Who Is the Undercover Philosopher?

The Undercover Philosopher is an academic philosopher in recovery.  In his pre-recovery days, he  published many papers in top philosophy journals (Mind, Philosophical Quarterly, Ethics, The American Philosophical Quarterly, Nous, etc.) and also in numerous anthologies.  He also produced a book on moral theory with Oxford University Press (Between Universalism and Skepticism:  Ethics as Social Artifact, 1994).  He has no regrets.  In fact, he still believes much of what he wrote, and he still believes some of it is important. 

The problem with academic philosophy is that it’s not accessible to nonprofessionals (a trait it shares with all academic and specialist literatures).  But this inaccessibility is not entirely bad since much academic philosophy would be of absolutely no interest to anyone but professionals anyway, even if it were accessible.  That’s because many of the questions academic philosophers address are artifacts of their own making, generated by relatively short-lived fads and fashions in the field.  Questions that were hot twenty-five years ago may be of absolutely no interest today.  The Undercover Philosopher no longer participates in these discussions.  He now uses the tools of philosophy to speak to topics that interest most intelligent people, and he writes with the intention of being both understood and entertaining.  

The Undercover Philosopher is also a performance artist.  He does solo pieces and belongs to a performance art ensemble (The Tuesday Group) whose work is inspired by the late Scott Kelman.   And he dances a lot too.