diversity

From Experience to Insight – the Personal Dimension of Philosophy

by Muriel Leuenberger
May 26, 2023May 30, 2023

Written by Muriel Leuenberger

The more philosophers I have come to know, the more I realize how deeply personal philosophy is. Philosophical positions often emerge from personal experience and character – even the seemingly most technical, detached, and abstract ones. As Iris Murdoch wrote: “To do philosophy is to explore one’s own temperament, and yet at the same time to attempt to discover the truth.” Philosophy is an expression of how one sees the world, a clarification, development, and defense of “an outlook that defines who someone is” to add the words of Kieran Setiya.

This personal dimension of philosophy becomes evident in the new philosophical positions and topics that emerge when people with different personal experiences and points of view start to do philosophy. The most prominent example is how women in philosophy, particularly in the last 50 years, have contributed new perspectives – a brush of fresh air in old, stuffy rooms. Philosophy’s allegedly objective view from nowhere was rather the view from a particularly male perspective. Care ethics, feminist philosophy, and philosophy of pregnancy are just some areas where the inclusion of women in philosophy with their own outlook and priorities has advanced the discipline.[i]

The Diversity that Dare Not Speak Its Name

by Nadira Faber
June 10, 2012June 10, 2012

This is a guest post by Dave Frame. Many thanks to him for contributing!

Over the last few years, researchers have pointed out a dimension along which there is an extraordinary lack of diversity in the academic social sciences and humanities.[1] And the response from social scientists has been striking. Usually, statistics like these trigger strident calls to reflect diversity and address systematic bias; in this case – political bias – everyone just smiles and winks. But on what basis should political diversity not matter, given how highly academics prize diversity in regards to gender, ethnicity, religion dis/ability and so on?