Political Philosophy in and for the Public

The world needs changing, sure, but also interpreting and re-imagining. It needs institutions, most fundamentally, but also ideas and intellectuals, who in turn need to be sure that they are not doing more harm than good. So, with this in mind: how should political philosophers go about their business when trying to ‘engage’ with, or have an ‘impact’ upon, the so-called ‘real world’? Should they be running for office or writing speeches? Should they be drafting constitutions and policies? Or should they just teach to thousands and publish for hundreds, perhaps in the hope that some of those hundreds and thousands become tomorrow’s (hopefully wise) movers and shakers?

More generally, and regardless of whatever combination we choose, precisely what heady mix of ‘stances’ and ‘poses’ should each of us be taking and striking? After all, go ‘radical’, and risk being ignored; go ‘relevant’ and risk being stuck in and with the status quo. So, again, hard questions, but also unavoidable ones, requiring balance and a careful reading of our ever-changing zeitgeist.

Clearly, we are always going to need good judgement, and in turn the skills and virtues that support it. Clearly too, we are going to have to think through, and re-think through, past and present cases, both successful and unsuccessful in terms of the ‘engagement’ and ‘impact’ they produced. And clearly, somehow, we will have to develop broader institutions and policies of a kind that might change the wider climate of ideas in which we all live and breath, think and vote, act and are acted upon.

Maybe, for example, it would help if political philosophy found its way into school curriculums? Maybe it would help if political philosophers formed advisory committees and associations of a kind more common in the natural sciences? And maybe, too, it would help if more of us worked in the many layers of government found in the world, both local and global.

With luck, I hope to help with some of these puzzles in the coming years, though for my answers so far, see the links on the right, from public lectures to podcasts, from YouTube to the BBC (here and here), and from very short articles to a still quite short book. Next steps include a chapter on ‘methods of public political philosophy’ in the book mentioned here, plus a series of school talks across 2024 and 2025 on ‘how to be a public political philosopher’ in every secondary school in the Bristol City area, in partnership with the Bristol Mayor’s Office, and funded by my AHRC Leadership Fellowship on, fittingly enough, ‘Public Political Philosophy’.

BBC R3 Free Thinking: Rawls’ Theory of Justice at 50

BBC R3 Free Thinking: The delights & dangers of dullness

Interview in Bristol’s The Tab on how my research and teaching inform one another

Interview with Bristol’s Institute of Teaching and Learning on how being ‘experimental’ in teaching helps to connect ‘theory’ and ‘practice’

Very short article on why we should be teaching political philosophy in secondary schools

Public conference on ‘Political Philosophy meets Politics’

Interview (2023) on ‘Public Political Philosophy’ with Mathis Knospe at Cultures of Compromise.