A Companion to Public Philosophy

5The Value of Public Philosophy

EVELYN BRISTER

1 Why Public Philosophy?

Academic philosophy, among other goals, constructs theoretical resources for understanding society by refining reasoning tools (logic), categorizing experience (ontology), studying what is valuable and why (axiology), and reflecting on knowledge itself (epistemology). Philosophy addresses the most general possible questions and, simultaneously, those that are the most essential to human flourishing – questions about what matters and why, how to make sense of our goals and how to direct ourselves toward them collectively, the sources of our problems, and the understanding needed to solve (or dissolve) them.

When academic philosophy addresses these questions, it uses refined vocabularies and specialized concepts developed within a community of credentialed experts. At its best, the specialization of academic philosophy enables thorough intellectual exploration of complex issues that are embedded in sophisticated theoretical contexts. Public philosophy is distinguished from academic philosophy by its intended audience of non‐philosophers. In part, its value lies in how it complements the traditional publishing of academic philosophy in journals and books. At the very least, public philosophy yields direct routes for disseminating the knowledge and techniques of academic philosophical investigation.

But public philosophy also accomplishes more than this: it generates new knowledge and acts as a corrective to ...