Professional Philosophy and Its Myths

In Professional Philosophy and Its Myths, Rebekah Spera and David M. Peña-Guzmán argue that academic philosophy is steeped in a host of myths that keep professional philosophers in a state of self-ignorance. Understood as unconscious schemas that shape philosophers’ collective imaginary, these myths perform a dangerous ideological function within the discipline. Not only do they contribute to the overwhelming demographic homogeneity of the profession—ensuring that philosophy remains a holdout of white and male dominance—but they also prevent philosophers from seeing themselves as workers who, like all workers who sell their labor for a wage under capital, are subject to alienation, exploitation, and oppression. After outlining and critiquing these myths, Spera and Peña-Guzmán call upon philosophers to collectively invent new myths that will enrich rather than impoverish their psychic and professional lives. Through these new myths, they argue, a new philosophy—a “philosophy of the future”—will be born.