The Philosophers' Cocoon

Backup plans for grad school applicants?

In our September "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

UPenn, Rice, Columbia, and UChicago have all suspended admissions for incoming PhD students, and at this point it seems inevitable that several more will follow suit, and the ones that do accept new students will more often than not be reducing admissions.

I am a current undergrad who is applying to both PhD and funded MA programs, but I am concerned that even some MA programs might lose their funding/accept fewer students. I think many of us applicants need to start thinking of "backup backup" plans in case we don't get into any MA programs, or for those MA students who may be shut out this cycle.

Presuming we plan on applying again in the future to PhD programs, what would people recommend we do if we don't get into an MA? Spend a year auditing courses and doing more independent research? Try and get a job that is somewhat relevant to our AOI and get some life experience? Get a (funded) MA in another subject relevant to our AOI?

Psychologically, having this "backup backup" could potentially be a comfort to those who are experiencing high levels of anxiety right now (I know it will help me at least), so any advice is greatly appreciated!

These are really good questions. I have some first- and second-hand experience with similar situations. After my BA, I took a year off to work in the mental health field and study for the GRE. While it was good life experience and probably improved my GRE scores, I don't think it did much to help me get into a good grad program. Instead, I think I probably would have been better off doing what my spouse did. My spouse, who received her PhD in another field (I-O Psychology), had relatively little background in the field, but when we moved to Tampa, it turned out that a nearby university, the University of South Florida, had a top-5 PhD program in the area. So, what she did for a couple of years was work in a restaurant and take graduate courses there as a non-degree-seeking student while studying for the GRE. This proved invaluable. She not only vastly improved her background and training; she also got to know some top scholars in the field, got recommendation letters from them, and developed a strong reputation in the program itself. While this took a couple of years, it turned out to be a wonderful self-investment: she ended up getting into a variety of highly ranked programs, ultimately enrolling in and completing their program. I don't know for sure whether the same sort of thing works in philosophy, but I suspect it does. Indeed, I have a friend who is currently doing something similar, and it seems to be working well for them so far. Obviously, side-jobs (such as working in a restaurant like my spouse did) are difficult to get right now--but it seems to me that if you can get one or otherwise have the resources to do something like the above, it's probably a good strategy.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours, particularly those of you with some experience in these matters? 

Co-advisors for a dissertation?

In our September "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I am a grad student and a faculty member suggested to me that I may want or need co-advisors for my dissertation given my department's faculty and the two intersecting areas I want to work in. I can imagine that this has both pros and cons. Can anyone offer any advice about this? Has anyone had co-advisors? If so, how did it go?

Interesting questions. I've never heard of co-advisors for dissertations before. One obvious potential benefit here is that you would have two people who are highly invested in the dissertation. However, the obvious potential con is that they may want fundamentally different things out of it. I didn't have co-advisors, but something like this happened to me. When I was doing my dissertation, my advisor thought that I should make the theory broader than just Rawlsian nonideal theory. However, one of my other committee members thought the dissertation should focus primarily on Rawls. Yet, precisely because the latter wasn't my supervisor, they deferred to my supervisor. What would have happened if they were both co-advisors? I can imagine it would have been a stickier situation. And I could imagine it could be an especially sticky situation if the co-advisors are in quite different areas. Here, I imagine it is important to think about the personalities of the potential co-advisors, and how well they might 'work together', as it were, in supervising a dissertation in common. Then again, this is really just me speculating. Anyone with any experience here able to weigh in?

Types of journals and the job market

In our September "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I'm an upper-year PhD student whose looking to go on the job market in a year or two. My question: in deciding where to publish papers, how should I balance general prestige with area focus? My default view has always been to just publish in the best general journals possible. I guess my more specific question then is whether there is any special value in, for instance, publishing in a less prestigious ethics-focused journal as opposed to a general journal that might be more 'prestigious.' My thought has always been that people looking at a CV want the most prestigious journal possible, but I hear from some that there might be a value in going for an ethics-focused journal, at least at times.

I'm curious to hear from people in the know here. I would have thought that as far as R1 jobs are concerned, as long as you're publishing in top journals, you're good to go. I mean, is it really going to bother someone that you haven't published in an ethics journal if you've published in, say, Phil Review, Nous, and PPR? That just seems weird to me. And when it comes to non-R1/SLAC jobs, my sense is that venue doesn't tend to matter much in general. As long as you're publishing consistently in decent journals and your work is interesting, you're a good candidate. 

Am I missing something? Anyone in the know care to weigh in?

Handling a 'two-body problem' when applying to grad school?

In our September "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I'll be applying to PhD programs this year, and my significant other will be applying as well. We're currently at different institutions, but have similar backgrounds (same undergrad program) and similar philosophical interests. I wonder whether there's any effective way to promote the chance of doing grad school together?

We're planning to apply to programs that are geographically close (those in NYC, UCLA/USC, etc.) I guess there's no harm in doing this.

We're also considering whether to apply to the same programs or actually avoid applying to the same programs, as I'm not sure whether this would enhance or harm the chances. On the one hand, this is the only chance of going to the very same program. On the other hand, it seems likely that admission committees would avoid admitting multiple students with similar AOS and similar backgrounds.

Also, I wonder whether it would be wise to mention the two-body problem in the SOP. I'm inclined not to, as I'm not sure how it would look like to the committee - perhaps it would seem unprofessional, and maybe they'll see us as a whole package, which might seriously undermine the chance of admission. But might some departments have preferences in "couple hiring"?

Alternatively, it might be helpful to inform the department of the two-body problem after one of us receives an offer (if that happens). I guess this could enhance the chance of admitting the other, especially if that person is on the waitlist - but I'm not sure whether this is true, and whether it would be appropriate.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Wow, this is a real tough one. I'm inclined to think that the best one can do here is for both applicants to simply apply to programs in similar areas, and to focus on applying to programs in geographical areas where there are a lot of programs clustered around each other (e.g. NY, New England, Southern California, etc.). Anyone have any tips to share here? 

The philosophy paper as an experience

I'm teaching a graduate course Fiction Writing for Philosophers (syllabus here,  some videos on how to write fiction I made here, writing dialogue, idea, plot, governing idea,  character, point of view, emotion and scene building). I designed this course to help philosophy grad students to understand that philosophy can be expressed in a variety of ways, not just in the format of papers or monographs. It helps them to recognize philosophical fiction, and to write it too. 

Writing fiction is also valuable because it teaches you to write with the reader in mind.

Fiction writers must achieve two things, first, they must write a story that works. The story must be internally coherent, the elements (character, plot, governing idea, point of view, world building etc etc) must all work well together to deliver the story. Second, it must also move the audience. If the audience gets bored and zones out, or abandons your work halfway, then it didn't work for them. 

What makes a story work? Movies, novels, and other fictions as well as artworks more generally move us because they give us an experience. We want to be moved, we want to feel, be transported by the artworks we interact with. John Dewey in Art as Experience saw experience as the driving force of art making and art appreciation: "By common consent, the Parthenon is a great work of art. Yet it has esthetic standing only as the work becomes an experience for a human being."

I saw the Parthenon only once, when I was 18, on a school trip to Greece. We walked up the slope and it was very hot and dry, and none of us had even the slighted interest in ancient architecture. Moreover, the building looked unfinished, with many parts schlepped away to the British Museum, and its scaffolding were even then a near-permanent fixture. Yet, I was impressed by the building and how it was integrated in the surrounding landscape. I understood somewhat why architects, and people more generally, kept on being inspired by this building. 

What's true for artworks is also true for philosophical works. Philosophy that continues to resonate is philosophy that creates an effective experience. How often does one not encounter philosophical papers that are completely boring, that don't excite you, that you just don't care about? Sure, they might be coherent and well-researched, but if they don't do anything for the reader, if they leave the reader entirely unmoved, they have not done enough.

 

Job Market Reporting Thread (2020-21 season)

Each year, readers ask for threads for discussing and reporting news on the job-market. I recently posted this season's discussion thread here. Please visit that thread if you are interested in discussing/commiserating about this year's market. The current thread (below) is for reporting news on the market (i.e. reporting interviews, flyouts, offers, hires, and so on). Although it should go without saying, commenters are asked to please remember the Cocoon's supportive mission while reporting. A link to this thread will remain on the blog's right sidebar for the remainder of the job season.

Flagging your career stage/situation in job apps?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I wonder how TT assistant professor folks can flag that they are in their first or second year when applying for TT positions? The worry is that folks on search committees may unwittingly favor assistant professors who are further along the tenure track because these folks will often have more publications and generally a more robust CV.

Two readers replied:

Your CV will do it, so long as you list employment and dates. - Submitted by TT

JuniorTT, it should come across clearly on your CV. That is, your employment history should make explicit when you got your PhD, when you started your job, etc., from which search committees shouldn't have to work too hard to figure out how far along on the tenure track you are. I also don't think there's anything wrong with a cover letter saying: "I'm in my second year of a TT position at X, but I'm interested in your job because Y..." - Submitted by Daniel

Let me add a couple of quick remarks here that I think job applicants in general might find helpful, and then add a question to follow up on Daniel's reply.

Drop-In Discussion on Refereeing and Publishing Norms & XPhi

Joe Ulatowski (University of Waikato) has drawn my attention to this interesting looking drop-in Zoom session, to be held on September 17th, 2020 at 5:00PM EDT. A quick description:

At a recent XPhi Under Quarantine, participants discussed the possibility of drafting a public statement concerning norms for journals on publishing non-xphi articles that were about xphi, but that didn’t contain any studies.  So, e.g., someone wants to float a hypothesis about what philosophical expertise could consist in but has no data to back up the claim that philosophers actually work that way. Or a paper that sketches an idea for a study, but doesn’t actually do the study it sketches. Or if a non-x-phi paper involves an out-there kind of vignette, can one reasonably ask of an author to go run a study on it? 

Because participants had an interest in talking over these issues, we have decided to host a special edition of X-Phi Under Quarantine. We will host a drop-in discussion session to consider not just the questions outlined above but any such question concerning refereeing norms or publishing norms that affect work in xphi. We ask participants to be prepared to talk about the following questions:

• • What are the norms of refereeing papers in experimental philosophy?
  • Do these norms follow the strict norms of general philosophy journals? If they are different, how so?
  • Is it sufficient for a referee to recommend a paper be rejected because they just don’t believe the data?
  • How much should data & methods be reported on exactly the model of a social science journal, when it is being published in a philosophy journal, especially a general one? (I.e., not Mind & Language, where one can perhaps presume a certain comfort level with such things on the part of the audience)
  • Should general philosophy journals even be publishing methodologically ambitious x-phi? Do they have the refereeing and editorial bench to do it well? one thing we could look to do is make up some sort of database of x-phi-comfortable philosophers and scientists who are willing to serve as referees for such work.
  • Pre-registration? Making data publicly available? Other anti-QRP practices that should be made more widespread?
  • Publishing studies that are adequate empirically but don’t really have anything new to say philosophically? Should null results be published? Should replications be published?

This seems great, and it also drew my attention to the New XPhi Blog, which I wasn't aware of!

Tips for transitioning into ethics consulting?

In our September "how can we help you?" thread, three different readers wrote in asking for tips on how to transition into ethics consulting jobs:

I was wondering if anyone has suggestions on how to transition to an ethics consultant role (e.g. business ethics, but not only), starting from expertise in ethics (but not normative ethics) (PhD), some competence in law and formal methods, but no background in business or business ethics, and some years of postdoctoral work (books, teaching, etc.). EU focus, but obviously open to any perspective. - Posted by: FF 

I want to second FF's request: I'd love a little insight on how to transition to an ethics consultant role with a philosophy PhD, AOS ethics. - Posted by: Seconded

I want to second-second FF’s request, but in a slightly different context: would it be possible to transition into an ethics consultant role with a PhD but a non-ethics AOS? - Posted by: Thirded 

These are really great questions, and I hope we can get some good answers to them from readers! I don't know very much here myself, but here are a few thoughts and questions...

Mastery Learning and Argument Mapping in the Classroom (An Interview with Javier Hidalgo)

I recently came across the pedagogical work of Javier Hidalgo (University of Richmond), and I was especially interested to hear more about his experiences with mastery learning and argument mapping. Thinking that readers of the Philosopher's Cocoon might be similarly interested, I asked him for an interview. He was very generous with his time and, as you will see, is even more generous with the educational resources he has created. I want to thank him for his time and welcome him to the Philosopher's Cocoon.

Peter Furlong: Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and explain what led you to seek less mainstream pedagogical methods?

Javier Hidalgo: First of all, thanks so much for the interview! It’s an honor.

About myself: I’m an associate professor at the University of Richmond in the Jepson School of Leadership Studies. This is an interdisciplinary school and it’s a bit like a school of public affairs. I usually teach political philosophy, critical thinking, and topics in international affairs. Most of my students have never taken a philosophy class.

About my teaching “journey”: for years and years, it never occurred to me that teaching might be a real craft and that there’s rigorous evidence about how to do it well. I honestly never thought about it. Instead, I adopted the teaching methods that made intuitive sense to me and those that my own professors had used. And the rest I figured out through trial and error where the main feedback mechanism was student evaluations. In retrospect, I was probably not a good teacher.

But a few years ago I was preparing to teach a class on critical thinking. I was dissatisfied with the standard critical thinking textbooks. So I decided to look up what other people have done. It turns out that some people have actually studied how to teach critical thinking well. It’s tough to do rigorous educational research at the university level. Yet these people were doing their best, using pre-tests and post-tests and control groups. And they found that some methods seem to work much better than others.

Writing successful grant applications?

In our "how can we help you?" thread, J writes:

How to write a successful grant application? I am soon to defend my PhD and I have many publications both in good general journals and top special journals so publishing is not an issue. However, where I am located it is normal to apply for a grant application as a PostDoc - to get any funding for your work. But how on earth one writes a successful application? For me, the problem seems to be that if I have an idea for a paper, I can easily write a publishable article on the topic. All I have to do is to look for articles in the journals and write my own ideas in the same way. But I have never seen a grant application that received funding, so I have no idea how they look. Is it possible to see successful grant applications somewhere? And another related point. How do you come up with ideas that need years working? When I have an idea, I write a short clever article in a few days and publish it in a journal that is fast. How to come up with 'big questions' or themes that need to be worked for many years? Do people just take the small issues and somehow make them look like big when they apply for example a grant for three years?

It seems for me that the grants go for people who know how to write applications and who can justify others that some (minor) issue needs years of pondering when in reality an efficient scholar could write an article or two on the same topic quite fast. Is it easier to get a grant for writing a book than articles? Or do I even have to explain in the application whether I am going to publish my research in a book or in articles? If I am saying I want to write a book, does it help if I manage to get a book contract before receiving funding for it? It seems yes, but on the other hand, if publishers want to see the whole manuscript before giving a contract, then the funder might think that the work is already done if one has the contract and thus maybe they do not give any money because no-one gives you money if the work is already done.

Lots of good questions here. I don't have much experience applying for grants, so I'm really not the best person to ask for advice here. But I have recently applied for one grant (currently under review), and have experience coming up with 'big questions' (two books and a third book idea for the grant application), so I can say a bit about that.

Teaching a course on the meaning of life

This is a guest post by Samuel C. Rickless, University of California, San Diego, part of our series on unusual teaching ideas. 

I am happy to have been invited to share my experience of teaching a meaning of life course at UC San Diego.  Until 2019, no course at UCSD focused on the meaning of life, although existing courses on existentialism and related topics touched on the subject.  But a few years ago, I was invited by the Veritas Forum to debate a Christian apologist on the topic of whether life can have meaning without God, and 800 students and faculty attended the debate.  Apart from introductory science courses, I had never seen that many students in a single room on campus.  So, I had reason to believe that there would be demand for a course on the meaning of life.  In Summer 2019, I designed the course, and I taught it for the first time in Winter 2020, just before the pandemic forced all university teaching to go online.

I wanted each day to be devoted to a different approach or answer to the question of life’s meaning.  The idea was to expose students to a variety of different answers, some of them hybrids of existing proposals, and test them against counterarguments and hypothetical cases.  We began with pessimistic views: that life has no meaning, that whatever meaning it has is tied up with suffering unto death, or that life is absurd, in a way that might be difficult to overcome.  Then we moved on to consider sunnier views, some of them religious (Buddhism, Christianity), some of them transcendent (e.g., Nozick’s conception of The Unlimited), but most of them rooted in different aspects or elements of human life: freedom, beauty, play, morality, knowledge, and projects.  Toward the end of the course, we spent several meetings discussing the pros and cons of Susan Wolf’s influential proposal, the Fitting Fulfillment View, in Meaning in Life and Why It Matters.  We discussed whether a meaningful life must have some sort of narrative structure.  And we examined Samuel Scheffler’s fascinating Tanner Lectures, Death and the Afterlife, which argues that life’s meaning is bound up with the continuation of the human race.

Listing pro-life publications on a CV?

In our "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks: 

Suppose you have 3 publications. 2 in one area, 1 in another area. But suppose that the 1 publication identifies you as being pro-life. Is it better to keep this publication on your CV, outing you as being pro-life, or is it better to leave it off, thereby looking less accomplished and depriving yourself of an area of specialization?

My concern here is that this position (pro-life) is not only unpopular, but appears to be frowned upon in lots of philosophy circles. For example, Elizabeth Harman recently said on the blog of the APA (!) that she considers most opposition to abortion *sexist*. So, if she knows someone is pro-life, this makes it pretty likely that that person's application will be thrown out. (Would you hire a sexist?) It seems that Harman's views aren't idiosyncratic. So, which strategy is more advantageous?

Interesting questions, and I'm not sure what the answers are. I tend to think that when you're on the j0b market, you should be honest, rolling with your actual accomplishments and who you really are. Sure, some people may not want to hire someone who's pro-life. But surely there are some people at some places (e.g. Christian universities) who do. Would you really want to work somewhere where people would discriminate against you, or where you feel like you need to hide your views? Suppose you do get hired. Sooner or later, people there are likely to find out about your pro-life views and work. What then? Wouldn't it be better for you to get a job at a university where people do value what you do? I understand the job market is awful and it's natural to want any job rather than no job at all. But I've also known people get jobs at universities they are miserable at and trying (mostly in vain) to leave. Better, I think, to get the right job to begin with.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Tips for coming up with paper ideas?

In our September "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I'm a PhD student and I guess it is time for me to produce and publish some papers but I'm still struggling to find paper ideas, even for the term papers! How do you come up with new ideas for paper? Do you have any heuristic for that?

For example, I have seen in a post here that Neil Mehta uses some heuristics: replacement, extension, unification etc. Do you have any suggestion so as to find new paper ideas? Do you think such heuristics really work?

Also, I guess people will suggest to write a lot and say that you will come up with ideas while writing. What do you write when you do not know what to write? Do you start by writing summeries of what you have read or by writing analyses of the well-known positions or arguments in the literature?

These are great questions, and I'm very curious to hear readers' answers! I had similar problems early in my career, both during grad school and my first few years post-PhD. Since then, I've found a few strategies that seem to help.

How do you decide when to review for journals?

In our new "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I have been post phd for a few years now. At first, I thought it good to get some referee work under my belt. Now, I am getting a request to review at least once a month if not more. Today, I got two requests 15 minutes apart. My question is, how do people approach the decision whether to accept or reject a request to review? What are the considerations people take into account (besides fit to review)?

Great questions, and I'm very curious to hear what people think! As mentioned in the new thread, to make things more manageable on my end, I've asked readers not to respond in the comments section there--and so there are several comments that I have not approved. However, although I did not post them, I will still try to quote them anyway in new posts when relevant. So, on that note, Bryce responded:

A colleague once gave me this advice about reviewing: review as many papers per year as you submit. So maybe 1-3? The more you review, the more you will be asked for review. Just say no.

This is a rule of thumb that I have commonly heard too, and it seems to me a good one. As professionals, we should all do our part to contribute to what are, effectively, 'public goods' in the discipline. If you submit a lot of papers for others to review, then you should review a lot of papers. If, on the other hand, you submit few papers, then feel free to review more rarely. What does seem clearly wrong to me is to submit lots of papers and rarely review when asked. That's just free-riding. But let me add a few further thoughts.