A Companion to Public Philosophy

35Getting Close: Philosophers Engage with Government and NGOS

ANITA L. ALLEN

1 Introduction

Definitions of “public philosophy” abound (Weber 2015). Yet all agree that public philosophy strives, in one respect or another, ultimately to move philosophy and philosophers closer to the world outside of the academy. Toward situating philosophical collaborations with government and NGOs, I will distinguish two definitional uses of the term “public philosophy”: a “shared vision” definition and a “professional activity” definition.

Under the first, “public philosophy” refers to the idea of a particular shared vision or ideology, actual or aspirational. An example might be Maxine Greene’s new liberalism undergirding her philosophy of education in the age of John Dewey (Greene 2016; Giarelli 2016); Walter Lippman’s vision of a non‐market way of thinking about the public’s common interests sufficient for the advancement of democracy (Lippmann 1955); or Michael Sandel’s civic communitarianism, launched from a critique of Rawlsian liberalism (Sandel 1996).¹ Under the second use, “public philosophy” denotes the set of practical activities, especially as performed by professionally trained philosophers seeking to directly engage with public affairs, facilitated by philosophical methods, concepts, and theories.

Public philosophy in this second sense – a set of professional activities – can be principally intramural or extramural. When intramural, the activity of the public philosopher may ...