression, 25 percent. The country was in a panic, and among other targets for criticism were the sciences. A great defender of the sciences, Dewey argues against reactionaries who believed that we needed a return to simpler ways and a rejection of the evils of science. In response, Dewey claims that the supreme intellectual obligation is the task of making use of the sciences and the scientific method in ways that are curative and preventative of harms. To achieve both aims, he continues, would require not only the discovery of technical insights by specialists but also the development of the scientific attitude and habits of mind in the masses of people. He admits his belief that “every opportunity 130 eric thomas weber should . . . be afforded the comparatively small number of selected minds that have both taste and capacity for advanced work in a chosen field of science.”36 But he argues that the supreme intellectual obligation will go unfulfilled if we fail to foster scientific habits of mind in the masses of people as well. Speaking to scientists, Dewey notes that at that point there were “courses in science installed in high schools and colleges. That much of the educational battle has been won.” “But,” he continues, the scientific attitude, the will to use scientific method and the equipment necessary to put the will into effect, is still, speaking for the mass of people, inchoate and unformed. The obligations incumbent upon science cannot be met until its representatives cease to be contented with having a multiplicity of courses in various sciences represented in the schools, and devote even more energy than was spent in getting a place for science in the curriculum to seeing to it that the sciences which are taught are themselves more concerned about creating a certain mental attitude than they are about purveying a fixed body of information, or about preparing a small number of persons for the further specialized pursuit of some particular science.37 Dewey goes on to explain the obligation at issue, writing that the responsibility of science cannot be fulfilled by educational methods that are chiefly concerned with the self-perpetuation of specialized science to the neglect of influencing the much larger number to adopt into the very make-up of their minds those attitudes of open-mindedness, intellectual integrity, observation and interest in testing their opinions and beliefs that are characteristic of the scientific attitude. The problem is of course much broader than the remaking of courses in science which is nevertheless requisite. Every course in every subject should have as its chief end the cultivation of these attitudes of mind. As long as acquisition of items of information, whether they be particular facts or broad generalizations, is the chief concern of instruction, the appropriation of method into the working constitution of personality will continue to come off a bad second. Information is necessary, yes, more than is now usually obtained. lessons from america’s public philosopher 131 But it should not stand as an end in itself. It should be an integral part of the operations of learning that construct the scientific attitude; that are, indeed, a part of that attitude since the scientific inquirer is above all else a continuing and persistent learner.38 In this essay, Dewey highlights what he takes to be the chief intellectual obligation not only for scientists and science educators but for thinkers in every subject. The central intellectual challenge and task for any democratic society is the “cultivation” of the scientific “attitudes of mind.” To appreciate Dewey’s point, it is important to understand that he means by scientific the process and attitudes of intelligent inquiry. Among the criticisms that can be raised against the heavy standardized testing that goes on in public schools today is precisely the challenge that Dewey presents. We may teach young people to read and to test well in math, but are we thereby teaching them the attitudes and habits of intelligent inquiry? Critics would say no. It is also important to appreciate that Dewey was not only concerned with public education in the comments that he delivered in 1933, though he did encourage members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to consider making inroads into elementary education. Such progress is important, he argues, since “the most fundamental attitudes are formed in childhood, many of them in the early years.”39 But he adds that “the theme of adult education is in the air.” Educational institutions can be excellent mechanisms for fostering the attitudes and habits of mind needed for intelligent inquiry, but there are others, such as in the many forms of public philosophy that are engaged in, one example of which can be undertaken through journalism. Dewey writes that there is an immense amount of knowledge available, knowledge economic, historical, psychological, as well as physical. The chief obstacle lies not in lack of the information that might be brought to bear, experimentally, upon our problems. It lies on the one hand in the fact that this knowledge is laid away in cold storage for safekeeping, and on the other hand in the fact that the public is not yet habituated to desire the knowledge nor even to belief in the necessity for it. Hunger is lacking and the material with which to feed it is not accessible. Yet appetite grows with eating. The trouble with much of what is called popularization of knowledge is that it is content with 132 eric thomas weber diffusion of information, in diluted form, merely as information. It needs to be organized and presented in its bearing upon action.40 Especially in this passage we can see Dewey’s insights for appreciating the need for, value of, and tasks before us in public philosophy. Public philosophy cannot only be the development of abstract, remote, or highly technical yet correct information and judgments about what is in the public interest. Such matters are important, but if they are inaccessible to the public, they cannot be put to use. If they are not accessible to the public, they also cannot be informed by or refined through engagement and dialogue with people from other fields or with those whom philosophical ideas are meant to address. But at least as important, Dewey explains, is the need for fostering in all people the habits, abilities, and attitudes of mind that render them interested in and capable of engaging in public philosophical activity together. Given these qualifiers, a piece of the public philosophy puzzle can be identified. If the development of philosophical habits of mind in the masses of people is important for public philosophy, then in the big picture the teaching of philosophy should be understood as a vital component of public philosophy. To be sure, when we consider the present system of higher education, typical activities in philosophy departments are not fulfilling the function Dewey has in mind when they only ensure that students can repeat information about the history of philosophy, such as that Descartes said x or that Hume said y. If, however, teaching is done in such a way that it renders philosophical insights live and reveals their bearing upon action, instilling in students the necessary philosophical habits and attitudes, then it is performing an important public philosophical function. Given this addition and qualification for thinking about public philosophy, the notion that public philosophy must be “beyond the academy” is not entirely right. This is why it is better to say that public philosophy must be engaged within and beyond the academy. Public philosophy can inform pedagogy in higher education, but not there only. The call to bring philosophy to the schools, or to children, is another element of the movement in public philosophy. In these endeavors, the form of public philosophy most typically identified as such is the educative public philosophy that engages adults—the “masses.” This typically means people beyond the academy and often in venues for lessons from america’s public philosopher 133 communication and interaction that reach the multitudes. This generally involves the media, journalism, or open forums and symposia, either in person or online. The vital piece that Dewey adds for understanding public philosophy, I believe, is its aim all along. Given the insight Dewey offers us about science education, but which he thought applied to all subjects, we can say that public philosophy ought to render the insights of philosophy accessible while also cultivating the habits of mind and attitudes of philosophy in ourselves and in the wider public. Public philosophy must stimulate the public’s appetite for philosophy, which comes with eating, as his metaphor explains. Instead of staking a position as Posner’s definition suggests, public philosophers can help varied parties to appreciate each other’s logic and arguments, find common ground, and better understand opposing points of view. Dewey models such contributions in an elegant essay published in the New York Times Magazine, for example, in which he explains the two very different traditions that emerged from liberalism, yielding political positions that are generally opposed.41 Thus, drawing on the lessons of America’s public philosopher, we can say that public philosophy is democratic and accessible engagement that cultivates the public’s philosophical habits of mind regarding matters relevant to action in and beyond educational institutions. notes 1. Edmund L. Andrews, “Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation,” New York Times, October 24, 2008, B1. 2. Brendan Greeley, “Bernanke to Economists: More Philosophy, Please,” BusinessWeek, August 6, 2012, http://businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-06/ bernanke-to-economists-more-philosphy-please. 3. Susan Kinzie, “GWU Overhauls Its Business School, Makes Ethics the Bottom Line,” Washington Post, September 16, 2008, B8. 4. Jennifer Jacobs, “More Fallout from Obama/Hitler Tea Party Billboard,” DesMoinesRegister.com, July 15, 2010, http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/ index.php/2010/07/15/more-fallout-from-obamahitler-tea-party-billboard/. 5. Charles Hurt and Carl Campanile, “Barack Blasts MoveOn—Hits Lefty Pals over ‘General Betray Us,’” New York Post, July 1, 2008, LCF6. 6. Brad Norington, “Obama Faces Rowdy Protests over Health,” Australian, August 12, 2009, W9. 7. Eric Thomas Weber, “Choosing Civility: The Lemonade Lesson,” Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Miss.), September 19, 2010, 8–9B. 134 eric thomas weber 8. Zachary Goldfarb, “S&P Downgrades U.S. Credit Rating for First Time,” Washington Post, August 6, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/gIQAqKeIxI_ story.html. 9. Dan Balz, “Shutdown’s Roots Lie in Deeply Embedded Divisions in America’s Politics,” Washington Post, October 6, 2013, A1. 10. Szu Ping Chan and Denise Roland, “US Shutdown ‘Could Be Risk to World Economy,’” Daily Telegraph (London), October 3, 2013, B4. 11. Bertha Alvarez Manninen, Pro-Life, Pro-Choice: Shared Values in the Abortion Debate (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2014). 12. John Dewey, “The Supreme Intellectual Obligation,” Science Education 18, no. 1 (1934): 1–4, in The Later Works of John Dewey, vol. 9, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986), 96–101, at 96. 13. Richard Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 72. 14. Gerald Gaus, “Should Philosophers ‘Apply Ethics’?” Think 3, no. 9 (Spring 2005): 63–68. 15. Elizabeth Anderson, The Imperative of Integration (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013); Martha Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012). 16. Matt Chick and Matthew LaVine, “The Relevance of Analytic Philosophy to Personal, Public, and Democratic Life,” Essays in Philosophy 15 (2014): 138–55, at 138. 17. Freeman Dyson, “What Can You Really Know? A Review of Why Does the World Exist? by Jim Holt,” New York Review of Books 59, no. 17 (November 8, 2012): 18–20, at 20. 18. Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970). 19. Eric Thomas Weber, Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy (London: Continuum/Bloomsbury, 2011), 22, 28–29. 20. John Lachs, A Community of Individuals (New York: Routledge, 2003), 8–9. 21. Noam Chomsky, “Philosophers and Public Philosophy,” Ethics 79, no. 1 (1968): 1–9, at 5, 9. 22. Walter Lippmann, The Public Philosophy: On the Decline and Revival of the Western Society (Boston: Little, Brown, 1955). 23. Posner, Public Intellectuals, 35. 24. Michael Sandel, Public Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 5. 25. Seth S. Horowitz, “The Science and Art of Listening,” New York Times, November 9, 2012, SR10. 26. Jack Russell Weinstein, “Public Philosophy: Introduction,” Essays in Philosophy 15 (2014): 1–4, at 1. 27. Sharon M. Meagher and Ellen K. Feder, “Practicing Public Philosophy: Report from a Meeting Convened in San Francisco on April 2, 2010” (report co-sponsored lessons from america’s public philosopher 135 by the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Public Philosophy and George Mason University’s Center for Global Ethics, May 7, 2010), http:// publicphilosophynetwork.ning.com/page/history-of-the-ppn. 28. Sharon M. Meagher and Ellen K. Feder, “The Troubled History of Philosophy and Deliberative Democracy,” Journal of Public Deliberation 6, no. 1 (2010): article 6, 1–17, at 1. Meagher and Feder draw on Amy Guttmann and Dennis Thompson, Why Deliberative Democracy? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 4–5. 29. Mike Rose, The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker (New York: Penguin Books, 2004). 30. John Dewey, “Democracy and Educational Administration,” in The Later Works of John Dewey, vol. 11, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987), 217–26, at 218. 31. Meagher and Feder, “Practicing Public Philosophy,” 4–5; emphasis added. 32. Ibid., 14–15. 33. Sharon Meagher, “Public Philosophy: Revitalizing Philosophy as a Civic Discipline” (report to the Kettering Foundation, PRAXIS-EDU: Consulting on Public Engagement and Sustainability, January 13, 2013), http:// publicphilosophynetwork.ning.com/page/kettering-report-1. 34. Ibid., 3–4. 35. Ibid., 11. 36. Dewey, “Supreme Intellectual Obligation,” 99. 37. Ibid., 98. 38. Ibid., 99. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid., 100. 41. John Dewey, “A Liberal Speaks Out for Liberalism,” New York Times Magazine, February 23, 1936, 3, 24, in The Later Works of John Dewey, vol. 11, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987), 282–89.