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Brainstorm: Lives of the Mind Stan Katz

The Utility of Philosophy

Homes are being foreclosed at a fearsome rate these days, and it begins to look as though academic departments and programs are a similarly endangered species. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the termination of the German Department at the University of Southern California, and on May 5, I noticed in The Chronicle that the University of Florida was terminating its doctoral program in Philosophy.

The university, confronting a substantial cutback in state appropriations, has announced that it will lay off 20 faculty members, among other steps, to reduce costs for FY2008-9. As part of this retrenchment, President Bernie Machen has also proposed reducing undergraduate enrollment and cutting back on research expenditures, as well as eliminating some degree programs.

I gather that other Florida universities are reacting similarly to dire state budgetary situations. Many states are experiencing exactly the same financial difficulties, and passing through their problems to public institutions of higher education. My own state, New Jersey, with the fourth largest state budget deficit, is certainly in a similar condition.

Institutions must, of course, adjust to these conditions. I do not know what other programs President Machen proposes to eliminate to balance his budget, but the Philosophy Ph.D. program is clearly one. I am not in a position to evaluate the quality of the Florida department, but I gather both that undergraduate enrollments are growing in the field (as they are nationally), and that the department is nationally well regarded. The Philosophy department website displays statements from a large number of philosophers and humanities scholars to the effect that no great university can exist without a doctoral program in philosophy. I suppose that is true, but I think it is even more certain that Daniel Garber, the chair of my university’s philosophy department, is right in saying that “This is a short-sighted move, one that sets back the cause of liberal education in one of the country’s most important state universities.”

My fear (please remember that even paranoids have enemies) is that actions like the ones at Florida and USC are harbingers of things to come — cutbacks in the humanities on the unspoken theory that the study of the humanities is less consequential than those in more preprofessional and “useful” fields. We humanists shall have, once again, to remind those who manage our universities of George Santayana’s wise words concerning “the utility of useless knowledge.” Liberal education is not about utility, it is about the cultivation of the mind. But Santayana (and I) think that is ultimately the most useful thing we can do in a university.

Posted at 02:23:38 PM on May 14, 2008 | All postings by Stan Katz

Comments

  1. Advice to philosophy (and humanities) faculty just about everywhere: At the very least, since you know you will be buffeted by the winds of academic budget cuts, attempt to imagine collaborative work at your campus and across campuses within a system — as well as internationally.

    Be a name and a face and a collaborator and not just a statistic so that, your work having been experienced in other areas of the curriculum at your own and other institutions, your absence would be felt.

    Apply for a small humanities grant from NEH, for example, to bring colleagues together to discuss a major project, i.e. a really big project that would enable you to do things in the humanities in a different way, in more inter- and multi-disciplinary ways, in a major collaboration.

    Think beyond the confines of your classroom, of your next article, of your office, and imagine that you are a professor in the sciences, told to bring in grant money for a collaborative project of some significance.

    Ask yourself what that might mean for yourself, your department, your institution and with whom you might collaborate in another discipline of the vast curriculum (business, economics, biology, computer and information sciences, etc. come to mind). Wherever ethics and history and language/culture knowledge enhance the other discipline as well as challenge your own to new ways of thinking about humanities issues.

    Then, learn how to write a major grant proposal. Meet with the sponsored research staff; invite them to your department for a presentation. Have them research which foundations and Federal/state grant sources might be applicable for the work you are interested in. And if you do collaborate with the sciences, you may be able to have a co-principal investigator relationship and actually apply for a science grant (and bring in those NSF, etc. “overheads” rather than the “pocket change” of the NEH and the DOED).

    And for heaven’s sake, do this now. “Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee”.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · May 14, 04:20 PM · #

  2. The devaluing of the humanities has also become evident in the varying salaries paid across campus to faculty in different disciplines.

    — PhDinHistory · May 15, 12:09 AM · #

  3. The UF philosophy department faculty had secured 4 NEH grants, a Burkhardt Fellowship and 2 NSF grants. The departemnt had links to Classics, European Studies Center, the Center for Humanities, History, and Political Science. It had a private foundation account with continuing donations from alumni. Its productive fauclty meant that the department succeded in all T&P cases for the past 20 years. The graduate students even won academic positions in the tight job market and had publications, conference papers, and grant success.As your article points out the majors and minors increased. Of course Stan Katz’s tone is cautious as I suppose he should be. But if you believe me, the message of our current problems at UF is that there is little philosophy faculty can do to protect our discipline in the current academic world unless there are philosophy faculty in the upper administration.

    — Robert D'Amico · May 15, 06:58 AM · #

  4. I regret that when I pasted in my last comment I somehow lost a part that added that UF philosophy in addition had teaching and publication links with Math and Physics. My conclusion is that the APA needs to look at this event not as one of a faltering program being cut, ever the language of administrators, but as the thin edge of the wedge for the future of philosophy as a discipline.

    — Robert D'Amico · May 15, 07:41 AM · #

  5. Pleased to hear that Philosophy at UF had been doing grant and outreach work. (Although it isn’t clear from the posting how long ago and how many of the department faculty were involved.)

    What were the FTEs, the faculty-student ratio, the number of majors per size of department faculty? How well is philosophy integrated into the general education requirements, the critical thinking component, etc.?

    So, the next step is to go the AAUP route, and to say what other positions are there on the campus that the faculty could hold so that their retrenchment from one department could mean reassignment to another. Now is the time to activate the cross-departmental network.

    And where is collective bargaining in all of this?

    Lastly, but not leastly, what are the possible personal vendettas at play? Everyone says that the only way to protect their department is to have one of their members in the administration. In retrenchments I have seen across several institutions, personal squabbling within a department and with the administration has often meant the disappearance or reduction of the department under pretense of budget cuts.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · May 15, 08:26 AM · #

  6. I have this boring obsession with the humanities stopping their continual whining and doing the hard social research needed to confirm what their missions are, what their effects actually are on lives and careers longitudinally, and what they do that produces the best of those effects. Till they get off their lazy asses and do some work all the whining in the world about “poor poor pitiful us who get our budget cut before others” will just confirm what bad-minded people outside the humanities suspect—the humanities collect whiny people who have no intention to do the work needed to confirm the worth of their own work and fields. To take a vulgar plebian example, commercial enterprises typically spend twelve times their cost of product development on telling people that they exist and that that product exists and connecting features of both to needs of lots of people. The humanities think they can do pure product development and some sort of elan or angelic virtue or stink of thought will pervade society and turn everyone into budget supporters for the humanities—delusion thinking, send the humanities as a whole to the nearest shrink’s office!!! (Hint: it would not hurt to stop relying on “hermaneutics” derived from bible study 400 years ago and demystificatory copies of parts of marxism—derrida et al—as study methods; a little methodological innovation might make even deluded thought more sellable and hence budget-able).

    — Richard Tabor Greene · May 15, 09:03 AM · #

  7. Although it may be difficult to perceive it behind his habitual pose of arrested adolescence (many of my undergraduates, who confuse wilful obnoxiousness with “keeping it real,” have the same problem), Mr Greene is correct in his larger point. If the humanities are to thrive, we need to do a much better job persuading uncommitted observers that they should. And because most uncommitted observers dislike it when we talk down to them or over their heads, we need to work a great deal harder communicating our ideas in comprehensible language.

    — Gustavse · May 15, 09:29 AM · #

  8. Katz is right that “liberal education is not about utility” and that it is “the most useful thing we can do in a university.” I’m sure he also knows that this insight is older than Santayana. Aristippus was a Greek philosopher who continually sought patronage from wealthy Athenians. Dionysius once asked him, “Why do I always see you philosophers knocking on the doors of the rich, but I never see the rich knocking on the doors of philosophers?” Aristippus replied, “Because philosophers know what they need and the rich don’t.”

    — Peter · May 15, 10:04 AM · #

  9. My comments on the grant activity and productivity of UF faculty refer to activities just within the last 5-7 years. The success of administrations in these agendas is achieved by the very labeling of a unit and then arguments to the contrary start to sound suspicious to those outside. Hence the strategy can end up winning no matter what the data.

    — Robert D'Amico · May 15, 01:57 PM · #

  10. The Alligator, the independant student newspaper at the University of Florida is reporting that the PhD programs in French and German are also being closed. I suppose that Mr. Greene doesn’t see anything inherently practical in insuring that there are foreign language professors and teachers in the future?

    — Joe Johnson · May 15, 04:27 PM · #

  11. Thank you, Commentator 10, for that information. It basically alerted me that I misread the posting: the department isn’t being shut down, only the Ph.D. program. At USC, the entire German Department is being shut down. A distinction with a real difference.

    On another blog of Brainstorm concerning the funding of the humanities, I tried to get a dialogue going on the need to rethink the Ph.D. in the humanities. That’s what this is all about, of course. Doctoral programs in the humanities currently exist for the solipsistic goal of creating more professors in the image and likeness of the current professors.

    Let’s see, now. If the UF language and philosophy faculty had been creating joint doctoral programs with those other disciplines/departments they had worked with, well, this would be an entirely different story, wouldn’t it?

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · May 15, 09:23 PM · #

  12. I doubt it would make any difference at all, Anti.

    UF is going to allow the 30-odd students in German and French to complete their programs, so there are no immediate savings for the university. Furthermore, one has to question what kind of savings there ever would be. There has been no move to end the successful undergraduate major and minor in French at UF, so presumably the same professors will be teaching those classes and at the same current salary. When you consider that the majority of classes for graduate students at UF were “co-listed,” i.e., having both graduate and undergraduate students in them, you would have to guess that tuition and FTE was already paying for the cost of instruction. Finally, with the graduate students, by virtue of being TA’s having been a rather inexpensive option for teaching the elementary and intermediate language courses, it really begs the question of whether the program as a whole was truly an expense to the university.

    — Joe Johnson · May 16, 07:15 AM · #

  13. When the historical model reigned in the humanities the field was outlined and delimited. ‘New knowledge’ of a significant or relatively trivial kind could be identified and applauded to the degree deserved. University presses happily published books (with far larger print runs) because all of the specialists in a field had to become familiar with important new work. Since there were approximately 10 fields in, e.g., English (vs. approximately 30 now) the faculty were more concentrated and journals/presses articulated with them better. I don’t see the humanities as whiny; I see them as having made a set of decisions that have led to a set of negative consequences. Now they’re reaping the whirlwind and don’t know how to extricate themselves. The focus on race/class/gender has essentially sent the message that literary culture has been oppressive and evil. (Wonderful; welcome new majors!) The discounting of judicial criticism and aesthetic judgment has downplayed the beauty of art, one of literary study’s most gratifying and attractive aspects. The politicization of criticism has eliminated all but the like-minded or forced the not-so-like-minded to conform. The creation of ‘field’ after ‘field’ has created a cult of celebrity that is also ruthlessly imitative. The absolutist adoption of models (the mind as a blank slate; everything is culturally constructed) that have long been abandoned by colleagues in the more relevant disciplines (linguistics, psychology, biology) isolate and to some degree trivialize us. The gutting of the traditional curriculum has led to incoherence and student confusion. The idolization of figures taken far less seriously by their ‘own’ fields (Foucault, Lacan, e.g.) has further isolated us. The celebration of what has been called ‘cognitive atheism’ has called the existence of the field itself into question. Most important, we have tended to study that which interests us rather than that which interests a large number of potential students and our undergraduate enrollments have dropped precipitously while potential graduate students have opted for other career paths. Those outside of our disciplines with the ability to make changes (read: administrators) are now making changes.

    — Observer · May 16, 07:22 AM · #

  14. Academics (who should know), please note: “Begs the question” means “Avoids the question” and NOT “Prompts the question.”

    — Grammarian · May 16, 08:00 AM · #

  15. New update about UF from The Alligator:

    UF President “Machen announced that the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will keep its doctoral programs in French, German and philosophy after they were set to be cut.

    However, the programs will not be allowed to admit students for three years starting with the 2009-2010 academic year to help cope with the college’s $5.97 million budget cut.

    Under the revised plan, the CLAS dean could petition the provost to reopen admission to the doctoral programs for the fall 2012 semester after the 2011-2012 academic year.”

    — Joe Johnson · May 16, 08:43 AM · #

  16. I did a couple of years of graduate work in philosophy, and it proved to be terrific training for the three jobs I have held in publishing: copyeditor, acquiring editor, and director. Philosophical training makes one sensitive to nuances of meaning (useful for copyediting), capable of critically judging arguments and the evidence adduced to support them (useful for reviewing manuscripts), and aware of systemic connections (useful for directing a press). So, while my motivation for studying philosophy was precisely, as Stan says, to cultivate my mind, it turned out to have real practical utility, too, in my line of work. I know that to be true of others who have studied philosophy and have pursued a variety of other nonacademic careers, in business, government, law, and medicine, among others. Never underestimate the value of reading Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Rawls, etc.

    — Sandy Thatcher · May 16, 09:28 AM · #

  17. It is a misfortune that it has become conventional for students to regard a “university” principally as an institution in which to enroll for acquiring marketable skills. In earlier generations, the idea of spending four years as an undergraduate was to seize the opportunity to sample a wide variety of fields of knowledge, to see what is “out there,” and (especially by exploring offerings in the Philosophy Department) try to settle one’s views as to what is worth doing with one’s life. After one sorts that out (however provisionally), then one would go about the task of proceeding to learn how to do it well. My own undergraduate major was Philosophy and I have never once had occasion to regret that choice.
    So, in a word, I more-than-agree Stan Katz.

    — wm. van alstyne · May 16, 10:00 AM · #

  18. I share Mr. Green’s impatience (#6) with the some whining humanities people and sympathize with his request that the humanities “prove their value,” though I should also say that the ethos of his remarks does not make him the sort I’d like to, or be able to, talk with. And of course, there’s always the intriguing question of the “value-added” aspect of the humanities. (I also appreciate The Observer’s take on the humanities. Though the strokes are broad (see #13), many a day has passed when I’ve recited a similar litany or, shall I say, diagnosis.)

    Green uses the term “worth” as what the humanities need to “confirm.” How that is to be determined always calls for reflection. Should we inquire of alums whether they believe that humanities requirements, however thick or thin (and I suspect they’re getting thinner yearly) have increased not only their employability but also their salaries? Or should the worth be determined by assessing how much alums give to cultural institutions rather than the building of sports stadiums? Or whether they, upon having a family, demand of their school districts programs in the arts with the fervor of those who expect to have their Friday nights lit up in a heavily populated football stadium? It’s just so fascinating to imagine what this getting off one’s ass assessment would look like as an instrument for determining the humanities’ “worth.” One indicator might be the election of a President who does not cause us to doubt the efficacy of higher education in, at the very least, creating a “product” which (who?) would speak to his/her fellow citizens in language that does not make us want to switch stations. In any case, it certainly is heartening to hear from those who studied philosophy and did not find that it rendered them occupationally handicapped. To satisfy Green and others of his ilk, I’m sure something other than these anecdotal testimonies is needed. Defenses of one’s discipline need to take the appropriate form and I guess, the humanities, forever on the defensive, need to learn that lesson. Sadly, philosophy’s earliest and most famous defender wasn’t very good at such “apologies,” but perhaps we can learn from his mistakes?

    For everyone’s edification, a Professor Gottschall has proclaimed in a recent article in a Boston newspaper, that the fluffy humanities need a scientifically based model so that they can become a resource for definitive knowledge which, like “science” has established an agreed upon method for determining what constitutes knowledge. As far as I can tell, the good professor is blissfully unaware of the long conversation about the relative advisability of such a model for the humanities, but no matter: we are assured that computer technology and careful scientific study of readers’ responses will give us objective data about authorial styles and teach us how to read Jane Austen properly and objectively. The beat goes on.

    — George K. · May 16, 02:33 PM · #

  19. “[T]he majority of classes for graduate students at UF were “co-listed,” i.e., having both graduate and undergraduate students in them”. – Comment 12

    The “co-listing” game is indulged in by comprehensive institutions in order to “tack on” masters degree programs, often in education and business. Even there, they pose a conundrum for their bachelors’ students who “stay on” for the masters: They have literally “been there and done that” already.

    But for a major university, a research university, to conduct most of its graduate courses in humanities disciplines as “co-lists” with the under-graduate level?

    The UF, and all similarly-situated universities who indulge in such FTE games at the expense of quality education, do not deserve to be able to call their programs “doctoral”.

    Under the circumstances, applause is due the university administration for recognizing that such shenanigans do not merit continued support.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · May 16, 05:16 PM · #

  20. This post is less of how the humanities in general, and philosophy in particular, ought to “market themselves,” and more about the significance of a requirement for the humanities to need to “market themselves.” Studied by the humanities is HUMANITY. To require of the humanities to justify their existence is for the study of humanity to be in need of justification, a stunning circumstance. This is not meant as a reinforcement of a “boring obsession with the humanities stopping their continual whining,” it is meant quite literally. Perhaps the battle is lost, it may be. In a collective mass in which we “bowl alone,” human contact may be in such decline, the idea of understanding the character of human experience has become alien. Behaviorism has won in a world of anomie, human understanding an avocaton, not a vocation as numerous preceding posts observe. An avocation not requiring the phenomenological sympathetic understanding of Adam Smith to boot. Human “understanding” has become the objectified unsympathetic material observation of “hard social research.” How else are beings who do not engage with one another on a personal basis, a HUMAN basis, to understand one another? “Separated from one another by steel and glass” as expressed in the film “Crash,” we no longer understand the other as a feeling being. What a disturbing world we have erected for ourselves.

    — DVP · May 16, 08:50 PM · #

  21. Once the American faculty collectively abandoned its obligation to lead the governance of universities up to and including their highest levels of administration and, instead, eagerly embraced the creation of an “administrative class” to “relieve” it of the “burden” of such administrative duties, the faculty de facto endorsed the corporatization of the university.

    Having then so “endorsed”, indeed, “embraced”, the corporate university, it is rather late for humanities faculty (who, it might be said, above all others, disdained the duties of administration) – it is rather late to decry the requirement to “justify” the “need” for a program/department’s continuance within this structure which, by its nature, exists to enforce “the bottom line”.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · May 16, 09:47 PM · #

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