I Am, But Do I Think? On the Historical and Ongoing Devaluation of Philosophers as a Symptom of Thoughtlessness

Edited by Thomas Michael Covert-Pareja

Abstract

While the Western philosophical tradition has long characterized human beings as “rational animals” with thinking as our defining feature, “professional thinkers” have been undervalued, even devalued, since before Aristotle’s time and still today, particularly within capitalistic societies where thinking is generally not valued unless it directly produces profit. This paper aims to warn against the concrete dangers of this tendency towards thoughtlessness through a combined historical and future-oriented analysis. Drawing on Christopher Moore’s analysis of the early use of the term philosophos in Ancient Greece, I first trace the origins of this hostility toward philosophers and ‘philosophizing.’ I then trace this devaluation of intellectuals and intellectual activity to the development of a broader culture of thoughtlessness, drawing on Hannah Arendt’s account of the “banality of evil” as rooted in a lack of thinking that facilitates one’s fall into evil by undermining moral judgment. Applying Arendt’s insights on the dangers of thoughtlessness, I then examine how our growing reliance on generative AI risks further eroding our critical thinking and moral judgment skills by increasingly outsourcing thought itself in the name of ‘productivity gains.’ Based on this, I conclude with a defense of philosophy as a way of life that keeps us connected to what makes us distinctively human – our capacity to think – while keeping us away from thoughtlessness and the grave consequences it will have on society if more and more of us fall into it.