The Philosophers' Cocoon

Tips for getting (and giving) feedback on new work?

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

I have never liked conferences, and my (non-tt, teaching-focused) job doesn't provide much financial support for conference participation anyway. However, I very much enjoy research and I like getting/giving feedback on new work. I have found informal settings to be much more productive than conferences, e.g. just swapping papers with friends in the profession and then meeting over Zoom to discuss. I'm wondering if people have found other successful ways to get/give feedback on research outside of the formal conference setting. I guess one issue here is that what I'm talking about doesn't translate well into documentable research activity that can be used for hiring/promotion purposes. However, setting that issue to the side, does anyone have any tips here?

Good question. Anyone have any helpful tips?

Norms for journal advisory board members

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

I would like to understand the role of an advisory board member for a journal.

I was invited to join the advisory board of a lesser-known journal, and they clarified that my involvement would require no responsibilities. This seems unusual to me.

I expect that advisory board members should provide guidance to the editors or help ensure that the journal maintains its integrity and fairness through their reputation. Could someone clarify this for me?

I don't know much about the inner workings of journals, but this seems weird to me too.

Do any readers have any helpful insights?

Norms for journals publishing things by editors?

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

What are the norms on journals publishing articles written by editors? I saw a case yesterday and I was surprised it stills happens.

I don't know. I've seen this occur various times over the years and haven't quite known what to make of it.

What do readers think?

Sudden spikes in PhilPapers downloads?

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

Does anyone have insight into what drives traffic to philpaper/people, or how awareness of pages spreads? I guess it's hard to track the exact flow of awareness?

I usually get c.1000 hits a month on my papers, but the for the last 5 days I've been getting 500 hits a day, and 90% of them are from different localities in Vietnam and Brazil. I guess you really have no idea who your audience is...

I noticed this too, and it happened to the Cocoon's visit numbers a year or two ago. Several readers speculated that it's probably PhilPapers being scraped to train AI. This seems like the most likely scenario to me as well.

Obviously, it's a bit late now, but seems to me that webhosts should probably implement things to prevent this (such as CAPTCHA tests). ¯\\(ツ)/¯

Leave academia ASAP, or wait/prep for a year?

In our April "how can we help you?" thread, a reader posed a query that I missed:

After years trying to solve my two-body problem, I've decided I'm finished with the profession. Living alone while fascism rises is just not worth it (I'm in the US). But for various reasons, I can't leave for another year. I worry that the job advice here and elsewhere may be moot by that time, given the rise of AI, a looming economic crisis in the US, and all the rest. Is there anything I should or can be doing now? Is an immediate pivot a wiser move than waiting, even if that means leaving an employer stuck and ongoing academic collaborators in the lurch?

I imagine there are others in similar positions. If so, thoughts about how to manage another year in academia while mentally having moved on, thinking about other careers, would be welcome.

I'm not sure, but maybe the OP would find our Alt-Ac transition-tips series helpful? 

Do any other readers have any helpful tips or advice to share?

How can we help you? (June 2025)

Now that it's been several months 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:

• The job-market (applying for jobs, etc.)
• Issues in the profession (including issues of social justice)
• Graduate school
• Publishing
• Teaching (including in the age of A.I.)
• Work-life balance
• Mental health & well-being
• Personal struggles
• Etc.

Ask away - we're here to help! 

Finally, a quick reminder of the following RULE: Please do not submit replies to other comments in this thread. It makes these threads unwieldy and difficult for me to keep track of which queries I've posted new threads on. If you'd like to respond to a comment in this thread, please wait until I dedicate a new post to the person's query myself and comment in that thread instead!

BPA's "Resources for Early Career Philosophers"

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader drew my attention to the British Philosophical Association's Resources for Early Career Philosophers page.

It contains a lot of really helpful stuff, including tip sheets for the job-market, applying for grants and fellowship, publishing, grappling with mental health challenges, and starting a new job, along with a number of sample job-market materials and resources for pursuing alternative, non-academic career paths.

It looks like a really great resource!

Viewing likes/recommendations on PhilPapers?

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

Me and some fellow Philpapers users have long wondered about this:

On the Philpapers page of any specific paper, how do I view the full list of people who "liked" or "recommended" that paper? For papers that have many "likes," the button only shows the first five (random?) names and a sixth line of "and 20 more," but there does not seem to be a way to expand on that "20 more."

Maybe those who run the (immensely helpful) site can illuminate.

No idea! Anyone have any insights?

Job-market strategies for R2 jobs?

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

Are there any special job-market strategies for placement at R2 institutions? They're not quite elite R1s, but neither are they teaching institutions. They're somewhere in between.

My guess is that it is probably best to treat them like R1s, and follow much of the advice in the Job Market Boot Camp Series accordingly: https://philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2019/07/tailoring-your-job-market-strategy-to-your-situation.html

Marcus defines them "roughly as research universities without philosophy PhD programs" here: https://philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2015/03/job-market-boot-camp-part-2-building-a-good-cv.html

I don't think I quite defined R2's properly in that earlier post (as they do have PhD programs), but in any case I suspect it's best to treat them like R1s due to their focus on research.

What do readers think? Are there any special "strategies" to position oneself particularly well for them?

Undergraduate philosophy conferences?

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

Several undergraduate students in my Plato seminar wrote very interesting papers, and I want to suggest some venues where they might present their work. So far, I have identified the following annual undergraduate philosophy conferences:

- Cornell University’s Norman Kretzmann Undergraduate Philosophy Conference
- University of Toronto’s Undergraduate Philosophy Research Conference
- Pacific University's Undergraduate Philosophy Conference
- Eastern Michigan University's Undergraduate Conference in Philosophy

Are there any other undergraduate philosophy conferences I should know about or that you would recommend? Thank you!

Do any readers have any tips?

Tips for transitioning into administration?

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

I wonder if anyone has general tips for those who want to transition from the academic job market to the university administrator market. Since universities are hiring fewer permanent faculty and more administrators, one plausible alt-ac route is to simply market oneself as an administrator.

One specific tip I'm looking for: which sort of experience should I be looking to get as someone currently in a temporary position at an R1?

I'm not sure, but my sense is that universities can do internal appointments for leadership and lower-level administrative positions (e.g., Assistant Deans, Faculty Senate Presidents, etc.) that may provide some good experience here. Also, I suspect maybe chairing one's own department may be good experience. But I'm not sure how available these routes may be for someone in the OP's position (a temporary position at an R1).

Do any readers have any helpful tips or other insights?

 

Journal rankings in modern philosophy?

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

I'm a graduate student working on modern philosophy. I'm trying to figure out where to attempt to publish my work. What is the hierarchy of journals that publish essays in that area?

Any readers have any tips?

A placement director asks: how bad will next year's job-market be?

A grad program placement director writes in:

I was thinking about next year's job market and wondering if you thought it was worth a small discussion at the Cocoon. In particular, I'm wondering about just how bad the market will be next year. I know there are a number of hiring freezes right now and that other places who don't have official freezes have nonetheless been told that there won't be much hiring next year (this is the situation here). On the other hand, I have heard that some R1s are still planning on advertising tt jobs, so maybe it won't be so bad? I wonder if people have a sense of whether their institutions will be hiring in the fall or if people have any other insight into what applicants should expect in a few months. I see there was a small discussion at the start of April but at this point maybe people have a clearer sense? 

Do any readers have any inside insights at their institution?

Repeatedly-rejected papers torturing you?

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

I am looking for advice on what to do about a paper that I've tried to get published for years and is, frankly, kind of ruining my life. For context, this paper is the biggest idea I have and comes out of my dissertation. Every one of my advisors speaks very highly of the paper, so I do think the general idea is quite good and novel. In response to various forms of feedback, however, I have rewritten the paper many times over the years in order to reframe it and the like. I do not yet have a TT job, and I unfortunately seem to take far longer than the average person to rewrite papers. So, the opportunity cost on this one paper has been fairly enormous for my job market prospects. It feels like I may have gotten a TT job by now if I'd only ever had smaller, more publishable ideas and had never come up with the idea for this particular paper.

This summer, I am in the process of rewriting it yet again. Every time I interact with this paper, though, it feels absolutely awful on a visceral and spiritual level. I think it has become something of a symbol at this point of my failures thus far at making it in academic philosophy. Given that, I would love to just abandon it, especially for the time being. Since I've already sunk so much time into it, though, I worry it will look bad if my CV doesn't soon have that paper in the publications list, which is currently too light for my years since defending. Given that, I'm tempted to just send it off somewhere now in its former version, but that would also mean that the past month or so that I've been working on the new version during my precious teaching-free summer time will have been a complete waste. That said, every time I seriously work on this paper I get very close to quitting my teaching job and leaving the profession altogether.

Any advice (or commiseration) would be greatly appreciated!

I'm sorry the OP is dealing with this. I know how it is, so I deeply empathize. I actually had a paper just like this: it was from my dissertation, and everywhere I presented it, people told me it was great. Yet, journals repeatedly rejected it (14 times, if I recall). So I rewrote it over and over again (about 60 times, if my memory recalls). It tortured me--and yes, like the OP, I seriously considered leaving the profession. But you know what: I kept at it, ended up publishing it (albeit in a new-ish and pretty out-of-the-way journal), and ... it's my most-cited philosophy paper. Since then, I've published several follow-up pieces (in some well-ranked journals) building on it. 

Obviously, I'm just one person--but my first piece of advice to the OP would be this: keep at it as long as you're able to and so long as you're convinced the paper is strong (I've dropped a number of papers after referees convinced me they were irreparably flawed--but that never happened with the paper above, which is why I kept at it). My second piece of advice, though, would be this: don't put all of your eggs in one basket. Work on it, send it out. But work on other things too. It took me 6 years to publish the piece mentioned above. If that had been the only thing I worked on (let alone published), I don't think a TT job would have ever been in the offing for me. So, I'd advise the OP: finish up the new draft as expeditiously as you can, and then get to work on something else (or something new!).

Do any other readers have any help or commiseration to offer?

Norms for mathematical symbols in papers?

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

I'm a new grad student, and I'm wondering about the use of mathematical symbols like φ or Δ in analytic philosophy, like when papers say things like "for some proposition p that holds a disposition d to do φ under circumstances c..."

Is there an agreed-upon set of industry standards for when to use what symbol, or is it totally up to you? I've noticed that people like to use "w" for worlds, for example - is that a standard that you'll get frowned on for violating, or is it just easy to remember?

I do think using w is expected in the possible worlds case, but I'm not sure what other norms there are.

What do readers think?