Philosopher Imposter Syndrome — Fake It Till You Make It
Maybe it’s because of the way I was taught philosophy as an undergrad, with an emphasis on the overall history and dramatic narrative of philosophy as a whole, but I have always had a keen sense of the history of philosophy, its overall trajectory, its turning points, and its philosophical linchpins. What philosopher or philosophy student doesn’t dream of one day making such an impact in the history of philosophy, to write him- or herself into the philosophical canon by the novelty and significance of one’s own ideas?
Where do the rest of us ordinary, workaday philosophers stand, if we’re not destined to become the Platos or the Aristotles, the Descarteses or the Kants of tomorrow? Most of us are destined to be forgotten, relegated to being footnotes in the history of philosophy, at best. And yet, many of us aspire to philosophical greatness beyond our ability, even as some of us are more or less brilliant and inspired as educators in the classroom—or online, as the case may be in 21st-century higher education.
This latent desire to make my mark in the history of philosophy has sometimes caused a type of philosophical imposter syndrome, a self-awareness of my own inability to reach the heights to which I aspire, a sense of inadequacy in light of the philosophical achievements of those who came before me, and my peers alongside me. Occasionally I encounter even a student who is able to naturally achieve in philosophical reflection the things for which I have always had to reach and stretch and claw intellectually and philosophically.
In the business and professional world, the phrase “fake it till you make it” is well-known. Basically it means that you don’t have to wait to become an expert to try something new, to begin your career, and even to be successful in the long run despite whatever setbacks you encounter along the way. I love the existentialist heart of this phrase: first decide to be something, then put yourself out there and become it, by doing it, even if you aren’t a so-called expert at it yet. After a time you may just find that you have become the very thing you wanted to be, even if you had to start out by faking it at first, or even along some significant portion of your journey of becoming.
In my now-almost-20-year academic and professional career as a philosopher, have I achieved what I set out to do? Or am I still in the process of becoming the philosopher I initially aspired to be? I am and have been a college- and university-level philosophy instructor, itself no minor achievement. But I never did finish my doctoral dissertation or obtain my Ph.D. after my career took a turn toward online educational content development and instructional design. I have never yet published an article in a major—or even a minor—journal of philosophy, even after 20 years. I do not frequent academic symposia or conferences, or participate in the philosophical glad-hand so common to professional academics and intelligentsia. And yet, I am very proud of my achievements as a professional philosopher and of my progress and trajectory as a thinker and writer.
Most importantly, I feel that I have found my own unique voice as a philosopher, having gravitated toward alternative means of pursuing philosophy, such as my podcast on Star Trek and philosophy, Meta Treks: A Star Trek Philosophy Podcast. I find myself gravitating toward the journalistic style of philosophy in the form of Nietzsche and Thoreau in ways that I never would have imagined when I had more ambitious ambitions as a younger philosopher and graduate student, or even while I was authoring online philosophy and logic learning materials in my Aplia days. And I am able to inspire at least some students to take existential charge of their own lives, and to challenge themselves to set out on the journey to achieve whatever goals, dreams, and ambitions on which they have set their own hearts, even if they, too, must fake it till they make it, overcoming whatever psychological, academic, philosophical, or professional imposter syndromes that they must overcome along their own journeys of becoming and maturing into the people they will eventually be.
Almost every other colleague of mine—fellow graduate students from Syracuse University and the University of California, Santa Cruz, fellow philosophy instructors around the country or at the institutions I am proud to call my alma maters (Solano Community College, Sonoma State University, and the aforementioned UC Santa Cruz), the more prolific philosophers whose names and word and articles fill the pages of quarterly philosophy journals—has achieved more as an academic philosopher than I have. And yet, I have found myself and my own authentic inner philosophical voice in ways I sometimes suspect that other philosophers still have not. I have become comfortable with the ways in which I have had to fake it until I make it as a philosopher, or in other branches of my career as an educational content developer, author, and designer. I am comfortable now with the ways in which my own unique ways of being a philosopher, both innately and professionally, deviate from the cultural norm of professional and academic philosophy, a culture that has its own defects and weaknesses and dark sides, as much as any other culture to which one can point. And I am comfortable with the twists and turns of my career, which once felt like failures but which now give me strength and versatility possessed by few professional academics, in philosophy or otherwise.
In some sense, I’m still a philosophical imposter, still faking it till I make it, despite my achievements and despite the sometimes enviable opportunities I have had in my career, which weaves in and out of philosophy like a thread, completing a cross-stitch pattern whose final picture is still unknown. In other words, I’m still on the journey, exploring and testing and pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a professional philosopher—or academic philosopher or public philosopher—in the 21st century. Many of the things I count as broadly philosophical wouldn’t be recognized as such by mainstream academic philosophers. But I am comfortable now in saying that those other philosophers are merely wrong in their assessment and narrow vision of what philosophy is, could, and can be—what it means to be a philosopher, a successful one or otherwise.
Perhaps other, more mainstream academic philosophers, too, feel a sense of faking it till they make it, even if they are generally successful at doing all the things that professional philosophers are supposed to do: writing dissertations, publishing articles, giving talks, getting tenured. In some sense, all of philosophy is a matter of faking it till you make it, insofar as there is an inherent open-ended-ness to all philosophical questions, even if one presupposes that there are objective answers to those questions. Anyone claiming to be an expert in philosophy is likely deceiving himself or herself into thinking that the answers to philosophical questions are within reach. (The history of philosophy betrays otherwise.) But are those more mainstream academic philosophers still faking it, despite their professional and academic successes? Do they, too, have philosopher imposter syndrome? Do they aspire to a greatness they will never achieve, no matter how many published articles or books they add to their CVs? Or are they content to be small, insignificant cogs in the philosophical machine, one blip in the philosophical timeline (if they are lucky), or a mere footnote in the history of philosophy?
I suspect that many more academic philosophers are faking it till they make it than is generally recognized, or that they themselves would even recognize. They, too, dream of making their mark in the history of philosophy in the way that Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant once did before them. Yet only time will tell which of us will actually be remembered in a thousand or two thousand years (or perhaps even in fifty or a hundred for some of us!). What hubris we sometimes have in thinking that we are making our mark, however small, in the history of philosophy and in thinking that we are elevating all of humankind and human thought by churning away working on our run-of-the-mill philosophical problems.
As Nietzsche said, even a gnat flies through the air with the same solemnity. I can’t help but wonder if the gnat, too, flying through the air with his own lofty gnat-like ambitions, is merely faking it till he makes it.
