Joshua Stein is a philosopher from Oakland, California, who works on ethics, economics, politics, and emerging technologies. He currently lives in Arlington, Virginia; he writes on a range of subjects for publications ranging from mainstream outlets to academic publications to niché outlets. He loves to write, to explore subjects and try to make them accessible, engaging, and enjoyable.
Making Philosophy Matter More
Philosophy matters. A lot of contemporary discussion reduces the potential social impact of philosophy to a few sub-disciplines. Ethics and political philosophy help guide how we live our lives, individually and socially; applied ethics can guide the development of new technologies in computing and medicine to prevent or reduce harm. Debates about free speech, extremism, authoritarianism, and the shifting political environment are informed by philosophical arguments and disagreements. Philosophy has a lot to offer public discussions, because philosophy directly studies ethics and politics.
Some areas of philosophy are less well recognized, but still have a lot to teach us. Ethics and political philosophy are more accessible because we directly discuss ethical and political decision making. Other areas of philosophy (like social epistemology, metaphysics, and metaethics) are less familiar to general audiences, and sometimes get too obscure and abstract to seem relatable to pressing problems. My dissertation attempted to connect abstract philosophical theories about human rationality to the ways we organize our social world, to show connections between abstract ideas about reason and important social scientific notions that we use in economics, law, ethics, and politics. One of my goals in public philosophy is to show ideas that look distant can teach us interesting things, and should be accessible to everybody. Not every idea will interest everybody, but philosophers should do our best to make sure our work is available to everybody who is interested.