In and beyond the Ivory Tower

One distinctive feature of philosophy is its concern for the most general principles and assumptions underlying the various domains of discourse that attract its attention. Listen to a philosopher discussing truth or goodness, for example, and you’re likely to hear such abstract questions as “Is truth dependent on our perspective?” and “What, if anything, is intrinsically good?” in addition to more familiar, particular questions about whether it’s true that chocolate consumption triggers migraines or whether it’s good to want a bigger car.

But this is not to say that philosophy is “ivory tower” in the pejorative sense of the term, according to David Matheson, a newly appointed assistant professor in the department of philosophy. “The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus famously insisted that when philosophy fails to enrich our day-to-day lives, its value disappears,” Matheson notes. “I think he was right. The key, though, is not to abandon the traditional hallmarks of philosophical inquiry, like the special interest in more abstract issues, but to keep in mind that they are to be taken seriously precisely because they hold the promise of helping us better understand the problems that confront us all beyond the ivory tower.”

Matheson completed his doctoral studies at Brown University, with a focus on the branch of philosophy dealing with knowledge, epistemology. Since then he has sought to keep in mind the importance of bringing his background in epistemology to bear on issues beyond the ivory tower.

Consider, he suggests by way of example, a puzzling phenomenon about life in our contemporary society: “With the rise of such networking technologies as the Internet over the past two decades, our ability to connect with each other in various ways has dramatically increased. Yet the evidence suggests that interpersonal connection in its most valuable forms-intimacy and close friendship-has not correspondingly increased. In fact, the evidence suggests that it has decreased. Why should that be so?”

A plausible explanation worth exploring, Matheson suggests, can be derived from his recent work on the knowledge of persons. “Knowing another person seems distinct from merely knowing information about that person. The hope is that by getting clearer about the general principles involved in knowing a person, in contrast with merely knowing information about a person, we will be in a better position to understand why it is that the rise of the networked society has not brought with it a corresponding increase in such things as close friendship. Close friendship requires knowledge of persons; mere knowledge of information about persons won’t do the trick. With the rise of the networked society, we may well be seeing an explosion of mere knowledge of information about persons that is crowding out the more valuable knowledge of persons itself.”