WHAT’S THE USE OF PHILOSOPHY? WHAT’S THE USE OF PHILOSOPHY? Philip Kitcher Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2023 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kitcher, Philip, 1947– author. Title: What’s the use of philosophy? / Philip Kitcher. Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2022040696 (print) | LCCN 2022040697 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197657249 (h/b) | ISBN 9780197657263 (epub) | ISBN 9780197657270 Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy—Introductions. Classification: LCC B103 .K58 2023 (print) | LCC B103 (ebook) | DDC 100—dc23/eng/20220922 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022040696 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022040697 DOI: 10.1093/ oso/ 9780197657249.001.0001 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America To the wonderful graduate students whom I have had the privilege of teaching — and for all the others who once fell in love with philosophy and who would like the relationship to stay that way CONTENTS Preface ix 1. Philosophy Inside Out 1 2. “So . . . Who Is Your Audience?” 26 3. Pathology Report 57 4. The Whole Function of Philosophy 108 5. Letter to Some Young Philosophers 155 Notes 183 References 185 vii PREFACE Occasionally, the question posed in my title is asked as if the ques- tioner eagerly expected an answer. For the most part, however, the speaker’s tone— heavily emphatic on the “use” and the “philoso- phy”— suggests something quite different. That the question is unanswerable. Because, as everybody knows, philosophy is utterly useless. For the past twenty years or so, I have been brooding about the question. The usual dismissive tone is, I believe, readily under- standable. It stems from the remoteness of philosophy from the rest of contemporary culture. Philosophers appear to outsiders as peculiar beings, perhaps highly intelligent but with bizarre tastes in the ways they spend their “work” time. They labor over ques- tions without answering them, spend hours in heated debates about very little (if anything), criticize one another with peculiar, and often distasteful, ferocity. Their employers, mostly colleges and universities, pay them for engaging in their pointless jousts. But even their colleagues, who teach and do research in other aca- demic disciplines, seem to agree with the general judgment that their activities are incomprehensible. During the early years of this century, I became more and more convinced that this worrying attitude was common enough to ix