The Philosophers' Cocoon

Non-standard types of reference letters?

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

I am in the dissertation phase of my Ph.D. and will be going on the job market soon. My question is about references, specifically teaching references. Before leaving to pursue my Ph.D., I taught high school for just over a decade. I had a very good relationship with my principal and she was able to see my growth as an educator, directly observe my classroom, and receive feedback from students and parents about my teaching. Moreover, she also knows the positive nature of the relationships I had with my colleagues. My question is this: Would it be prudent to ask for her to write a reference letter for jobs in higher education? I have professors in my current program who would write me a positive teaching recommendation, but they would not be able to write as strong a letter as my former principal. Would a letter from a high school administrator be looked down upon?

To be clear, I have professors who are willing to write recommendations. If I included a reference letter from my former principal, it would be in addition to these.

Another reader submitted the following reply:

I would not recommend this. You are expected to have a recent letter on teaching from a peer (a university faculty member). Your former principal is not a university educator, and the fact that they will speak of something some time in the past will raise concerns. For example, people will wonder whether you have alienated everyone at your programme, and cannot get a teaching letter. Or they may think that you will teach undergrads as one might teach students in a US high school.

Unfortunately, I think this is exactly right. One of the main things one needs to do in a job application is demonstrate that one understands the norms of the profession. In this case, the norm is pretty clear: letters of recommendation should as a rule be from members of the higher-education academy (i.e. professors). This in part because people on the hiring side of things may believe that teaching at a university level is vastly different than teaching at a high school level, but also because--when it comes to evaluating university-level teaching--part of what one is evaluating is the instructor's ability to present a particular subject matter (in our case, philosophy!) with accuracy and expertise. This, in general, just isn't the sort of thing that someone without an MA or PhD in philosophy (such as a principal) is presumably in a position to evaluate. On a similar note, I've heard people ask before whether it is a good idea to get a teaching letter from a student. Here again, I think this is the wrong call. It would come across as strange to see letters like that in a teaching portfolio, in part because students aren't experts at philosophy or pedagogy.

More generally, when it comes to job-markets (both academic and non-academic), there exist a variety of standing norms--for better or for worse--and violating the relevant norms is risky for that reason alone. In a more ideal world, perhaps, this wouldn't be an issue. But I think it is an issue in our world, and so, in cases like these, to do what the standing norm is: get teaching letters from (and only from) professors in the academy. But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

What is the perceived value of invited pieces?

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

[W]hat is the perceived value of invited contributions to peer-reviewed volumes? My thoughts on this are that, on the one hand, such papers should be greatly valued since they show that the author is good enough/ respected enough to be invited to contribute to the volume. On the other hand, my impression is that the peer-review standards are not that high when it comes to edited volumes compared to regular journals. I have the impression that it is very hard to get rejected once invited to contribute. What are your thoughts on this topic?

I think we may have discussed this before, but these are very good questions that it's probably important for graduate students and job-candidates to get good answers to. What do you all think? For obvious reasons, it might be good to hear from people who have served on search committees or tenure and promotion committees. Having served on both kinds of committees myself, here are a few quick thoughts.

How can we help you? (September 2021)

Now that it's been about month and a half since our last "how can we help you?" thread, it's time for a new one!

For those of you unfamiliar with this series, this is a chance for you to post openly or anonymously in the comments section below on anything you could use help with related to the profession. After you post your query in the comments section, I will then post new threads for readers to discuss your query.

As usual, feel free to ask questions on anything (within the Cocoon's mission) that you could use help with, including but not limited to:

• Life and work in the COVID-19 era
• The job-market (applying for jobs, etc.)
• Issues in the profession (including issues of social justice)
• Graduate school
• Publishing
• Teaching
• Work-life balance
• Personal struggles
• Etc.

Fire away - we're here to help! 

Important reminder: if you submit a comment in this thread responding to someone's query, I won't post it, as this makes it difficult for me to keep track of everything in the comments section, particularly which queries I've started new threads on and which ones I have not. However, if you do post a follow-up comment, chances are good that I will post it in the new thread I start on the relevant query. So, do feel free to submit responses. Just know that they won't appear in this particular thread and might instead appear later in a new post!

PhilPapers publication metrics?

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

I am wondering what - if anything - is the use of one's "Publication metrics" on PhilPeople. For those who aren't aware of this feature, PhilPeople provides users with their percentile rankings (Q1, Q2, Q3, top 5%, top 1%, etc.) for their publications, paper downloads, and citations, both overall and in specific subject areas. The rankings are relative to "pro" users, which are users with either a PhD in Philosophy or at least one publication in one of the "Most Popular" journals according to PhilPapers. Using this feature, you might learn that you are in the top 1% of downloads in say, Social Epistemology in the past five years, or that you are in the 90% percentile for publication volume in Value Theory.

I find this feature kind of neat. However, I can't imagine a situation where I would actually tell anyone about my publication metrics - if I did, I am sure it would be seen as being in bad taste. But at the same time, it seems like these metrics would be be useful information for search committees or for tenure and promotion cases: it's a decent way of showing whether or not people are actually engaging with your work, and how engagement with your research compares with others working in a similar area. Publication Metrics on PhilPeople is a bit like one's h-index and citations on Google Scholar, which I have heard of people mentioning for T&P, but PhilPeople has the advantage of being specific to the discipline, or even the sub-discipline. One issue might be that - unlike Google scholar citations and h-index - these metrics aren't public: as far as I can tell, one can only see one's own metrics, not those of others. I'm not sure why PhilPeople doesn't make them public, but doing so would mean that they're worth more than simple navel-gazing.

This is an interesting query. It does seem like these kinds of statistics might be useful in some regards when it comes to hiring or tenure and promotion. After all, the statistics do in essence 'compare you' to other specialists, indicating how much you publish in your field and how interested other people are in reading your work. On the other hand, I wonder how useful hiring or T&P committees might find this kind of information.

In any case, because I'm about as unsure as the OP on all of this, I'll open discussion to all of you: what do you think? Is this kind of PhilPapers information useful in any way above and beyond 'navel-gazing'? If so, how? Do you know of cases where it has been used (e.g. in hiring, etc.)? Should PhilPapers make the information public?

Principles for a globally inclusive philosophy?

Filippo Contesi (University of Barcelona) writes in drawing my attention to this nice endeavor he has launched:

BARCELONA PRINCIPLES FOR A GLOBALLY INCLUSIVE PHILOSOPHY

We acknowledge that English is the common vehicular language of much contemporary philosophy, especially in the tradition of so-called “analytic” or “Anglo-American” philosophy. This tradition is in large part based on the idea that philosophy should adopt, as far as is appropriate, the shared and universalistic standards of science. Accordingly, the analytic tradition has now spread worldwide, far beyond the countries where English is the majority native language^* (which constitute only about 6% of the world’s population). However, this poses a problem since non-native English speakers, who have not had the chance to perfect their knowledge of the language, are at a structural disadvantage. This disadvantage has not yet been sufficiently addressed. For instance, the most prestigious journals in the analytic tradition still have very few non-native English speakers on their editorial boards, have no explicit special policies for submissions from non-native English speakers, and continue to place a high emphasis on linguistic appearances in submitted papers (e.g. requiring near-perfect English, involving skim-based assessment etc.). (See Contesi & Terrone (eds), “Linguistic Justice and Analytic Philosophy”, Philosophical Papers, 2018.)

Getting permission to reuse material?

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

I've published a few related papers and some are still under review. I want to write a book where I want to reuse some textual material from these papers. I presume I have to ask for permission to do it. Whom to ask? The journal editor, the publisher? What is the extent of the material that can be reused? One sentence, one paragraph, several pages...? How to deal with papers that are under review? I know that authors address this in the acknowledgement section of their books. But exact rules are not clear to me. Can anyone help?

These are excellent questions, especially given that one could get oneself into a difficult position by going about things the wrong way. One reader submitted the following response to the OP:

Read the publication agreements you signed. For many of the big publishers (Springer, for example), you have the right to include the material in a monograph (a single author book). All you have to do is acknowledge where it was published, says, Phil Studies, and thank the publisher for the right to include material (in whole or in part) in your acknowledgement in the book. Done!

However, in my experience things aren't quite as simple as this. Let me explain.

Saturday sounds

How many papers do you/should you write?

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

I am starting a TT job in a research heavy institution and have not done my PhD in an elite US program so I have what are likely silly/self-evident questions: how many papers do people work on at the same time? Or, how many papers do people typically write in a year? I am sure it varies tremendously but I wonder if people start one new paper a year and keep working on the ones who are going through review or if they start more projects than that, esp. while being on the TT. Thank you for your help!

These are great questions, especially given that some people are starting new jobs right now. I think there are two important sets of questions here:

1. How many papers do people write in a year, and work on at the same time?
2. How many papers should one write a year at an R1?

Here's my own quick answer to (1). I looked in my paper draft folders last night, and found that I now write, on average, something like 4-5 new papers per year. Because I often end up revising those papers over several years, this means that I often find myself with 10 paper projects at a time. I'll often bounce around between them, revising papers that are already written while beginning new ones. It wasn't always like this, though. Earlier in my career, when I got my first job, I worked much more slowly--on maybe like one or two new papers per year. Why the change? I think there are two explanations: it gets easier to write papers over time, but also, I wasn't publishing enough early in my career, so I had to increase my output.

Questions on teaching letters

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

How bad is it to not have a teaching letter, in R1 positions? While I do teach, and haven't heard any complaints yet, I have almost exclusively done so as sole instructor, and the only senior person at my institution who has actually seen me teach is affiliated in the same research project as me. I worry that if I told her I'm applying elsewhere, she wouldn't take it well.

Connected question: how are letters from non-philosophers received? Are they useless? Say, a letter from a psychology professor who really likes your work on perception?

Good questions! I don't know about the first one, as I don't work at an R1. But, in response to the other questions, I'm inclined to think that a letter from a non-philosopher may be fine. A non-philosopher might not be well-positioned to discuss your understanding of philosophy per se (though if they work on the same research project as you, they might!). However, they can probably speak to a lot other, more general aspects of teaching that hiring committees are likely to care about, which is how you engage with students, run in-class discussions, how clear and well-organized your lectures are, the kinds of assignments you give, and so on.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? It could be especially helpful to hear from people who have served on hiring committees. What do you think?

Job-market discussion thread (2021-22 season)

As many readers of the Cocoon may recall, each job season the Cocoon hosts two job-market threads:

1. A job-market discussion thread (the present thread): to commiserate about the market, discuss particular job ads, the market in general, questions about application materials, interviewing, alt-ac opportunities, and so on.
2. A job-market reporting thread: to post news about interviews, on-campus visits, offers, rejection notices, etc.

Because someone always asks, "Why two threads?", there are a couple of reasons for it. First, some people may want to discuss the market but not stress over daily news regarding which jobs they still do or don't have a chance for. Conversely, others may not want to discuss the market but just want news about the jobs they've applied for. Second, these threads can get very long already, so I think the best way for people to get the information they want in a well-ordered format is simply to have two threads.

A few final notes:

• This thread (the post you are reading right now!) will be the home of this year's job-market discussion thread. So, if you want to discuss this year's job-market, just comment below.
• Please reserve job-market news (i.e. interviews, on-campus visits, hires, etc.) for the job-market reporting thread, which I will open on October 1st.
• A 'permalink' to this thread will be on the upper right of blog's right sidebar for the rest of the job season. -->
• Because of Typepad's functionality limitations (which only permits 100 comments before starting a new comment page), readers may elect to bookmark each new page of comments as each new page emerges. I recognize that it can be frustrating to scroll through page after page to get to new comments, and I think this is probably the best solution given Typepad's functionality limitations.

Finally, as always, readers are asked to please bear in mind the Cocoon's safe and supportive mission. I try not to moderate with too heavy of a hand, as I don't like to squelch reasonable discussion and debate. I also realize that the job-market can be an emotional roller-coaster, and that passions can run deep on job-market issues. But the Cocoon has always been intended to be an unique oasis of sorts: as a refuge for early-career philosophers to support each other and discuss issues related to their careers and the profession in productive, supportive way. So, I will moderate carefully to ensure that these threads remain a welcome environment for everyone--and, of course, if anyone has any concerns, please do not hesitate to let me know.

All that being said, discuss away!

Challenges in making a lateral move?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, Julia writes:

I'm looking for insight into whether there are different challenges for faculty looking to make a "lateral move" from assistant professorship to a more appealing assistant professorship and (as I suspect there are) advice on how to overcome those challenges.

For those questioning the morality of such lateral moves, my current workplace is toxic.

This is a good query, though I'm not sure that I have much insight to offer. Another reader submitted the following reply:

I do not think there are special challenges for lateral moves of the type you describe. I witnessed these at my own former institution (in fact, I helped one get out!). You need to be competitive - that is, you need a good publication record in good journals. And you have to be prepared to get NO CREDIT on the tenure clock for your previous work. You may be able to negotiate something, but do not count on it at all. But if you are in a toxic workplace, you should really look into moving. (in the meantime, keep good records of the ill behaviour, in case you need it). I left a toxic place at a senior level. The key challenge for me was that I was not prepared to make a lateral move with respect to university ranking. I was determined to move up (or move into administration). I was lucky to be able to do the former. Good luck!

This seems right to me. Having served on multiple hiring committees, my sense is that people on the hiring side just want to hire the best person they can get who they think might stay in the job. One small thing, though: search committees can wonder why a candidate is applying for a job (particularly if the candidate is already tenure stream), so my sense is that it can be good to say something in the cover letter. But I'm not entirely sure what is the best kind of thing to say in Julia's case. What do you all think? Do any readers have insights relevant to Julia's situation?

How often should one referee for journals?

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

I'm at the point in my career when I'm just starting to receive fairly frequent requests to referee journal articles, and I'm finding myself really unsure of how many of these I should be doing. Would cocoon readers be willing to share their own approaches to this? How much refereeing do people do? And do people have good rules of thumb for deciding when to say yes and no to referee requests? (E.g., a certain number of reports per month, or a certain number of reports per reports one has received oneself, etc?) This is one of those mysterious parts of the profession where I just have no idea if I'm pulling my weight, doing way more than I should be doing, or roughly getting it right. Thank you, everyone!

Excellent questions! One reader submitted the following response:

At one point, I was refereeing 20 papers a year, and working as an editor for PLOSOne, handling about 6 papers a year (which meant getting referees and making a final decision on papers). Now I am a co-editor on a journal, and I no longer do PLOSOne. So I referee only about 12 papers a year, and only in a select set of journals (the best in my sub-field or very highly regarded general journals). I also review a few book proposals and manuscripts a years for various presses. Without knowing your circumstances, I think if you are doing 12 a year, then that is fine.

Non-Traditional Paths into Academic Philosophy (Logan Scott Mitchell)

This is the third entry in the Cocoon's new series, Non-Traditional Paths into Philosophy, a series of guest posts by people who entered academic philosophy later in life or otherwise took a non-traditional path into the field. Today's post is by Logan Scott Mitchell, a first-year PhD student at UNC Chapel Hill who is also a mindfulness instructor, musical theatre performer, and Certified Nonprofit Professional. If you took a non-traditional path into philosophy and are interested in contributing to the series, feel free to email me at marvan@ut.edu!

By Logan Scott Mitchell

My path to pursuing a PhD in Philosophy is quite non-traditional – prior to pursuing any type of higher education I spent several years as a professional actor, singer, and dancer in musical theatre. From childhood through my early twenties, performing was my entire life and identity. I dressed up as a “Broadway Star” for career day in the third grade, went to boarding school for two years to study dance, started working professionally in musical theatre at 17, and never even took the SAT.

I moved to New York City when I was 19, which sparked the beginning of my career as a (mostly) full-time musical theatre performer. I travelled across the country working in regional theaters, returning to New York only when I needed more work. I joined the stage actors’ union, Actors’ Equity Association, one year later, and by 2016 landed a role in an international tour of the musical West Side Story, where I was cast as a Jet (aka one the racist white guys). My big break!

MANCEPT session on prudence & politics

This is just a quick note that I am convening a MANCEPT workshop panel (viz Zoom) next Tuesday through Friday on the topic of Prudence and Politics. Just in case any of you might be interested in sitting in (visitors are welcome), I've pasted all of the relevant details below (please note that there is a modest £15 registration fee for visitors):

Session Description

Considerations of prudence plausibly underlie a number of important political debates. Consider, for example, debates between moderates, progressives, and conservatives about social and political change. Moderates often allege that radical approaches to change are likely to backfire by alienating swing voters in the political center. Conversely, progressives often allege that moderates imprudently set back the cause of justice by playing into the status quo. Finally, Burkean conservatives contend that radical change is unwise because it can have—and has a history of having—catastrophic unintended consequences.

Considerations of prudence also appear to be latent within certain forms of liberal political theory. For example, although John Rawls does not explicitly couch his project in prudential terms, Rawls’ primary concern in Political Liberalism is to provide a theory of justice that can explain how a deeply pluralistic society can remain stable and non-oppressive over time. Similarly, in The Law of Peoples, Rawls provides a theory of international law and practice for how diverse peoples can live peacefully with each other in a reasonably just world.  An idea arguably implicit in both works is that it would be imprudent to pursue any conception of domestic or international justice that cannot be expected to realize reasonably stable and peaceful conditions in a diverse and pluralistic world—or what Rawls telling terms a ‘realistic utopia.’ Finally, prudence looms large in many applied political debates, such as how to deal best with climate change, terrorism, pandemics, and the development of artificial intelligence. For example, is it prudent to wage a ‘war on terror’, or is such a war only likely to produce more terrorists and bloodshed? Would experimenting with technological forms of climate engineering be an imprudent risk? Were COVID lockdowns prudent, or an imprudent form of short-term political thinking?

How to make yourself hireable outside of academia as a philosophy grad student or PhD

The aim of this blog post and interview is to give readers a primer on how to create the conditions that make you hireable as a philosopher outside of academia. The Cocoon also has other practical advice on alt-ac careers such as how to write a resume and how to network outside of academia, and you can find earlier advice by Aaron Kagan here.  The focus here will be on mindset: on overcoming cognitive obstacles and preconceptions. This is an interview with Aaron Kagan (UX Researcher- formerly at Google, now at Facebook Reality Labs). I asked Aaron about how he made the transition from being a philosophy graduate student and PhD at Fordham University, with a PhD with a focus on the role of the body in emotional experience, to a researcher working at big tech companies such as Google and FaceBook. 

Q: Could you tell me a bit about mental obstacles and how to overcome them for philosophers seeking alt-ac jobs? For philosophy grad students (and postdocs, VAPs, etc…) it seems like gaining the skills, connections and mindset to get outside of academia is an insuperable problem.

It might be worth reminding ourselves that we are talking about the practical world.  I say this to draw a distinction from the “rational” or “theoretical” world.  Trying to collapse these two worlds when thinking about life outside of academia is a great source of pain and suffering (at least it was for me, and yes, I know I’m playing fast and loose with metaphysics, but hear me out). 

In the rational/theoretical world, you are a catch: You are highly educated.  You can pick apart and construct arguments of all kinds. You can take highly complicated topics and technical information, distill things down, and communicate them to non-specialists (e.g., your teaching).  Your academic work/specialization may also have strong or direct theoretical ties to a certain industry.  

What’s more, you’re willing to start at any entry level position; any employer can get you for cheap, at least by non-academic standards.    

In the practical world however: You have no previous work experience–none. And you don’t “make sense” to employers.  Why are you leaving academia? What does your work have to do with this organization’s? How exactly can you help make us money?  From this perspective, you’re also “overeducated”.