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Outsider Philosophers

UrizenusSklar

Outsider philosophers?

The art world has a phenomenon known as outsider artists — artists who don't emerge via what Arthur Danto has called the art world (art schools, galleries etc.) but seemingly come in from the outside.  This inevitably leads to debates about who is really an outsider, whether they remain outsiders or get absorbed into the art world, and of course just how much recognition they should get.  Is there a similar phenomenon of outsider philosophers?

In the photos above I've given some examples to spur discussion.  Is Angela Davis (top) really an outsider?  (She studied under Marcuse and has held philosophy positions; perhaps she is an insider?).  Is Timothy Leary (bottom right) a philosopher?  He described himself as America's MVP — most valuable philosopher.  And would Lucy Parsons (bottom left) even consider herself a philosopher?  Well, I know some Chicago anarchists that would, and the Chicago police once described her as more dangerous that a thousand rioters, so there's that.

So are there outsider philosophers?  Who are they?  Are they worth reading?  Are they worth reading qua philosophers?  Discuss.

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50 responses to “Outsider Philosophers”

  1. Jozef Muller

    The most prominent Czechoslovak dissident philosophers: Egon Bondy, Jan Patocka, Milan Machovec, Jan Kusy, Svatopluk Stur. Most of them, maybe besides Patocka, unknown in the West. My own teacher of philosophy, a student of Patocka, who had to work most of his life as a construction worker due to persecution (Ivan Mladenek). And countless others in the Eastern bloc. Many of the very much worth reading, though you have to know the right language to do so. So, yes, there are and many.

    Reply
  2. Professor Plum

    I was tempted to say that my favorite outsider philosopher is Frederick Douglass, but I see he has an entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, so I guess he lacks true outsider cred. But he is fascinating and insightful and great fun to teach.

    Reply
  3. Landon W Schurtz

    How do we cash out the term "philosopher" when asking "who are the outsider philosophers (if any)?" If by "philosopher" we mean someone who treats subjects in a very particular idiom (say, what would be described by many as "analytic philosophy"), then there may turn out to be no outsider philosophers, because that idiom is pretty much only used by people who could probably be fairly described as "insiders," even if not employed in philosophy positions. On other other hand, if we take it just to mean something like "wrestling with a particular issue in a thorough fashion," then the term "outsider philosopher" turns out to be something like "someone who thinks and writes about it," which isn't very interesting. Are all bloggers "outsider philosophers"? Are conspiracy theorists? That latter is appealing, but I don't think it's right.

    I think there's a crucial discontinuity between the "outsider philosopher" concept the "outsider artist." Pace Noel Carroll, I don't think we can define "art" primarily as "what gets done in the art community." On the other hand, there's a very real sense in which "philosophy" often refers to an activity defined primarily as "what gets done in philosophy departments." I'm not endorsing that way of thinking about it, but I do think that once you remove the elements specific to the profession of philosophy, distinguishing philosophy from "thinking about things in a rigorous fashion" gets difficult.

    (And depending on who you include in the canon of philosophers, you can even get rid of the modifier "rigorous." Kidding! Sort of.)

    Reply
  4. Mark Rooke

    Maybe within the analytical tradition outsiders would be considered to be those who practice 'continental' philosophy (these terms are contested but the meaning is clear). And of course many are worth reading. Also, literature. Many great writers are also worth reading qua philosophy (and of course generally) and maybe even as philosophers.

    Reply
  5. Possible Outsider

    Does coming from a first gen family one of whom had only a grade eight education, and living by the code of the street most of your life count as an outsider, despite the fact that I am now thoroughly in academe? Or must I also be untrained philosophically? Either way, I don't see how being an outsider per se has anything to do with whether they are worth reading.

    Reply
  6. Jason Streitfeld

    Wouldn't Nietzsche count?

    With the blogosphere, there are many amateur philosophers who attempt to interact with professional or otherwise sophisticated philosophy. Successful or not, I give myself as an example. I'd define an amateur as one lacking the formal qualifications required of most professionals. Maybe that's not enough to be considered an "outsider philosopher," though, if you want to suggest that an "outsider philosopher" should have some significant, recognizable influence.

    Reply
  7. Stephen

    Is this intended to be bait for the Randians?

    Reply
  8. Michael Rosen

    Ayn Rand, Ted Kaczynski, Weininger, Dietzgen, Lenin, Stalin, Mao … The best defence I know for professional philosophy, with all of its faults, is amateurs.

    Reply
  9. DapperA

    A lecturer when I was an undergrad once brought in someone he believed to be an "outsider" philosopher – an autodidact who had developed ideas based on a Catholic interpretation of Aristotle. Sadly, it was mostly garbage. The room nodded along out of politeness, but the discussion in the bar after barely mentioned him.

    I think the problem there was similar to that of the "pub philosopher" many of us must have met – a belief that philosophy is purely intuitive, and that you really can start from base principles (which usually means uninformed opinion). For the most part, this ends up with little more than retreading the same bad ideas that first years produce every September/October. An informed response to philosophy will usually come out better than an uninformed one.

    Reply
  10. Derek Bowman

    I think a number of stand-up comedians are good candidates for 'outsider philosophers.' The best comics are good at analyzing concepts, pointing out inconsistencies in common practices, and probing the presuppositions of ordinary phrases and rituals.

    Also, why is it a problem if conspiracy theorists count? Surely there's bad 'outsider art' – so why shouldn't there be bad 'outsider philosophy?'

    Reply
  11. Matt

    I think Derek is on to something, not least because our
    greatest living aphorist is sometimes taken to be a comedian, though he clearly makes important contributions to philosophy of language, political philosophy, applied ethics, and philosophy of science.

    Reply
  12. Matt

    sadly, my link to the work of the greatest living aphorist didn't seem to work, so please look here:

    http://www.adelepham.com/deepthoughts/handy.htm

    Reply
  13. dmf

    doesn't "outsider" art mean no academic/formal training, so self inspired/trained?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna seems like the Howard Finster of waxing philosophical.

    Reply
  14. N.J. Jun

    Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, Voltairine de Cleyre, Erico Malatesta…

    Reply
  15. James Harold

    How about Walker Percy? He fits one criterion for an outsider philosopher: he was never formally trained in philosophy. He learned philosophy by reading on his own. But in addition to his literary works, he did publish in mainstream philosophy journals, such as J.Phil and PPR. So perhaps he successfully crossed the border to the "inside"?

    Reply
  16. David Robjant

    Inadvertently, this post is quite a neat explanation of why Outsider Philosophy exists.

    1. I don't endorse endorsing things without endorsing them.
    2. Why insert your conclusion (philosophy is what gets done in philosophy departments) as a premise (we have to distinguish what gets done in philosophy departments from non-philosophy)?
    3. To repeat question 2, why distinguish philosophy from thinking about things? Failing to distinguish them would have at least this merit: that some of the people in philosophy departments and even a few outside could then be doing *good* philosophy, while lots of people did *bad* philosophy. Otherwise, the question of good and bad will be collapsed into the question of philosophy or non-philosophy, which, strategically, is typically a way of ruling certain certain views out of consideration.
    4. That seems to be precisely what is at issue in the controversy about whether there is Outsider Art: an attempt to substitute the question 'but is it Art?' for the more commodious question 'is it any good?'

    Reply
  17. Sean

    John Henry Newman

    Reply
  18. Barry Lam

    What Derek Bowman said….Demetri Martin.

    Reply
  19. dmf

    perhaps tho there was certainly more than a streak of Romanticizing the 'primitive' in the marketing/valorizing of outsider artists, there are of course parallels in 'continental' philosophy and to some degree perhaps analytical philosophy defined itself against such moves?

    Reply
  20. Joe Hatfield

    Using Rorty's idea of philosophy as "a kind of writing," a non-philosopher is someone who has no idea who Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Hobbes,…Quine, Davidson, Fodor…were. Or (at least) non-philosophers don't know why it should be important to have them on their "need-to-know" list. Perhaps the easiest answer is that non-philosophers are those that fail to situate their thoughts in relation to the predecessors on this list. (unfortunately, Wittgenstein comes out as a non-philosopher under this definition…wait, he did mention Augustine in PI…so nevermind.) 🙂

    Reply
  21. ikj

    My understanding of outsider art is that lack of professional training and non-integration into the art world is only part of the equation. What dmf calls romaniticizing the "primitive" is the other key aspect, and in fact it is not only "primitivism" that is central to defining outsider art. Outsider artists, at least when the term was initially used, were often mentally ill or otherwise unable or incapable of "normal" social integration. As such, I'm not sure that the term outsider philosopher should be applied to Davis or Leary. Kaczynski, perhaps if you consider him a philosopher. Nietzsche, maybe. Even Zerzan seems too "adjusted" to be considered an outsider in Cardinal's sense.

    Reply
  22. Shane J. Ralston

    Benjamin Franklin…he was, and still is, an outsider philosophical pragmatist (Isaacson, Campbell and I agree). Of course, in Franklin's day 'philosopher' meant natural scientist, and he surely was a philosopher in that sense too.

    Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (Simon and Schuster, 2004).
    James Campbell, Recovering Benjamin Franklin: An Exploration of a Life of Science and Service (Open Court, 1999).
    Shane J. Ralston, "Ole Ben Franklin, the Pragmatist? On the Philosophical Credentials of an American Founder," The Pluralist, vol. 7, no. 1 (2012).

    Reply
  23. Michel X.

    Sort of. It's a bit of a jumbled and artificial category, really. Jean Dubuffet coined "art brut" ("brute art") and defined it in terms of the properties it exhibits (viz., "rawness", spontaneity, individuality–basically, it's kind of crude and naïve-looking, like a child's first letters or poems/written work), as well as tying it in to this idea of isolation from external cultural influences. A large number of critics (e.g. James Elkins) have pointed out that this latter requirement is pure invention, and would in fact serve to exclude most (maybe even all) "Outsider" works. Roger Cardinal, who coined the term "Outsider Art", points out that the scavenging that characterizes much "Outsider" art reflects all kinds of cultural influences, ambient and otherwise.

    Really, when you get down to it, the one thread that most "Outsider" art seems to have in common is the (sometimes undocumented but supposed) mental illness of its creators. And that, in a way, fits nicely with its original French appellation, which connotes a kind of basic fundemantality ("brut" means "raw" rather "brutish"). It's not even entirely clear whether Outsider Art is actually art (see, e.g., Davies 2009).

    The extent to which any of that provides a useful analogue for philosophy… well, Iunno. I guess that many of the figures mentioned would count as Outsiders for whom a case was made that they were philosophers but which, upon reflection, it turns out might not fit the mould. The only Outsider I can think of that really is widely accepted as a philosopher (and recognized as an outsider) is Socrates.

    Reply
  24. David Robjant

    In reply to dmf & ikj. Romanticising the primitive is an attitude in play among commentators. That's not an attitude I'd endorse, any more than I'd endorse romanticism about sophistication. But observations about commentators and their romances distract from the tree I was barking up. My point was that a capitalised honorific which starts as a proxy for quality can come to be treated as a substitute (Art, Philosophy). This is the sort of worry it might be productive to inhabit, and so long as the term 'Outsider Philosophy' isn't used to banish that worry, it might be useful.

    Reply
  25. Nick Pappas

    This is a terrific topic. I’m not sure “outsider” is the best word to use; in fact it’s come in for some disapproval in the context of “outsider art.” But let’s accept what the term is trying to say and move on.

    I would have thought that there’s a standing issue within philosophy regarding the distance between professional philosopher and outsider. Philosophy is not like chemistry, after all, where being a chemist requires learning from other chemists what chemistry is. Philosophy usually thinks of itself as continuous with what non-philosophers do. There will always be differences between how a philosopher thinks about and talks about meaning, truth, consciousness, and the like, and how someone not trained in philosophy thinks and talks about the same subjects. But we (on the inside) usually believe that what we do resembles what most everyone does (now and then, in passing, unsystematically).

    Some people mentioned prominent past philosophers, Nietzsche for instance, as outsiders. This sounds right to me, but way too recent. What about Socrates? In the Theaetetus he calls himself atopôtatos “most absurd, exceeding strange,” to translate the word loosely; but in most literal translation “most out of place,” i.e. “most outside.” Why would he call himself out of place? Maybe because by the time Plato wrote this dialogue he had founded his school the Academy, and he’d begun to realize that there would be no place for Socrates in this school, or other schools, that his life had inspired.

    In the generation after Socrates we get some outsiders who present themselves as outsider philosophers, and think of themselves this way. (It’s not clear whether Socrates did.) There was Diogenes of Sinope, also known as Diogenes the Cynic. The Cynics refused to obey the rules of the institution and the tradition of philosophy. They wandered from town to town, always remaining outsiders. Isn’t this where our question originally comes from?

    Reply
  26. Landon W Schurtz

    Good point. I like it.

    Reply
  27. Michel X.

    (NOTE: I think my previous post was somehow eaten by the internet, so here goes a second time. If it wasn't lost, then please ignore this reformulation and let the original through!)

    "Outsider Art" is something of an art-historical problem. It was initially identified by Jean Dubuffet, who characterized it as art that looks untutored/naïve and raw, is produced spontaneously, and is highly individualized. To that list of properties, he appended the requirement that it be produced by people who are culturally isolated, and thus independent of the artworld. (Note that Dubuffet called it "art brut," which is typically translated as "brute art". The English has a connotation of brutishness that the French doesn't: a more accurate translation would be "raw," and a better connotation is that of something primal/basic/fundamental.)

    Since then, a number of people have criticized Dubuffet for the clause about cultural isolation. Most notably, James Elkins has pointed out that it's largely a myth (in some cases, a myth consciously reinforced (via blackmail) by Dubuffet himself!). Roger Cardinal, who coined the term "Outsider Art", agrees with Elkins, arguing that the common practice of scavenging is evidence of cultural input/awareness, even if only ambient. Philosophers of art have, consequently, voiced some skepticism about whether Outsider Art is art in the first place (e.g., Davies 2009).

    If it isn't art, then there's a philosophical analogue in that most of the candidates identified thus far aren't accepted as part of our canon either. In philosophy, I can only think of one "Outsider" that definitely has "Insider" status: Socrates. Appropriately, he stands roughly at the beginning of our tradition, just as Dubuffet seems to think Outsider Art is the expression of a primal art-urge. And, just like Dubuffet's story, it's really more of a myth anyway (since there was a rich philosophical tradition prior to Socrates, even if he initiated a paradigm shift).

    Really, once you start digging, it looks like the thread keeping "Outsider Art" together is that most of the artists classed as "Outsiders" also suffer from mental illness, and aren't trained artists. I'm not sure that's a particularly useful category to export to philosophy.

    Reply
  28. Rob

    Leopardi, as will become more widely apparent with the recent translation of the awesome ZIBALDONE. Proust. La Rochefoucauld (referred to as such, among Kant, Schopenhauer and Spinoza, by Nietzsche in the Preface to the Genealogy)?

    Reply
  29. Rob JL

    Simone Weil.

    Reply
  30. Clifford Sosis

    I think scientists, specifically physicists such as Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking, are outsider philosophers (of science). Some cognitive scientists, one might argue, do conceptual analysis. Perhaps Jonathan Haidt and Joshua Greene are outsiders in the relevant sense (perhaps they are ethicists). In any case, I think that it is very difficult to explain, when pressed, why these individuals aren't philosophers, exactly.

    Reply
  31. Michael B

    People who think hard about an issue, are informed about it, and write or speak on it, but don't spend ages wringing their hands over the definition of one particular term (usually not in a context either) while happily using all sorts of fancy other terms, and happily assuming – rightly – that everyone reading/listening will understand perfectly all terms but the one in question?

    "I think a number of stand-up comedians are good candidates for 'outsider philosophers.' The best comics are good at analyzing concepts, pointing out inconsistencies in common practices, and probing the presuppositions of ordinary phrases and rituals." 100% agree and have been trying to point this out to anyone who will listen for a long time. Literature more generally is, to me, the fleshed out, full-blooded thought experiment.

    Wonderfully insightful, logically robust points get made left, right and centre but some great, intelligent comedians, and are completely overlooked as refutations by counterexamples, because they're delivered casually, at speed, and with no pause to absorb them. I'd go with Ricky Gervais or Seth McFarlane.

    Reply
  32. Luke Muehlhauser

    Some of my favorite philosophers are "outsider philosophers" who are (sometimes accidentally) doing philosophical work from physics, math, or computer science departments, or elsewhere:

    Max Tegmark
    Scott Aaronson
    Eric Drexler
    Eliezer Yudkowsky

    Reply
  33. Clifford Sosis

    Also, Louis C.K. is clearly an amateur philosopher.

    Reply
  34. Rich Muirhead

    I find it curious that no one has mentioned any science-fiction writers yet? I've long maintained that the best sci-fi could plausibly be called "philosophical fiction" (hmmm… 'phi-fi'?). After all, the best work in this genre employs a particular literary idiom to explore themes that philosophers have long claimed as squarely within their purview, such as the nature of consciousness or personhood, what it means to be an object of moral concern, and all manner of ethical and political questions.

    Philip K. Dick and Ursula LeGuin spring immediately to mind (for me, at least) as masters of phi-fi (OK I can't be the first one to use that term–can I?), but there are undoubtedly others.

    Additionally, in light of the (quite perceptive) comments thus far in this thread regarding comedians as outsider philosophers, I'm also surprised nobody has yet mentioned Monty Python or Steve Martin. The latter, as it turns out, did have some formal training as an undergrad at CSU-Long Beach. Both Martin and the Pythons not only exploited ambiguities and absurdities in our concepts and practices for comedic effect, their work has expanded the boundaries of our concepts of what, exactly, is funny–and they did it by showing us, rather than telling us, as Wittgenstein himself would have urged! What could possibly be more philosophical than that?

    Reply
  35. Phil

    In addition to the above
    Re: Comedians — Russell Brand
    Re: Physicists – Richard Feynman

    I'm sure both of these would / would have hated to be labeled philosophers, but I believe they deserve the title nonetheless. They both have taken the opportunity to espouse a consistent, deep world-view in some public forum across multiple occasions.

    In regards to Einstein as mentioned by Clifford above me, I would not limit a description of his philosophy as being a philosopher of science. He wrote and campaigned extensively on peace, for example, and met/corresponded with many intellectuals of the day on a range of issues.

    Reply
  36. Jarbles

    This reminds me of Robert Pirsig's distinction between Philosophers and 'Philosophologists' which I like to throw around a lot.
    Excerpt: http://andreaslloyd.dk/2008/01/philosophy-vs-philosophology/
    tl;dr: Philosophy:philosophology::art:art history
    I like to think that philosophers are people who question the world around them and try to come up with their own answers, and the people who study the history of philosophy may or may not be part of this category. I think this cuts a lot closer to the truth than calling people like Einstein "outsider philosophers", as true philosophy isn't a linear dialogue like the art world.

    Reply
  37. Clifford Sosis

    Terrence Malick, one of my favorite directors, worked with Stanley Cavell at Harvard as an undergraduate (Cavell was his honor's thesis advisor). Later, Malick attempted to write a thesis on Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard and Heidegger under Gilbert Ryle at Oxford. After that, he taught at MIT for a bit. It seems to me that philosophy has had a profound influence on his work. I'm wary of calling him an outsider philosopher even though he is tackling philosophical topics (drawing a line is hard, here). Then again, like Rich (and Wittgenstein) says, sometimes you need to show instead of tell. Does that make it any less philosophical?

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  38. Chris Bertram

    If the criterion is that the person is not a professional philosopher or has not been formally trained in philosophy, then most pre-20th-century philosophers who are part of the canon are "outsiders" – which would be an absurd conclusion to draw.

    Reply
  39. dmf

    folks like the writer Will Self, computer scientist Jaron Lanier, and anthropologist Paul Rabinow, will likely be seen by future peoples as having framed the affordances and resistances of our times in more fruitful ways (more like say Aristotle) than most formal/academic philosophers working today.

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  40. dmf

    not if we stick to the outsider art model which is really about contemporary work

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  41. Weil Not

    Simone Weil was a total insider. She studied philosophy at École Normale Supérieure, where she "finished first in the exam for the certificate of General Philosophy and Logic; Simone de Beauvoir, her more long-lived and famous peer, finished second." (Wikipedia)
    She got her Agrégation diploma in 1931. "Weil taught philosophy at a secondary school for girls in Le Puy and teaching was her primary employment during her short life."

    Reply
  42. David Robjant

    Distinguishing philosophy from philosophology does seriously recast the question. Pirsig's a more interesting ornament to American Pragmatism than is usually let on by people who might look down at his lack of affiliation, popular success, periods of depression and so on. I'll count him as an Outsider Philosopher. Weil can count too – work of the highest quality despite some lack of contemporary or near-contemporary fellow travellers in academia.

    Reply
  43. L13

    Derek Parfit has a bachelor's degree in history and no doctoral degree, so in one sense of the term, he is an outsider to the philosophical establishment.

    Reply
  44. C.T. Ricciardone

    I think outsider philosophy is about to look really different. What about Nigel Warburton, who left a tenured post in the UK on the strength of his podcast philosophy bites? (http://philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1159) The outside of philosophy is looking a lot more hospitable than it used to. I've blogged a bit about this: http://chiararicciardone.com/blog/grad-student-sabbatical-post-1

    Reply
  45. thitherward

    Eliezer Yudkowsky and his school of thought definitely count — they don't come from within any sort of philosophical establishment, but they're doing ethics (ethics has to be solved for FAI) and rationality/critical thinking and so on.

    Nick Land also has to be mentioned: he used to teach philosophy at Warwick, but left, moved to China, and ended up in the Dark Enlightenment, a movement (I hesitate to even call it that; it's not at all organized) founded by Mencius Moldbug, an outsider historian who occasionally attempts philosophy but isn't very good at it. The DE focuses mostly on history and 'Machiavellian' political analysis, but has some people who, though they're too young to have accomplished much yet, may turn out to be interesting outsider philosophers given a decade or so — Bryce Laliberte, Wesley Morganston, and Aaron Jacob all have some philosophical background. (Laliberte already has a book out, which I haven't read yet; Morganston majored in philosophy and is somewhere between Confucius and F.T. Marinetti [or, for a more relevant description, he's the exact opposite of Leiter], although IMO his strong point is semantics/rhetoric; and Jacob used to be Frankfurt School, but has since fallen under some even more unfortunate influences.)

    Land's blog is even called "Outside In"!

    Marinetti himself should be mentioned: he was an artist, the founder of Italian Futurism, but he was heavily influenced by Nietzsche and his work is all about thinking about technology, which Leiter mentioned in his recent post as something we need more of. I doubt he'd go down well today — his politics are enough to drive anyone off — but he's certainly interesting.

    If McKenna is getting mentioned, I have to add Robert Anton Wilson and Alfred Korzybski, with the addendum that I get the impression that they were slightly less crazy than he was.

    And, naturally, I have to nominate Carlyle. Studied in Edinburgh to join the clergy, left to become a math teacher, ended up as a writer, had a high enough profile to get Watson to be surprised Holmes had never heard of him and to get Nietzsche to talk trash about him, and influenced pretty much everyone even though no one remembers him anymore.

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  46. Michael Anissimov

    Mencius Moldbug
    Nick Land

    Reply
  47. Joe Hatfield

    Given the subject of "outsider philosophers" this is a timely article: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/19/david-birnbaum-jeweller-philosopher

    Too bad he sounds like a complete quack. 🙂

    Reply
  48. Stephen Frug

    David Robjant, why would you consider Pirsig a pragmatist? His metaphysics of Quality strikes me as pretty *unpragmatic*. But it's been a while since I've read him, so maybe I'm missing something. What leads you to say that?

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  49. Ole Martin Moen

    David Pearce

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Pearce_(philosopher)

    Reply
  50. David Robjant

    Maybe this isn't the place to open Pirsig exegesis, but there's quite a community of people who busy themselves with it: http://www.moq.org – you'll find discussing him in connection with Dewey & James is not uncommon there. Don't forget the second book, Lila. Also it's not entirely fruitless to start thinking anew about Plato with your eye on RP's and even James' intersections with classical thought – I mean, just because Plato gets a namecheck in Pirsig doesn't mean that Pirsig is reading Plato in the transcendental way we've gotten used to since Kant. As Melissa Lane puts it "modern attacks on Plato and Platonism cannot be understood without seeing them in the context of [Nietzsche’s] heavy-handed assimilation [of Plato] to Kant, an assimilation which confuses our understanding of both." (Sorry BL) see Lane 2001, 69

    Reply

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