Philosophers Probably Shouldn't Respond to Right-Wing Authoritarianism by Limiting the Sphere of Acceptable Inquiry

A response to Talia Bettcher's essay "While Tables Burn: On the (Non) Existence of Trans People and the Failure of Philosophy"

There is no view so absurd, Cicero said, that some philosopher hasn’t advocated it. Put that together with how esoteric some branches of philosophy have gotten in the ultra-specialized context of 21st-century academia, and you get some very odd debates.

A classic example is the one often half-jokingly summarized as, “Do tables exist?”

I say “half-” jokin…