Michela Massimi in the Los Angeles Review of Books:
The hard statistics underlying poverty and social mobility opportunities for children and other marginalized individuals might seem like an unlikely entry point for a philosophy book. Yet they are the impetus for philosopher of science Philip Kitcher’s latest project: The Rich and the Poor (2025). The book’s cover sets the tone. Featuring side-by-side portraits of rich individuals enjoying cocktails by an infinity pool and a woman with children kicking home canisters filled with water collected at a nearby water aid station, it is meant to be—and is—uncanny.
Kitcher is not new to book projects that engage with ethical problems and wider policy questions. From Science, Truth, and Democracy (2001) to The Ethical Project (2011), from The Seasons Alter: How to Save Our Planet in Six Acts (co-authored with Evelyn Fox Keller, 2017) to Moral Progress (2021), he has pioneered a method of philosophy and thinking about science that is both sensitive to socioeconomic realities and responsive to ethical challenges. The Rich and the Poor continues this intellectual trajectory while also bringing in autobiographical details: Kitcher himself benefited from an improbable combination of “progressive politicians, a sensitive boy king, and an unusually thoughtful and kind schoolmaster.”
More here.
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