In It Together – By MM McCabe

Philosophy has long occupied a position of privilege: dominated by great white male figures, speaking to us through difficult language and harder concepts, and allowing the reader only to aspire to such deep thought. The history of philosophy – as Jessica Leech reminded us, The View blog 8th July 2020 – is often a history of men: from Socrates and Plato through Descartes and Hume and Kant to the major figures of the modern era Nietzsche, Frege or Wittgenstein. Recent professional philosophy, often housed in major universities, was dominated by white men, too – the senior women in philosophy departments in the mid-twentieth century could be counted on the fingers of two hands; even fewer the people of colour. It was perhaps a consequence of this hierarchy that philosophical theory often focussed on the perspective of a solitary subject — like this, perhaps:

in contrast to whatever might be thought of as an objective view (a ‘View from Nowhere’ as Thomas Nagel has it): What can I know from here sitting speculating alone? What is it to see something, if I can never see as others see? What am I entitled to do, given what I want? What am I obliged to do, despite what I want? What do I owe to anyone else, considering my obligations from the point of view of egoism alone? Into this tradition, viewpoints previously unconsidered – different by gender or race or orientation – started to shout for inclusion: and challenged the assumptions of hierarchy. So, some of the great work of recent years has focussed less on solitary subjects, and more on the relations between subjects; and rather less on the rights and wrongs of particular actions or effects, and more on dispositions or attitudes or even virtues (e.g. Linda Zagzebski’s Virtues of the Mind). Consider, for example, some of the brilliant new work on the problems of ‘epistemic injustice’ and bias (for example by Miranda Fricker or Jennifer Saul). Some people may be taken to be less credible than others, their experience less significant, the language they speak less important as a way of describing our shared world. But – as is the way of bias – the injustice of this may go unnoticed, even by its victims.  Sometimes this is a matter of language and thought – where some expressions may be poorly understood, some shapes of thought invisible – sometimes a matter of knowledge – the testimony of one carries less weight than the testimony of another – sometimes a matter of power and interest, where the powerless just go unheard. Or consider the importance of trust (Onora O’Neill, Katherine Hawley) which often depends as much on the circumstances of those who are trusted – and who trust themselves – as on the unvarnished facts of the matter (consider the self-doubt that comes with ‘imposter syndrome’, itself acknowledged to be illusory, and consider the ways in which the old hierarchies support the illusion; or consider what O’Neill calls the ‘vicious spirals’ of betrayal).

Or remember that dismal question about egoism, standard in ethics: why should I consider the interests of another, above my own? Once this is the starting point, it is hard to get past the singular subject – but perhaps ‘I’ is not where we should begin in ethics, but rather by thinking about ‘we’? (Here recent work by Jane Heal on other minds captures the point brilliantly).  Is it a coincidence that much of this work is written by women? Is it a coincidence that much of this work centres on the idea that our starting points in thinking about the basic questions of reality might not be the solitary thinker, but all of us in it together? [here is one of my favourite pictures of the attentive company of women: Artemisia Gentileschi’s The birth of St. John the Baptist…]

Mary Margaret (‘MM’) McCabe FBA is Professor of Ancient Philosophy Emerita at King’s College London (some stuff here www.marymargaretmccabe.com ). She is the Chair of Trustees of the charity Philosophy in Prison www.philosophyinprison.com