The New Center, the internet, and philosophy outside of academia
Reading this from @darthbarracuda :
I went traipsing about to find what Brassier was on about. I have next to zero knowledge of speculative realism, having only come across the term in our various conversations. I found a kind of organization which calls itself The New Centre for Research & Practice The first article/sales-pitch that didn't include said title spoke highly of their mission: http://thoughtcatalog.com/daniel-coffeen/2014/10/accelerate-your-thinking-join-the-new-centre-for-research-and-practice/
Clearly the dog in this fight is whether or not spending time on the internet can improve or exercise one's serious philosophical skills. I imagine most of us would disagree with said statement. But I find it an interesting one, all the same. Is this line of thinking just woo for smart people? Is it a replacement for religion? Is it the smorgasbord of stupidity which Brassier claims?
Perhaps these particular blogs are. I couldn't say, because I haven't taken any of their courses. Even more so, it would seem to me that given my position I wouldn't even be able to say, if what Brassier says is true. At least I wouldn't be able to say so in a serious philosophical manner.
But are all online philosophy endeavors non-serious? Or incapable of sincerity? Or fruitless?
I must admit that I share some skepticism with Brassier based off what I've looked at here. It is, perhaps, one of my more prominent fears that I dupe myself. But, all the same, I can't say I know, and I'm also open to trying out new things and seeing where they go. And I certainly disagree that the medium is opposed to serious philosophical debate. There has to be some kind of relationship there, something that binds you together, as with any debate, such as a commitment to sober thought and analysis. And it seems to me that the fora have had some really good moments. Not to say that Brassier's skepticism is unwarranted, given how the internet seems to encourage people to express knee-jerk reactions more than really debate a topic, but I wouldn't say that it's a foregone conclusion.
So, what do you think about "The New Centre...", the blogs associated, and so forth?
From Wikipedia:
Brassier himself, however, does not identify with the speculative realist movement, and, further, debates that there even is such a movement, stating "The 'speculative realist movement' exists only in the imaginations of a group of bloggers promoting an agenda for which I have no sympathy whatsoever: actor-network theory spiced with pan-psychist metaphysics and morsels of process philosophy. I don’t believe the internet is an appropriate medium for serious philosophical debate; nor do I believe it is acceptable to try to concoct a philosophical movement online by using blogs to exploit the misguided enthusiasm of impressionable graduate students. I agree with Deleuze’s remark that ultimately the most basic task of philosophy is to impede stupidity, so I see little philosophical merit in a ‘movement’ whose most signal achievement thus far is to have generated an online orgy of stupidity."
I went traipsing about to find what Brassier was on about. I have next to zero knowledge of speculative realism, having only come across the term in our various conversations. I found a kind of organization which calls itself The New Centre for Research & Practice The first article/sales-pitch that didn't include said title spoke highly of their mission: http://thoughtcatalog.com/daniel-coffeen/2014/10/accelerate-your-thinking-join-the-new-centre-for-research-and-practice/
Clearly the dog in this fight is whether or not spending time on the internet can improve or exercise one's serious philosophical skills. I imagine most of us would disagree with said statement. But I find it an interesting one, all the same. Is this line of thinking just woo for smart people? Is it a replacement for religion? Is it the smorgasbord of stupidity which Brassier claims?
Perhaps these particular blogs are. I couldn't say, because I haven't taken any of their courses. Even more so, it would seem to me that given my position I wouldn't even be able to say, if what Brassier says is true. At least I wouldn't be able to say so in a serious philosophical manner.
But are all online philosophy endeavors non-serious? Or incapable of sincerity? Or fruitless?
I must admit that I share some skepticism with Brassier based off what I've looked at here. It is, perhaps, one of my more prominent fears that I dupe myself. But, all the same, I can't say I know, and I'm also open to trying out new things and seeing where they go. And I certainly disagree that the medium is opposed to serious philosophical debate. There has to be some kind of relationship there, something that binds you together, as with any debate, such as a commitment to sober thought and analysis. And it seems to me that the fora have had some really good moments. Not to say that Brassier's skepticism is unwarranted, given how the internet seems to encourage people to express knee-jerk reactions more than really debate a topic, but I wouldn't say that it's a foregone conclusion.
So, what do you think about "The New Centre...", the blogs associated, and so forth?
Comments (64)
But what do you think about the idea in a more general sense?
Philosophy ought not to be done outside of the academy? Tell that to Spinoza, Hume, Schopenhauer, and a host of other vastly more important thinkers than the paper thin light weight and peddler in obscurantism known as Ray Brassier - all of whom never operated within the academy or indeed even repudiated it. It's a shame such a smug, backstabbing plebeian has the gall to fancy himself the judge of what is worthy philosophy.
In all seriousness, it never ceases to amaze me that academics in the humanities - the people who never get tired of prating about "equality" - are such elitist asswipes.
Let's just use PF and TPF as examples. Most of what is passed for philosophy on these boards is half-cooked. Some semblance of argument is put forward and then the name calling and arrogant tones begin. I would assume that many here are not formally academically trained in philosophy? Philosophy and Humanities majors are "usually" trained to make and defend their points rigorously, to take things to their logical conclusions and to be open to contradictory information. The average human does not do this.
Sure, Hume, Spinoza, Schopenhauer were not part of the academic club, (which is untrue because Schopenhauer tried to become a professor, and Hume worked directly with the staff of Oxford and Edinburgh universities whilst writing his Histories) but they were also exceptionally well educated. They really weren't just some amateurs. Does this mean that philosophy, or any academic pursuit is only meaningful if pursued inside of the academy? No, certainly not, but the bar for those outside of the academy and its rules are set higher, partly because the work created is so poor. Instead of getting angry and calling names, look to yourself and exceed the standards. Should make you a better thinker and writer. My two cents from both inside and outside of academia...
That's what interests me most. What, precisely, is that bar? Higher or no, what are the standards in the first place?
I tend to look at writers like Camus, Kafka, Asimov or Orwell. Many also contributed to news journals and wrote more personal essays. Technically I would classify These people alongside Hume, who was known as an Historian, rather than philosopher in his day.
As for the bar, abstract though this may be, would come back to novelty of insight and rigor in argumentation. Compare Georges Bataille and Sam Harris. One is quite obviously philosophy, the other, controversial to say the least.
But Brassier said,
He's not saying that internet philosophy must be held to a higher standard. He's saying that you literally cannot do philosophy outside of academia. Which is hogwash.
And I'm sure he bloviates about "structural inequality" day and night, being a humanities academic...
I am aware of literally no place on the internet where you can have a good philosophical conversation. Your egalitarian view sounds good on paper, but then when you hit brass tacks, there are places where good philosophy is done, and the internet is not one of them. Is that a coincidence?
I've had philosophical conversations with people over the internet that were just as good as the ones I've had in academia. As to having consistently good conversations, that's another story - academia is better for that. That is to say, you may not find an online community with consistently good philosophical conversation going on, but any sufficiently large philosophical community will probably have a few people capable of such a conversation.
That being said, Brassier's idea that the internet is "not an appropriate medium" would seem to suggest that an online community that produces good philosophy is something we can't have, which I find implausible.
I'm flattered.
Universities are old institutions. They were built painfully and slowly. It shouldn't be expected that other fora for the same caliber of discussion could just pop up overnight for no reason.
1) The humanities have a very strong current of ostensibly egalitarian sentiment.
2) There is a great deal of elitism in academia.
I don't think either of those are controversial.
Quoting The Great Whatever
I don't think that we can build an online version of the Stoa from scratch in a decade. But if we take Brassier's lead, then we won't even start, now, will we?
Well, I think there are a couple problems. The first is, the university is an old system that was built slowly and painfully. We can't expect other fora for the same quality of work to just spring up overnight for no reason. So yes, the internet is new. It doesn't have the same social institutions underpinning it. It has other interesting social institutions that I think are good for other purposes, and that you can't find in real life, certainly not in academia. But its virtues don't include good philosophical discussion.
Second, I really think that part of a good academic community is living and working in physical proximity. Being an academic, to me, means being dedicated to seriously trying to understand a topic as a lifestyle. I don't think the internet, now anyway, is at all amenable to that level of dedication and seriousness, and there is the problem of physical distance as well.
I think that there are enough people who come home from work every day and immediately get on the computer for such things to begin popping up, given enough time, at least when we're looking at it from the "dedication" angle. If some guy works at a boring job, then spends all his leisure time contributing to an online philosophy community, then we might have something good going on, provided that nobody minds the "internet socializing loser" stigma.
As to working in physical proximity - that's an intriguing point. Why is physical proximity necessary? It didn't stop Kant from replying to Hume, for example. Then again, I notice that you often take the ancient Greek stuff as a model. Are you doing that here? And if so, what's your motive?
It did, though.
Quoting Pneumenon
But the problem is, I don't think it's 'leisure' at all, if by that you mean something opposed to work. The ideal academic life is one in which there is no distinction between the two, because what you do is simultaneously deeply enjoyable and serious. That is something that I think is missing from online communities, including this one, seriousness. People argue without reading, when they're contradicted they get offended and don't want to probe any deeper, it's just a kind of game of verbal jousting. There is no genuine desire here to spend hours conducting serious research and digging deeply into a topic that there is a serious effort to understand. A mind can't be sustained on that sort of thing, it needs substance.
Quoting Pneumenon
Greek philosophy was a historical anomaly, and utterly extraordinary. Whatever the material conditions were that allowed it to exist as it did, it was something precious. Modern philosophy doesn't have quite the same depth of community or commitment to understanding life on its own terms. It is 'professional' and exists in the universities alongside other 'professions.' Again, the ideal academic life is one in which there is neither profession nor vacation. Modern philosophers for the most part are just regular people who do a certain kind of thought-work as a 'day job' Sure when they go to the pub they talk about certain things other people wouldn't, but even then one gets the impression they're chatting about 'work stuff.'. Once they clock out they want to fuck their wives and go to the Bahamas or whatever. There is a kind of lack of seriousness there, a separation between 'work life' and 'real life,' where at the end of the day there's a sense in which the latter is what really matters, and philosophy is a kind of professional game. But still, I think the university is more serious than the internet, by far, because while on the clock, people think seriously.
At any rate, I think that humanities departments are, by and large, on their way out. There will always be a philosophy department at Yale for the children of CEOs who want to study it, but non-elite universities as we know them will go the way of the thylacine. With the rising percentage of adjunct faculty, the steady encroachment of corporate models, bureaucratic parasitism, and so forth, I foresee universities become job-training daycares for middle-class kids within the next three decades or so, with maybe a few elite institutions remaining as they are. Maybe we need to look into building philosopher communes or something. Meh. Not sure where to go from here.
This is what they already are, at the undergraduate level. But then, I kind of think the graduate model is where it should start anyway. I really don't see the point of the undergrad system other than to perpetuate adolescence and make money. You don't really learn anything as an undergrad, and it's not because of age, it's because of the system.
I would like for genuine philosophical communities to make a comeback, but like I said, when they happened in Greece that was extraordinary, not the rule. I don't see it happening. There is a fundamental disconnect with that way of life and the modern one: it's not a matter of certain contingent things about life being out of whack, but the values that determine what people think a life should consist of to begin with are so foreign to those interests that there's no connection.
Now that would be a dream come true for me.
Just to note.
In some way my friendship groups -- who I remain in contact with -- from university were like this. We lived together, we read books together, we put on philosophy talks together in public and tried to promote philosophy as a group. While we maintain contact we've hit the diaspora at this point -- to the point of living in different states. It would be nice to have that closeness over philosophy again.
Not sure if "commune" would be the preferred model. I'd prefer "collective" -- since I think anarchist spaces are healthier and more prone to longer lives. [since they do recognize individual needs in addition to collective needs]
I wasn't talking about Marxism, just communal living. Really my thinking was something along the lines of "secular monastery." It's fashionable to talk shit about asceticism (given our culture's permissiveness fetish), but I think that a community that looks down on wanton self-indulgence would be a good place for philosophy.
Quoting The Great Whatever
What makes you assume that universities do have a higher caliber of discussion? The pomposity and vanity is certainly of a higher caliber, but this is to describe sophistry of the worst kind, not philosophy. "Professional philosophy" is almost an oxymoron, for in reality it amounts to little more than a good old boys club of spineless, egomaniacal careerists. They feel the pressing need to live well, support families, and idle away their time on the public purse. They do not feel any pressing need to be wise. Huge amounts of wasted paper and bandwidth are used each year to publish literature that no one but this same clique ever reads. If you count writing in tortuous academic prose, with the occasional bit of symbolic logic thrown in every once and while to show off, as "high caliber" philosophical writing, then I'm afraid I don't see it. More academics ought to heed the Spartan maxim that he who knows how to speak knows also the right time for speaking. They ought not produce more chaff to be blown away almost as soon as it is written. Instead, write only if one has something important to say. As Christopher Hitchens once said, everyone has a book in them, but perhaps in most cases that's where it ought to stay.
To me, the quality of philosophical writing in general, whether on the internet or from the academy, is piss poor at present, for I have found nothing of any real enduring value published among so called contemporary philosophers. The charge both analytic and continental philosophers accuse each other of, that of being morbidly useless and hopelessly obscure windbags, is true of them both. And seeing as these two camps pretty well exhaust the category of "professional philosophy" today, the whole discipline is not worth anyone's time. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the ideal of the university system, and realize there is a need to codify and organize serious scholarship on various topics, but it is the furthest it's ever been to reaching this ideal right now, especially in philosophy.
You might be surprised. Right now I work at a factory, doing the same thing over and over. When your work is so menial that it requires literally no attention, you get to space out and think about anything you want. Perhaps that's why Socrates chose to be a stonemason. ;)
What we need is to begin building a system supported on an entirely volunteer basis. If this sounds impossible, I humbly ask that you consider the case of open-source software. Ubuntu Linux is a highly efficient and user-friendly OS built for free by people who simply had the time on their hands and the will to do so. Ditto for every other piece of open source software. If they can do it, why can't we?
Man, I'm not assuming it, I've witnessed it. Professionals in their field are often arrogant, yes. But they also spend a good portion of their lives working on their subject, and just like you wouldn't expect some random person to have the skills of a plumber, you can't expect some random person to be as good at discussing that topic as someone who devotes their life to it.
Edit: (Wrote this while @The Great Whatever was posting. Kind of saying the same thing, I guess.)
He controls the conversation, as if he were in the classroom, which is fitting since we get as many as 30 people show up and many times all want to talk at once. He also gives the introduction to the topic up for discussion and he provides the closing commentary summing up the thoughts of the discussion.
I can't recall the topic we were discussing but in his closing, which was right about the time that those trumped up videos supposedly capturing Planned Parenthood selling fetus part had arisen. The Reverend used his summary to condemn Planned Parenthood.
I confronted him on line about this after I got home, but he had little to say, except that he suggested I watch all the videos which apparently surfaced by that point in time.
I can't see going back.
I also go to a Philosophy Walk, which is held once a month at a local park. Florida has parks everywhere and most are free, nice and beautiful places to walk and think. The group here is a little older, but also diverse.
There is always a topic and the group leader who provides three of four questions which he disburses one at a time. We pair up and walk with a different partner each time and discuss the particular question which is a facet of the general topic. At the end of each round we stop and discuss what we thought, everyone gets a chance to speak, then there is typically a short general discussion.
Around 14 people generally show up.
Philosophic discussions at the Socrates Cafe are sharper then those at the Walk, but the Walk conversations tend to be more pragmatically orientated.
The boundaries of knowledge are different for each person and a place like this or places like it could potentially encompass the entire spectrum. There's certainly no ceiling on the quality of philosophical discussion that goes on here so I don't see why the internet couldn't be a place for serious philosophical debate.
I don't think Brassier made the case for why he thinks the internet isn't an 'appropriate medium'.
I would think the internet could possibly be the most appropriate medium since the discussion is available to everyone and could capture every point of view, rather than an insular campus community.
If he truly thinks the goal of philosophy is to impede stupidity, isn't the internet the greatest potential tool?
If you have not tired meetup.com you might try it. Plenty of diverse groups post their meetings here. I belong to three or four groups, but only active in Philosophy Walk and Air Plien Painter's group. See what's happening in your area.
What would that look like today, and what sort of values would foster that kind of community? Is this the kind of commitment Jesus demanded of his disciples? Leave your normal life and practice philosophy instead?
Also, it seems you think the Cyrenaics figured out most of the interesting philosophical problems, so how would contemporary philosophers improve upon that, in your view?
The models we get from the ancient philosophers are people who, just by living, outraged and inspired people. Many were killed by the state, exiled from their homes, or were banned from teaching. The Cyrenaics made up a portion of these. They did as they pleased; in the words of Aristippus, the difference between a philosopher and an ordinary person is that if the laws were abolished tomorrow, the philosopher's behavior wouldn't change. There is a kind of height of character. They were not political radicals, in the banal sense, but possessed of a deeper personal power and contentment. How true this idealized picture is to real life, who knows. But the end of philosophy on this picture is not excellent theories, but excellent people. The important thing is that when these people come together to learn, they see their learning not as a 'job,' but a lifestyle. How well this extends to theoretical disciplines not like ethics, who knows -- but in a way, that itself perhaps speaks to the inferiority of those disciplines to ethics (!).
Quoting Marchesk
Well, problems cease to be interesting once you solve them. And life has no end of problems. And if the project of philosophy is living well, it can't be 'accomplished' so long as you're still living.
But that's not true. Plenty of people find them intrinsically interesting.
Put another way, it is possible to lose interest in such questions, while it is not possible to lose interest in living well, whatever one's opinions on the matter are. Thus, only an arbitrary opinion imbues such other questions with their (extrinsic) interest.
The condition being that an individual or group finds them interesting?
But for some people, the thing that gives their life purpose is pursuing such questions. There was a mathematician who cared about nothing other than math to the point that he was nearly helpless in other areas of life.
But the only way that living well can cease to be interesting to you is, I submit, to die, in which case philosophy already is out of the question anyway.
Or they might find such questions fascinating. It's interesting that you frame it in terms of anxiety or tradition, leaving out the obvious motivation.
True.
Quoting The Great Whatever
I guess I just disagree with this. I think pleasure or pain are only good or bad insofar as the context makes them good or bad. I can feel pain and think it's a good thing, and feel pleasure and think it's bad. I can also think that a less pleasurable state is preferable. It just depends on the context.
But what you think doesn't have to be so, if by 'think' you mean 'have the opinion that...' Certainly I can think 'this is great!' at my pain, but by so thinking I will have made it no better, or made it not bad somehow. If, on the other hand. by 'think' you mean something a bit more primal than opinion, like being affected by it positively, well, then, it wouldn't be pain if that were the case.
The problem is that is no different for our concern about anything we do. At any moment we are caught-up in the business of trying to life-well, no matter what that might be. It's not something given without our particular interests at any point. Examining suffering philosophically, for example, is no more or less than an "arbitrary" interest than wanting to describe how the world works, listening to some instance of music or eating lunch. No doubt pain is bad, but such states are not moments of our interest in something. More to the point, even a given pain can disappear, whether it be through our death or becoming absorbed in some other thought or experience for a moment,
For any interest, it is most most certainly not, "only insofar." At the given moment, there is nothing else a person lives. Our interests our never good and bad insofar as they cause a separate state or life of pleasure or pain, for what matter to any moment of life is what is happen precisely then.
And? All that means is a person is living their life. People's interests sometimes change. People sometimes feel different. The ceasing of an interest doesnt' mean that it didn't, itself, matter for the times it was of interest. Whether we are talking about a state of interest or a state of pain, there is no difference here. You seem to make this bizarre assumption that interests have to be relevant irrespective of one life, as if only what is turn all the time can matter in life. This doesn't make sense. In states of existence, in the finite, nothing is true all the time and it never will be.
I wonder sometimes what the point is of writing my philosophy book. When I started it, back when I was still getting that BA and planning to go on to a PhD, I expected that it would form the basis of my dissertation. I've since realized that contemporary (at least Analytic) philosophy dissertations are nothing at all like that and I would probably have been unhappy having to eschew doing the philosophical work I was interested in to instead focus excessively on some much narrower problem, probably in the service of someone else's research interests. I have no plans to publish it as a real book in dead-tree format; though it's certainly long enough for that, at about 80,000 words now, I seriously doubt my writing ability, and I don't expect any publisher would be interested in it; and even if they were, I seriously doubt it would get read enough for it to be worth it. My analytics tell me hardly anybody's even reading it for free on the internet (not that I can blame them), so I don't see why anyone more would ever pay for it.
More on the topic of this thread, on academic vs lay philosophy, here's an excerpt from my essay on Metaphilosophy from the aforementioned book:
I feel like I'm kind of in a weird in-between place with respect to all of that. I have a negligible degree in philosophy, so that's some formal education, but nothing nearly impressive enough to qualify me as a professional philosopher. My interests are extremely broad, as the breadth of philosophy is largely what attracted me to the field, but I really appreciate that other people have done the in-depth specialized work in all of the fields that interest me, so that I can draw from all of that into the big general picture I'm working on. I would love to somehow function as a bridge between those worlds, connecting the many different specialized professional philosophers to a more general and generalist audience, encouraging laypeople to build out their own general philosophical worldviews, for their own sakes, but drawing from the many insights that specialized professional philosophers have already developed. I would love if somehow there was more of such a bridge, socially and institutionally, not just for me to be the entirety of it; some people like Olly Thorne of Philosophy Tube are sort of doing that already, as that whole channel is dedicated to him "giving away his education" after a UK tuition hike. But I don't know what I can really do to help there be more of that, considering I can barely keep my life together enough to do a little bit of mediocre work on my own book a few nights a week.
As far as I'm concerned these days, at least -- insofar that you're happy with your life, living a good life, then you're doing philosophy well. No need for recognition. No need to complete that degree. No need to worry about being in-between, too rigorous or not rigorous at all.
Happiness is all that matters. The rest is just for fun. And rigor can be fun. But it needn't impede your happiness.
Regarding the original quote lambasting the existence of online philosophical forums/discussion ect. I am slightly unnerved...
Why is it philosophy (alone) that must be held to such serious (elitist) standards for it to even warrant the "title" of philosophy/philosophical discussion? Almost every other hobby/interest/skill can be practiced (without judgement) at different levels and degrees of ability, advancement, and seriousness. For example, what about guys that go and shoot some hoops after class occasionally? Does their lack of basketball training or their obvious lack of advancement (they all know they are not going to play in the NBA) negate the reality that they are still playing basketball? If only to the best of their ability? What about amateur radio operators? Small time botanists with some vegetables in their green house? All of these people are humble enough to admit their inabilities, but yet, are the 'professionals' of these skills the ones mocking them? More often than not professional basketball players donate much money and time to encouraging an interest in the sport, in children's basketball programs, in the construction of basketball courts ect. I doubt any professional athlete, artist, ect. would ever say or downplay the abilities or skills of those obviously less skilled; because they care about the sport/art/skill in question, they are interested in encouraging people's interest in them. Online discussion of philosophy then, flawed and off-topic as it may very well tend to be at times, is just the result of thousands of different voices, opinions, and skill-set levels, having-a-go, and in that sense, and in many ways, I think it is better at bolstering interest and allowing those with the skills and experience, to better encourage and help those new to the subject than the stuffy classroom of exhausted and stressed out undergrads. Just as I think @ProbablyTrue was saying.
Even in the serious sciences, do you think "real" scientists discourage personal research? Experiments? The whole impetus of science is to search for answers, to want answers, why would any "real" accredited scientist discount the interest and fascination of those less experienced than him?
Also the collapse of the humanities is a very real threat in universities. As a university student currently in the process of completing my second undergrad (first in philosophy, currently in law), the undergrad university has entirely become a daycare for middle class kids to help train them for "jobs". Philosophy, even more so than English/history/geography/anthropology is collapsing; @Pfhorrest I concur with some of your feelings. I want my PhD, and I much preferred my philosophy BA to this "practical" law degree I am taking now (as I'm writing this I should be actually doing my law work)-and I face the ridicule from friends and my family. Money-wise I could never justify it, I need a job...hence the law school.
@Phil
Not to call you out, but I believe it was you who noted that you don't regard Orwell or Camus as "real" philosophers, but rather as literary artists ect. ect. But what is literature if not philosophy? Philosophy is a wide ranging discipline-undisputable in my opinion; look at its obvious connections (and historical impetus for) science, art ect. Camus wrote books as well as essays; including journal articles, pamphlets, and plays; all with very deep, complex, and relevant philosophical themes and inquiries. I adore Camus but my point is not to defend him, but to defend all the philosophical writers and thinkers that have not fit the keyhole of "academic"; why necessarily is "academic" the benchmark for professionalism of philosophy? Or as someone else pointed out, how can a subject such as philosophy in the traditional sense; the love and pursuit of wisdom, be squared away as the mere accumulation of a certain strata of knowledge? I prefer the definition of philosophy as the love of questions, of raising thought-provoking, introspective, relevant, and important questions that otherwise get sidelined, dismissed, or overlooked in the daily act of living. To view philosophy as a merely academic-institutionalized activity is to view it only relative to contemporary standards, which obviously, historically, is incorrect.
Of course, I have great respect for academic and professional philosophers; as people have noted, these are individuals who did win "the lottery" and as someone who wants to earn a PhD myself one day (but likely won't), I have only great admiration for their capacities, perseverance, and aptitudes. I have met some great philosophy professors and philosophers in my day-of course I think there needs to be a degree of separation between the ability to teach philosophy and the ability to academically DO philosophy; as other people have noted, I have met some pompous and terrible philosophy professors that did just not teach in a way that students would fully comprehend-but again, that is not to say that they are not 'good' philosophers-teaching is just a whole other skillset. I could probably decently teach a class of high school philosophy for example, I know enough, and I feel very confident in my teaching abilities; but by no means would I then say I am a "professional" philosopher. I am merely a person who loves philosophy.
This is why an honest and successful endeavor in internet philosophy is to have the balls to use key search phrases like "Argument against belief X which I ignorantly hold" maybe not the last part haha.
In the parts of the physical sciences that start to verge on philosophy, I do see a lot of that. Every forum has a crank who thinks he can disprove relativity or quantum mechanics, and a lot of more-educated users start to really look down on everyone who thinks they have a novel thought about physics. That makes me sad too, because I've often had interesting thoughts about physics and wanted to discuss them with people better-educated in that subject than me to find out of someone else has already had this idea, if it's been disproven or is already a part of some existing theory, or is at least a live hypothesis in the field, or if not, how well does the genuinely new idea mesh with the existing research... but the response is more often than not just to shut down the discussion right off the bat at the hubris I have to dare to think I could "do physics" outside of academia without my own hadron collider to prove things with.
Also, it sounds like it's too late already, but Don't Be A Lawyer.
That makes me sad. I guess I'm speaking from a place of bias because one of my best friends is a biologist and has never looked down on my lack of knowledge/questions, in fact we usually go back and forth, me asking medial/biological questions, and him asking me history/philosophy ones But that undermines the entire point of science does it not? Like someone else highlighted in this question, shouldn't knowledge be treated as some borderline collective activity? In fact, all the knowledge we currently have, in any given field, is because of the intergenerational collective building of information, knowledge, and inquiry... ridiculous that people are so entitled, even when they might have some right to be (ie. via decades of work and time spent). I always try not to be like that, even when I'm faced with people with no real understanding of what philosophy is, or when everyone is just high and talking "pop shop" politics/philosophy. Sometimes I get annoyed, usually by their sheer arrogance, and in those cases I stay quiet, but usually I try to guide the discussion or at the very least, give my two cents.
Asking questions is another thing. As a nerd by nature, I like picking the brains of scientists and other professionals, and in my experience the response is usually positive at best, neutral at worst.
Practically speaking, to me, the question is: Is the internet conducive to rigorous thought? Overwhelmingly, the answer is no. The internet is conducive to reinforcing pre-existing biases. But rooting out and understanding (and thereby mitigating) cognitive biases is a huge part of the philosophical attitude.
So for those who are already disciplined, it makes a formidable tool. Otherwise...
I want female students if I am to teach in the style of joint. If I am to teach in the style of the great classical Greek masters of philosophy. I much don't care for joint research and close proximity with male students.
This what you said, @The Great Whatever, makes sense, and I am not being merely facetious. Integrated learning means integrated lifestyles, and if it involves sex, so be it. But please forgive me, I don't want to sex with male people.