Should Philosophers Be Political or Apolitical?

Philosophy serves multiple purposes. For some, philosophy is primary pedagogical, with an emphasis on abstract reasoning, truth for its own sake, knowledge of the nature of reality and the causes of things, and Socratic self-improvement in the form of open inquiry, knowledge of self and one’s own ignorance, and a willingness to follow good reasons and sound arguments in good faith wherever they may lead you.

For others, however, philosophy is primarily political, with an emphasis on shaping and molding society using the tools of reason with the aims of justice, equality, freedom, representation, and other assorted political aims too numerous to mention here. Given these overlapping and often competing aims of philosophy as a discipline, it can be difficult to tell what philosophy’s proper relationship to politics is or should be. And, indeed, different philosophers themselves in the history of philosophy have fallen somewhere on a spectrum between being more political or less political (i.e., being apolitical).

Although many philosophers in the history of philosophy have written on a wide range of topics ranging from the abstract and metaphysical to the practical and political, the relationship between philosophy and politics itself has changed over time and with the various movements in the history of philosophy. Even though Plato and Aristotle wrote some of their greatest works on political philosophy, such as Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics, respectively, one could argue that the chief aims of philosophers in the classical period were primarily pedagogical rather than political. Plato’s Republic was intended to breed philosophers first and foremost, and only secondarily to influence the practical politics of the day in Athens. Similarly, Aristotle’s political works had as much or more to do with cultivating virtue as with trying to mold Athenian society into something it wasn’t.

Something changed in the Modern period, however. Philosophers viewed their work not only as pure philosophy for its own sake but as a tool to shape and mold society actively. Being a philosopher in the modern period was, in some sense, itself a political act. The great political works of the Modern period, from Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan to John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract, were not abstract political treatises but were themselves speech acts in written form with the explicit aim of molding and changing the political reality of human society to fit with the demands of human reason and their authors’ views of human nature and of a just society.

This political turn in Modern philosophy continued into the various philosophical movements of the 20th century, from existentialism to structuralism and poststructuralism, from critical theory to feminism. The goal of much of 20th-century philosophy was not to reason abstractly but to change human society and the entire world for the better, or at least in a way that is more compatible with the highest aims and goals of humanity.

For the ancients, philosophy was more exclusive, suitable only for those with an innately philosophical temperament (for Plato) or for those with adequate training in reasoning and practical problem solving (for Aristotle). In the Modern period and beyond, however, philosophy became more egalitarian, a necessary feature of a just society and for its members at every level and social standing. We are all rational beings, as Immanuel Kant famously held. And if postmodern philosophy rejects the special place of human rationality and objectivity, it has retained the political aims and goals of equality and justice, social justice or otherwise, shared by their Classical and Enlightenment forbearers.

It’s not clear at all, however, that the pursuit of philosophy should ipso facto make one more political. Despite writing works of philosophy, great philosophers of the Classical era seemed content to practice philosophy with an inward or esoteric focus instead of an outward or exoteric focus. While some philosophers, such as Pythagoras, tried to keep their philosophical art and discoveries a secret, in some gnostic or cult-like sense, reserved only for members of the inner circle with increased understanding and privileged access, even Plato and Aristotle had their own inner circle with whom they practiced philosophy day in and day out, in a surprising reversal of and contrast to the more publicly visible street philosophy of Socrates.

So while Plato wrote about the ideal society in the Republic, in some fictional/utopian (i.e., “no place”) sense, he also seemed to accept the fact that only those with innately philosophical temperaments would ever understand the nature of justice anyway. Hence Plato seemed to believe that it would be a wasted effort to attempt to change all of society into an ideal state, to cultivate genuine understanding of justice among the masses or in their leaders, or to use reason as the very basis of, or foundation for, human political society. Plato thus remained a political pragmatist even despite his philosophical idealism and rationalism, making him closer to his student Aristotle in philosophical temperament than is generally acknowledged or accepted today.

So, returning to the original question, what is the proper relationship between philosophy and politics. Should we aim to understand justice but keep that knowledge to ourselves, as ancient philosophers seemed to do? Should we attempt to rebuild or reshape all of society in accordance with human reason, as Modern philosophers aimed to do? Should we abandon our quest for rationality and objectivity but retain the aims of justice and equality as 20th-century thinkers seemed to do? Should we be radical individuals attempting to shape all of society in our own image, as existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre claimed we do (or that we should do)? (See Existentialism is a Humanism by Sartre.)

All of those approaches to the relationship between philosophy and politics are inherently political, in one form or another. But it’s possible to take philosophy in another, more apolitical direction. One could just as plausibly argue that philosophy, with its equal emphasis on the abstract and the metaphysical, should lead one to be politically disinterested and apolitical. After all, whether one is trying to understand the nature of reality itself or whether one is focusing on improving his or her own individual character, political involvement is more of a distraction from these aims, more of a hindrance than a help to the cultivation of genuine philosophical virtue and temperament.

Thus there is a genuine disagreement between philosophers about whether philosophy should be more public or more private, more outwardly focused or more inwardly focused, more practical or more idealistic, more exoteric or more esoteric, and more political or more pedagogical in scope and purpose. I myself have usually landed on the side of being more apolitical than politically involved, a fact about myself that has drawn much criticism from my cohort of fellow philosophers who are more socially or politically motivated.

This, however, is nothing new. Even Socrates was criticized by Aristophanes for having his head too much in the clouds, a wildly impractical sophist and intellectual trickster, and not involved enough in the practical matters that most people think of as the truly important matters in society (see The Clouds by Aristophanes). And, of course, Thales before him once fell into a well because he was looking up at the heavens instead of at the ground before him as he strolled through life.

Must philosophers who are less political in temperament, more abstract in their thinking, be forever seen as impractical, pie-in-the-sky thinkers with nothing to offer? Is there inherent value in asking questions about reality itself, about ontology, about causation, even about ethics, in an abstract sense instead of a practical or political sense? If so, does this force once into a type of philosophical monasticism or cultism, retreating inward, either alone or with one’s likeminded fellow philosophers and followers, keeping philosophy free of political influence in either direction, preserving and protecting its purity for insiders, in some elitist sense, from the corrupting influences of the practical and political world?

Many philosophers today take for granted that philosophy should have political import. Yet most of us are intellectual and cultural descendants of our Modern and Enlightenment philosophical forbearers. Many philosopher think, in other words, that it’s possible to use philosophy to change the world, and they make it their mission to try. Some of us, however, have a competing intuition, that philosophy should be a safe haven from the distractions, minutiae, and small-mindedness of political affairs.

For those of us with this competing view about philosophy as an abstract enterprise, perhaps for us throwbacks to pre-Modern times and pre-Modern / pre-Enlightenment views about the nature and purpose of philosophy, pure reason and pure philosophy are valuable for their own sake, both because of the inherent value of philosophical questions themselves but also because of the way in which philosophical reasoning and Socratic humility cultivate specific virtues that are valuable for people to cultivate, whether or not those individual virtues have any practical or political import.

Those who begin to think politically too early or too young may never fully cultivate subtract philosophical reasoning, philosophical humility, or philosophical virtues to the extent they might if they had remained more apolitical and focused on philosophy for its own sake instead of on their political aims, or those of the particular philosophical school in which they have indoctrinated themselves. This, perhaps, is the reason that philosophy for Plato and Aristotle, following the days of Socrates with his man-on-the-street approach to philosophy, became more cloistered, more protected, more gnostic in practice.

Yes, it might have been true that philosophers were still scared for their lives after the execution of Socrates. But I think philosophy’s inward turn, from Plato onward up until the enlightenment philosophers nearly 2,000 years later, had as much to do with the the view that true philosophy is inherently apolitical, something even to be protected fro the masses, not something to disseminate willy-nilly in some vain attempt to change the world, or to change people who themselves would not be changed. The purpose of philosophy, for the ancients and medieval philosophers, was to cultivate more philosophers, often in secret or hidden in their own respective philosophical schools, not to cultivate political change.

Philosophy’s political turn in the Modern/Enlightenment period, then, and the culture of political philosophy today, is really an aberration in the history of philosophy, and yet it’s an aberration that most philosophers, especially the politically and socially minded ones, take for granted as inherent to philosophy itself, incorrectly I believe. The winds of philosophy may have blown in the political direction, at least for the last century, if not for the last 400 years or so. But I’ve never been one to go where the winds carry me, and I’m content to be one of the anachronistic holdouts who, like generations of philosophers in the ancient and medieval world, viewed philosophy as a pure and apolitical endeavor, something worthwhile for its own sake and not merely because of its affect, or lack thereof, on the political or human spheres.

If that makes me a throwback, I can live with that, but it also puts me in the company of Plato, Aristotle, and their philosophical and intellectual descendants, both named and unnamed, who endeavored to keep philosophy pure, free of, and protected from political influence or distraction. I may never succeed in changing the world, as indeed Plato and Aristotle did only accidentally instead of intentionally. But I and others who champion abstract philosophy, logic, metaphysics, and the metaphorical or literal harmony of the spheres are doing our part to cultivate new philosophers, to retain philosophy’s primarily pedagogical focus (in contrast to its contemporary political focus), to cultivate our use of human reason for its own sake, and to protect the purest form of philosophy from all outside influences—political, institutional, academic, scholastic, corporate, or otherwise.

Critics who prefer a more political approach to philosophy may view this as a form of self-interested or protective circling of the philosophical wagons, even purposefully turning our backs to the many injustices and forms of suffering in the world about which something might be done, through philosophy or through some other means. I would argue, however, that while political actors are in large supply, true philosophers in the most traditional and purest sense, are rather in short supply, and we don’t want their talents for abstraction and idealism wasted on the political minutiae of the present, no matter how much suffering, injustice, or tragedy occurs from day to day in the world, and no matter what the practical or applied political issues of the day may happen to be.

To get bogged down by these ephemeral qualities of the political world is to be ever stuck in a cave staring at shadows flickering on the wall instead of freeing one’s mind to become a lover of wisdom, truth, knowledge, and even personal virtue, philosophical or otherwise, for their own sake instead of for some political, social, or practical end. Ironically and counterintuitively, Plato and Aristotle succeeded in changing the world after all, perhaps even to a greater extent than they might have otherwise because they were apolitical and by focusing on the pedagogical aspects of philosophy instead of its political aspects. Philosophers who become political actors in life may be destined to fade into obscurity never having accomplished their own aims. Yet philosophers who cultivate, breed, and train other philosophers may actually succeed in changing the world indirectly through their students and through their high philosophical ideals, even if they never lift a political finger in their own lifetimes.

It’s worth noting that the same question could, and probably should (definitely nowadays with the rise of religious conservatism in recent decades), be asked of religious belief as well: should religious belief make you more political or less political? Should those of faith use their moral convictions as tools for social justice, as Martin Luther King Jr. advocated? Or should one’s faith allow you to rise above the political fray to focus on higher and more spiritual concerns, free of political import? There are pros and cons, both virtues and dangers, to each approach. If your faith becomes a political tool, there is a danger of it becoming an impure faith focused on the human sphere in lieu of the divine sphere. But if you are too inwardly focused and culturally isolated, too far removed from the political reality of and the many injustices in the world, your religious faith itself may actually become a tool for injustice and for evil, as it arguably has become for many people of faith today, from every religion and faith with its sights on the heavens instead of on their neighbors’ wellbeing.

I would argue that the same pros and cons, the same virtues and dangers, exist for philosophers. Philosophers who use philosophy politically do so at the risk of leaving their faculties of abstract reasoning not fully cultivated, or, even worse, of casting their philosophical pearls before proverbial swine. On the other hand, philosophers who are too abstract in their thinking run the risk of being ineffective, disinterested, and even morally dangerous in their tolerance for genuine evil in the world. Perhaps the answer lies in some Aristotelian middle-ground between the two opposing vices of being too political and being too apolitical.

Yet, just as Socrates rejected Euthyphro’s specific examples of piety in response to Socrates’s question about the definition of piety in itself (see Plato’s Euthyphro dialogue), philosophers should be skeptical of any account of philosophy that emphasizes the practical over the ideal, the political over the pedagogical, and the ephemeral issues of the day over the transcendent or the eternal, lest they continue to stare at shadows on the wall, mistaking practical politics for real philosophy and for real wisdom all the while.