Abstract

This book tries to do two things that do not have much to do with each other. One is to excoriate the White Privilege that dominates academic philosophy in leading US university departments, and disallows the study of non-canonical philosophy, works from Chinese, Indian, Indigenous, or African traditions. “It is not real philosophy,” they say, with no apprehension about exposing blank ignorance of material they dismiss as unfit for their curricula. The other thing the book does is answer the blockheads of the US Republican Party, who mock higher education and see philosophy as the ultimate elitist improvidence, sometimes discreetly hiding their own graduate credentials, even in philosophy. Against academic philosophy’s White Privilege, Van Norden shows that non-canonical philosophy has arguments too, just like canonical texts, sometimes even better. Against Mario Rubio, Ben Carson, and their ilk, he argues that philosophy is good training, leads to good jobs, and is opposed only by hypocritical anti-elite elites who prefer the masses dumb and reserve elite education for their own.