Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Philosophy in the Age of Neoliberalism

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 26; Issue: 3-4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02691728.2012.722701

1464-5297

Robert Frodeman, Adam Briggle, J. Britt Holbrook,

Philosophy and History of Science

Abstract This essay argues that political, economic, and cultural developments have made the twentieth century disciplinary approach to philosophy unsustainable. It (a) discusses the reasons behind this unsustainability, which also affect the academy at large, (b) describes applied philosophy as an inadequate theoretical reaction to contemporary societal pressures, and (c) proposes a dedisciplined and interstitial approach—“field philosophy”—as a better response to the challenges facing the twenty-first century philosophy. Keywords: Field PhilosophyNeoliberalismInterdisciplinarity Notes [1] But the leader of the coup, Helen Dragas, was reappointed by the governor to the board for another four-year term. [2] Exceptions to this general disregard are often found within the English literature, e.g. Chris Newfield, Louis Menand, and Stanley Fish. [3] Krohn (2010 Krohn, Wolfgang. 2010. Interdisciplinary cases and disciplinary knowledge—epistemic challenges of interdisciplinary research. Oxford handbook of interdisciplinarity, edited by R. Frodeman et al., pp. 31–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar], 32). [4] In the early twentieth century, the Vienna School originally had a social–political as well as an epistemological focus. The former was lost in the aftermath of the World War II (Reisch 2005 Reisch, George A. 2005. How the cold war transformed philosophy of science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]). But there is a crucial difference between social–political philosophy, which offers high-theoretical accounts, and applied philosophy, which seeks to address specific controversies (Frodeman 2011 ———. 2011. Interdisciplinary thinking and academic sustainability: Managing knowledge in an age of accountability. Environmental Conservation 38 (1) (March): 105–12. [Google Scholar]). [5] The Belmont Report is available here: http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/belmont.html. [6] One could see principlism as just one of numerous forms of bioethical inquiry, including virtue ethics, feminism, libertarianism, and religious ethics of all types. This diversity has been taken to suggest that nothing identifiable as “bioethics” even exists (see Turner 2009 Turner, L. 2009. Does bioethics exist?. Journal of Medical Ethics, 35: 778–780. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Can a postmodern queer theorist and a Baptist theologian really form parts of the same whole? Others have argued that “rigor” in bioethics does not really exist, because so many disciplines are involved, each with its own methods and standards for defining problems and establishing acceptable work (Adler and Shaul 2012 Adler, Daniel and Shaul, Randi Zlotnik. 2012. Disciplining bioethics: Towards a standard of methodological rigor in bioethics research. Accountability in Research, 19: 187–207. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Kopelman 2006 Kopelman, L. M. 2006. Bioethics as a second-order discipline: Who is not a bioethicist?. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 31: 601–628. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Yet although bioethics is clearly diverse, principlism stands out as a predominant and mainstream approach. [7] Deleuze and Guattari (1987 Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix. 1987. A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. [Google Scholar], 27). [8] An updated plan calls for merely removing all nontenured professors in philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, in lieu of the elimination of philosophy (Etchison 2011 Etchison, Haley. 2011. Philosophy department would be saved in revised plan. The Rebel Yell [cited April 7, 2011]. Available from http://unlvrebelyell.com/2011/04/07/philosophy-department-would-be-saved-in-revised-plan/; INTERNET. [Google Scholar]).