Who to talk to about philosophy?

One of the things that I have to do as an academic is publish philosophy books, papers and chapters. The idea is that this is my research output. In producing this work I am advancing human understanding. That's the idea. And, it's worth saying, I enjoy it. Like many folks, I got into academia via research--through writing a PhD and then publishing journal articles.

Teaching is also a central part of what I do. I enjoy it. I don't enjoy marking. And I don't actually enjoy preparing to teach. Trying to find the right paper to set for readings, working out where the pitfalls are with *that* paper, then trying to find another one that will better suit the students, and the narrative of the course. And then trying to think about how these fit with the lectures, and writing the slides *just so* to try and make sure that they support students in the most useful way possible (and what happens if a student misses that lecture and doesn't do the catch up work? How will they find it? And.. And.... And.....). Well: I don't find that terribly pleasurable (though it's certainly satisfying. Oh, and please don't equate 'I don't enjoy doing the prep' with 'I dislike doing the prep'; I don't dislike it, I just don't get a buzz from it. But teaching is great. Working with students, supporting them, talking to them, watching pennies drop, watching students develop their own arguments and thoughts about the material: that's great.

But the last group that I talk to are people who don't research philosophy and they don't study philosophy. They're people who are outside of Universities. If you take a look at some parts of my webpage, you'll see I've done a bit of this kind of thing. I find it absolutely fascinating and really enjoyable. Here are people who don't have to read what I've written (like other academics and students might), but are choosing to engage with philosophy and with me. And they want to try and use the work to make a difference in the world. So, they're not reading it to write a paper of their own (again, like a student or another philosopher): they want to take what I've thought about and use it to make the world a little bit of a better place.

If you'd described that last kind of work to me 10 years ago, I'd have said that I wasn't the right person to do it, or that my bits of philosophy weren't the right ones, or that.... You get the picture. But what I've learned about working with folks outside academia is that they know way more about it (working outside academia, that is) than I do. That means that they know what they need and what they want to do their work better. I know about the philosophy. They know how to use it.

The take away from this? I wish that more philosophers put themselves in the kind of environment where non-philosophers could find out about their philosophical research. Don't just write about it. Go and talk to people about it: find business fora, local events, whatever and wherever there are people who might be interested in your work and able to use it. As a discipline we often talk a good 'we want to contribute to society' game, but we don't often act on that. I'd really like to see more action.