{"id":3516,"date":"2021-11-15T18:49:15","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T18:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/?p=3516"},"modified":"2021-11-15T19:06:17","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T19:06:17","slug":"practicing-safe-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/2021\/11\/15\/practicing-safe-philosophy\/","title":{"rendered":"Practicing Safe Philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"\nIn my last blog I wrote about political correctness. Here I want to reflect on the timidity of philosophers, and how they sacrifice their integrity for the sake of a job. Many years ago I wrote a piece which reflected my personal predicament of having accepted a teaching position at a women’s Catholic college. It is titled, Beware of the Handmaid Scorned<\/a>, 1995. The predicament is that a fundamental problem of philosophy is whether there is a justification for any religious belief. And if one pursues this question too eagerly, one gets fired.\n

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\nIn secular colleges and universities, there are analogous perilous pursuits. Well, we know that in the United States there was a Red Scare<\/a>, with two periods: the First Red Scare (1918-1920)<\/a>, followed by a Second Red Scare (1947-1957), also know as McCartyism<\/a>. These Red Scares led to loss of jobs, imprisonment, and deportations.\n<\/p>

\nIn 1967, Noam Chomsky published an article, “The Responsibility of Intellectuals,”<\/a>, which is “to speak the truth and expose lies” of governments.\n<\/p>

\nBut for a political philosopher there is a more fundamental question: Is any form of a centralized government, i.e., a State, legitimate?\n<\/p>

\nA political philosopher can evade this question by simply doing a sort of literary analysis of some historical political philosopher, and refrain from giving their own considered answer. As an example of this evasion, I came across a video by Tamar Gendler, \nProfessor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, and Chair of the Philosophy Department, Yale University, whose video exemplifies this safe academic approach. Her lecture is titled: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Politics.\n