Philosophers as Experts: A Response to Pfeifer

E.R. Klein

In the article "Philosophy outside the academy: The role of philosophy in people-oriented professions and the prospects for philosophical counseling," Karl Pfeifer once again reminds us that philosophers are viewed by society at large to be nothing more than "worthless rogues." This particular instance is more eviscerating than most, however, because it comes from our own major. As such, his argument, though philosophically naive and question begging, warrants a response.

Pfeifer gives a brief description of five ways in which philosophy-more precisely the skills attributed to philosophers, specifically those trained in "the analytic tradition" (p.62.) e.g., "open to questioning...of issues of coherence and justification" (p.61), provide the theoretical underpinnings of "traditional moral, social and political" (p.63) theories, "providing terms of reference" (p.63) and other "critical skills" (p.61)-all of which he concedes are "relevant" (p.61), "advantageous" (p.62), and "of use" (p.62) in a number of areas of counseling endemic to work in the welfare department, areas he calls "philosophical counseling" (p.59). But in the final analysis, Pfeifer rejects the idea that "philosophical training...is training enough for philosophical counseling" (p. 67) and, furthermore, that none of the techniques required by, or procedures employed in, philosophical counseling are "distinctively philosophical" (p.65).

1 Philosophically naive

The first part of his conclusion is simply that philosophical training is not a sufficient condition for becoming a qualified counselor. Pfeifer's piece is primarily an emphasis and re-emphasis of this point. He claims "there is a hiatus between what the typical philosopher has to offer in virtue of his philosophical training and the needs of the typical client in a counseling situation" (p.65) and then repeats his claim at the end of the article that "the implementation of philosophical methods in counseling is a special skill that requires empirical training beyond typical philosophical training" (p.68).

Two important points are to be made here. First, the claim is uncontentious. As Pfeifer himself says, "[w]ho would have thought otherwise?" (p.65). I must agree. With that said, it is important to add that although philosophical training may not be sufficient for quality counseling, Pfeifer has caricatured philosophers and their particular expertise. Pfeifer's account of what it means to be a philosopher or to "do" (p.58) philosophy, particularly when we are working outside the academy, is vintage studentesque and is, at best, naive.

Since most of us-professional philosophers holding doctorates-teach students our subject only when inside the academic walls, most of our own "doing philosophy" occurs when we break out, for example, when we sit on biomedical ethics committees at hospitals deciding if or when to terminate life-support. We know we need additional training (e.g., in medical terminology) and we always welcome it.

The same is true of our scholarship in academic journals. To a non-professional philosopher like Pfeifer, these articles appear "detached from the particular everyday concerns of ordinary people" (p.64.) In reality, however, many of the journals (like this one) specifically target practical and interdisciplinary issues and even the more esoteric journals have, in the final analysis, applications for the uninitiated, whether they know it or not. In the same way that medical information, much of which is inaccessible to the layman, may have important consequences for all persons, philosophical journals, in the hands of experts, provide insights that can have ramifications far exceeding their admittedly select readership.

Moreover, adding practical experience to our theoretical base is not only consistent with our theoretical training, but mandated by it. Plato, who set many of the standards for what it means to philosophize, writes the true philosopher cannot (and I am paraphrasing) merely sit in his armchair. He must work in and for the polis. It is his duty. Scholars, to follow the allegory of The Cave, may not merely bask in the light of reason; they must go back down into the darkness and drag everyone else out. Properly understood, philosophical expertise can only terminate in action.

Therefore, although Pfeifer is probably correct in the claim that philosophical training does not sufficiently prepare one to engage in professional counseling, the veracity of his point is weakened by the caricatured account of philosophers he uses to make his case.

2 Question Begging

The second part of his conclusion, however, is what sparked this response, for it is much more provocative than the above claim in its attempts to articulate the belief that philosophical training is not even a necessary condition for quality philosophical counseling. Moreover, Pfeifer adds insult to injury when he suggests philosophical training is not only not needed for his particular profession, but is actually undesirable in general, given that like the unexamined life, "[t]he examined life may not be worth living either" (p.68).

Pfeifer claims to be skeptical of even the "suggestion" that "philosophical training...confers any special counseling ability in the relevant sense" (p.63). His argument is as follows:

(1) Philosophers can counsel but,

(2) So can everyone, which does not make them a counselor (just like being able to cook a meal does not make everyone a chef).

Unfortunately, a premise is missing:

(3) To be a professional counselor (or a chef) requires specialized training. And since (4) "[p]hilosophical training is not like financial training...provide[s] financial counseling, e.g., helping people to manage an investment portfolio, capitalize a business, or stave off their creditors"(p.64),

it is implied that:

(5) Philosophers can not be (professional) counselors.

This reasoning is faulty. Although premise (1) has been conceded (above), and premises (2) and (3) seem uncontroversial, premise (4) is seriously flawed. For one thing, the question of whether philosophical training can provide persons with services, like managing an investment portfolio, is precisely what is at issue: Whether professional philosophers can counsel, i.e., whether trained philosophers are capable of providing, simply by virtue of their philosophical training, the appropriate "therapeutic techniques" (p.65) required for professional counseling. To claim that this training is not, in principle, capable of such a feat clearly begs the question. Pfeifer must supply evidence of philosophical impotence.

In addition, once again Pfeifer has misconceived the philosophical enterprise and its stewards. Philosophy is a profession, and philosophers are experts in their field in precisely the same way as other professionals in our society. We go through years of training (approximately eight), we intern with our mentors as student assistants where our style and content are monitored and critiqued, we must pass qualifying exams before being allowed to write dissertations; our degrees are only granted after our dissertations are examined (and re-examined) by, and ultimately defended in front of, other scholars and experts in our field. Our first jobs are temporary (tenure is only granted after teaching excellence, community service and scholarly promise, via publications, is demonstrated) at which time (usually another eight years after we received our degrees and only after yet more publications and teaching expertise) we are considered to be experts in our field. This is no different than the arduous process by which we sanction, for example, attorneys and physicians. Would Pfeifer consider their training to be like "financial training," i.e., professional?

As is the case with the above professionals, philosophers help people, usually students, but also professionals in other fields, who call upon our expertise. Believe it or not, we even produce something. Philosophers have a 2,500 year history of producing the most important commodity in any society: autonomous responsible belief holders. We train students and professionals alike to develop the critical skills and personal courage needed to make "real-world" decisions.

For example, my students come to me with questions ranging from Quine's commitment to the normative to the moral justifiability of abortion to how to get their mothers to take them more seriously. I have helped students not only to discover their deep philosophical commitments, but also to use rationality to battle oppressive parents, tyrannical lovers and administrative bureaucrats. Through what is fundamentally the bailiwick of philosophy-the art and science of critical thinking--I have helped my students, counseled them if you will, to a better life. Students seek me out with these problems because they know I will bring to bare the honesty, forthrightness and sound reasoning which is not only indicative of philosophical thought, but mandated by it. Sometimes all of this can be couched in the words of Kant, if the student is a Kantian; but it need not be. What is most essential about the philosophical enterprise is that it seeks truth. The quest needs no historical or scholarly trappings and, therefore, no prerequisites.

Of course, there are times when a student's particular situation needs more specialized advice, for example, when students admit addiction to drugs, or feel unlawfully treated or believe they are pregnant. On these occasions, I give them the best philosophical advice I can: I tell them to seek out a professional-a psychologist, an attorney, a physician, respectively. In other words, I counsel them.

Do acts of philosophical counseling make one a counselor? No. But the counseling within the guidelines mandated by the philosophical perspective-the relentless pursuit of justified beliefs-does. What else could "philosophical counseling be?"

3 Philosophical counseling narrowly conceived

Of course, Pfeifer may just be defining 'philosophical counseling' too narrowly. Since, however, he is simultaneously dismissing philosophical training in the broadest sense, even these specific criticisms deserve attention in that he incorrectly implies that the failure of a few specific criticisms-of Corey, Weisskopf-Joelson and Purton-entail the irrelevance of the entire architecture of philosophical training to any non-academic work force in general.

But Pfeifer is wrong on both counts. Even if it were true that the three accounts above only demonstrate that philosophy, at best, (1) "serves to individuate...the various counseling practices" (p.65), (2) becomes a healing aspect for the client only if a client is first "schooled or at least adequately informed" (p.66) about that specific philosophy, or (3) "remains at the level of broad guiding metaphor" (p.67), via Corey, Weisskopf-Joelson, and Purton respectively-I cannot help but think that philosophical training is helpful.

More specifically, Corey's use of philosophy-philosophy as a means of "providing underlying assumptions, rationale and terms of reference" (p.65)-in his counseling technique may aid the counselor more than the client, but this cannot help but have an impact on the client, no matter how indirectly. Pfeifer seems to dismiss this aspect of help too quickly.

Weisskopf-Joelson's approach to philosophical counseling-via the use of specific "philosophies" (p.65), i.e., the content of the works of some specific thinker-is a cry for more philosophy for the client, not less. If anything, this approach undermines Pfeifer's thesis.

Finally, Purton's approach to philosophical counseling-via an appeal to philosophy as a method of logical analysis-may only have a "limited value" (p.66, in quotation), but it cannot be denied that it has value. And, after all, what counseling technique can say better than that?

In the light of the above attempts to establish an operational account of the appropriate use of philosophy (as method or content) in the clinical sphere, Pfeifer continues to claim that none of these approaches can be properly called "philosophical counseling." Why? Because "it is not philosophical counseling in a sense that serves to distinguish it in the way we want" (p.67). Precisely what he wants, what could be left to want, is unclear.

4 Conclusion

Finally, the great leap Pfeifer makes between the imperfect nature of the above three accounts of "philosophical counseling" and his pessimism about philosophical training in general is unwarranted. His narrow account of the philosophical enterprise and its experts caricatures a most noble profession.

Pfeifer's biased attitude seems to have its origin in his limited philosophical education. Now I realize that it's a empirical point whether trained philosophers will make the best counselors, attorneys, physicians, or what have you. But until society as a whole ceases to view us, as it has for the last 2,500 years-as worthless rogues, we will never have the chance to do the test. It may be that philosophy has no place outside the academy. But it may also be, as Plato claimed, that the lack of respect for philosophy is indicative of a naive and/or corrupt state. After all, a contemplative existence is only meaningful when the examiner is philosophically estimable.

Notes and References

1 Karl Pfeifer, Inquiry, XIV:2, Winter, 1994, pp. 58-69. All internal notes will refer to this article.

2 Plato, The Republic (487b-489e).

3 Who is this "we" Preifer keeps referring to (pp. 63 an 67)? Given that Pfeifer only completed his B.A. and does not work as a professional philosopher and self-identifies as a counselor who is not essentially a philospher, I am hard pressed to see him as a colleague. When I say 'we' I mean professioanl philosophers who (usually) have Ph. D.s in philosophy and get paid to teach philosophy, write philosophy or consult as an expert in critical thinking, aesthetics, epistemology, logic, ethics, etc.

4 Philosophy is, first and foremost, a method of critical analysis. As such, it can be applied to any content from Cartesian skepticism (p. 64) to discovering specific solutions to the peculiar "real-world problems" (p. 64) relevant to particular individuals. Aside from our own personal counseling-to ourselves, our friends and our loved ones-many of us find ourselves in the unenviable position of having to counsel professionally with respect to our students.

5 Gerald Corey, Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy (Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1977).

6 Edith Weisskopf-Joelson, "The Role of Philosophy in Five Kinds of Psychotherapeutic Systems," in Philosophy, Religion and Psychotherapy, edited by Paul W. Sharkey. (Washington, D.C., University Press of America, 1981)

7 Campbell Purton, "Philosophy and Counseling," in Counselling: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Brian Thorne and Windy Dryden. (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1993)

8 Thus his original lament of not being able to find a job "doing paid philosophizing outside the academy" (p . 58).

9 I take this 'we' to mean professional counselors.

10 See note #2.