Julian Baggini

Philosophers are different from other people. That much, you might think, is obvious. But how exactly are they different? In what ways are they just the same as everyone else? And are academic philosophers different from philosophy enthusiasts - "philosophiles" if you like?

These questions have been at least partially answered by TPM Online's annual survey, its most extensive yet. 2,101 people took part, allowing us to distinguish three distinct types of person: the philosophobe, the philosophile and the academic.

Perhaps surprisingly, of the three, academics are the most conservative, in the sense that they more than any other group judge tradition to be vitally important for the well being of society. However, they are also the most politically correct and, along with the philosophiles, take a more approving line on the legalisation of soft drugs than their unphilosophical peers.

Academics also turn out to be the least impressed by the idea of a non-material reality: they are the least likely to believe in an afterlife and share the atheist tendency of the philosophiles.

But perhaps the most striking finding is that by a wide margin the academics are the group most likely to believe that they themselves need to do more to address the concerns of society. This statement was the one which received the strongest response by any group in the entire survey.

Philosophiles turn out to be the most sceptical, in particular about the soundness of scientific knowledge, and the most confident about their own intellectual superiority. They are also the least conservative and less inclined than the unphilosophical to believe in God or an afterlife. Along with the academics, they are more likely to believe that soft drugs should be legalised.

Academics part company with philosophiles on four key issues: They agree more strongly that they need to do more to address society's concerns; they are more politically correct; they are more readily persuaded by the claims of science, such as those concerning global warming; and they are less inclined to believe in an afterlife.

As for the philosophobes, they are much more likely to believe in God and an after life and strongly agree that political correctness has gone too far.

There is also a fourth category: those who have studied or are studying philosophy at postgraduate level. Perhaps unsurprisingly, their beliefs tend to fall somewhere between those of the philosophile and the academic. As this makes them more of a hybrid than a distinct type, we have omitted them from our list of character profiles.

Equally interesting is where interest in philosophy makes no difference to belief. It seems that an interest in philosophy makes little or no difference to how people judge the morality of abortion and their own intelligence relative to that of others.

The most interesting category from the point of view of its composition is that of the philosophile. Philosophiles are a disparate group, comprising anyone who has an interest in philosophy and has not studied it beyond undergraduate level. The survey actually enabled us to distinguish between those who have studied philosophy at undergraduate level and those who have not, and within these two groups those whose interest extends beyond three years and those whose interest is still quite new. But we found few significant differences of opinion among these four groups. Only undergraduates with less than three years of interest responded differently and so these were omitted from the category of philosophiles.

These findings are doubtless of interest, but what do they show? What they cannot show is any cause and effect. We just cannot tell from this data whether pursuing or not pursuing an interest in philosophy causes belief change or whether people with these different kinds of beliefs tend to join the ranks of the philosophobes, the philosophiles or academia respectively. For instance, it might seem natural to draw the conclusion that philosophy makes people less inclined to believe in God or the afterlife. But the data could equally well be explained by the hypothesis that people unimpressed by religious or spiritual explanations of reality are more likely to be drawn to philosophy, with its emphasis on hard-headed rational thought. Here, what Duhem and Quine called the under-determination of theory by evidence is not a contentious philosophical theory, it's a fact.

One extremely intriguing finding is the gulf that exists between philosophiles and academic philosophers. On balance, philosophiles differ in their beliefs as much with academics as they do with the philosophobes. This is even more puzzling when you consider that philosophiles include people who have studied philosophy at university, so it is not just a lack of exposure to academic philosophy that could account for the gap. Something about either the demands postgraduate and professional work in philosophy make upon people or the kind of person who is attracted to this high-level study leads to these different patterns of belief.

Whatever the explanation, the existence of this difference is worrying for anyone who believes that academics and philosophiles are on the same wavelength. On the contrary, philosophiles are as out of tune with academics as they are with the philosophobes.

That is not to say there aren't some issues on which the academic and philosophile tend to agree. As a group, those who have an interest in philosophy, regardless of the extent of their interest, are more liberal on soft drugs and less likely to believe in God or an afterlife than their philosophobic peers. It is this increased tendency to reject traditional religious beliefs that is perhaps the clearest hallmark of the broad philosophical community of academics and enthusiasts.

This is one of the two clearest findings of the survey. But perhaps the most striking, because it is unexpected, is the strength of feeling among academics about their wider role. An amazing 77% of academics agreed to some extent that they needed to do more to address the concerns of society. This came as a shock to us at TPM. Our view has always been that the public expects too much from academic philosophers. While we have believed that more could and should be done by them to communicate with the wider public, we have thought that the public over estimated the extent to which this communication could and should involve the addressing of the concerns of society at large. As it transpires, the greatest clamour for philosophers to reach out is coming, not from the public, but from philosophers themselves.

Since the challenge to address the public's concerns has now been laid down by philosophers themselves, the public has a right to hold them to account if they fail to deliver the goods. At TPM, we will continue to provide a conduit for those who aim to rise to meet the challenge.

 

Three thinkers

The academic
Academic philosophers are those who teach philosophy at an institution of higher education. Despite being the most conservative of the three types they are the most politically correct and are generally in agreement with the legalisation of soft drugs. They are the least likely to believe in God or an afterlife. They are also most likely to believe that philosophers need to do more to address society's concerns.

The philosophile
Philosophiles are those with an interest in philosophy who have not studied it beyond undergraduate level. These are the most sceptical about the soundness of scientific knowledge and the most confident about their own intellectual superiority. They are also the least conservative and less inclined than philoso-phobes to believe in God or an afterlife. They, like the academics, take a more liberal line of soft drugs.

The philosophobe
Philosophobes are those who have no interest in philosophy and have never studied the subject at university level or above. They are the most religious of the three groups, being much more likely to believe in God and an after life. They are the most likely to believe that political correctness has gone too far. They are more respecting of tradition than philosophiles but less so than academics.

 

Survey results summary

Question	Philosophobes	Philosophiles	Academics
Tradition is vitally important for the well-being of society.	60	54	68
I very rarely meet anybody who I judge to be more intelligent that I am.	40	42	39
There exists some kind of divine, God-like being who has power over us.	42	35	35
A person's life, including their consciousness, comes to an end with the death of their body and brain (i.e., there is no life after death).	50	57	63
Science is the most successful branch of human knowledge.	59	55	57
Political correctness has gone too far in Western society.	73	69	58
The evidence that there is man-made "global warming" is overwhelming.	66	64	69
Abortion of an eight-week old foetus is morally wrong.	36	35	36
"Soft" drugs such as cannabis should be legalised.	62	70	70
Philosophers should do more to address the concerns of society.	61	68	78

For each statement, respondents were asked whether they strongly agreed/disagreed, tended to agree/disagree or neither agreed nor disagreed. A score of 100 would indicate that everyone strongly agreed, 0 that everyone strongly disagreed and 50 that on average people neither agreed nor disagreed. 2,101 people took part in the survey.