Forgive the wall of text, but Prof. Jackson rightly calls our attention to some big issues that can't be given glib, short answers.
Here's my two cents worth.
First, we must distinguish the questions of philosophy from a tradition of particular answers to them. I think the questions of philosophy are at least at some foundational level universal, because they arise from shared human experiences. Humans are social animals, so there will be questions about the nature and purposes of the rules which make life in community possible. Hence there will always be questions of ethics and political philosophy. Humans, apparently universally, accord important social privileges to some epistemic states, we rank "knowledge" better than "opinion" and want to get more of the former. Hence, questions about the nature and purpose of knowledge will always arise. The western tradition in philosophy comprises a series of different ways in which these foundational questions have been raised, discussed, debated and addressed. It is a particular tradition, with roots in one particular time and place (Greece of the 6th and 7th centuries BC--although there are influences from other cultures). We can speak in just the same way of Indian philosophy, Chinese Philosophy and so on. None of these traditions is absolutely self-contained. But we can see some interesting parallels. There are importantly similar interests in the theory of correct argumentation in Indian and Chinese thought, just as there is in Greek thought. There are interesting ethical parallels between the kind of virtue ethical theory Aristotle propounded and Confucianism. These aren't surprising--as I say, the questions are universal, so it isn't surprising we would find similar kinds of answers to those questions in different traditions.
Second, we must recognize how philosophy within the western tradition has been used as a tool for the theoretical justification of oppression against vulnerable populations. (Whether, or how different philosophical ideas have been used for oppression in other cultures or places I do not have the expertise to say.) However, it is not possible to address this point simply by tacking on a couple of token thinkers from other traditions to the traditional undergraduate syllabus. This is a very controversial point, so let me make quite plain what I mean.
It isn't possible to just throw Confucius into an ethics syllabus as an "alternative" kind of virtue ethics. This is for two reasons--first, although I am no specialist on Confucius, I am almost certain that the description wouldn't be completely correct, and therefore it would fail to respect Confucius on his own terms. It's one thing to note a similarity between Aristotle's ethics and Confucius's. It's another entirely to think that "ethics" is this a static, timeless domain of clearly understandable questions to which Confucius and Aristotle are both offering the same answer. That's too simplistic. At some basic level philosophical questions are universal, yes. But as people in one particular tradition take those questions up, they transform them by giving them answers, by weaving them into systematic theories about the world, and by developing social institutions whose existence presupposes a particular way of thinking about those questions. The social world of China in Confucius's time is importantly different than the social world of the Aristotle's Greece.
Further, it is not clear to me what a student with only a marginal grasp of Aristotle stands to benefit from reading Confucius. A proper recognition of the intriguing similarities and dissimilarities between these two thinkers presuppose deep knowledge of both, not little smorgasbord sized bites of each. I think a detailed knowledge of the western canon is required for a western philosopher to appreciate Confucius. Just as I would expect a detailed knowledge of the Chinese philosophical tradition would be required for a Chinese philosopher to appreciate Aristotle.
There is a third question Prof. Jackson seems to want us to think about as well. This isn't an abstract discussion about the "Western tradition" so much as it is a practical question about the shape of the profession of philosophy as an academic discipline today. Are philosophers today racist? Is there good work they are ignoring because the standards and shape of the academic discipline of philosophy are subtly biased against it in ways that reflect racial, gender, sexual, or other kinds of biases? I think that's an important question. The answer is: almost certainly. There is a growing literature on this subject. For instance, the number of articles by women published in top, peer-reviewed journals in philosophy is disproportionately low.
There are at least two possible explanations for these kind of lingering problems in the profession. I'll identify these problems, then suggest some steps that young scholars can take to try to mitigate the negative influence of these factors on their careers.
One problem is that editors of journals or referees might be biased against contributions because of a failure of blind review. That is, they might see that a the author of the paper is female, or has a "black" name and automatically, subtly discount the paper on that basis. This is the easier problem to fix. Here I suggest that authors always check the editorial policy of the journal they want to submit to and only send their papers to journals that practice triple-blind submission. For instance, Mind is triple blind reviewed. That isn't always possible, and even journals that claim to be triple-blind might not always follow through. But I think it's a best practice.
Another problem might be that editors or referees might be biased against contributions from women or minorities on the basis of content. A violation of this type would occur when a very good paper about W. E. B. DuBois gets rejected just because of its subject matter. This is actually more complicated than a simple case of "the journal is racist because it won't consider papers on DuBois." Journals are founded with specific audiences and specific areas and topics in mind. So make sure that you aren't submitting stuff to an inappropriate journal. But of course there are generalist journals that say they publish anything, and it might be the case that some of these journals are top journals and they are consistently kicking very good material back because referees are just inherently suspicious of some of the people who who up in the footnotes. This is harder to fix. Maybe the best strategy for young scholars here is simply to remove all reference in your work to other thinkers. Let's say you have this great idea about how racial biases have infected philosophy of biology. Just write your idea up and defend it as your own. My sense is that if you are able to clearly articulate your problem, and defend a cogent, rigorous solution to it your work has a pretty good shot at being taken seriously in the profession precisely because people are unlikely to have heard it before. Once you've got tenure, you tell everybody how you got all your great ideas from this theorist they've been discounting. And then you've got a real bully pulpit. If you can publish your ideas in good places, people will take you seriously. If they take you seriously and you show how your ideas that got published these good places are all influenced by this important figure nobody's reading--well, that's just how you get the philosophical community broadly to start taking your figure seriously.
Two last thoughts about how race and gender can hurt you in the profession that I don't know how to mitigate. First, young philosophers need mentors. You need somebody to teach you how to write for publication at big journals. You've got to know what the profession is talking about how to cast your ideas so that they are responsive to these broader professional currents. Such mentors are hard to find. If there are only 2 people at your graduate program who actually have the kind of publication/professional chops to be able to mentor you on how to do that, then you face a non-trivial chance that neither of them is going to be willing to mentor you in that way because of your gender or race or sexual orientation or religious preferences. If that's your situation, you can't really change it except by changing programs, I think. It's unfair, unjust and awful. But I don't see what else a powerless graduate student could do about it.
Another way you might be handicapped by race or gender is economic. It takes time and money to have the leisure required to hone and polish one's work to the level that is required to publish in impressive venues in philosophy. If you aren't lucky enough to be sitting on a trust fund that can bankroll many, many years of graduate education, there's a good chance you're not going to have time to publish and to the kind of work I was just talking about two paragraphs up. And of course, many women and minorities are disadvantaged in just that way. This isn't unique to women and minorities, but it is an issue of special concern to them as well.
I would be very interested in hearing what people think about the feasibility of my suggestions here. Thanks to Prof. Jackson for an important question and to everyone who actually reads this huge post.
