A Companion to Public Philosophy

2The Professionalization of Philosophy: From Athens to the APA and Beyond

ADAM BRIGGLE

This chapter offers a rough sketch of the history and sociology of public philosophy. It is limited to Western philosophy for reasons of space and my own limitations. It is worth noting at the outset that the study of various non‐Western philosophical traditions promises to enrich the history, theory, and practice of public philosophy (see Briggle and Frodeman 2021; Van Norden 2017).

Professionalization is the focus of this story because it is the process whereby philosophy is constituted as something not public. Like philosophy itself, the meanings of profession and professionalization are contested, and the professionalization of the humanities deviates in some ways from the typical pattern (see Veysey 1979). Nonetheless, a basic definition can serve our purposes: professionalization is the social process by which any occupation demarcates the qualified (professionals, specialists, or experts) from the unqualified (amateurs, public, or laypeople). This results in occupational closure because entry into the profession is closed to all but the qualified. Qualification is earned through formal institutional training and certification, and status and membership are policed by a professional peer community and its standards of success and quality. This process is connected to another definition of professionalization: namely, that one is paid for the work under consideration.

For philosophy, ...